On Another Planet

Jack's Dragon

2009-03-06T03:36:00.000-08:00

Here is Jack's scary dragon, which shows Pokemon influences and gaming influences. He made it in woodwork. He likes drawing these little creatures and wants to be a games designer when he grows up:)

Two Things Hot/Cold

2009-02-07T11:38:00.000-08:00

Hot Snowdrop

O my snowdrop

The snow clouds loom

Green shots defiant

A hardy bloom

In my back garden

You made your stance

First in the country

The world happenchance

The cold, the snow

You braved the lot

O my snowdrop

You are hot

Moving

2009-01-29T10:43:00.000-08:00

Our first snowdrop.

I can report that I have been filling up my week with various activities. Most mornings and afternoons have now been accounted for by various courses, all free, which I have enjoyed thoroughly.

I have also thinking about getting back into Higher Education. I enjoyed doing my degree, lurking in the library and socialising with the mature students, so have applied for this workshop on creative writing at Hull Uni which starts in April. I find that once you get the discipline of writing assignments it has a knock-on effect and you are prompted into writing and reading more generally. I really need the threat of a deadline to get anything done.

I attended a course yesterday among some rather interesting and unusual people. I would like to write about this online. However, for some reason I now crave anonymity so I am moving to Freewebs where I am going to write a daily blog on my activities (copying Irene's successful format) while still commenting on all the old favourites here.

Two Things Plastic/Paper

2009-01-18T04:53:00.000-08:00

An origami dinosaur - plastic paper

paper plastic

Two Things Challenge Paper/Plastic

2009-01-17T12:07:00.001-08:00

The top photo I think sums up the generational divide between my kids and me- I am always surrounded by paper; books, newspapers, and you can see a pile of papers to the left of this picture abandoned by me. On photos I am never more than a foot away from reading matter of the paper variety, except of course while swimming, or going on country walks in wild places, though even then I usually like to have a leaflet to peruse at various intervals in my pocket.

To the right is the plastic, the new technology favoured by my kids (though they are quite literate), the Wii console, and they are usually found huddled around this screen or similar.

These are photos from Eleanor's birthday last year and show all the paper and plastic wrappings, which Eleanor and Holly Dolly later recycled into little houses. They probably enjoyed this part of the day best of all:)

Enjoying Life

2009-01-17T01:52:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd better do something about the library fines (£30 last year). The problem is I use libraries all over and the books get forgotten about and left in piles of our books.

I decided to return a book by Martin Amis to Gypsyville library. I was going to jog there with my ipod but it needed charging so, naughtily, I borrowed Jack's. At the present time I usually listen to George Thorogood and The Destroyers, but I found that Jack is really onto the hard stuff, and a lot of ACDC is to be found on his ipod.

I like ACDC - they do what they do very well. Perfection in a heavy metal band. Jack has got the latest album of the rockers, who are now past the first flush of youth. I was watching their latest video on You Tube and I notice that, while they remain supremely energetic, the camera does not pan too closely to their faces lol

I challenge anyone not to feel very alive while running listening to 'Back in Black' on the ipod, though admittedly I was only on my way to pay a library fine, so hardly the epitomy of wild living LOL Scamp does this thing whereby he runs very closely and quickly past me so he is in front again and heralding the way.

Eleanor is now a published author - along with a lot of her classmates.

Mark made some soup from 'the River Cottage Cookbook', and I watched 'Duel'. The ipod had been returned to its rightful owner and Eleanor was guarding it on the rug, though I kept sneaking over to nick it, and, on occasions she turned to find me on the with the stolen ipod earpieces attached to my ears as if by magic LOL

Watched 'Duel' and enjoyed this. Lots of weird, alienating camera angles, obviously still influencing films now. I thought, this really, really good, and sure enough it was directed by Stephen Spielburg. I thought some of the music sounded familar (Jaws), and the film exploited the way cars and trucks can look like sinister people.

Enjoying the Snow

2009-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas Tree

2008-12-25T15:06:00.000-08:00

Best Friends

2008-12-07T10:22:00.000-08:00

Just going through my files to find a photo for the Two Things, and I came across this one, which I really love. It was Eleanor's birthday last year, and shows Eleanor and Holly.

Two Things Joint/Venture

2008-12-07T02:23:00.000-08:00

I took this picture last month in Filey. Someone has parked a car just like ours next to it, even down to the dog grill in the back.

I thought this was appropriate as it is a Landrover, rover, venture.....lol

I saw these lambs venturing onto a graveyard on the North York Moors. It looks like they are looking for a way down.....

Two Things Green/Yellow

2008-11-23T12:38:00.000-08:00

Here is our snowman, and, of all the coincidences, we have put a green and yellow hat on him....lol

Snow on Beverley Westwood

2008-11-23T04:37:00.000-08:00

We go here a lot and today it was covered in snow.

You can see Beverley Minster in the background.

John at Typos.Daylight.Fate has done two lovely digital art pieces based on these photos.

My Schedule

2008-11-20T12:10:00.000-08:00

I notice Irene is going on a schedule, and I think this is a very good idea.

I am trying to do something similar. I have a large diary which I use to plan my year. I was looking at ones in past years and they are full of detail and things which I was doing, but this year's is virtually blank which is not good so my aim for the rest of this year is to get it full of daily activities for myself.

I am in the lucky position of not needing to work for money now, though in the past I had to. My last job finished three years ago, which I had for a year. It was very hard work, but I enjoyed it, biked there and back, and was exhausted at the end of the day. I actually wanted to leave as they wanted me to work weekends, when Mark was trialing, but I said I couldn't, so they actually made an exception for me because I was a good worker. A feather to my cap!

The time when I was happiest, and I think everyone is happy, is when they are being busy and useful and going all-out for a cause. I was happy when I was bringing up my kids, but now they don't need so much attention, and have lives and friends of their own, I just aimlessly walk the dog and read the paper and do a little desultory housework.

I have started a little volunteer work in Scope, and am going for an interview in Hull for more volunteer work. My aim is to get every waking minute of the day filled with activity. In the past I used to get up in the morning and jog round the park, so I have started to do that again. I had to stop jogging because old Tess couldn't keep up anymore, but now I can start doing that again.
I need to find a cause and get busy. It's all about getting out into the real world again.

Our fireplace

2008-11-19T11:16:00.000-08:00

Here is the view from the sofa. Usually the flowers (bought for me by Mark) are in the fireplace, but here I've got the best of both worlds.

I love lying on the sofa with this view while I'm watching the TV.

Two Things Bent/Straight

2008-11-19T07:03:00.000-08:00

This is who I thought of for bent/straight, and here is quite a good picture, as he has his leg bent but is standing straight.

I really like Russell Brand, and have just been reading my 'Booky Wook' on holiday. This gentleman dresses very campy, but by all accounts is not gay.

Two Things Saturday/Sunday

2008-11-09T13:32:00.000-08:00

Here is a pub possibly on a Saturday evening, the busiest time for pubs.

'A good local pub has much in common with a church, except that a pub is warmer, and there's more conversation' William Blake

This is a memorable quotation which I actually saw on the wall of a pub somewhere, so I have rather cheekily put a vicar outside this particular 'church', though he probably will not being preaching a Sunday sermon here but having a good pint.

A Real Fire

2008-11-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

Here is our fireplace. It is a place where all are drawn to the warmth. I love sitting in front of this, and so does Scamp, our cat Fluffy and a little house mouse who has come to join them, sitting, as you see, in perfect peace and harmony.

Two Things Shapes/Textures

2008-11-02T08:50:00.000-08:00

We were in Filey earlier this week (us on the pavement) and walked down this Victorian crescent, built when resorts like this were at their prime. You could just imagine the ladies promenading, their crinolines rustling.

Here is a picture of a ghostly Victorian lady in her silky dress and lacy bonnet (texture), set against the shapes of the buildings.

Halloween Photos

2008-10-31T14:47:00.000-07:00

Applying the fake blood.

Gruesome action as Scamp looks on.

Shoulder barging at Filey. We went to Filey yesterday as Mark had the day off.

Top photos Hull Fair. I went with Eleanor and Holly the other week. I could have taken some excellent photos of the rides with Eleanor and Holly on them, but, as is the way with these things, I only had a chance to take this picture before the battery ran out lol

I've cracked it!

2008-10-31T08:25:00.001-07:00

Here is my first digital artwork. It is inspired by Diane Clancy's Animals in Flowers, and is a picture of Tessa among the flowers on the Common, where she often roamed. This is the only picture of Tess to hand, and I will do a proper one of her when I find one.

Happy Halloween

2008-10-31T01:40:00.000-07:00

This is Eleanor and Holly last year, going trick or treating.

She is going with Jack, Alex and Stozza tonight as a lady vampire with lots of makeup like Morticia Adams, and Alex is coming round today and I am taking pictures so watch this space. Jack's outfit is a black woolly hat pulled over his head.

Nice photos digitalised

2008-10-23T05:51:00.000-07:00

Nice pics all. A few of my husband Mark. I cannot emphasise enough his good qualities. In fact, some members of my family have taken to calling him 'Saint Mark'.

I like doing this. I just need to work out a way of getting the photos larger which I will do eventually but if you click to enlarge you get the full effect. They do look like paintings.

Eleanor's New Glasses

2008-10-23T01:22:00.000-07:00

These are Eleanor's new glasses. She wears them all the time, even at bedtime. She only takes them off when she absolutely has to.

She is very vain about them and here is a picture I discovered on my new camera which she had taken herself.

Her previous glasses were all light pink, chosen by me, which did not swamp her face and were but these are glasses which make a bold statement about being a glasses wearer and being proud of it.

Holiday Snaps in 'Paint and Ink'

2008-10-22T08:31:00.001-07:00

More playing about with the Serif.

I am really pleased with these, and may do them properly tomorrow after scanning the photos at the library on my dogwalk.

I have loads of great pictures of my kids all over Britain, but am worried about the safety aspect of putting them on a blog. This sort of thing is ideal because you are just left with iconic images.

Top photo - playing air guitar with nets at Durdle Door, Dorset.

Second - Mark and the kids at the Jurassic Coast.

Third - Kids at Portmeirion in Wales where they filmed 'The Prisoner'.

Digitalis

2008-10-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

I am quite pleased about this. I have been dipping my toes in the waters of digital art. I have had the Serif programme for about six months, and today I started to use it. I have been cutting out shapes, and tomorrow I may superimpose a shape onto a background lol

It has a function which changes photos into different painting styles, a few of which are here.

I thought the Love/ Bird egret Dancing Swan lake was a quite good idea but let down by the presentation, but it they has the 'professional' touch, and looks like it has been done in paint and ink.

Two Things Big/Little

2008-10-21T06:24:00.000-07:00

A big mother sheep and a little baby sheep sheltering from the wind on the North York Moors.

Two Things Black/White

2008-10-17T09:47:00.000-07:00

In Praise of Small Animals

2008-10-17T01:51:00.000-07:00

Recently our last guinea pig Daniel passed on at the grand old age of seven.

Eleanor had wanted a cat like her friends Karis and Kirsten (their Mum's called Kerry) but because we had a dog that was not an option so we got some guinea pigs and Eleanor called one of them Misty like the covetted cat. Guinea pigs, even two of them, are probably a poor second to a cat, but she looks very happy to be getting them here on her fourth birthday, and these are not even pedigree guinea pigs as you can see. Misty is not pictured as he was the shy one. When Eleanor took one of her pigs into school she decided that Daniel would be the best bet for the same reason.

As it was winter and they were babies we kept them inside all winter in this hutch. They had had a narrow escape at the pet shop as they had come down with something but the animal-loving student who worked there had kept them alive hand feeding and had paid for the veterinary treatment herself, and was glad they were going to a good home.

I cannot abide the way rabbits are treated by some people and imprisoned in a hutch, and our guinea pigs have always had a lot of freedom, which probably accounts for their longeivity, in fact I'm sure it does. This coupled with the fact they have been fed on select weeds collected on my dog walks, the vegetable left-overs of Christmas dinners and so on. I will always remember the first time we took them out of the hutch and let them run about and Daniel the guinea pig manically whizzed round and round in circles, jumped in the air and generally went crazy while we laughed- he had tasted freedom. (I remember my Mum and Dad's dog did this too when she was bought from from the Blue Cross.) We did have to take them outside eventually as they had a tendency to knaw our wood furniture. The kids used to carry them about inside on terry nappies.

Although eventually most of the looking after was left to me, Eleanor still remained interested in her pets, and used to walk them up and down on red guinea pig leads and she and Holly used to carry them about in their handbags.

Two Things East/West

2008-10-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

Mosque

An ancient Eastern temple
Carved in the whitest stone
Embodies an ancient religion
Spiritual and ascetic throne
Fashioned from a chocolate box
Capitalism at its indulgent best
Temporal, packed with dark delight
Fleeting pleasures of the West

Two Things Solid/Pattern

2008-10-05T07:43:00.000-07:00

Coal

Coal is a solid and a mass
Heavy, lumpen, used for fuel
But made up of intricate layers
And patterns of the molecule.

Two Things Solid/Pattern

2008-10-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

Here is our little guard dog sitting on the windowsill.

His solid and scruffy form makes a great contrast with the delicate lacy pattern of the lace net curtains.

Brothers and Sisters

2008-09-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

More nice photos.

My two have always been great pals, and it started from the beginning really.

There is a photo of Mark's Mum (or her arms) when Eleanor had just come out of hospital.

I also like this one of the two of them joking together when Eleanor was very young - she thought Jack was the funniest thing since sliced bread (and still does).

Finally, Eleanor got this picture included in an exhibition at Ferens Art Gallery a few years ago, which is a picture of her and Jack which she did, which sums up their relationship.

Family photos

2008-09-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

I think I am finding away of getting my new camera photos onto Blogger, but it may take some time. I have been trying to change my name on Facebbook to one which is more accessible, but this too defeats me for the moment, at least.

I thought I would put some more photos on using the library scanner, because I have many albums of really nice photos of my kids.

Quite funny, the second photo of Mark, Jack and Eleanor. Obviously you have a new baby, and things are a little chaotic lol

I like this photo of Eleanor in a high chair, when she was very young, but obviously as bright as a button. I used to sit her in this bouncy chair and talk to her while I was washing up.

Bottom photos include one of me and the kids in Blackpool.

Two Things Green/Blue

2008-09-23T13:21:00.000-07:00

I took this picture on an early morning dogwalk round the Green (for those living in the US it is a green space in the middle of a village) of the Yorkshire Village of Hutton le Hole. Nice photos, as they have the early morning hazy light.

When Jack was a toddler he played in this stream.

Of course, you've got the blue sky and the sky reflected in the stream which makes it blue too.

Budgeting

2008-09-23T01:47:00.001-07:00

Although we don't have to do this now by any means in the past we have had to budget (I shouldn't really go on about money so much, it is a little wearing) I still like getting a cheap feast by means of raiding the local Tesco Express's chiller at strategic times during the day. Often at three o'clock when I walk to school (this is for tea) and later at 7 pm. These are the really brilliant reductions - things can be got for 10p.

We have always eaten healthily and here is a photo of a sample healthy tea for about £2. Actually it is from the local Sainsbury equivalent of Tesco Express, which is even better as Sainsbury's is quite upmarket. Some of it is quite fancy like salsa dip.

I picked up this sort of money saving tip from my friend Fiona, who has brought up a family of four on very little income. She is a bright person and I think she quite enjoys this as she is pitting her wits against the system, in a way. She had all her accounts on the computer which she used to pore over, a tight rein on the household and had an encyclopaedic knowledge of when many local supermarkets would be reducing food. She used to go to a place like Iceland and get lollies on a trip out because the cost of things like this in fun parks and the like is quite exhorbitant, whereas lollies at Iceland cost £1 for four kids. (Also, if you look at the photo you will see that I am carrying a rucksack containing all the food for the day, so that I did not have to pay a lot of money for a load of junk food at any outlet, which is what she used to do.) I think she used to take a large white loaf and chopping board on any family outing and whip it out to make a jam sandwich for her four on the hoof.

Actually Fiona is very funny and once swept into a garage forecourt in her people carrier (she had budgeted for this necessary if expensive transport for a family of four on little income) and said to the forecourt attendant ' Family Outing', as if that's where they went on their outings LOL Once she brought her daughter Claire out of school a bit before the others for an appointment and when someone asked why she said 'Star Pupil' LOL She also did things like buy presents that she saw as a bargain for peoples' birthdays often years in advance so they got a superb present on the day. However, sometimes this didn't work out as she completely forgot about them the time the birthday came round and they remain in her attic gathering dust, maybe for the grandchildren's eighteenth LOL Her attic was a wondrous magical place as in it were objects to suit any occasion; for instance, for Halloween once, she had about seven outfits, three witches hats, books on witches, plastic bats,caldrons and other items. I had to make do with a few masks, a devil's fork made out of a kitchen implement, and a black cat cuddly toy lol. She used to shop at Lidl and when I was working there and used to ring her from the till on my mobile if I saw any choicy reductions. lol I especially did this when they had reduced fruit and veg: for some reason they do a third of the price thing from time to time.

I hope Fiona does not mind me writing about her, if she reads this, but I think she mainly goes on Friends Reunited lol

As I have a lot of time (I admit it, I probably would not be doing this sort of thing if I was still working) I go blackberrying, and went just the other week, around where we live. Completely free food. (Talking about free food, when we went to Fraisthorpe the other week we tried to get some razor shells a la Hugh Fearnly Wittingstall by means of pouring salt down the holes so that the shells would emerge for our BBQ, but I think the salt we used was too refined because nothing happened lol) We looked at a tiny box of blackberries in Morrisons and they cost £1. I made a crumble with it, and even Jack ate some. From the bush to the table in one hour - you can't get any healthier free eating than that.

Two Things Product Label

2008-09-21T12:31:00.000-07:00

I feel qualified to speak on this subject as once years ago I worked in Quality Control at United Biscuits which made KP Crisps. It has since closed down (draw any conclusions you want) and I haven't seen KP Crisps around for a long time - it seems to be all Walkers nowadays.

However, when I worked there on the crisp line after they had done the KP they then did the Marks and Spencers on exactly the same line, the same crisps, except that they were in different packets, and of course the Marks and Spencer would have cost a lot more. So the only difference was the label - it was the same product. I bet if you gave someone a packet of KP and a packet of M&S and asked them which tasted better I bet they'd go for the latter. A sort of placebo effect, except with crisps.

I myself only buy own brand products as a result of this crucial insider knowledge. As we normally shop at Morrisons the own brand will be considerably cheaper than the branded products sitting to them, and could well have higher production standards, as the factories will want to keep the supermarket order.

Mama Mia

2008-09-19T05:49:00.000-07:00

Last night I went with my friend Sally (pictured here with her son Ross, who lives opposite and who is friends with Jack - looks like they're having a great time in this, typical teenage boys lol), her friend Dale, Eleanor and other friend of Sally's to see 'Mama Mia'. When I went round to Sally's Jack was ensconced in Ross' room, where they spend most of their time, and the unmistakable sounds of light jazz drifted down the stairway. I was quite impressed by this, that they were listening to jazz, but Sally said it was just the soundtrack to a new game Ross had bought LOL

Dale is an intensive care nurse. She actually bikes to work early in the morning and does a twelve hour shift. She was telling some funny stories about junior doctors and how they generally just stand there helplessly while the nurses take over.

'Mama Mia' was a musical based on the songs of Abba. I've always liked Abba, and have 'Abba Gold' (I am not afraid to admit this). I can see this film becoming a classic as there were lots of women coming back for the second time to see it and some were singing and dancing in the isles, rather in the manner of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, though obviously this film is a whole lot more wholesome lol.

Sally told me an interesting tidbit that Julie Walters is not a natural singer and dancer so had to get drunk for some of the scenes. I spent a lot of my viewing time looking out for this, and it's true she looks tiddly on occasion

A nice evening.

Children's Play

2008-09-17T11:41:00.002-07:00

I hope we have given our kids good play experiences.

We have been to Sundown Adventure Park (close to home), Legoland, and even Disney World, Paris, but I don't think you can beat playing in the back garden. All were memorable, though we spent most of the time queuing at Disney World, though I quite enjoyed this and spent some time quite agressively working out which rides to go in the minimum space of time based on observation and when people would be taking their lunch. I took the kids to Legoland, but Mark sensibly took himself off to Stonehenge on the same day. I think we borrowed a buggy and I piled the kids in when they got tired so that we actually went on most of the rides, again based on logistics. I like to get my money's worth.

As for Sundown, we have been there quite a few times, but I don't like the way everything is garish and plastic and everything is in your face, with all the imagining done for you by designers. I secretly think things like this are more for the parents. 'Sundown' is actually a great success commercially speaking, having started off by a farmer in a chicken shed and now expanding all the time. A lot of the rides have been based on Disneyland, but on a smaller scale, and you don't have to queue. Actually, all things considered, a better experience than Disneyland.

When I had Jack I did buy expensive educational toys, but quickly realised aagain that these were more for the parents. Jack played with wooden spoons and rolled around on brown crinkly paper which made a noise, which his Dad had done before him.

The kids have a lot of toys, but they have always enjoyed playing outside. We had a paddling pool and I did buy water pistols, but these quickly broke and you are just as well off with washing up liquid bottles, plastic bins and buckets. I used to quite enjoy myself putting bath toys like ducks,whales and divers into the paddling pool to make an attractive ensemble and play experience, but they were soon scattered to the four winds LOL I also liked getting a dolls house and putting all sorts of interesting little things in it as well as people and furniture, like horses, treasure and even tigers onto a table when Eleanor and her friends came home from school and this actually did work, as they spent ages playing games with this and constructing stories round it. I used to keep biscuit tins in with little odds and ends, even things like plastic toys from cereal boxes.

I bought an a climbing frame for the kids to play on and did it properly with bark chippings. (For the eagle-eyed amongst you, the orange plastic sheeting was a stopgap lol)Of course they loved this, as you could make a den in the middle of it. I used to sometimes put the slide bit into a paddling pool for a water ride.

They play out on the street ('larking'), and we are lucky enough to back onto a tenfoot which is the track that backs onto garages, and they have spent a long time playing hide and seek on this. I used to pull them about on a tractor tied to a piece of rope while walking the dog (Someone once said 'You've got your hands full') round the block. This tractor made quite a lot of noise, and you could always here us coming. We also have sledges, which I pulled them to school on, and which they use on a railway embankment near here which has terrific slopes.

I do think we are lucky to live where we do, which is pleasant and safe, with little traffic (not the inner city)where people still talk over their garden fences and where kids can still play out until sunset in the street. I don't know whether there are that many places left like it.

Playing in the Back Garden in the Sun

2008-09-17T03:12:00.000-07:00

I have just been looking through some old photos this morning and quite like this one in the back garden which was taken two years ago (the last time we had some decent sun) by me in safety indoors behind glass.

It is quite dreamy, what with the flowery parasol, and the light catching the CDs.

Serious waterplay, now they are older. Only a hosepipe will do LOL

Tribute to Tessa

2008-09-16T07:57:00.001-07:00

A few months ago we had to have our old dog Tess put down because she was unable to get up in the night which was distressing for her. She actually had survived a stroke the year before, so had an extra year of life. A few weeks before she died (at nearly sixteen)she was still attempting to run.

We got Tess from the RSPCA as a puppy. She had been found wandering the streets. Quite a lot of dogs look like Tess, and that has led to speculation over the years that other dogs seen in the street may be her one of her long-lost relatives. Sometimes people have thought I have been in a particular shop because a dog looking exactly like Tess has been tied outside.

Tess was whining when we got her in the car at the RSPCA, and to be honest, never stopped. We could never leave her for long outside say, a giftshop on holiday, because of the commotion which ensued, and she usually attracted a small group of dog-loving old ladies round her who had heard the pitiful noise who looked daggers at us when we emerged. Mark used to do a whistling whine like Tess if anything went wrong LOL Tess was hyperactive when she was younger and needed three walks a day (the collie in her perhaps). She only stopped needing a halti when she was twelve as she used to pull all the time. (This was when I used to let little boys take turns in walking her home from school). She could run very fast and used to do a very fast run at me and then swerve at the last minute like she thought it was funny LOL

However, she was also gentle and you can see that we trusted her with the baby Jack. The only time I ever saw her with her hackles risen was when she was protecting the pram from another dog.

When we used to have proper snow I used to push the baby buggy round the park like a snow plough with a few feet of snow piled up in front of us because, as I say, she was a dog who needed to be walked regularly no matter what. Actually it's not a bad thing having a dog when you have a baby because it gets you into a good routine, gets you and the baby out and about regularly meeting people during the day. It also gives you regular exercise and gives the baby plenty to look at and plenty to talk about.

She used to like swimming, and there is a blurred picture of me on honeymoon in Scotland with Tess, though why I am carrying her like that I don't know as she was quite a big dog (We must have treated her like a child, and in another picture she has obviously been upsurped lol) She used to swim right into the middle of the lochs, and all you could see was a little head moving slowly but surely in a determined doggy paddle with lots of puffing and blowing. When we moved here she satisfied her water lust by making a beeline for the boating lake from about four hundred yards, causing ducks to scatter and a crowd to gather while I stood trying to get her out and to placate the parkie at the same time. I did it by rustling any disgarded crisp packet I found nearby.

Sad to see Tess go (and I cried) but she had had a good life.

Two Things Old/Fashion

2008-09-13T03:59:00.000-07:00

Two things for the two things.

Firstly a shop in the seaside town of Whitby selling antique (old)style fashions. If you enlarge the picture you can see jet necklaces draped over the cabinet. Whitby is famous for jet and it is, of course, millions of years old.

Here is an ancient mosque. It was Jack's homework which he started in a desultory fashion but which I completed because it had to be in the next day. It has be made from a chocolate box and the master stroke is how the little buildings and town surrounding the mosque (mosques usually rise above their surrounding towns in a transcendental fashion (sorry) as befits their status as buildings of spirtuality and importance embodying an ancient religion) have been fashioned from the little tray on the inside of the chocolate box put upside down. They just look like little streets and buildings.

It's great they do this sort of thing in schools to foster an undertstanding of other cultures, but this little mosque embodies culture clash, East Meets West, and all sort of other ironies. You have an ancient Eastern religious building made out of a manufactured symbol of Western self indulgence, chocolate, ancient stone religious palace fashioned out of brand new cardboard. But I think Jack was just glad he got his homework in on time LOL

Photos Illustrating Jack's Progress

2008-09-11T08:33:00.000-07:00

1. I got quite friendly with a lady called Fiona and we used to take the kids all over. Here is me on a ride at 'Sundown'. Fiona was full of vim and vigour, in fact is a local parish councillor, but she liked kids to do what they are told, and sometimes didn't get on very well with Eleanor, as you can possibly tell from her face on the photo or maybe she just wasn't expecting to have her photo taken. Fiona is very kind and practical and here is the little Halloween party she did, cake made by her.

2. Here is Grandma, dressed in her best for Jack's first birthday. We lived in one of four cottages called 'Paradise Row', which were two up two down, but with a shared garden which Grandma's friend Edie used to look after all the time. (This may sound as if we were living in poverty, but this was in the idyllic village of Cottingham where the price houses are sky high (for round here), and the house itself went for a pretty penny to a single Yuppie girl. We were only poverty striken later when we moved here. However, Grandma had lived there for sixty years and at the start things were probably quite different.) It had the original fire place which I put cushions against so Jack wouldn't hurt himself while walking.

3. Jack on his fourth birthday, looking very shy and unsure. Fun in the backgarden.

4. Sunlit days. Jack met his best Alex round about this time and I like the way he is looking at him here, though the other boy isn't so sure. Alex made Jack laugh and brought him out of himself. Here is a picture of my friend Tina who was a social worker at Jack's birthday party with one of her twins.

5. Jack's Sixth birthday, and look at the contrast in him in two years. Party at ours' organised by me. OK, so you're not a party animal so play to your strengths so I organised an imaginative treasure hunt and games. You may see a clue under the harmonica on the fireplace. Me in the pink jumper at a Toddler event and Eleanor doing a funny smile at the lady taking the photo who was probably doing the same sort of smile at her.

Cleft Lip and Palate

2008-09-09T00:18:00.000-07:00

I just tend to write about what ever I feel like.

I thought I would write a more about my son, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, and which is a subject I know quite a lot about. Although I do smoke and drink now, I most definitely did not when I was carrying him so why he had it is just one of life's little ironies.

As his cleft was not picked up on the scan his birth was actually quite dangerous a lot of fluid had gone into his mouth and he had to be resusitated. I was on gas and air and awa with the fairies but I remember Mark frozen in his chair by my side and I remember wondering why he had not followed the team but he must have seen what he looked like, and it must must have been a shock. They rushed him away and Mark went with him. Such was the quality of the gas and air that when they brought him back I couldn't see there was anything wrong with him.

Of course I loved him straight away regardless because he was my baby and one of the happiest period of my life was waiting for him to be born and we had quite an idyllic time living in a little cottage with me walking the dog, spending time making elaborate healthy food and reading books about childcare. I always like to read around subjects and enter imaginatively into them lol

It is a very good provision for Cleft Lip and Palate in Hull and two hours after he was born the Consultant Orthodontist Mr Coope was by my bedside with a photo of his sister on her graduation day who had had a cleft and was the reason he had gone into orthodontics. It was a Sunday and he was on his way to Church. On the same day Mr Hart the Consultant Plastic Surgeon also arrived, who has a special interest in the condition and who climbs mountains to raise money for children with it in the Third World. So we had two very committed professionals with us at the outset.

I had wanted to breast feed Jack but made do with an electronic pump 'Daisy'. Enough said. However, Jack got his mother's milk for six months, supplimented with 'Aptamil', which is the baby milk with all the essential fats for brain development. (I had read all the baby books lol)

We also had Mark's Grandma who was living next door and who had been around children all her life. Very old people have a special relationship with the very young and tend not to give a hoot about things so she took him around in a buggy (looking rather odd) to all her social activities among all the other old ladies without a care in the world. She was nearing the end of her life and she had a last golden summer with her baby great grandson, I have always liked to think, the son of her favourite grandson.

We had top quality NHS plastic surgery and orthodontic treatment over seven operations, including a bone graft (cost us nothing) which made Jack look like what he does today. If he wants he can have a final op at fifteen to straighten his nose, but he really is not bothered, and says he doesn't want to be 'like Michael Jackson' (though all this may change when he discovers girls).

Jack has not always been the exhuberant person he is today. When he was four he could hardly say boo to a goose, had barely intelligible speech, and a stammer. For his first photo at school I had to go in with him because he was nervous of having his photo taken. However, again he had five years of first class speech therapy with senior speech therapist Liz Buckles, and apparently features on training videos.

I am quite a retiring person but I knew it was imperative that I went against type and got him out into the world, mixing and making friends. We moved when Jack was three to where we are now and Mark was out working a lot and we were quite isolated. Quite a predicament.

Because I am a little odd there are sometimes issues of trust about myself and other people's children. It is hard to get past this sort of thing but the fact is when Eleanor was a baby I was up to thirteen hours on my own with her and Jack, with the bare minimum of help, except for fortnightly visits from my Mum, and Mark's Mum who came once every Thursday morning. What happens nowadays is that people look at the kids and know that I am OK, but then it was quite different. However, we started to get friendly with our next door neighbours Mike and Claire and their little girl Ellie who started to come round to play with Eleanor. I put a lot of effort into buying toys and setting up games, blowing up paddling pools, climbing frames, sandpits, wendy houses, crafts and generally making the house a great place for kids.(I actually know quite a lot about how kids play as a result of this). Other kids must have heard the three of them having a whale of a time in the back garden and soon this house was a Mecca for kids, many anonymous off the streets LOL I forced myself to go to all the Toddler Groups in the area (even when secretly I hate things like that), got friendly with a Social Worker whose son had also been born with a cleft and ran a Toddler Group with her for two and a half years. (I was even seriously considered as a childminder for her twins (LOL)) I have actually been an informal childminder.

Gradually Jack got more and more confident because I had pushed him out into the social world and because his speech therapy was starting to yield results. He also attended an excellent free nursery near here in quite a deprived area. Hull City Council always do good nurseries in areas like this to give kids the best possible chance in life. Also round here kids tend to play out on the streets, which I think is a very good thing for them, so when they were old enough I let them and now they have a lot of freedom to do what they want. Jack also made a very good friend at school, Alex Lyon, who is a very strong character, to say the least, whom he has now been friends with for eight years.

At the moment I am merely a shadowy bumbling figure in the kitchen, needed mainly to provide drinks and sustenance for themselves and assorted friends, but I take great pleasure in seeing them enjoy themselves. I probably let Jack get away with murder (as you can probably tell from some of the photos) but then I can remember the pathetic little waif he started out as. Lots of things came together very well for him in his life story, so far, I think.

More Scottish photos

2008-09-08T07:04:00.000-07:00

Scotland is a beautiful place, but often let down by the weather. So I was pleased with the picture top left which makes it look almost Mediterranean in its loveliness, except here you've got the greenery, and there is even what appears to be a mysterious mythical lost island in the background.

To the right is what it looks like normally, shrouded in mists. Quite funny this set of photos. Why I have an obsession with taking photos of people from behind walking I don't know. Something to do proving that we have actually been there, and putting us in the picture. Eventually Jack gets fed up LOL

Two Things Music/Note

2008-09-07T09:29:00.000-07:00

It is quite difficult representing music in visual form so I have plumped for one of the CDs we have suspended in our garden, which catch the light. If you wanted to be a bit fanciful are like a flat CD coming to life on the turntable giving off a kaleidoscope of colours, both visually and aurally. I often think they look a bit like planets suspended like this.

Harmony of the Spheres

Music is emotion
It strikes the deepest chord
The passions of Puccini
The march that provokes the sword
The tender love in lullaby
What has this to do with rote
Mysteriously at its essence
Mathematical patterns of the note

What I have done today

2008-09-06T09:40:00.000-07:00

I may start a new sort of diary posting.

Last night Holly stayed over night at our house because Eleanor has fallen out with Eden (girls of this age seem to fall in and out with each other very quickly). I said that I have a picture of Eden on my blog and Holly requested to see it but started pulling faces at the picture lol. I am sure that will all be friends with each other eventually and I reminded Holly and Eleanor that they have been known to fall out with each other on a number of occasions. They went upstairs to watch some children's DVDs which they had obtained from 'the Chinese bloke at the hairdressers'. They have some caterpillars from the garden which they are looking after and which they let move about in a dolls house by the corner of the bed. I have found out from this that caterpillars must sleep because sometimes in the morning the a caterpillar has been very still, lifeless even, and I have been alarmed but it can be 'woken up' by being picked up in the palm of Eleanor's hand and seems to be perfectly alright.

We went into town to buy some trousers for school and pick up Eleanor's new glasses which are little brown square ones, which are quite fashionable now and are like her teachers. Jack said they were 'Peter Parker glasses' and this started a general conversation about comic heroes. Jack has picked up from somewhere that Heath Ledger took an overdose because he was traumatised by playing the really scary new joker in Batman. I was curious about this and took the opportunity of having a look at his biography in HMV. Not true at all. However, I looked at some of the pictures of the new Batman film in Waterstones, and it does seem unnecessarily black and nightmarish, like a lot of films now.

We get the sweat shirts from Rawcliffes but it is always a good bet to get trousers from somewhere like BHS. There was a great sale at BHS on and Mark got me a sheepskin coat £75 reduced to £15 so I can wow them at the school gates. Jack was fingering a Simpsons T-shirt for a long time so we got the hint and bought him it.

The we went for dinner at The Subway. I love the Subway and had steak and melted cheese, with lots of salad. Got a shock to my tastebuds when I ate a guerkin, however. I should really not ask for everything but I like my money's worth. I like the way you can choose what bread you want and it is toasted and it is a sort of conveyor belt of sumptuous things added to your sandwich in quite a theatrical way. It's a bit of an improvement on MacDonalds, and I imagine it must have started in somewhere like New York as a delicatessan.

Then we went to Waterstones. I got the Life Of Pi because it is famous and I want to know what it is all about. The kids got comic sort of books. When we got home I covetted Mark's books because he always get more interesting ones and I get the pretentious ones lol

We also went into HMV and I got the 'Electric Light Orchestra' which I have always thought were great, tuneful and cheerful and am not afraid of admitting this. We put it on in the car and the kids thought it sounded old-fashioned and tinny (the quality of sound is nowhere as good as you get now) but were soon jigging about to 'Sweet Talking Woman', when they thought I wasn't looking. Great melodies always stand the test of time.

Then we went to Hessle Road to get some new shoe shoes for Jack. We have always bought expensive Clarks shoes (up until recently £40 ones) while he was growing up but it seems less important now and this shop was cheap shoes par excellence. I can never buy any shoes from here as they last a few weeks what with the distances I travel on my dogwalking. Jack has wide toes and there was some debate about whether his feet would be crushed by the narrow shoe. However, the argument that won it was mine that the shoe would very quickly loosen up because it was made of cheap material, and would probably fall to bits soon anyway LOL

Well, I have already read 'Life of Pi' quickly. Some of it is quite interesting about animal behaviour, and it seems to be some sort of allegory. I think the different animals he is in the boat with stand for different aspects of the psyche or different religions. I think what has happened to him is so traumatic that he can only write about it allegorical terms, possibly, but can't see how it all fits in. Can't make head nor tale of it to be honest. Started reading Mark's book 'Will' about Shakespeare and the bawdy goings on. That's more like it LOL

Read a bit more of Life of Pi last night and it is really a very uplifting and humanist tale which turns horrific events into a poetically written encounter between a man and a tiger in a small boat. Maybe a sort of allegory of the human condition in which people use their skills, intelligence and tenacity
to fight back against impossible odds. So that's why it won the Booker Prize. While I am trying to write this Eleanor keeps pushing in to see clips of the X Factor on You Tube. LOL

Two Things Church/Lady

2008-09-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

Wicca

The lady stands in a clearing
The leaves they whisper
Their ancient lore
Branches form the arches
Of a church rising from the forest floor

I have done my picture again without all the waffle, given the lady a face and done a lorne effect on Dumpr which really does make scribbling quite artistic in an instant and very satisfying way.

Stylish Dressing

2008-08-28T06:04:00.000-07:00

Frances always has the most perceptive, clever comments. Sometimes I think twice about putting pictures up, wondering what she will see in them with all her psychology expertise. LOL Also they are always beautifully and imaginatively written and I am in danger of getting a girlie crush (but not an obsessive one) on Frances as a result. LOL

As Frances picked up from her observations of the holiday snaps Eleanor is becoming a stylish dresser and that is because she is spending more time with her friend Eden. She used to be friends with Eden in infant school and I remember her as a tiny red head running about in a tiny fur coat.

Eden's Mum (don't know her name, it's always so and so's Mum) is one of the most striking dressers hereabouts, and that is where Eden probably gets it from. Eden's Mum is a child minder but quite an unusual one in that often several jaws will hit the floor when she enters the playground with a buggy and lots of little kids in tow. She has long black hair and always flaming red lipstick and is always strikingly dressed, fur coats, black stiletto boots, shades, and mini skirts. (She is a lady who spends some time at the gym). She looks like she could take on the world. I like her for not conforming to any homely childminder stereotypes LOL

Eden is always beautifully dressed when she comes to our house, and has recently been wearing lime green a lot because her Mum says it will go with her hair. She came round looking like this the other day and I just had to take a photo as she looked so good (stylish and chic).

Here is a recent fashion shoot in our back garden. Eden's permission has been obtained for this airing on my blog, but it will be removed in a few days.

Scotland Holiday Snaps

2008-08-21T07:48:00.000-07:00

I am going to enjoy this as I like writing the captions.

1. I think this is the Mull of Kintyre where Paul McCartney lives and wrote the famous song.

2. Ell

3. C'est moi, and I look quite cheerful.

4. Cold water

5. Scotland is absolutely beautiful when you have the weather.

6. Castle battlements

7. Now Scarborough as we gave up on Scotland because it was raining too much.

8. Scotland again, and Scamp is looking out to sea in a romantic way.

9. Top of Burns Monument. As Jack gets older he is increasingly prone to giving me dirty looks. LOL Topical this, as Jeremy Paxman was in the paper saying that Burns is just a load of old doggerel, and I must say, I found it hard to understand.

10.Enjoying the moment

11. Pristine landscape in Scotland

12. I think Jack is getting fed up of me taking photos all the time and is trying to jeopardise my photo opps (he is only joking and does come from 'ull)

13. Jack really has taken it too far this time LOL

14. Robin Hoods Bay

15. Jack strikes a thoughtful pose in Scarborough

Summer Hols

2008-07-24T09:40:00.000-07:00

The kids are off and we're enjoying all this hot weather. Perfect timing as it started being hot the very day they finished school, and usually it's the other way round.

We're off on our holiday in the caravan to the West of Scotland next week so I will be sorting things out this week and will probably resume blogging sometime in September with matters of great intellectual and philosophical importance LOL

Two Things People/Watch

2008-07-20T08:47:00.000-07:00

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.I think this is a good sort of challenge for me as I am a great people watcher but sometimes it can be a bit rude doing this.

To sort of give myself a dose of my own medicine I have put a picture of myself (lol) with somebody rather rudely just taking a mobile phone picture of me without my permission, which takes the looking a stage further. Angelina Jolie, of course, has to put up with the Paparazzi which takes People Watching a whole stage further and can be quite instrusive.

I thought of Narcissi staring at his own reflection, but that isn't People Watching but Person Looking. So I decided to do a picture of some young beautiful people staring at themselves dancing in the mirrors you sometimes get at nightclubs, which is People Watching themselves in a narcissitic way.

Living in a goldfish bowl is a saying which describes a feeling of being watched all the time, so here is the goldfish getting his own back watching the people LOL

Being a Legal Secretary

2008-07-08T06:14:00.000-07:00

I am going to keep writing about my jobs because, to be honest, I can't come up with much else, and at least it's something blogwise. If anyone wants to ask us a question, or even set an essay question I'm game, because it's better than the watching The Simpsons again, which seems to be on an endless loop repeating themselves, not that that stops the kids watching them. I used to love The Simpsons, but now I know all the jokes, so I am more into 'Family Guy'. If you want a guaranteed laugh, watch this.

Once I had quite a good job as a legal secretary. I will keep the name on my blog to get a bit of a revenge because she really is a little monkey and something of a madam, not that I'm sure she will be worried about me slagging her off on a blog in front of two people, and she remains blissfully unaware of this non-event anyway.LOL

When I first came to Hull I lived in Cottingham and got a job as a legal secretary for Gwynth Drury, Solicitor, Cottingham. She worked everyone really hard for £2.70 per hour (in 1993) while swanning around in a white jeep and going to Beverley Races. She also had to have her sheets changed everyday by the staff and generally behaved in a queenly fashion. On the other hand, she was quite feisty, and had taught herself law after bringing up a family, so I suppose you've got to hand it to her. Mrs Drury had something of a reputation among other solicitors in the area for being a bit of a maverick, and ran a very successful practice, mainly I think, by keeping the costs down. The very weather beaten sign to the practice hung by a thread and used to bang about in the wind. I notice it has only very recently been painted. However, if were to make a Will I would certainly go to her for it as you wouldn't get any cheaper.

I am going to suggest to Eleanor to go into Law as solicitors really do make a lot of money. I used to type out the wills. Basically this is just a template and Mrs Drury used to spend about five minutes changing a few words after a consultation and the typist did all the rest. As far as I could see, a lot of the work is like this, and for which the clients are charged disproportionate amounts. Sounds good to me, if you are the solicitor. I found it quite interesting typing out these wills, as it a bit of human interest. I sometimes did conveyancing, which is just buying and selling houses and is very boring, but again the typists were doing a lot of the work dealing with the clients and the nitty gritty.

I got married to Mark while working here and because his Mam also worked there in the Will section where she did clearing of houses, quite a lot of our furniture originally came from house clearances, which accounts for some of the eccentric mix of our decor. For instance, I keep my clothes in gentleman's maghogany 'tallboy' dating from the War.

I also remember sending everyone a postcard from my honeymoon in Scotland in Ullapool saying 'Cold in the tent and we are having to wear jumpers at all times' which for some reason people apparently found very funny. Also I remember being on the phone to Mark in the office at the same time his Mam was leaving work to come round to ours' and saying 'Your Mam's coming round. Quick, tidy the house.' which was also quite funny and made people laugh. I, however, was being perfectly serious. LOL

Mrs Drury is a little monkey as it were because she did that age-old thing of blaming the powerless staff for any mistakes that she had made. I once got called into her office for a dressing down in front of some clients about a mistake which she had made and for which she blamed me, the typist, just to save face!! Also, when she found out I was pregnant with Jack started making my life nigh on impossible by picking continuous faults with my work, because secretly she did not want me to carry on working there (even though she had previously thought I was a good worker, and in fact the £2.70 was "good wages for her") because then she would have to pay me statutory maternity pay!!! I admit that Mrs Drury and I had a falling out over this and when I got home I was desparate for a fag but because I was pregnant with Jack (and in fact had a textbook pregancy and drank Eisberg instead of wine and bought a twenty five pound computer screen to shield him from any minute amounts of radiation) showed supreme self control and had a banana instead. However, he still was born with something wrong with him. What does all this mean? Who knows.

The thought of all this obviously still gets my goat many years later. I am not a misanthropist, am in fact a sterling individual full of goodwill to all men, but I sometimes find it hard not to be in view of the low behaviour I often have to tolerate in others.LOL

Two Things Work/Book

2008-07-05T08:44:00.001-07:00

This idea for Two/Things came almost immediately because I have just done a posting on Lily and her laundry methods, which involved labour saving devices such as carefully folding slightly damp clothes on driers which then dried perfectly straight. I thought this was a very good idea (being essentially lazy), and incorporated this into my own laundry techniques, but then took this concept a stage further by fashioning a trouser press for my son's school trousers between two heavy encyclopedias. Disgraceful.

We have a lot of books which I like to read, but sometimes I like to get some work out of them. And sometimes I have to put down the book and work too. LOL

Lidl

2008-07-03T10:57:00.000-07:00

I am quite proud of doing this as once I really did work very hard. It usually all or nothing with me, like I work my cotton socks off, or I do absolutely nothing. Usually I am only galvanised into action by money issues. On quite a few weeks Mark and I have done the equivalent of two full time jobs without any childcare, which usually involves complicated timetables and working at different hours of the day or night.

A few years ago I used to work 25 hours over the weekend, which was the only time I could work so that Mark could look after the kids at the weekend. I had two jobs, Lidl from 10-6, and then Jacksons until 11pm. By the time I got to Jacksons I usually just used to volunteer for the 'facing' of tins as that was all that I could manage, though I did have to face queues of people on a Saturday night on occasions. There were some rowdy people but fortunately I worked with a very capable lady who knew what she was doing.

The best checkout operators are always found at shops like Lidl because they cut the numbers so that there is a skeleton staff to save money, usually only two checkout operators and a manager. There is a continuous queue on a Saturday. Many of the girls are not academic but they are clever and quick witted and it is a tiring job so you need a lot of stamina and you have to deal with any manner of people, like the local friendly tramp who used to come in for the cheap booze. You have to be very fast and you have to memorise hundreds of codes of the fruit and vegetables and 'Specials' and you don't have the barcodes to swipe so you are putting in codes at breakneck speeds. At Netto I think they just do it by memorising codes and putting them in which is very difficult. I managed, but was not among the elite (they have computerised records of how fast people are, in fact I was way at the bottom) and to be honest quite a few people came back complaining that on their receipts it appeared that they had bought things which they had never even heard of. lol I did get into quite a lot of trouble for this.

In shops like Lidl there is a lot of rubbish but there is also a lot of high quality (usually German) food and there were quite a lot of discerning people like doctors among the shoppers buying Swiss chocolate, mulled wine, whisky or roll mop herrings. (Some people even bought Marks and Spencers carrier bags to put their food in to disguise the fact they had been shopping at Lidl lol) There were also quite a lot of people of the traveller variety, but not really many people in between. We used to buy the Swiss chocolate Christmas decorations and stocking fillers like socks shaped like animals with little feet, all for a pittance. We also bought quite a lot of cheap seeds and plants there, and there were 'Specials' in the middle which were an assortment of things and you could buy cutprice compact disc players and garden ornaments. There was also some very cheap pinky orange 'All Juice' concoction, containing the juice of a myriad exotic fruits, including mango and papaya for a pound, which I used to make the kids drink so help them get at least three of their five a day. Some of the contents of the food tins, though, were uneatable so we used to give them to the dog lol

I quite like doing a fast checkout, again it a challenge, and in a way it is quite exciting as it won't stop and you are pitting your wits against it. I don't think the checkout operators at Morrisons would experience quite the same buzz or high. Sad, really, that I enjoyed a thing like this. Sometimes I used to be moving my arms from side to side in my sleep in my dreams, because I had been doing it all day.

Cleaning Jobs

2008-07-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

I have done quite a lot of cleaning jobs (and don't really worry about it, and anyway quite interesting as I could possibly be one of the most highly qualified cleaners in Hull. A claim to fame LOL) because they have short hours and are reflexible and to be honest I am not up to an executive position. They are also quite easy to get and I got this through someone at my kid's school. I will put on the names for one day but then take it off because it is not fair invading people's privacy. (just putting it on for proof, as it were, in case anyone thinks this is all a figment of my fantastical imagination).

I worked for a year for a lady who ran clubs for the mentally handicapped in Hull. I also have the greatest respect for Lily, and to be honest, did not do a lot of cleaning (the house was always spotless anyway when I got there) but spent about an hour of the allotted three talking to her.

Her daughter Diane was 40 and had Downs syndrome, which Lily turned to the good by starting up and running social clubs for the mentally handicapped and educating herself to being a spokeswoman and expert on the subject, chairing local meetings and campaigning.

She spoke of the fact that at birth she had the chance to give up Diane for adoption as apparently was quite the done thing in those days, but how she hadn't, which had obviously not made for an easy life for her. She said she was a beautiful baby anyway and up until a certain age she played quite happily with her brother and had a normal childhood until he reached a certain age when he started to leave her behind.

Diane had a busy life attending a special school and had had a platonic boyfriend. She had a special chair to sit in where she knitted and did artwork which was quite elaborate and which she spent a long time doing because she was very patient. She also was a Hull City Supporter (so she'll be pleased about their recent promotion) and used to listen to matches on the radio and had a huge collection of programmes and memorabilia and was quite a fixture at the matches where she had a special seat. She certainly knew how to speak her mind and told it how it was usually. She had an expensively decorated bedroom, wore lovely clothes and once I was dispatched to buy an Easter bonnet for her for an Easter parade.

I liked the house which was full of ornaments, brasses, plates with all the holidays they had been on lining the shelves. Also lots of photos to clean which I don't mind doing as they are interesting. I used to polish the brasses, another satisfying job getting the sparkle. Pride of place was a tapestry of a Unicorn with gold beads incorporated in it done by a lady to while away the hours while she was looking after her very handicapped son. Lily also a window full of crystals catching the light hanging on kitchen window which made for a nice atmosphere in the kitchen, which actually where everyone spent their time round a big table and had kitchen units in polished mahogany like living room furniture.

I had to clean and polish properly, using vinegar and newspaper for the windows, as Lily had very standards and I had to fold the clothes properly as she had worked in a laundry. She used to sometimes make me dinner and was an excellent cook and I once remember her making a bowl full of salad with grapes in. At Christmas she bought everyone in my family a present and some crystal decorations for our tree, and took Eleanor round all her talking and moving Christmas decorations.

She had a huge back garden, as she had a corner house, which I can only describe as 'like a bl**dy park' (which in fact I did) with huge trees at the bottom of it and we used to talk about the different flowers and bushes in it and watch a squirrel which used to come and hang upside down to eat the nuts on her birdtable. She liked talking about her life and the dogs she had had, like the labrador who used to follow her about and liked strawberries from the garden.

I really liked Lily and I think she liked me because she was always sitting waiting with a coffee when I came and enjoyed this job but stopped it because my kids were coming up to the age when they were going to the same school as her grandchildren and I didn't want them to be known as 'the cleaner's kids' in the playground which would be somewhat embarrassing for them (even though Lily herself used to refer to me as her 'Personal Assistant' , which sounds a bit better). Like my husband once had a job as a fitter but it was officially called 'Maintenance Technician' LOL

Orthodox Judaism

2008-07-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

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I thought I would write a little bit about some of the jobs I have done because I have done some interesting ones.

Once when the kids were small and money was very tight I used to work as a cleaner and general mother's help for the local Orthodox Rabbi's family. I didn't really worry me doing a job like this because money really was very tight and Deborah (the rabbi's wife)used to let me do alternate afternoons and mornings, fitting in with my husband's split shifts, so that there was always someone to look after the kids.

Deborah was still only 25 but had four kids, and had another baby while I was there. She was very highly educated but had chosen to live this way and used to wear a special hat to cover her hair because only the husband is allowed to see your hair apparently. She obviously found this life very difficult because a sign outside her kitchen said 'Remember, whatever the day brings God is with you' which was the first thing she saw every morning.

Her husband was from New York and had presumably come to the distant outpost of Hull to increase the numbers. I think Deborah felt quite isolated and used to keep travelling to Manchester where there is a big Jewish community.

The kids actually had a great life and were very happy and were pretty much left to their own devices with each other to play with. Safety was minimal and the baby was once left unstrapped in a highchair from which he fell. Fortunately he was alright and Deborah had an arnica remedy for the bruises. This shows how very resilient babies are (lol) Sometimes I was cleaning upstairs and saw a small form had just scaled the the stairs on his own while his Mum was on the phone to Manchester. As I say the kids were lovely and very bright and Sara was obviously a good mother. I think if kids can come out of slightly chaotic households in one piece they turn out pretty good kids.

I used to iron the clothes for special occasions (there were many) and the clothes were expensive and elaborate. The girls were only allowed to wear skirts but this did not stop them tearing up and down on rollerblades. One little girl was called Dev-or-a leah (Hebrew for Deborah) which I think is a lovely name. They were very modest and I remember when some relatives came round feeling like a bit of a tramp because I was wearing jeans and had a bra-strap showing. They did have a tendency to start to talk in I suppose Yiddish which which they did on this occasion and I wondered what they were saying about me (lol). Probably just my imagination at work as they were always very nice to me and I used to talk to Sara a lot. Eleanor came round once to play with Devoraleah, because they were the same age, and they made quite a contrast in apperance.

I used to find the cleaning a great challenge and quite enjoy doing things like this. I don't know whether this is a foul calumny but my husband reckons that Americans are more untidy than the British (he was apparently told this by his brother who used to work in the Forces) and I used to see this at work when I used to arrive as there was literally food all over the floor as the kids used to wander about holding it and just let it drop. By the time I had finished to had all gone and was spotless. I (sometimes) like doing things like this, making order out of chaos with physical activity involved. It is very satisfying.

They ate very well and I used to peel things like butternut squash and exotic fruit and vegetables which at the time I had never heard of. The children had beautiful glowing skin and glossy dark hair, and their mother was full of old fashioned remedies like eating apple for an upset stomach. All the food was kosher and there were two separate draining boards and dishwashers for the meat and milk. I remember being worried because there was a very rickety cupboard above where I worked which was literally bowed with the weight of the dinner services needed for entertaining in the community, and spent some time calculating whether the cupboard could in fact actually hold this tremendous weight, and what action I would take if the thing started to collapse lol. I remember Sara once laughing because of my way with water (just sloshing it out of the tap) because apparently in Israel you would never do anything like that because water is at a premium. Lots of chicken soup was made and eaten (though I didn't approve of the kosher butcher). Pans of soup bubbled away on the stove while toddlers ran beneath. I think you must have a very strong faith to tolerate things like this (lol)

At Passover the house had to have a thorough clean for religious purposes so that it was totally spotless, cleaning the ovens with a toothbrush and cleaning all the skirting boards. Also I remember they had to have a special switch on a timer so they didn't actually have to do any 'work' during the Passover like switching on a switch.

I came out of the experience having the greatest respect for the family as the kids were delightful, though I did sometimes wonder if this was to Deborah's cost, and her husband did seem to spend rather a lot of time discussing the finer points of doctrine with his friends. I particularly liked the ceremony of the Sabbath when Deborah and her kids got together to pray around some silver candles to herald in a day of no work and family time.

Two Things Smartarse entry

2008-06-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

Square meal on a round plate LOL

Two Things Round/Square

2008-06-29T10:20:00.000-07:00

I saw a Millenium Beacon on the way back from caravaning this weekend which seemed to fit the bill. This isn't the one as my husband wouldn't stop on a busy road but one like it.

Two Things Perpendicular/Parallel

2008-06-21T14:25:00.000-07:00

.This picture is basic but I am more into the ideas LOL Also it is very difficult to draw on Paintbox. I tried going on Dumpr which used to have an aging facility to blur it slightly (I always find they look better that way) but it has gone. Photo to sketch is still there, though, and makes this look quite artistic.

It is supposed to represent Alice entering the parallel world of the Wonderland garden through the perpendicular door. There are heart shaped bushes, the Queen of Hearts castle (I tried to draw a card but as I say it's very difficult to actually draw anything at all on this facility) and a psychedelic background as I have always thought Alice in Wonderland a very psychedelic book.

Two Things Flagpole/Fireplug

2008-06-15T13:32:00.000-07:00

While desparately casting around for an entry for this week's Two Things I went to see 'The Artful Eye' great photos to see what a Fireplug looked like.

They do look a bit like stout little people, so here is a stout little granny like Gile's Grandma flagging down a bus at a (flagpole) bus stop LOL

Two Things Fireplug/Flagpole

2008-06-15T11:06:00.001-07:00

A difficult challenge this one as fireplugs are a US phenomenon and there are none round here, so I have cheated a little and split the words into separate components and found a pole plugged with a curtain end (as an interesting feature, soldered by Mark), a firey sun and some prayer flags in our back garden. So DC got in her great pictures of genuine fireplugs and I got in some great closeup shots of my homemade beady spirals among the other things. Yay!

Wisteria Cottage

2008-06-12T12:01:00.000-07:00

John's posting reminded me of a photo of this wisteria bedecking this old stone cottage I saw just recently which I would like to share.

I quite like the second photo, because although it isn't technically very good it gives an impression of the sheer profusion of flowers in the garden at the height of summer, almost as though they are taking over.

Another possible reader for this blog

2008-06-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

Today I asked to take a picture of the Rag and Bone man whom I have mentioned in a previous posting. I think things like this may possibly be quite unusual in this day and age. He gave me his e-mail and asked me to e-mail this picture to him and I will give him the address of this blog.

A rare opportunity for taking a picture of something like this and I've got the camera on the flower setting. Doh!

Decorating Gardens

2008-06-11T12:05:00.000-07:00

We have always gone in for alternative garden decoration, ever since we went to an Arts Centre in Knaresborough which had a lot of CDs on a wall. We just thought they looked nice and suspended some on a tree in our back garden but then discovered that on a sunny day if it is a bit windy they will cast beams of light round the garden, and give off a kaleidoscope of colours.

I have a butterfly light holder which contains a tealight for summer evenings. I bought this last year but never used it as it rained most of the summer so I hope I can get some use out of it this year as I suppose it will softly light the butterfly.

Mark's idea: curtain pole ends bought reduced for about £3 and made into interesting features. Also a Buddhist prayer flag (don't know what they make of this next door). We have been to a few Buddhist meetings and Mark used to try to meditate but never got the necessary peace in the house lol

Look at our Foxgloves

2008-06-08T11:30:00.000-07:00

I think these flowers are magnificent and I keep looking at the special little painted bee runways everytime I walk up the path. What with the ferns we have our own mini woodland here.

I am particularly pleased with these as I planted about two from a specially bought 'Cottage Garden' pack, and in a few years all these have self-seeded. Most of the other cottage garden plants were got by the snails. We have also been doing a few planters, and already some plants have been reduced to stalks overnight.

Of possible further interest in this photo is the postbox which we need because Scamp doesn't like the postman, and the holes in our nets because he is always sitting on the windowsill. lol

Two Things Symmetrical/Abstract

2008-06-06T13:40:00.001-07:00

False alarm, and I am glad as I really like blogging. Because my son needs broadband for a new game he has got for his birthday, a compromise has been reached whereby the computer connection is removed during the day so I can't idle my time away. (I wasn't just pretending just to fish for any compliments, but any are gratefully received lol )

Great! I can use some more of my pictures of the North York Moors for this.

Here are two otters (but parred down and containing wicker lines) so abstract representations facing each other (so symmetrical) at the North York Moors Visitors Centre. Some dodgy plastic bag gremlin in the background (which I didn't notice at the time) reminiscent of the chocolate wrapper in a recent flower picture of mine. Easy to see why some people find ghosts in photos; if you were short sighted this could easily be a shrouded ghostly figure wandering across the pasture.

I love these open air sculptures that people are putting up all over the place just recently. We have a country park near us that has a sculpture trail and at the kid's school somebody has carved an owl at the top of an old tree.

Rydale Folk Museum

2008-06-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of the Rydale Folk Museum, which was situated next to our site. A folk festival was on at the same time, so we got a bit of free entertainment.

1. Chanticleer

2. Victorian cottage garden

3. Medieval herb garden

4. Mini building

5. Jack entering cottage

6. Victorian kitchen

7. Quite like this photo of a rag rug, with the light streaming through the doorway of the Victorian kitchen.

8. Village Stores

9. General view of museum with folk tent.

10. Witches hut. Well, I think it was round the corner actually, but similar. I have some sympathy for witches, myself looking not unlike one from the back when I have not combed my hair. They were really just eccentric old women who liked animals. Give it a few more years LOL

11. Eleanor is blocking my view lol

Two Things Alike/Alliteration

2008-05-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

I feel I have to continue blogging as I am very pleased with the pictures I took on our trip to the North York Moors, and, as usual, nobody else is much interested in them lol

I thought this horsechestnut blossom looks a bit like an icecream, what with the fluffy white and the pink candy colouring.

Fluffy Fondant Fantastical Fancy

Virtual Walk through the North York Moors

2008-05-28T08:56:00.001-07:00

This was a beautiful organised walk from our site in Hutton le Hole to Lasington, which apparently has a church which started off Christianity in the North, and there is a picture of the crypt.

Of particular note are the pictures of molehills, the two lambs who were wandering around in search of their mother (showing a surprising intelligence, as after realising they couldn't leap up the wall, decided to go round by the churchyard onto it) and the kids with staffs fighting like Robin Hood and Little John in front of some medieval houses.

The cows liked the look of Scamp and were following him as an object of some curiosity. Also there is a picture of some wild garlic in the woodlands which permeates the air with garlic and a picture of a sheep's bum which my husband said, when I showed him the photos, 'Why have you taken a picture of a haystack?'

We went to a pub in the middle of the walk, but I have posted it at the beginning because I have missed it out by mistake. There was a courtyard outside the pub with a gate at the front. With typical English reticence everyone was dithering and uming and ahing about whether this belonged to the pub, or was in fact somebody's garden. One courageous soul had a look through the windows, saw it wasn't anyone's front room, so emboldened, everyone bravely piled into the courtyard with their drinks.lol

Mini Landscapes

2008-05-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Just a bit of fun, which was inspired by John Mora's pictures of a tennis court which Nora said looked like mini landscapes.

I enjoyed taking these pictures, though apparently showed up my daughter when she was walking home from school by stooping low to the ground and taking pictures of weeds.

1. Craggy moorland outpost with purple heather

2. Hanging Gardens of Babylon

3. Zen Garden

4. Grand Canyon

5. Texas Landscape

LOL

English Meadows for Nora

2008-05-21T06:01:00.001-07:00

These are photos of a green belt quite near to here so you get the countryside near the city and it is within walking distance. Huge hedges of flowering hawthorn, buttercups, cowslips and the last of the bluebells in dingly dells. I rather fancied sitting in the shade of the elm and reading a book.

I like the photo of the stile leading to a gate which seems to hold promise of going somewhere special .

Also I have a picture of a forked path. Lots of forked paths being posted today lol

Brownies

2008-05-19T02:05:00.000-07:00

This is my daughter and her friend Holly in a ceremony making them Brownies. They had to go through a special arch.

Two Things Challenge Noisy/Peaceful

2008-05-18T08:06:00.000-07:00

Since the numbers on the Two Things are a bit down I thought I would enter the fray again with one of my park pictures.

Captain Drake

Ripples circle from the fountain

On the pool which is a mirror

But the peace is suddenly broken

By a quacking scrapping flotilla

The geese are noisy too and if you look at the photo one has just seen Scamp and the peace was shattered by a honk (this time it wasn't traffic).

I like the way even spiky hedges bloom at this time of year, and I love the clematis adorning the wall and here is one of the peonys in our garden. I also like the May on the Hawthorn. I remember when I was carrying Jack I used to walk the dog and went past a hawthorn bush and used to think when this bush blooms he will be born, because his birthday is at this time of year.

Somebody in this house must like the Beatles. I wonder how they obtained it and if it is genuine.

Bluebells

2008-05-13T10:40:00.001-07:00

A small, quite interesting post,while I have the time.

The bluebells have come out, as they have all over here. They are Spanish bluebells, and it was quite interesting on the news the other day about how these are taking over from our native, though I have seen a lot of these this year too.

Also the bracken by our front door. I was going to do a time lapse photograghy about these, like a David Attenborough 'Life of Plants', but they have beat me to it. This was what they were like four days ago (Scamp has noticed them too) and the other photo is what they have grown to over a few days and the weekend while we were away.

We went to Flamborough Head when we were away. It was absolutely beautiful, the weather was stunning, the cliffs were white, the water was azure and the primroses were out. Scamp picked his way along the rocky outposts as a mountain goat.

Wild Flowers and Blossom

2008-04-27T12:26:00.001-07:00

This is not blogging as such. It is just a way of keeping some photos of blossom safe because people have a habit of tampering with my files and messing about with the photos and I don't want to lose them.

I do still enjoy reading people's postings, and John's pictures of blossom got me thinking about blossom so I took my camera with me on my afternoon dog walk, because I did particularly want to capture this avenue of trees, which I always make a detour to at this time of year. Also you can see a caravan because people are still living in them while their houses are being renovated after the damage from last year's floods (by white van man, probably)

I also took a picture of some wildflowers on our lawn, which I was pleased to see. Also it captures the particular verdancy that you get at this time of year, which doesn't last very long.

Summer Holiday

2008-04-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks for your supportive comments. I hope to enjoy the summer with my family and am going to try to do more internet work to earn some cash, as well as the invigilating, which starts in May. I have always thought it is not very nice to be inside swotting and doing your exams at the best time of year, and it is sometimes very hot in the examining hall, with lack of oxygen etc. which cannot be good for the brain.

I have already said how much I have enjoyed doing this, and have said quite a few times what I think about people and there are some really great and funny comments on this blog from Lisa Sarsfield, John Mora, Sweet Irene, Debi Cates, Bobbie, Frances, Neda, Rima, Diane Clancy and Laurie and Bez.

I am glad I put the effort into this over the last year, and it may be of interest to my kids when they are older, as it certainly is of little interest to them now lol It is a sort of time capsule, or another planet left circling in cyberspace.

I am going to fit in some comments on the blogs which I enjoy doing.

Two Things Numbers/Letters

2008-04-06T05:03:00.000-07:00

Here is my gold pendant saying 'Bev' in hieroglyphics, bought by my sister from her honeymoon in Egypt. I have always thought this quite funny because I bet there weren't that many Egyptian ladies called Bev nor much of a call for pendants with Bev on in the ancient city of Luxor in the time of hieroglyphics. When I wear it people do ask what it says because no-one understands hieroglyphics round here, so it is as good as wearing three numbers round your neck really. But letter and numbers are all abstract symbols which people have attached arbitary meanings to, like these hieroglyphics.

Two Things Native/Exotic

2008-03-30T05:28:00.000-07:00

Punk Lions in shades kissing

Butterfly

Aztec Temple with green clouds

I thought it was quite a difficult challenge as we do not have many native exotic species here. However, today I found some old Christmas cards native to our living room on which Eleanor had painted some patterns made symmetrical by painting blobs on them and folding them over. She assures me that she wasn't intending to make any pictures and they were just random blobs. So these are magic paintings which made an exotic species and building come to life in our living room.

Also I am modeling an exotic couture creation (quite Aztec-y), which I bought today, native to Asda's, Hessle Road. I am as an exotic Bird of Paradise in our back garden. I am just about to go dog-walking so let's see how many hippies I can pick up lol

We had snow!!!

2008-03-28T02:48:00.000-07:00

Two reasons for celebration here - we had reasonably proper snow on Sunday for the first time in a few years and I find I can upload videos without any real problem. So you can see the stars of The Blog in the flesh for the first time. And here is the earth which was piled up into a manmade hill when they built the railways put to a different sort of use. One of the videos shows a factory building in the background. Great this. If you shout things in the direction of this building a few seconds later they will eerily come back to you rather in the manner of shouting something in the Grand Canyon.

The top photo is a snow angel made by Eleanor by laying on the ground and waving your arms and legs about to make angel wings and the rather large legs of a chubby angel. Sort of a Dawn French angel. Also a picture of some spring flowers coming through the snow. I like the way these tiny vibrant blue flowers rise up through the snow, now the sap is rising.

Seeing as I can do these videos I may get someone to do a video of myself talking about something of importance. I put it to auction to the highest bidder. £50 is a starting suggestion, but I am open to offers. I suppose you can't have an auction of showing a video on the internet, unless it is some sort of private showing at an allotted time at a time only known to the auctioneer and the buyer, and then you would have to immediately delete the video, particularly if they had paid a lot of money for it, say, £1000.

I know I said in a previous posting that I was going on an underground blogging mission but that was before I discovered videos! I used to have some superb videos on my phone like sledging on this hill on a ramp that someone had built like a ski jump so that the sledges flew through the air but unfortunately they were all lost when my phone bust.

More about sledging: the best places to sledge are on steep woldy type hills down narrow indented paths which act as bob sleigh runs.

Two Things Dead/Alive

2008-03-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

I said I was going to do a Serif Digital Art picture if it killed me, but....

Out Of Strength Came Forth Sweetness, Samson's riddle.

Two Things Sun/Shadow

2008-03-15T10:32:00.001-07:00

My entry is the first picture. Today a grey sea fog descended on the vicinity and this view of our back garden shows it casting a grey shroud or shadow (a bit of a stretch this but you know what I mean) on the proceedings over the fence where everything is veiled in mist, making it the valley of the shadow. However, the sun is a presence in the form of the sun on our fence and the sun balloon weight which hanging in space from our tree. Also the daffodils are coming through. I do think they do look a bit like the sun, and they are such a hopeful flower after the bleak winter, heralding spring with their trumpet shapes. And of course they are used as a symbol of hope in many cancer charities such as Marie Curie.

I have also included a bluebell which we have in our garden because I think the land used to be woodland. There are a lot of these in people's gardens round here and have somehow survived for many years in cultivated gardens despite onslaughts from general horticulture. I think this is a bluebell, but actually looking at it it doesn't quite look like the wild ones you see. I am trying to cast some illumination on this matter in the general fug which is my brain without much success.

This posting is starting to meander alarmingly, but observe the weedy clump of earth in the flowerbed. What I do is pull great clumps of weeds out of the ten foot and give them to the guinea pigs to eat as a bit of recycling. Then I chuck them on the garden, where they regrow and sometimes if I run out of weeds on the tenfoot I reuse these clumps. Even if they don't get reused we get extra earth on our garden for free. So this is my own recycling weed clump plant(as in factory, of the organic variety). Interesting or what LOL

Any excuse for a slide show - we've been to Devon!

2008-03-08T14:02:00.001-08:00

In light of Frances' slideshow I have done my own Devon slide show. We may have walked the very earth that Frances herself treads as there is a pic of the kids on a bike contraption in Illfracombe. (where she lives). Also pics of Exmoor, Lynmouth, and Combe Martin during the very hot summer a few years ago when it felt like being in the Med. Here is the raft race in the evening with people carousing on the beach till sunset. Also a pic of my body only because I am a mystery woman. I think I was going to show Eleanor how to work the camera but she obviously got the hang of it before I got to her. If you look at Jack he looks a bit fed up of waiting for the pic to be taken, posing in front of the hollyhock. Also Mark eating a Devonshire cream tea - how much more Devony can you get?

Two Things Challenge Red/Blue/Purple

2008-03-08T04:57:00.001-08:00

This is my entry for the Two Things Challenge, Red/Blue/Purple, in honour of the Presidential Election. I have got this idea from Frances' ace slide show of North Devon, and am well chuffed I can manage the technology. I was desperate to get a slide show in as an entry, and thought at first of doing some plain blocks of colour like Derek Jarmen's 'Blue', which does exactly what it says on the tin, but decided on these CDs instead.

They are showing music as colour. Blues is self explanatory, Red is passion as in Verdi Operas sung by Pavarotti (I know he is a bit naff but there is a reason why he was so popular), and Regal Purple in the classical music such a Handel's Water music on this CD, written for a King.

The Pheonix or Firebird

2008-03-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

I love messing about with Dumpr., and while doing this I made an egg with an egret which looks like a Pheonix. My research on Wikopedia (another thing I like to do) leads me to believe that the original Pheonix was actually a heron. So another of the permutations of egret, and positively the last one!

Happy Mother's Day

2008-03-02T07:57:00.001-08:00

These are my presents for Mother's Day, from a local shop, nicely wrapped with cellophane and ribbons. E made the card (quite amusing, she knows her Mum, a coffee lover like Sweet Irene), and the chocs, which seem to have all disappeared during the course of the day. (not eaten by me, I might add).

Allegretto

2008-03-02T03:03:00.000-08:00

We're all pretty damn good at punning on this blogging circuit and should set up our own internet creative ad agency or something for generating wacky ideas lol

Two Things Old/New

2008-02-29T04:40:00.000-08:00

Old wood, but the new blossoms and daffodils are coming through. Also the building after the floods in June in Hull is still in progress as you can see from the planks, so these people will get new things. Looking at the contents of the skips on my dog walks a lot of people will get new things, even people whose things weren't particularly damaged. A lot of these things have been taken from the skips, cleaned up and sold on in the charity shops.

Egrets Files

2008-02-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

Because I am being very silly I think this alien egret could be behind the subliminal messages on Frances' 'Do You Want To Know A Secret' lol lol lol, or as Frances would say llllllllllooooooooooolllllllllll

Vain Egret Dressing

2008-02-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

Two Things Box/Car

2008-02-24T06:57:00.001-08:00

Egrets on the brain

2008-02-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

Two Things Love/Bird

2008-02-15T03:05:00.000-08:00

The egret is a heron

Prosaic until the time to mate

Then the egret has a fluffy side
Who says it cannot dance Swan Lake

I have never heard of the egret before this week's Two Things, but it seems to be a recurring theme of the challenge. It apparently develops these fluffy feathers during the breeding season, can strike such balletic poses, and, when it's body feathers are spread, appears to be wearing a tutu. I can just picture this egret in one of the world's greatest love stories. (A bit far-fetched this posting).

Sweet Irene's Meme

2008-02-13T10:19:00.000-08:00

Firstly a picture of the Tidy Fairies spraying something like fairy dust and who requested a photo of themselves on this blog doing the tidying . The pic will be removed in a few days.

Secondly, the Meme. This is genuinely the book I have by my bedside, and have not picked it out to fit in with any recurring themes of this blog.

'Otherwise I keep thinking of things like Frosty Answer - which are foolish but fun.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely

Philip Larkin

AUTHOR'S SUGGESTION FOR PART OF BLURB

A Girl in Winter centres on one day in the life of Katherine Lind, a day that as it progresses seems increasingly to sum up her present life, connect it with her past, and predict her future. She is brought up against an almost - forgotten episode that nevertheless shows how her actions then have influenced other premanently, and are still playing their part in her own life.'

You can tell this is a well-read book. I know quite a bit about Philip Larkin because he lived in Hull, and could probably organise a 'Philip Larkin City Trail', for anyone who is interested. (Probably not many) I have lived in Cottingham for a while near the house he lived in when he first came to the area, I have walked past the Church where they held his funeral many times(in fact my husband's sister was married there), I have held a pass to the library where he worked, I have been to the park many times which he used to view through his 'High Windows', and I have been to a National Childbirth Trust meeting in a house on Newland Park where he ended up living. So I follow in the footsteps of Philip Larkin (well, you could tell that from my Haikus) and is my only somewhat tenuous claim to fame. All this somehow fuels my imagination, and that is why I like reading the letters and thinking I have been to the places he is talking about.

Two Things Challenge on the theme of light - My Celestial Light

2008-02-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

This is my little angel containing a tealight. I like this very much, and, for me, this pretty much sums up 'Light', being a celestial 'Angel of Light', literally lighting up the darkness with its tealight, as religious faith can light up the darkness for people. Don't know why it's green though.

The other one is just a silly one, because this is what immediately sprung to mind with 'light', and this one is also celestial. Mind you, on a semi-serious note, this was often the last pleasure of the condemned man, the only pleasure of many psychiatric patients, and kept them going in the trenches. It is the sort of humble light people in extremis often choose.

Some more nice pics

2008-01-31T01:36:00.000-08:00

I have been inquiring about putting my photos onto disc, which is quite possible, but unfortunately it appears I have lost the negatives. So I have put on a few more photograghed photos because I have a very good collection.

First running in Suffolk.

Second two pics are of Lulworth Cove in Dorset. You can't beat the British coastline when we have the weather, and, on that year, we had. They call this the Jurassic coast, and it looks like there is a stone Nessie coming out of the waters.

Third pic, a picture of my husband Mark.

Fourth pic, a picture of the kids playing air guitar with their nets.

Fifth pic, genuine 'Wind in the Willows' country, messing around in boats, but Eleanor has fallen off her seat.

Sixth pic, around Durdle Door in Dorset. It is beautiful there, and to the bottom right in front of the rocks you can see the kids braving the cold waters in their blow-up hoop. (The burry spec in front of the rocks to the left)

Tessa Photos

2008-01-30T00:26:00.000-08:00

John has got me thinking about photos which I have taken, because actually I have always taken a lot of photos. He has given me some advice on digitalising them, which I may take up.

In the meantime, (in my new found enthusiasm I want to start posting pics straight away) here are some old photos which I have taken a picture of on my digital of my dog Tessa when she was a lot younger. In April she will be sixteen. There is a puppy photo of her with outsize ears, which she later grew into, like all puppies do. They always have oversized feet and ears.

Secondly, a picture of her with me in front of some Yorkshire moorland. This was when Tessa was my baby, and I didn't have any real ones. I'm sure she didn't need carrying about that like that, as she is quite a big dog.

Thirdly Tessa has always liked swimming and here is her way in the distance in the middle of a Scottish loch.

When Jack was born you can see that he has usurped Tessa status a bit and here is her trying to get on Mark's knee along with Jack.

Lastly, we read in a book that the best way to introduce a dog to a new baby is to let the dog approach them in their own way. It goes without saying that you need to have the utmost trust in the dog, which we did. This is her on that occasion and it was very nice as she went up to him and licked him.

Two Things Sign/Post

2008-01-29T05:28:00.000-08:00

I've done another challenge because the last one was a bit rubbish. (and it wasn't a sign it was a plaque).

This is so typically eccentric and English. You have the door sign (which, as Bobbie has pointed out, is quite an English thing) saying Toad Hall which is from Kenneth Graham's 'Wind in the Willows', so perhaps they have some autocratic Toad figure causing general mayhem in his car and throwing his weight around. It is quite a small terrace house but 'an Englishman's home is his castle' so they have called it the name of a stately home, albeit a fictional one. (and it is jokey, the English sense of humour). They also have a Victorian looking lamppost, which lends the pathway up to the door a bit of gravitas. No need for it, it's quite light round there at nights. But it harks back to the last English golden age, and perhaps we like reminding of this. It's 2007 but I like the way people just do what they want round here, even if it involves a bit of slightly naff Victoriana and toads.

Two Things Challenge Sign/Post

2008-01-28T11:23:00.000-08:00

I am getting in the Two Things Challenge quite early this week, partly in response to more helpful if pedantic comments (lol) from Bez today on this blog, implying that I do not know my famous people from Hull, which I most certainly do. I have probably taken (unnecessary) umbrage at your comments because this is my blog and I pride myself on it being factual. Please note Bez, this has been posted on the very day which you made your comment, so I have not had a chance to go out and take a picture.

I was walking down this nondescript street of tiny terrace houses in a rough part of town when I noticed a sign saying that Amy Johnson, the first woman aviator, was born here, so I took a picture. She went a long way from this little house to flying to the Atlantic.

Can't you see the post part? Yes you can!

My Dog Scamp

2008-01-27T11:32:00.000-08:00

I am involved in a lot of money-making schemes and homeworking on the internet at the moment, and came upon some poetry competitions. In one you could win £30 for a poem about your pet. It's a bit of a long shot, but worth a try. This is a poem based on Christopher Smart's poem 'My Cat Geoffry' and is written in the same style, but sadly isn't very poetic. It starts off quite poetic but then gets silly in the middle. The last line is in the style of Smart too (I thought it needed a bit of explanation as it sort of comes from nowhere).

My Dog Scamp

I will consider my dog Scamp

For he is a servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him

For he worships God in his own way

For he the first time he saw a bird in the sky

He froze and marvelled at its wonder

For God has blessed him with acute facilities

For he can find a ball in a cornfield

And he has a beard and fringe as scruffy as an unmade bed

Thereupon on occasions he has the appearance of only having one eye

For his eyes are bright and vulpine

But in head of a small furry housetrained vulpine

For he patrols the garden for the cats

For the sneaky felines wind him up through the glass door

So that he departs the back door as a coiled spring

For he can scale a high fence

For this must result from a turbo-charged adrenaline surge

And we are informed of his extra-curricular activities by neighbours ringing the doorbell

Firstly he checks under birdtables for peanuts

Secondly he checks in hedges for cats

Thirdly he checks in the gardens he passes for cats

For he has a cat obsession

But the only time he ever got close to the arched hissing enemy he backed away swiftly

For on the walk to the corner shop he prances with tail erect like a king on his progress

For he is frightened of Jack Russells

But he likes running rings round Alsatians

For he outmanoeurves them by weaving to and fro

For he is supremely proud of this skill

And exercises it whenever possible

But tucks in his behind just for safety's sake

For he is a godly creature

Mick Ronson Research

2008-01-20T09:31:00.001-08:00

I don't know whether Bez is still reading this blog but today I did a bit of research about only the fourth famous person who has come from Hull (where I live), after Andrew Marvell, William Wilberforce, and John Prescott - the legendary guitarist Mick Ronson, whose collaborations with David Bowie are legendary. Here is the Mick Ronson stage in the park in the centre of Hull, and it was used recently for a Hull Flood Aid concert. I myself and kids etc. have been past it many times, and did warm up exercises in front of this for a Race For Life once. So although it's not a very impressive looking stage (!) it is in the centre of Hull in these lovely gardens, and is used very often. Bez I did actually look for 'Classic Rock', but the time I got to it in was onto Feb's issue!