Off on holiday

Just after the Easter break in England, I will be off on holiday. I am going to Crete with The Hubby to be there for Greek Easter, which is their biggest celebration of the year.

And if you are a burglar reading this, no, my house will not be empty. I have a teenage daughter on break from uni who, like most teenagers, spends their entire time either sleeping, eating me out of house and home, wrecking the bathroom or watching TV. I fully expect her to be welded to the sofa for the whole time I am away with large bottles of coca cola and an unlimited supply of chocolate digestives by her side (along with her mobile phone, of course) watching endless soaps and American trash drama. And even if not I have three ferocious moggies who will eat you as soon as look at you. So don't even think about it!

This holiday seems like it has been a long time coming. The winter, whatever the weather men say, has felt long, grey and dreary. Work is getting more and more manic as cuts are made and staff leave. Our own money seems to be flowing out of the door in an endless stream of household expenses and ever increasing bills. We both feel exhausted. Some Cretan sun will be very welcome.

I am going for about 9 days, and The Hubby is joining me a day or so later (he couldn't get the time off work as his boss is a total w****r  about authorising leave (oops - better hope he isn't reading this!). We will be there for the Easter Saturday night celebrations and also Orthodox Easter Sunday when hopefully, if it is warm enough, we will barbeque on the beach, or maybe on the balcony. It will be a week of just relaxing in the sun, reading, writing and for me, learning my lines.

I have been spray tanning myself for the last couple of weeks and look a nice golden colour (mostly, one or two places are a bit patchy but never mind), have booked an appointment to get my highlights done again so I will be lovely and blonde once more (the Greek men do like a blonde, I have discovered!) and have booked an appointment to get my nails done and have my eyebrows waxed. I've bought a new handbag. So I'm ready, I think, apart from a little bit of packing!

I can't wait! I do get used to the pace of life in the UK and I am used to not seeing The Hubby from Sunday night until Friday evening (or that's quite often what it feels like) but to be honest I married him because I wanted to spend time with him so holidays when we can  have time totally to ourselves without worrying about work, children, relatives or anything else are very precious. I expect we'll do a bit of walking which you can't do in the summer as it's too darn' hot, some sunbathing and some socialising. It'll be great.

I hope the weather's decent. Last year I went to Crete with two girlfriends for Easter and it was cold and wet. To add insult to injury, the week we were away it was beautiful in the UK. So here's hoping the sun shines on me this time. It owes me one!

Ruby's shoes

The other day, we took my small grand daughter, Ruby, (now unbelieveably aged three) to get some new shoes.

This was the second attempt. First time, about three weeks ago, she had been fine in the car and doing the rest of the shopping, but turned into the Troll From Hell the minute the lady in the shop tried to get her pink converse trainers off her feet to measure them. She screamed, waved her fists in the air, went bright red in the face and sat determinedly on her feet so that we couldn't get at them. No matter of cajoling, crossness and then downright brute force could entice her to cooperate. I think she was worried they were going to take her manky pink converses, which are filthy having seen her through the winter along with a pair of wellies, away and never bring them back. So we gave up, and went for a coffee in Costa, whereupon she became angelic again drinking her Tropicana and eating shortbread, smiling at everyone else as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

So this time we were a little concerned we would have a repeat performance. Her mother gave her a talking to, we talked to her about what was going to happen, and she was under no illusions that if she wanted that packet of chocolate buttons I had in my bag, she was going to have to behave.

Well, you would have thought it was a different child. There was a queue, which made me think "Oh, no" and that there was plenty of time to throw a tantrum. But no; she picked up the measuring gauge, played with it, tried to walk round the shop wearing it and generally entertained herself to the delight of all the yummy mummies and shop assistants for about 15 minutes. Then she sat like an angel while her feet were measured, politely asked for red or pink shoes to try on and then allowed the lady to try them on her feet with no bother at all.

There was a slight disappointment when the shiny, patent leather purple pair wouldn't fit, but she was won round by a slightly metallic pale pink StartRite pair with flowers and sparkly bits and a velcro fastening. Good choice, and she obviously takes after her nanny in her tastes!

So I am £36 poorer, and at least she has a decent pair of shoes now for a few months. I quite enjoyed the shoe buying experience by proxy - I can't afford new shoes for myself at the moment so I have to satisfy my craving by buying them for her, as obviously it's important  that children have good shoes which fit, and of course their feet grow so fast you have to renew them regularly.

Perhaps in a month or two she will need summer sandals and we can do it all again. What fun!

Oh no, not panic buying again!

Well done the government!

Until yesterday, we had all been vaguely conscious that tanker drivers might strike but hadn’t thought it necessary to go out and fill up the car and various plastic bottles with petrol to make sure we could withstand a prolonged shortage. Somehow, most of us thought it would be OK and we would all muddle along somehow.

But now, both David Cameron and Francis Maude (silly name) have been on the telly saying we all ought to fill up the car at every opportunity and put jerry cans full of petrol in the back garden in case we run short.

Prats! If even there was a lesson in how not to handle a situation this is it! Ever since they went to the media saying this, there have been queues at petrol stations across the country as people who don’t have any common sense fill their vehicles to the brim and stockpile as much fuel as they are able to in jerry cans. Why didn’t these two stupid men just keep their mouths shut?

The Fire Service is, not unnaturally, up in arms. Stored fuel is a fire risk, and whilst many of us have a small petrol can in the garden shed to use with the mower, chain saw, strimmer or whatever other garden tools work with petrol, it is a tiny amount. Because most people have no common sense (and ‘common sense’ is a misnomer if ever I heard one) they will now be storing much larger quantities without any thought as to how to do so safely. Even worse, those without gardens may even store it in the house!

Also, the sheer selfishness of the vast majority of the general public in these situations astounds and saddens me. People have been queuing for hours at petrol stations just to put £10 worth of fuel in a tank which was already over 75% full ‘just in case’. Why? They don’t need it and they aren’t about to run out. Why can’t we all just go and fill up the car when it’s empty and take what we need, rather than what we want. Shell Petroleum reported sales as being 65% higher than usual yesterday, simply because of panic buying. These people are penalising the rest of us by being greedy and stupid and of course, the natural outcome will be the fuel companies will put their prices up again to capitalise on an opportunity for profiteering. That’s how the free market works.

So everyone – STOP! Think about what you are doing, just take what you need and then we will all get our fair share. The world will not end if we cannot use our cars in the profligate way we normally do for a few days and it won’t hurt most of us to walk our kids to school or use the bus for a change. I don’t want to have to do that any more than anyone else does, but if it comes to it I would have to.

And politicians – don’t be so bloody stupid again!

Global warming - bring it on?

The weather seems totally up the creek at the moment, probably without a paddle. It is, quite simply, lovely outside. It has been for a few days now, and the outlook for the rest of the week is more of the same. 

As you will know from previous blogs, I love the sun. The bright days and blue skies make me smile, lift my mood and make the world seem more bearable. Just! If this is global warming, in many ways bring it on. 

Of course I don't mean that, as I know it will cause suffering in many places, in particular those countries that are experiencing unusual levels of flooding. The extreme temperatures that we are promised in the next few decades are not yet affecting us, but the higher than normal rainfall is. Not that you'd notice it in the south east of England which is officially and somewhat ludicrously on drought alert. 

The water companies really ought to be shot for allowing us to get into this position. Since 1976, the hottest summer in living memory, they have been complaining on and off about ground water levels, reservoir levels and lack of rainfall, all in one of the greenest and most fertile countries on earth. How on earth would they cope if they worked in the hot arid areas of Africa or the Mediterranean? They say that they are investing in their infrastructure and becoming more efficient, but all you and I see is our bills increasing and the same old complaints and restrictions year after year after year.

If it is so difficult to harvest enough water from rainfall within existing infrastructure, we have to look elsewhere. Build some more reservoirs in the places which experience regular shortages, invest in desalination, research other methods of cleaning dirty waste to make it fit for use. Alongside this replace the old Victorian pipes which many places still depend upon and which leak like sieves. Reduce fat cat bonuses for the top bosses in these companies until they are more efficient and employ more workers using more sustainable materials to future proof the service. I know there is a cost to all this, but I think if we could see some tangible proof of improvement we wouldn't mind paying. And it's not rocket science!

In the meantime, we all ought to curb our excessive usage. Shower instead of bath, only use the dishwasher when it's full, only wash clothes when they are actually dirty and not just because you have worn them for five minutes. I never forget having an argument with an old work colleague who recycled everything religiously and insisted on getting it squeaky clean beforehand - she used the world's most precious resource (yes, water) to wash her tin cans in the dishwasher just so she could put them in the recycling and not in the bin, and the irony was lost on her!

I will not be growing any crops this year as we are not allowed to use the hosepipe and I can't be fagged to carry the watering can up and down the garden about twenty times an evening when I get in from work. Life is simply too short, and it's not as though growing your own saves you money, it's damned expensive.

And I may well be complaining to Southern Water that instead of stopping me watering my plants, maybe they should stop people filling swimming pools and ponds. And get on with updating their service - it's about time!

To tan or not to tan?

Very soon, I am going away for a week to warmer climes (hopefully). It will be before the real tourist season and before the real warm weather starts, but hopefully it will still be warmer than here (actually last year it wasn't - we froze in the spring rain in Crete at about 12 degrees and it was 26 degrees in the UK).


After an English winter deprived of sun (whetever they say at the Meteorological Office, I haven't noticed it being much warmer than usual) I look incredibly white and pasty. So I am considering whether to get a spray tan so that at least if I strip off on a sunbed, they don't think some new variety of great white whale has been beached.


I had a spray tan last year and it was rather good. Quite subtle, but giving that nice sunkissed look you get after a few days in the Mediterranean. But things are a bit tight this year, and twenty five quid on that is twenty five quid I can't spend on cocktails or meals out. So it's a tough call.


At least spray tans are better for you than sunbeds. My youngest daughter uses a sunbed occasionally and no matter how many times I nag her about the dangers she won't stop. It's made even worse by the fact that naturally, she has lots of moles on her skin which apparently makes you more vulnerable. But now she's got her job back, perhaps she will get sprayed again as she will have some money, and stop using the beds. Let's hope.


An alternative is of course to 'do it yourself', and some of the brands on the market at the moment are very good. I did try DIY tanning last year and had OK results, although I don't think I exfoliated enough and after a while the dry skin on my shin flaked off leaving me with a snakeskin type effect - very interesting! It's also quite difficult to do your own fake tan on your back and I ended up twisting and turning like Houdini trying to get 100% coverage, and failing.  But you live and learn, and I won't make the same mistakes again, and I will use more moisturiser.


Definitely, I look healthier with a tan and my ever blonder hair also looks more attractive with a tanned face. It's better to pay a little more and get a brand which turns you a nice golden colour and not orange, and if you are naturally pale like me not to try and go too dark, which makes you look like a refugee from the Black and White Minstrels (now that's showing my age!).


So I shall have to fork out for a decent brand in a week or so's time to apply it every few days and let the colour slowly build up. By the time I get on that plane I will look lovely and healthy and regardless of whether the weather is rubbish or not, at least I will look like I have been in the sun. And I won't match the Easyjet corporate colours either!


Can't wait - roll on holidays, here I come!

Facebook - the ups and downs!

For the first time the other day, I 'unfriended' someone on Facebook. I am under no illusions that people may have unfriended me on occasion, and as I haven't noticed then I probably don't care and to be frank it's their loss, but it's not something I would choose to do lightly.


The reason I unfriended this person was because of their increasing use of really foul language in their postings (if they are reading this, I will probably get a nasty message back!). Not just an acerbic tone or outrageous view on the world, but because they were becoming heavily littered with anger, frequent uses of the 'F' word and other quite unpleasant words or phrases, and the final straw was the use of the most offensive word of all, the 'C' word used in a posting about someone else the other day.


I'm not a prude and never have been. We all, me included, use blasphemy occasionally in our postings when we feel strongly and the intermittent 'bloody' or something similar doesn't offend me. Nor do outrageous or strong views; after all that's one of the purposes of this blog - to put my views out there and get a reaction - but using really strong language on a frequent basis on a public network just to be clever, because you lack the imagination to write something more eloquent or just because you can, I do find offensive. I have been known to walk out of movies where there is too much bad language when I feel that it has been put in just to shock and adds nothing, because I really do dislike it. And after a while, it loses it's impact and just becomes something rather pathetic.


So its fine to express yourself forcefully, but take care how you do it. And also beware that what is in writing is usable as a case for libel.


The other downside of Facebook is, of course, that everyone knows your business, and you can't write about anything on it which everyone who is your 'Friend' doesn't already know about. Someone I know was caught out the other week when mentioning a party to which I hadn't been invited. I wouldn't really have expected to be, I don't really mind and I pulled their leg about it gently, but that might not have been the case and I could well have been very upset. I think I am made of tougher stuff and have had far worse knock backs in my life, but you get the picture.


So social networking sites have their downsides, and it is important to be aware of them. I will continue using them, and if you don't like what I say I will understand perfectly if you unfriend me, but things like Facebook and MySpace and Twitter will all work much better if we have consideration for others and think carefully about what we write, using the media appropriately. Not everyone will have enough judgement, but let's keep hoping.


Who said the modern Mary Whitehouse? Now there's a thought!

There's nothing on the telly!

The last two blogs I have written have been about TV programmes and I have sung their praises. But I have to say, they are in the minority. As Terry Wogan used to say on his radio show, "There's nothing on the telly". And by and large he was right.

Mostly, it is unadulterated rubbish. Improbable soaps where no one is ever happy and every misery known to man happens within the space of one year, badly acted American imports or endless repeats of classic comedies. Satellite telly is no better; more comedy repeats, inadequate American crime shows which have probably bombed on one yankie cable channel or another, out of date documentaries  and obscure minority sports which only a handful of anoraks watch.

We spend our time recording the very few shows we enjoy or think might be worth a go and then watching them on our few precious nights in. Which means if we aren't in the mood for an Italian moody detective and that's all that is on the Sky box, we have to resort to a DVD. We've watched most of them several times and they have lost their novelty somewhat, so in the end we turn the telly off and listen to music.  I really am coming round to the view - well not really but almost - that we could do without a TV and just listen to the radio, catching up with the few things we want via i-player on the computer. Strictly speaking we'd have to have a TV licence still, but who'd know? Well, I suppose all you lot reading this would now, but no one that really mattered in that respect.

However that's not going to happen - we still have teenagers who thrive on a diet of crap American drama and soaps, or take a voyeuristic thrill from cheap documentaries such as Police, Camera, Action! I have a small granddaughter that thinks Dora the Explorer is the best thing since sliced bread and worships at the shrine of Peppa Pig. Being able to fill the time occasionally with C Beebies or Nikolodeon can be a lifeline.

Quality dramas are few and far between. And I don't know why, because there is no shortage of classic material out there to draw on and surely it cannot be more expensive than importing stuff from abroad. Quality drama is usually where the beeb triumphs with only a few exceptions, Downton Abbey being one. Stephen Fry can be as sniffy as he likes about Downton, I think its brilliant and frankly I'd have loved to live the life of an aristo with servants and ball gowns.

I am just whiling the time away watching the Hairy Bikers Bake-athon, would you believe, because there is nothing else to watch and I wanted some background TV while I was writing this. But it's awful, and those grating Geordie accents are really getting up my nose. Excuse me, must get up and change the channel....

Alcatraz

Yesterday I blogged about an Italian art house series on BBC4. Today, it is about something altogether more gritty - the wonderful series 'Alcatraz' being shown on Watch (Sky channel 109) starring Sam Neill.

There have only been two episodes so far with eleven more to go. The premise that is that when Alcatraz closed in 1963, the inmates were not transferred eleswhere as we were all led to believe but mysteriously disappeared into thin air with 45 of their guards. Now, in 2012 almost 50 years later, they are reappearing one by one all over America looking exactly like they did when they disappeared; not aged or changed in any way. Naturally, being bad lads, they are getting back together to cause mayhem and Sam Neill plus one maverick young female San Francisco detective are all that stands between us and them.

This series is very promising - well acted, cinematically well shot, an original storyline (although something of a cross between the X Files and Life on Mars) and a highly charged slow burn to a dramatic climax. And, of course, it has Sam Neill in it who is one of those actors with latent sex appeal and compelling eyes.

There is something about Alcatraz which always catches the imagination. I cannot comprehend the pain of being incarcerated at all, let alone on an island where you can see civilization getting along without you perfectly well instead of being insulated from it. You may have deserved your incarceration, but being so poignantly reminded of it on a daily basis would surely make it infinitely worse.

It is the same with all island fortresses. Near where we have our apartment in Crete is the island of Spinalonga. For many years this was used by the Greeks as an isolation area for those unfortunates that contracted leprosy. It was only decommissioned as such in the late 1950s when a cure for the disease was found. Lepers lived there in a fully functioning community apart from one thing - they had all been forced to go there and were never allowed to leave. They could see the Cretan 'mainland' little more than one kilometre away across the Mediterranean; their children, if born healthy as many lepers' children were, were taken away from them and housed in the Cretan village they looked at every day. In summer it is hot as hell on Spinalonga, and they had nowhere to go to escape the heat. It must have been appalling. 

I hope that Alcatraz doesn't disappoint in its later episodes after such a promising start. It's unusual to find really quality drama on the trashy Sky channels  and this would almost be a first (Game of Thrones on Sky 1 a little while back was also good). Why not give it a go - you might be pleasantly surprised.

Inspector Montalbano

Last night I sat down to watch the second episode of something we recorded on the Sky box a while ago. It's an unusual choice, a detective programme in Italian with English subtitles. Yes, Inspector Montalbano.

Now I have never really been into European art house movies and watching something with subtitles really means that you have to pay attention. But this programme, shown on BBC4, has had such good reviews that I felt I ought to give it a try. And it has much to commend it, reasonably original plotlines, stunning Sicilian scenery, bad language, lots of dead bodies and gore and, being Italian, plenty of sex!

The star player, Salvo Montalbano himself, is the usual tortured top copper with a past, plenty of neuroses and an eccentric approach. He has an incompetent assistant and glamourous lady friend.  So all the ingredients are there.

I am thoroughly enjoying it, and I can see why it has had such excellent reviews across much of the press. I was tempted to watch it because as a Valentine's gift from The Hubby I was given a book by a new author about a similar Italian detective, but in the books he lives and works in Venice. The style was easy, the plot choc-a-bloc with bodies and the solution solvable. I loved it.

I find it very difficult to branch out of the few things which I know I am going to be entertained by and which I will enjoy. So often literary adaptations disappoint and many of the great crime writers have never been televised, or not much. I can't remember whether I have ever seen a PD James or Ruth Rendell story on the telly (outside of Wexford tales), and it is a constant source of amazement that Lee Child's great creation, the maverick Jack Reacher, has not been either televised or had a movie adaptation made.  Agatha Christie of course, is wall to wall and much of it marvellous, but somewhat dated and not really very gutsy.

I'd like to have a pop at writing a crime novel. I have no shortage of ideas, so perhaps I ought to give it a go and publish it as an e-book. I saw the other day that a woman who wrote a romantic chic-lit book has become the first female self e-published millionnaire, and has now as a result been offered a multi million pound deal by one of the big publishing houses who originally turned her down saying there was no market for that sort of book any more. I suspect the sum involved was so huge she has accepted, but wouldn't it be satisfying to tell the bastards where to go?

However that'll have to be after finishing the two panto scripts I have on the go, finishing the politically incorrect book of common sense advice which, as a self help book, has been half finished for over a year, and continuing with this blog. There isn't enough time in the day!

When I do eventually e-publish something, I will let you know and you can all help me to my first million by buying a copy and acting as my first literary critics. Perhaps that's how I'll get rich and get out of local government! We'll see! Tell you what - if I do, I bet lots more people will want to be my friends!

What a bunch of crooks!

I had a row with the gas board yesterday. Mainly because they are greedy, money grabbing, profiteering, obfuscating, unfriendly bunch of gits who deserve every ounce of their poor reputation.

I have paid my gas bill by direct debit for several years. I also used to work for a bank and spent a considerable amount of my time handling customers’ direct debits and standing orders, so I am very familiar with the banking Direct Debit Code of Practice. And every year, just after the winter when the heating has been on and we have used more than the usual amount of gas, they try it on and hike up the direct debit by an extortionate amount.

I only found this out because I submitted my own meter reading and then a couple of days later went onto the web to look at my latest bill. When I printed it off, on the back was a small paragraph with a pronouncement that as from my next instalment, my payment would be going up from £50 a month to £77. That is an eye watering 64.9% increase, which is frankly taking the piss.

There was no customer service offered at all. No e-mail saying “Mrs White, you owe us this much, would you like to pay us and leave your direct debit alone?”, or something similar. Just a peremptory paragraph on the back of a bill which I might not have seen until I had started forking out the new amount, gone overdrawn and in a panic investigated why I was £27 worse off this month! They have done the bare minimum that legislation dictates, and nothing more. And there was no transparency whatsoever, nothing on the bill to say which tariff I was paying and whether it was the best one they could offer me or anything.

It is only lack of time which stops me scanning the web and using price comparison web sites to regularly change suppliers and get the best possible deal. I know that large savings can be had if you are prepared to invest a little time and effort in doing this, as with everything else such as insurance and travel costs, but at the moment life is too short. So I will have to put up with the gas board for now and just accept that each year I will have to have the same argument with them. And each year I will get more and more bad tempered until in a fit of pique, I will leave them for a year until I can come back and probably negotiate something considerably cheaper than I have at the moment.

Eventually I paid them the outstanding amount on a credit card, negotiated a revised direct debit increase to £58 and swapped my supply onto a different tariff which is 4% cheaper (whoopee!) but only because I threatened to take the account off direct debit and change suppliers. I shouldn’t have to do that, it’s appalling that organisations like British Gas treat loyal customers in that way when they are making such huge profits and could afford to invest a little more in customer care. Of course I know it’s not the fault of the drone I harangued on the phone, but he had an obnoxious manner as well, righteous little sod.

I better not meet him in the street, or his bosses!

Domestic violence can never be justified

Dennis Waterman has recently stirred up a hornets' nest by talking about the domestic abuse that he inflicted on his then wife in the 90's, Rula Lenska. Neatly shifting the blame he has said that "It is easy for a woman to make a man hit her".

Now let's be clear about something here. Using physical violence towards another human being either in anger or simply to subdue and by so doing causing injury is simply not acceptable in any way, shape, form or circumstance.

And now I am going to contradict myself, showing what a minefield this is and how personal values can be very different. I am not a pacifist, and would support wars  if the motivation was right and the benefits were in line with my personal beliefs. I do not support war which seeks to impose our beliefs on others, but I would support one which sought to protect us from imposition by others. I do not support violence to impose a set of circumstances on others, but I would support using force to protect me and mine from such imposition by others. So you see it is a fine line between what we feel we can accept and live with, and what we can't.

I did smack my children when they were younger to impose discipline, and it doesn't seem to have done them any harm. Never hard and never to cause injury, but enough to be a clear negative consequence for bad behaviour. They don't seem emotionally scarred or physically harmed and they appreciate how important good behaviour is in all different circumstances. My oldest daughter is imposing similar strict discipline on my granddaughter, and rightly so.

But Dennis has stepped over a line with his comments, which imply that men cannot help themselves when they resort to physical violence because women are too strident or difficult. Men using their physical size and strength to subdue women who are usually much weaker can never be justified and should never be glamourised. Nor should men be allowed to totally abdicate their responsibility for their actions which, when revealed, should be vilified by everyone, as indeed Dennis's comments have been.

Not everyone is reasonable of course, and many will not listen to verbal persuasion. Still not an excuse to lash out. And those that act violently towards others with no provocation at all deserve every punishment they get.

I have been fortunate in my life never to have experienced domestic violence or street violence. I have never been mugged, assaulted, hit or abused.  I hope that I'm not tempting fate! I  am lucky - the statistics for domestic violence are horrendous and many, many women suffer it. It is no respecter of class, wealth or status. It is abhorrent, and should be treated as such.

Dennis should be ashamed.

She's gone!

Yesterday, I lost someone very precious to me. I'm not talking about a child, partner or in the usual sense family member, but my beloved older cat, Phantom.

She was only just 14, and had been in excellent health to all outward appearances until Saturday morning, when she started being unpleasantly sick. She did that three times and then was very listless all day, which I put down to eating something she shouldn't have in the garden. All day Sunday she was missing, which was unusual, eventually shipping up at about 7.30pm clearly very unwell and with her back legs collapsing underneath her. We took her to the emergency vet (cost - don't ask, but needless to say substantial enough to go on plastic!) who diagnosed neurological damage and recommended taking her to the usual vet in the morning for tests, and in the meantime gave her something to stop the sickness and make her feel better. Monday morning she was listless, not eating or drinking or performing bodily functions, couldn't stand properly and was trembling. The vet diagnosed brain damage due to toxins in the blood, or more likely a brain tumour which in cats is untreatable. We took the decision to put her to sleep.

I have now cried buckets over this little furry creature. She had been with me through all sorts of life changes - divorce, two weddings, three house moves, bereavements and more. She gave unconditional love and had the most endearing habits. I loved her to bits, and I am devastated that she is gone.

But it was the right thing. She was a very sick animal, what she had wrong with her probably couldn't be cured and her quality of life, if we had chosen to prolong it, would have been very poor. What made Phantom be Phantom was gone. So she died in peace and in dignity. The worst moment was leaving her in the vet's consulting room purring on the table, and seeing her look so trustingly at this kind man who was holding a syringe full of lethal injection. That was when I lost it.

It's very odd, isn't it, that we can exercise discretionary euthanasia on our animals with proper professional guidance but we cannot extend the same dignity to human beings. We have to suffer throughout the most appalling illnesses with no prospect of choosing when to end our lives if they become unbearable for whatever reason. The law in that respect is very much an ass, and needs to be changed.

Poor Phantom, 14 isn't really that old for a cat although I am told it is average. For quite some time I will see things or think of things which remind me of her and feel the tears start to well up. They may be furry with four legs, but our pets are part of our family and an integral part of who we are. They have their own little personalities and ways and we love them.

 I will miss her very much.

Rehearsals start soon!

In a couple of months time, I will be poncing around on the Barn Theatre stage dressed in a floaty fairy costume as Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.

This is a part which I have wanted to play for a long time and I was delighted when I got it. As The Hubby said, there aren’t many times he sees me dance round the kitchen after  getting news about casting in a play, but this was one of them. And it was even better to get a part for which there was a lot of quality competition, and there was for this one.

Apart from majoring on pantomime villainesses, I’ve done well in the last few years playing ambitious parts which I wanted – last year it was Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde’s wonderful “The Importance of Being Earnest”, which I got the chance to do about ten years before I thought I was old enough (we are all influenced by the Edith Evans interpretation – which personally I think is rubbish - although of course Lady Bracknell is the mother of Gwendolyn who we know from the script is in her early twenties, so Lady B could be anything from early forties upwards), and the year before played Muriel Wicksteed in Alan Bennett’s “Habeas Corpus”, taking my clothes off on stage (yes, again!). Several years ago I played Miss Hannigan in “Annie” (the only time I have ever cried when a show ended because I loved it so much) and I have also played Ruth in the Broadway version of “Pirates of Penzance”.  So I’ve done OK.

Midsummer Night’s Dream is the very first play I ever did at the Barn Theatre when I was 17, and in which I met my first husband (so it has a lot to answer for!). I played one of the lovers, Helena. That was a very traditional production and I hope that this time the female fairies will be a little more surreal and more mischievous, and not quite so prim and proper. Titania is obviously quite a girl and that should be reflected in the performance; she is disobeying her husband, sticking up for her own property rights and holding wild all night parties with her girlfriends. She has, as that old fashioned and much mocked phrase puts it, quite a bit of spunk!

I am going to start trying to learn the lines soon. Shakespeare is relatively easy to learn in some places because it rhymes, which helps you, but the phraseology is so different to that we use nowadays that it takes quite a bit of time to familiarise yourself with it, and to get it right is so important to the overall piece. I won’t go into the first rehearsal with lines learned, but I ought to be very familiar with them.

I think it’s great that the drama group has started doing Shakespeare again after several years shying away from it, and for the future I have asked to direct a shortened version of ‘Macbeth’, which is a wonderful play of human deceit, greed and manipulation. My only regret is that I won’t be able to play Lady Macbeth, another of those parts I have a great ambition to do. I just know I will want to get up there and do it myself, but there are plenty of good female performers out there capable of it, so I will just have to restrain myself.

But that’s for the future and for now I am, for a change, playing a good fairy instead of a bad one. It will be nice to be pretty and blonde for a change instead of dressed in black velvet with black hair and a scowl. Can’t wait!

Mothers' Day!

Mothers' Day!

Depending upon your point of view, either a great celebration and an opportunity for children to show their appreciation of what their mother does for them 365 days of every year, or a commercially driven, opportunistic waste of money.

Flowers triple in price, chocolates are pushed at you from every store and supermarket and unsuitable and probably disgusting smelling toiletries are disguised in nauseating packaging marketed as "Just what Mum needs".

I think it's all bunkum, and I refuse to allow my own children to spend their money on something which is so transparently commercial and unnecessary. If they insist, a small bunch of flowers is all I will accept and then we all make time to sit down and eat together. I would much rather have consideration and thought throughout the year instead of spending the family's money on things which I don't need and will probably never use or eat.

This probably stems, of course, from my rubbish relationship with my own mother. We were never close - I was much closer to my Dad - and that distance grew as I got older and made my way through life in a way of which she never approved. We approached life totally differently, and had completely different interests. When I split up with my first husband, she couldn't cope with it or understand at all, and didn't make the effort to try. She never rang me for 18 months, not once, to find out how I was or how I was coping. When I saw her during that period to pick up children or whatever, she barely spoke to me. And I think it was that above all else which rang the death knell for our relationship and for which I never forgave her, even to this day several years after her death.

So I have a slightly jaundiced view of motherhood and what I have outlined above is something that I have vowed I will never repeat with my own daughters. They know that I will always tell them what I think and I will not always approve of what they do, but I will always be there for them. In all their difficulties over the past few years, I hope I have demonstrated that. But I still don't want them to waste their time and money on some stupid American celebration of motherhood which is as insincere and hollow as Simon Cowell!

We will see each other today and have a nice dinner (cooked, I think, by The Hubby for a change [he is very capable, just usually makes out he isn't]) but that's all it will be. I will make sure my grand-daughter has a card to give her mum and maybe a small bunch of flowers, but that's all. And we will enjoy it just as much as if we'd made a big thing of it or bought a massive bouquet or expensive box of Thorntons which no one would eat because they are on a diet.

It's a shame that not everyone thinks in this way - we'd all save a lot of cash and form much more lasting relationships with our family if we treated them with kindness and consideration the whole year instead of focusing it all on one day. But I appreciate I can't change the world, and so I will just deal with it in my own way and do what I want to do quietly, with no fuss and without imposing my approach on others. Hopefully they will appreciate that, and do the same.

Head pain! Urgh!

The Hubby has been suffering badly with his teeth over the last few days. He has had chronic tooth ache in a tooth which had a root canal filling about 18 months ago. He went to the emergency dentist who told him that he had an infection and possibly a bit of the nerve was still there. The treatment 18 months ago cost about £300, so it's a bit bloody rich that he might now have to have more work done because the first lot wasn't properly completed.

I hate the dentist and I haven't been for quite some time. Even more, I hate the hygienist who pokes and prods, gives you a lecture then charges you a fortune for the privilege.

Any sort of pain in your head is awful, whether it be migraine, sinus pain or toothache. A few years ago I had to have a tooth taken out and the pain was excruciating. I have also suffered from blocked sinuses (quite regularly) before I had my rhinoplasty and spent days lying on a sofa trying not to move my head which felt like it had daggers driving into it. I am totally sympathetic to anyone suffering from any of these things which can incapacitate you for days.

So far, The Hubby is three days into a course of Amoxicillin and is getting through the paracetamol and ibuprofen like it is going out of fashion. But it does all seem to be calming down, and hopefully they will do the trick (Yesterday I thought he was going to expire as he looked so ill and was counting the minutes until the next dose!).

Inevitably, he will have to go back to the dentist and there will be more cost. It is ironic that he goes religiously for his check ups, sees the hygienist, flosses and uses a state of the art electric toothbrush and has had all this trouble whereas I never go to the dentist or the hygienist, don't floss and use an old fashioned manual toothbrush and my teeth seem to be fine (fingers crossed).

It's good job I'm OK and don't get anything serious (tempting fate writing that!). I can't take penicillin in any form, can't take erythramycin and medics always have to get their book out and scratch their heads when I need antibiotics. 

It would be good to get through 2012 without any more serious health issues. My knees are not right yet, nor is my back and I can see myself having back surgery within the next year, so I don't want anything else.

Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Things to do before you die

I recently read an article about the top five regrets people have when they die. My first thought was what a negative way to look at things. I'd much rather have a list of things I want to do before I die, and then be able to look back in a positive way about how many I have done.

Last year, I realised one ambition which was to have a flying lesson and fly a plane. It was wonderful and if I could afford it, I'd do it again. Below, not in any particular order of priority, is my list of top 'To Do's' in life which I want to accomplish before I die, and if I can do just some of them I will be pleased. Good luck permitting I will live to a ripe old age when I shall take great pleasure in embarrassing my children, and so have plenty of time to do all of this. If I get some dreadful illness in my fifties or sixties, i shall feel very cheated.

1. Go to India and travel round (four star luxury, of course)
2. Go back to Egypt and visit Abu Simbel
3. Go to New Zealand
4. Go to Canada and see Grizzly Bears in the wild
5. Gamble some money away in Las Vegas
6. Live in Crete
7. Drive a very fast car round a racing track
8. Stock car racing
9. Get my pilot's licence and have my own plane (can't afford that, but its got to be on the list)
10. Appear in a movie
11. Meet Elton John (cheesy, but I'd like to)
12. Meet Sir David Attenborough
13. Have a best selling book of some sort
14. Tell quite a large number of people who shall be nameless to f**k off!
15. Spend all my money (already making progress on this one). Life is for living, not saving!

I wonder how many I'll accomplish?

Electronic jingles and beeps drive me mad

I am fast growing to hate electronic jingles, and in particular the Nokia telephone tune.

About a month ago we all had our desktop phones at work replaced with little mobile Nokias. They work fine, but their little “dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah, dah-dah-dah-dah, dah” tune is really starting to get up my nose. There are 120 of us in my office, it’s a big open plan space, and almost every single person has the standard jingle on their phone.

There was a MORI survey a few weeks ago of 10,000 people, which is a massive survey group, asking them which electronic jingles they recognised and could name the company. Unsurprisingly, Nokia and MacDonalds came in the top three. I can’t remember what the other one was, but I’m sure it was something equally inane.

When asked as part of the same survey which advertising jingles people could remember and which they could identify the product or service for, the most recognisable were those irritating ones for insurance companies or money web sites such as moneysupermarket.com and confused.com. Top two in the irritating league of images were the fat moustachioed ‘Go Compare’ opera singer and the nausea inducing Meerkats of comparethemarket.com.

I cannot count the number of times I have sat in a train listening to someone’s annoying overspill sound from their headphones and in the end resorting to listening to my own music to block it out, despite wanting to sit there in peace and quiet.

The world is full of noise, and it's getting worse. The number of places that you can go to get a restful or peaceful time, or simply to sit without being disturbed by electronic noise is getting less and less. I once had to sit on a plane next to a child who had an electronic game with them to keep them amused – not unreasonable in itself – but one which kept giving off electronic beeps and an annoying jingly tune when the kid managed to catch a ball or something from the pixies or whatever imaginary creature was featured in the game being played. It drove me nuts; I put up with it for about half an hour and then asked the parent if they could switch the sound off. All I got was abuse, and so I moved seats – luckily the flight was not full.

I hate unnecessary noise. There is nothing better than a peaceful garden with just birdsong and the sound of a gentle breeze in the trees, or an empty beach with only the lapping of waves on the shore. I dislike background noise in bars and restaurants; that isn’t why I have gone there – I have gone to enjoy a drink and conversation with friends, not inane musack. Slot machines constantly pinging away are guaranteed to get me out of a pub in record time and I find it very difficult to hear with lots of loud music or chatter in the background, so now don't bother to go to parties. I'm not anti-social, I just don't see the point if you can't talk to people properly. 

I am on the verge of becoming a hermit simply to get away from the noise. And it distresses me that teenagers seem unable to function without it. They are constantly plugged into their i-pods or phones with bass throbbing out of the headphones at what must be ridiculous volumes doing their hearing no good at all.

I am perfectly happy at home on my own with no telly, radio or music on and just a good book and purring cat for company. The opportunity is getting rarer and rarer, but I won’t give up. I will continue to seek out the times and places where it is quiet and restful. And if I can’t find them, I will jump off a cliff rather than go mad with all the electronic beeps and tunes we are subjected to. They will soon drive me insane!

Cycle helmets - to wear or not to wear?

There is a big debate raging in the local London press at the moment about the wisdom of wearing cycle helmets (for push bikes, mind, not motor bikes) and whether it should be made compulsory.

This has been triggered by yet another accident between a cyclist and an HGV, in which naturally the cyclist came off worst.

Opinion seems to be split between the do-gooder brigade, who would like to see the wearing of a certain standard of helmet be compulsory even when cycling through the parks or in your own garden, and the to-hell-with-it brigade who think no one should wear them at all and if you do you are a namby-pamby. At least, those are the people that seem to be writing in to the press. The reality of course has to be rather different and somewhere in the middle ground.

There is no question that in certain circumstances, wearing a helmet can probably save lives. If you regularly use busy roads full of fast moving traffic it makes sense to protect yourself and there will always be some drivers who do not look carefully enough or who think they have enough time to take the risk and can beat the cyclist to the junction. And there will always be some cyclists who think they are fast enough to beat the car/lorry and are immune from danger and so take unacceptable levels of risk with their own safety. I see it time and again, working in central London, and often the vehicle is not at fault, but the cyclist is. In the vast majority of those circumstances, wearing a helmet wouldn't have saved them - they weren't that sort of accident. 

But forcing us to do something where there is no conclusive proof of the outcome (which there isn't - some of the countries where there are the highest incidences of cyclist deaths are those which have compulsory helmets, such as Australia, and some of the safest are those where it isn't compulsory but there are equally as many if not more accidents) is moving another step towards a nanny state we can do without. Much better to make sure that all the facts unadulterated by bias and political slant are put before people and allow them to make up their own mind.

We all have different tolerances of risk and we should be allowed to exercise them. Forcing this on cyclists would be to take away a significant element of personal choice and probably enjoyment; I remember cycling when I was a child (albeit many years ago in a less busy time and environment) and one of the things I really enjoyed was cycling fast with the wind blowing through my hair and the sense of freedom it gave me. Wearing a helmet wouldn't have done that.

I do get a little tired of the state telling me how to live every aspect of my life  and whilst this wouldn't affect me because I don't ride a bike any more (can you imagine it?!) it is another example of interference where it isn't needed. What ever happened to assuming personal responsibility? Bring it back!

The joys of the handbag!

What is it with us women and our handbags?

I like handbags. Not as much as I like shoes, but I still like them quite a lot. I have several in different shapes, sizes and colours for different purposes. When I last bought myself a pair of expensive shoes (Jimmy Choo), the assistant offered me the matching bag (“real cobra skin, madam)” at the snip of £1,000. I was sorely tempted, but sadly that year lots of the annual bonus was going on a new double glazed door and so I couldn’t afford it.

Even more amazing is what we carry around in them. I see girls on the train struggling with what look like enormous haversacks full to the brim with items they consider to be daily essentials and which they cannot get through a day without. What on earth is it? Makeup, purse, phone, keys and diary I can understand and maybe a book to read on the journey, but what on earth is the rest? Honestly, they are like small suitcases!

I have a reasonable sized bag in black leather I use for daily purposes such as going to work. It holds my purse, my train ticket and work security pass, an extensive set of keys which any self respecting jailer would be proud of, my phone (a Blackberry, so not tiny), my diary, my i-pod (I am old fashioned and prefer my electronic gadgets to be single purpose; that way I know how each one works and I don’t need a degree in computer science to make a phone call) a packet of tissues (Olbas Oil impregnated as I get blocked sinuses), a pen, a packet of Cherry Drops (love ‘em), some Polos, a comb, Anadin, Tampax and a spare pair of knickers!

I was doing quite well until that last item, wasn’t I? But I think it’s pretty sensible; after all you never know when you might need them. And I have discovered that I am not alone, lots of women have a spare pair of panties about their person just in case. So far, I have never needed them, but that doesn’t mean I won’t do so in the future. So they are staying in my bag!

I don’t know how men manage without a handbag. Yes, they go about festooned with pockets, but it’s not quite the same. Full pockets spoil your appearance and damage the fabric of your clothes. Things fall out of them and there is too much choice about where to put things so you end up patting pockets like someone with St Vitus’ Dance just to find your money for sweets. I have bought The Hubby a very smart leather and canvas man-bag which he uses regularly when we go away, but which he seems somewhat shy about using in the UK. I therefore bought him something which looks like a camera bag but which is actually another man-bag which he will deign to use sometimes, and has had to admit that for carrying his keys, phone, work phone, wallet, security pass and sweets it is invaluable.

I think you can never have enough bags, and when shops such as Primark and New Look sell cheap items which nevertheless look good at affordable prices why not have them? I have been caught out once or twice when switching between bags and leaving something behind in the old one, but not often. We don’t get that many treats in life, so why not indulge in this little harmless one sometimes? It’s a lot cheaper than indulging in Jimmy Choo!

A day out

The Hubby and I took a day off on Friday, we booked a cheap hotel on a last minute deal for Friday night and had a couple of days out.

We did this because life has been too busy and we have seen virtually nothing of each other since January. Between work, kids, trying to support my mother-in-law who is still in her first year on her own after 53 years of marriage and keeping on top of the house and chores we have been like the proverbial ships in the night.

We didn't go anywhere terribly glamorous or exciting but just became tourists in our local area. We went to Canterbury on Friday and looked round the town and the cathedral, stayed in a little hotel about three miles from Canterbury on Friday night and then on Saturday went to Dover and looked round the castle (run by English Heritage) and the White Cliffs experience (National Trust). The weather was decent, and we had a thoroughly nice time.

The hotel was a steal; £45 discounted down from £80. I booked it through http://www.laterooms.com,/ a double room with breakfast included and in fact we got allocated a family room which was all they had left, so we rattled round in acres of space. Breakfast was nice, well cooked and lots of fruit, yoghurts etc, and we used the restaurant for dinner on Friday night. That was excellent - nice amount of choice, beautifully presented, very tasty and all served in an ancient inn with oak beams and an inglenook fire. Try it - The Evenhill in Littlebourne. It looks nothing from the outside, but that just shows that appearances can be deceptive.

We feel rested and rejuvenated, although I think we both know that will dissipate within 24 hours of returning to work. But it'll keep us going until we go away in April. We'll need to think about doing something similar in the summer.

We do try to use our National Trust cards throughout the year and have the occasional afternoon at Knole Park or Chartwell. But it's not the same as taking a couple of days and an evening. We're not members of English Heritage because there's not a lot around here and we don't think we'd get our money's worth, but we will in the future when we can perhaps afford to take more weekends out and stay away a little more. Dover Castle was incredible - well preserved and presented, informative and historically evocative - as was Battle Abbey when we went last year.

Roll on retirement!

I don't have time to go to work!

I don’t have time to go to work. Regardless of whether I enjoy it when I get there (and usually I don’t), I simply don’t have time.

There is always too much to do and not enough time to do it in. I am not arrogant enough to assume I am the only one in this position, but it does seem to be a permanent state for me.

We have a 1950s house which constantly needs minor maintenance done to it for which we cannot afford to pay and so have to do it ourselves. We have a large garden which grows like Topsy with several mature trees and plants – lovely to look at but time consuming to look after. Between us we have five children between 17 and 24 who all still need help, guidance and advice on various issues – don’t listen to anyone that tells you parenting stops at 18 because they have clearly never had children of their own. We are both trying to eat healthily and exercise more, both of which take time and effort. On top of that I am trying to have a life by doing what I love – amdram – and helping run the Society, and The Hubby is trying to keep in touch with his friends from various past lives and socialise too. It’s all too much! We can end up not seeing each other from Sunday night through to Friday, and that’s not good.

In this past week I have only had one evening commitment but that’s unusual. Often I am out two or three nights and we have things planned at the weekend too. The other day I sat down with the diary and tried to find a date to see a very good friend just for a glass of wine and a natter and we had to go for something at the end of April. It’s madness!

Much of this is, of course, self inflicted. I don’t have to do shows, nor do I have to sit on the Society’s committee. We could move to a nice little two bedroom flat with no garden (the cats would hate it!), built recently, and in one stroke get rid of all the home upkeep chores.  We could tell our kids to get on with it and learn the hard way like we did!

But we won’t do any of these things. When work is so demanding and as unsatisfying as it is for both of us now, you have to have something that keeps you going and for us it’s our relationship and the things we have and like to do. So what we have to do is find a way of managing it and keeping it all in proportion.

That is not as easy to do as it is to say. Sadly, work does have to come first – it pays the bills for two houses and provides just about enough to fund a reasonable lifestyle (although that is getting tougher). If one of us were made redundant, we’d have to rethink but for now we have decided to struggle through with a plan which has light at the end of the tunnel in terms of finances and time. We reckon in five years time, we will be in a much better place – five years!

We have taken a day off this week, and in the not too distant future we have a week away which can’t come quickly enough. Until then we’ll struggle along trying to fit it all in, and when we get there we’ll wonder where the time has gone. No change there, then!

Funny little habits

Can’t we be fussy about small things?

The other day, I blogged about making my boss a cup of tea and how pernickety he was about how it should be brewed. But all the time we see people around us doing things in a very particular way which would never occur to me, simply because they prefer it that was.

Another example is that I drink a lot of squash during the day and not too much tea and coffee (bad for you!). Contrary to popular rumour, I am not addicted to tea and biscuits but I do enjoy them at the weekend because I don’t really indulge in the week – so now you know! My favoured fruit squash is good old fashioned Robinsons Orange Squash, the full fat one and none of this reduced sugar rubbish which simply doesn’t taste the same.

But go anywhere else, and do you know how hard it is to find someone that has a bottle of this in their cupboard? Summer fruits, barley flavoured, Morrison’s own cheap brands yes, but Robinsons – rarer than hen’s teeth. I will settle for Ribena if available, but not that nasty summer fruit stuff which tastes nothing like summer fruit and more like fruit pastilles.

But that’s just me being fussy. I fully appreciate that these nice people like the things they have in their cupboard – why else would you buy them? – and are offering them to me out of the goodness of their hearts. I do feel somewhat churlish and ungrateful when they offer them up with a big smile and I decline and say “Actually, I think I’ll just have water thanks”. Quite often, they look devastated.

You see the same behaviour patterns reflected all over the place – at work, on the trains and buses, in our hobby groups and in our friendship groups. I suppose that diversity of behaviour and the willingness to express preference is what sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom, who by and large within species tend to conform. When did you ever see a big cat decline a hunk of dead cow and say “actually, I prefer lamb”. Yes, I know cats can’t talk but you get the point.

Alongside this preference and occasionally when taken to extremes rigidity comes adaptability, and of course if Robinsons suddenly went out of business then I would have to drink Tesco’s own brand or whatever and get used to it. And I would; I’d moan about it for a while but I’d eventually forget what Robinson’s tasted like and get on with it. That has to be one of the reasons human beings have been great survivors; their ability to adapt.

Small children establish these patterns when toddlers, preferring to get dressed in particular ways, have their food cut up in a certain way before they will eat it, and wanting to sit in a particular chair for instance. It’s fine to indulge these preferences up to a point, but also equally important to teach them to accept things in lots of different ways to make sure that they can fit in as adults and thrive.

Maybe all I had as a child was Robinsons? Will have to see if I can find out!

Health insurance - wouldn't be without it!

One of the perks I have had at work up until now is private health insurance. When I first started working there, it was non contributory (ie free), you just had to sign up. For the past year, we have had to pay but at a much reduced rate compared to anything we would be able to get elsewhere. Now, they have written to all scheme members saying that the scheme is no longer financially viable due to a small number of members and high volume of claims, so they are stopping it on 31^st March.

As you can imagine if you are a regular reader of this blog and you know about my problems with my back and my knees, I was devastated. I have had several thousand pounds worth of medical consultancy and treatment paid for by this scheme (in fact I am probably one of the main reasons they are cancelling it) and all done much more locally and more quickly than if I had to rely in the National Health Service. Don’t get me wrong, the NHS is brilliant if you are seriously ill or in an emergency, but getting treatment for non chronic conditions means that you can die waiting.

Life is too short and too busy not to have this cover, so now we are investigating alternatives. The Hubby has a BUPA scheme through his work so he is asking whether they will accept me with my previous medical history (I can hear them laughing from here) as they have a ‘medical history disregard’ clause available. I am also investigating whether Aviva, who provided the work based scheme, will continue to take me and getting some independent quotes as well.

It is becoming very apparent that we have had a very good deal for the past few years. Some companies won’t touch me because a) I have come from another provider and b) I have had recent treatment for pre-existing conditions. Those that will are considerably more expensive, more than double in some cases.

Hard up as I am, I am going to have to find this money. Having had so much treatment and not being sure that it has done the final job it is meant to, I simply cannot risk being without cover for the next year or two until I know whether things have settled down and I am fit and healthy again. So the belt will have to be tightened even further, and what we save, pitifully small as it already is, will have to be reduced.

I have final appointments with all my consultants before the end of March, and whereas I was considering not going if things felt OK I will now go along anyway (just to make the bastards pay) and make sure I fully understand what happens next if things don’t work out and I need more treatment. Then at least I can go into any new scheme with a fair idea of what to plan for.

I can do without this hassle, but it is a necessary evil and I need to get it sorted by the end of March, so it won’t last for long. Then at least I can have the security of knowing  whatever I need can be provided, and I have a fighting chance of reaching 2013 without anything outstanding.

Why do people interfere?

Why do people interfere in things which are none of their business? And why, when they do so, do they not establish the facts before butting in?

I am dealing with a particularly difficult issue at work at the moment with a member of staff and a lot of work has gone on behind the scenes to get to a position where we now both feel comfortable and have a solution we can live with even if we don’t really like it. Someone else has now taken it upon themselves, based upon gossip, rumour and half truths, to butt in and question what is going on and to be frank, it is really p*****g me off! And I have to deal with such people courteously and politely because I have to live and work with them in the future, whereas what I’d really like to do is tell them to go away and never come back (in a caring way, obviously).

It is always a mistake, of course, to get embroiled in a detailed ping pong of e-mails about anything, let alone anything sensitive. I am now going to have to spend precious time and effort, which would be better spent on other things, dealing with this subsidiary issue and settling it down so that I can simply get on with my day job.

I don’t know how people have time to stick their noses into things which are no concern of theirs. Do they think they are being supportive? Do they think they are helping? Do they have a personal agenda to pursue? I don’t know, and I don’t really care. All I do know is it’s a bloody nuisance and just makes things more difficult.

Personally, I don’t have time. I have a busy job, a busy home life and a complicated family with whom I have to deal because I’m stuck with them, a hobby which I choose to do but which takes up a considerable amount of my leisure time, and ambitions which I wish to chase for the future (believe it or not, I don’t want to be a local government officer for the rest of my life). I just don’t have time to involve myself in other people’s problems. For good friends I would of course give a shoulder to cry on or an ear to listen, but as for active involvement – no way unless it’s a matter of life and death and certainly not for a work colleague.

Things would be a lot simpler if we all minded our own business. There used to be an old nursery rhyme about it, and for the moment the exact words are eluding me, but its implication was that if you stick your nose into things that concern you don’t expect anything good to come of it. How true- and how I wish more people would take note of it.

So today, I am off to a meeting during time I don’t have to spare, with someone I should not have to be dealing with, on an issue which is nothing to do with them to try and calm things down so that we can all get some work done. It’s such a waste of time and my life! I don’t want to do it, and I will no doubt be grumpy throughout which will give them something else to complain about. So I must make an effort and smile, and act as though their piddling concerns are the most important thing in my life right now.

Hey ho, here we go! Wish me luck!!

Very tired!

I feel exhausted. I am definitely getting old.

We had a busy time last weekend doing chores on Saturday, then preparing for a social event in the evening, attending and helping clear up, then on Sunday completing the tiling for the bathroom floor in the pouring rain (the tile cutter had to go outside because of the mess and all the water it chucks out when it is operating).  

My back and knees are protesting at having spent all day Sunday getting up and down onto a hard floor and carrying stuff up and down the stairs, and I am not sleeping well due my age and, I regret to say, my hormones.

All this is making me very tired during the day and meaning I am not really focused on my work and not getting through it at the rate I need to if I am to meet my deadlines. And what’s worse is that I am now so tired I don’t care.

I used to think the getting old and tired thing was a myth and it was how you felt in your head that mattered. If you felt young and lively, then you could keep going physically so long as you were in a reasonable condition of fitness. Possibly that is the problem, in that I have been a couch potato for so long now and over indulged in things I know aren’t good for me and it’s a long road back.

I also have to say that work is a nightmare. Not necessarily the people (although they have their moments and life would be a lot easier if I didn’t have any staff with their personal baggage) but the pressure now to do the same or more with less resource. Many people would say that I am lucky to still be in a job and maybe they’re right, but at times it doesn’t seem worth it.

God knows how our generation and those yet to come are going to cope with working until their late sixties or longer, if we are tired of it all in our early fifties. Surely it can’t be right to put a 68 or 69 year old in front of a class of unruly and rowdy teenagers or entrust them with the medical care of someone in a life threatening condition? I know that not all old people lose their marbles and many of them are perfectly capable of doing complex work even into their seventies and eighties, but physical robustness and memory isn’t the same at 68 as it was at 48, and that is impossible to deny. Even with someone fit, healthy and active, things do slow down and deteriorate to a degree.

I can’t help feeling that we will all be working much later and as a consequence having much shorter retirements not just because we are older but because we will all be more worn out with the extra years of work. Our children’s generation will be even harder hit, since at least some of us have protected benefits and have had a few years of decent pay to put something by. They will be so poor with the cost of everything and continuing economic decline they will be even worse off.

It is 2.30pm, and I feel like going home and lying down with my moggies for a good two hour sleep. I know this feeling will pass, and in an hour or so I will feel better, but just at the moment that seems a wonderful idea. They don’t have a sleeping room at the Town Hall – perhaps I’ll suggest it. I bet there would be a queue!

An update on the fitness regime.

Once again, I thought I’d give you an update on the fitness regime.

Sadly, over the last fortnight, not all has gone to plan and my exercise regime has suffered somewhat from busyness and can’t-be-botheredness.

We have had a fairly social fortnight, so there has been lots of nice food in the house and lots of sinful stuff.  Cakes, puddings, far too much carbohydrate and far too much wine. Although I haven’t put any of the weight I lost back on, in the past fortnight I haven’t lost any more. Which is disappointing.

I haven’t been back to the gym or used my Zumba dance thing on the Wii either.  The gym I do have a semi excuse for, in that I’m skint and also each night I have had a commitment to do something which needed me to be at home. But I don’t really have any excuse for not doing the Zumba beyond knowing that I couldn’t be arsed! Those of you that know me will be aware that exercise has never been something which has stimulated me, and I have failed to get motivated and excited in what has been a very busy period to even find half an hour to do it. My bad!

This week I don’t really have an excuse. I have a commitment tonight, but after that the week is blank in the diary. Yes, there are the usual household chores to do and we still have the bathroom floor to finish off completely, but I don’t actually have any commitments with other people. And The Hubby is out a lot for work in the evenings this week (or at least that’s what he tells me he’s doing) so I have one or two completely free evenings. I have been paid again (amazingly the Royal Borough keeps shelling out for my services) and am not yet totally skint, so I suppose the gym is beckoning. It will be difficult to put it off any longer.

I am still aiming for supermodel status by the summer, but it might have to be a curvy Sophie Dahl style supermodel instead of a skinny Kate Moss style one. Nothing wrong with that, is there? My trouble is that all my weight sits on my belly (nothing else is fat – much – I still have a nice pert bum and shapely legs and from the back I have achieved my ambition already) and if I don’t lose it and tone up a bit soon there is a danger people will give me their seat on the tube because they think I’m six months gone! I also have a horrendous double chin which is purely weight related and which looks appalling on photos.

My initial target is to lose enough to look good when I play Titania in mid May, since the stage lighting is harsh, drapey fairy costumes reveal every lump and bump and the camera is very unforgiving. Then I have about a month to slim down further for my hols.

I will do it, I will, and I will go to the gym this week. I’ll let you know how I get on again in a week or two’s time!

The colours of spring!

The Daffodils are out today and their cheerful yellow colour really makes you feel better. Yellow is, of course, the colour of spring and so many of the early plants and flowers seem to have yellow as their dominant tone – crocus, daffs, forsythia, gorse – all early flowering and all yellow. And it's no coincidence that the sun - that great giver of life on earth -  is yellow!

Colour plays a very important part in our lives and moods and it must be dreadful not to be able to see it. Not to be able to appreciate the glorious dark red of a long stemmed rose, the frothy pink or white of the cherry trees in full bloom, the startling blue of a kingfisher or the bright green of a well watered garden lawn (not that we will be doing any lawn watering this summer if the water companies have anything to do with it – drought indeed!) removes one of the great joys of life and some of the beautiful world we live in. Many people say they could not live without the seasons we get in the UK, because they love the variety of appearance in the natural landscape and the changes in the weather. They feel that wall to wall sunshine must be boring, and whilst I don’t agree with that, I can see what they mean.

Working in the city seems very drab compared to living in the country, because all you see is tones of grey. Yes, there are street trees and parks and Holland Park in spring and summer is gorgeous, but you have to seek them out and there is not a lot of colour in the general city landscape. Living out in the sticks (and even though it is probably the outer reaches of suburbia, I do class where I live as the sticks) colour is on your doorstep all the time. I can look out of my bedroom window and see green trees, fields, blossom, pretty blue tits and robins and colourful crops. I don’t have to go out and look for it, it’s just there.

There are people that make a living out of telling you what colours to use in your house. These ‘colour consultants’ have made a fortune out of telling you the bleedin’ obvious; they will tell you that in your house, colours to lift your mood are bright and spring like or maybe redolent of the Mediterranean, whilst colours to create a serious atmosphere are more sombre and usually darker, colours to stimulate are bright and fierce, colours to calm you are muted and pastel. There’s probably a qualification in colour analysis that you can do from some psycho babble university somewhere I should probably enrol for in preparation for the inevitable redundancy in a few years time, and then I could go out and sell my ‘expertise’ to the vulnerable and gullible.

Colour consultants who tell you how to dress are possibly more useful, in that they have to assess individual skin tones and hair colours and make recommendations accordingly. About nine months ago I went blonde; I have two or three items of clothing which looked great with my burnished chestnut hair but now make me look like I died several weeks ago. One of them, which I am particularly fond of, is an acid yellow shirt which I loved to wear in summer with jeans and which will now, if I stick with the blonde, have to be consigned to dusters. And I think I will stick with the blonde, since it has been universally complimented and I have been treated in a noticeably nicer way by every single man I meet. Yes girls, they do treat blondes differently! Again, in physical appearance, colour is important (and no, that’s not a racist comment, just a statement of fact).

For now, I am going to enjoy the bright colours of spring because they make me feel happier and I know that summer is on its way.  I will enjoy the burnished copper and gold of autumn even though I dislike being cold and wet, and much as I hate it I must admit that the sparking white snow and frost of winter is beautiful to look at.

And I must go shopping to get some summer clothes more suited to my new hair colour. Any excuse!