Newscloud of sorts

Big Fish Rugby Tour in Swansea . Fabulous rugby-playing by our Under 11 boys . Much bad sportsmanship displayed by winning team’s coaches by-way-of entering two teams separately and doing some dubious jiggery-pokery with said teams . Me-laddie getting pushed about by huge brute of a boy of the ginger-haired variety . Me trying in vain to mask my blatant glee when me-laddie got his revenge on aforementioned huge ginger brute by making an enormously heroic tackle on him thus sending him flying into touch and me-laddie going on to score a magnificent try .  Magnificent try disallowed by dodgy and quite clearly biased ref . Gorgeous weather . Lot’s of freckles .  Too much beer . Too much food . Too little time . Late nights/early mornings . Back to work . Off work again! . Lot’s of pain and soreness, mostly caused by a confused immune system that wouldn’t know a healthy joint (that does not need it’s owners immune system to kick in and randomly attack it and all its brother and sister joints thankyouverymuch) from a real live streptococcal throat infection (that actually does require some attention by said immune system . . . and promptly if you pleaseandthankyouverymuch) . sigh .  Much outpouring of misery and feeling sorry-for-oneself . Back to work . double sigh . Much team conflict . sigh, wail, gnash teeth . Lot’s of regret for having returned to work instead of prolonging sickness leave by exploiting existing condition .

Thank the gods of mercy for weekends.

Weekend!

Have I really been away for that long?  What happened to February?  And March!  March downright sneaked right by me without so much as a wave or a by-your-leave.  Well technically March hasn’t gone yet but it’s almost the end of another month.  Time really does fly.

Well anyway . . . how are you?  T’as been a while.

And, making every effort to avoid the doomsday talk, it’s been quite a weekend folks.

We had that lunar perigee and would you know it, it even came with a full moon – and a clear night!  Who the heck planned that?  Not me that’s for sure.  In all honesty, although it was all very pretty and enchanting, I didn’t notice old Mr. Moon looking any closer than he does any other night but then, as  my wise son told me, if we looked at the moon sans perigee and compared it to the perigee (a kind of ‘before and after’ picture) then I’m sure we’d see a difference.

Moving on -

Drum roll if you please . . . England went and won the Six Nations which of course is just as it should be.  And then – even bigger drum roll ( and hey, let’s add huge trumpet fanfare . . . . . . . . . . . me laddie scored the winning try at Sunday’s game in the local rugby tournament.  He also came off the pitch sporting a lovely swollen and bruised cheekbone but, being the roughy-toughy, steely-eyed boy that he is, my concerns were abruptly (not to mention disgustedly) rejected.  [Note to self: must stop calling him me laddie, especially in front of his rugby buddies].

Then we spent some time cabbaging on the sofa with the TV on, mostly Tracy Beaker (yes, you heard! Well he’s a big softie at home).  Tracy Beaker is a childrens TV show based on Jaqueline Wilson’s series of books all about a childrens care home.  Well after watching a couple of back-to-back episodes me laddie (sorry, old habits and all that) now thinks I should put him into care because apparently kids in care have much more fun that he does.  Well that may be so if all care workers were like the ones in Tracy Beaker, and it has to be said, the ones in Tracy Beaker are pretty cool and fantastic, but they are actors – with written lines and stage props and stuff.  And the sad reality is (and to our  great shame my friends) that we are failing our children in care.

And on that note, before I pour out a torrential rant, it’s ta ra for now.  My comeback has gone back and there’s no telling when it will come back again so in the meantime I’ll leave you with this timely little video by the very lovely  . . . .

Mandela’s Rainbow Nation

What with me being a the mother of a ten-year old rugby superstar, an avid movie fan with a healthy female appreciation for Matt Damon and an armchair anti-apartheid campaigner,  you’d think, in terms of me, that a movie about Nelson Mandela and the South African rugby team with Matt Damon playing the hunky team captain would be the perfect combination for our traditional Friday pizza and dvd night.  You’d think wouldn’t you.

Well you’d be right.

Ah!  You thought I was going to say you’d be wrong dincha!

Invictus is a poem written by William Ernest Henley and it means unconquered.  It’s also a film directed by the brilliant Clint Eastwood and its based on the true events of the 1995 rugby world cup final that Nelson Mandela used in an genuine effort to unify black and white South Africans.

The film is historically accurate as far as I can tell and I loved it . . . LOVED IT.  Morgan Freeman plays Mandela quite brilliantly and Matt Damon is just gorgeous.  The only criticism I would have is that I had to really concentrate on the South African accent, often having to rewind in order to keep up, much to the annoyance of my boys.  But it’s not really a criticism because I think it was deliberately done to avoid losing any authenticity, much to the beauty of the film.  Clint Eastwood has this special way of keeping a big epic story unobtrusive, unpretentious and unfrilly but this only adds to the final feelings of being entirely uplifted and inspired.  He did it in the superb Gran Torina too.

The rugby scenes in the film were superb to watch and it’s worth mentioning from a female perspective that those rugby players were rather yummy when they were scrummaging and flying into each other, but lordy!  The aggression.  How it made me shudder and half-wish that me laddie had chosen football to be mad about.

The issues got us talking and as always when Nelson Mandela is mentioned in our house, my frustratingly stubborn husband, who loves to play the oh-so-tiresome devil’s advocate (he calls it critical thinking.  I call it being bloody awkward) started making the predictable sniggery comments . . . not everyone sees him as a hero and the even less imaginative freedom fighter or terrorist.  Well blah, blah.

You know me folks, I always bite and the predictable heated discussion ensued.   I won’t divulge the details sufficeth to say that although there were no flying objects,  one or two heavy doors and the slamming thereof were involved, muchly on account of my weak inability to not be wound up by said spouse and his own spooky ability to make me throw the hissiest of tantrums that my kids would admire and envy.

Anyhoo, back to Mandela.  I can speak about him here without fear of having to throw heavy objects at sarky husbands.  Mandela dreamed of a rainbow nation and although there is still much to be done to heal and unify the nation, because of Mandela, there are no longer any  “whites only” signs, black people can apply for jobs that were only available to whites under the evil apartheid system and blacks and whites can socialise in public without fear of punishment.

Sadly, racial tensions are still alive in South Africa but no-one can knock Nelson Mandela for what he did for the country and the progress he has made so far.  As far as I’m concerned, he is up there with the best of our true world heroes and I truly hope that the country never stops striving for that Rainbow Nation that it so dearly needs and deserves.

And stuff the football, it’s great that rugby has at last been given some publicity by the movie industry.

Mandela is said to have memorised the poem Invictus during his imprisonment. You can read it here but here’s a verse taken from it:

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul

Happy 101 Sweet Friends – a meme moment

The delightfully gruff PaddyK has tagged me and right proper chuffed is how I’m feeling about it.  I mean Paddy is one of my very top favourite writers and his dry wit and pragmatic wisdom has me laughing out loud and spluttering into my coffee many-a-time.  So to be tagged by such a force can only be interpreted as a compliment and I thank the good and lovely man for that.  My only problem is that I have to tag ten blogging friends too but I don’t actually have ten friends who blog regularly so five will have to do.

What you do:  List 10 things that make your day and then give this award to ten (five) bloggers.  So here goes:

Ten things that make my day (or made my day once):

1. Hearing an old favourite song played on the radio when I’m alone in the car and it’s played early on enough in my journey so that I get to hear it in its entirety before I get to where I’m going and I don’t have to sit in my car pretending to chat on the phone or look for something till it finishes.

2.  An act of kindness.  As touchy-feely as it sounds, I mean it.  For me it’s the little things in life that uplift, inspire and quite simply make the world seem better.

3.  Hearing me laddie play a piece of guitar music perfectly after weeks of struggling with it.

4.  Watching me laddie score a try at rugby.  His position is hooker and he’s great at that but he rarely scores a try so when he does, my mad  inner-madwoman is usually released and I can be seen jumping,  yelling and whooping on the sidelines like a, erm, mad madwoman.

5.   Morning cup of coffee brought to me while I snooze in bed.  I get this treatment every Saturday and it’s often the best part of my day.  Usually goes pear-shaped from then on due to boring stuff such as laundry, cleaning, mopping, shopping and squabbling kids then picks up again in the evening, which brings me nicely to my number 6.

6.  A glass of white wine, a bowl of green olives and my feet up while hubby cooks dinner.  Another regular Saturday treat.

7.  Seeing three deer jump out of the woods and run across our path right in front of us.  This happened last weekend when we were hiking on Great Gable in the Lake District.  It was one of those heart-stopping moments and it definitely made my day.

8.  My middle daughter getting in from school and telling me all about her day – word for word.  Never a dull moment for this girlie.  Her life is full of sunshine because that’s just the way she is and I love listening to her.  Sometimes I’m busy and I only half listen but that’s my loss.

9.  Coming home from work to a clean and tidy house.  This is a rarity.  Every now and then one of my girls has a rare attack of domesticity and gets stuck into the dishes and the dirt.  Only the women will understand just how wonderful it feels to come back to a tidy home.

10.  Getting a Green MP in Westminster at long last.

There you go.  And the five friends that I am tagging are my other favourite bloggers.  Feel free not to take part:

The romantic Mysoul whose makes me think and writes beautiful poetry and prose.  Her blog is a haven.

The wise and witty Zhisou who is very clever with words.  He makes everything simple.

The lovely Helen who has a warm compassion for humanity.  She’s also a published poet.

The sweet and loyal Jose who has encouraged and supported my blog since I began writing here.

The unassuming and tolerant JimJay from The Daily (Maybe) whose blog has been a great source for Green party information and interesting links.  As a dedicated Green party member I suspect he will be too busy to take part in this.  Fair enough.

Snow stops play

This morning’s rugby match in Southport that my son was due to play in has been called off due to adverse weather conditions detrimentally affecting the pitch and I find myself (gasp) with some time on my hands.  Four lovely hours of free time that were set aside to take us to the game are now available to spend on whatever I feel like.

I suppose I could/should iron the uniforms ready for school and work tomorrow but that’s boring and it can wait.

Or I could/should vacuum all the popcorn that is scattered around the lounge after last night’s competition to see who could catch the most popcorn in their mouth.  That’s equally boring and can wait too.  There’s no rush.  It’ll still be there later.  Literally.

I could even take my son out for a walk in the snow seeing as he will now miss his Sunday morning activity and will no doubt idle away his unexpected free time doing stuff like interacting with his XBox while listening to the new CD that he bought from Manchester HMV yesterday.  He found a new buddy recently and he informs me that this new buddy has a poster on his bedroom wall of rapper Eminem so of course my easily-influenced son decided that he was a fan too despite the fact that he’s never actually heard any of his music.  Eminem is an odd choice because  me laddie loves rock – electric guitar, drum-bashing, noisy rock music by the talented likes of Hendrix, Clapton, Guns N’ Roses, The Killers.  My boy has even been heard around our house playing the Blues on his guitar.  So I tried to tell him that Marshall Mathers/ Slim Shady or whoever the heck he is probably wouldn’t be his kind of thing and I’ll be honest, I had another agenda of a censorial nature.  I’m not sure just how suitable Eminem’s lyrics are for a ten-year old but he insisted that he was a fan and always has been so we bought the only Eminem album that we could find that didn’t have a parental advisory warning on it and a walk in the snow probably wont happen, not this side of midday at least.

My daughter had some birthday money that she desperately needed to get rid of so we spent the day in Manchester.  Selfridges was our first call and while my daughter and her friend looked around Miss Selfridge on the top floor, me and my utterly dismayed son had a wander around the women’s section.  I was just looking.  Not buying.  I was morbidly fascinated by the designer clothes so I decided to have some fun.  I put on an air of wealth and began browsing through Victoria Beckam’s line.  The assistant was hovering so I refrained from laughing out loud at the £1850 price tag on a little black dress that I could have made myself for forty quid.  I showed my stunned son and whispered to him that the shallow suckers who pay these prices are paying for a name.  I think the Matalan label in our clothes and my sons unruly hair began to make the assistant suspicious that we weren’t genuine customers because she hovered closer so we moved on to another designer.  To our delighted shock we  saw a scarf made by the recently departed Alexander McQueen priced at £195.  A scarf folks.  A  silk chiffon scarf with a skull print design.  It was all a bit of fun and distracted my boy from the boredom for a while.

Anyway, Top Shop was in danger of being the main beneficiary of my daughters birthday money.  Of course this went against my grain because Top Shop is not exactly the most ethical of corporations but as any parent of a fourteen-year-old girl will know, Top Shop is the ultimate heaven for this age group so with gritted teeth, I spent many frustrating hours wandering the floors of Top Shop with an excited girl and an excrutiatingly bored boy whose highlight of the day, indeed the only good thing about the day for him, was having lunch at the Hard Rock Café.  To my relief, my daughter only bought two items from Top Shop, I like to think perhaps due to having been guilt-tripped before-hand by yours truly.

Back to my spare time, I could/should clean the kitchen after last nights lovely meal made by lovely husband who came home from Thanet Offshore Windfarm for the singular, just-for-the-hell-of-it occasion of cooking me a meal after my busy day in Manchester.  Cleaning the kitchen, the most boring of all but I guess it can’t wait because last night’s lemon cream sauce will start to smell and the pans will be a nightmare to scrub.  I knew I’d regret not doing it last night.  Too much vino is to blame.

ttfn then I suppose.  Sigh.

This and that . . .

Lordy me!  Where’s this year gone folks?  Is it really December already? I’ve missed so much.  I’ve tried to keep up-to-date with the news, politics etc. as much as my mind, body and spirit would allow but most things have passed me by and I’ve remained blissfully ignorant of all things politico-worldly.  I can’t even find enough emotional will to rant about COP15.  I’m just not optimistic about it and that’s in spite of all the now-or-never declarations that are being cried out.  In terms of a global consensus being reached, last chance saloon and other such metaphors are pretty accurate but still, can’t see it happening folks.  Despondent?  Probably.  And even if agreements are reached, I can’t help thinking it’s too little, too late.  I should take heed of Ben Harper‘s words . . .

What good is a man
Who won’t take a stand
What good is a cynic
With no better plan

And those climategate emails depressed me.  A lot.  But not as much as the reaction from the septic sceptics.  The hoax of the century!  Denialists accusing anti-denialists of being in denial about a conspiracy!  Makes my head hurt.  For gods sake, it’s NOT a huge conspiracy.  Get a grip.  I’d love it if climate change wasn’t happening.  I’d love to be able to indulge, guilt-free, in all the carbon-emitting activities that make our lives easier without agonising over the consequences.  But regardless of the number of people who have already become victims of climate change, the denialists will continue to deny climate change until they’re directly affected by it.

In any case, the green movement in my view is not just about carbon footprints. . . or climate change.  I mean let’s face it.  With or without anthropogenic climate change, no-one can deny that we’re trashing the Earth and there can be little doubt that our lifestyles are both destructive and unsustainable.  Top and bottom is, we know full well, our Western lifestyles and consumerist demands are negatively impacting on other people, other species and the world around us on a daily basis and it’ll all come crumbling down around us.  Sounds preachy I know but am I wrong?

And now for a more lighthearted opinions.

Books: Some more books have made their way onto my ‘still to read’ bookshelf – God’s Elephants and The Plague Dogs.  A coincidence that both book titles have the name of an animal in them, but needless to say they are about elephants and dogs respectively and I’m eager to get stuck in.  I recently read Helen‘s poetry book entitled Better with Friends but it deserves a review on it’s own so that’s my next job.  Also received a mag-book called Green Living Guide on the promise that I would post a review on my blog.  And needless to say, that’s still awaiting my attention too.  I’m pretty rubbish really, all things considered.

Movies: Being a huge movie fan, I’ve seen a couple of great films this Autumn – Up and Nativity! I loved Up.  It’s probably the first time I’ve cried at the beginning of a film rather than at the end.  I loved Nativity even more.  Those kids steal the show. They really do.  And they don’t make you want to throw up the way child actors often do.  They inspire you and they make you laugh.  Utterly adorable.

Music: Well after several years of  mindless X Factors, throwaway pop songs and rampant auto-tune, I was beginning to lament the passing of exciting and innovative music then I watched the very super wonderful Later with Jools Holland and I can now confirm that I love, LOVE  The Big Pink.  No sniggering now folks.  Show me the law that puts an age limit on fan eligibility.  Sure, I probably am too old to be into this kind of music but ask me if I care.  You’ll be saying I’m too old to be a groupie next.  Sigh.  Well, their music has a definite eighties indie feel to it and what with me being an eighties gal, I guess we can put it down in part to nostalgia.  The music is very arty and a bit trance-like.  Or perhaps that should be trippy.  Well some of their videos look like they’ve been helped along by Mister E or some similar banned substance.  Not that I’m criticising the artwork. No.  I’m broad-minded me.  And anyway, there’s nothing unusual about musicians being inspired to produce brilliant work while stoned out of their faces on the current drug of the day.

Anyhoo,  edging closer (slightly!) to my own era, I’ve got Wonderful Land on my iPod and it has to be one of my all-time favourite songs, ever. Mike Oldfield’s version, not The Shadows.  This song lifts my heart and fills my whole body with love.  Cringe all you like.  I mean it.  My son likes it too and is determined to learn it on the fantastic electric guitar that he got for his birthday.  And he’s doing very well indeed.  I’m fair impressed so I am.

So anyway.  That, my dearies, is pretty much that.

Ta ra for now.

Late!

I have no sense of routine and because of this, my life is often chaotic.  My house is rarely tidy, my laundry is usually piled up to heaven, my kids eat too many rushed and unwholesome meals, socks and rugby kits are always missing, ballet shoes are never where they were left and I find myself on the last minute whatever I’m doing and wherever I’m going.  No exaggeration. I am always late and although I despise myself for it, I never learn from it.

My workday mornings are manic.  I rush around at the last minute cleaning shoes, looking for lost Geography homework, counting out the dinner money, signing homework diaries and rushing out of the door while shoving slices of toast into my kids mouths. And when we do try to sit down and eat breakfast together, my kids usually find something to squabble about so any chance of a civil and harmonious meal is minimal to say the least.

I sit in my car in traffic queues, cursing the traffic lights and growling at all the other drivers who exist simply to make my life harder. When I finally reach my first destination, I throw myself out of the car in a mad panic. Then I drag the kids out, rushing and stressing at the poor things while they rub their eyes, tuck their shirts in and wonder what happened between sleeping blissfully in their cosy beds to being pushed into school by their manic mother.

I reach the car park at work and I curse the barrier because it is delaying me even more and the temptation to crash it is high.  Then I prowl around the car park hunting for a space but being late means the spaces are all taken.  I usually end up throwing my poor, abused car into any desperate little space thus contravening the fascist car parking rules and often resulting in returning to a ticket slapped on my windscreen.  Anyway, after illegally abandoning said car, I have to then sprint to the hospital building where I work which is deliberately built a million miles away from the car park and I am usually sweating like a pig and look like a wild woman of Borneo when I arrive at the long since deserted staff room.

It’s not just the mornings that fail me.  Even a simple trip to the cinema is spoilt by my tardy habit because we invariably miss the beginning of the movie and find ourselves scrambling in the dark, trying to turn invisible as we squeeze between the seats, disrupting the viewers who’ve arrived in plenty of time and are sitting comfortably, eating their popcorn and tutting and sighing at the inevitable late arrivals who spoil it for the organised ones.

Well I have come to the conclusion that this chaotic way of life is unsustainable and will one day come crashing down on me.

So I have a plan folks.  A Monthly Planner plan actually.  Every aspect of my life is going to be put onto a monthly planner.  I am going to create a menu planner, a budget planner, a homework planner, a housework/laundry/shopping planner, even an activity planner.

You name it, I will monthly plan it.

So I need to get going because I’m late getting started.  Sigh.

It’s MY iPod!

I suppose, what with me being  a serious blogger and all, I should mention something about last weeks budget but in all honesty, I just can’t get worked up about it.  I’m in such relaxed mood that even the really serious issues such as oink-flu and the Susan Boyle phenomenon are failing to reach my mellowed mind.  T’as been another busy weekend of rugby (the last one – season has finished) and I’ve took the day off and so far I’ve been spending my time putting new tracks onto my iPod.

My son has been tampering you see, with my iPod.  He’s been adding lots of tracks to my iPod.  He is currently big into The Killers, Guns N’ Roses and Jimi Hendrix.  And ever since he learned how to use my iPod and has sussed how to sign into my iTunes account, he has been logging on, blissfully oblivious of any wrongdoing, and buying music with my money.  And so now, my iPod is full of music by the aforementioned rock bands and all my music has gone!

I think The Killers are great so they get to stay.  And I have a healthy level of respect for Hendrix and I guess GnR’s to a lesser degree, but I can only tolerate their sounds for so long before my head begins to feel like it’s been taken over by a bunch of . . . erm, noisy rock bands.

So, after an hour of hard labour, my iPod is now inhabited by my music choices and the next time me laddie switches on my iPod, he will find it filled with an eclectic music mix which includes the likes of . . . ooh I think I’ll do a list – with track titles and everything. It could be one of those meme things – An On My iPod meme.  That should be fun.  Better than writing about boring budgets and credit crunches and stuff.

So, here it is . . .

Blondie: Denis – happy times.

Talking Heads: Burning Down the House – fuuunkay.

The Velvet Underground: What Goes On – truly, truly great!  Play it loud and kick back.

The Killers: All These Things That I’ve Done – me and me laddie love doing the pogo to this one.

The Decemberists: Sons and Daughters – I really, really want to see this band live.

Thelma Houston: Don’t Leave Me This Way – you should see me freak out to this one.  My kids stare at me like I’m bonkers.

Donna Summer: I Feel Love – another one to freak out to.  And I do!

Eels: Trouble with Dreams – like it. I Like Birds - like it a lot. Novocaine for the Soul – love it.

Placebo: Pure Morning – an older one but I still love it.

The Rolling Stones – Sympathy for the Devil – Superb.

Wham:  Wham Rap – I know!!! I’m cringing too.  It’s the only Wham song I’ve ever liked and let me tell you, I don’t just like it – I love it!  Unashamedly. Well come on guys, with poetic lyrics like this who wouldn’t appreciate the genius?  Happy Days!

Madonna: Ray of Light – the only Madonna song I’ve ever liked and let me tell you . . . [see above].

Cat Stevens: several tracks, all wonderful.

REM: several tracks – arguably one of the best bands in the world.

Bob Marley: Mr Brown – so good there are no words.

The Be Good Tanya’s: Human Thing – mellow.  House of the Rising Sun – excellent unique version.  The Littlest Birds – just lovely.

Bad Company: Feel Like Makin’ Love – and it really does. Sexy, sexy voice.

Actually, this is turning into a chore.  I think I’ll round it up with a quick list of the rest.

James, Elbow, Dead Can Dance, Nouvelle Vague, Blink 182, AFI, Enya, Deacon Blue and many, many, many.

Well, although I’d much rather chill and listen to the music, I suppose we should get back to the Budget (sigh) because after all, I am a serious blogger with an activist agenda, even if it only involves sitting on my arse and typing for most of the time.

Are people still talking about the budget?  Probably not.  It’s old news now but in my usual after-the-party style, there are a couple of comments I will get down.

From a green perspective, I can only echo what the Green party has said about lots of missed opportunities.  What with unemployment being a key issue, you just have to wonder about all the potential Green apprenticeships and consequent jobs that could have been created.  The Green party (and little me!!) has been arguing for years that the British workforce lacks the skills needed to meet the demands of evolving technologies so that emissions targets can be met and jobs can be created – lots of jobs.  So why this is being bypassed by Brownie and his Darling is beyond me.

Then there was the dirty mention of clean coal investments.  Some Mop going by the name of Ed Miliband, who originally opposed Kingsnorth from being built, wants to fire up several new coal stations but insists that they will have to be fitted with carbon capture and storage technology. Alistair Darling Mop is supporting this by funding new, coal-related carbon capture schemes.  Well what people might not realise is that CCS is not yet a fully tested technology and is nowhere near developed to safe and reliable standards, so clean coal is not yet achievable and is certainly not the quick and magical fix that they are implying.  So basically, the go ahead has been given for a new generation of coal power with no guarantees that the technology will be available to clean it up.  I’m not against the research into CCS but I don’t like the idea of restarting coal power on the wild assumption that CCS will work or will even be ready before much damage is done.  For those wondering, we don’t have the time to sit and wait and we really should be thinking twice about allowing the government to remain dependent on fossil fuels and pursue these distractive policies at the expense of energy efficiency and renewables progress.

It just occurred to me – there is a connection between the budget and music.  Gordon Brown apparently quoted Shakespeare in defense of his budget  . .  and one of Shakespeare’s characters said . .  if music be the food of love, play on.  Well I see the connection.  You’re just not tuned in.

Ta ta folks.

Oh and by the way . . .

I will write those other posts that I wanted to write before I was so rudely interrupted by the gossip-machine that mixed up my priorities but I am off away on me laddies rugby tour this weekend so Attenborough and his population problem will have to wait, as will that list of dreadfulsome nuclear power reactors and the . . . what was the other thing?  I forgot already.

Ho hum, it will return.  As will I – next Monday so until then, merriest wishes for a fun-filled weekend of mirth and mischief.

What’s on and what’s not

This place is fast becoming a weekend blog and things aren’t likely to change in the foreseeable. What with working full-time, having cross country university tours to attend, rugby tournaments to tour (he’s playing full contact now you know and I did get my own way on the padded shirt thing) and dancing queens to taxi around for rehearsals and shows, it leaves me with very little mid-week blogging time. Even the weekends are a rush because it’s the only time I get to catch up with the mundanities of life such as shopping and housework. And I can totally write-off a day of rest! Not a chance.

That said, we are off to Centreparcs on the 17th for a week of outdoor and indoor activities, fun and games. Yay! We’re also planning to kick back and relax and maybe get ourselves a sauna and a massage or two. Me laddie wants to do some abseiling and canoeing and Middlie has roped me into some horse riding which I’m not muchly pleased about. I love horses but I’ve never sat on one in my life, unless you can count the donkey rides on Blackpool beach that used to scare me to death, mainly on account of me once getting my leg stuck between the donkey I was riding and its not-so-friendly colleague, a competitive donkey with a mean streak that went by the name of Mean Streak and took it upon his donkey self to win the race by pushing me and my lovely humble little ass into the cold, grey sea. Scared me to bloody death it did.

Anyway, I will try to keep up on a regular basis because the blog world is a fickle place and unattended blogs soon get pushed off the radar. It’s probably already too late but I’ll carry on because regardless of visitors (or lack thereof), when I get the chance to rant, I do so enjoy it.

Have a great weekend folks.

Of Dancing, Rugby and Travel Tales

My belly-dance teacher has come back from her travels and predictably, she’s returned with itchy feet. Her adventures in the East have unsettled her so much that she has put her house on the market and is packing up and going off again. For good. Or at least indefinitely.

We spent a wonderful evening together this week drinking vino and catching up. Her travel tales had me spellbound. She let me take home part 1 of her travel diaries and I have to say, it reads like a Bridget Jones travelogue, only without the fluff. They had some hair-raising experiences and some very sticky moments. I lost count of the number of times I had to pick my jaw off the floor. Well, a Rough Guide can only guide a traveller so much and then I guess it’s up to the traveller to balance cautiousness with the need for adventure and excitement. But how they got through some of their *scrapes* is beyond me. I can only think that the gods were in a benevolent mood because the chances of them getting out of some of their pickles unharmed were pretty slim. They had a close call which involved some jewel exporting and a gang of faux friends who were eventually (and in the nick of time) revealed to be professional scammers.

But of course, they made many new ‘real’ friends in all the different countries they visited – a varied and diverse bunch of people. And they did lots of partying. I mean lots! Needles to say, I was very envious.

They also became very anti-American when they visited the War Remnant museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and were shocked and sickened by the images they saw. Agent orange has certainly left its legacy. They told me the locals refer to the Vietnam war as the American war. Even now, children are still being born with terrible deformities and the landmines are still injuring people, with many amputees being reduced to begging on the streets. Sigh.

Anyway, for six months they lived dangerously, stretched their minds and broadened their horizons. Certainly beats sitting on a computer writing about it. And the belly-dance classes have been knocked on the head but as timing sometimes has it, my daughter’s dance school has just started an adult jazz dance class on Wednesday nights so I am still able to fulfill my dancing desires. And it’s a great aerobic exercise.

Talking of exercise, rugby season has started again and my son has now moved onto full contact. He has all the protective gear – the padded head guard and the gum-shields. I was going to buy him a padded vest too but he protested and his dad sided with him. Sigh. I’ll bide my time and get my way soon enough. Say what you like, I’ve watched them play and they are bloody rough! It’s a full contact sport and although I wouldn’t like to see it go the way of American football, I certainly wouldn’t like him to enter the field with no protection at all. He is only eight years old after all and he only gets one body.

Anyhoo, ttfn. The weekend calls and it’s a glorious day.

Another Final

My son, gutted the other week because he wasn’t awarded the rugby player-of-the-year trophy, is determined to be the champion of something!  He has now been entered for the schools Sports Stacking competition.  He got the record speed stacking time in his school and will go on to represent Year three in a local competition.

I’d never heard of Speed Stacks until I spotted a box set, including mat and timer, in our local toy shop last Christmas and decided to get one for me laddy as a stocking filler.  He had never seen or heard of them them either but he liked them and played with them quite often for a while but when one of the plastic cups got broken he lost interest, until now that is.

Although at first glance it might seem like a bit of a monotonous pastime, it’s actually great fun and can be quite addictive.  The maker’s claim many benefits of playing such as improving co-ordination and concentration skills.

Anyway, now that his interest has been revived and he insists that he should be doing some intensive training, I have to hunt for a spare cup to replace the broken one.  Thing is, they don’t sell them individually and a full set of stacking cups will cost me £15.  

Why are boys so competative?

TTFN!

Well folksie-wolksies, I’m off work this week and the kids are off school so as you can imagine, I’m already in great demand and under huge pressure to play and do fun things with them.  And at the end of the week we are off to sunny Bristol for three days on our annual rugby tour which will involve lot’s of shivering in muddy fields, tying boot laces and yelling at bad refs.

Rugby player in Chinese restaurant: Waiter, why are these noodles crunchy?

Waiter: Because they’re chopsticks sir.

So, unless something bites me so hard that I am desperately compelled to rush to the computer and write about it, I will be taking a blog holiday.  I need to go away anyway to try and locate my missing synapses and reunite them with my aimless neurons because their absence is starting to affect the quality of this blog. 

I will catch up with you late next week so don’t forget me. 

(I hope that damn WordPress team don’t go and move all the furniture around again while I’m away.  I can’t find a bloody thing now!).

Life is a game with many rules but no referee. One learns how to play it more by watching it than by consulting any book, including the holy book. Small wonder, then, that so many play dirty, that so few win, that so many lose.
Joseph Brodsky

I’m going in . . . .

My son led me to his room this morning and asked if I thought he should be on Clutter Nutters.  I said definitely, yes.

He had the demolition squad round yesterday and this is what they did . . . .

I can put up with the mess for so long – I can convince myself that he is a creative kid who needs to express himself but now and then I flip and today is a flip day.  

I tell him and tell him to tidy his room and sometimes in my desperation I resort to bribery knowing that he will store it up for future exploitation but a mother has to survive.  He does make an effort - a tiny one.  But he is hapless - he shoves everything under the bed. 

So, I’m going in.  Bye bye.  It’s been fun.

On guitars, rugby and football

Sitting in on my son’s guitar lesson always amazes me.  I love guitar music and when I was a child, my Grandad attempted to teach me how to play.  I wish I had been more committed.  I can barely remember anything from the random lessons I forced myself to sit through.  You see, I wasn’t interested in learning.  I just wanted to hear him play.  My Grandad was a brilliant banjo player and for most of the lesson I would beg him to play songs that I loved.  And he would delight me even more when he sang too.  Regrettably, all that fooling around left little time for me to learn the art myself.

Anyway, my son’s lessons – I watch his tutor playing the guitar and I sit in amazed awe at the fantastic sounds, the melodies that come out when he strums away with speed and agility.

Liewise, when I watch rugby, I sit in amazed wonder but with quite different feelings.  Last night I watched part of the game between England and France and I just shook my head at the primitive ridiculousness of it all.  I just kept asking . . . what’s that all about or what’s the point in that.  Watching the big games is not the same as watching my son play rugby because he’s still playing tag but I might feel differently next year when he moves up to contact.

My husband told me there is an old saying . . . football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.

The rules of football forbid practically any player-to-player contact but the players don’t cope well when decisions go against them often resulting in them throwing aggressive tantrums followed by the whole team surrounding the referee, protesting and cursing like spoilt brats.  They also display superb theatrical dives when they’ve been tripped up.  And if they get even slightly hurt – my goodness!  What babies they are! 

In contrast, rugby is a full-on contact sport that involves the risk of serious injury.  There is much grabbing of each others dangly bits, some mighty crashing of bodies and lots of punching and kneeing beneath the group hugs scrums.  But the players rarely defy the referee or question his decisions.  The ref’s word is final.  They accept it like true gents and play on.

Now which would I prefer my little boy to play? 

Why, the guitar of course!