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The age gap?

We had my brother-in-law and his family over on Sunday.  They don’t come very often, and it is lovely to see them, but we do have to brace ourselves a bit for our big, boisterous, and loud eight year old nephew’s visits.

His sister, who turned twelve on Saturday (happy birthday to the fabulous Miss V) tends to sit and stare at her laptop with her earphones on for most of the time.  Goodness knows how addicted she’ll be in a couple of years time, but as my brother-in-law once commented ‘you shouldn’t poke a sleeping tiger.’

Anyhoo, my nephew’s energy levels are something to behold, in fact, I think he got Miss V’s share. He bounces around begging us to play with him.  Anything physical, it doesn’t matter what, as long as it’s by his rules. He is in the school rugby team and likes nothing better than a ‘bundle’.  Sunday was a hot ‘un and really not conducive to running around much, but despite his endless complaints about the heat, it didn’t stop him.

By tea time we’d all had a go at tennis, or cricket, or throwing balls, or chasing, tickling, whatev’s and were fairly tired of it. The dog had hidden.

Bored by our needing to replenish with tea and cake, he begged his dad to play with him.

‘I’m tired, I’m too old.’ Said my brother-in-law.

Now, I was the oldest adult there, by several years. I am positively ancient, but one thing I will not tolerate myself saying is ‘I’m too old’. I absolutely and completely refuse to be too old to do anything. I believe once you get in that mind set you can never crawl your sad old way out of it.

My body might not be quite what it used to be (actually it’s considerably more than it used to be, but that’s another matter…) but I still can’t quite get to grips in my head that I’m supposed to be grown up… a pensioner even, a senior citizen, a twirly (we had a bus driver friend who called all pensioners ‘twirly’s because they were always turning up with their bus passes before they were allowed to use them and asking ‘am I tooearly’ (twirly). It’s stuck!)

In my head I’m still silly me. I’m still up for adventure, having fun, adrenaline rushes, and yes, just running about and being daft and having water fights. I still want to dance wildly and sing loudly and out of tune. I want to wear clothes from young folk shops, and laugh…. laugh lots and lots.

To this end I try and keep myself a bit fit, the dancing around the kitchen helps, as does my daily walk with the dog, and of course, yoga. I also try to eat well, and enjoy food and drink without pickiness or guilt. Do you know, despite being the elder by some years, I was the only adult there on Sunday not on medication for anything, so something’s working. Maybe I’m just lucky and have good genes. 

So I advised my young nephew never to accept ‘I’m too old’ as an excuse from anybody, he’d be doing them a favour. Neither my brother-in-law, or his wife (who is some eighteen years younger than me) agreed, so aaarrgghhh…. Of course, it was me who had to get up and go run about again.

It took me most of Monday to recover 😊

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Light Bulb Moment

This week I was reminded of the value of proper shopping. You know, not the pressing a button and getting it delivered kind, but proper, driving into town and walking all the way to a particular specialist shop, choosing something then bringing it home, sort of shopping.

I’m a geeky type, albeit an old ‘un. I was all grown up with a house and a family before t’internet was born. And let me tell you this now, and in no uncertain terms, I think the internet is GREAT. Ok, there are definitely some caveats to that, but life is so much easier these days. We have on hand, in our own homes, without actually moving from the sofa – a source of information, friendship, jolly silly stuff, and of course shopping opportunities its just, well, GREAT. But saying that, it does have its limitations. Apparently, it seems, almost infinite choice is one of them.

We wanted a new lamp for the sitting room, and wasted hours looking through endless pages of them on various websites (Wayfair has thousands!) but were still not able to find the ‘ideal’ one, that being a mother and child type, you know the sort, the ones with the little reading lamp and the uplighter. Trouble is, they all looked the same and pretty uninspiring.

‘We could go to the lamp shop’ I said

‘What lamp shop?’

‘You know, the one at the outlet’

‘Ugh, that’s a bit of a drive and it’ll be packed on a Saturday morning’

‘Yeah, but you never know..’

So off we trotted. It’s only a little lamp shop, but it glittered with bling so brightly you could probably see it from space.  We had to blink quite a bit to acclimatise but managed to resist the temptation to don our sunglasses. 

We’re not blingy people. Don’t like sparkly stuff and doubted that we’d be able to find anything amongst the chandeliers and ‘diamond’ encrusted fixtures that covered pretty much the whole shop.  Still it was fun, icking, yucking and ‘definitely not’- ing our way around. Then we found it. The one. Standing quietly in a corner. Understated without a bit of bling it was an upper class piece of totty amongst the chavs.  Just tripod stainless steel legs and a white pleated shade. Smart, modern and understated, and of course, nothing like what we’d come to find.

Readers, we bought it.

On the way home we agreed that we’d probably ruled out many of its sisters while we were browsing, but online you can’t see proportions properly, or the soft glow of the light (enough to read in, but not too bright) so we would never have gone for it.

I think I’ve learned a lesson from this, yep the light has come on. It is, of course, ok to buy stuff on-line (though I still hate my self every time I use Amazon… which I do… frequently), but when it comes to aesthetic requirements, it’s got to be better to see the choices in the flesh, as it were, before you purchase, because sometimes, a picture just doesn’t speak to you the way the real thing will. 🙂

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Missing you

Hmmm…. just looking at me little blogs stats and realised that it’s been a dry year so far. Mainly, as I explained in an earlier blog (you remember… I’m sure you do…), that I can’t post any of my writing because of publishing restrictions on the course I’m doing (an MA on Creative Writing with the Open University since you ask). I actually daren’t post any just in case they’re half reasonable and I can fish them out when I’m in dire need halfway through next years module. But anyways…

Looking back I can see that actually when I first started this ‘journey’ I wasn’t posting that much creative writing stuff, more a mishmash of things I like, moany posts about life in general, and some photographs. The most activity was around the events hosted by wordpress, such as photo101 and writing101 which encouraged me to post every day. They were most excellent at keeping me on track and a lovely way to meet new online friends and get more followers. They were my most productive times on the site.

Oh I know I shouldn’t need that push and shove, but you know what it’s like, life gets in the way and there’s all sorts of excuses I could use – for instance, I have to take the dog to the vets in a mo’ and I’m busy bracing myself – it’s fair to say she doesn’t like it much! Anyone who’s met my dog knows she is a nervous sort and that’s enhanced a 100 fold on a trip to the you know where’s. It’s emotionally draining. No, not for her.. for me…

Anyhoo, I digress. One of the other reasons I haven’t been around here much lately is because I’ve taken on a couple of other sites (suttonartgroup and retwords) so have been busy making them look all pretty and alive whilst letting my poor flower die off a bit. This needs to be redressed methinks.

Therefore, I hereby promise to prattle on and post more frequently despite the limitations, and one day, when I eventually finish this darn course, I’ll be able to share that mountain of poetry and prose that is building up on my laptop.

Hope it’s worth the wait….

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Music Tuesday

Ok, so I’m late… it’s supposed to be ‘Music Monday’ but hey, I’ve just realised I haven’t actually posted any music for absolutely ages, and given that today I feel like dancing I thought I’d share this with you to get you up off your chairs too.

I do hope you are all having a good day. The weather here in North Nottinghamshire is very autumnal on this August day – grey skies and on the chilly side, but this can be our sun dance! A real classic today, The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun. Enjoy… 🙂

 

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The Fields of Bali

Okay, my husband is still mocking me because I truly thought that Sting was actually singing about Bali in ‘Fields of Gold’.  ‘hehe…how can paddy fields be gold?’ he said after calling me a twerp, and insisting that the song is about ‘barley’.  Anyhoo, now we have visited that beautiful island I think he should apologise, as you can see the fields are as golden here as anywhere…

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Child – flash fiction

It felt incongruous sitting there on the bandstand steps in the sunny park, half a dozen of their friends messing about around them, oblivious.   Drew was holding her hand the big faux gold chain on his wrist digging into her arm, replicating the pain.  He was sucking on a roll-up and the smoke blew towards her making her cough.

‘For god’s sake Mel, stop makin’ a fuss. I ain’t gonna stop spliffin’ just fer you, so yer can give that up right now.’

He liked to think of himself as an alpha male, but she’d still been surprised by his eruption of anger when she first told him.  She thought he’d be as delighted as she was.  But no, he just told her to ‘get rid’ and that was that.  Here she was two days later feeling bruised and distraught and all he could do was complain about her coughing.

He stood up and stretched his lanky 17 year old body to full height, his jeans slipping down revealing the top of his grubby pants as he did so

‘I’m gonna ride for a bit.’ He said, and he joined the other lads doing wheelies on their bikes and frightening the old ladies.

She leaned against the upright of the bandstand, watching him whooping and laughing, the stub still hanging from the corner of his mouth. 

‘Big kid’ she thought. He was just a boy. Though she was only a year younger she felt almost motherly towards him.  His stupid, filthy falling down jeans, his ridiculous oversized trainers, the ripped t-shirt, all just armour against the world, that she had once or twice managed to pierce. 

She tried to hold back the sobs, but once again, they forced their way to the surface, in big noisy gulps.  One of the girls yelled at him to go to her and he threw his bike down onto the grass.

‘wha’s up now?’ He asked brutely as he approached. ‘Honestly Mel, yer no fun these days, yer need to get over yerself.’   

He put his foot on the step next to where she sat and puffed on the last of the roll-up. Leaning down and whispering

‘yer embarrassing me Mel. Get yerself sorted.’ 

She could feel the warmth of his big face almost touching hers.  She could inhale his breath he was so close.  He moved in to kiss her.  He liked to kiss her long and passionately in public, showing off to his friends his unfailing technique.  But this time she pulled away.  He was surprised and nearly fell forward onto her, though not as surprised as when he felt the flat of her hand stinging his cheek with all the force of three months pent up anger behind it.

He raised his hand to hit her back, but the others were there now and one of them grabbed his arm before it landed.

‘Leave it mate. She ‘ain’t worth it.’  Wall all she heard as she ran off towards home.

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Colour bombing

Still no writing to share (bloomin’ Masters course) instead, to keep you amused, I thought I’d share another of my painting exploits with you.  As you may already know I have a love/hate relationship with my arty efforts. Lets just say it doesn’t come all that naturally to me. But hey ho, keep on trying eh?

A couple of weeks ago we had a splendid workshop session at our art group (Click here to find out more about the group) which introduced me to the wonders of ‘Brusho’. Of course, I’ve seen it advertised, but never really understood what the product was. Well, it turns out it is powdered pigment which you can sprinkle on to wet paper to produce some fireworky effects. Sprinkling it onto dry paper then spraying with water also produces some lovely rainbow colours. This is because colours such as leaf green, or grey, are made up of different pigments which are separate in the pots but merge on the paper. It was great fun and I was pleased with the result too (for a change!) What do you think of ‘Lunch in the Jungle’? The background is brusho and the birds and details pen and coloured pencil. Oh, and for any pedants out there… these are my Kingfishers and they do live in the jungle, ok!! 😉

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