She's back

It's been a long time.  She's back.

A night with the stars

Last night I was out again. What with the church knitting group, it's all getting a bit out of hand.

I met up with a few of the old - and not so old - Green Wing gang at UCL for this -

http://www.nationalbrainappeal.org/green-wing-quiz-night/

We had a great night, didn't win, but acquitted ourselves very well against a roomful of very brainy if slightly geeky people. JRT and SM were the stars of the night as quiz masters and I had to be forcibly removed from a big bag of doritos. As the representatives of the Green Wing Convention Recovery Group (see box set for full details) we were very well behaved. Restraining orders were not required.

On journey home, got chatted up. This is happening more and more. Is it my age? Are middle aged women seen as more of a safe bet?

Summer Solstice - Darn Sarf London way

I've been having adventures again. What with the pub quiz going feral, the church knitting group taking off, and the Biodanza experience, it could be concluded that I have enough going on, but no! Yesterday morning I found myself getting up at 3.30am to go and join a lovely group of people making their way to Pollards Hill to celebrate the Summer Solstice.

It was cloudy but dry. We started a small fire in what I can only describe as a replica of the FA cup. The smell of woodsmoke still hangs over me. We ommed, swayed, meditated, drank ginger tea and ate cake and went home. It was a wonderful experience and a lovely place. I'm going back again with the dog.

I don't think anyone saw us. We were careful not to make too much noise. But what would be the penalty be for omming in a built up area?

The Ninjas strike again!!

http://flaming-nora.blogspot.com/2011/04/k-n-i-t-t-h-e-t-o-w-n-r-e-d-w-h-i-t-e-n.html#comment-form

How fabulous is this??? May have to take up the cause....

The first thirty pages

The other week, during the infamous pub quiz, there was a question about who published Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Of course, we all knew it was Penguin.
I happened to mention that I had a copy of the first edition with the first 30 pages missing. He looked at me very steadily and said “why don‘t you write them?”
I looked at him slack jawed. How did he know? Has my blog been discovered?

The Goddess of the Bleeding Obvious

That's what I want to be known as - because I'm that annoying fat middle aged woman who looks you in the eye and tells you that a spade is a shovel. There's impulse, intuition, common sense, and the bleeding obvious. I can cope with the bleeding obvious. It's the rest that send me into a tizzy of confusion and indecision.

So at the quiz night I've invited myself along to these past few weeks, it's my inner goddess of the bleeding obvious I've been channelling. I do know lots of stuff, but it's never the really useful stuff like how to be happy, how to dress properly, how to get lots of money, and how to get other things which I can't really divulge here. Which goddess do I go to for that information?

what the world needs now is wool sweet wool....

http://flaming-nora.blogspot.com/2011/03/ninja-knittersmov.html?showComment=1299778211582#c6507879016408319264

What puts me off writing my blog is the fabulousness of other bloggers, and none are more fabulous than Flaming Nora.

Read it and do a little wee of joy.

The elephants in the room

So love that expression - the elephants in the room. The big issues that remain undealt with, unspoken. I tell you, so many elephants in my rooms it's no wonder that I'm being suffocated by the biggest herd of all - the past. Those elephants tickle me with their trucks at very regular intervals, especially on Tuesdays when I head off for my book keeping class. They're with me at the bus stop, queuing in a nice straight line, waiting for the No 50 bus aka the elephant bus. Another thing that elephants never do is forget, and I have been cursed with an excellent memory. Not the sort that remembers useful stuff, just all the crap that floats about in the back of the brain. Who was wearing what at some teenage party in 1977, who gave me a funny look in 1973, and that sort of stuff. Useless, pointless stuff that only makes me unhappy and eat more crisps.
So , back to the No 50 bus. It takes me down memory lane. Well, the South Circular, actually, and up a bit of the A24. It takes me past the road where Bob Geldof and Paula Yates lived, past where I went to secondary school, past the houses of people I used to know, past the common where I played hockey, treetrunk legs under a swishing blue sports skirt thundering up and down the pitch, past where I first went to school - in someone's house, believe it or not!- so that when the elephants and I get off at the pub where I drank as a teenager, Laura Ashley skirts spread out on the grass, I'm in need of a rescue remedy drip! Talk about my memories serving me far too well!

One day I met the mother of someone I was at school with. When I explained where I was going, she looked me up and down, as only Italian ladies can do, and told me that I was too old and too busy to be messing about with courses! Took me some time to recover from that one.

And it gets worse. The college is no refuge - there are more elephants in that classroom! They deal with other aspects of my life and I have to watch myself very carefully. But thats enough for today.

Why can't they just stick to leaving their paw prints in the butter?

In these shoes?

As a musical interlude, I offer this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvaqVAFuLI I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Shoes. Ah shoes. What do I wear? MBTs (novelty comedy sports footwear that hasn't reduced my cellulite - only reincarnation will deal with that) Campri Snow Boots from Sports Direct for dog walking, some Geox shoes (more novelty footwear - this time with breathing soles! Perfect for the menopausal woman) And that's it, really - anything with a heel would give me altitude sickness, and since I never wear skirts anyway, what would be the point?

Yet Clarks calls to me with its Siren emails, enticing me towards the online store - coo coo (forget that - isn't that the dove from above??) and recently I bought these -

http://www.clarks.co.uk/find/keyword-is-capricorn/product-is-20346043

Alright, I know, for you shoes experts it's not much, but it's a start. Haven't worn them yet - may try them at my next book keeping class next week for a trial run.

I've also taken a fancy to these http://www.clarks.co.uk/find/keyword-is-bombay/product-is-20306743

I actually had a look at them around Christmastime when out with my husband. At the sight of me picking them up, he started hyperventilating and telling me that it wasn't my sort of thing. Cue woman beating man on head with heel of shoe........ I may need them to go with this - http://www.vivienofholloway.com/en/category/50s%20Halterneck%20Plain%20Dress/1950s-halterneck-plain-dress/78/

or even this http://www.vivienofholloway.com/en/category/Sarong%20Prints/sarong-print/125/

I know, I can dream. After all, I'm more likely to be sitting in the cafe on Tooting Bec Common instead of a bar in Guadalajara. Distinct lack of powerful horses on the Common despite the bridle path.

Angel

Hello everyone - long time no blogs! don't know why, really - goodness knows I've always got a lot to say for myself! I've started thinking about angels (cue communal groan from everyone). Well, anyway, I have, especially about this one:

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=21761&tabview=image

I tried to copy the picture, but my grasp on technology being what it is, you'll have to click on it yourselves to see it in its full glory!

It's a huge statue in pink alabaster by Jacob Epstein called Jacob and the Angel. it used to be in Tate Britain, but now it's been moved to Tate Liverpool, so I will have to travel further to see this marvellous angel. I'm not bothered about Jacob - he was a dishonourable character as far as I'm concerned. But the angel - oh! A magnificent creature. He's holding Jacob up after wrestling with him all night and finally dislocating Jacob's hip. It really is my favourite piece of sculpture, hidden away for years at the top of a staircase in Tate Britain. He was really my very own guilty pleasure. Funnily enough I think I met him recently - not with the wings, and the flowing locks and the pink alabaster, but definitely the face. I didn't realise at first, but then it dawned on me, the resemblance, after a visit this weekend to the British Modern Sculpture exhibition at the RA. I remembered the angel, and then it struck me who this particular person reminded me of. I'm sure only I can see it. And I certainly won't be telling them about it.

One thing leads to another and I've recently rediscovered this, by the blessed Madonna -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nn6pp_0MB0

Hmm

All The Rage - The Style Issue

Hello everyone!

Leila has done it again - she has put together a fantastic edition of All The Rage with the theme of Style. It's got some great stuff. And my own article towards the end about summer dressing in London. Ahem.

Do give it a read. www.alltherage.org.uk/alltherage-2010-07.pdf

It's well worth it!

Claudio and me

Claudio Baglioni?

Oh yes, he and I go back a long way, probably back to about 1974 when I started listening to Italian pop music on my interminable hols (those were the days!). There was no globalisation of music at that time - I certainly never heard the likes of Sweet, the Osmonds, Mudd, or Marc Bolam on Italian radio back then. No, it was all hairy blokes in unfeasibly tight jeans yodelling some very explicit lyrics about having their way with some underage girl on a beach. We only got that sort of thing in recent years with James Blunt.

Yet Claudio rose above them all. Whilst in the UK we were voting Stairway to Heaven as our record of all time, the Italians chose Questo Piccolo Grande Amore
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Yjl-OZ8p7E This song has become his pension - just as the members of Slade get their cheques every January for that fab Christmas song of theirs.....

QPGA has stood the test of time, with that fabulous line "Adesso che, saprei cosa dire, adesso che, saprei cosa fare, adesso che..."

Claudio sang the songs that really were the sound track to my youth, as I mooched about in my Laura Ashley dresses, more vague than vogue, more gammon than gamine.

Sabato Pomeriggio, E tu, Tu come stai, Quante Volte, Amore Bello, Mille Giorni di te e me, Strada facendo, Poster, and so forth. He's been at it for more than 40 years - there's a lot of stuff out there.

Now I tell my own daughters that if anyone comes near them telling them anything from those songs they should run a mile. It's what I would call stalker music! Not that anyone came near me with lines like "ieri ho ritrovato le tue iniziali nel mio cuore" or "quante volte ti ho pensato sulla sedia di cucina"

And yet I fell for all of them again last Saturday night at the Royal Albert Hall, along with thousands of menopausal people of Italian extrapolation, when I went to hear him sing in London for the very first time. I couldn't miss this opportunity.

He was wonderful. He really is the Italian Barry Manilow, Bruce Springsteen and Burt Bacharach rolled into one.

I was determined, though, not to fall for those fabulous songs again. I can tell you I failed miserably.

He had everyone purring with delight as they left to mooch home on a drizzly night.

look him up. You know you want to.....

Other people's children

Ooh I'm feeling bad now. But bitter past experience just let the words fall out of my mouth. I will have to grovel later when I see her. Explain the circumstances. It's just what you want to hear when you're having a hard day at work, some smug fester at home mum mentioning that your child kept her waiting for 5 whole minutes when there was at least half an hour to get to school. I just wanted to nip it in the bud, you see. Not that ad hoc lifts to school constitute a major delivery contract, on the lines of royal mail and amazon, no, just a child being picked up for the five minutes drive to school.

I've been lucky enough not to have to pick up too many children in my time. There have of course been the inevitable times when I would drive around London in my pyjamas in the middle of the night, rescuing teenage girls and delivering each one to a different address, and those days are certainly not over. Those I don't mind. It's only every so often. What gets me is the regular week after week grind of having to wait for a child who clearly doesn't want to go where we're going and explain at the other end why we're late. A situation I put up with for about two years.

"Please tell whoever you've got looking after them that I need them ready on the doorstep when I turn up" - there are only a number of times you can say that to a harassed parent who's already feeling indebted to you for taking their children to whatever activity, picking them up afterwards, giving them supper ("we're vegetarian, so no meat please. Oh, and organic") and waiting for parent to collect, whilst trying to keep said children from destroying your house and really annoying your own children. "Mum, we hate them. And they smell."

Mercifully, everything comes to and end. Including after school activities. Yet this arrangement left me deeply scarred. Thank goodness I now drive a very small car. And the secondary schools are just nearby.

School Scrum

This time it was going to be easier. After all, this was my third round of secondary school applications. I'm defintely a been seen and done it type on this score.

If boring everyone witless with my knowledge of London secondary school transfer were an olympic sport, I would have more gold medals than Steve Redgrave, I really would. The whole business has to be the most stressful thing that parents have to go through - at least childbirth doesn't last that long!

Of course, we bring the stress on ourselves - whether it's the state or private system, we're all running round like headless chickens on those open days, hyperventilating at the thought of whether or not we're in the catchment area, how many times a school is oversubscribed, mixed or single sex, and so forth.

Then there's another factor a parent has to take into account - the opinion of the child! Since when did they have the right to choose anything? Well, in our case, it's since birth. And they all have different opinions, desperate to get away from the shadow of an older sibling, to do their own thing.

well the forms are in. All we have to do is wait for March 1st and pray that siblings still have priority over everyone else....

Watching paint dry at the RA

When I go on outings with my friend G, we normally just eat and shop and talk. Sometimes we venture into the Royal Academy to view the latest exhibitions only because I have a Friend's Card and we rather get tired of the shopping. The other week we ventured into the Anish Kapoor Exhibition.

I can't paste the link here - I suggest you all google Royal Academy and Anish Kapoor and see what comes up.

Although technically brilliant, frankly it really was like watching paint dry. I haven't laughed so much since the Gilbert and George retrospective at Tate Modern. I also had the urge to touch everything. Was that the point of it? the squidgy red wax left in the corners by the huge lipstick thing trundling up and down the galleries on rails, the anticipation of the cannon being fired (we gave up on that and went to look at the mirrors) the concrete pooh sculptures, the huge rusty cave thing that had me hooting into it for an echo. My friend G was only pleased we hadn't had to pay to get in. We thought we would bring our husbands along for the comedy value, just to see their reations. G's husband nearly had a seizure at the Rothko at the beginning of the year. She's still laughing at the memory.

Later, in the members room, we didn't find anywhere to sit, but I spotted Francesa Annis chatting to two old blokes at a table. Gorgeous woman and fab actress to boot.

At least there's Van Gogh to look forward to in the spring.

They'll never eat toast again!

Like many houesholds throughout the country, we have had to host the occasional unwanted guest. Yes, mice have been regular visitors for some time now. We have tried all sorts of ways to get rid of them and all have been a resounding failure.

Until today.

This morning, Baby came to tell me that she'd had heard noises from behind the TV in the breakfast room. By the time we both walked into the room again, there was no sign of anything. Then the TV went on as my girls are hooked onto CBB. I went into the kitchen to make Baby's toast. The smell wafting from toaster was rather odd, but it all came out OK and Baby ate her breakfast. Rosa Klebb's toast was OK too, although the smell was rather stronger now. Girl from Ipanema reported that she'd just eaten bread and butter as smoke and a very nasty smell had poured out of the toaster.

It was the single mousedropping in the crumb catcher tray that alerted me to the horrible truth.

I opened up the bottom of the toaster - it's a Dualit, so I can do that - and switched it on to see where the smoke was coming from. The little line of smoke led me to the Horrible Truth. From the side of one of the elements, a tail and two back paws poked out.

Now what do I do? My brother has kept that toaster going for me for years now - after all, it cost a fortune. Should I simply chuck the whole think in the bin, and select a replacement from my newly acquired Argos Catalogue? Or should I dismantle it, scrape mousy remnants off, and start all over again?

Dear Reader - what would you advise?

Brave People at the BBC

I paid my first visit to the Royal Court Theatre yesterday. I didn't go to see a play, but to attend a presentation by the staff at the BBC Writers Room. There was a power point presentation, lots of tips, questions and answers, and general encouragement from a very brave bunch of people. In response to an email to everyone on the mailing list, I reckon about 300 writers showed up.

The mix of people was very interesting. Older men, younger women, young men. Middle aged women not much in evidence, but I suspect that's because most of them were dealing with their children. Very few people knew eachother, so there was little chat in the audience. There was the usual old git at the front with An Issue, as is usual at such gatherings, but the lady running the event obviously had plenty of experience in dealing with old gits with issues.

They very clearly explained what was required, what to avoid, and what the procedure was. They also downplayed the fact that out of the 10,000 scripts that they received every year only about 5% got any further than the NO pile. They were encouraging, enthusiastic and very open about what they wanted.

On departure, they whipped out sacks and asked for any scripts that people had brought along. I did see a few people with parcels, but I think many took them home for revision following all the tips that we were given.

Much of the audience, like me, raced home, but I suspect Nice Lady and Old Git had a good chin wag in the bar. I got home about an hour later - wonder if I was the first one!

Another year bites the dust!

Having a birthday in the hinterland of christmas and New Year is very good. I certainly appreciate more as I get older. When I was young, it was very irritating as there would be this double present thing going on, people were all partied out, and I would not have a mid year window of opportunity to stock up on items I didn't get for Christmas.
Nowadays, the sales are in full swing , so I have over recent years collected some very over budget gifts, and more recently, the whole birthday thing has certainly faded away so that now I have a non birthday - and never get older.

I find birthdays very awkward - there's no sense of achievement, only emphasis that I've let another year slip by without getting thinner, fitter, rich or more scintillating. Just another layer of dust on the ornaments. No gratitude or positivity there!

So let's try again. Today I can look back on a year in which lots of good things happened and forward to a year in which lots of wonderful things will happen. So there. Feeling better already! I did the Moonwalk, remember - all 26 miles of it! I have just about recovered.

As part of the Lake Wobegon empire, Garrison Keillor is involved in a project called the Writer's Almanac. Here is today's offering. Who knew that Umberto Eco and I shared a birthday!

http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/


More GW news - there was a get together last Saturday organised by the wonderful Kim in a great pub near the embankment in Central London. A group of women gathered to indulge in their passion for GW, but actually were more interested in catching up with eachother whilst sporting yellow post it notes. We also played Spoon of Destiny and Chocolate Towers. You had to be there.

All The Rage - January 2009

Some little pixies have been working overtime to bring you the January 2009 edition of All The Rage.


http://alltherage.org.uk/alltherage-2009-01.pdf

I hope you enjoy it. Leila has worked very hard to bring it all together.

The latest thing....

Hello everyone.

One of my secret pleasures is perusing the Lakeland Catalogue. I even used to order stuff in the old days when I had money. At work we had the Lakeland Coven. If an order was over £40, the postage would be free, so we would pool our orders. The parcel would then be delivered to the office. Our receptionist would call one of the coven, then we would all congregate in recpetion at lunchtime to divide the spoils. Even colleagues who hadn't ordered anything would come along, just for the comedy value.

For those of you still unaware of Lakeland, it sells a vast array of household items. Some are absolute lifesavers, others are a complete waste of time, and some are just plain perculiar......

Like this thing here:
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/plug-AND-pour/F/productimage/21870?returnURL=/F/keyword/21870/product/21870

I suggest you all take a look. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it's just the thing you're looking for.
I won't be ordering one.....