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January 29 Averaging one a month...Funerals that is! I almost feel like advertising my services as a professional mourner. Today Dick got away, He was my husband's cousin's husband, (which rather sounds like a bad line from Allo Allo!) a gentle man if ever there was one who had been told to give up the cigi habit years ago when it was discovered his lungs weren't very good, but he didn't or just couldn't. At the end he was on oxygen almost all of the time and smoking was an absolute no no, yet still he pleaded for a tab. When his wife (my husband's cousin) phoned us last Wednesday to tell us of his death, she related such a touching tale about the whole family being round the bedside along with the priest, and almost his last breath was to ask the priest, did he have a tab.....and we all thought, ah! And on discussing it with other family members who knew him, they similarly all said, Ah! (The geordie Ah! being an expression of nice or touching). Today, we celebrated his life, it was a send off to die for (groan), and a great bun fight after. I was relating the story of the 'last tab' back to one of his daughters and she howled. I thought at first she was overcome with grief and I had distressed her terribly, until I saw she was laughing.
"Actually B" she said, "that wasn't what he wanted at all. Dad's voice had become so hoarse that it was hard to make out what he was asking for, so the priest leaned over and said ,' is it a tab you want Dick?' No, he clearly yelled back, I want a piss".
Now that's the way to go - But obviously, poor Mary (husband's cousin), prefers to tell people a more sanitised version.
January 25 Don't you love to embarrass your offspring?I found this photo today, Christine is 5 and obviously extremely ill at ease with her new friend, who mother obviously thought, along with said child was a perfect photo subject. But really, isn't she so cute? No not Rupert.
It really is a lovely day out there, I swiftly put my nose out as I dispensed the contents of the kitchen bin into the wheelie, and thought that was as far as I needed to go today, BUT the fence having been blown over needs relacing and 'the dad' thinks today will be a good day to go and look at new fencing....Oh joy! I can't wait.
Take care out there.
January 22 Google the washing lineGreeetings! from a fast freezing Geordiland.
Hope you are all in a fit and fine state, and enjoying life to the full. Quiet day here in the Arnold household. This morning the dogs were pleased to get back from their walk and in out of the cold, and very nice it is too, to sit down to read, or write, in the warm, and not have to brave a cold wait for a bus to get to work.There are advantages to getting long in the tooth.
I can hardly believe that it is a year since I decided to retire, it hads flown over and I have no regrets....well apart from the decent pay cheque at the end of each month.
Now then you Google earth wanderers, it has been updated, and 'the dad is featured! Not striding out with the dogs as you may imagine, or even doing the manly cleaning of the car...no, he is hanging the washing out in our back garden. There was a jolly yell from the PC area yesterday when he spotted this and sure enough it's him alright. If you are the least bit interested just put NE16 5QJ into the search and it's the back garden directly down from the SLOW sign on the road.
We have also been taking tours around Krakow in preparation for the visit in May, even pin pointed the hotel. Just wish the flamin satelite or whatever takes the pictures was clear all the time, some places are very indistinct while others you can zoom in to a few hundred feet. Anyone throw any light as to why that is?
Toodle oo
January 19 A big fat raspberry to Window's Media Player!I think the video of the stick man accompanied by the world's worst music probably did for it.
To all those who have remained more or less perpendicular through the gales, sleet and snow, and who aren't lobbing branches out of the middle of their sitting room, greetings! 30ft of back fencing to replace is our price to pay, but then that fence has been there for almost 40 years, so I guess it was it's time anyway. The Right Royal Pooh Bah (our exceedingly fat cat) is delighted with the new exit/entrance arrangement in the back garden, never having been overly keen on jumping anywhere, - rather he hoists himself up - this new doorway gives him all the dignity he craves to come and go without the other animals sniggering behind their paws at his lack of agility.
The dad and I have been to town today, that is Newcastle. We went because the Co-op is closing very soon and as it is a 1920's Art Decor building ( I know you good people will not quote me on that, the photographer is not available as I write to qualify it's architectural merit) there were photo's to be taken before it goes.
By chance we met some friends and had a sandwich and a coffee wih them, so all in all, it was a realy nice afternoon.
Keep well
barbara January 17 Krakow and probably all that it meansI have just booked 4 days in Krakow mid May, and I really am looking forward to it. Poland has always facinated me, it's music, films and it's dance. Yes I know, don't laugh, you read right, it's dance.
At school we had a Polish teacher who came across on an exchange for a term and it was her special privilage (ha ha) to be form tutor to our year. We were such a bunch of reprobates I don't think the poor woman knew what had hit her, I say woman but she was really young, and very attractive, and I'm quite sure the reason the boys were so willing to be led in Polish country dancing by her. And to be truthful, we all really enjoyed it, and had a great laugh too.
So I have booked us into a half decent City Hotel and now, all I have to do is look forward to it. While John learns 'The lonley Planet' Krakow hand book by heart - and he will!
It was 'Wednesday Wobbly Walkers' today, but thankfully we had a meeting to decide on future walks, outings etc so were in from the freezing cold and sleet. More bad weather to come they say, oh bliss!
To warm up, I have just with a little help from my friends devoured a pot of fine Chile Con Con. Made it with Quorn and it wan't half bad.
So keep warm all you bloggers, throw an extra log on the old fire and toast yer tootsies.
January 15 sisterhood 5And I promise, there are no more, - at least not blood sisters.
Pat was always called Patsy when I was little, she is the 3rd eldest and 12 years my senior, she was and is the sister who can always be relied on to be the perfect hostess. I don't mean that she lives her life through 'Woman and Home' or 'Good Housekeeping'. I mean that she is a very comfortable person to be around, her welcome is always generous and her home is a real home, somewhere you can feel at ease and relaxed.
Pat did her SRN training at Newcastle General Hospital, she was a good nurse and made friends easily. On completion of this she moved to Ayreshire to do her Midwifery. I loved it when Pat was due home, she almost always brought one of her collegues with her who either didn't have a family in this country or who's family lived too far away to get to on a few days off. It was sometimes like the United Nations in our house.
When Pat was 11, her best friend at school was a girl who had problems at home, I really don't know the details, all I knew, was that the problems were enough for Pat to tell the girl that she could come and live with us if she liked. And there she was on the doorstep. Phyllis lived with us until she was 21!
My mam often said of Flora, that she would not have been one bit suprised if one day she had walked in with an elephant on a lead, she just found stray animals, whether they wanted to be strays or not...Pat brought home people!
We were all brought up as Plymouth Brethren, a fairly strict, evangelical denomination. Pat at 23 decided that she wanted to go to the missions in Angola, and took it upon herself to go to London to train in tropical diseases whilst at the same time attending Bible College and a language institute. We were all mightly impressed at her total committment. She had even found the mission she wanted to go to but needed funding from the Plymouth Brethren Mission Society. They had other ideas, and wanted her to go to India which after 18months learning various African dialect was crackers so in the end hugely dissapointed, she came home. Very well qualified, she had no problen in getting work, and it was while she was working that she met up with an old flame and within 6 months they were married. The old flame was John (not mine) and one of 2 young men who had been coming to our house on a very regular basis since before I was born. Part of the family really.
John was working on 'Blue Streak' (anyone remember that)? at Spadeadam so they moved to Carlisle before moving to Yorkshire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Streak_missile after the missile became untenable.
3 children all born in yorkshire, Lis, louise and Alex, I spent happy holidays at their home, made even more attractive by the very good looking young man who lived next door!
Pat and John now live back in the North East where Pat retired as a Health Visitor. They are in history societies, and all manner of local other social things, they have a lovely garden full of produce and never have a spare minute, yet they always have time to spare if you are just passing and are in need of a cuppa and a chat. Home from home.
I am indeed Blessed, apart from having 5 sisters, they were also like 5 more mothers who watched out for me told me off and were proud of me, and I also, am very proud of them, and that is why I have enjoyed writing my tributes to them, no good after the lot of them have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Mind you, I am a bit like a flamin' sheep dog rounding them all up when we go away together. We meet up now once every 2 months for either an outing or a get together.....it's noisy, as everyone wants the last word, but it is also great fun and we always come away feeling the better for it.
January 14 sisterhood 4Well, As the good, late Magnus Magnuson used to say....I started, so I'll finish.
Moira is the second eldest of my 5 sisters and was 14 when I was born, She is the studious one who always had her head in a book - still has.
I can't say any other, she is my soul mate, she was never an enigma. I always understood exactly where she was coming from. Sometimes we would find ourselves observing exactly the same thing at the same time, to the point where we tested it and discovered that we were often thinking similar thoughts at the same time. Once or twice we even chosen the same birthday card to send. Spooky? I don't know. we are quite dis-similar in many ways, I am a small talker, she most certainly isn't, I can suffer fools, she never could, She is very shy and quite introveted, I am not shy, although possibly I am quite introverted. She is very bright, loves mathematics and cryptic crosswords, and gained distinctions in everything accademic. I plod, get there, but plod! She would hate to have me say all these nice things about her because she is extremely modest, but she really is a good all rounder as she is also creative and a gifted artist. She is probably the fairest minded person in the world, hates cheating, back biting, gossip or anything that doesn't give everyone a equal chance.
She gave me 3 beautiful neices and a fine nephew who have produced for her and George 8 adoring grandchildren, who are taken away for treats equally.
Her passion - and I know after everything I've said you won't expect this - is Newcastle United. A season ticket holder, she knows more about that club than anyone I know.
Circumstances as they were when Moira left school meant that she didn't follow the career she would have dearly loved, that of teaching, instead she did accounts right up until her own family were grown and gone, then at 55 started work as a support teacher in a special school until her retirement.
I spent a great deal of time with Moira when I was in my mid teens, she was the mother of 4 all of which arrived within 5 and a half years, quite a handful. I really hope that I was a bit useful, - tho to my shame I probably was not. I certainly always felt as much at home in her house as I did at home.
Moira and I have one other thing in common, we both became Roman Catholic. Not for our husband's sake or for one another, we just both felt that this was the road we wanted to take. Moira much earlier than me, and in doing so she took the flack from our very Plymouth Brethren roots. By the time I took instruction, my dad and Moira had made an uneasy truce making the whole thing much easier for me.
So there is only Patricia left to tell you about.
January 13 Sisterhood 3This was never meant to be a potted biography of my sisters, but since I have mentioned 2 of them I can hardly leave the others out.
Sheila is the eldest and 16 years my senior, so of course she was always an adult to me. I was 4 when she and Ron married and I absolutly worshiped the ground she walked on, she was my very beautiful sister, who had a job with the most fabulous name in the world, she was a Metalurgical Chemist, it had to put her right up there as far as I was concerned. When I was little she always had time to hear my chatter and I loved to go to her house and stay over for weekends.
At about 5 after some tiff at home I decided to run away to live at Sheila's, I managed to get as far as the bus stop hauling a big heavy leather suitcase belonging to my dad, in which was found a pair of Ailsa's knickers an apple and 3d. (I still see the value of all those things).
Sheila was a Sea Ranger and as an adult became the Skipper of the Newcastle crew. I was in that crew and I had to call her skipper - and she still is. She had great energy, and took us off to do all kinds of activities, I know she was well loved by all of the girls who were in S R S Lord Nelson. We ran from a seedy sailing club house on the Tyne where our 18ft clinker built Whaler was moored. It was incredibly heavy, and took about 12 of us to get it in and out of the water, but it was great fun and did a lot of good for a lot of young people. The uniform was stringent and Skip knew that a lot of the girls were in very reduced circumstances, so she ran roughshod over the Girl Guide Organisation (under who's umberella we were) by modifying any navy surplus stuff she could get her hands on, didn't go down too well with the upper class commissioners of the GG but Sheila went straight in there nd told it to them how it was. She got her way!
If you ask anyone who has a Shetalnd Sheep dog round here where they got it, they will probably say from Sheila. Not only has she bred dogs most her married life, she has shown them judged them and trained them. She if off to Crufts again as a judge this year and she has judged in Ireland, Sweden and The Netherlands as well as all over the UK.
She has awful arthritis in her spine now and uses 2 elbow cruthches almost of the time, yet she still gets around like a good'n and puts the rest of us all to shame.
Sheila bought me my first bra, took me to see my first stage show (Choo Chin Chow on ice) taught me how to ski how to semiphore (very useful), but most importantly how to make the best of life.
Here's to you Skip! January 11 sisterhood 2I have just had a long chat on the phone with my sister Ailsa who returned home from hospital yesterday after a knee operation, she is delighted to be home of course but couldn't praise the staff highly enough at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle where she was.
Ailsa is the 5th of my 6 sisters and she named me (to be honest I was given to her as a birthday present because I don't think anyone had thought on to buy her one that year, with me coming and all), she was born Oct 4th 1939 and I was born Oct 3rd 1945, she saw the war in, and I saw it out. As I went into primary school she left to go to secondary school, and as I went into secondary School she left to start work. She was bright, studious, musical and a delight to teach (I was reminded over and over again by teachers who knew us both). I had my head in the clouds, played the wagg and drove the teachers mad. We couldn't have been more unalike, yet we got on so well, she is so lovely to have as a sister. We have fallen out only once and I couldn't wait to apologise, I have never seen anyone look so hurt.
She has worked in the most difficult of occupations as a probation officer on the Meadowell Estate (notorious), and never had a bad word to say for even the worst of her clients (sorry, service users), she always sees the best in everyone. She married Brian who by us is called St Brian because he puts up with Ail giving away half their home, their kids clothes and toys and most certainly having more time for the people she adopts than housework. You never knew who you would be sitting down to a meal with, if you called at Ailsa's.
Apart now from having 2 fine human specimens as sons, both in their 30s, she has a whole adopted family who she loves as her own - A woman with learning difficulties who is a single mum to 2 lovely kids - Ailsa has embraced them as her own.
I wish her a very speedy recovery, and heres to the next knee.
I am still playing catch up, my knees are begining to twinge a bit!
January 09 sisterhoodI mentioned my sister Flora in my last blog, well, she and I became very close although it didn't really happen until I was in my 20's, then, she and her husband became very special.
I was working away from Newcastle by then and working a 70+ hour week in Surrey at a residential school for children with very severe behavioural problems - in charge of a house of 26 adolescent girls! -. Needless to say when I returned home at holiday time, I was usually shattered and ready for a really good rest.
I think the expression is 'burn out' which is very apt, because by the time I had invested 7 years of my life working at such a fast pace and one which was also often extremely volatile, I was both emotionally and physically a wreck. The summer before I left, as the school holidays approached I had become so exhausted, that I didn't even want to go home. I phoned Flora and explained that once the kids went home I would just hole myself up in my flat in the quiet of the house I worked in and just sleep. She called me back a few days later and told me to get myself home, I was to come with her and Trevor (her husband) to a cottage they had booked in Scotland and if I wanted to I could sleep for the week if needs be.
When I returned home I was chewing vallium like smarties, weight had dropped from me and I was taking sleeping pills every night to try and come down from the skyline's teeetering edge of nervous exhaustion. Working at the pace we did, there was little time for proper rest, almost nightly someone absconded, and as we were surrounded by farmland and woods it wasn't the best place for kids to be wandering alone at night, especially very vulnerable disturbed girls. So most nights were disturbed through one incidnt or another. Sometimes now my friend Joyce - who was also my deputy -and I look back and wonder how in the name of all that is holy we managed, we were really young, I was 24 when they entrused me with that job.
That holiday saved my life. I did sleep the first couple of days, after which, we laughed for the whole of the rest of the week. Might have been the booze + pills, we were right next to The Glenmorriston Arms, I don't know but we just had the best time.
I went back to work in a different frame of mind and started looking for another job. But that's another story.
January 05 From how many angles can the Gateshead Car Park be photographed?It would appear any amount! The dad, the bairn and I decided to take a trip into Gateshead as the Co-op is closing down and there is a half a half price sale on. We parked in the notorious multi story in the town, (the one from which Alf Roberts, - who wasn't playing Alf Roberts at the time - was pushed to his certain demise in 'Get Carter') and fool that I am didn't realise that cameras were being smuggled into the car for the soul purpose of an hour long photo shoot of the dear old place. Needless to say, they were left to their own devices and didn't dare complain at the purple and yellow duvet covers I bought for £6 each! Ha!
Still haven't had the hair cut and I'm beginning to wonder whether a pony tail might suit me, or perhaps a quick flick round with the pudding basin, it wouldn't be the first time I had attempted to cut my own hair.
I have probably mentioned before that I have 5 sisters of which I am the youngest. Flora is the 4th eldest and 9 years my senior and was always in trouble, in fact through my child's eyes, that was her role in life, she was the one who never flinched at any punishment metered out to her, she was apparently a very hard nut to crack.
When I was about 6 I decided to cut my plaits off, and I did, not happy with the outcome I took the pinking shears and cut it further, and further until I looked like an audition piece for Oliver Twist, by the time I was finished, there was little anyone but God could do to redeem it, and my mam went bananas. I could see a good slap coming and decided that Flora would never notice another one so instantly put the blame on her, saying she had cut it. I brazened it out to poor Flora's denials, and thankfully my wise parent not being used to Flora being so indignant, let her off with the sharp end of her tounge. Eventually (once the furor had died down a bit) I confessed. Not really because I was noble, but because I couldn't bear being prodded and kicked every time my sister had the opportunity to do so. Also I liked flora and being in her bad books was 1,000 worse than any punishment I rightly deserved. The biggest punishment of all was having to turn up at school with very little hair and the kids whispering that it was coz I had dickies (nits).
So with that incident recalled, I think it may be a better option to go to a professional and have it done. That'll be tomorrow then!
January 04 4th January 2007How clever of me to think up that title!
Hope eveyone is well and feeling good about their New Year Resolutions. Mine were so woolly that it is easy to bend them a bit. Like,
We will now only enjoy a 'better' bottle of wine once a week instead of 2 bottles of plonk twice a week!
So what do you do? you scan all the discount pullouts in the fee paper to see where the 'better' bottles of wine have been reduced and obviously you aren't going to let them pass.
Or:
I will drop a dress size each month.
There is always the rest of the month to work on that one and if you don't succeed then there's always next month.
Well I must go and do some stuff, for a start I have to go to the hairdresser, I'm begining to look like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz.
Talk soon.
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