TIME FOR A RETURN TO LIFE - AND ALL IT ENTAILS

I really don’t know where to begin. I have just read my last entry and realise how much I was involved with – no wonder I have been ill. I suffered a severe bout of dizziness and nausea, which kept me off work for two and a half weeks; I have never been off sick for more than a day or two in five and a half years!! On top of the dizziness I was told that my blood pressure was sky high and was promptly given medication (Ramipril) to help reduce it. Now, five months down the line, the BP has been reduced and I have dropped a lot of the activities I was formerly involved in – I am feeling more relaxed and thank heavens the twitchy eye thing has stopped.

At present I am enjoying time off for the school holidays. I have embarked on some DIY work around the house, which I am rubbish at. I am in the process of decorating my tiny toilet, tiling, painting and installing some tongue and groove panelling to the walls – it is a lot harder than I thought and I really think I don’t have what it takes to make a good job of it – well I haven’t given up yet.

The weather in London is very depressing – it is amazing to think that we are in mid-August and it has been so wet and dark for at least the last couple of weeks. Today at least seems to have started well (fingers crossed). My eldest son has been trying to dig out an area of the garden to create a patio and bbq area – but work has ground to a halt with all this precipitation. Perhaps today he can get some work done – it has to be finished by the 6th September as it is my younger son’s birthday – he will be 21!! He is planning to have a bbq for all the family and his friends and is intending to re-furbish the old shed at the back of the garden and make it into a bar. We are off to buy the wood and other bits and pieces today.

On other news – it is my Mum and Dad’s Golden Wedding Anniversary in January – 50 years of wedded bliss!! My siblings and I are planning a big do for them and inviting all our family from Spain and the North of England and we really are a big family – at least 100!! The main problem we have encountered is trying to find a hall with a kitchen big enough and cheap enough for us to rent – the other day I was quoted £964 for the rental of a hall for only 7 hours!! It’s incredible how expensive everything is and it’s not getting any cheaper. I am still looking; so if anyone out there knows of a decent hall for hire in the Kenton area of London, please let me know.

My poor Mummy has been incredibly depressed lately – I think it is mainly the bad weather that is causing it – of course the weather is affecting her ability to go to her beloved CAR BOOT SALES, which are like a relaxation therapy for her and she seems to be on the point of crying every moment – this is not common for my Mum so I have offered to take her to an Antique Fair that she likes to sell at once a month in the hope this might lift her spirits. It doesn’t help that she spends all day every day with my Dad and most of that time is spent running him up to the hospital for his numerous appointments with: Cardiology, Renal and Ophthalmic consultants.

I have managed to read a good few more books – especially by one of my favourite authors, Anne McCaffrey. I have read the three of ‘Acorna’s Children’ series: First Warning, Second Wave and Third Watch, also by the same author three books from the Petaybee series ‘The twins of Petaybee’: Changelings, Maelstrom and Deluge. All thoroughly enjoyable and quite easy reads for me – I can’t wait for the next Dragons of Pern book, which her son Todd McCaffrey has now taken on.

I am at present reading a book by Paul Torday ‘The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce’ about a thirtyish year old man who inherits a wine cellar and proceeds to drink himself to death all the while deluding himself that he does not have a drink problem (actually I don’t know if he dies – I haven’t got very far into the book) although the subject matter is grim it is still quite a humorous book and it certainly teaches you a lot about wine.

I am not sure when I will be back here again, so don’t hold your breath! Heh heh!

Jo xx

LIFE GOES ON AROUND US

Life has been rather frantic of late. As usual I have overstretched myself. I am trying to juggle a full-time job, with keeping 'The Boyfriend', happy, amused, satisfied, with getting involved with my school's PTA (Parent Teacher Association), with embarking on a self enrichment program, which involves mentoring three students, doing Tai-chi classes twice a week and attending creative solutions for first time managers courses! Needless to say I am struggling - I am suffering with indigestion, heartburn and my right eye hasn't stopped twitching for several weeks now. All in all I am not bad!

I have still managed to read quite a bit (twitchy eye and all) and have got through a William Nicholson trilogy for children called 'The Windsinger Trilogy'. The books were a nice easy read and I managed to get through them over three nights. I have now read the first book in the 'Seeker' trilogy, but since the other two books are not available in our library I will have to wait to finish this set. Other recent reads have been 'Mr Pip' by Lloyd Jones, about a village on a Pacific island off the coast of Australia, where the only white man on the island takes it upon himself to educate the children using the great, Mr Dickens' book 'Great Expectations' as a learning tool. It is a beautiful and sometimes shocking book, both poetic and brutal, but worth a read. Last night I finished 'The Book Thief' by Markus Zusak. Another beautifully poetic book, narrated by Death! It tells the story of a young german girl's life in the Second world war, her fears, her dreams, her life, her death - a wonderful book.

This Saturday the school I work at will be holding an Indoor Spring Fair and Table top sale (indoor Car boot to those in the know). This is the involvement I mentioned with the PTA, unfortunately, there are only two parents and two (and a half) teachers involved in this PTA, well I am not really a teacher but they don't seem to be too bothered about that. I think they are happy that anyone else wants to help. I think it is shocking that in a school with 2000+ students and 280 staff only four people want to help out and when it comes to getting donations of gifts and prizes from people forget it! The management ie: headteachers and deputies are yet to put their hands in their pockets and contribute so much as a bar of chocolate - hmmm, I
wonder what they spend their £60 - £100,000 salaries on??

I haven't mentioned family events for a while - we haven't had too many get togethers recently - we are all such busy people!
My Dad had his birthday in February, he was 77 - we have been so lucky to have him for three years more than we thought we would, especially after the terrible time he had a few years ago on life-support and several literally heart stopping days. He
is not a well man, but at least he is happy with his family around him, he is not in pain and is looking forward to the warmer days, when he can go out into the garden and tend his beloved tomato plants.

My Mum is going to be 70 this year and we are planning to go out 'en masse' probably to a local eaterie - not too expensive - as mum hates spending too much on going out! As long as the place we go too is not too fussy about noise and caters for children with big appetites we will all be happy.

My boys are doing well in their lives, still looking after their old (well middle-aged) mum. Both of them are working, my younger son just having started full-time work at the local Tesco as a team leader (cashier supervisor). It's all about experiencing life in its many rich and varied forms. My younger son informed me the other night, that he is certainly learning the art of patience. This is mainly due the amount of complaining customers he is having to deal with - I am so proud of him! My baby is all growed
up!!

Well checking out now (get it?) Heh heh!

Jo xx

LIFE UPDATE

I don’t know why I haven’t written for ages, specifically I couldn’t tell you. A general feeling of malaise has descended upon me and my creative juices have evaporated.

Ok, so today I felt a little inspired to put fingers to keyboard and write something, but now I have started, where should I go?

I don’t really browse the blogs as much as I used to, but still stop in now and again to see what my family has been up to. LondonCabby, So this is Paradise and Agnostic Joe, have all tapered off with their postings - now and again a little gem appears to entertain me. Paradise Driver is always dependable and incredibly prolific with his postings and beautiful photographs of Maui – I would like to meet him some day – Lord knows how he finds the inspiration every day!

I have had a quick look at New York Cabby’s blog and it seems, since she has been involved with her book she has become somewhat obsessed with it and has forgotten that which made her popular in the first place. The quirky eccentricities of the native New Yorkers made for great reading, it kept people from around the world amused and gave us all a little insight into another type of life – good or bad – didn’t come in to it. All Melissa Plaut’s postings since she received the book offer have been pale imitations of her once meaty stories. Just looking at the number of comments she now receives to the hundreds she received in her heyday an indication of her waning popularity ’15 minutes of fame’, well and truly gone.

I have been trying to read more lately and have managed in the past two months to read a variety of decent and half-decent books.

Antibodies by David J. Skal

Heavy Time by C.J.Cherryh

Wideacre by Philippa Gregory

The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Here There Be Dragons by James A. Owen

Angel Blood by John Singleton

Stranger in a Strange Land (re-read) by Robert Heinlein

Lord of the Rings (re-reading) by J.R.R.Tolkien


Work has been incredibly stressful, with one colleague who has been taking advantage of my good nature – coming in late, off sick all the time and has managed to upset most of the other girls she works with at one point or another – she has a rather abrasive manner and constantly bosses people around, including me!!

Another one of my staff has been asked to resign – she had only worked with us for 3 weeks. She is very young, very sweet, but unfortunately a little crazy! She has tried to commit suicide twice, during her three weeks with us, so has in fact only worked two weeks, with the rest of the time off in hospital or at home getting counselling. The sad thing is that she was a good little worker and the kids really liked her, so I feel a bit bad that she was semi-forced to resign by the human resources people – I hope she will be OK.

I finally finished work yesterday for the holidays – I will be back at work on the 4th January 2008.

Family events are coming up, so it’s bound to be a busy time for all the Mums out there, cooking, cleaning, buying/wrapping presents and sneaking into bedrooms in the dead of night to leave an overstuffed Christmas stocking by the bed. I still give both of my sons a Christmas stocking – they are 25 and 20 respectively, but I don’t leave them by the bed, I hang them on their bedroom door handles – even so I still seem to be going to bed at around two in the morning. I have tried to stop this tradition, but they both begged me to keep it up – big babies!

Just in case I don’t get back to blog world before Christmas and New Year, I wish you all a happy time with whatever you are going to be doing - the photo above is my greetings card to you all.

Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo.

Jo xx

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Okay, so it’s another sunny Sunday morning – just how I like my days, a fresh touch in the air and Mother Nature painting the trees in beautiful shades of Autumn. It is a split between autumn and spring as to which season is my favourite. Spring is a re-birth of life, new plants and fresh bold primary colours – sparkling Snowdrops, dazzling Daffodils and twinkling Tulips. Autumn is a quiet repose, reds, browns, russets, bronzes and golds, a rich time before the little death that is Winter.

Those pesky squirrels are digging up the bulbs I have planted and are burying them around my garden or in other pots – no wonder things keep growing where I haven’t planted them, well sometimes I get nice surprises, perhaps a peach tree starts growing where I had planted a tulip or a miniature oak tree pushes its way out of one of my hanging baskets – I could have sworn I planted some crocus bulbs there??

The local foxes have started preparing themselves for the oncoming mating season, ripe musky smells from scent marking males are all over my garden, why the vixens find this smell attractive I will never know. The foxes are looking particularly fine at the moment, sleek and fat with beautiful shiny russet coats, now if I was a vixen that would probably be more of a turn on – heh heh!! In the next couple of weeks I am sure to be woken up by the blood curdling screams of foxes in the throes of passion – lucky foxes!!

I am off now to make myself and my sons a late breakfast or brunch as we brits like to call it – all the mundane things that need doing and should be done are calling to me, but I am finding myself drawn outside again.

One more look before it all fades away….



John Keats - To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.



Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.



Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

This is one of my all time favourite poems – enjoy.

Until the next time my friends.

Jo xx

Life in the life lane

Hello - where am I – Oh it’s Blog World!!!!

I haven’t been here in such a long time, so much and nothing has happened I don’t really know where to start.

My holiday was a bit of a washout for several reasons:

I hate where my parent’s flat is, it’s noisy, smelly, hot and dusty and if you don’t have a car, walking in 40 degrees of heat is no laughing matter.

The nearest beach is 25 minutes walk away – in 40 degrees heat.

The flat – in 40 degrees heat – has no air conditioning!!

My poor niece was ill for most of the holiday and was unable for most of the time to leave the flat or even eat anything and the temperature (40 degrees) for her was unbearable.

Did I mention the heat – heh heh!!

Most of the rest of the holidays was spent DIYing, my eldest son has built himself a wardrobe, it was his first attempt at carpentry and he has built a solid fitted wardrobe in his room – the doors don’t fit too well and are slightly different sizes, he has yet to put on the handles and the whole thing still needs painting, but for a first attempt, I think it is marvellous!!

We got a new garage door, new guttering, new slabs for under the little tool shed, cleared out: the garage, behind the garage, the big garden shed and loads from the attic into a giant skip.


The skip had amazing magical properties as whenever a metallic item was placed into it, the following morning it had disappeared – washing machines, garden rollers, old vacuum cleaners, metal chairs and assorted chains and rusty tools all vanished mysteriously – well actually they were taken away by rag and bone men (scrap merchants), who clambered all over the container looking for anything they might be able to salvage for scrap. This was actually a bonus for us as we were able to get rid of far more rubbish due to the self-emptying properties of this device.

Back to work at the beginning of September and the perennial problem of trying to find a new staff member – I am very fussy and know exactly what I am looking for, so interviewing has been quite a depressing affair, I have now interviewed around 12 people for the post of Librarian/Open learning officer and fussiness aside none of them have been suitable.
They either have no experience working with children, they cannot speak English, they cannot understand English, they do not read books or know anything about books, they know nothing about computers – the list goes on. How do they expect to be able to cope with a job where children are constantly asking, demanding, requesting all sorts of help?? I do find sometimes, that we are holding X factor auditions and have to stop myself laughing at the answers some people give to questions at interviews.

For the last 10 days I have been spending a lot of time with my Dad. My mother has gone away for a well deserved holiday with my brother London Cabby, so the rest of the family: Sister from Palmers Green, Sister from Harrow and Wealdstone and Brother Agnostic Joe, including assorted children and partners have all taken turns in spending as much time as possible with him. Since my Father was literally on death’s door, two years ago, he has been on a huge number of medications, having all kinds of treatments and numerous hospital appointments. For all these reasons we thought that we would draw up a Rota of times when we could all help out – it all worked out really well although it was tiring for all concerned trying to fit in this extra responsibility with out normal busy lives. My Dad loved being fussed over and was delighted with all the attention, he even showed the District Nurse the rota, which had been laid out in chart form by my sister in Harrow & Wealdstone. When my Mum returned from her holiday my Dad also showed it to her and she became quite emotional. I am just glad that my parents have such a big family, because looking after anyone is a huge responsibility and we only did it for a short time, some people have to look after their loved ones for years.

To all of you out there, you unsung heroes, carers of family or friends, my love and admiration goes out to you all.

Best wishes and Big hugs to you all.

Jo xx

WASH DAYS AND I'M OFF TO SUNNY SPAIN

I’m looking forward to putting my feet up next week – I’m off to incredibly hot and sunny Spain, I’m told the temperature is hitting 40 degrees and that is very hot!

I will be going just for one week to Torrevieja near Alicante; my parents have a flat there, which they haven’t been able to go to since my Dad was seriously ill two years ago. He is not allowed to fly anymore as he has a heart condition and many other ailments – despite all these afflictions he still manages to tend to his beloved: tomatoes, peppers and aubergines and is expecting a good crop this year, as long as we get some decent sun here in London (fat chance of that!) I will be travelling with one of my many nieces – I have nine nieces and five nephews – the niece I will be travelling with is the daughter of my sister from Palmers Green. She has been taking a foundation course in Art and will be starting a BA in Photography in September, so I thought it would be nice for us to have something different to photograph, apart from rainy skies. I really enjoy photography too, so am looking forward to getting some decent shots to post on my deviantart webpage, maybe something other than flowers perhaps?? Hee hee!

I finally have a new washing machine – woo hoo!! My lovely brother London Cabby took me to Comet in Colindale where I chose the machine, paid for it, my brother and son loaded into the cab, unloaded it (very heavy) and then my wonderful brother plumbed it in for me. I have already washed 10 loads of washing, it’s amazing how much mounts up when you don’t have a machine for a couple of weeks, it also makes you realise just how many clothes you have – too many really. My Mum used to say when we were children, well she still says it now and again “When I was a girl I had a dress, which I wore everyday and one special one for Sunday” and ‘neecas’ knickers or panties “ We only had quita y pon” one on one off. I suppose it makes sense really, I must have about one hundred pairs of knickers, most of which don’t fit or are uncomfortable – no wonder I have to do so much washing – we really are quite a wasteful society now.

Well I’m off to find some more washing now.

Laters

Jo xx

RAIN, WASHING MACHINES AND HARRY POTTER

Rain rain go away, come again another day.

I have water pouring through my living room ceiling, right where the TV should be - the TV is on a small table in front of where its normal position should be. In its place there is a bucket and a pile of towels - more money to be spent! I think it's coming in through the guttering, which cannot cope with the volume of rain and is finding a pathway through my bedroom window and down to the living room - I have wallpaper hanging in shreds in my bedroom - even more money to be spent!!! Oh well - at least the house is still standing.

I'm not too happy with Currys(Store), where I purchased a washing machine two weeks ago to replace my 12 year old washing machine. After two changes of delivery dates and being told that the machine, which was supposed to be in the warehouse was sold - I agreed to take the machine that was displayed on the shop floor, as long as it was in perfect condition! When the perfect machine arrived at my home, it had several dents a loose front panel and the top didn't have one area that wasn't covered in scratches. Infact it looked older than my machine!! I told the delivery guys to take it away - they emphatically agreed with my decision (nice guys) - and loaded it back into their van. I have now asked for and received a full refund of my money - I still have no washing machine - so the launderette is beckoning.

Finally I have read the latest Harry Potter book - The Deathly Hallows. For some reason I kept falling asleep whilst I was reading it(sleeping sickness??), so I had to take a little nap for a couple of hours before I could continue and finish it - it has tied up loads of loose ends, but possibly still left a lot of unanswered questions. It is a very dark book - a lot of death and destruction also very moralistic - I won't say anymore, I don't want to spoil it for any Potter fans out there! It's a good read!!

Wingardium leviosa (tee hee)

Jo xx