HOLIDAYS!!!!!!

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

It's a wonderful town!!

I'm off to New York tomorrow, incase you couldn't tell I am really, really excited.

I haven't written much lately - can't be asked - hopefully a more normal type of service will resume on my return.

I've got a new memory card for my Camera, so hopefully I should be able to take lots of shots for my scrap book.

Got to go now, busy, busy, busy.

Lots of love Jo xx

LIFE, EARTHQUAKE AND MADONNA (AND FOOD)

As another day comes to a close, I realise what a comfortable and insular world I live in - comfortable inasmuch as I have a roof over my head, food for the table and a warm bed to sleep in at night - everything else is a bonus.

Today has been a really hectic day a work, lots of tooing and froing and even a bit of froing and tooing - if you know what I mean, heh, heh. The year 11s are desperately trying to finish assorted types of coursework, the year 12s are preparing their personal statements for their UCAS applications (entry to University), the year 10s are running around like headless chickens (they never know what they are doing) and the year 13s are running around like loonies (they know what they are doing, but they don’t care)!!

There is just over a week before I go on my trip to New York and I am sooo looking forward to this. I will be travelling with a few friends from work, a total of six of us. We will be arriving at JFK airport at around 11am - upon our arrival (after dropping off our luggage) we will be going directly to the Guggenheim, which should kill a few hours as we can’t check in to our apartments until 3pm - I am sure we will find plenty to keep us amused. I have already been asked by several kids at school for different things: Some Big Apple key rings, some peanut stuff by a company called Reese , some Hershey kisses and some chocolate fudge brownies, with a picture of a girl on the packaging?? I don’t think I am going to have enough room to carry all this, but I will try my best.

NEW YORK HERE I COME, WOO HOO!!!

I just read Wil’s blog tonight ‘ Paradise Driver’, I hadn’t read it for a few days and didn’t realise that there had been an earthquake in the Islands of Hawaii – I know it wasn’t a major quake, but it was enough to knock out electricity supplies in a lot of places, which in turn has a knock on effect to others services such as the water supply. I hope everything sorts itself out, without too much hardship for all the people that live there – our love and best wishes go out to any affected by this

In London on the news tonight – Madonna adopting a baby in Malawi – why??

That baby has a family, who love him, but cannot afford to keep him. If Madonna wants to help this child, why doesn’t she sponsor him, pay for his upkeep and his education – why do celebrities think that by taking a child from its home they are necessarily giving them a better life – and by whose standards should these actions be judged.

Madonna, ‘Get your big fat purse out and sponsor several families’!!

Until all the richest people in the world realise that they can make a difference, by spending not very much of their not always hard earned cash – the poorest will always remain just that.

I am going to visit Kew Gardens on Wednesday, with my sister (Palmers Green) and my Dad – it’s really a visit for my Dad as he thought that he would already be having dialysis by now, but at the last hospital appointment he had, he was told that his (creatine??) levels were up and this meant that he still had several more dialysis free months – he wept with relief. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us and we will enjoy our little outing to a very beautiful part of London.

Just to finish on a foodie note – I was very fortunate last Saturday to be taken to a wonderful Restaurant near Regent’s Park, it is called 'Oslo Court’, so named because it is in a block of luxury apartments. The owner is Spanish from Galicia as are most of the waiters. The food is scrumptious and generously supplied - the sweet trolley is to die for. My friend, who was celebrating her birthday had booked it in August. It is such a popular place and there is a real mixture of clientele - some well heeled clients and us more ordinary bods. The lovely thing about it is the friendly and efficient service, I would definitely go again - the prices are reasonable too. For a three course meal, plus loads of extras (not including drinks) it came to £26. 50 per head (Lunchtime menu).

I had:

Melba Toast and mixed crudites, anchovy olives and garlic mayonnaise

Starter of a huge plate of calamari with tartare sauce

Main course of Beef Wellington (perfectly cooked), served with green beans, carrots, petit pois, battered courgettes and sauteed potatoes.

Dessert (so much choice) I had a lemon meringue pie, which I have to say was nigh on orgasmic!!

Coffee and two large plates of mixed sweets, including Turkish delight, Marzipan fruits, Mint creams, fondant hearts, mini Florentines and little red foiled fondant hearts.

We few, we happy few.

Jo xx

LIFE'S LITTLE LUXURIES

I am now the proud owner of a Rigby & Peller brassiere (bra); this is the same company that makes bras for the Queen of England, who like me has an incredibly large chest!! I had always thought that I was a 38 D or DD, but apparently I have been wrong all these years and am a 36 FF!! I have no idea what these measurements are equivalent to around the world, but I am sure Google or some other search engines can supply the facts if anyone is interested.

It all started with my mentioning to my boyfriend that I needed to get myself some new bras (plural) – a couple of days later he turned up at my home with a most lovely carrier bag tied with a ribbon. Inside the bag was a lovely box of the same colour as the bag and tied with an even larger ribbon. Inside the box, was a voucher to the value of £50 (approx $100)!!

“Go out and buy yourself a nice bra,” he said

“I won’t get much for £50,” says I

“The lady in the shop said you could easily get a bra for that amount” he replied

“ Does she know that I am 5 feet tall, overweight, with a large chest?” I asked him

“It doesn’t matter I will give you the difference if it is more” he most generously replied.

Today I went to Brent Cross Shopping Centre to Rigby & Peller, where I was assessed and told that my current bra was totally the wrong bra for my size.

Why are shop lights and mirrors so unflattering? Perhaps they really tell the truth?


My bra is white and lacy with a flower on the strap and cost me £65!! This is the most expensive piece of underwear I have ever owned and I am just a little frightened to take it out of its beautiful box (I love the box) and wear it. Quite frankly I would have been happy with box – I am so easily pleased.



What a lovely weekend it has been and what a lovely day (weatherwise), I would say I am full of the joys of spring, but it is Autumn (Fall), I do love this time of the year especially the colours of the trees. I was browsing the Deviant Art website and came across this beautiful shot, which I though you might like to have a look at.

The above photograph was taken by Julia Dunin-Brzezinska - take a look at her gallery, she has some really lovely shots.

A restful evening to you all.

Jo xx

CHILDREN AND LIFE

I’ve come to realise the benefits of motherhood – it has taken quite some time, but I am now reaping the harvest of my life. I have two sons, the elder is 24 years old and the younger is 19, they have both grown up to be honest and hardworking young men - loyal to their friends and family and generous in spirit and deed – those who have reaped their kindness range from the tiniest of babies to the smelliest of tramps in the streets of London.

Today my two wonderful sons took me out for lunch – granted I did ask them to take me out, but in their defence they were quite happy to treat their old Mum to a local tex-mex meal at Chiquitos in Staples Corner. As is usual in our family, we all ate far too much!!

All this loving and kindness, makes me wonder how some families can be so cruel to each other? You read in the newspapers every week, about child abuse: sexual, physical and mental abuse. You walk into any bookshop and can pick up at least 20 different books with biographies about terrible childhoods and how each of these children overcame their awful lives to become successful adults. I have read quite a lot of these books and am appalled at how cold and cruel a Mother, Father or any other family member can be to one of their own and what it is that makes them behave in this way to another human being? What amazes me even more is the way these abused children seem to overcome every obstacle and ultimately break away from their abusers. I sometimes wonder why people – why I – read these books?? Is it perhaps that we want to confirm that we are better people, because we would never do this to our children? Maybe we read them and give thanks that our lives were nothing like these beleaguered children? Or maybe some people are just sick and get pleasure out of reading about someone else’s suffering? Whichever is the reason these books are an extremely popular genre and perhaps an inspiration to those who might be suffering abuse at home.

While we are on the subject of children and suffering have a look at the NSPCC website, maybe you can make a difference.

I also thought I might list a few of the ones I have read and perhaps you might try some and let me know what you think.

BIOGRAPHICAL BOOKS

Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt (A hard childhood in Ireland)

A Child Called It – Dave Pelzer (A mother’s cruelty towards her son)

A Brothers journey: Surviving a childhood of abuse – Richard B. Pelzer (Dave Pelzer’s brother, who suffered after his brother had left the family home)

Ugly – Constance Briscoe (A mother’s cruelty towards her daughter – also a father’s neglect)

OTHER STORIES ABOUT CHILD ABUSE

The Colour Purple – Alice Walker

I know why the caged bird sings – Maya Angelou

I know this might all sound really depressing, but one of the main things I noticed about all these stories was that while the children in question were being abused other adults, not the abusers, were standing by and allowing all of it to happen – making them almost as bad as the abusers themselves!!

If you read any of these books, learn by them and appreciate your comfortable and safe lives.

Goodnight, sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.

Jo xx

CORRIDORS OF LIFE

Working in a school of more than two thousand kids, my life is bound to have its share of highs and lows - thankfully the highs outweigh the lows or I wouldn’t still be working there.

This last week has been incredibly busy for lots of reasons – I am still struggling with having one member of staff less than I should have. When it pours with rain outside, inside it pours with ‘herberts’ (silly children) - these 'herberts' normally stay out in the playground and amuse themselves by ganging up on other kids or finding things to smash up – the library is not a cool place to be. However, when the rain comes tumbling down even the ‘herberts’ are not averse to entering the geeks domain and they flock together like sheep, rush down the corridors and descend on my hallowed place of work, like a swarm of ravening locusts, wreaking havoc in their path. These children are around 14 – 15 years of age and are growing like weeds and I am only five feet tall!! I spend most of the breaks and lunch hour, spreading my arms out as wide as I can and herding them back to whence they came. Remarkably they are quite pliable and the only resistance they offer is ‘Why’re you chucking us out Miss, we ain’t dun nuffink bad?’ Ah, the joys of a good British education!!

Yesterday I was working in the lower school, when some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to show a video on ‘Body Image’ – this was for a PSHE lesson (Personal & Social Health Education) – mm, yes I know what you are thinking! Anyway, it would have been more than enough having a class of 30 in a room with 35 seats, but the bright spark decided to have two classes of 30 = total 60 = absolute bedlam!!!! We had them sitting on tables, chairs, floors and even shelves – and to make things even more chaotic the teachers, who were assigned to look after these little darlings, were what I can only describe as wimps. These pupils had no interest in the video and talked all the way through the half hour presentation – we also had the pleasure of witnessing two lads running the length and breadth of the library, knocking over books and chairs in their wake. What were the teachers doing – well watching the video of course? I snapped, I shouted, I very nearly cursed – and all of a sudden the teachers woke up and realised that it wasn’t a dream and that they really were being paid to do some work.


DISCLAIMER: This is not an attack on all those good teachers out there, of which there are many, this is however an attack on those who call themselves teachers and take the tax payers money and give absolutely nothing in return.

On Wednesday, we had a welcome lunch for all the new year 12 students – these students have come from schools all over the borough, which maybe don’t have a 6th Form (year 12/13) – it’s a chance for the staff to get to have a chat and introduce themselves and find out a little more about them in an informal setting. We had a lot of great characters there and more reserved students – some of them were finding it difficult to settle in as they had left their friends behind in other schools. One young lady was having a particularly hard time and burst into tears – some of the teachers were trying to comfort her by patting her on the shoulder and saying ‘there, there’. Super Matron (that’s me) – swooped on her giving her the biggest hug I could possibly give her, she snuggled right up to me as if she had never had a hug before – I really felt for her - I later found out that her Mother had recently died – she obviously needed that hug.

Big hugs and kisses for anyone who needs them.

Jo xx



PS. You might be interested in knowing, that I have started reading again – I haven’t read a books since the beginning of the Summer. My book of choice is ‘Ugly’ by Constance Briscoe – it is a book about a mother’s abuse of her child and how the child deals with this abuse – I’m only half way through it, so don’t really know what is going to happen.

A LIFE OF PEACE

I haven’t been reading any books lately, although I have been reading articles in the press and in other blogs, relating to religious fanaticism and demonstrations of peoples devotion to their religion. One blog in particular(Joee's Blog) made me want to write a little about what I believe in – when I read all the comments, I was quite upset that some of the people who professed to being Christian, felt such hatred and used such violent language, when the very thing they were angry about was violence!!

I am a lapsed Catholic – I don’t say that I am against the Catholic Church, but I do believe that there are many elements in every religion’s doctrines that actually contradict their own fundamental teaching.

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO SAY

DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO WEAR

DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN AND CANNOT LISTEN TO

DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN LOOK AT

DON’T TELL ME WHAT I CAN BELIEVE IN

Don’t do any of these things – I won’t do them to you – and then and only then can we all live in Peace.

Religion in all its forms does all of the above, so perhaps it is the cause of all the wars - or perhaps it’s because the human element is involved?? When humans are involved in anything, somewhere along the line it is corrupted – this is not to say that all humans are corrupt, but somehow an honourable reason for doing something quite often turns into something not so honourable.

What gives any of us the right to believe that our beliefs are more important or more right than anyone else’s beliefs? Our pride in what we believe in makes us feel that our religion is ‘the one and only’ and when people don’t agree, it angers us. We go to church every Sunday and we want the priest/pastor/vicar/preacher to make sure they see us – to see that we are good (in this case) Christians, but why are we doing it – we want to get to heaven – if a heaven does exist? We are greedy for attention, we are lazy and think the only thing we need to do is to look like we are praying once a week. We are jealous of any extra attention the clerics might give to anyone and think that we deserve it more and constantly lust after attention to the point of gluttony.

I abhor violence in any shape and those that terrorise in the name of religion are no better than any ordinary criminal – they are not doing it for their God they are doing it for themselves.

On a much lighter note, my eldest son says we should have an organisation like the 'Justice League' to police the world - oh if it were that easy!!

Peace and love to you all. Jo xx