You may need some coffee here...

There is a downside to sitting here with nothing active to do. It means I have time to think and to write. And once I start..... oops. This is long. Sorry about that!

There is a lot of talk and discussion around at the moment on how real we are, how much of "us" we put on our blogs for the world to see, if we should/should not, who we are perceived to be, what image we project, how much to put in our profiles, consequences, opinions etc etc etc. Lots of stuff. And we have all thought about this and spoken of it before. I know we all get new readers, which is delightful, and make new friends, and most of them do not have the time to go and read through years of archives to "discover who we are". Unless we seem rivettingly exciting (that would not be happening here at RCR, I can assure you - we are not rivettingly anything right now!) or unless we knew how to do exciting linky things on our sidebars, which we clearly do not over here. We are ordinary people. Living ordinary lives. Unless your name is Sophie or Shannon and you head off into the African wilderness, of course. Or Jeana, on location in London for 7 weeks, who I have just been speaking to about dishwasher salt. Or Crystal, who is just back from South America.

I like scrapbooking. I don't have time for it, but I love it. The idea appeals to me. I was trying to find something harmless to do, and came across a series of papers and stickers I bought a long time ago around the theme "Life is a journey". When I bought them, I thought, great. Holidays, travel, moving. I will need those. There are lots of images of suitcases, maps, tickets, and assorted other journey related items there. And today I started thinking about what I had been reading, and what was lying there in my hands....

I grew up in South Africa. I moved to England. I have travelled quite a bit. I have had one, then two, then three children. I have been a stay at home Mum and I have worked. I have been a baby, a child, a teenager, a student, daughter, a sister, a grandchild, a bride, a wife, a friend, a colleague, a mother, a widow, a teacher, a mother-in-law, and most probably a pain in the neck quite often too. Note the "I" here. It is deliberate.

The "I" who was a child, bears little resemblance to the "I" who was a student, or the "I" who is a mother, or the "I" who is a mother-in-law, other than genetic coding, DNA, fingerprints and all that stuff, and my name. I am changing. I am evolving. I am a work in progress. Thank heavens. The "I" today also bears little resemblance to the "I" of a year ago, 2 years ago or 10 years ago. And everything changes, and will continue to do so. Appearance. Do not go there. Jobs. Roles. Things happen to us. I change my mind about things. My opinions have changed over time. Not all radically, some, yes, but edges have been honed, and I have learnt that life is an awful lot of grey and cannot just be black and white. I constantly learn new things, and that changes my direction and offers opportunities for choosing new paths. Action / reaction. Sometimes there is no choice. Resisting change can be fatal for your soul. Not to mention your peace of mind. I once had a quick temper. Not too bad now. I listen more, and say less. I was impatient. Not so much now that I am older and wiser. Wiser? Hmmm.

But this is MY journey. I am delighted when people join me on it for a while. Friends are always welcome here.

It seems almost trite to say we are the sum total of everything we have experienced. Yet we are. This is a HUGE thing. We live unique, individual lives and no-one can ever walk in our shoes. Our experiences act as the sandpaper which refines parts of our character. Sometimes, those experiences allow us to help where others can't. And, looking back, it is not the successes I have experienced which have made the most lasting impressions on my character or temperament, as much as the mistakes, or failures, or bad stuff, which happen to us all. We are in cruise control while everything goes swimmingly. No effort required. But when the track becomes a little bumpy, that is when we need to adjust, alter course, clutch at straws, leap off cliffs, (this random mix of images is making my stomach queasy) and we change. And because we blog, sometimes we take each other along on our journeys too.

Every person we interact with is unique, and calls for different responses from within us. I mean, just look at our children. I have 3 very different children. What works for one, does not work for either of the others. I couldn't treat them the same way, or react to their different needs like a robot using a manual. How I parent each of them is very different. How I love them is the same, of course. To bits. Each of them. With every particle of my soul. And each of them adds different new dimensions to who I am. (Like irritation, frustration, annoyance, worry, fear, panic, imagination - that is the worst - fury.... hey, I am a mother, who likes to keep things real...and amusement, awe, magic, admiration, pride, love in spades.... endless lists). If I had only had one child, I would be immeasurably different today. Or two. I would never have had all those particular extras added on to my life. And I can't imagine not having them today. They have helped shape me. Not to mention what they did to my waistline.....

If I had not been able to have any children, I too, would be very different. In so many ways. My life would have gone down other paths, leading me to other amazing places and experiences and other added extras I cannot even imagine. So many variables. How many people will we interact with in our lifetimes? Uncountable numbers. And unimaginable numbers of ways we will interact with each of them. Each one will alter who we are to one degree or another. And each time we adjust to the person standing in front of us, we are sanding down those edges a little more.

Now, here on the web, we can only see the words. We know a lot of the words come from the heart and soul. Some make us laugh and some make us cry. Some say things which we echo in our hearts. But I can't see your faces, or your reactions to the things I say. I don't know you well enough through your words. I only know part of you. A very small part. The part you let me see. I can't see your eyes. I don't know when what you are saying is actually masking a deep hurt, despair or pain, physical or emotional. Unless you tell me. I don't know, when I read a bubbly post, if you are weeping as you write. And you know, this is probably not the place to put all the bad parts. After a while, I sort of sense if something is wrong, with the blogs I read frequently. But I can never know for sure. I can just see what you want me to see.

There are some remarkable people out there, you know. All over the world. Getting to know them could just alter your lives. Change attitudes. Preconceptions. Offer different views. Clarify some issues. Challenge you. Make you think. Teach you. Encourage. Sand away more edges.

Someone who knows me really well in real life once said that I only let people see 5% of who I am, and keep the rest hidden. That would probably be accurate, or maybe I let 10% out. I think perhaps we are all similar to a certain extent. People who know me, say that I write the way I speak. They can hear my voice when they read the blog. We all reserve the right to keep most of who we are private, and that is as it should be. Real life or not.

You will have an idea of who I am. It will be your own personal view. I often wonder just how accurate your ideas are. Who you think I am. There is no right or wrong answer here, let me hasten to add. It is simply how you have come to know me.

One of the things I absolutely hate and despair about, is the way modern 21 Century education here has taken creativity and turned it into a marketing tool. At schools, you don't teach cookery. You learn about catering for the masses. You don't learn how to sew, you learn batch production and industrial cost analysis. You don't learn how to make something, you learn how to package stuff. You don't learn how to create, you learn to write a design brief, do product analysis, market research and how to apply rules of health and safety. From when you are 11. We start training our babes to "colour inside the lines". Whose lines? Why? Are we training the creativity and free thinking out of our children to the point where everything we do is about increasing turnover, productivity, and mass market appeal? Are we buying into the idea that success should always be their highest goal?

Is that what we are doing to ourselves? Is this why we blog? Absolutely not, in my case. The day I start obsessing about things relating to numbers, visits, mass appeal and demographics, is the day I press the delete button. I am here to write, and to make some friends. To share things. For me, it is all about individuality and creative thinking and communication. I am just being me. I don't want to measure my success in life by what I may happen to write here. Here I am words. In real life I am much more than the words.

We all set out to blog for different reasons. The things I am talking about here today apply to me. Me. I know that there are some amazing bloggers, whose blogs developed a life of their own and exploded into mega blogs, and I delight in them as much as everyone else. I absolutely love reading them. Just look at my blogroll. I don't think any of them set out in the pursuit of mega blogs when they started though. That is what makes them so special. There are books you can buy about blogging. There are formulas you can apply. If you want to. I like this little corner. I love the friends I have made. It suits me just fine. It adds to my life. It is NOT my life, though.

It is natural to want the world to see us as happy, successful, content, secure, amusing, together, living out "the dream", whatever that may be. But "the dream" does not exist in reality. We all know that, I think. Stuff happens. Perfection does not exist in this life. I am as far from perfection as I can get, and if you arrived on my doorstep right now, you would know that for certain. You would walk past the cars that need washing, the flower beds which are out of control, to the door where the flower pots need surgical attention. The windows? Do not ask. Into my house which needs Barb and her cleaning magic to turn up as a matter of urgency and you would stand in front of a woman with a pain in her chest who is wrestling with responsibilities, decisions, finances, family and fitness and who bears no resemblance to anything one would see in a fashion magazine other than that she is female. And do not mention the hair, which has developed a rebellious life of its own as I speak.

A woman who reserves the right to change. Move. Alter. Adapt. Colour outside the lines. Thumb her nose at convention. Use every bit of the experience gained over 53 years and make it count. I am not the same person who wrote stuff yesterday. And I will be different again tomorrow. And it doesn't matter. It is my journey, and I get to choose the paths. Thankfully, I have a great Guide, which certainly helps.

Electrical malfunctions

Geoff would be grinning right now. My hair straightners died a miserable death this morning. This is a national disaster, or maybe not really. I mean BIG hair could be making a comeback, who knows. I could be a trend-setter.

Anyway.

I had nasty visions of lots of money for an industrial strength replacement. And then I had a moment of great inspiration. I removed the fuse from the plug with a kitchen knife, as one does. And I rifled through the serviette drawer (of course) and found a replacement fuse with the right number of amps, and popped it in before I resorted to tossing the defunct straightners in the bin, and VOILA!!! It worked!! I am a genius.

This was my husband's area of expertise. I never had to fix things. I just dumped them on his lap and looked pathetic. Or started waving the credit card about, which spurred him to immediate action, and he usually managed to fix whatever was broken. In fact, he managed to fix just about everyone else's stuff too. He is missed for more than one reason. Frequently. Many people around here sigh in a long suffering way when they announce the new purchase of electrical goods and then look at me and say...well, Geoff would have fixed it... Sigh. I know. It has been a great irritation to me too. Like when the toilet broke the day after he died. I had some choice words to say then too.

So he would be grinning. There is just one piece of equipment in his tool box which fascinates me more than anything else. A test meter. I have no idea how it works. But I do know it is an easy way to see what is broken. You stick one end of the wire on something and the other on a another thing and the reading does something. See?? I am a whizz. I know what it does but how and why and what it actually means is a mystery. But I will work it out one day. Why on earth didn't I ever ask him? Do I need one? No. But it is here and paid for and there must be some way to work it. Hmmmm. There are some minor gaps in my education.

For those of you who have asked - I could possibly have done the damage by carrying a laptop case stuffed with paper and files around all day and every day at work. It weighs a ton. Not to mention heavy trays of equipment as I move classrooms. I had commented on the weight of the things, and it had been noted as unsustainable. And it still feels just the same, so I am going back to the doctor to find out how long it will take to heal and what I am supposed to be doing. The first appointment I can get is for tomorrow afternoon. I teach a practical subject, which requires me to use my right hand to exert downward pressure a lot like using scalpels etc, and stretching to write on the boards won't be easy. Never mind carrying cutting boards etc about.

I worried about letting the kids I teach down, as there is no-one to replace me at the moment, but then a good friend said quite simply....who is more important? The kids you teach or your son? No contest. I need to be healthy and well. There is only me left. And that has never seemed more real than in the past week.

32 years ago last week, I got married. It seems like a lifetime ago. I was just 21. Two years older than my youngest child. Who is turning 19 this week. My baby. Where on earth have all the years gone?

Anyway, the enforced inactivity continues. My hands are itching to get on with the sewing, but I am being good and resisting. Remember how I was not looking forward to going to work and wanted to stay home? I got that. But not quite the way I would have wished for.

Beautiful day

It has been a lovely day...warm and sunny, and the clocks went forward this morning, so everyone got up late. And I decided to go for a walk. Breathing is good.

So I walked to the edge of the village and down the lane to those lakes you can see here....

And I made a new friend along the way. He was looking in my pockets for a carrot, but I didn't have any.... so I stroked his nose, and he seemed to like that....

The grass or whatever is growing in the field is very green....

More friends..... the mill cottage has a water sluice and this beautiful swan was playing against the current......

Just look at the reflection of the water in itself.....

The water in the lakes is higher than normal. Some of the trees are in the lake at the moment.....

Soon they will all be green. There are leaf buds everywhere, so I will have to go back soon and take more photos......

Such strange shapes. The trees bend towards the water in really weird ways....

And there are so many swans. I watched them take off from the water and come in to land. Unfortunately I got lovely photos of half swans. The sun was too bright to see what I was taking!

And this reminded me of Moses in the bullrushes. The reed are high and grasses sway gently in the breeze.

I walked slowly and stopped to rest a lot. So much to see and it is all so English and green and quiet. Lots of time to think and just to "be".

I am not invincible after all...

You do not want to know about Wednesday. I aged 50 years in 10 seconds. The same 10 seconds when pain ripped through my chest while I was sitting there minding my own business at work, getting my laptop files in order for the day. I am a woman, and I have a very good imagination. And believe me, I used every scap of that imagination. In spades. With optional extras. So I wrote a post about it, and then didn't post it. Why?? Because it a) might have alarmed my children and b) it let a little too much of me out of the box. Self-editing is not easy. But sometimes it is necessary.

And for a woman who seldom cries..........just know that I have redressed the balance. So it is little wonder that, for the past 2 days, I have done a great deal of sleeping and very little else. Pain is exhausting. And emotional weariness numbs the soul. And the body.

But I am indeed alive, thankyouverymuch, and pain will do nicely too, given the alternatives I had considered. I have torn or inflamed part of the muscle attached to my breast bone. I am just highly irritated that I can't do any sewing, or the mountain of things I would choose to do if not working. Because resting is the only thing which will mend me. And I want it fixed. Now. I am an evil patient. And even the book I am reading (which will never close again after being immersed in a full tub of bath water,) is too heavy to hold up, and I cannot read sitting at a table.

I ventured out to buy some milk yesterday, and thought...oh I will pick up some of the things I need for the weekend. No. I couldn't carry them with one hand. That didn't go very smoothly. So I came home and fell asleep on the sofa again. For the third time in one day.

So the sum total of my achievements for yesterday were:

1. Rested
2. Bought milk
3. Snoozed
4. Read blogs
5. Played on the internet
6. Slept
7. And slept some more

I lead such an exciting life. Today has the promise of THE SHOP!! With my son. To carry the bits. He is justifiably thrilled at the prospect. Especially towing a mother along behind him, who is clutching her chest like some vapid Victorian heroine in a melodrama.

A meme - because I keep writing posts and not posting them after all....

Morning all..... Crystal has tagged me for a meme, and it is a long long time since I actually did one of these, so here goes.....

Rules first:

1. The rules of the game get posted at the beginning.
2. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves a comment, letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

What I was doing 10 years ago:

I can't be absolutely certain, but I think I was in South Africa arranging to sell my parents home. And trying to sort out their affairs. They had come to visit us for a holiday just after Dad was diagnosed with Diffuse Lewey body disease, and the travelling worsened his condition so dramatically that he was not allowed to fly again, so they stayed with me. Or I might have started the extension to our home to accomodate us all. It all happened at once. I do know that it is nearly 10 years since we had to put Dad in respite care, and he never came home again. He stayed for a year, and then was moved to a nursing home. It was a time of tumultuous change around here.

5 things on my to do list today:

1. Rest
2. Buy milk
3. Rest
4. Plan lessons
5. Rest (I have not mentioned that I have torn or inflamed the muscles in my chest wall, have I....It hurts. But I am alive. And am supposed to REST.)

Snacks I enjoy:

1. Kettle fried crisps and dip
2. Cheese and crackers
3. Humous
4. Sesame flatbread
5. Taramasalata with crisps

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

1. Make sure my children were secure financially
2. Help family and friends
3. Pay all debts and travel more
4. Sponsor more children
5. Have the BEST time getting rid of most of it! I don't want or need a great deal, but I would love to buy a lifeboat, or help Air ambulance charities, Hospices, Compassion, Children's charities, Heart foundation, Alzheimers Society. The list goes on and on.....

5 of my bad habits:

1. Spending too much time on the couch
2. Not keeping up with friends enough
3. Putting things off till "tomorrow"
4. Drinking too much coffee
5. Falling asleep in the bath and drowning every book I read.

5 places I have lived:

1. Cape Town, South Africa
2. Plymouth, UK for a year when I first got married
3. Back to Cape Town and in a flat for 18 months
4. Then in a house in Cape Town, not far from my parents
5. Here in middle England, where I live now.

5 Jobs I have had:

1. Babysitter for children through holidays
2. Reader's Digest clerk (student work)
3. Exam invigilator
4. Managed a doll's house shop
5. Oriental rug shop

And I am breaking the rules here and saying I am tagging anyone who wants to do this one! So let me know if you decide to do it, and I will be delighted to come and check out your bad habits and all the rest. And now I am off to REST. I do not like resting and this is most inconvenient. Mutter mutter....

Hands, quilts and back to work

Aiyaiyai - or however you spell that. I have been quilting for 5 hours, and I stopped and had a look at my hands. My right thumb is now twice the size of my left one. A small matter of the old osteo-arthritis which I have had for ages suddenly flaring up. I got it in the first place from a combination of all the hand quilting I have done over the years, and being naturally double jointed, and it is not a pretty sight. The trouble is that I have a ridiculously high pain threshold, and so I carry on sewing through what should be first pain then heat, only I just get the heat. The pain comes when I stop. Like now. Snarl. I have 3 quilts and 7 cushion covers to quilt. That is A LOT. And I LIKE quilting by hand. Not that I would not drool over a Bernina machine with the stitch regulator for quilting, of course. One can but dream.

I have just spent 10 USELESS minutes trying to take a photo of my hands. Without using said hands. It is impossible. You might guess by now that I am A LITTLE IRRITATED. I am raising my voice. Just a bit.

Sigh.

This is all because the weekend is almost over, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. The mood is back in the doldrums, because I really just want to stay home and make things. We do, however need to eat. And be warm. And have the internet. And a phone. Oh, and water and stuff is always handy too. So I will be back at work.

But on to more pleasant things.
Yesterday our church service was just amazing. Wonderful. What a celebration! Thankfully, the snow had melted enough to make the travel across the valley relatively easy. And then we went to lunch with friends, which was also lovely. We ate so much I could hardly waddle. Lots of laughter and fun. And then on to a birthday tea, and when we were offered cake, there was a chorus of groans from everyone there. It seems we had all over-indulged at lunch. I rounded off the evening by chatting to friends on the phone while lying prostrate on my bed, to avoid my waistband garrotting my stomach. The diet started today. After I had visited a friend and eaten 3 digestive biscuits with my coffee this morning.

I am doomed.

Snowy Easter Morning

Look! We have snow! Now, while I do really understand that this paltry amount may be laughable to some of you....it is SNOW!!! I am reliably informed that the babes were out playing in the white stuff at 8am. I opened the window to take a photo.

Today is my daughter-in-law's birthday. And Simon's. And Martyn's. And this reminds me of a year when David's birthday fell on Easter Sunday. We were in Switzerland, and the poor little thing (I think he was about 4) had no idea what to do first...play in the snow, hunt Easter eggs or open birthday presents. He whizzed around trying to do it all at once, and had us in stitches. So much excitement and happiness all at the one moment.

The same child, might I add, is asleep in bed. I have hidden the Easter eggs. It doesn't matter how old they are, we still hunt Easter eggs on Easter Sunday. Picture fingers drumming the desk as I write...... I want him to wake up and hunt! Not to mention play in the snow.

Sigh. The child is 18. I might be pushing things just a little here..... Why do they all have to grow up??

Happy Easter to you all! And Happy Birthday to 3 special people!

Hot cross buns are my downfall

Hot cross buns. I love hot cross buns, and the best in the world come from Marks and Spencer. Jeana - you have to try them when you get here, and don't worry about it not being Easter by then. They are so good that M&S sell them all year round. Is this the only place on earth where you get hot cross buns all year??? It seems to be missing the point somewhere.

However. I love hot cross buns. Unfortunately I am the only one in residence who does, so it becomes my duty to eat the lot. And I am quite capable of rising to the challenge. Only problem is that the hips enter the "rising" bit with a little too much gusto too. And one cannot buy one hot cross bun. Good grief - one would never be enough. Of course not. And wasting food goes against the grain. I am trying to be both green and frugal. Forget the green bit - the birds are absolutely not going to get my HCBs either. Sigh. You may detect a note of greed and possessiveness at this point.

Anyway.

I just felt I should share the fact that I am carbo-loading for the second day in a row. At least I didn't eat the lot on Good Friday. It would have been entirely too possible.

I saw a few flakes of snow an hour ago, and they were less than impressive, but it is supposed to snow all day so we wait with baited breath. Here in the UK, snow is a novelty. My sister, on the other hand, is sick of the white stuff. Icy wind and grey skies do not feel like Spring though.

The sewing is progressing well, and so far I am pleased with the way all three are developing. Each has to reflect the individual child, and as I said, the construction of the top is the easy part. What happens next is the fun bit, and this is the part which takes forever. Kate and her friend Yuka popped in yesterday and suggested that they should be wall hangings instead of quilts, and that made me think some more. Maybe for one of the kids. Or 2. Or not. The size would change then. But I could use more mixed media if it was not going to be washed regularly like a quilt. Or not. Hmmm. I may have to lie on the couch a while and ponder options.

Or simply ask the kids what they want. I have only had one cup of coffee. My mind is taking time to catch up here.

"DAVID????????????"

Good Friday

Good Friday.
And the day here dawned bright and sunny and then the clouds came, and then temperature dropped, and the wind howled, and the snow is coming.

As the hours have passed, I have been thinking about that hill long ago, and how the day would have dawned and how the hours passed for Him too. And for all those people there watching. And I am even more amazed that I mattered enough. That He cared enough. That anyone could have been willing to pay such a high price for someone as ordinary as me.

I need to remember, on the days when I feel inadequate or not good enough, that I am not the judge here. He is. And somehow, He thinks I am worth everything.

It might be Friday....

BUT

Sunday is coming!!

(Go over to Dawn's place and read her post about "It might be Friday"!!!)

I could be losing the plot here......

I am sitting here wondering.

If someone says "I am coming over on Monday evening", yesterday, does that mean today or next week? I am now assuming it meant next Monday, seeing as it is now 8.50pm. I thought it meant tonight, until now. I have no idea what I might be doing next Monday evening. Next week is a long way away. I may well be out. Leading a wild and exciting life. You never know....stranger things have happened.

Weird.

That is what you get with text messages instead of the old fashioned why not just be daring and actually phone. And speak with real voices. As in human contact. Hmph. I may be out jogging next Monday night. Yes. That sounds like a splendid idea. I can eat Easter eggs if I am planning to jog.

Ah well....... I can read my book tonight and flop about and not worry if I make a mess in the lounge after all. I may even switch on the TV. The trouble with working where I do, is that I crawl home so tired, that the prospect of sewing is just beyond me. I get up in the morning and think...oooh I can finish piecing the quilt tonight. But no. The spirit is very willing, but oh, the body just needs to rest. Work really does sap every ounce of creativity from me, and that is the worst bit. I want to be creative. I need to make things. I am just too weary.

But the Easter weekend is on the horizon. A four day weekend is just wonderful. And after that there are just 9 working days till the school holidays. Bliss. I can't wait.