The end of another week approaches.....

It is nearly time for me to change the house to its Spring colours. So I am making some Spring bunting for the kitchen, and it is taking a while. That is because I can't sit and sew for long, which is highly irritating. But it will get done. Hopefully before Summer arrives. And the seasons all have capitals because they are important. They mean an end to the cold wetness, and I cannot wait. I want to get into the garden to plant things. I have plans.

So another week barrels to an end. Yesterday's sun has disappeared, and instead we have the wetness yet again. Isn't it amazing how much more productive we get when the sun shines? It energises people. Well, it energises me. Unfortunately I expended a little too much energy yesterday, what with all the "have you got a saw/screwdriver/sandpaper/drill/vacuum" etc etc etc. The end result was worth it, but there is always a price to pay.

The sparkling dishes make up for a great deal.

I need to stop discussing my dirty dishes.

I had a long chat with a friend today, who learned recently that she has been made redundant. We talked of opportunities, not misery. Plans, not hopelessness. Trust, not worry. Leaps of faith. I will forever be thankful that I was born with an optimistic approach to the challenges life has a tendency to throw at me, you know. My friend has a similar approach to life, and I know she will be fine.

I am working on awareness - being aware of the tiny things around me during my days. Opening my eyes. It is not quite as simple or easy as it sounds, but I refuse to get caught on a treadmill of just existing, and not really living. It is not about deliberately deciding to do something interesting so you have plenty to notice. No, it is about noticing things in the mundane. Like the sparkling dishes. (I need to STOP talking about sparkling dishes......) The way the sun shines on a photograph. The rows of threads, the way the tulips in the vase bend. My eyes glance over these things without taking note usually. They are not out of place and so don't stand out to me, and yet, if I do take note, they ARE special. Beautiful.

And at the same time, I am still caught up in the NZ earthquake disaster. The devastation of a city and the pain of its people. The troubles in Libya and consequences for us all. The revolt of the people in the Middle East. My mind considers the potential catastrophic rise in fuel prices, and an unstable world. And to be frank, there are times when just looking at the tulips slows down the racing thoughts. Thank heavens. Now there is talk of using all manner of methods to retain/regain control by Pres Gaddafi - things like germ warfare. And my heart shudders.

I put petrol in my car today. It was a quarter full when I got to the petrol station, and it cost me £52.00 ($83.70) to fill up. That means that it will cost nearly £70.00 ($112.67) a tank. And that is today. Tomorrow it will be more. The day after that, more again. And again.....

So many things to keep us awake at night.

So now, I have tulips in 3 rooms. I split a bunch so I can always see them, and remember the little things. In a world like ours, today at the end of February 2011, we need to remember the small things too. There is still beauty to see.

Oh the excitement!

I have had a WONDERFUL day. I suspect that it may not class as wonderful for you but believe me, I am sitting here grinning. Exhausted and aching, but grinning. The slow cooker is bubbling away with a lamb concoction in it, and I may be crawling to get some food, but hey, it is worth it.......

Remember the free dishwasher my friend Margaret spied on a notice board at her church? Well, today was the day I arranged to get it. So last might, I moved the old one out, cleaned the floor and undid most of the pipes. That meant emptying the cupboard under the sink and we will not discuss the state of it. But then, I couldn't undo the cold water tap. So I called a friend and he arrived and sorted that one. Then another friend came round to load it into my car. It was destined for the tip. I have great friends.

And then I went singing. That was lovely.

So this morning, both the guys who had offered to collect the dishwasher were indisposed, so I popped into the shop to get a big bunch of flowers for the kind people who were giving me the dishwasher, and then collected another friend to help.

Off to the tip, and then on to the other side of town. And then home to do the "quick and simple" connection and start washing dishes.

Yes. Well.

The cold water stopper thingy would not shut, so we had leaky water everywhere, which meant finding the stopcock and switching off the water to the house, and when another friend called to see if it was installed, I said no, bring tools. So there they were, my two valiant friends, masquerading as plumbers. There was a trip to the hardware store involved. I had the jigsaw out to cut out the back panel, followed by resorting to ripping the whole thing out.

I made coffee.

And took photos.

There was much laughter and talk of strange things I have NO NEED to know...... Plumbing is not on the list of things I want to learn.
One friend in the cupboard sorting out water pipes....
Two friends in the cupboards sorting out water pipes.......

I made more coffee.....

They got the dishwasher connected without leaks, and 3/4 of the way into the hole....

And then....

They decided that they would rip out my old microwave and install the newer one.

Of course.

So off came the casing, and it was so dreadfully grubby,I was mortified. I washed it. That took forever, but it got clean in the end, and they measured and repositioned and then remembered that one had to go for a haircut and the other had a daughter arriving for lunch in 15 minutes.

They promised to come back.

So I started trying to restore some order to the chaos. Like putting the dishes in the dishwasher and switching it on. IT WORKS!!!! Oh the joy......

That is what they left me with.

BUT

They did return, and look!

We finally got the dishwasher pushed into place. That took lying on one's stomach and shoving. x2. And the microwave is in place too. The bottom one is a combination oven and the top is a microwave. The bottom one is the newish one. Do not look at the colour of the vents around the top one. Apparently they are white. Well, the bottom ones are now white. Groan.

I was lavish with my praise and thanks, believe me. The guys did a great job, and I am SO thankful. They informed me that it was like Men at Play - sort of meccano for big boys. They also had a ball, I have to say and there was a great deal of laughter.

And look what I found at the shops - Febreze in a New Zealand fragrance. It is lovely, and when I use it, I think of my daughter. And I can see from the photo that I have forgotten to refill the tea lights on the table.

Right. I am off to find something else to pop into the dishwasher. This is so exciting!!!

New Zealand.....

Just to let everyone who has been emailing to ask if Diana is ok know - yes, she is absolutely fine. She was in Christchurch a little while back but is not there now. Her friends are also fine, but the city is battered and bruised and the devastation is awful.

My friend, Linds's son happened to be in Christchurch on business, and missed being in one of the buildings which is rubble now, by minutes. His car was tossed over the road, but he is fine. He saw things he never want to see again. Absolute devastation.

So it has been a high adrenalin sort of day, and I am so so thankful that everyone I know and love is okay. But your prayers for the people of Christchurch and New Zealand would be wonderful. So much loss, grief and shock.

Hey - I just love you all you know - you care. And it means the world to me.

Things change.....

I keep starting posts then abandoning them. This is reaching ridiculous proportions right now, because the longer I stay away from the computer, the harder it becomes to start and finish anything. Discipline, Linds. Discipline.

I was just thinking how the profile of my blogging friends has changed over the years. So many of my dear friends have slowed down, or stopped for now, and yet, yes, I know, there are new friends to make and get to know too. That is always exciting. But I miss my old friends from the days I started out so tentatively here. I miss their words. Their wisdom. Their lives. Sure, many are on Facebook now, but it is not the same. I may know what they are doing at any one time, but I don't know what they are thinking. And if your Facebook status is anything like mine, it is what I am NOT saying which is the point. Sigh. How to get the balance right.

And another thing - I miss the ordinariness there used to be in the blogging world. Before super organised, streamlined blogs became the norm. Some of my friends have become mega-bloggers and while I am delighted for them, I miss the times when we all seemed to know each other. Blogging was never a business back then. It was simply stories we wanted to tell. Progress, I suspect, is what I will be told. Things evolve. Oh yes, they certainly do.

Sometimes I hesitate to comment because there are already 298746788923900 comments, and what I wanted to say has already been said a thousand times or more. And I wonder if they remember.......

I like being able to tell my stories. I love(d) reading their stories. I loved Becky's Alphabet soup. Barb's Sunday Meanderings. Susie's wonderful photos of California. Chris's hilarious stories of her life and family. Mary's tales from Australia. Shannon. Antique Mommy. Diane from Diane's Place. Jeana. Heather. Jenni. Scribbit. Heidi, Kelli and Pam. Some still write now and then, and that is a total delight when I see them pop up on the reader.

Nostalgic. That is what I am. Not for something that existed decades ago. But for the days before the power-blogging started. Just a short while ago. Maybe some people felt they could not take their blogs to the next level? I don't do levels. Is that necessary? Does it matter? I am happy right here. It is so much less, yet so much more for me. Maybe people are writing books. That is great too and of course I want to read them. They are all moving on with their lives, I know. But I think of them often. And wonder how they are really doing.

But I still miss the simpler days. Them.

Sigh. (Setting the rocking chair in motion and reaching for the coffee)

Maybe I am getting old.

Anyhow.....

Maybe I will have to think of something different. But in the meantime, I am going to play with templates. Time for Spring, I think.

Two!!!

Someone I love very much turned two yesterday. I cannot believe she is two already. But believe me, she loves shops, loves bags and never stops moving. She likes wheels too. Things to get in or on and things to push about.

She loves balloons and climbing. She also loves cooking in her "kitchen". Pouring tea? Got it taped.

Yes, those are little people in the sink. And in the frying pan too, I believe. We may have to work on what is suitable for cooking. And we may also have to either invest in many sets of earplugs or remove the batteries from the stove. And kettle.

One busy busy little girl, who loved her chocolate birthday cake, fed her Auntie and Grauntie noodles she had cooked on her stove - the noisy one - on the TV (which could do with a clean after the feeding episodes) via skype. She has now got a jungle gym/slide thing in the garden and a trike and a little car to sit in and push around, so she is more than thrilled, and once the weather gets a little warmer than freezing, she will be out there. She did get bundled up a few times yesterday to try it all out, but her parents and grandparents were frozen, so the garden play did not last very long.

Another reason to hope Spring is not far away!

Ah, how I love that little girl. She is starting to talk more now. I distinctly heard "shtoopid" when the door of her kitchen came off. Not quite the vocab we were aiming for, but accurate, nonetheless! It was a stupid door to fall off when yanked with considerable force.

The grown-ups celebrated her birthday with a raclette last night, after she fell asleep. She was zonked after her very exciting and busy day. So were the grown-ups too, may I add. If you could bottle the energy a two year old seems to have we would make a fortune.

So I am one very happy Moregranny. I got to "Mum mum" (Come come) and do puzzles, and build duplo and put shoes and bibs on dollies. I got a wrestle (with her Mummy) a little girl into her clothes in the mornings - did I mention she never ever stops wiggling running or moving???

And I loved every minute.

Being a (More)Granny is wonderful.

Unremarkable......

It is cold here again. It seems that winter is in no hurry to depart. Wet too. grey. The kind of weather no-one likes.

I had a list of things to do today, and while I seem to have been moving all day, somehow half of it remains undone. Sigh. I did learn about cross crawling this morning though. A friend is helping me with some exercises. Not crawling on the ground - but doing the kind of thing soldiers do when they march. You know - opposite arms and legs moving.

Well.

I used to be able to do this without thinking, but we are trying to retrain the brain. You would roll with mirth if you could see me. SO frustrating when you get out of sync. And I do. Frequently. Things like "midline" and "crossing it" have become a challenge. But I am working on it.

The strangest thing happens when I try these sort of exercises, you know. Every nerve in my body starts prickling. That is the only way I can describe it. Like pins and needles only sharper. As if the wretched things are trying to stop me. They are confused. So I "soldier on" with the prickles. Then the hair starts standing on end.

Oh well. I will win in the end.

On to more mundane things. I have wrapped up Missy's presents for her 2nd birthday. Two years old. She is a real little girl now. Not a baby any more. And strong willed too. (She says with a grin - remembering 3 strong willed children she had to deal with in years gone by!) But so cute and so gorgeous. Not that I am biased or anything. I do love my granddaughter.

And after a short trip to the supermarket with the classy coffee shop, (yes, I stopped for coffee and a bite to eat) (and patted the laptops) Glynis popped in for a visit. That was lovely. And I have just spent the past 2 hours on the phone discussing my slow-as-a-doped-snail internet speed with my broadband supplier and its arch rival. It may be time for a change.

So my day has been unremarkable. I forgot to wash my hair. I also forgot to start the washing machine. I did not vacuum the appalling carpets. Nor did I clean the floor in the kitchen. I did not get any more photos scanned. I did finish a small sewing project. I did eat a couple of chocolates. I did drink copious amounts of coffee.

Good things and unimportant things. The bits that make up our lives, and give it colour. Perhaps my day can be called soft jade. Not bright and not dark. Neutral. Sort of. Hmmm. Colours. I wonder if I can make a rainbow in a week. Colouring days. Now that is an interesting thought to be pondered.

Maybe tomorrow.

Right now, I am going to go and watch CSI and forget the list. It too can wait for another day.

Old photos.......

I have been sorting through boxes of photos today. Not the ones already in the computer - those range from 2003 onwards, it seems. But the rest. From before I was born till today.

That means a mountain of photos. I have a huge box sorted into years, so we have made a start. But I should try to scan the lot and have them in folders on an external hard drive at the very least. But it takes time, people. Believe me. Loads of time. Maybe a decade or 2. I have been doing this all day and have only scanned in about 200 so far.

The hilarious part is looking at me. Well, at photos of me. Long hair. Short hair. Very short hair. Wild hair. Smooth hair. Then there is the size. From size 8 (very very tiny) to size *!$$*&!. (Not very very tiny. At all. ) We will ignore any measurements at this point. From unfortunate floral leggings (pink) to white trousers to glamorous black dresses and classy numbers (from the size 8 days). And Mummy Gear in between. Baggy sweaters. Long floaty skirts. Tshirts. Long cardigans. Concealing stuff. You know - to hide the post pregnancy extra weight which one is still trying to get rid of 22 years later. Some of us were not meant to be sylphs.

Groan. I am trying to get them in a separate folder and I will do a post of the Changing Me. However, I have to say, I think I look younger now than I did back when I was hmmmm ....about 42. Well, some time ago. And the shoes. Oh heavens. The shoes had some strange periods too. So did coats. There are some seriously weird coats in my past.

I also discovered that one of my favourite tops seems to appear in the 2002 folder. Right. That was a good investment then. But it is 9 years old. I think maybe I had better check to see if my attachment to it needs to be severed. I may be blind to its shortcomings.

Hair. Clothes. Inches. Shoes.

But you know what? There were an whole load of photos of smiles, laughter, hugs and cuddles. Grins and amusement, and happiness.

And me standing on ostrich eggs too.

My daughter is celebrating her birthday......

Some nights, if I go into the garden, I hear the hum which I have come to regard as normal. The sound of cars whizzing by in the distance, the sound of doors slamming, planes flying overhead, voices.

And then there are times when I walk into the garden and there is a silence so profound it actually makes you stop in your tracks, so not even the sound of your feet break it. The silence. Last night was a night like that. The stars were as bright as diamonds scattered on a velvet throw. And that silence. Wow.

Now I try to look for it at night. I wonder if I stay up a little longer, will I catch it? Sometimes I do and sometimes it never happens.

Last night, I looked.

I had been talking to my daughter because it was already her birthday in New Zealand, and I was not there. I was here. But I went to look into the sky for a different reason. We live under the flight path, I think. Planes take off from Heathrow and fly north over the pole to America, and then on to New Zealand. I can always see planes at this time. Always. And surely one is going to NZ? I like to think so and I look at the tiny lights up there in the sky, and I think of those exact same lights flickering over the airport in Auckland as they touch down in 24 hours. Closer to where my daughter is.

Imagination is a wonderful thing.

Telephones are too.

It sounds just as though she is in the same village when I speak to her. I forget she is hot and in the middle of summer while we are freezing in winter. I forget she is waking up as we are winding down for the day. I forget the thousands and thousands of miles when I talk to her.

We talk of ordinary things. Of family and friends, and how to work phones. Of cars and plans and things which make us laugh. Of illness and crises and oh....just ordinary stuff.

30 years ago, my little baby girl was handed to me seconds after she was born. So tiny and so beautiful. I never knew what any of my children would be. Boys or girls. I just knew that they were my babies and I loved them. So each was a beautiful surprise for us. It never mattered in the slightest to either of us.

And now look at her - 30 years old. Full of life and love and far away. Living - really living her life to the full. But I am her Mum and I am allowed to miss her, even though I raised her to fly.

Happy Birthday, my Diana. I think I will go and watch for planes in the sky for a while again. I love you very much.

History and changes....

I was listening to the news in the middle of the night - it was all about Egypt, of course, and one of the commentators was making a huge thing about "This is history in the making! We are seeing history being made!" and words of a similar ilk. And I started thinking. As one does at dark o' clock. First, that he was so young, bless him, and this was possibly the most significant event in his life so far, and secondly, that history is not just about big events.

Of course, what is happening in Egypt is of enormous significance, most especially in the lives of 82 million Egyptian people, and I just pray that they use this opportunity well, and choose peace, justice, freedom and democracy. But they are the ones making the choices, and they are an educated intelligent nation, and need to be left to decide for themselves. Things are changing all over the place, and as long as this earth keeping turning, it will continue to be so.

Change. It happens.

In the span of my lifetime, I have seen "history being made" many times. The Berlin Wall. Going up and coming down. Wars have been fought in distant places. Many things. When we think about history, we tend to think of massive events, often particularly brutal. But think back a few years - the New Year's Day tsunami. Remember that? To the people who lived through it, it was massively important, and it will shape their futures for generations to come. It is part of their history now. But to the rest of us, it has become a distant memory of a far off place.

There are concentration camp survivors who will know that their experience changed their history (and their futures) in the most savage of ways, and yet somehow they now find themselves living in a world where knowledge of those times is just found in a few history books. And in some schools here in the UK, history is being dropped as a subject. In favour of more technological modern subjects. Do NOT get me started on this one....... (I have a degree in History.)

Every day, we create our own history. Computers were invented when I was at school. By the time I was at university in the early 1970s, you could study computer science, which involved a lot of "1" and "0" in binary code, and pieces of rectangular cards with holes punched in them. Calculators. Mobile phones. Fax machines. Microwaves. Internet.

There was once an Industrial Revolution. We are probably in the Computer Revolution. Computers have changed the course of history. Our lives. Machines do the work men toiled at in the olden days. With terrifying possibilities and breathtaking speed. They have also enabled man to explore space. Well, to try to explore close bits of it in person, and further afield, oh yes, those computers are whirring away, sending back data undreamed of 20 years ago. Under our oceans. Inside the earth.

The future has endless possibilities, doesn't it. Both good and bad. And the past....

If we stop learning about the past, the future has little meaning.

But back to history being made.

Every time I take a photo, or write about my day, or sew a stitch in a quilt, or copy a recipe into my recipe book, I am creating a part of my history. My family's history. Every child's drawing gently folded and placed in a memory box, every pair of first shoes. Every wedding ring. Part of our history. Every school report kept. Scrapbooks. Diaries. Journals. Blogs.

I come from a family of adventurers, you know. My paternal grandfather who was born in Lancashire, here in the UK, ran away to sea when he was 14, then joined the British Army and went to India and fought in the Siege of Kimberley in South Africa. Somewhere along the line, he went to university in London, qualified as an engineer, started an industrial school and then when he had met and married my Granny, in South Africa, came back to England to fight in WW1 and then studied to be an optician. An interesting man.

My Moregranny, his wife, left Glasgow in Scotland as a young woman, with her mother and 2 sisters, to move to South Africa where her uncle had settled, half a world away. She trained as a teacher, and moved to the north of the country when she got married. Then back to the south when her husband died, to be near my Dad, her only child.

My maternal grandfather moved from Oxfordshire as a small child, with his family, to Cape Town, where his father founded a business which became very successful. He was sent back to the UK to school with his brother and once he had finished his education, he went to work for his father, and managed the business. He and my gran travelled widely.

My maternal Gran left Norfolk as a small child with her family, who were millers, and moved to Cape Town to a really different life in a city. After living on farms for generations, that must have been major culture shock. She, too, trained as a teacher and worked until she married and had her children.

Those great grandparents of mine made tough decisions in the late 1890s. They moved into the unknown, and who knows, there must have been fear or at least trepidation in their hearts. There was no guarantee they would ever see their homes in the UK again, or their families. They left centuries of tradition, of their histories, to start new lives. One great grandmother missed her home so badly, and never gave up dreaming of going back. She never did. They had no idea whether they would be able to build new lives in a new place. They had to work incredibly hard at it. No phones back then. Weeks or months waiting for letters. What bravery.

And now the modern day adventurers......

I married an Englishman, and moved to live in England. I crossed that ocean too. In fact, I completed the full circle my 3 sets of great grandparents and one grandfather started the century before last. My sister married a man born in Germany who moved to Switzerland as a boy and she now lives in Switzerland. She also moved hemispheres. I have a daughter who lives in New Zealand. Well, you can't get much further away can you.......

So this family has crisscrossed the oceans many times in many ways over the course of 120 years. It has been to most places in the world, given that I was married to an officer in the merchant navy and there were not many places he had not seen, believe me. And my parents and sister travelled a lot too. In fact the whole family travels as often as they can. Maybe it is genetic. Their decisions over those 120 years have altered the history of our family. (I also had a part in making one of those decisions, of course.) And it will continue to change as generations come and make decisions of their own too.

So far, to my knowledge, none of the people in my family has changed the course of global history. They have ridden the waves of a century of immense challenges, though. They have lived through the history we read about today, including 2 World Wars. I have lived through parts of it. South Africa....... many many challenges. The Cold War. The rise of terrorism round the globe. Big things. Little things. But they have written their own history books. Unique.

And just sometimes we forget that it could be the smallest of things which could have the hugest of impacts on the history of the world. Tiny seemingly insignificant things.

Like that little baby born in a stable, for instance.

Who knows who or what will change the course of history then? It could be a book. It could be one life. It could be one small idea. It could be one stroke of genius. Or madness. It could be just about anything.

Little insignificant things. Or so we may think. Big things too, like Egypt, perhaps. But our own histories are just as important in the sphere of our lives. And everything we choose to do alters how our history may read one day.

We will have to wait and see what kind of story unfolds.

Cakes and technology. One needs one to deal with the other.....

Lunch out yesterday was a delight. Lovely to relax, have a panini and catch up with Glynis's week. And then Jean got back from Kent, and off we went for tea in the afternoon. And scones. At the same lovely place. My favourite place to go for coffee or lunch. Groan. Groan re the excessive intake of delicious food, not the company, which was also delightful.

So I came home and decided that supper was superfluous. I would starve (hahaha) instead.

Then I went to housegroup. And my coffee arrived, and then the array of cakes. Lemon drizzle cake (delicious) chocolate brownies (equally delicious) and something else I managed to ignore. Yes. I had more carbohydrates.

And WHO CARES???????

Waddling is just fine.

I did not eat until supper today.

This has suddenly become a food post.

My day has been spent trying to understand my new phone. This has entailed watching innumerable Youtube videos instructing me what to do, and many many calls of frustration to my phone supplier to ask for help. The last time I called - I couldn't find the contacts from my sim card - had the man in stitches. I plowed on regardless, informing him that no little black phone was going to defeat me.

I have not even begun to think of ring tones and such like at this stage. That can wait. I need a darkened room with a cold compress on the fevered brow after the battle I have waged all day to understand a little thing which fits in the palm of my hand.

And I am old enough to remember those first mobile phone closely resembling bricks.

And car phones? Does anyone remember those?

Now for a little down time. I did cut out a little dress for Missy today (while waiting for the helpline to pick up the phone). I have a quilt to finish. I will be back tomorrow with something hopefully more interesting than phones and cakes to talk about, I promise......