Hey Mr DJ Put A Record On...

Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent
Victor Hugo

Although there are a lot of ways in which I haven't yet grown up, my most teenage trait is always having to have music on wherever I go. When I had my own car the first thing I did before I set off anywhere was to decide what I was going to listen to. In the days when I bought CDs I would play a new one over and over again - the most recent was Plan B's 'The Defamation of Strickland Banks'. Do you remember when you were young and you came home with a single on a Saturday? You played it so many times that your Mum would call up 'you'll wear that record out'? And can you recall your very first 45? Mine was Ball Park Incident by Wizzard (ages me just a bit!). For me there was nothing better than stacking all your fave songs onto the record player and letting them drop one by one onto the turntable. I think my record (geddit!) was eight. And they were record players in the 70s - stereos and sound systems were yet to come. A year or so before she died my sister V got hold of an old record player for me and I think of her every time I listen to some old Northern Soul (the ONLY way to listen to Northern Soul is on vinyl, dont'cha know?)

Without music life would be a mistake
 Friedrich Nietzsche

I was brought up in a house full of music. One of my earliest memories is Babcia's copy of Little Peggy March's 'I Will Follow Him'. The first time we watched Sister Act I said to Big Man 'I know this song!'. The original isn't remotely religious, btw...just a good old love song :). Dad was into Elvis, Jerry Lee, Chuck Berry and Little Richard - a real 50s rocker. But he also loved C&W and when he was home from sea we always had Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette on the record player. Sometimes Irish showbands (The Hucklebuck doesn't sound the same if Brendan Bowyer isn't singing it). So I have an eclectic kind of musical heritage. Then my uncle, Al introduced me to Northern Soul; I already had picked up on Tamla Motown (anyone else have that Diana Ross and the Supremes album with the three pairs of red lips on the front?); and punk came along. I was always more into the music than the attitude though I did love the amazed looks when I walked along Moore Street in Dublin wearing a man's shirt, a pair of red and white polka dot bikini bottoms, the ubiquitous ripped fishnets and a pin in my ear. And I did learn to play the drums, after a fashion, when I was in my 'band'.

Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music
Sergei Rachmaninov

 
Music has been part of every part of my life. Sad times. Happy times. Furious times. Sleepy times. My iPod is going all the time (just listening to 'Venus' by Bananarama, before that was 'The Great Gate of Kiev'; 'This Boy' by the Beatles; 'Golden Brown' by the Stranglers, 'Ruler of My Heart' by Irma Thomas....). I love seeing bands live, even though sometimes I feel a bit old and small surrounded by Amazonian teens. I don't think I could ever really be friends with anyone who doesn't love music and I'm always open to new stuff and to be persuaded to listen to new bands - only yesterday Red introduced me to The Devil Makes Three - but I still put the oldies on for my residents rather than sit them in front of the TV. Ethel, who I told you about a few posts ago, doesn't react to much but when Frankie Laine's 'Answer Me' came on the CD player the other day she pointed to it and was listening intently. Maybe it was her and her husband's song? Whatever it was it sparked something in her brain that 'Deal or No Deal couldn't possibly ignite.

Where words fail, music speaks
Hans Christian Andersen

So, what I'm going to do is throw out five songs that mean a lot to me for varied reasons. And because I'm a nosy so-and-so I'm going to tag five people in a kind of musical meme. Don't do it if you don't want to but I think the music people like says a lot about them. Indulge my curiosity!!
In no particular order.....

1. September Song by Walter Huston
This was played at my sister V's funeral (she was born in September) and is so melancholy and beautiful that if it doesn't do something to you I can only think you have lump of granite where your heart should be.

2. Paradise by the Dashboard Light by Meatloaf

When Big Man and I got our first car (a Ford Capri - very boy racer!) we used to drive up to see both sets of parents and played Meatloaf's 'Bat Out Of Hell' album on tape all the way there and back. We always sang along with this one - obviously I was Ellen and he was Meat. I use 'sang' in the loosest way possible....

3. Third Finger, Left Hand by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

This was the B side of Jimmy Mack, a big hit for this group and probably the better song. When I was in my late teens I used to go with my friends to Tiffany's, a big nightclub in my malignant Northern home town, and whenever a bride-to-be was celebrating her hen night this was always played. I really wanted it to be played for me too but I only got married in the registry office and didn't have a hen night. And Tiff's was no more by then either.

4. Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead O'Connor

Beautiful song, gorgeous girl, and UK Number 1 the week my own gorgeous girl Red was born.



5. Have I The Right? by The Honeycombs

I was given this record when I was pretty young and loved it. The drummer is a girl, Honey Lantree, which was unusual for the 60s, and I just love the beat!!!!

I'll probably pick a different five next week! Anyway, I'm gonna tag five people who I want to know more about.

Lucy at Being of Sound Mind

Michalann at $12 A Day And A Baby On The Way

Wendz at 15 Coast Road

The Minimalist at Tasmanian Minimalist

Elise at Foof and Faff

Tag another five each if you want. Because as we all know...

Music brings the people together

Madonna



One Hand Washes The Other

Babcia had made a knitted jacket when a friend of ours had her first baby. She also donated something meant for our etsy shop to our friend's second baby. On Thursday our friend came to the house to collect Big Man who was going for a 'workmates' meal' and she left all this with us.

It's all testers, L'Oreal and Rimmel and there are lip glosses, lipsticks, foundations and a couple of concealers and powders. How fantastically kind is that? This friend knows that I had been looking for donations of nail stuff so I could give my residents manicures so, even though this isn't nail stuff she told me to do what I can with it. And she has another two stands to go through!
I think I'll take it over to work with me and show my workmates then ask for a 50p donation per item which I can put into our Residents Fund. If anybody reading has a request for L'Oreal or Rimmel items let me know and I can see what I have. The stuff is unused and full size....only 50p each item.....;)

Isn't it nice when a good deed is repaid?

Baffled By Cheese

S'il qui mange du fromage, s'il ne le fait, il enrage

When I was a kid (and now I'm an adult too) I was a real little pig. I always used to offer to unpack and put away the messages when Babcia came home from Grandways,  the local supermarket. She imagined it was because I was kind and helpful but really I wanted to see what she had bought and with any luck make off with some of it and snarf it down in secret. A 12-pack of Blue Riband biscuits was one item of booty I remember spiriting away.
Once, I went to bed as normal then feeling peckish (or piggish, depending on your outlook vis-a-vis gluttony) I tried to sneak downstairs to get a little snack. I made it into the kitchen undiscovered, looked in the fridge and saw....mmmmmm, cheeeese. Quietly I got a knife from the drawer and cut myself a chunk that must've weighed a good 6 ounces; wrapped the wedge back up and silently glided back towards the stairs. I was about 4 stairs up when I heard someone coming from the front room to the hall. It was my Dad!!!! I did what anybody in danger of being caught stealing a big piece of cheese would do - I curled into a little ball on the stairs and hoped I would somehow become invisible.
Of course I didn't disappear and when my Dad saw me (probably totally amazed at the sight of his 9-year-old chubster of a daughter curled protectively over un morceau de fromage halfway up the stairs) he called out to Babcia 'come and see this, I've just caught the biggest mouse in the house!!' The embarrassment and humiliation were total and worse still I was sent back to bed without any cheese. I mean, it wasn't as if I'd left teethmarks in it or something...

I'm telling this story to illustrate how much I love cheese. Any kind, soft or hard. Foreign. Traditional Cheddar. Stinky. I adore Stilton and all blue cheese. Whatever's going really. I am also trying to be money-saving so I was happy to see cheese on offer at Sainsbury's the night before last but there were so many different permutations of sizes, weights, flavours and BOGOFs that I stood like an imbecile for at least five minutes longer than I usually spend looking at cheese. I was after a nice bitey, mature Cheddar so I could have a kilo of Extra Mature for £6.99; two for £6 where one weighed 400g and one 370g; two for a fiver where both weighed 400g; some kind of BOGOF thing for £5...why is there so much choice?! Why is saving money so complicated? I didn't even intend spending a fiver on cheese but rather than spend £3.50 or so on just one piece I decided I might as well get two. Clever old Sainsburys!

I was also seduced by a reduced sandwich filling. It called itself Cheese Savoury and whilst yes, it is savoury and there is a little bit of cheese in it, it's more of a thickish cheese coleslaw. But not as nice. Very carrotty and cabbagey and not to be recommended to you caseophiles out there. Try a nice Stilton.

Any more cheese freaks out there?

*He who does not eat cheese will go mad. 

Tonight Matthew, I'm Going To Be The Little Engine That Could

It's going to take all of my mongrel cunning and guile to finish this month solvent.
I got paid on the 8th and because our Working Tax Credits have just been renewed and were (I thought) not being paid until the end of the month, all the direct debits and such came out of my wages, leaving me with nothing to pay into the credit cards when usually we throw a stack of money at them. I can't work out how this has happened. There were a couple of biggish things to pay in the first week of the month - Babcia and Dad's wedding anniversary flowers were nearly £50 and the newspaper Memorial notice for V's first anniversary was over £50, not that I begrudge either in the slightest. And I'm keeping a good check on the food bills too - we're at £263 out of a budgeted £350 (just whilst all the kids are home for the hols, then back down to £200). Anyway, I discovered yesterday that we got our WTC paid on Friday so I used them to pay this month's Council Tax (a mighty £177 which, considering we don't get any rubbish collected, is high by any standards) and paid some money off one of the cards. Now there's no more money again until I get paid on 3 September so it'll be tough.
On the plus side Red is paying me back £50 a week from her portering job that will cover the money I've had to lay out for her in the never-ending rent saga. Yes, that's still creaking on. I'm waiting on £53 in expenses from work and have another £30 or so to put in. I did a mystery shopping job yesterday for a whole £7 (yay!!!). I have a little bit of money in my ING account but that's really for Christmas. I have just over £22 in 20p pieces in my calculating cow AND between us we have £5.50 in Tesco vouchers. Oh, and I have about £45 in my Paypal account and made £10 in eBay sales this week but one of the things I sold was given to me by Babcia and even though she won't expect it, I'm giving her the money from the sale...she needs it just as much as I do. Am I going to make it? Let's just say I'm going to make like The Little Engine That Could.....I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.......

Actually, this is slightly creepy.....:S

Now, I have a dilemma. You remember that some of Red's rent money was taken by the housemate who was responsible for paying it to the landlord on behalf of all the housemates? And that I paid, as guarantor, £680 which Red is portering to pay back? Did I also say that on the last day before they were evicted, whilst I was helping Red scour out the kitchen, the landlord rang and said that he'd discovered there was a further month when the rent hadn't been paid....another £340 each outstanding? In a nutshell the landlord is saying that the deposits (£680 each) are now in arbitration because Red owes the 'missing month' and the rent thief owes...well, who knows what she's paid. The other three housemates' parents have already paid everything for them, no questions asked. My dilemma is, do I pay out ANOTHER £340 (see above, where do I get it from?) making it a total of £1360 I'll have had to find, and hope that we get the whole of the deposits back? Or not pay it, write off the deposit and still have my £340, bearing in mind that the five sets of parents were joint guarantors, ie we are responsible together for whoever doesn't pay. Even if I do pay, the landlord could say that, since there is rent outstanding from the thief, we can't have the deposits back anyway without covering HER share. I wouldn't put it past the landlord to make up some reason to keep the deposits anyway, since I assumed deposits were for damages, not rent arrears. He has never proved, to my satisfaction anyway, that the money wasn't paid, although with everything I hear about this girl I can quite believe it. But to ring up on the last day of the tenancy and say that he'd just discovered that rent from the previous November hadn't been paid (this was July) just stinks to me. Plus he is threatening to sue the guarantors jointly which is not good as I am the one out of Big Man and I with a good credit rating. Anybody got any ideas because it's driving me crazy. I am so thoroughly pissed off with the whole episode and Big Man is no help at all. 'Sue him!' 'Sue her!' 'Don't pay any more!' He wants to load the gun but let me shoot it. Will this ever end? Help!!!!

Finally, since some commenters were envious of my 49p toilet roll dolls, here they are in all their glory.

I ♥ toilet roll dolls :)

Belated Blog Swap News and a Bognor-iffic Time!!!!

Well hello there. I remembered that I hadn't shown you what I got in my blog swap plus I've been encouraging Red to start blogging and I can't really quit when she's just starting, can I? I've got a bit of time in between listing on eBay (anybody else's sales SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW?), struggling with Mr Charming's student loan form and having a bath so here I am!

First my blog swap with the magnificent Lucy from Being of Sound Mind. The box she sent was decorated beautifully (compared to mine which was probably advertising Value Pork Scratchings or somesuch)....

Lucy sent me some really lovely things - she is so creative and must have put a lot of time and effort into my gifts.

Let's see, I got a lovely home-made (I think?) candle in a rose sugar bowl that sits on a little glass and gilt saucer. A glass bird paperweight that's very tactile. I love glass birds. Some Dr Seuss stickers which are great because I always use return labels and stickers on my letters and parcels. A chunky ring. A fab picture in a frame for a Book Lover. Lucy made this herself and covered the frame in decoupaged book pages and used Scrabble tiles for the wording. Finally I got a notebook that had been all Gothed-up with glitter, net and paper. I always have lots of notebooks on the go for my interminable lists. I even got a lovely rainbow from her sweet boys! Thanks so much Lucy. Of course the best part of the swap was that I was matched up with Lucy and I hope we're pals now.... :)

Last Saturday we planned to go to Arundel for the day (me, Big Man and Carb Addict) but as we were driving towards it we saw signs for Bognor Regis and, never having visited before we decided to go there instead. Surprisingly there were not that many people around. We had something to eat in a pub/restaurant on the front and did a spot of people-watching - my favourite pastime and the perfect outlet for my own special brand of snarkiness. There was a little market near the seafront too with a stall selling what I guess you'd call 'rock novelties'. I think it needs a special kind of humour not only to think it's a fun idea to give sweetie genitalia as a gift but also to be happy to receive them. Maybe it's just me but do people really think 'hmm, Margaret on Reception supports the donkey sanctuary and she has a sweet tooth, we'll take her a big sugar penis as a souvenir'? 

Bognor Regis pier - sorry, didn't take any sea photos :S

The beach is extremely stony and seems to just drop off about 12' away from the shoreline. There were the usual hardy families crouched shivering on deckchairs, huddling around the picnic hamper in much the same way as Native American families gathered around the camp fire. Look! They have Granny, the family matriarch scowling beneath her 'I ♥ BR' baseball cap. And there are the young bucks, all goose-pimpled flesh and Fat Face swim trunks filling their fat faces with Scotch Eggs and rock novelties (oooh, Missus!). Their cross-generational day out is more an ordeal to be endured than a fun occasion to enjoy, but having paid £2 each to keep their arses off the pebbles they're unwilling to admit defeat this soon.

 The Lucky Last Hole!

We were unswayed by the dubious pleasures of the amusements and made our way to the town centre where I came across quite a few charity shops. How did that happen, tee hee!!! I did get a few bargains, the best one being four knitted toilet roll covers, complete with the dolls AND the toilet rolls, for the incredible price of 49p EACH!!!! You couldn't buy the doll alone for 49p. Plus they were really well-made. I am threatening Mr Charming with one for his flat when he goes back to uni. I already gave one to my colleague Agata who has just moved into a flat with her husband. She loved it! Another colleague and I were trying to explain to Agata what 'naff' means but how do you explain it to somebody Polish, even when their colloquial English is good?! I also bought a really lovely Warehouse 50s style dress for a fiver and a couple of Pyrex inserts for a hostess trolley, with lids. They only cost £4 and I can probably get £15-£20 for them on eBay. Not a bad haul.

I'd definitely recommend Bognor for a chazzing trip and as it's only 40 miles from me I'll be taking Babcia the next time she comes. She texted me and said that she has had a tic in her eye for a week now and feels just like Inspector Clouseau.
I think she means Herbert Lom.

A Day of Two Halves

This morning I spent an hour sitting with Vera. 93 years old and she is not 'going gently into that good night'. The screaming was hard to cope with but the weirdest thing was the way she kept looking intently at someone I couldn't see. The curtain between the living and the dead seemed very thin today.....

....then later, after the ambulance took Vera we had some entertainment. A duo, who my manager had told me were very funny, came to sing and play music. Well they were funny all right - Ken is the Les Dawson of the concertina world whilst Deirdre sang even more bum notes than he played. Irene kept giving me a worried look that said 'where's the Candid Camera?' whilst Dorian (who deserves a whole post of her own) didn't stop sniggering all the way through, then blamed me afterwards for having a cheeky face. Whatever charms I may possess by the way, a cheeky face isn't one of them :S. Needless to say my work colleagues all showed clean pairs of heels, leaving me singing-along by myself, as usual. Looking on the bright side Ken and Deirdre were cheap, knew every song from the 30s to the 60s that we threw at them and are keen to come back. And the residents enjoyed it once they realised they weren't part of 'You've Been Framed' so that's all that matters.

From tragedy to comedy in six hours.

Police and Thieves

Tonight I'm thanking God that Red came home from Lewisham a fortnight ago. I think I would've driven through it to get her if she was still there. But please keep her boyfriend, my would-be son-in-law PC Furious in your thoughts tonight....he's been deployed into Central London and I'm hoping more than anything that he stays safe.
What sort of madness has overtaken people?

V

I'm the oldest sister of three girls.

This time last year I was sitting beside a hospital bed with my mum and dad and my brother Jack. I was holding my sister V's warm hand and hoping and praying that she would stay with us. She had lovely soft hands, with long slim fingers and manicured nails that she took great care of. I suppose I was still shocked - I was due to fly off on holiday to Tunisia with Big Man and Carb Addict on this day, not keep a bedside vigil in a malignant Northern city - but Babcia had called me and there was never any chance that I wouldn't drop everything and drive for five hours, hoping this was another false alarm. V had quite a few of those and had battled her way through. Surely she could do the same this time?

V was four and a half years younger than me, a beautiful, bouncing, healthy-looking child. She was always hungry and the health visitor advised Babcia to feed her with very runny Weetabix through a wide hole bottle teat (!), which she did, being young and lacking in confidence. Could that have had any bearing on what came to pass?

When she was two-and-a-bit V got a skin condition called impetigo. She was given penicillin which made her very ill and she spent a couple of weeks in hospital. After that she became very clingy, mardy and ill-tempered. As she got older V preferred to stay at home with Babcia, making cups of tea and watching TV...we called her 'Miss TV Times' because she always knew what was going to be on. She was quite pious (well, we WERE taught by nuns!) and a bit of a goody-goody compared to my rebellious ways (I had a pin in my ear....OMG!).

V started losing weight at about age 11. She went to the toilet frequently, drank loads of water and one morning when Babcia went to get her up for school she found V almost comatose...the smell of pear drops filled the room. V was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes and spent a short time in hospital. You need to understand that in those days the only treatment was daily injections and strict observance of food rules - I think things are a lot different now with insulin pumps and so on. V was given an orange to practice injecting and a diet sheet and that was about it.

By the time V was 15 or 16 we were back living in the UK and V wanted to be like everybody else - drink, eat whatever she liked, smoke, never let on that she was a diabetic - and so she started to regulate her insulin according to her blood sugar readings. She also got it into her head that she was fat which was another reason to mess with her insulin. I know now that this has a name, diabulimia and that it's a very serious condition that can exacerbate the different complications associated with diabetes. And apart from everything, V was very bitter that, of four siblings, she was the one who had lucked out healthwise. Quite honestly she was fiendish to everybody...Babcia and Dad took the brunt of it but she wasn't nice to to many people. However she got a job, moved in with a boyfriend and things continued on as even a keel as they can for somebody whose diabetes is totally out of control.

The years passed by and V's health deteriorated. She had finished with the boyfriend and lived alone in a flat. She still had friends and was close to our other sister, our baby girl. She continued to work but things were starting to go wrong. Diabetics should be very careful if they shave their legs (should try to avoid it really) but she'd nicked her shin and it became ulcerated, resulting in ultra-painful skin grafts and a dent in her leg to the bone. Also diabetics need to have regular foot care appointments, which V didn't bother with. The nerve endings in her toes and feet were damaged and she had toes on both feet amputated. This would be devastating for anybody but especially so for a young woman. However, far from being the wake-up call it should have been V carried on smoking heavily, self-regulating her insulin and generally playing Russian roulette with her health.

Shall I cut a long story short?

By the time she was 35 V had lost one leg to just below the knee; the other at her hip; been on kidney dialysis; had a kidney transplant and gone blind in one eye. And just to add insult to injury she'd had pre-cancerous cells removed from her cervix. Never, ever think diabetes isn't serious. Through all this she carried on the same as always. Smoking, starving herself, going into hypos and hypers...twice Babcia had to get the police to break into V's little house when she could see her flaked out, almost dead on the settee and ride the ambulance to hospital with her. Yet every time she somehow battled back. Brave. Bloody-minded. Fierce.
 Once a week my Dad took her in her wheelchair to Asda for her shopping (and that's another thing....she spent £70-£80 a week on food and didn't eat any of it. Typical eating disorder, yes?) and that first week in August last year there was an epidemic. Lots of kids were in the supermarket on school hols and V, who never had any childhood illnesses as a kid, picked up chickenpox. Because her immune system was so compromised by the anti-rejection drugs she took following her transplant and, I suppose, because of her years of self-neglect the chickenpox went to her lungs and caused pneumonia. V was never keen on children and she'd probably been cursing them all the way round Asda that day. I wonder would she see the irony?

So we sat around V's bed in the ICU. The doctor had told us that there was no more hope and that the life support was going to be turned off. We were relieved that we weren't asked to make the decision. We all left her room whilst the nurse turned all the machines off. Babcia and Dad didn't feel they could go back in so Jack, his wife and I went in to V and sat with her. It was so quiet. We held her hand on either side and the last monitor showed that her heart rate was increasing. What I didn't realise was that a body tries to carry on fighting....self-preservation I suppose. Jack and I told V that it was okay to let go and that she could leave us now. This last year I've beaten myself up so many times thinking that if I hadn't said that she might still be here. When I'm missing her I think that, mostly.
And then it all just....stopped.

I was amazed at how quickly V's hand, that seconds ago was still warm and malleable in mine, began to grow cold and stiff. Almost instantaneous....really odd. Babcia and Dad came in and nobody really knew what to say. I suppose we were all thinking that she was peaceful now. And how angry V would be to be dead. That sounds strange but she was an angry person and when she had first been taken into hospital a few days before I'm sure she never imagined for a minute that she wouldn't leave there again.

Now she's been gone a year. I miss her. I've wanted to tell her things so many times, picked up the phone so she could be outraged on my behalf, or to tell her something funny. She always sent those cards they sell in Oxfam - you know the ones with old photos and a witty comment? - and I think of her when I see them. She was generous, madly intelligent, sardonic, ironic, talented, funny and sensible - at least where others were concerned. But she'd set her path to self-destruct and she was never going to make old bones. We had known that for a long time and I think inside V knew that too. She'd been given so many chances, so many wake-up calls and she ignored them all. Everyone tried so hard to help her but she could be so prickly - she once ignored me for a year when I wrote and suggested she gave up smoking - and she was an adult after all. It was like she was in a barrel heading towards the falls and instead of jumping out into the safety of the shallows she paddled even faster to the edge. I guess we just weren't enough to keep her here.

Much love, V. Miss you xxxxx

Night Falls On Southampton

"It's 9.10 in the Keshling House and in the office Keshling is bent over the computer, trying to write a witty and entertaining blog post.
Nearby in the kitchen Carb Addict is prancing from one foot to the other in front of a docked iPod. He is holding a table knife up to his face and using it to look at his reflection from the corner of his eye. Simultaneously he is flicking rapidly through the Shuffled Songs, listening to the opening few bars of each one before moving on to the next. Is he looking for any song in particular?

Ping! 'Be My Baby'
Pong! 'Sex on Fire'
Pang! Everybody Wants to Rule the World'
Pow! 'At The Hop'
Zap! 'Jeepster'
Zhup! 'Dambusters March'
Zip! 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag'. Ah, Carb Addict decides to rewind this one 16 times, still only listening to the opening bars, before moving on.
Zow! 'What Difference Does It Make?'

"It's now 9.25 and back in the office Keshling is becoming irritated by Carb Addict's musical choices. She tells him to go and put his pyjamas on but instead he goes out into the garden and takes a small saw from the garage. It looks as if Carb Addict might be planning an assault on the apple tree. He is talking to himself but Keshling picks up a few random words...'postman', 'goodbye Janet, see you soon', 'Chessington World of Adventures', 'get up', 'weekend'.

"In the kitchen Keshling is getting the corn-popping machine out, Carb Addict is upstairs in his room changing out of his wet clothes and the small saw is in the pond. It's 9.45 and having given up the idea of a pithy blog post Keshling has ceded possession of the computer to Carb Addict who settles down in front of The Platters on YouTube with a big bowl of popcorn. Keshling repairs to the living room with the strains of the first few bars of 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' echoing in her head.

Night falls on Southampton."

The Moon's A (Square) Balloon

Red is looking for a job so that she can raise money to go back to London. Obviously she is living at home rent-free. Mr Charming came home from uni at the end of May with some of his loan left over and has, according to a very disgruntled Big Man, 'slept in for two months'. But now the loan is gone so Mr Charming too needs a job. I find this particularly irksome because at the end of June I noticed that a local leisure centre was looking for lifeguards. The ad said that it wasn't a problem if applicants didn't have the NPLQ (National Pool Lifeguard Qualification) because they would be running a special course on July 15 which would result in qualified lifeguard status. Excellent!!! Mr Charming IS indeed a qualified lifeguard and even though his has lapsed (it needs to be retaken every two years I think), no problemo....he could requalify through the job.



Except he refused to go.

Had money left, didn't need a job, blah blah blah. He even got pretty shirty when I tried to press him on it so I decided he could do what he liked, knowing that he would soon be very sorry.

Last week came the day when the loan was spent and Mr Charming was indeed very sorry. Red had already told me that she didn't care what she did to earn money 'so I can pay you back Mum'. Hmmmmm. Each morning from work I texted to Red and Mr Charming, telling them to get up and look for work by checking the Jobcentre website and each day when I got home they both told me there were no suitable jobs. On Friday I looked myself and straight away found them both openings for the following night at a big pub in town, the Square Balloon. Red has worked as a barmaid before, at the local Irish Club which is run by Mr Charming's best friend's dad (we're big on connections and nepotism in this family). And Mr Charming could collect glasses.

On the Saturday night Red and Mr Charming worked from 8pm to 2am for nothing. No money. Zilch. It's called a trial shift apparently and they both hated it. Mr Charming said that he would rather kill himself than work there again and Red agreed it was pretty awful but that she'd go back if nothing else came up. And at least she made £3.70 in tips.

Yesterday Mr Charming got a cheque for £306 that was his refunded deposit from halls so he has decided that he doesn't need a job now after all, though how long he thinks that will last him I don't know, given that he won't get any more loan until September at the earliest. So this evening when the man from the Square Balloon rang up to offer him work for tomorrow night he turned it down. And it sounds like he's turned it down on Red's behalf too. The manager asked whether she would be available and Mr Charming was very non-commital....the manager didn't call Red so it looks like that's a dead-end.

But tomorrow Red is going to an agency in town about a temporary job as a hospital porter at the General (odd choice I know....maybe she really WILL do anything?) and I said that she should call into the pub whilst she's out though I'd class her response to my suggestion as ambivalent.

I've had to conclude that I have two unmotivated, unwilling and idle people on my hands. How come I can find jobs for them just like that (clicks fingers) but there's never anything suitable when they look? I totally adore all my kids but sometimes they make it very hard. On the minus side they lie in bed, won't do any chores without a lot of nagging, and stopped thinking I was the Oracle of All Knowledge long ago. On the plus side they are pretty frugal, and can live quite happily on packets of Monster Munch and tins of Kopparberg.

The next few months should be interesting.

PS Big Man was talking to his sister Sophie this evening on the phone and I heard him complaining about me using our Rainy Day Fund to pay Red's rent. And, thank you Sophie, she told him that 'your kids ALWAYS come first'. Let's hope he thinks about that a bit..... 





This Is Ghost World

Regular readers will know that I work at a nursing home as an Activities Co-ordinator and sometimes I fill in as a carer which is what I've been doing this week. We look after the elderly who need 24 hour nursing care and/or have special needs and/or early stage dementia. I love the activities side but I don't much like personal care. Most people don't have the first idea of what goes on in a nursing home ( I thought it would be a cross between 'Waiting For God' and 'One Foot in the Grave' - how wrong I was) and would rather somebody else took care of old people. I'm cool with that.
But the world of the nursing home is a strange and unsettling one, filled with the ghosts of carefree, young, bright, brave men and women, shadows of what they once were. The residents' families flit in and quickly out again - if indeed they visit at all, preferring to pay strangers large sums to care for their parents' earthly needs and to provide the comfort and companionship they no longer feel able to give. Rooms echo to the sounds of long dead performers - Glenn Miller, Ambrose, Alma Cogan, Billy Fury - and the air is perfumed with Old Spice, Lily of the Valley and decay. All the residents have left are a few photographs and their memories. Not all of them have even those.

In 4 is Jean whose son tells me she was a WAAF in WW2. He tells me she is 'Hampshire through and through' and even spent the war based in the New Forest. Later Jean tells me that she was based in Iceland for four years during the war but she can't remember which branch of the RAF she served in. She is droll and peppers her conversation with phrases such as 'now you're talking my language' when I ask if she'd like a cuppa. She winks at me as she drinks her tea through a straw but her expression says 'we both know this life is a crock of crap' and she sleeps for 22 hours a day.

Rose is in 16 and she too was a WAAF in the war. It was the best time of her life she tells me. Now the regular care staff and the nurses are driven demented by Rose's constant ringing on the buzzer...every twenty minutes she is 'dying for a wee'. They are in and out of her room all day and her underarms are bruised from being hoisted up and down from armchair to commode and back again. Each time she squeezes out one or two drops of urine or a tiny hard pebble of poo. There's no medical reason for the incessant need for the toilet - she just needs to know that people are still there. When she's not on the commode Rose sits in her stifling room, windows firmly closed, staring at a blank TV screen.

Then in 11 we have Irene; a great-granny many times over, Type 2 diabetic and laziest resident in the house. She sits Jabba the Hutt-like with her knitting and her televised sport, always amenable  - 'whatever's easiest for you, I don't mind' - until actually required to do something like walk to the dining room or out to the garden, when she'll start sobbing and complain of terrible pains in her legs and 'feeling all wobbly'. Irene worked for the Post Office as a telephonist and later taking telephone bets for a bookie but now she doesn't remember her late brother's name and tells me every day that she has a sister who is 99. Her daughter and grand-daughter visit every second day with numerous children in tow, always across dinner time. But at least they care.

Dennis is only with us for a week's respite, in 5. He arrived alone in a cab wearing dirty clothes and in need of a wash, a shave and a haircut. His daughter is his main carer. Once Dennis travelled to his own apartment on the Algarve four times a year. Once he knew by heart every taxi route around Southampton, when he drove one himself. Once he was a marine engineer and worked on our great naval aircraft carriers. Now he sits out in the garden in pilled old sweat pants and talks about his days as an evacuee. He was so happy out in the Forest that he refused to come home until eight years after the war ended. I said I'll cut his hair when I'm back at work on Friday and he's so, so very grateful.

Ethel in 8 had a stroke and has dementia. She came to us on the back of a four month stay in the General. She is a widow with a son, daughter-in-law, granddaughter, grandson-in-law and great grandson. Ethel can only say one or two words but she hangs onto your hand for grim death when you sit beside her. She wears such a look of abject terror all the time that one can only wonder what is going on inside her head and how much of anything she understands. But when I show her the photo of her old self with her husband she rubs her gnarled finger softly up and down his image and I think she remembers. Ethel was once a big woman and her clothes, her 'old Ethel' clothes hang from her now tiny body. Her family should really replace them but I've only seen her son the once.

I know most of the residents' stories; what authors and screenwriters call 'back-stories'. That's my job, to find out things about our residents because that's what we do nowadays so we can 'help' them; tailor entertainment to their interests; 'understand'. We poke into their lives and say 'gosh, that's awful' or 'I bet that was a good laugh' or 'weren't you brave?' or '99 years old, really?' then move on to the next body, the next bed.
We exhume their memories and exter their ghosts, setting them free to swirl around the rooms of their keepers whilst we clock off back into the here and now.

A Spaghetti Western Kinda July.....

...full of the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

Pic by DenisM79 at deviantART

THE GOOD!

I had a lovely visit with Babcia for a week. It's so wonderful to see her and it doesn't happen nearly enough.

I made a couple of goodish sales on eBay on the last day of the month. It's always great to add more money to the coffers.

I was given four awards by fellow bloggers - it's so flattering to be appreciated!

I got my daughter Red home from London in one piece, for the forseeable future at least. I only ever feel 100% happy when she's under my roof.

My colleagues and I are building up a really great working relationship - adversity has turned us into a great little team.

THE BAD!

I had no real control over my budget right from the start of July so I'm not going to bother doing a sitrep - I'm back on track now though I hope. It'll be harder to keep a lid on the food budget especially with five adults in the house.

I didn't take all the opportunities I had to list on eBay and have probably lost money as a result.

I had to use our little cushion of money to bail Red out of her rent crisis and Big Man is doing my nut in harping on about it. Despite the facts that a) he didn't even know it was there, and b) it was £680 to help our own child out as opposed to the £18,000 he  saddled us with by not wanting to put employees (who let's face it were nothing to us and walked into new jobs without a backward glance the Monday after we had to finish them) out of work. Nobody can understand how much it grieves me to think that my husband begrudges his own child :'(

I had three lots of £8 bank charges as a result of going over my overdraft. Makes me feel like all the hard work I've put in so far is crumbling. I'm gonna have to be extremely focussed and very ordered. More lists needed! More spreadsheets needed!!

I was bitten on the face by an insect. It's taken two weeks to go back to normal. As normal as I ever look that is ha ha.

THE UGLY

Red and Big Man had a very poor relationship before she went to uni in London two years ago; it was a relief when she left and the truly terrifying, terrible arguments came to an end. Now, after just one week things are becoming fraught. She is very forthright and headstrong...he can be pedantic and thinks things are the same now as they were when he joined the Navy at 16. An example. Big Man to Red - 'Why haven't you got a job yet?' Red to Big Man - 'I only came home the day before yesterday!!!'  You see? And I am always in the middle. I want to say 'LEAVE ME ALONE!!! I DON'T CARE!!!'. I feel too old and tired for this crap right now and I only see it getting worse.

We are short-staffed at work and I have not been doing my real job. I keep getting asked to do carer hours and my activities hours are going by the wayside. This is a problem because I am working very long hours (for me anyway), in a job I don't really care much for at all (hands-on care work) but feel I have to do because I don't want to see my colleagues struggling, and because I of course want/need the money. I'm stuffed, basically.

There have already been several heated debates between Big Man and I over the perceived failings of Red and Mr Charming (no, even he hasn't escaped Big Man's critical eye either). Don't see that stopping any time soon.

It's going to take everything I've got this month not to go under.

"You Like Me.....You Really Like Me!!!!!"

So, whilst I was away I was given four awards by my lovely friends Wendy and Louise....my first recognition!

and two lots of this one!

Am I not the luckiest gal? Now I have to give you twelve obscure facts about me - that's seven for the 'One Lovely Blog Award' and five for the others. Hmmm. Let's see.

I was the drummer with an all-girl punk bank (the only one in Dublin at the time) whilst still at school. The nuns loved that! I started by practicing with two rulers and a bucket then the other three punkettes bought a drum kit - they'd left school by then. The cows threw me out of the band when I became a skinhead. I had shocking pink hair, then black with a white streak down the centre, just like a skunk....I had a #3 at the time.

I had a weekend job in a barber's shop when I was still at school (nothing as mainstream as hairdressing salon for THIS rebel lol!!) so I have always cut hair for the men of the house. Big Man doesn't have masses left so he's a quick run over with the clippers but both Mr Charming and Carb Addict have fauxhawks.

This isn't either of my sons btw, it's just in case you don't know what a fauxhawk is...

I know how to communicate using Makaton. This is a combination of signing similar to BSL, and symbols and is very useful for people who have little or no speech. I first started using it as a way of communicating with Carb Addict though he has no interest in it whatsoever.

I own and have read many times every Agatha Christie book. David Suchet and Joan Hickson are my ideal Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple though I also love the films of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile with Peter Ustinov.

I love films about the Mafia and I also watch The Shawshank Redemption every time it's on.

My favourite film ever is The Mummy. The rest of the family laugh at me whenever I watch it, saying 'do you remember the time we went on holiday to Egypt and you expected the inside of the pyramid to be like it was when Rick and Evie went in one?'

Doesn't everybody book holidays based on what they've seen in a film then??

My only claim to sporting fame is winning the egg and spoon race at the Sports Day in the last year of junior school. All race winners went on to compete against winners from other local schools to find overall champions in each event but sadly my folks had decided to move us to Ireland (again!) so I never got my big chance to shine....I went to 13 different schools in England and Ireland.

I understand French, Spanish, German and Polish better than I speak them. But my Polish is getting better every day, thanks to my lovely colleagues Staś and Kasia. Also I can sing two songs and count to 10 in Irish, which will be useful if I ever find myself forced to take part in Riverdance.

I did a tandem parachute jump to raise funds for the Hampshire Autistic Society a couple of years ago and it was the most exhilirating experience of my life. The following year I entered the Great South Run, again to raise funds for HAS, and it was ghastly. That's all I'm saying.

I was once thrown off a horse into a massive patch of nettles but it didn't put me off horse riding!

I met Prince Charles when he came to open the new head office of B&Q where I was working as an accountant. Driving home afterwards a lit cigarette end that I was trying to throw out of the car window blew back and set my new, specially bought skirt on fire. Nobody mentions things like that when they talk about the dangers of smoking, do they? 

I have to pass these awards on now so I've picked some blogs I think are entertaining. Feel free to accept one, all or none, if you so desire - I realise these are not up everyone's street, so I understand if you decline. Either way it is an opportunity for me to say how great you folks are and how much I love reading your blogs. 

My charity shop swap partner, the funny and clever Lucy at Being Of Sound Mind

Fee at Chipper Nelly

Becky at Hazel and Blue

The supemely talented Viv at Hen's Teeth because I love the way her post titles are always song lyrics

Lisa at Jumble and Jelly - her blog is so positive and enthusiastic

Loo at Jumbles and Pompoms

Elsie at The Kitsch and the Curious...I totally covet her collections and stufs

The admirable Alex at Odd Socks and Pretty Frocks. I'll be going to her for a list of Liverpool 'must-sees' next month!

I'm not sure Jane at Rattlebox will approve but that's too bad!

Liz at Shortbread and Ginger  always has something interesting to say

Thanks again Louise and Wendy!!

O mój Boże!

Dobry wieczór! (that's good evening) -

I've been away for a while and I'm very flattered to have been given awards by Louise at The Princess Prudence Diaries, and Wendy at The Butterfly Balcony during my absence. Thanks guys! I'll give you a few obscure factoids about me tomorrow, as well as an update into what's been going on chez Keshling. But for tonight...well, my lovely colleague Staś came over and the jollities were helped along with quite a lot of Żubrówka. Mmmm mmmm mmmmm. Anyway, I have work at 08:00 so I'm gonna love you and leave you. As they don't say in Poland ;P

The One With The Bitten Face

I always feel a mixture of sadness and relief when Babcia goes home after a visit - sadness, obviously because she's my mum, I don't see her very often, and she lives a long way away (in our malignant Northern hometown as you know). But relief because she and I usually end up spending more than we should when we're together and neither of us can really afford it. Well naturally....she's a pensioner and I'm trying very hard to live a frugal life. We had a great visit though - lots of chat, lots of laughs, LOTS of charity shopping (which I'll show you next time); Mr Charming is home from uni, Red came back from London specially to see her babcia and Carb Addict had the weekend here. Big Man spent rather a lot of time in his room to escape the yacking from all of us. It's so nice to have three generations together but such a shame it doesn't happen very often :(
Anyway, Babcia made it home without any trouble this time, which is always good bearing in mind the palaver last time...

So, now we have one day before the house is full of children once again. Carb Addict is home for the weekend tomorrow and on Saturday we have hired a van to collect Red and all her worldly goods from Lewisham then bring her back here. Her plan is to stay at home for 'a month or so', get some work and make some money, then return to London and a new flat (that she hasn't attempted to look for, btw) and hopefully get a job working with people with autism. I'm hoping against hope that it all works out but I have a feeling that things may not go entirely to plan, as they have a habit of doing in this household. Mr Charming of course is already home and is also threatening to get a job since he is down to his last £100. And there was me fretting about having an empty nest - they're never off the doorstep.....!

So although there is lots to blog about I'm gonna make this a short one because I am at work at 8:00 tomorrow - extra hours to try and replenish the coffers. It's a pity I have to go out at all though because not only has some sort of insect bitten me on the face, leaving me with two hideous, hard blistery things near my lip (which are getting worse with every passing day), but when I woke up this morning I had a golfball-sized sore lump in my neck. And indeed still have. My lovely nurse colleague Kasia had a feel, asked if it was painful and when I said that it is, said 'is okay, is nothing. But see doctor'. And luckily the doctor agreed! An infected saliva gland in case you're interested. Or possibly a stone in it. We shall see. Apparently lots of gland lumps and swellings are due to being run down or to stress.
Now why would I be stressed?!

What A Load Of Rubbish!

Unless you live on the stretch of the South Coast covered by 'South Today' you won't be aware that here in Southampton the dustmen have been on strike for weeks. Last Friday's local paper told us that the union covering dustmen has a 'war chest' of twenty million pounds, enabling the strike to carry on indefinitely. The strange thing is, the paper says that there will be another strike starting, as if they go back to work then stop again, but we haven't had our regular bins emptied for about six weeks now. The recycling bins were emptied maybe three weeks ago but who cares about that? We need the general, stinky rubbish clearing. The street cleaners are also on strike and it's beginning to get pretty ropey around here.

 Southampton city centre

We are finding it reasonably difficult even though we have four bins, two general and two recycling. We didn't buy extra bins but we live on a main road and years ago we came down one Sunday morning to find, first a wheelie bin in the front garden followed by a recycling bin on top of the car a few months later. We assumed drunks'd pushed them from outside houses further up the road and abandoned them at ours - what larks! Obviously we kept them and it's a jolly good job we did too! But if it's getting bad for us it must be worse for people who don't have a waste disposal system. When we had our new kitchen put in years ago we'd just come back from a villa in Florida and I insisted on having a 'garbage gobbler'. Thank goodness I did - all the food waste goes straight down the drain. Even so we have (or did have until this evening when Big Man, Mr Charming and Carb Addict burned them in the brazier) four black sacks full of rubbish too. It was warm today, they were getting smelly, there's MILLIONS of fat, lazy flies around.......what can I say, I live with pyromaniacs. And the smell from the fire was so foul that I'm surprised nobody called the police.

Student ghetto!!!

There's a student enclave near us and each year when they move out of their rented houses they tend to throw incredible amounts of 'stuff' out....kitchen utensils, clothing, bits of furniture, unopened packets of food...must be £000's of stuff. The universities set up a scheme a couple years back where the students could leave anything decent and reusuable outside their houses on a particular day at the end of term and it would get collected - it's still ongoing  - but it's always a mess at this time of year. Now it's just dreadful! Walking through there the other day I could see bags of unopened pasta, noodles, crackers; a pair of practically unused Ugg boots; a TV - I was so tempted to scrag some items but oh, the indignity of being seen and labelled as a middle-aged pikey deterred me. It's a throwaway society we live in and no mistake.

More student house trash round the corner from me :(

It really shows what dirty, lazy pigs people can be when you see the city centre littered with McDonalds' bags and wrappers, empty pop bottles and bits of paper - did their parents never tell them not to be a litterbug? I always made sure my kids used a rubbish bin and even Carb Addict, my special boy knows to put his rubbish in a bin, or failing that his pocket until he gets home. I think McDonalds should have staff out on the streets picking up their litter, if nobody else's. In fact I think all businesses should be responsible for sweeping and tidying outside their own establishment as a matter of course, not just when there's a strike on. Isn't that what they do in other countries?

Across the road from me...yuk

We have lost all civic pride in this country!!!!!

Here endeth the rant.

PS  I'm not sure how much blogging I'll be able to do from today because I'm having a visitor for a week, one who talks even more than I do AND expects me to answer. Yes, Babcia is coming to visit.

If she doesn't miss the coach, obviously.

May/June SitRep

I didn't give you a sitrep of our finances in May and it's kinda late for June too but since this is supposed to be a journey of frugality as much as my bitching, moaning and drama-queening it I decided better late than never. And also, y'know.....I'm pretty proud of what we've achieved. Well, I say we.....if you're a regular reader you'll know that Big Man's input is minimal to say the least. Such is life.

Anyway....(drum roll).....up to the end of June we have reduced our debts by.......

£8,671.71!!

We have gone from owing £45,766 to £37,094. I'm obviously really, really pleased about it, especially when you consider that we both only work part-time and don't earn massive salaries AND it's really been a one-person effort. If I say so myself.

So, one small business credit card was cleared totally in June and that can be snowballed. I got a 0% interest credit card from the Nationwide and balance transferred Big Man's smallest credit card onto it - sadly I couldn't transfer the whole £4.5k because I was only given a £1800 limit (I said I don't earn much, didn't I?) but we'll pay the existing £2k off the credit card in maybe four months whilst paying the minimum on the Nationwide card. Then pay that off. We threw everything we had at the MBNA card but it's going down sooooo slowly because of the very high interest rate. I got a couple pay cheques that were bigger than usual in May and June due to working some overtime but we didn't make any extra income so I've got to knuckle down to my eBaying this month to try and give us a boost.

We spent a bit more than usual last month, mainly from our little emergency fund but I also had to dig into my Lloyds overdraft again. Again if you're a regular reader you'll know that Red has been having trouble with her rent...long story but she and three other housemates paid a fifth housemate their rent for the month and said fifth housemate has taken it, made up a whole load of lies and as guarantor I became liable for £680 in rent which I paid from our 'cushion'. Plus I'd already sent her £340, one month's rent to pay the landlord which I should get back from her since I've now paid it myself. However I have my reasons for thinking Red is in further financial difficulty so I'm not going to ask her for it back. Yep, before anyone says, she should stand on her own feet but I decided long ago that I would never stand by and see any of my kids fail IF I COULD HELP IT. And I can, in this instance. End of.

We also spent £100 or so on our Welsh trip and I have booked a short jaunt to Liverpool in September for Big Man's birthday. Only a cheapie Travelodge but as a base they're really good - I think I've paid £38 for two nights. We also ate out at Frankie and Benny's one night....all three kids were home at the same time and I wanted to do something special so we went there. Oh, and we had a Chinese takeaway delivered. We won't be doing anything like that this month though, we'll be very frugal :)

I hope we will reach the £12,000 paid off by the end of this year but more would be great!!!

Photo Scavenger Hunt June 2011

This isn't a very good start is it? The first month of taking part in the hunt and I'm five  days late with the photos. Oh well......here they are:

Wheel trim toys of some description....whatever happened to Hot Wheels?

Tree branches near the river walk

Farm-fresh Welsh lamb...

Fantastic statue at Aberystwyth. I haven't done it justice :( but it IS architectural...

Sweet wooden elephant from my printers' tray

My messy cutlery drawer

Night over the caravan park

Something with the name of my city on it

A bit of a cheat....zucchini!!

This toadstool ring is outside the back doors at work

My granny had this set in her house when I was a girl. I bought them all for 30p at a charity shop in Wales

Delicious cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese Company. Nom nom nom

I'm not on the case for July yet but I have the list in my purse. Hopefully I won't be putting them up as late as the 5 August! I enjoyed doing this....good fun!