The Second Sex?

Have you ever wondered why it is that in many public places the Ladies bathroom does double duty as the Disabled toilet? I can understand why the bathrooms have to be combined when it's a small concern, for example the café where Big Man and I frequently go for Sunday brunch - just a little one-woman concern that has complied with access regulations by providing facilities for wheelchair users. But why lump them in with the Ladies toilets? It can't be for reasons of space since I imagine a urinal takes up no more extra floor space than a wall-hung hand drier. Could it be that it's expedient for civic planners to combine two disadvantaged groups of people together? Has anyone noticed a joint Men/Disabled loo recently?

pic from here

  

Weird Science

Today we had a visit from a company that specialises in showing animals to old people in care homes. They have visited here before and this time I'd asked for some unusual animals. We were hoping for a meerkat but were willing to settle for a chinchilla or a parrot. When the very nice girl-animal wrangler arrived she told me that she was sorry, she didn't have a chinchilla and wasn't quite sure why we'd been offered one. Plus the parrot was two now and had started kicking off so she'd left it at home (we would've liked that! It would have woken my sleepy residents up a little!). 'Do you have a meerkat then?' I asked, ever hopeful. 'Oh no!' she chuckled, 'they're really difficult to look after!'
The science bit was looking less weird with every passing minute.

In the upstairs lounge only four out of twelve residents were awake and ready to greet the animals who, it transpired were exactly the same ones as we saw last time.....a fat guinea pig, a lopless big rabbit and apparently a hairless creature, the species of which none of the residents were quite sure of when I quizzed them later (I wasn't able to stay for the whole show). I was sitting beside one of the residents, an old Scots lady called Mhairi whilst she was petting the rabbit and she asked the animal-girl a question in quite a soft voice. After asking her to repeat the question three times and still not catching what Mhairi said, Animal-Girl turned helplessly to me. 'What are you saying Mhairi' I said to her, having only caught the word 'mother'.

'Is its mother a dog?' was what she was trying to ascertain. Phew! Weirdness resumes!!!

Pic from here

Hello, I'm Resting Bitch Face

resting bitch face  a person, usually a girl, who naturally looks mean when her face is expressionless, without meaning to.

High up on the list of 'people who annoy me' (ie. most of the people I meet) are those, almost always men, who try to get a laugh by saying insulting things about you, belittling you. By this I mean they will say something quite personal about you in order to a) make themselves look clever and b) make you look stupid. These men are normally attempting to cover up their own inadequacy and I would imagine, tiny appendages. Most times this would make me feel ridiculous and small - it happened fairly frequently in my barmaiding days, normally when I'd refused to serve someone who had clearly had a skinful - especially because I knew that if I answered back, or replied in kind, it would incite the man to be really mean and personal. And who needs that when they're just trying to earn a few quid? Sometimes though you just have to call people out on their behaviour, if only to stop them from doing it to younguns who are not quite so confident. Because it's a form of bullying really, don't you think?

We have a resident whose previous carer comes to visit him a couple times a week - let's call this ex-carer fellow Geoff, shall we? He's maybe my age; a real Sotonion (calls people 'mush') and clearly doesn't have a job or he couldn't come to our place during the day like he does (that's conjecture on my part though since I haven't cared enough to ask him). I've chatted with him briefly but no deep meaningful conversations; thought he seemed okay and he seems fond enough of the resident he comes to visit. So far so good. A month or so ago I was serving out the lunch to the residents and I had my phone on playing music, singing along, when Geoff, who was sitting at the dining table with his friend called over 'don't give up the day job Keshling'. Now I don't claim to be Shirley Bassey but I know I can sing a bit so how rude is that? Uncalled for, personal rudeness. I confess I was taken aback, I mean, who asked him? Why comment at all? On that occasion I said nothing and let it ride, however other than saying hello I haven't spoken to him since.

Today I came out of the lift to walk to my office, maybe ten steps. Just walking, carrying some photocopying, minding my own business. Geoff was sitting outside the lift beside his resident; there were a couple of other residents there plus one resident's wife, a woman whose face is permanently etched with the expression of someone who has a lemon rammed up her arse and the demeanour to go with it (more of her another time). Geoff piped up 'cheer up Keshling, you've got a face like thunder' (obviously the aforementioned resting bitch face since I was neither happy nor sad, merely looking forward to a little sit down) and I decided, there and then, that I had to nip this in the bud. Without breaking step I told him 'make one more personal remark about me and I'll slap your face'. He was startled, clearly, because when I came out of my office almost immediately and said 'was that happy enough for you?' his mouth was still open. 

You might think I over-reacted, being that I am the thinnest-skinned person I know (absolutely the thinnest-skinned person in the building according to my boss Andre) but really, where do you draw the line? Should I allow him to carry on, getting more and more personal and clever with himself or do you think that's just banter, part of male/female relationships? I'm well able to slap Geoff down but what about the younger carers like Sam who has just started and is so eager to fit in, or one of my Polish colleagues whose English isn't fantastic; who nevertheless realises they're being laughed at but can't quite formulate a response? And does having resting bitch face mean that you have to put up with stupid comments from people who are, to all intents and purposes, strangers to you? It's bad enough having Big Man asking 'what's the matter with you?'constantly when all I'm doing is watching TV intently. But I think really, what irked me the most was somebody who barely knows me thinking it was okay to be personal. One thing's for sure, Geoff won't be making that mistake again any time soon.

What do you think, resting bitch face or just complete bitch?

Wednesday Addams, queen of the Resting Bitch Faces

And She's Off!!!!

First weigh-in at Slimming World was Tuesday just gone and I'm 7lbs down. Pretty happy with that - an average kind of first week loss although I have lost 11lbs in a first week once. This time I've decided to eat normally (ie not starve myself) on weigh-in days. If you don't eat all day there's a danger that you'll go home after group and chow down on everything in sight, which I've done soooo many times - this time I decided that I was going to be sensible and moderated. Hopefully I'll finally be successful!
I'm a big believer in rewarding yourself with little non-food treats when you have a good week on a diet so tomorrow I'm going to have some eyelash extensions. Yes, I do realise it's not really a little treat but Big Man has paid for them for my birthday, and it's half-price because a trainee is doing them, so I'm classing them as such. I'm really excited about it!!

I expect to look something like this tomorrow afternoon....

From The Pen Of A Mullingar Heifer....

Hands up if you can identify with my sad tale.

Before Red was born I had a nice figure - I always thought I was like the side of a house but with hindsight I was probably an ideal weight for my height. Put it this way - when I was 8 1/2 months pregnant I wasn't too heavy to be almost blown over a lowish wall on the main road by a great gust of wind whilst I was shaping along in my leather coat (probably to buy 20 Rothmans....I was on the ciggies big style in those days) and pixie boots. If I hadn't executed a pretty nifty scissor kick as I was buffetted diagonally from behind, passing drivers would have been dialling 999 rather than just being plain gobsmacked.

After Red was born I was scrawny. Walked everywhere with the pram; still puffing away on the Rothmans; no Big Man around therefore no need for any nourishment other than black coffee. When Mr Charming was born two years later I'd given up smoking, had a brand new car and didn't do any walking ("Look at me! I'm in a J-reg Astra!!"); consequently I started to get fat. And fatter. I've put on roughly seven stones since the pre-kids days; I've lost up to five stones at a time in the interim but put it on again and currently I am looking like the proverbial Mullingar heifer. Never heard of her? When I was growing up in Dublin the disdainful description of any girl whose legs were a little bit chunky/a little bit cankle-y (at least I don't have those...thank you God!!!) was 'she's beef to the heel like a Mullingar heifer!'. I really don't know what the significance of Mullingar is in this by the way - it's a little town in the midlands of Ireland and Googling it I can see that famous Mullingarians include Joe Dolan, Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, Tina Kellegher (if you've never seen the film 'The Snapper' I command you find it and watch it NOW!!) and Niall Horan of One Direction, they of the totally knobbish haircuts - but I find no reference to heifers and fat legs. Go figure. It's almost as insulting as that withering putdown for those with skinny shanks....'last time I saw legs like that they had a message tied to them!' People can be cruel and usually I'm one of them, but then you already knew that....

Heifer with attitude. A bit like me. Lol.

 



So here I am, a fat lady. Not at all happy. Any fat woman who says she is happy with how she looks is a big fat liar. All the 'oh, let's celebrate curves' and 'oh, real women are the new black/new 30 etc' and 'oh, so many proper designers are making clothes for bigger women' doesn't hide the fact that fat girls look crap in just about everything they wear. My opinion, don't hate me for it.
I'm not only fat, I'm very top-heavy so fairly slimmish hips, not much of an arse but a mahoosive chest. Which I hate, hate, hate. I'm pretty sure we've been here before but titless ladies, trust me, if you had my bangers you would not be happy. It's the curse of the females in my family, from Southampton (pretty sure Red has been the cause of more than one male patient going down to theatre with a beaming smile on his face when she's the duty porter) via Dublin, to Minneapolis and beyond. Think of four 4x4 Duplo bricks on top of an upright 2x8 Lego brick and you get the idea. Older ladies might remember William 'the Refrigerator' Perry from the days when we were being flogged the idea that American football was what British sports fans were waiting for. A linebacker, that's me.

My ass is only half this size - o joy!!!

 

A couple years back I lost a stack of weight using a combination of Slimming World (me and Big Man were our group's Mr and Mrs Slimming World...the sense of achievement was exhilirating!), gyming and Spinning. I don't like exercise but I turned into a bit of a gym obsessive and I was crazy about Spinning. When I hit a plateau, which slimmers inevitably do, I decided to mix my exercise programme up a bit by trying British Military Fitness - it was just getting going in Southampton then and sessions were held on the Common. I went along and was a bit worried to see that almost all of the others were students or (what seemed to me) yuppie-types. Slim young women and men who'd obviously just come straight from their jobs in law or marketing...no middle-aged, still hefty mothers in TK Maxx sweats. Firstly we all had to go on a run around the Boating Lake and back to the start point by the entrance to the Common. I puffed and panted my way past the shrimp net-wielding Eastern Europeans, hoping vainly to catch a carp, me obviously bringing up the rear. Everyone else had moved onto the next exercise by the time I made it back. This involved pairing up and doing sit-ups, each holding the other's ankles in turn. I was matched up with a young, scared looking studenty chap, not unlike Mr Charming is now.

Can you see where this is going?

His sit-ups passed without incident, however half -way through mine I let out a smallish but audible fart. His face was a picture, I don't think he knew where to put himself. I should have been mortified I know but I do believe that I might have actually laughed and said 'oops!' quite gaily. Maybe I should have leapt up and run and hidden myself in a little copse until the session ended but I just carried on doing sit-ups until the whistle blew. Needless to say the poor young fella was off like a greyhound out of a trap and I often wonder whether he got as many laughs out of the story as I have. In fact, am I wrong to sit here sniggering as I think of it even now?! And no, I never went back.

 

All this is a bit of a roundabout way of saying that I've started back to Slimming World again. There are a couple of reasons, apart from hating what I look like, not having a very good level of fitness, eating loads of snacky crap (not chocolate though...not really a fan) and not being able to wear lovely clothes. First, I've got another new sidekick at work who is very slim - I'd make two of her - and I don't want my residents calling us Laurel and Hardy. Second, Big Man has booked a holiday to Vietnam and I just don't wanna look like She-Hulk next to the petite Asian ladies.

 

She-Hulkeshling, but with a waist

 

I'm not telling anybody this time. Not Babcia, not anybody at work...even Red doesn't know but then she's hardly ever here and if she did know she might want to come with me then she'd drop out after a couple of weeks and people would keep asking about her and I'd have to keep saying she was doing shift work...blah blah blah. Been there, bought the t-shirt.

 

So, can y'all keep it a secret? I'm not gonna bore you with weekly updates or recipes or ideas for syn-free snacks. I'll just let you know each half stone, deal? And make sure you stick with me every fart of the way.

 

 

 

PS  Ulysses Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's Ulysses informs me that '...the plains of Westmeath around Mullingar are noted for fattening cattle.' So there you have it.

 



Once More With Feeling.....

You might remember, if you're one of the 80 followers that didn't unfollow me, that I said...oh, quite a while ago that I was Back. I wasn't back after all. But now I'm back!!!! From outer space!!!! Well, some round here do call our neck of the woods Mutant Mile, but that's by the by.

Since last we met I've been to Kefalonia. Then New York with Red and Babcia, who treated the citizens to her own special kind of nuttiness. Worked very hard at the same alternately wonderful/misery-making job. Got kinda engrossed in family history. Carb Addict left home. Not spent crazy amounts of money, which is always a good sign when your blog is kind of about saving money and paying stuff off. Not much else though...just lost the taste for blogging. Lately I've been thinking how things that happen to me would make fun posts.....I think that's a sign that I've been away too long.

No promises that I'll be writing as much as before (blogging community lets out a scream of relief) but I think I will be writing....

Poor White Trash Pt 2

Oh my Gawd, it gets worse.

I just found a Fanny Hair in my family tree.

Poor White Trash

My new and very engrossing hobby is family history. Until recently I though genealogy buffs were sad nerds living in the past but now I've realised it's quite the 'pastime du jour', thanks to 'Who Do You Think You Are?' I'd like to say that I've discovered that I'm descended from European royalty but sadly no....not even Eurotrash royalty. Just poor white trash.

I decided to investigate Babcia's side but only the English side - the Polish and Irish bits are just too convoluted - however everywhere I look I'm finding new Irish relatives, penury and lunacy. Births in the workhouse; summonses and fines for allowing drunkenness on licensed premises; wrong-side-of-the-blanket dalliances and more bones in the cupboard than a dog-loving butcher.

My family's lives seem to have been unremitting hardship and early death - they worked in oil mills, as labourers or as domestics. They don't seem to have moved from the same grim area their whole lives and there are no family photos whatsoever. What's sad for Babcia is discovering that the very small family she believed she came from was actually part of a massive, old-established, very well-embedded in our home city, dynasty that had been shattered following a disownment. Growing up she wished for cousins and had none - little did she know there were tens of them, living within a couple streets of her.

The problem with tracing your family tree is that all the nuances are hidden from you. I can track my relations back to 17-something but then you're just doing it because the information is there - dry, plain facts. What you can't get is the nitty-gritty of what caused families to act as they did; what was said, by whom; what caused the disintegration of a previously happy family; where someone lived and what they did between censuses. And also, nowadays there's nobody left to ask about relations - for me there's Babcia but she can't remember everything (things she thought she knew have been proved not to be) and her mother and granny, who brought her up, were pretty closed-mouth regarding family matters. Babcia was a nosey kid but some things just were swept under the carpet. It's expensive too! If you want a copy of a certificate from the General Records Office it's £10 a time and the websites for ancestry cost money. I don't think I'll be getting too many certificates from here on in unless I'm particularly intrigued.

So far I'm enjoying myself but I think I'm coming to the end of what I can search out from home. A visit to the Family Centre in my malignant home town is on the horizon some time in the future. Who knows, I might still uncover a rich relation who'll take me away from all this!!!!

Back

I never intended to be one of those bloggers who write things like 'shelled some peas and ate them with gammon and a fried egg for dinner, followed by bread and butter pudding for afters. Washed my hair and had an early night'. That isn't to say there's anything wrong with that kind of blogging - I follow one just like that and its very banality is balm to my bruised soul after a hard day with the bewildered elderly - but it's not MY kind of blogging. I hoped I'd be writing funny things and ironic things and thoughtful things. When I couldn't think of any I just.....stopped. Better to leave people wanting more is my opinion.

So I've read a LOT of books; been on holiday; I met up with another blogger and her sweet, sweet children (Lisa flattered me by saying my blog is very funny....I'm as susceptible to praise as the next gal); and I've started investigating my family tree - there's something about a new series of 'Who Do You Think You Are' that brings out the genealogist in me. My inner nosy cow, you might say. But mostly I've been working very, very hard. We are almost full in our dementia unit and far from being the horrorfest I was dreading the residents are, for the most part, funny, bright, witty, spunky (can I say that nowadays?) and so willing to try new stuff. Several of the ladies (I call them my 'Clever Girls Club' which they love) are very aware that something is going wrong with them and are desperate to keep their minds active so we do all sorts of quizzes, crosswords and puzzles. It can be draining but it's very rewarding - not meaning to sound like a Miss World contestant here - and for the first time I can remember people are happy to see me at work. As opposed to thinking I'm a monumental pain in the ass like at most of my jobs.

So for now I think I'm back. I've got more stuff to say, including some thoughts on the nature of blogging and why we do it. I can't promise it'll be regular but I hope it won't be boring.

We Are Not Worthy

Our God and soldiers we alike adore

Ev'n at the brink of danger; not before:

After deliverance both alike requited,

Our God's forgotten and our soldiers slighted

Francis Quarles 1592-1644

Long ago when Red was just a tot and I was expecting Mr Charming I flew out to Florida to spend a few days with Big Man whose submarine was making a port visit there following a series of UK/US war games. It wasn't long after the first Gulf War and the Free World was still celebrating the liberation of Kuwait. It was Big Man's second port visit to Florida - the first had been several years earlier on a destroyer. At that time there had been an announcement about the visit on local radio and an 'Adopt A Sailor' scheme was instigated. Many Orlandians came forward and treated members of the crew to various fun activities. Big Man and his friend Scouse Easton were taken to a tequila bar by a businessman who proceeded to get them royally bladdered. Another guy was flown IN A PRIVATE JET to New York for the night! Yet others were treated to family-run hog roasts, barbeques and pool parties. The hospitality of the Americans and the way they accepted the visiting sailors, just because they were in the military (and Brits, I suppose), is something Big Man has never forgotten.

During the visit I made at the end of '91 we were amazed by the way service personnel and veterans were treated. There was a special 'Speed Queue' entrance for the military at Sea World and after Shamu had finished his (her?) performance the emcee asked all servicemen and women to stand up and get applauded by the rest of the audience. We were able to get access to any military base just on production of Big Man's ID card*, which was great because we were able to buy reduced 'Military Rates' price theme park entry tickets. Say what you like about the American people, they know how to treat the military and veterans. We were spoiled.

Even if I wasn't married to an ex-sailor and I didn't have many years as a Navy wife under my belt I still would have an awful lot of respect and affection for our Forces. All of my grandparents saw service in WWII - RAF, WRAF, Merchant Navy, Polish Free Air Force, ATS and a Military Nurse (that includes a step-grandad and a grandmother who first joined the ATS then went AWOL to join the WRAF because she 'liked the uniform better') - and I come from a port city that appreciates the Navy with a passion, thanks to their support in the Cod War. So I'm really outraged and disgusted when I read things like this article in the paper today. Six soldiers were turned away at the bar of a pub in Coventry when they tried to get a cup of coffee each. The six were in the city to act as pallbearers at the funeral of the brother of one of them, also a soldier, who was killed on active service in Afghanistan. A member of the bar staff had already taken their order before it was rescinded by the publican's daughter who told the men that it was the pub policy not to serve 'anyone in uniform' (including policemen, ambulancemen, nurses, bus drivers??? Doubt it).

The publican has, reluctantly, apologised after first refusing to do so and has given a £200 donation to the fund set up for the dead soldier's wife and child (they accepted it....I would've told him where to stuff it). He also explained that had he known the soldiers were in the city to act as pallbearers at a funeral they would of course have been served. Why does that make a difference? What sort of establishment refuses to serve military personnel in uniform at all? Coventry is hardly Aldershot or Portsmouth, full to the brim with testosterone-charged young fighting men....there can't be that many uniformed servicemen causing trouble in the Midlands - heck, even in Pompey you very rarely see a matelot in 8s.

Prince William wears 8s very handsomely

Years ago when the IRA were very active in the UK the MOD banned servicemen from wearing uniform outside of military establishments - their visibility could very seriously pose a threat to their safety - but nowadays it's encouraged. And so it should be. Protecting one's country is nothing to be ashamed of. A Facebook group set up to protest at the treatment received by the soldiers in Coventry has almost 100,000 members, which shows that many people are incredibly grateful to and proud of our Armed Forces. The outpouring of affection and admiration towards Lance Bombadier Ben Parkinson reinforces this feeling.

We lionise inarticulate footballers, vapid actors and autotuned singers whilst paying our frontline military crap wages; housing them in sub-standard homes; disrespecting their traditions and belittling their sacrifice. We give them no quarter, either during their careers when they could benefit from discounts and preferential access to services or after their period of engagement, when we send them to the bottom of the housing pile and refuse to acknowledge their service experience and achievements. What is wrong with this country? Every single serviceman is somebody's son, brother, husband. and we owe them so much. We don't deserve them.

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

Rudyard Kipling 1865-1936

* this has never been a reciprocal arrangement to my knowledge and I doubt it happens in the US either now in these post-bin Laden days. I'm interested to hear about the military experience from any of my American readers.

Mission To Lars

If you read my blog regularly you're going to know that my #2 son, Carb Addict is severely autistic. I suppose like many parents who have a child with some kind of 'ailment' (for want of a better word) my ears prick up when I hear the word 'autism' mentioned....same thing when I spot anything written about it in the papers or whatever. So when I read the following review in the Mail on Sunday last week I said to Big Man 'I'd love to see this film'.

'The British documentary Mission To Lars (15) has a whole lot of heart as journalist Kate Spicer and her film-maker brother take their autistic sibling Tom to America to meet his hero Lars Ulrich, the drummer with heavy metal band Metallica. There are times when things feel manipulated but this never deflects from several emotional climaxes.'

There must have been some kind of karma going on because the next morning before work I discovered that our local arts cinema, the fab-u-losa Harbour Lights, was showing Mission to Lars for just that one night! I got Red's okay to mind Carb Addict for the evening (NOT always a foregone conclusion) and told Big Man that we were going out. Believe it or not this is a pretty rare occurrence given that our children are 22, 20 and nearly 19, and that the younger two don't even normally live with us. We were surprised that the cinema was fairly full with all age groups represented but oddly enough mainly older couples in gangs. Who knows what their interest was.

You know when everybody in the audience starts clapping at the end of a film that it's been pretty good. Mission to Lars is a real feelgood movie and yes, it is kind of obvious that there's going to be a successful resolution to the siblings' quest. The gist of the film is that for many years Tom, a huge Metallica fan, has told his sister Kate that he 'wanna meet Lars', Lars being Lars Ulrich, the band's drummer (who, I might add, comes out of the film fantastically well).

In fact Tom isn't autistic but suffers with Fragile X Syndrome. Similar but not quite the same. We recognised a lot of Tom's behaviours in Carb Addict, in particular the desperation to carry out a particular act but then withdrawing, refusing to do it when the time comes. Carb Addict used to have a befriender from Kids, a mid-fifties lady named Margaret who was very glamorous and who I personally think is the cause of Carb Addict's swooning interest in far older (verging on pensionable) blonde women. (Yes, it IS embarrassing by the way, the worst experience being during my nieces' First Holy Communion. Mortified is not the word....red faces all around, not least the flustered, pink-cheeked grandma of another child). Anyway, Margaret came once a month to take Carb Addict out for a few hours, normally bowling, and during the rest of the month that wasn't those four hours Carb Addict would constantly be repeating 'Margaret, Margaret'. However, when Margaret arrived to take him out in her car he used to refuse to look at her or put his coat on and had to be persuaded or threatened (by me, not Margaret) to go with her. He always had a great time. In the same way, when Tom gets his chance to finally meet Lars he refuses twice......

This was such a great film and it's a shame that it's had a limited release but in all honesty it's the kind of thing you'd see as a documentary on Channel 4. In fact, don't be surprised if thats exactly where you catch it, maybe even before the end of the year. A really good thing is that the profits from the film are being donated to Mencap. I urge you to see it if you possibly can at any Picturehouse cinema. Here's a taster....

Pressure Drop

Uncle Grandad's comment on this Speaking Blood Pressure Monitor from Lidl was "do you think it just gives you the reading or will it say 'ooh, I'd get myself to the doctor's if I were you'?"

Great Keshling Giveaway!!!!

I am struggling my way ever upwards but I'm hoping to hit 100 followers before too long. For a little push I am planning a giveaway in the next fortnight, just things that reflect the kind of stuff I like and stuff I write about - saving money, food, old things, creating.....have to find something also that relates to my inherent snarkiness. Hmmmm. To do that I've decided to go to Babcia's house with Carb Addict for a few days. He is highly excited and has been counting down the days until we leave since....ooh, yesterday maybe? My Dad, 'Uncle Grandad' as Mr Charming used to think he was called, has apparently offered to look after Carb Addict whilst Babcia and I do 'stuff', so that's chazzing for us two and book auctions for the fellas.

Pic from here

I always call it my malignant Northern hometown. Can you guess where it is yet?

Calzone, Il Moda Keshling

This is my version of Calzone, the mezzaluna-shaped pizza you may have eaten at Bella Pasta (other Italian pizza houses are available!). We love it in this house. My version uses some shortcuts.

Mix together 2 big packs of minced pork (the kind that are two for £6 at Tesco, ie 1.5kg) with salt and crushed black pepper, garlic granules and some oregano (a good shake). From this mix make as many teaspoon sized meatballs as you can - I got about 100 out of it. Put them in the fridge on a greaseproof paper-covered tray for an hour.

Whilst the meatballs are chilling get a big pan and put into it one tin of chopped tomatoes, a quarter of the tin of water, a jar of Aldi Calabrese Pasta Sauce and about 40g of fried onions (eg Danfood Salad Crispies). Heat it to a simmer then throw in about 30 of the wee meatballs (put the rest in the freezer!!) and a piece of chorizo sausage about 4" long, chopped into little bits. I usually buy Dulano Chorizo at Lidl - it's really good for all kinds of Continental sausage. Keep it at a simmer for about 25 minutes and you'll find that the meatballs are done thoroughly and the chorizo has added a lovely smokiness to the whole sauce. Let it cool a little.
Next take two packs of Tesco (or any!) pizza dough mix and make them up as per instructions. Knead well and divide into three (because this amount is for three adults who like their food). Roll each piece into a circle that's a bit bigger than a side plate - your dough shouldn't be too thin. Grease a large baking tray with Fry Light or whatever you have handy and starting from the left put one circle of dough on it (it's a lot easier to make the calzones up on the tray rather than try to move them when they're constructed). Put 1/3 of the meatballs and a bit of the sauce on half of the dough circle and use water to seal shut. Do your next two the same. Cover the tops with egg wash. Cook at about 200º until they look done. Plate up and cover the calzones with any remaining sauce from the pan.

Mangiare!

I had to use somebody else's photo when mine didn't

quite work out. But mine truly looked like this!

You can also use any ready-made meatballs - my preferred type are Scan Swedish Meatballs or some that Lidl sell when they have their periodic Scandinavian Specials Week.
This cost me about £5.40 or £1.80 each.....bit more than I usually spend but soooo worth it :)

Otto Gets High

I'm not much of a gardener, being inherently idle. I like loafing around in the sun 'on the back way' as the Northerner in me says but on the whole I can't really be bothered to put any effort in. I can admire a nice garden, of course, and every so often I make a raid on B&Q or Haskins Garden Centre, spend a good few quids on stuff and sometimes I even get round to planting it.
Spurred on this evening by Big Man's jeers of 'you'll never plant it, it'll go the same way as last year's' I went into the garden, accompanied by Otto, and repotted a lavender tree, a lavender bush and two clematis that I bought the other day. Whilst I was out there I uncovered a puny catmint bush from last year. I say bush - it's more the size of one of those little scabby tinfoil-wrapped sprigs of lucky heather that tinkers thrust wheedlingly at you on a Saturday afternoon in the city centre. Otto spotted it and, despite ignoring it all last year, had a good old chew on the leaves.

Otto got high. He's currently sitting outside the back door, staring intently at the garage wall, face about 6" away from it. Typical stoned behaviour I'd say.

Are They For Real?

Freecyclers that is.

I'm in Southampton as you know and I occasionally use Freecycle Southampton to get rid of good quality items we have no more need for, aka 'shizz we don't want'. I have also put a Wanted Post up once for a piano for work which was a complete debacle and ended up costing us a stack of £££ for delivery and almost cost us for removal too until Robbie the Handyman and one of the dementia residents took an axe to it in the garden.

Not our piano - there was nothing left of that....

Today I thought I'd put up a want ad for some audio books for my residents - tapes or CDs, I don't mind. Like I said yesterday, some love stories but can no longer read themselves so I thought we'd try some out. Then I thought I'd put another want ad up for a baby buggy or pram. I bought a couple of dolls from Ikea the other day that Babcia is dressing (also for my residents) and I figured a pram to put them in would be cool. I'm not expecting great things...

I decided, whilst looking at other folks' Offered and Wants, that some people have no shame and are talking the mickey with their wants, and that others are plain weird with their offers. Offered this week are: UPRIGHT HOOVER - seems to blow as well as suck; DENTED CAR DOOR FOR WELDING PRACTICE; LAMINATOR, BROKEN. Wouldn't they all just be better off in a skip? Then there is one person offering 'DENTAL FLOSSERS - open pack of 100, 90 left. Unwrapped but unused'; and also 'TAMPAX APPLICATOR TAMPONS - couldn't get on with them, 18 left'.

Is it me or is that yuck to the max and just totally wrong?? Worst of all, when I looked an hour ago there was a 'tube of cream for cracked nipples with just a bit out of it' but that seems to have mysteriously disappeared. Are these people genuine or have I stumbled upon some kind of coded messages relating to deviant behaviour? Maybe there's a swingers party at 18, Plug Street? Perhaps it's something along the lines of a 'Men Looking For Men' ad Big Man and I stumbled across in the back of the old yellow Free Ads paper years ago - someone looking for a 'BMX boy', whatever one of those might be :S. Inquiring minds want to know.....*

On the flip side, wanters are looking for: AN OLD LAPTOP WITH INTERNET AND A WORKING USB PORT; the same person is after TWO ADULT BIKES; someone wants an AIR CONDITIONER - must be in great condition; a wheel and tyre for a LDV convoy; a Petrol Lawnmower; a hover - 'a cylinder hover with good suction would be great!'; 'WARDROBES WANTED :) We are move in a new house and need wardrobes. Anyone could deliver it for me pls! I'm very happy if its okey!'; and the cryptic 'Stare gates - may boy is barwond now so need stare gats a.s.a.p please help!'. Stare gats I get, but barwond? 

You'd have to wonder how many people get what they ask for when they are looking for high value stuff. I noticed a couple of want ads for Warhammer items (if you don't know what Warhammer is then you can't have a fantasy/Goth/alien-inclined son of a certain age). Mr Charming was mad about it at one stage and even now he's away at uni I still sometimes stand, painfully, on a little twisted creature when I'm putting clean washing in his room. (And sometimes I stand on a Warhammer figure, boom-boom!!!)

 Pic from here

Warhammer is kind of like Barbie for boys - you need to buy the little men, then the army of little men, then all the tanks, animals, scenery; paint it all...it's a dos expensive hobby and they can be worth a lot of money, depending on age and rarity and how well they're painted. Mr Charming inherited a stack of original stuff from my brother Jack when he was first starting out and we'd never give any of it away. A friend of Mr Charming's who used to spend so much time at our house that we considered him our fourth son, after Mr Charming, Carb Addict and Otto the cat, recently posted a picture on Facebook of a display he's made of his Warhammer figures and Mr Charming commented that his pal 'could put a deposit on a flat with what that stuff's worth'.

This is what a flat deposit looks like......

So, do you agree that want ad posters on Freecycle are mainly chancers, looking for either high-end stuff to flog, or low-end stuff that's dirt cheap to buy anyway? Are offered ad posters trying to fob their crappy old crap onto unwary saps rather than toting it to the tip themselves (can you tell I'm still bitter about the piano, the details of which I still can't bring myself to go into two months later?) Am I too after 'summat fer nowt' as they say in the North? Do you ever use Freecycle? Ever had anything good from there or successfully palmed off dross onto somebody? Got any audio books you don't want? Just asking.........;P

* whaddya mean, the Lost Boys isn't one of your favourite films, like, ever??!!

Clever Girl

Today I was talking to a patient in our dementia unit - Heather is her name. She told me that she was born in 1914 but I think I'll have to check up on that. Heather looks like everybody's favourite grandma, all curly white hair, little glasses, pastel twinsets and a whispery voice. We got to talking about what she liked to do before she came to live with us - I asked whether she liked to read and she told me that she used to adore reading and that her mother used to tell her off, saying that she 'always had her nose in a book'. Sadly nowadays, Heather said, she can't really see well enough to read.
As we chatted further Heather told me about her schooldays. She mentioned a lecture that all the students from local (Southampton) schools went to, on the subject of the League of Nations. All of the students from the other schools had little notebooks and pencils to take notes but her Headmistress wouldn't allow that, on the basis that 'if they were note-taking they weren't listening properly' (quite right too). After the lecture all the students from the schools that attended had to write an essay based on the lecture and Heather won the prize for the best essay. She was, by all accounts, a clever girl.
In those days, Heather said, you only got one crack at what she called a scholarship but what I guess was a forerunner to an 11-plus kind of exam (but sat at 13) and on the day she was due to sit it she had an abcess on her head and couldn't go to school. The Headmistress was gutted for Heather, her star pupil.

Needless to say Heather had to leave school along with the others who had failed the exam. There was a careers meeting for each child and the Headmistress had picked out three or four places where Heather could work and still use her brain but Heather's mother said that she should go into service. She went to work at fourteen skivvying at the District Nurses Home in the city, her brain completely wasted.
I was almost in tears as Heather told me this. Her father died when she was 10 weeks old but she had three older brothers and was not only the youngest child but the only girl. I asked why she hadn't been given a chance to carry on with her studies somehow and also why the Headmistress, in her opinion, hadn't gone to see her mother and ask her to give Heather an opportunity for advancement? Heather told me that her mother was a country woman to whom it would never have occurred that her daughter might be bright enough to maybe teach or nurse; also it just wasn't the done thing for a teacher to try to persuade a parent in a different course of action - her mother would have been mortified. I was so upset that I wished I could go back in time and give her mother a good slap, never mind anything else. I also asked Heather whether she felt resentful, as she got older, that her mother had denied her the chance to make something better of herself and she told me that she did of course, but at the time children didn't ever go against their parents - what they said was the law.

It got me thinking about parents nowadays, myself included, who move heaven and earth; spend money on grinds; and ease the path of their kids any way they can to get them what they want, be it a job by pulling strings and calling in favours; or by introducing the perfect conditions for studying, taking them all over the country to view universities, kit out their room in halls and subsidise them to the nth degree (yes, I have done all of those things). We seize on that one tiny spark - a talent for athletics, football, art or algebra - and blow on the tiny ember until it produces something bigger. We nourish their gifts and put all of our efforts into easing their path through life. Sometimes it's because we want our children to have what we had; sometimes it's because we want them to have what we didn't have. As a parent I would have been mortified if a teacher had pointed out that any of my children had an aptitude for something that I had failed to spot (and nurture) myself - would that be interference in the way that an intervention from Heather's Headmistress would have been perceived all those years ago? Do you think that Heather's mother was right?
It's a sad story.

The Bar That Time Forgot

Whilst on a mini-break in Cornwall last month Big Man, Carb Addict and I ate in The Bar That Time Forgot. I'm not going to say where exactly it was because that wouldn't be fair but if you're a Cornish maid you may well recognise it....it MUST be unique in that part of the world, if not the whole of the UK.

We were initially enticed in by the handwritten signs advertising delicious home cooked food. Plus it was cold, rainy and we were famished after our drive from the South. Also there were others inside eating which is always a good sign in my book. When we got inside we were a little taken aback by the cheerlessness of the place....chilly, damp and staffed by a bevy of  'Prisoner: Cell Block H' lookalikes. You've probably seen the type - one had the chamois leather complexion of the confirmed smoker, with hair of a similar hue; another had the jet black hair and hatchet face of a Mafia wife; and the gang of them ranged themselves in a row in front of the bar like some kind of gender-swap 'Usual Suspects' poster. The bar itself had that genteely-decaying, horse brass-laden, faux-country pub kind of decor that always reminds me of somewhere you'd see in a WWII film - the sort of place where jolly Yank grunts are set upon verbally by a morose, lachrymose Yorkshireman whose friends tell them, "don't tha' lissen to oul' Enoch, 'is Vernon never come back from Dunkirk an 'e's not been't same since". It was only slightly less welcoming than The Slaughtered Lamb but at least people didn't stop talking when we entered....

It became apparent when we read the menu that we weren't in for a fine dining experience. Any eating place that has a section on the menu headed 'Continental Corner' that includes Lasagne (!) and Chicken Curry (!!) is clearly stuck in a time warp....don't they know that curry is officially the national dish of the UK these days? And that lasagne is the go-to ready meal for a whole generation of students, shift-workers and divorced men? The table mats still had the original telephone number on them (Cornwall 2167 or something similar) and the vinegar came in those kind of cut glass mini decanter-type receptacles. It was absolutely, unwittingly vintage. I'd say that there are places in London that spend a fortune trying to get that kind of authenticity.
Sadly the old style vibe didn't extend to the prices. Big Man had steak (which he enjoyed; Carb Addict ate all of his fish and chips but who can say what he thought of the meal - certainly not him; and I had a burger with chips but it was the kind of burger you get in Turkey or somewhere - a compressed meat patty of uncertain origin) and he asked for mayonnaise. When the bill came we were shocked, in an incredulous kinda way, to see we'd been charged 30p for the tablespoon of mayo in a tiny dish they'd sniffily brought us. I suppose if we will ask for these new-fangled condiments what can we expect? The culinary adventure cost us about £32 but on the bright side it was a source of lame jokes ('Some people are going in, let's warn them not to ask for mayo!') every time we passed it for the rest of the holiday.

Have you been there or anywhere like it?

In The Doghouse

Oh dear, I seem to be in the doghouse again with Red. The crime this time? It was a beautiful afternoon when I got home at four, followed shortly by the return of Big Man. Red was nowhere to be seen - gone out, according to her dad, without waiting in for the Homeserve man to come and fix our overflowing drain. She often, when she's not working, disappears at about 1pm and we might not see her until the next morning. I said to Big Man, 'let's go into the Forest for a pub meal', just on the spur of the moment and because he loves eating out and we do it rarely he jumped at the chance.
We ended up at The New Forest Hotel (I recommend it highly) and had a lovely meal and a drink. When we arrived home Red was back and on the computer downstairs. No sign of food being cooked for us, even though it was 7pm and she had no idea where we were. We might have been anywhere at all. I suppose I was a bit facetious because I'd had a sniff of the barmaid's apron (I am a total lightweight where drink is concerned), as was Big Man. It transpired that Red had indeed waited for the Homeserve man AND she hadn't left toast in the front room, something Big Man had also accused her of (oops! That was Carb Addict!). When we said we'd been for a pub meal she was furious with us, very insulting (I'm still sniggering as I'm telling you - she got madder and madder the more we laughed and when I asked her if she wanted a Twix instead she went ballistic!) and said we were selfish but in far more colourful language. But I ask you, is it selfish for two adults, parents, to go out for a pub meal and not take their 22 year old daughter, who might have been anywhere in Hampshire, with them? I felt really guilty about it actually. Should I? What would you feel like?
Later on I was reading upstairs when the door knocked and I heard Red answer it. She came upstairs and I asked who'd called but she ignored me and went into her room. Big Man told me it was the pizza delivery man.......

The Policy Of This House...

....is that anyone feeling ill, out of sorts or generally meh goes straight to their bed.
Night night