McDroll....The Journey to a Perfect Life

The Wrong Delivery by McDroll

2012-01-24T22:49:00.001Z

Comments and advice please on the cover I've been working on for my book.

How's this - better or worse?

Feasting at the Table of the Damned by Daniel Ames

2011-09-13T22:44:00.000+01:00

Feasting at the Table of the Damned by Daniel Ames

It takes time to read and then re-read a collection of poems, to enjoy each word, to think about the imagery. It’s a pleasure not to be hurried but to be savored, to be put down and then revisited. You need to bring yourself to the table; your own life experiences which will help you to find a meaning that is your own.

Feasting at the Table of the Damned is indeed a particularly fine collection where the questions raised have to be allowed to mature in your mind, to sink in until their very being inhabit your soul. These poems deserve to be dipped into time and time again until the depths of emotion and imagery diffuse and settle in your mind.

There are a variety of themes that Ames visits; beauty, innocence, loss, indifference, hatred, love and time, which are all used to questions our own lives; past, present and future.

In ‘Perplexing When’ Ames ponders on the passing of time and wonders when people stop caring and realize that they have changed from the idealistic person they used to be.

He asks was it:

When the garden lay fallow

And the first of the weeds arrived.

Do people notice those first weeds arriving? Are we all cursed with the 21^st century illness of being constantly busy where we allow time to pass with alarming haste and then suddenly, one day, notice all of the things we meant to do with our lives but just never got round to, littered around our feet like weeds? Ames challenges us to wonder how and why this happens.

It’s a common fact that life wears people down, whether we fight against this or not. Decisions are made that lead us down particular tracks sometimes without us even realizing a choice has been made. In several of his poems Ames is searching for this illusive moment when in a split second our fate can be changed forever.

In ‘Where the Train Runs Out of Track’ two people, possibly a husband and wife, are worn down by life and can eventually only see its imperfections. They can’t see the future clearly anymore and wonder whether they should indeed continue on together or go their separate ways. But just as above the grey cloud and rain that inhabits many of our days, the sky is blue and the sun is shining, Ames reminds us that there could always be a glimmer of hope that if seen from a different angle, as in the view from above that a hawk has, life can in an instant change for the better, or if the chance is missed we walk,

Toward the precipice ahead

Could there always be hope out there that somehow can be seen and grasped? How many times has an opportunity passed us by unnoticed?

Go read these poems for yourself. Think about them and then read them again. Don’t search for what the poet meant by the words but look into your own soul and find some meaning for yourself.

Ferry Late by Fiona Johnson

2011-08-02T21:19:00.000+01:00

'I don't think much of Plymouth.'

I looked over at Jon as he made his way round the one way system in the city centre again. Seven bloody hours in the car with the kids and now here we were in Plymouth city centre trying to find somewhere to park up and waste time until we could catch the ferry to Roscoff and our holiday could finally begin.

'Oh shit, we've been round this way before. Look there's that bombed out church from WWII, we just passed that ten minutes ago.' Jon veered left gain.

'This place is a nightmare and look at all the police around, it's actually quite scary in a surreal sort of way.'

Jon pushed his fingers through his hair, 'How was I to know that England would be playing their quarter final match in the world cup on the day we were catching the ferry to France? Looks like the pubs are over-flowing already. I think we'd better find somewhere to park fast, get something to eat and head for the ferry.'

I knew how he felt. Don't get me wrong, I've got lots of English friends and I'm not anti English but looking out at the banner waving, lager swilling macho boys falling out of the pubs was quite intimidating.

'Mum, I'm hungry and Jamie needs the toilet,' moaned Anna from the back seat. My bladder had been on hold too since Bath and that seemed like light years away.

'Daddy will find somewhere to park soon darling. It's just that the police have blocked off some of the roads because of the football, I think they're going to be showing it on big screens and they want people to park their cars and walk there.'

'Right, I'm going down here. Hold tight.' John threw the car across the road and headed straight for a parking space he'd spied.

'This'll have to do. We can walk into town from here, it'll not take long.'

***

'Daddy, I'm scared.'

'We'll just walk past quickly pet. Nobody will bother you.'

I was scared too. The pre-match atmosphere was gathering apace. Police sirens sounded out all around and loud singing and chanting was beginning to emerge form every bar and pub we passed. Let's just hope their team won.

'Jon, we're going to have to take the kids somewhere. We can't just spend the next 3 hours wandering around. What a stupid day to be here.'

'Okay, I hear you. Would anybody like to go to the cinema? Dad's treat!'

***

'Over the Hedge; what a brilliant film. Now I know why squirrels run around with that mad look in their eyes!' Jon carried Jamie in his arms, almost asleep after the long drive and too much popcorn.

'I liked it too Daddy, the raccoon was funny when he was playing dead.' Anna wound her arm around my waist. 'Is it time to go to the ferry yet?'

'I liked the big empty cinema. I think we were the only people in the whole of Plymouth not watching the football. Wonder if it's over. It's spookily quiet now.'

'I'm going to find out. Wait here.'

I watched as Jon headed off for a bar at the corner of the cinema complex.

'Well, did you find out?' I asked as he walked back with a sheepish grin on his face.

'England went out 3-1 on penalties to Portugal. David Beckham got injured just after half-time and Rooney was sent off after 62 minutes for a stamp on Ricardo Carvalho.'

The rascal was laughing but the atmosphere did feel suddenly like a deflated balloon after a party.

'Jon, don't laugh. At least England got to the finals!'

'I know but at least we got to see a good film!'

'Get in that car! I'm ashamed of you. Time we got out of here and headed for the ferry.'

***

'I thought this place would be queued out by now! We're not exactly early.' Jon looked at his watch in puzzlement.

'It looks dead. There's only lorries here and it looks like they are parking up for the night.' I scrambled on the floor for the travel documents.

'The ferry does leave at 8pm? Are you sure?' Jon sounded a bit accusing.

'Yes, it's 8pm, I'm definitely sure. Is there anyone to ask?' I started to feel my stomach dance around. Sometimes you just know that everything is about to fall on top of you just the second before it happens when 2 minutes before you had been totally unaware and blissfully happy.

'Look, give me the documents. There must be some mistake.' Jon grabbed them from my hands as I started to feel tears gather behind my eyelids.

'8pm, Plymouth on the last day of June. That's today, yeah? The 31st?'

We turned to look at each other at exactly that moment. Our universes collided in a cataclysmic shambles of stupidity.

'I think this is the one-th of July,' Jamie, our five year old, said from the back seat, his little voice breaking through the damn of silence that we were stuck in.

'Look mummy, it says the one-th on the top of the newspaper.'

***

Turns out that not only had we missed the ferry that we should have been on by a whole day, we had also missed the only available ferry on the 'oneth' while we were tucking into popcorn and laughing our heads off in the cinema.

'Thank goodness there's one smart person in our family,' Jon laughed as he returned from the ticket office.

'Can we get on a ferry tomorrow?' I asked, still feeling the agony and the humility in the pit of my stomach.

'Yes, they were very kind but now we have to find some accommodation for the night. Anybody fancy a trip round the one way system again?'

Adults think they are so smart but actually they are as stupid as a Pringle eating squirrel.

Plotting Revenge - Tornado Relief Flash Fiction Challenge

2011-04-28T21:30:00.006+01:00

Gemma sat on her sodden piece of cardboard as the rain continued to drill down around her. The doorway smelled of piss and no amount of rain could wash away the smell that was now not only inside her nostrils but stuck inside her mouth and throat. She held out her polystyrene cup as a young lad hustled towards her, keeping his head down and collar up in a pointless effort to stay dry.

“Got any change Mister?”

“Go toss yoursel’ ya boakin' wee scab.”

Gemma gesticulated wildly as he passed her before sticking both hands under her armpits to try to get a little warmth into her frozen fingers. This undercover ops job had been going on for a week now with absolutely no success and Gemma was beginning to believe that she actually was one of Glasgow’s many homeless lost souls, living in the doorways of humanity, the jetsam and flotsam of big city life.

The first floor flat that she was supposed to be keeping an eye on was showing no sign of life yet and this was day five. Five crummy days in the middle of January spent sitting on her backside, soaking wet and seriously considering the usually comical suggestion of motherhood as a realistic alternative to her chosen career path.

The wind picked up and made a special effort to whirl around Gemma, causing the rain to change direction and beat into her already raw face like shards of glass. She raised her sleeve up and wiped her dripping nose, shivering and sneezing at the same time.

A pound coin thunked into her cup. A woman, hiding behind her umbrella, rushing down the street, tossed words to Gemma as she passed.

“Goin’ to go get yersel’ a coffee hen? Yer soakin’ wet oot here.”

“Thanks Misses, God bless you.”

It had amazed Gemma how kind some strangers could be. The same woman had thrown her some change every morning so far while others ran past, not even acknowledging her existence or, even worse, those who shouted abuse and threatened to do all sorts to her ‘kind’. They were just tossers though.

Gemma huddled into the doorway as much as she could, pulling her knees closer to her chest. No movement from across the street. She still had five hours before her shift ended. She looked down the road and caught sight of her D.S. jouking into his car, a paper bag and coffee in his hand. He told her that he’d done his time with the crap jobs and boasted constantly of how he had been the main man leading the force to grab £5 million worth of heroin from the streets.

She didn’t believe him. Once a lazy windbag, always a lackadaisical ignoramus. Boy! Come the revolution she was going to personally pin his bollocks to the noticeboard and draw a big arrow to them with a sign saying, “Bollocks, we’ve all heard it long enough, now see what it looks like!”

Smack! A huge black boot kicked over her cup of change. Startled, Gemma screamed, “Hey, what’d you do that for...” just as the boot this time slammed into her stomach, leaving her gasping for breath, doubling her over onto her knees, as she watched the coins roll off along the pavement heading for the sheuch.

A hand grabbed her soaking hair and it was only then, as Gemma’s head was forced back, that she could look up into the face that belonged to the boot.

“Empty yer pockets. What have you got? Gie’s it!” He struck her across the face, and Gemma could feel the edge of a ring catch her on the lip.

“I’ve no’ got nothin’. Leave me alone.”

“Get it out now ya fuckin’ wee jaz.”

He shook Gemma’s head violently holding onto her hair, rain water spraying off in all directions like a dog shaking its coat after emerging from a river.

Gemma wiped the blood from her face and looked straight into two bleary eyes in the middle of a plookie pale face.

“I telt you I had nothin’ but I was lying. I’ve got this.”

Gemma smacked him right between the eyes giving him the perfect ‘Glasgow Kiss’. She scuffled to her feet while the pathetic, insignificant little runt groaned as he stumbled backwards, and followed up with a sharp boot in his balls

“Bingo!”

Gemma pulled him up from the dirty puddle that he had landed in and stuck her face right into his now terrified and pained expression.

“Get out of my turf and don’t show yer greasy face here again and if I ever see you treating a woman like that, you’ll not get off so lightly the next time mate.”

With a heave, Gemma shoved him off down the street.

The rain washed down upon her as she stood staring after him as he hirpled away.

The D.S. was sitting in his warm, dry car giving her the thumbs up.

“Bastard.”

Gemma sank back down onto her soggy cardboard and stared over at the first floor flat window, plotting the downfall of all coffee drinking, donut eating sycophants sitting in warm dry cars.

Carbolic Soap

2011-04-13T22:25:00.001+01:00

Mr. Spence twisted the shiny brass doorknob and entered his classroom in an endeavour to yet again beat some education into the spawn of the barely literate proletariat and the dullard progeny of the dim-witted drunken wastrels that were their parents.

Still smarting from the previous evening’s staff meeting with the new Head Master, Mr. Spence opened the cupboard door below the oak lectern from which he had delivered his lessons for nigh on 40 years and brought out his leather bound bible and placed it carefully in the centre of the board. He traced his fingers over the tooled design on the cover before opening the book and selecting a relevant passage to start the day:

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings. Malachi, 4. 2.

A feeling of comfort on reading the familiar passage began to soothe his frantic mind. Order was beginning to be restored and the day would pass like any other; controlled, disciplined and respectful. No amount of child centred, fashionable, anaemic and indulgent hogwash could ever replace life’s core values.

With that thought he lifted his grey button up overall from its peg on the side of the wooden cupboard, straightened his tie, marched over to the blackboard and began, whilst chuckling quietly to himself, to write some mathematical problems that the class would find impossible to solve.

***

The school bell rang at exactly 9 o’clock and the boys instantly stopped their game of football on the tar playground, stopping only to grab their school bags from where they’d thrown them down, and made their way around the side of the imposing Victorian red sandstone building to the ‘Boys’ Entrance’ to wait in line until a teacher came out to blow the whistle that signalled the procession of classes up the steep steps and into the building.

First stop was the cloakroom where jackets were hung on pegs placed along the green and white porcelain tilled walls. The smell of the carbolic soap an overpowering memory that would last a lifetime, instantly drawing a full grown man back to those early days of fear and bullying in the dark, and dangerous dungeon, where pennies would be prized from little hands and legs kicked from behind in the class line.

Silently, the boys marched up the stairs, keeping an eye out for the new head master as they passed his office, hardly daring to glance across at the girls as they too climbed the stairs at the far side of the open hall.

***

Mr. Spence stood on the landing outside of his classroom, arms folded, face set, eyes peering at the children as they headed into their allotted place in the hierarchy of the class. The wooden desks were set out in an orderly six rows of six. The cleverest child had the privilege of sitting in the top left corner of the class with the unwashed, dribbling savages sitting in the front row where they could be easily controlled.

“Good morning boys and girls.”

“Good morning Mr. Spence,” the class echoed; girls standing to curtsy while the boys stood to salute.

“You may sit. We will begin the day with the Lord’s prayer.

Our Father, who art in Heaven.......”

***

With the prayer and the Bible story complete, the maths lesson was next. Mr. Spence had a few important points that he wished to share with the class, to make sure that they knew what was right and that his method of teaching was not going to be washed away on a whim of change.

Holding onto the sides of the lectern, he paused before he began his address, looking at the upturned faces of the stationary children, each with their hands together, folded on top of their wooden desk, backs straight, no fidgeting.

“You may be aware that the new Head Master has decided that we are all going to become decimalised in our mathematical thinking. He says that we must move with the modern world away from our old ways and embrace the new.

Well, this morning boys and girls, I want to assure you that this is not going to happen in my class. You are the fortunate ones who will learn to count money, weigh and measure the proper way whilst all around you are settling for the new trends that are corrupting the minds of the young and confusing the old.

"Attend the board, please. Say after me:

Twelve inches in one foot.

Three feet in one yard.

Twenty two yards in one chain

Ten chains in one furlong

One thousand seven hundred and sixty yards in one mile."

The children repeated endlessly as Mr. Spence pointed to each word on his blackboard . Satisfied that they had learned these imperative facts he spun the board around to reveal ten mathematical problems and turned in triumph to face the class.

“Take out your mathematics jotters and please get started. You have 30 minutes to complete these questions. I don’t expect any of you to get any more than three correct. No talking. You may begin.”

Mr. Spence retreated behind his lectern and stared at the children as they began their task. He knew that the questions were well beyond their capabilities but, children need to be put in their place, they needed to be reminded how lacking in knowledge they were and how pathetically simple the new mathematics they had been learning in their previous classes was and how ill prepared for the real world they were. This would sort them out!

As he sat there, feeling in control and calm, watching the children struggle with pained faces, his attention was suddenly drawn to a small boy in the front row. The boy was turned to his neighbour and was pulling silent faces, trying to get the other boy to guffaw out loud.

Without hesitation, Mr. Spence opened the lid of the lectern and drew out his leather belt, his taws, and drew it through his fingers. The children’s heads all bent over their jotters, afraid that any eye contact might be interpreted as defiance.

“Come out here Paton.”

The small boy made his way to where Mr. Spence stood.

“You were making faces instead of doing your work boy. Hold out your hands.”

The boy held out his hands, placing one behind the other and prepared himself for the whack and sting of the belt.

WHACK!

“AAAW!” the boy shouted.

“Put your hands up again.”

WHACK!

This time the boy danced around on the spot and blew on his palms.

“That hurt!”

“Don’t speak back to me Paton. Put your hands up again”

The boy did as he was told, but at the last moment withdrew his arms causing Mr. Spence to hit his own legs with the long leather strap. There was a series of muffled giggles from the class which only caused Mr. Spence to boil over and make Paton hold out his hands again.

At the last second Paton withdrew his hands once more.

“You’re not going to hit me anymore,” the boy shouted at the teacher, tears of anger and frustration now running in two dirty streams down his cheeks.

Mr. Spence reached out and grabbed the boy by the arm and raising the belt high above his head brought down a series of blows upon the boy who was now screaming at the top of his lungs.

The class sat, transfixed by the beating that was taking place in front of them.

Paton managed to escape Mr. Spence’s grasp for a second and made for the door but wasn’t fast enough for his enraged teacher who grabbed the child’s hair and dragged him screaming back into the class, still raining blows down on the now curled up child lying on the floor.

***

The teacher next door had heard the fracas and alerted the Head Master who suddenly burst into the class at the very moment Mr. Spence was about to thrash the child again.

For a second, the world stopped, frozen in time, caught between the old and the new; marking the end of a school system that had been the experience for many generations; giving way to new possibilities and unfamiliar experiences in the future.

***

The class never saw the lectern, the rows of desks or Mr. Spence again.

Knitting

2010-08-01T22:03:00.002+01:00

You know, you are never too old to ask for your mother's help. I'm very old and getting older everyday but today I asked for my mother's help. I suppose that it's one of those things that, as you get older, you do less and less. The balance in your relationship changes without you even realising.

When we are babies, well, we need our mother's help all the time. As a mother we have to learn to give so much, to be on tap 24hours a day. When I had my eldest human child I remember thinking, 'But what about me? When do I get to do my stuff now?' Well of course the answer to that is......eh.....I'm not sure - I'll get back to you on that.

As you become a teenager you try your very hardest to show how independent you have become. You try to show how little you care and at every turn you roll your eyes because your mum and dad are just so old and so uncool. I have clear memories of my mum and dad dropping me off at university. For me it was just so exciting; checking out my room, meeting my flatmates, feeling the thrill of the big city. I do also remember being suddenly and quite unexpectedly taken aback at the sight of my dad quickly ushering my mum out because she was crying. I remember feeling guilty because I'd never even considered that my move had anything to do with anyone's feelings other than mine.

I do remember desperately needing my mum's help the day after I arrived home with my first new-born human baby. There was no paternity leave so my husband had to leave for work, leaving me with the baby and the after-effects of a c-section. I've never been so relieved to see anybody in my life when my dad arrived with my mum. She took over and stayed for two weeks while I recovered and I learned what to do with the small pink wriggly human.

Then all of a sudden, without an warning, you discover that your parents are getting old. Again, you don't really notice this happening. The changes are subtle. You notice that they spend a lot of time visiting the doctor. You notice that they are a bit deaf. You notice that they are a bit forgetful. You notice that they've stopped going abroad on holiday. I notice that my mum is smaller than she used to be and that my dad gets tired a lot.

I know how much my brother does for them. I know how much they rely on seeing him everyday. I feel for them when their friends die.

So the balance has changed. They need us now in a different way from before. They look forward to our visits and love the fun and laughter the two human children bring to their lives.

But today, I needed my mother's help and it was great fun. I asked her to show me how to knit. My mum has always knitted. She learned to knit as a child during the Blitz when she sheltered from the German bombs. Mrs. McGee, who lived in the tenement below my mum's family, taught her to help take her mind off the noise of the falling bombs, her little bare knees all the time shaking with fear.

We laughed today as she rolled her eyes at me as I struggled to do what she finds so easy with a pair of knitting needles. This is not the first time she has tried to teach me. This is probably about the 159th time she's tried to teach me. Today she said, 'I always thought you found knitting difficult because you are left-handed but I think it must be more than that!'
Hey, thanks mum! Anyway, I've promised her a scarf for Christmas......she's not holding her breath!

Wasps

2010-07-29T23:35:00.000+01:00

There's an angry wasp buzzing around here tonight. I've already killed 3 of its friends. my mother thinks they have built a nest in the loft again. They had the last one removed only recently. Wasps are very persistent creatures. I've posted a pic they took of the wasps nest before it was removed. Quite an impressive structure.

The Chicken Massacre

2010-07-29T21:11:00.000+01:00

I found this photo of my mum with her chickens before Mr. Fox attacked...and yes, I feel very guilty that I said bad things. Sloping off to the naughty corner.......

sorry.

Headless Chickens

2010-07-28T23:00:00.000+01:00

So today we are visiting the 'grandparents' - my parents. It's that point in the summer holidays when it can no longer be delayed, the poison has to be swallowed, the bullet has to be taken...the duty faced. Does that sound awful? Yes! I hear you cry. ' What a terrible daughter you must be!'

Well it does make me feel awful saying these things but, believe me, it's not how I want things to be. I have a vision in my head of how our visit should go....

We get a great welcome. We're told how pleased they are to see us. We pass over gifts that are treasured not because of their value but because they come from us. We are brought in and we sit around the kitchen table catching up while drinking endless cups of tea and eating homemade biscuits.

Ok, so that's my vision. What actually happened was that I was woken by the phone at 10am this morning. I was still in bed asleep. I had been reading earlier but had sunk into that beautiful deep sleep that can only be achieved after the time you should have been up. Oh..and the amount of wine I had last night probably had something to do with it too.

I stumbled out of bed and groped around for the phone. It was my mum and she wasn't happy. 'We've had very bad news this morning ' she informed me. Oh heck what was coming I thought as I sat down....
'A fox has eaten 3 of our chickens!'

So - should I feel relieved? Grief stricken for the chickens (she only has 5 and she's very proud of them)? What does one say? I went for sympathy but she was in a rage. So anyway, she thought that at 10am we would already have left (thank goodness she couldn't see me in my jimjams). She asked when I thought we might arrive. I gave my usual stock vague reply of 'Sometime later'.......

This drives her nuts. She really wanted a timetable of our movements in advance and probably in triplicate.

I put the phone down and screamed...loudly. I told the youngest human. He screamed loudly...

I was just out of my bed, reluctantly, and I had failed as a daughter already - I hadn't even packed my bag yet.

And I refused to go and inspect the headless chickens...just for your information and no I didn't take a pic of them.

A photo for you!! Yippee!

2010-07-27T20:24:00.000+01:00

The youngest human.

Computers...AAAARGH!

2010-07-27T19:22:00.000+01:00

Well today I've been trying to improve the look of my new blog. First of all I've changed the theme to something kind of blurry which I think suits my personality better.....unclear, undefined...a bit vague. Hope you like it!

Then one of my very best Twitter friends suggested that I needed to add some photos. Yes, I said...I can do that...eh....! You may not know this...sh! but actually I am a Mac person and I don't really get PCs. Why have they got to be so confusing? In my happy little Mac world everything is easy. If you want to re-size an object you just click on the handles and shrink it. If you want to move an object you just drag it to where you want it to go. Nothing is easy in PC world. I struggle to add graphics, re-size, do anything with photos and even struggle with text.

I love all of the Apple Macs I have ever owned, from my very first, and very expensive LCII that I bought in 1993, to my lovely chrome 17" MacBookPro that I use for all of my work projects. But even at work the evil world of Microsoft is making its way into my lovely iWorks haven. All of the official documents that I now produce have to be made in Microsoft Word (is that what you call it?). Seemingly if you use iWorks some people can't open your documents on their dingy PCs. So now I often sit at my desk struggling with Word for Mac trying to insert photos and graphics, change text, add a new page (for heaven's sake!), all of which are easy peasy to do on a mac.

OK -I think that was my first blog rant. I think there might be more to come.

Back to where we were. So here I am at home, trying to add some photos to this blog just to prove that I can, and to prove to anyone who is wonderful enough to read this blog that there is actually a person behind the words. I must reveal my identity! Problem is, my fairly beloved Dell Inspiron laptop has suddenly died. I was on quite good terms with it too. I think I've looked after it quite well over the years...except...I do let my kids use it. This may be why it died. They seem to have a great need to download games and visit websites that asks them to click here and there, which they always do. This has caused my laptop to be very ill in the past and has made the chief technician in the family rather cranky.

Last time, when major open heart surgery was performed and a long lecture given, the chief technician set a password on said beloved laptop. However, its stupid owner (me) didn't realise that this password was not to be shared with the younger humans who inhabit this house. I did wonder why he'd put on the password but I just thought he was showing off.

It only dawned on me why he had done so after the gremlins hit again. Since then I have kept it a total secret that I have been getting very strange warning messages about Trojan horses and infections..... I just stuck my head further and further into the bucket of sand that I had conveniently placed beside my comfy surfing chair which is situated far, far away from the chief technician. I think he did notice that I was having to re-boot the flashy box thing that sits on top of the kitchen cupboard (it has something to do with getting a wireless connection). He didn't notice that I could no longer click on a link on Google because when I did it would take me straight to a page about 'legal' performance enhancing drugs...hmmmm.

I was finally caught out when my battery died and I 'had' to ask if there was another power cable kicking around. I have not asked the chief technician to 'fix' my lovely-ish Dell as this would involve too much head shaking and eye-rolling and he has allowed me to use this little Toshiba that he happened to have available. (Too long a story...but we have more computers than hot dinners hanging around our house.)

'Why don't you just post a photograph?' I hear you cry! (You are still reading? Aren't you?) Well OK...I'm going to try....and it will probably have nothing o do with this post...OK?

Here goes...fingers crossed! Did it work?

Family

2010-07-26T18:41:00.000+01:00

This week I'm going to be visiting my parents with my 2 kids. We visit every holiday and my mum and dad look forward to seeing their grandchildren. We live around 3 hours away from them which makes our journey long enough considering most of that time is spent navigating the roads, and potholes, of Argyll.

When the kids were younger it also meant loading up the car with an incredible amount of gear: travel cot, steriliser, buggy, bedding, changing mat, nappies, huge amounts of clothes, toys, books, bottles, powdered milk......

Thank goodness I don't have to do that anymore. The journey in those days was more of an expedition. I had favourite carparks that we'd stop at during the journey for the inevitable nappy change and feed. I knew all of the public toilets in the West of Scotland (and believe me that's not easy) where I could actually find a baby changing plinth. I knew which shops also had baby changing facilities...not many...and which would actually be clean.

Traveling with young children certainly makes you see the world in a different way. Simple shopping tasks were suddenly fraught with difficulties. I have struggled so often with the baby buggy in shops, trying to move from one level to another or navigate difficult to open doors.

The journey is now, most certainly, easier. Three bags, that's all that goes into the boot of the car. The kids can even pack for them self now. (Although my son did manage to forget underwear the last time). The journey is quiet too. We used to sing along to the nursery rhyme tape again, and again, and again...you know what I mean! Now the older one plugs herself into her ipod and the younger one plugs himself into his PSP. I drive.

I put on the radio and I still sing along. Sometimes they unplug themselves and ask if we are having a food stop. Sometimes they unplug themselves to argue about whose turn it is to sit up front. Sometimes they even chat to the old lady driving.

How quickly life changes. Soon one of them won't even be there at all.......

My Girl

2010-07-25T21:37:00.000+01:00

Tonight I drove my girl to her first ever job. She's working at the local restaurant, doing what...who knows? It could be anything from scrubbing the pots to serving the tables. She's hoping that it's not the former because she had to scrub soup pots during her work experience there. She can still smell the sweetcorn soup, she says....ugh!

As I left her in the carpark and watched her walk away I had a sudden flashback to when she was 2yrs old. We were at the supermarket and she had spied the creche. This is a phenomenon that seems to have died out in recent years. Anyway, she saw the creche and wanted to go in but as the creche was really for 3 yr olds at the youngest she didn't qualify. Of course I lied and said she was 3 and off she went! She walked off into the playroom without even a backwards glance at her mum and dad. It was at that moment that we knew that we had a girl who knew her own mind and knew what she wanted. We've never forgotten that special moment.

Tonight it flashed into my mind again as she walked off......but then much to my surprise, my 15 year old beautiful girl looked back..........