Daze in the life of...

Thursday Thirteen # 3

2008-09-16T10:13:00.003+01:00

Thirteen family phrases and sayings etc

"There's nothing like a well ironed gusset!" - My Mum actually really likes ironing and she's not just kidding on. She actually said this when I said to her "Why in the name of the wee man are you ironing knickers!!"
"Are you having a party with balloons and hot Ribena?" - Steph was feeling quite left out when at the age of 3 she had been sent to bed whilst all us adults sat and chatted and laughed. Finally the sound of our increasing hilarity was too much for her and she stamped down the stairs and burst into the sitting room. Standing with her hands on her hips she challenged us with "Are you having a party with balloons and hot Ribena?" obviously her idea of a really good time and now used as a phrase to indicate that one of us is feeling left out of a good time!
"Once Upon a long time ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, before television was invented and when your Mum was just a little girl ..." The way our made up stories start thanks to my Dad, who always followed this bit with "... there lived a handsome prince called Brian..." no prizes for guessing his name!
"Dearest most beautiful Aunt Les I like your hair - please can I have..." yes I damn well do make them all say it when they want something! and not just them, my friends say it, previous work mates said it... yup! I'm that needy!"
Can I smell Garlic?" to which the reply is always "If you want to!"
"Nothing - she loves you!" When one of us had just yelled "MUM!!" in order to rat on a sister and Mum had replied "What?!" the about to be ratted on shouted this whilst clamping her hand firmly over the mouth of the ratter. Ha. And Mum never even twigged. No really.
"I'm too big!" - as an excuse for trying to get out of doing anything, it comes from Holly getting big and small muddled a bit when younger.
"When I was a little girl..." this is the way my papa Les and my dad would always begin reminiscences of their childhoods... strange.
"Damn that creaky floorboard!" fart? My family? Never!! the house just creaks a lot!
"Hanging from my bottom lip shouting Tarzan!" a singularly unhelpful phrase usually used by Mum first thing in the morning when we were looking for essentials like pants and had asked her where they were. She's lucky we didn't go to school naked.
"Listen to me Matilda Jane!!" by Mum - accompanied by hands on hips and glaring, when you were in for a BIG telling off this was the phrase that prefaced it. Slightly bizarre given that none of us are called Matilda. Or Jane.
"Quelle slut?" meaning what time is it? derived from our rubbish, but entertaining when you're 13, pronunciation of heure as hoor, the phrase "Quelle heure et il?" being then conveniently shortened.
"Happy Eldest Daughter's Day!" May 15th in case you're wondering and why yes, I am the eldest daughter! frankly I just wasn't getting enough presents in my life not having any kids or husbands cuts down on what you get - so if you're in the same situation take my tip and give yourself a Day! It works, I get cards and presents every year.

Thursday thirteen #2

2008-09-16T09:46:00.009+01:00

Thirteen scots words or expressions I like and use:

Sir Walter Scott's Baffies

Baffies - Bedroom (or in fact any other room too) Slippers
Scaffies - Environmental waste disposal operators or bin men as they were formerly known
Oor Wullie, your Wullie, A'bodies Wullie... Apparently
Jings! - an expression of surprise, sometimes partnered with "crivens!" and "help ma boab!", well if you're living in the Oor Wullie world anyway.
Pus - a coarse term for face, used often in our household in the phrase "gonnae shut yer pus!" between myself and sisters mainly because it drives my Mum batty(er).
Outwith - means outside. It's not a madey uppy word and is used outwith our household too you know, but just try looking it up in a dictionary.
Wha daur meddle wi' me?! -The royal coat of arms in Scotland has the Latin motto "Nemo me impune lacessit". The English translation of this is "Nobody interferes with me with impunity" and this is often defiantly expressed in broad Scots as "Wha daur meddle wi' me?"
Dreich - a word for grey days, damp but not properly raining with a dismal feeling all round. Could have been applied to pretty much any of the days in our putative summer this year. This is Aberdeen. This is Dreich in action.
Oxters - your armpits. Used in the phrase "Ah'm up tae ma oxters in shite!" for example meaning "I'm in a bit of a mess!".
Scunnered - mean fed up or bothered as in the phrases "Ah'm scunnered" or "Ah cannae be scunnered"
Thole - put up with as it "you'll just have tae thole it!"
It's a sair fecht - It's a hard life, implying it's a struggle to keep going.
Here's tae us; wha's like us? Gey few, and they're a' deid! - A scots toast neatly combining being a bit full of yersel and yet remaining miserable - wouldn't want anyone to think we were drinking that whisky was for fun or anything.
Shoot the Crow - means to leave and so now I'm going tae shoot the crow masel!

Sunday Scribblings - How I met the love of my life...

2008-08-23T22:34:00.004+01:00

OK, so it hasn't actually happened yet, or maybe it has and I missed it... bugger, how pants would that be? If it's for you it won't go past you as my Mother says. Mind you she also says things like "There's nothing like a well ironed gusset..." and means it, anyway back to me and the love of my life. This is how I imagined it might be... I arrive somewhere intriguing (fuzziness on the background here due to the location changing constantly) possibly in Montana, or possibly New Zealand... no, no I know! Beside a beach on Tiree... I swing a long slim leatherclad leg (mine, it is a fantasy) as I dismount my motorbike, take my helmet off and shake loose my long auburn mane of hair. As I stand and breathe the air and watch the sunset I become aware that I am not alone. Standing nearby watching me with a slight smile on his rugged yet sensitive face (I'm thinking Tom Berenger and Gabriel Byrne melange here) is a tall, rangy man wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a checked shirt, suede waistcoat and a stetson (Hey, it's my fantasy ok!?). Our eyes meet and in that moment we know...

At this point there's a fair amount of waves pounding the shore and trains in tunnels imagery going on.

Do you think that hanging around small town Scotland is the way to meet rangy cowboy types? Not so far. I once met a very nice man in Ikea in Hannover who was wearing an outfit not dissimilar to that described. We had coffee. He was dutch and spoke groovy english in a lovely bingybongy kind of way. But, the spark, it just wasn't there - he was a lorry driver not a real cowboy.

Thursday Thirteen #1

2008-08-22T17:19:00.006+01:00

Thirteen things that became clear to me this week...

I have lost a day. It's not Thursday it's Friday... where the bloody hell have my holidays gone?! Washed away by the rain it would appear.

Just turning up at the Slimming World class is not enough ... apparently diet and exercise are needed too...

Holly is about half an inch shorter than I am and yet her breasts are about 8 inches higher up than mine. Did I ever even have perky bosoms? I think that in retrospect jumping up and down a lot to entertain Gill by having bouncing boobs was probably a mistake, the downward slide (avalanche) almost certainly started then.

I am not going to be Carol Vorderman's replacement on Countdown - I did the quizzy thing in today's paper and now know that Dad was right - I can't add up.

Tyres are not cheap. The ones on the car are getting a tad baldy and short of giving the tread a comb over new ones will need to be bought.

August might be a wicked month but it is not a warm one. I put the winter duvet back on the bed last night and slept a full night's sleep for the first time in ages.

My eyesight's going bonkers. I now have glasses to wear because I'm short sighted, contacts because I'm vain and other glasses to wear with my contacts because I can't read anything if I have my contacts in. According to the optician this is all age related. That man is heading for a good kicking. If I could see him clearly I'd be the one to deliver it...
No one but me thinks that country music is good for weddings - not even Keith Urban Making Memories of Us - which to my mind has wedding written all over it- is in. Huh.
I have more body lotion than is needed for even my body. I know that it's foolish but I am always seduced by 3 for 2 offers and then I get bored before I use up all of the product.
My grey hairs are growing increasingly resistant to being brown. I have dyed my hair this week and I still have grey bits - actually they're pink, the dye having taken slightly, which is even worse. I look like Mrs Slocombe.
Chocolate is not a fruit. Not even Toblerones. Every day I scan the papers looking for an advance in medical science that will allow me to scoff chocolate to my hearts content.
It doesn't make any difference at all if you are nice to some people or not - they will be compete and utter berks no matter what.
Writing 13 things is tougher than it looks!

Watch Black Watch

2008-04-08T14:24:00.003+01:00

If you get the chance go and see the National Theatre of Scotland's Black Watch. It's utterly brilliant. It made me very nostalgic for my days working with the military being such an honest and true portrayal of how they are... and yes they really do swear that much!

Well! Well! Well!

2008-04-08T13:22:00.005+01:00

If you have ever, ever chucked your change into a collection can for Cancer Research, or given a wad of cash to Leukaemia Research, given blood, donated platelets, run a sponsored mile for Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital then I just want to thank you.

This is what you did...
...Ellie is well after two and a half years of treatment.

Thank you.

Adventure Training for non adventurous people

2008-02-14T20:45:00.005Z

Now that my sister Jo is the mother of a teenager, a pre-teen and a pre-pre-teen I know for a fact something that I had long suspected. Mothers do it on purpose. The "accidental" humiliation is nothing of the sort - it is calculated and designed. Many's the time Jo has snorted merrily with laughter at the result of some horrifying event such as "kissing Dad in public" or "wearing that!".... But even she drew the line at making her teenage daughter take paper knickers on her Outdoor Adventure Holiday with her school chums in Mull (or Hull - Geography not being one of Hollys strong subjects).

I on the other hand was marked and scarred for life by the paper pants incident I endured on my teenage Adventure Holiday. To this day my Mother insists she thought it would be a good idea to take paper knickers so that I wouldn't have any washing to do (knickers being strictly rationed in my day...). What she hadn't taken into consideration was how much time I would be spending messing around in water.
That's me standing looking surly at the far right of the photo - surly and knickerless, my final pair having just turned to papier mache in the crotch of my trousers leaving me with an elastic band round my waist and one at the top of each leg... much to the amusement of fellow students. Oh yes very funny. Not.

Forty bleeding Six

2008-01-28T23:13:00.000Z

It's my birthday today.
I'm 46.
That's a lot.

Long time no write

2008-01-22T23:06:00.000Z

I guess the initial blog related euphoria wore off for a bit there. Never mind, it's the thought that counts etc

Not only have we had Christmas and New Year since I last blogged but this weekend just gone we also had pretend Christmas. Honorary Chick in Nest, Sara, came up to see us and we had the whole Christmas Dinner thing with crackers, presents and games etc. Here is a picture of Sara and her new B.F., Ellie - who saw beyond the surface to Sara's inner beauty and told her she thought she was "pretty"... huh. I'm her aunty and she never tells me that. Bitter? Me? No, of course not...

Sunday Scribblings - ... and carry 1...

2007-11-18T12:42:00.000Z

Jo and Hannah doing homework

(not maths obviously, they look far too happy!)

Sundays. More particularly Sunday evenings. One word to strike fear and horror into the heart of both parents and children alike... HOMEWORK...
Traditional homework doing times in our house when I was a teen were (i) the evening of the day it was dished out if it meant that I could get out of doing the washing up (ii) on the bus on the morning it was due to be handed in (iii) Sunday Evening.
The worst thing about doing my homework on a Sunday Evening was that Dad would be around to "help"... On Sunday evenings lovely, funny, cuddly Dad was touched by the forces of evil and mutated into Maths Homework Dad. Is there anything worse in the whole world than your father insisting on helping with Maths homework? My Dad had studied Maths at university for a while and found numbers endlessly fascinating and magical - I on the other hand found them non-sensical and endlessly mind numbing. Needless to say he was severely disappointed in me and my mathematical prowess. He went on to be mathematically disappointed in Gill and Jo in turn, followed by Steph when her time came. He could not understand why we just didn't get it and we in turn were utterly disinterested in getting it. I can remember as a small child sobbing myself to sleep over long division - all that stuff about 3 goes into 10 three times and carry 1 had me baffled. Most maths homework sessions ended with us in tears and Dad gritting his teeth and us all stamping off in different directions muttering darkly about each other. It was one of his few failings as far as we girls were concerned. It's a big pity that he didn't live long enough to see how much Holly loves maths - they could have communed over numbers and got all rapturous about quadratic equations, differential calculus ... and stuff... whatever...

Wallah - M.I.A.

2007-11-15T15:32:00.000Z

Have you seen this Wallah?

Something horrible has happened. Wallah has gone missing. He was there when Ellie went into surgery on Wednesday and was not there when she got out. Some of us are a bit suspicious about what actually happened to him and suspect that Pamela, Kai, Bernadine or some other finger stabbing, Wiggle fitting nurse has kidnapped him! We are managing to cope with only Zoinder the horse, Shona the Giraffe and the other 400 cuddly toys on the bed for company but it's a sair fecht.

Wallah has been with the family for a couple of years. He was a present from Jo's boss Steven and has been a much loved friend ever since. He's been through a lot with Ellie and frankly looked and smelled like it. Any replacement is going to have to be dragged along behind the car for a few miles, smeared in equal parts with marmite, hospital hand antiseptic, snot and guinea pig pee then licked clean by a Jack Russell just to become even halfway as individually aromatic as Wallah.

However, if perchance it was another small sick child who found Wallah and thought he looked like a good friend and excellent cuddling companion then please - keep him. If he brings you as much comfort as he brought Ellie in the dark days and scary nights then he is in the right place - maybe it was just time for him to move on?

Wallah, Ellie and Steve

Three Word Wednesday

2007-11-15T14:40:00.000Z

Out on an icy Boxing Day walk through the woods with Holly (age 10 at the time) and Hannah (age 8) I thought it would be a good time to give my counselling skills a bit of an outing and find out how they were coping with their little sister's illness, impending teenageness, and life in generalness. "Fine." said Hannah and skipped off into the distance to look for interesting things to look at under her magnifying glass. "Oh, Okay." sighed Holly. This was a bit more promising! I put my arm around her as we walked and spoke wisely and empathetically of how difficult it could be when you weren't sure about things and sometimes it might be that it wasn't something you wanted to speak to your Mummy and Daddy about but if she had anything she wanted to talk about, she could talk to me and I would try and help her. It was a beautiful aunt/niece moment (well I was moved anyway). As she shuffled through the fallen leaves and I gently asked her "Is there anything you're worried about or want to ask me about just now darling?" there was a pause, then "As a matter of fact Aunty Les, there is something I've been wondering about..." Yes! I braced myself as she gathered her train of thought "... what is an Endowment Mortgage Shortfall?"

What?!?

Those children watch far too much daytime TV.

The Poem wot I wrote - by Hannah

2007-11-12T21:57:00.000Z

This is a poem that Hannah wrote when she was 7. She has a great facility for language and writes fabulous letters. (Her mother would like me to point out that she is not a drouth - honestly!)

The sun is shining
The grass needs mowing
The rain is raining and the flowers are growing
Children are playing basketball
Mummies are drinking alcohol

Love is all around the love tree

Seven Random and / or Weird Things about Me

2007-11-12T11:50:00.000Z

I'm a Tagette!! Tagged by Redness, my first ever Tagging - Yehaa!

Here are the rules:Link to the person that tagged you, and post the rules on your blog.Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself.Tag 7 random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I have one of the happiest jobs ever - I marry people! My "Saturday Job" is as a celebrant for civil marriages and partnerships, how great is that?!

I'm a really bad loser at boardgames - especially when I have taught someone how to play the game in the first place (backgammon for example Sara).

My proudest moment in life was being the celebrant and giving the eulogy at my Dad's funeral - I could tell everyone there what a great guy he was.

I drove Nell McAndrew all over the place in Northern Ireland, taking her to visit soldiers in their bases, including those in South Armagh, and she was great.

I used to really want to have children but had cancer instead. Now I'm an aunt and have four lovely nieces, I think I would have been a crap Mum! How do mothers ever let children out of their sight? I worry so much about them all, and I'm only an aunty - my sister Jo calls it my running with scissors mode.

I became a serial dater when I discovered internet dating - I met lots of interesting and unusual men - but all the one's I really liked were already married.

I have matching scars on my knees from sticking them (twice -doh!) to red hot irons whilst blowing glass.

Here are my taggees - I hope you don't mind, but only do it if you want to!

Sunday Scribblings

2007-11-11T08:38:00.000Z

A memorial in Kabul dedicated to the British Officers and Soldiers,

who gave their lives in the Afghan Wars of the 19th and 20th Century.

Remembrance Day Parade

Where are ye going to my bonnie laddie?
Where are you going to my bonnie, brave boy?
Acht, Mammy! Dinnae fash now! Can ye no’ see?
I’m away to join the army a soldier to be.

Oh no son! Dae ye no read the paper? Dae ye no see the news?
Our laddies die daily, I dinnae want it tae be you.
Aye Mammy I ken that, but I cannae stay here
Not while ma pals fight with terror and fear.

So I’ll put on a helmet, and shoulder my gun
march left, right, under the harsh Afghan sun
Two minutes to remember, those here before
and new fields of poppies under RPG roar.

The Afghan Poppy Fields

(photo credits: Guardian and MOD)

Three Word Wednesday

2007-11-07T22:15:00.000Z

I listen to BBC Radio 4. I love the serendipitous nature of what I learn as I listen. I listen because it's like having engaging company who don't mind in the least leaving when you've had enough of them - music blurs my mind and talk sharpens it.

The Shipping Forecast

Like most of the others who listen tonight I wouldn't know one end of a boat from the other but I lie listening to the radio, night battering on the window to be let in, and I hear the poetry in the names - Viking, North Uitsire, South Uitsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, FitzRoy, Trafalgar, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, Fair Isle, Faeroes, South East Iceland. I think of the modern equipment that boats are arrayed with and I wonder - do sailors listen still ? Are huge Tankers changing course because the wind is backing southerly gale force 10? Will fishermen's wives hear and go to the window to watch restlessly for the dawn whilst their son, their brother and their husband are spumed and hurtled by an uncaring sea? Is there a naval Captain taking the watch from his EXO and taking the ship about, away from the harm nature might bring? There are,in all probability, new improved satellite imaging gizmos that tell those who need to know in order to survive what the weather that's coming their way is like. I think the Shipping Forecast is still there because no amount of gadgetry and gimmickry can compensate for the loss of everyday poetry should it go, and those of us who listen whilst safe in our beds or over the Sunday lunch need to hear it as much as those on the sea do.

Enjoying the family

2007-11-04T14:49:00.000Z

Holly experiencing Crossword Doers Brain Freeze

Every Sunday, unless we have a very good excuse, there is a family breakfast followed by Doing The Crossword. There's a big fight to not be the person who reads out the clues and writes the answers because that responsibility is hell. Nobody listens to you the first time you read it, they blame your pronunciation for not understanding and therefore not being able to answer the question even if it is their specialist subject. Specialist subjects are those which other people think you should know about not necessarily those which you actually know anything about for example Jo works for Ikea therefore she has to answer any questions about any Scandinavian country, anything to do with houses/design/funny names or toolkits, or in fact anything beginning with I. It's really noisy and even though we seldom actually send the completed crossword into the weekly competition any spelling mistakes are greeted with loud recriminations "Well! We can't send that in now can we?!". Family who can't be at the table may be phoned at anytime to join in the chaos. This morning, by phone, we had Hannah accompanying us with her rendition of Scotland the Brave on the violin. She's on week 4 of violin lessons...

We've carried out the ritual Sunday Breakfast Crossword torture for as long as I can remember, and I love it. Every Sunday I get to be with some, if not all, of my family and enjoy the blether and banter that goes on. It gives us a weekly point of connection that reminds us who we are and the joy we find in each other.

Making the world go round...

2007-11-04T14:09:00.000Z

Loto flicked moodily through his copy of Take a Break and thought what an utter, utter git his brother Loki was. The magazine provided a fairly efficient barometer of Loki's success at spreading despair and despondency about the world and if today's issue was anything to go by he was indeed "cooking with gas bro'!" as he had claimed in his last email. Loto on the other hand was doing his level best to make people happy- you'd think that giving money to people would be easier than it was turning out to be. He'd been thrilled when he'd thought up the idea of the Lottery, it gave him the ideal vehicle for dishing out money - and that was his job. As demi-semi-dinky-teeny god-ette jobs went it was okay - could be a lot worse, he could be like Hœnir and not be allowed to say anything ever; talking to him was very frustrating because, frankly, he was rubbish at charades. Anyway - it was Saturday and therefore the day he most often had prayers sent directly his way. He tuned into the white noise that swirled around him most of the time and sifted through the susurration of the many, many voices whispering, hissing, breathing their prayers "Let me win, please, let me win...". It was difficult to decide who deserved the money most. Sometimes he got lazy about doing his background research and the money ended up with someone who, by popular assent of his worshippers, just did not deserve it; a yobbo who frittered his money on drink, drugs and other unwholesome pursuits or someone who already had more money than they knew what to do with. Sometimes he gave all the money to one person and sometimes to many; sometimes he dropped actual winning tickets into the handbags, pockets, purses of his people and sometimes he put the idea in their head about the numbers he would choose that week. You'd think that would be enough but no, people lost their tickets, didn't bother checking them and hardly ever listened to him in their head - they stuck to the numbers they always used, some odd combination of birthdays, ages and door numbers usually. He listened again to the prayers coming his way today it was a bit like turning the dial on a radio until he found a message that was clear and precise...

Enid wondered if it was necessary to look at stars when attempting cosmic ordering. She’d read Noel’s book, well, read some of it anyway but she couldn't remember whether star gazing was mentioned. She’d tried cosmic ordering her lottery win both last week and the week before. The first attempt failed she thought because she had been too non-specific, she had just asked for some money. Last week she had been quite specific (£5 million) but perhaps a bit greedy. This week she had decided to ask for £93,427 based on the premise that it was (a) pretty dashed specific and (b) not terribly greedy. It was the amount she thought that would allow her to pay off all her outstanding bills, buy a new carpet for the parlour and get a few new clothes from Jaeger, and leave her with a wee bit over. The bills were beginning to worry her. She’d been so downhearted when Henry had died, it might have been a bit different if they’d had children but they had never been blessed. Then everything had become so much worse when she discovered that Henry’s pension didn’t come to her after all and the stocks and shares they had were really rather worthless. She’d had to sell some things from the house, none of which were worth very much but the money had kept her going for a while. Now there was nothing left to sell and the house looked as sad and bereft as she felt. The friends she had once had seemed to have drifted away whilst she was lost in her grief and now she couldn’t afford to have them back, it cost money to socialise and she just didn’t have it. Her social contact was limited to the people she met when she volunteered in the children’s hospital shop, the Doctors and Nurses were just lovely, she saw how hard they worked and how hard they tried to make the children well and keep their families nourished in their hope. She saw the families too, learned which child was theirs, how they were faring. She wanted to let them know how much she cared what happened, how hard she prayed for their child to be well, how she wanted to do more – but they only saw the pleasant, tweedy lady from Morningside and she didn’t know how to connect. If she won a lot of money on the Lottery she would give some of it to the Hospital, she decided, that way she could show how much she cared. If it was more than £200,000 she would give half of it away she thought. Oh Great God Loto, in all your munificent beneficence please let me win.

Loto like the Great God bit. He wasn't a Great God, but he liked it anyway. He wasn't sure about the munificent beneficence though. Actually, he wasn't even sure what it meant but she was a nice old duck and he felt sure that she'd stick to her bargain and not blow it all on drink, drugs and Ferraris. As the balls spun in their machine Loto nudged out the numbers that appeared on Enid's ticket...

Three Word Wednesday

2007-11-01T10:35:00.001Z

In response to this week's prompt - phone, stumbled, windy

Quiz for small children

1. You are sitting quietly watching Scooby Doo (again) and playing in an imaginative and creative way with your (naked) action figures whilst Mummy is hosing the kitchen down after breakfast. The phone rings, do you

(a) Answer it and make unintelligible conversation about having jam with your cheese string for breakfast whilst your aunt on the other end of the line progresses from "Hello darling, what a clever girl answering the phone, can I speak to Mummy?" to shrieking "LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR BLOODY MOTHER NOW!!!!" at the top of her voice in the hope that Mummy will hear and come and rescue her.
(b) Ignore the phone until Mummy answers it then interrupt the conversation every 30 seconds with demands for juice; Mummy to play Nintendogs with you; loud singing etc - until Mummy cracks and says that she will call the caller back and hangs up. Immediately start ignoring Mummy and resume Scooby Doo watching.
(c) Call "Mummy! The telephone is ringing, shall I bring it you?" and then sit quietly whilst Mummy has a lovely long chat.

2. It is the middle of the night and, after falling asleep at 6pm in spite of the cold wet facecloth treatment you got, you wake up. Do you:
(a) Get up and amble through to see Mummy and Daddy who are, shockingly, still sound asleep. Use your pointy little fingers to pry open Mummy or Daddy's eyelids and enquire if you can watch Scooby Doo now and while s/he's at it you wouldn't mind a cup of tea.
(b) Get out of bed and sprinkle a few bits of Lego and some Scooby Doo action figures around the floor of your previously tidy bedroom, move the toy box slightly so that it is now directly in a line from the door then shout "MUMMY!! I AM GOING TO BE VERY, VERY SICK RIGHT NOW!!". Wait until your mother has stumbled in through your bedroom door clutching your father's right shoe as an improvised sick bowl, stubbed her toe on the toy box and then hopped painfully on the Lego/action figure minefield, then tell her that you've changed your mind.
(c) Think "gosh, the stars are still studding the sky and the moon is still out - it must still be night time I think I'll go back to sleep so I wake refreshed and happy."

3. You are utterly at home on either potty or toilet seat these days but miss the drama and excitement of the first few heady days of grasping the whole going to the toilet malarkey. Today you are flower girl at the wedding of one of Mummy's pals. Do you:
(a) Announce loudly "I NEED A BIG JOBBIE!" then spend at least 15 minutes clutching yourself and hopping from foot to foot whilst you choose which of your many new friends will take you to the toilet.
(b) Go to the toilet with Mummy without putting up much of a fight then, while she is taking her turn, go from cubicle to cubicle peering underneath the door and having a bit of a chat with the occupants. On reemerging from the toilets to the wedding reception point to the immaculate and gracious mother of the bride and ask Mummy "Aye sure that's the lady who did really loud windy pops in the toilet Mummy eh?". Admire the way the lady's face turns a lovely pink colour.
(c) Quietly draw Mummy aside and ask if she will accompany you to the toilet, where you quietly and efficiently go about your business, so to speak.

Scenes from a hospital Life

2007-10-26T23:57:00.000+01:00

Tiny girl. Poorly sick. Meningitis? Leukaemia. Chemotherapy. Angel curls falling like question marks on the pillow.
Weak. Stronger. Weaker. Strong again. It’s worse. Shingles. Kidney stones.
It’s winter.
Nurses dressed as Ghosties from Scooby Doo entertaining bed bound child.
Nurses nursing a mother’s splintering heart.
Nurses holding a weeping father’s hand.
Nurses playing Barbies with big sisters and keeping life going.
Handsome boy Doctor flirting with small, brave, bald girl who flutters lashless eyes and giggles.

It’s spring.
Worse and worse. Better and better. Home. Hospital sleepover only. Chemo continues.
Stubble appears.
Roid Rage in nursery. Playing outside. A cold. No problem.
Angel curls unfurl again and signal the growing of hope.

Summer's coming.

This beautiful girl is my niece the day after she was diagnosed

Bald but beautiful still

Our lovely girl is heading towards well.

In the worst times, she showed us the way to go. She is brave, resilient and out of her head on drugs in the video clip.

We know we are blessed and we miss those who weren't. This posting is in memory of our girl's friend Iona. She's often in our thoughts.

Trying to figure out what to do with your excess Lottery win or even that spare fiver? Leukaemia Research Fund, Edinburgh Sick Kids Hospital, Winston's Wish

Three Word Wednesday

2007-10-24T20:14:00.000+01:00

My First ever TWW! I'm working up to something spanky!

A Cutting Reply

“Take care, my boy – expect the unexpected and keep your powder dry,” the barber
quipped and clipped and snipped.
Gaily the young man tossed his glossy mane of tousled locks
and laughed
“A little something for the weekend perhaps?” and kissed the barber’s lips.

Clothes made out of old curtains. Don't do it.

2007-10-24T13:02:00.000+01:00

Scarlett O'Hara in her Curtains (I know it's a cookie jar, just use your imagination for goodness sake)

There are some people who can successfully wear clothes which once hung at a window. Actually - no, there aren't. There's Scarlett O'Hara and even she looks a bit ropey. One has the impression that her dress may smell of cheroots and whisky (I think they look like old pub curtains frankly) and may perhaps not be as fresh as one might like if one was hoping to meet one's fancy man.

Then there are the Von Trapp family. It doesn't surprise me one little bit that after a couple of minutes eyeing up the heavy brocade Maria whips up some nifty outfits for the kids - I know they were Austrian not German but it must be something about that neck of the woods. I lived in Germany for a while and if there's one thing I can say about German Fashion it is that no curtain is safe. There were times when I would catch my german assistant casting a speculative glance over the window dressing in our office, I would make her chant "Curtains are not clothes!" until the moment passed and she felt better.

German fashion - note the curtains just torn down from the pelmets and tossed casually over the shoulders.

Recently my sister Jo and Ellie, her 4 year old, went shopping in Asda. Ellie had dressed herself and was wearing her Fifi Flowertots swimsuit, some stripey socks belonging to her older sister, a pink fairy skirt and her mother's high heeled boots. It was a statement outfit. I'm not 100% sure that kind of statement should be allowed in supermarkets but it kept her 'roid rage at bay. I'm telling you this not because curtains were involved but to point out the difference in our childhoods - I was 15 before I was allowed to decide what to wear. My grandmother, Jessie, was a proficient seamstress but she had rubbish patterns. And taste. She would make me trousers that if you pulled them up so the crotch was somewhere near yours the waistband would chafe your armpits and the draught would whistle round your ankles. Put the waistband round your waist and the seam of the crotch would catch on your wellies. You get the idea. What she made however was not as bad as what she made them from. As well as recycling curtains she had special sources for other upholstery fabrics. Gill and I had hot pants made out of Pink and Lime Green Checked coarse tweed (Try having those seams on tender inner thighs; we walked funny for weeks). Then there were the Burgundy Corduroy Kick Flares (bus seats in a former life I think) that had purple flocked insets (possibly wallpaper at one time - who knows). You don't want to know what we had to put up with when she got an entire bolt of industrial super tough denim but I probably don't need to tell you that you could spot Gill and me from 3 miles away just by the way our arms stuck out at right angles from our sides.

None of these were anywhere near as bad as The Beach Dresses...

They were made from yellow towelling. Fine.
They were made from yellow towelling curtains. Not so fine.
They were made from yellow towelling curtains that had once hung in the kitchen and were patterned with teapots and onions. ALL KINDS OF WRONG!!! They were beach dresses for heavens sake! You don't have onions and teapots on the beach! You have buckets and spades and other cute things - not vegetables and crockery.

And my mother made me wear it... what was she thinking of?!! Certainly not how scarred my 8 year psyche would be by the experience! I go all twitchy at the mere sight of an onion and as for teapots, suffice it to say I'm a coffee kind of person really.
Ellie has no idea how lucky she is but Jo has taken care to pick nice tasteful curtains for her house - just in case!

Aunty Molly

2007-10-15T15:31:00.000+01:00

I was looking for the recipe for something the other day (Baked Egg Custard – was obviously feeling in need of comfort) and I came across a recipe for Spicy Peanut Liver (gagging noises here). The recipe book is The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. It’s generally an excellent cookbook but it does have the odd foray into slightly strange combinations which made me think of the Seventies when we Brits really began to get into experimenting with flavours and textures in food. No one was keener on experimenting with flavours and textures in food than my Great Aunt Molly. Can any of us forget the Salted peanuts in Raspberry jelly combo, or the Raisins in the Fish Pie? How about that timeless concoction “Cornflakes in Treacle Toffee”. You could always wash it down with a glass or two of “Pitbauchlie Special”, a blend of dusty orange squash and flat lemonade. Most memorable was the Mackerel, Egg and Spaghetti mash which prompted Uncle David to look at his plate and ask “Is this something we’re about to eat or something we already ate?”

It wasn’t only food that she mangled. G.A. Molly was someone who could just never leave well enough alone. Nice simple frock? Let’s add 4 yards of rickrack and perhaps some sequins. She was well ahead of her time with activities such as decorative paint finishes, or at least drawing twiddly bits on things that really just did not need twiddly things, light switches for example. She was very inventive in her problem solving. When she found her face was becoming spattered with cast off when creosoting her garage (the word slap-dash was invented for her painting technique) she solved the problem by wearing a pair of tights …on her head - one leg left dangling so she looked a bit like Isadora Duncan about to rob a bank.

Molly and her ex-naval husband, Frank, never had children and after he died there was no one to keep her eccentricities in check. Most of the time they were small idiosyncrasies – turning up at Susan and Tom’s wedding wearing a woolly bobble hat with a rose pinned to it with her Berketex suit; taking directions literally when you said “Go straight on at the Roundabout” and leaving tyre tracks across the municipal flowerbeds as a result. Would it surprise you to learn that she drove a Morris Minor with a split windscreen and sticky out indicators? Didn’t think it would. Of course, being Molly she had done a bit of improvement on it but using house gloss paint to do it, creating a subtle and intriguing effect not dissimilar to a crackle glaze. She was only trying to cover up the dunt in it that had left some of the paint flaking.

She wasn't actually barking mad - just potty and what concerns me most of all is that occasionally, usually when I find myself thinking about adding some tassels and beads to an unadorned jumper, I am struck with the realisation that I have some of her genes in me. As Jo said when I mentioned it "For god's sake - give them back!"

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Look after your breasts & have that Mammogram!

2007-10-14T21:07:00.000+01:00

Someone sent me this and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it!

MAMMOGRAMS

Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test and best of all, you can do these simple exercises in and around your home.

EXERCISE ONE

Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in door. Shut the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn't effective enough.

EXERCISE TWO

Visit your garage at 3 am when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tyre of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.

EXERCISE THREE

Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the book-ends against your breasts. Smash the book-ends together as hard as you can. Set up an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.You are now totally prepared.

Send this to all women to have a laugh AND, don't forget to have a mammogram!

First Job, Worst Job, Dream Job

2007-10-14T13:38:00.000+01:00

My first job was working as a "Saturday girl" in Boots the Chemist. I worked on the chemist counter and had to wear a white overall with attractive flowery bits on it, which only slightly detracted from the I'm-a-person-you-can-trust-with-your-embarrassing-symptoms look we were all aiming for. It was a lie. Each Saturday Ronnie and I would choose a product, usually something that smelt really bad or turned your skin a funny colour, with the aim of selling as many as possible that day. The winner got nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere somebody was rubbing their chest with haemorrhoid cream. Old people were the easiest to convince - anything that smelt that bad has to do you good! My favourite selling technique was to let them sniff the embrocation or linctus - one whiff would have them choking and gagging "Aye hen, that's guid and strong - gies twa of they wans."

Condoms were an endless source of entertainment. This was in the days before condoms were on public view and so anyone who wanted them had to ask for them. I had some very bizarre conversations, usually held in a whisper, as a result. There were requests for Aspirin accompanied by a lot of nodding and twitchy winking. I liked to torture these people (invariably men) by asking if they wanted them soluble etc. My favourite condom customer though was a slightly scatty looking woman I remember asking me "How much is it for a pack of 3 durex?" "39p madam" I replied perkily

"Acht, I'll just have a Caramac instead..."

I was 15. I thought that there was some fail safe way of using a Caramac as a contraceptive. Luckily I didn't try it out.

My worst job was working in a vegetable packing factory. In winter. Night shift. I had to watch Brussels sprouts going past on a conveyor belt and pick out the mushy ones. There were 4 of us and we were all students working in the holidays. We used to play eye-spy (Something beginning with B.S.!) and take the mickey out of the full time workers and their enthusiasm for the veg they happened to be packing. No wonder they hated us. I used to wear so many clothes I couldn't get my arms down to my sides but it didn't help, I was still freezing. Not only that but I smelt of Brussels Sprouts.

My dream job is to do something that made everyone I came into contact with have a better day, some extra joy in their life. Maybe to be the person who hands over the winners lottery cheque? That has the benefit of being very part time and I could carry on with my faffing around with other stuff for the rest of the time! Actually - thinking about it my new job as a Civil Ceremonies Celebrant has all the hallmarks of being a fab day out as well as a way to earn a crust!

Spanners

2007-10-10T14:23:00.001+01:00

I have been clearing out the garage. Again.

The garage was Dad's space and he filled it with things that he thought might come in handy. At some time. And they may well do, but it will be for somebody else. I reached the conclusion a while back that if I have no idea what it is I'm looking at then I'm never going to use it. It's taken a good long while to summon up the motivation to get in there and get on with it, two reasons really

1. It reminds me so much of my Dad, it's the smell mainly - a sort of oily, metally, petrol-ly type smell - clearing out the garage would make it go away.

2. I couldn't be arsed.

What I found when I really got into it was stuff which made me laugh and cry. I found:

a box full of really old photographs, taken when Dad was a boy and visiting his godmother and her pal in Cambridge. It was odd to see him as a child with his parents who in the photo are younger than I am now.
an old inflatable dingy and remembered the day we discovered it had a puncture - down at Elie paddling like hell as the dingy slowly folded in half with us sandwiched in the middle.
147 spanners and wrenches. Why? Why do men need so many spanners? and don't try and give me the "for the same reason women have so many shoes/handbags" argument. It doesn't wash. Shoes go with outfits. Spanners don't - unless we're talking about a kind of "Jings, I can't use my Stilson Wrench with these overalls - it'll have to be the Mole Wrench or nothing!" kind of deal.
letters from me and Gill to Dad when he was working away from home - mine was a litany of test scores from school and patronising spelling corrections for him - self-satisfied little twerp that I was.
The roof rack for the Chrysler. I wrote that car off in 1979 and we haven't had a car the roof rack has fitted since then. Mind you he did love that car. He had to hitch to work for months afterwards. I bought him a Ping golf club to apologise, Gill told him if he kept on teaching me to drive he could end up with a whole set. Maybe he didn't like golf that much really, because I didn't learn to drive until was 24 and I had lessons from Harry Parr, who sang"There was a Wild Colonial Boy!" and smacked my hands with the pointy end of a pool cue if I crossed my hands on the wheel.

Anyway. It's done now; the garage is neat and tidy. Not only can you get a car into it but you can also walk round the car when it's in there. We have dumped or given away 98% of Dad's treasures. We still have an entire toolbox full of things that really actually might be useful, and I still have an oily, metally, petrol-ly something that I sniff every now and again.

Who's that short, fat chick then?

2007-10-09T22:03:00.000+01:00

Self Portrait
I think I have whatever the opposite of Body dysmorphic disorder is.

I'm not being flippant here, but I am constantly surprised to find I'm a short, fat middle aged woman. I catch a glimpse of my reflection as I walk past a window and I just don't recognise that person. In my head I'm at least 6 inches taller and a whole person lighter. In fact, in my head I have a whole other life. Not only am I a tall, slim redheaded biker chick, but I am also fluent in Italian, French, German, Russian and Polish, bake my own bread and write bestselling novels in my spare time.

Is this self -delusion caused by my inner line-dancing, wild Texan, ranch owning, wilderness loving redhead (Fantasy me #74) yearning to break free or am I just in denial up to and beyond my oxters?

Being fat has given me an odd relationship with my body. I mostly ignore the way it looks ("no? really - wouldn't have guessed by looking at you" I hear you say!)and think of it as the way my face and mind get carted around, kind of like Davros clone in his fish tank phase. I do have many bits of my body that I am fond of and some which I greatly admire, for example I think I have an outstanding right forearm. I have always liked this bit. It has that slight arm-out-the-car-window sun warmed colour and a lovely mole. As a kid I liked to watch how the sinews, tendons, muscles and other lumpy bits under the skin moved when I used my arm, I was doing this whilst riding my bicycle round in circles on the road when I smacked into a car coming in the opposite direction. I shot up over the bonnet and roof and landed behind the car. I leapt to my feet and ran away with the driver (probably having cacked himself) out the car and yelling "I know your father!". He almost certainly did, we lived on an RAF camp where everyone knew everthing about everyone and if they didn't they just made it up anyway. Fortunately for me, Dad was in the outer Hebrides or somewhere at the time so never knew how my lovely forearm and I had nearly ended up as roadkill.

What was I thinking as I was admiring my arm whilst cycling? I was thinking about how it looked like a boy's arm and that was a good thing - I could wear shorts and football boots and play with Nicholas Rigby's action men instead of shaven headed Sindy... Fantasy me #2 One day I shall tell you about gypsy princess me with the jailbird brother.

Dad

2007-10-04T12:40:00.000+01:00

My Dad, Brian Childs

Four years ago my Dad died. He died of a heart attack. We decided that his funeral would be a chance to remind his family and friends of the person he was. We decided I would speak about him and Gill and Jo would stand with me as I spoke. The music that was played was Elgar's Nimrod - a reference to Dad's RAF days. Bizarrely it was one of the peak experiences of my life where I understood the effect of a life lived well and with love on those around you. One of the our friends had brought with her a new boyfriend who none of us had met before. He told me "I never met your Dad, but I wish I had - he sounds like a great guy." He was.

This is the eulogy that I gave.

As those of you who ever heard Dad expressing his thoughts about the parking outside the Salvation Army Citadel would know, he was not a religious man and so it seemed inappropriate for us to remember him with a religious ceremony. What I’d like to do is tell you a bit about Dad and what he meant to us, his family and his friends.

Dad inherited his eccentricities and vaguely Eeyore like tendencies from his father, Les, and gained his New Man skills from his mother, Jessie. It was her intention that he would be able to care for himself without needing someone else to do it for him. These skills came in useful in later years when, as a young father, occasionally looking after his children on his own he was able to produce such culinary masterpieces as Blue Porridge and Grey Soup.

Dad and Jen in Garden at St Andrews

Dad was 5 when his sister Jennifer was born and he immediately saw it as his responsibility to take care of her. Jennifer particularly remembers a time when as an 11 year old with great sporting aspirations she was taking part in a 100 yard race at an athletic meeting at Pitreavie. Jen fell on the cinder track only feet from the start. Dad immediately jumped over the barrier and strode of to where Jen lay, picked her up and ignoring the jibes and shouts from the crowd, carried her off the track. To this day Jen can remember the feeling of mixed humiliation and gratefulness that her big brother had rescued her.

He wasn’t all sweetness and light though. In the stories he told us about “when I was a little girl” we were always delighted to hear how naughty he had been. Stories of him and his gang of mates trying to set fire to the scout hut by shooting arrows wrapped with cloths soaked in petrol at the building. Only the fact that they had soaked the rags the night before and the petrol had evaporated saved Dad from adding to his criminal record gained when he was caught breaking street lamps with his catapult.

The curiosity he showed as a child about the way things work was something that he carried through to adulthood. In the garage at home there is still a watch he took to bits as a 9 year old. He just hadn’t got around to putting it back together again. Mind you that’s not the only thing in the garage. It was a moment of great amazement to the family and the neighbours when he recently managed to clear enough space in the garage to actually get a car in it too.

Mum and Dad in their courting days

When Mum and Dad met it was the beginning of a life long love affair that never diminished in its intensity or passion. Dad was always romantic but not always conventional. One evening a policeman spotted a car parked in a quiet lane, he tapped on the heavily steamed up window and when it was rolled down asked, in a knowing way, “What’s going on here then?” He probably wasn’t expecting the answer to be that Dad was steaming up the windows in order to draw circuit diagrams for Mum.
Mum and Dad's Wedding

Dad had chosen to sign on to stay in the RAF once his national service was done and so their courtship and early marriage was interspersed with fairly long periods apart and indeed Dad was away from home when I was born. He hot footed it back from the Outer Hebrides to Dunfermline and rushed to see his new baby. He wasn’t someone who had a lot of contact with babies and so was not quite sure that the scrunched up hairy, chimp like thing (and I’m quoting here…) he was presented with was normal, so it seemed only logical to ask the nurses if he could see another one. Mum was a bit miffed and the nurses were hysterical.
Dad is on the end at the right

His fathering skills improved but were always a little quirky. Many fathers carry their offspring on their shoulders – but how many of them sprinkle peanuts in their hair to keep the kid amused?

Me and Dad

Mum and Dad enjoyed parenthood so much that they decided to do it again and three years later Gillian was born. Dad was still away a lot and I remember the huge excitement that there was every time he came home. Gill and I would frisk him for presents, the dog would pee on his foot and then we’d all get heaved off to bed early for some reason. Mum would occasionally get some time off for good behaviour and leave us in Dad’s capable hands. He’d start fairly well and keep us entertained, I remember a whole gang of us kids being lined up with pots and pan lids, milk bottles half filled with water, the fire guard and poker and so on to form an impromptu band of which he was the conductor. He recorded the efforts so that we could play them back. It was great fun. He was also a great storyteller. We would plague him to tell us stories about when he was a little girl, or to make one up. His made up ones always began with “Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, before television was invented and when your Mummy was just a little girl there lived a handsome prince called Brian…”
Mum realised that there was no point in threatening us kids with “Wait till your Father gets home!” Dad was a soft touch, which we all figured out pretty early on. Unfortunately for us, he realised it too and would always reply “Ask your mother” when anything remotely contentious was being negotiated.
Joanne arrived 7 years after Gillian and shortly before we moved to Germany. Her earliest memory is of Dad rescuing her by breaking down the door of the toilet she had locked herself in when she was 3. He was our hero and we all wanted to marry him at some point in our childhood.

Dad, Me, Jo and Gill

He was every bit as wonderful a Granddad as he was Dad. He was the first person to hold Stephanie and he was the man in her life. Steph would like me to tell you a story that made the whole family, except Dad, laugh – he just shuddered every time he thought of it. One day when she was about 4 she was sitting at he table with a packed of mini cheddars which she had emptied out, put into a line and was counting. Jason, the dog, was watching her very carefully. Dad came in and pinched one of the biscuits, as he was about to put it in his mouth he said to her “This feels a bit damp – have you had it in your mouth?” “No” she replied. He stuck it in his mouth and she added “but Jason has.” Dad was horrified and spent the rest of the day cleaning his teeth and wiping his tongue.
When Jo married Steve and they began a family of their own he had even more opportunity to be a doting Granddad with Holly, Hannah and Ellie. I asked the girls what they would remember best about Granddad and they remember him teaching them to swim and giving the best cuddles when you were poorly.

Dad and Holly

Dad with brand new Ellie

We have had great fun as a family and Dad was the instigator of much of it. He never lost his curiosity and would often become completely enthused with something. These enthusiasms would often burn themselves out and the evidence would be added to the stuff in the garage. Ever since he was a child he has had an interest in discovering a means for perpetual motion, this had never gone away and may be the reason for us having enough magnets in the garage to be in danger of attracting every other bit of metal in Fife.
He was convinced he could make his fortune on the stock market if he could just figure out a pattern to the forecasting. Unfortunately this was another project he never quite finished!
He was great at DIY. Mum and Dad have a lovely conservatory, Kitchen and bathroom which they put in and which are all nearly finished.
He did have his gloomy turns which we all took the Mickey out of by calling him a MOG. This stood for Moaning Old Git – and believe me, in full flight he could give Victor Meldrew a good run for his money.
I think what we will all remember though is Dad’s friendliness, kindness, generosity of spirit, humour, pride in his family and the love he never failed to show for all of us.

Mum and Dad went on a cruise together in June. It was the first time since their Honeymoon that they had holidayed alone and they had the most marvellous time. Being together for that time had reinforced what they have always known, that they are best friends as well as lovers, who will never tire of each other’s company. Dad came back full of enthusiasm for the holiday and the week before he died we had collected a stack of brochures for them to choose their next one.

Dad died very suddenly and horribly unexpectedly, but he died in the arms of the woman he has loved with all of his heart for the past 45 years with her words of love in his ear. As we have never doubted how much he loved us he can never have doubted how much he was loved in return.

Well known for our tact and diplomacy

2007-10-03T23:45:00.001+01:00

Jessie Childs - My Grandmother
I have come to the conclusion that Holly has a huge chunk of her great grandmother, Jessie, in her. Jessie was an outspoken woman of strong conviction, so not always comfortable to be around. She, however, thought she was discreet and thoughtful in her approach to others and was often heard to say "We Childs are well known for our tact and Diplomacy...!" usually after saying something buttock clenchingly awful to someone. This is the phone conversation with Holly tonight:
"You know, even though you're quite rich (remember she's 12 so that means I have more than £20 on me occasionally - no begging letters please) I think probably people don't think you look attractive, but you have a nice personality so I expect they like you anyway."

Thanks. I think.

I'm still trying to figure out the conversation that went like this:
(Both of us snuggled up together under the duvet on a sleep over)

"Aunty Les, Why have you got two bottoms?"

I haven't, honestly!

Meet the cast!

2007-10-03T18:18:00.000+01:00

This is Ellie. That's a cheese string moustache (obviously!) not a heavy cold. Ellie is my youngest niece (I'm not counting the Guinea Pigs, anyway - they're boys... probably).

This is Hannah. The T-shirt says it all frankly. Hannah is Ellie's older sister.

This is Holly. Big Sister to Ellie and Hannah. She's gorgeous.

Here's Steph. Cousin of the girlies above. A beautiful and creative young woman of 19.

This is my sister Jo, mother of Hol, Han and Ellie. She also has a cheese string moustache. It's a family trait.

And Here's Steve. No one knows how old he is. But I think it isn't really still 20 something. He's Daddy to Hol, Han and Ellie, husband of Jo. (He's the one in the brown shirt...)

Gill is Steph's Mum and my sister. Older than Jo, younger than me, that's all we're saying on the age thing.

And here's my Mum. The Matriarch. The Godmother. The Boss. 'er in doors. Or Granny as she is most often known.