Spelling it out

Just what was so wrong with Britain's Got Talent last night?  J-Lo.  Jennifer Lopez.  That outfit. That dance routine.  That IN-YOUR-FACE overt sexualisation of entertainment, that belongs where it belongs, and not on our screens in our homes for our children to see.

Well, it's too late now, the genie's out of the bottle, you can't change it, chill out, what harm does it do?   everyone's smiling, everyone's having a good time, everyone likes it....

Well, not me.  I don't like it.  If I wanted to see gyrations and grinding and legs akimbo I'm regularly assured by the aghast radio callers that it's all there a click or two away any time I want it.....  And that's just on youtube or MTV.

Adult entertainment is called adult entertainment for a reason.  It's for adults.  And you can't make me believe that the marketing people of BGT are so niave to think that last night's show was going to be watched by adults alone.

It's cynical manipulation of the children viewing it.  Maybe not just last night's show. But the drip drip drip of the all the female sexual imagery used to sell things day in day out, to 'spice up your life', to add colour, excite, entice, entertain is what really worries me.

Well, it's too late now, the genie's out of the bottle, you can't change it, chill out, what harm does it do?   everyone's smiling, everyone's having a good time, everyone likes it....  Well not me.  I don't like it.

Why?  Because our children are vulnerable.  They don't understand. They copy what they see...  Think about it.  The more we accept female sexualisation selling/marketing things, and don't act, then the more we condemn our children's future safety.  Because if our children aren't protected from this way of behaving/looking/dressing/acting they will think it's normal.  They will think it's OK to wear cropped tops and shorts and high heels when they're six years old, and dance around the playground with swivelling hips and suggestive glances.  If we don't act.

Well, it's too late now, the genie's out of the bottle, you can't change it, chill out, what harm does it do?   everyone's smiling, everyone's having a good time, everyone likes it....

Think about it some more.  If our young children are going around, copying what they see, and we let it happen, what will the paedophiles out there think?  In their warped, twisted, evil, selfish minds they'll see a six-year old who 'wants it' because that's what it looks like to them.  They'll think we're giving it to them on a plate. 'She was asking for it' will be the rationale they use...

But there's so much of this inappropriate visual messaging out there that I'm afraid the genie is unstoppable.  And we can only protect our own, can't we?  Can we?  My children have had a lot of fun with the 'Keep Calm and Carry On' website which lets you create your own versions of the classic poster.  They had fun until I observed my 7 year old son's latest creation 'Keep Calm and Love Lego' on the gallery page.  He clicked the gallery page to see what other creations were there and was instantly confronted with a scantily clad lady on all fours looking over her shoulder at us and we were looking at her large curvy bottom, thankfully with the motto 'Keep Calm and Love Jenna' obscuring certain bits of her anatomy.  I made some jokey comment about 'you don't want to see that lady's bottom do you', and we clicked onto something else.

Well, it's too late now, the genie's out of the bottle, you can't change it, chill out, what harm does it do?   everyone's smiling, everyone's having a good time, everyone likes it....

Think about it.  It's not right.  And no matter how furious I am, how hot and bothered(!), how cross, annoyed, irritated, frustrated, exasperated by the way modern life is going, I'm not able to change it. I'm impotent instead of important.  The most important influence in a child's life is the parents - and we can't do anything to stop this train.

Why not?  What is the cause of all this?  What is the root of all this?  Money. And in this market I'm not even a flea on the elephant's bum.

... which quite nicely brings me back to J-Lo. Oops.  Is her bum as big as an elephant? I couldn't say, but it's difficult to get the image out of my head.... ;)  J-Lo is rich.  J-Lo is famous.  J-Lo must be talented to have achieved so much. Well, before we make our final decisions on that I'd like to see her perform without the gyrations. Without the suggestiveness. Without her legs open.  And on that subject don't get me started on Madonna!!!!

My kind of feminism.  Here endeth tonight's rant.  Amen.  Kat.

Cake

Where should I start?  At the beginning would be logical, but it's more important than that.  I've always loved cake.  And I've always associated cake with love ... because it seems to me that really good cake is made with that special ingredient.

My first memories of baking are down on my grandparent's farm.  My Nanny baked and even before being school age I can remember helping her with mixing, and licking the bowl clean.  She used to let me have the sad end of the pastry to roll out myself to make pretend pies - but only with newspaper filling because they were for my dollies.  Sadly, Nanny died when I was around 7 years old, so my memories of her are old and faded, but through the joint pleasure of shared baking, my sense of her is a happy one of love.

School puddings are next.  All the usual suspects.  Spotted dick.  Jam roly poly.  Chocolate sponge with green mint sauce. Fly pie. Rock cakes. Shortbread. (Milk puddings, I know, don't really count, but are part  and parcel of my earliest memory bank).  Apple pie, or Sultana Cake and Custard.  I loved them all.  I was a pudding girl, still am, and, for me, it has to be a hot pudding...  you can keep your ice creams or knickerbocker glory, banana split or yogurt.  I'm really not interested.  As far I'm concerned if it's cold then there's no love in it.

From around the age of 10 or 11 my mother would let me bake what I wanted on a Saturday morning.  Which worked well for all of us.  I'm the eldest of four children.  Giving me free rein in the kitchen would give my mother time to do something else, and produce something (hopefully) edible for the family to eat.  I would generally rustle up a batch of scones and a cake - Parkin, Gingerbread, Victoria Sandwich, Chocolate Cake, Butterfly Buns, or whatever had caught our eye in the recipe book or magazine that week.

I loved the process of baking, the anticipation, the mechanics, the tactile process of kneading, stirring, rubbing, creaming, beating, or folding, and managing the mixture so that it goes into the tin or paper cases or onto the tray, and then into the oven.  The smells. The inexact science. The magical uncertainty of 'is it ready yet?'.  The chemistry. The alchemy.  The love.  

When I was 15 years old I got an 'A' for my Domestic Science 'O' level, and expected nothing less.  I can cook.  I understand the planning, the timing, the juggling.  I know how to follow a recipe, but I'm happier with one I know by heart and can feel how it's doing, how it's getting on, whether it's going right and if something needs to be done.  I can adapt and substitute if there's something missing from the cupboard, and often that's the way I prefer it.  I'm not prepared to wait.  I'll just 'rustle something up' rather than have to have the exact herb or spice to hand.

I've made bread by hand, puff and rough puff pastry by hand, choux pastry, and short pastry, sweet pastry and cheese straw pastry.  And then there's the whole wide world of cake.

For many years I didn't bake.... Leaving home, moving out, and watching my figure were responsible for this sad lapse in my life.  And then the man I married didn't (and still doesn't) really like cake.  But things change.  We had children.  And children have birthdays.  And children's birthdays require cake.  And that's when I got my cake mojo back.

Injecting my love for my family into my cakes is one of my guilty pleasures, and no-one's going to take that away from me.  But it's more than that even.  Every time I make a cake I follow the ritual the recipe the muscle memory from the process, and the mental memory from all the cakes I've made before this, and all the cakes I've made with other people.  With Mrs Pickering in cookery lessons at the Convent, with my mother in the kitchen at Ribchester Road, with my Nanny on the farm, and with my children as I've let them lick the bowl and feel the love....

Because my cake memory is so strongly associated with my personal history I rarely consider commercial cakes.  I've been disappointed with cake I've had in certain tea-rooms at stately homes.  I've cringed at shop-bought plastic wrapped cake given out at other children's parties.  I'm a bit of a home-made cake snob I suppose, and I don't think that's a bad thing.

WI (Women's Institute) cakes are usually up to standard, and my neighbour, Mary, makes a mean Lemon Drizzle, and we usually compare Christmas Cake.  I gave her a quarter of the last Victoria Sandwich I made (a 4-egg one to celebrate Tom's Beaver Investiture, and use the eggs) which she said was a nice bit of cake, and I'll take that compliment any day of the week.

I could go on, but it's bedtime and I've work tomorrow morning.

There's a lovely smell in my kitchen, the barm brack teabread/cake I made earlier this evening is cooling the rack, and I'll look forward to a slice tomorrow with a nice cup of tea.

Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?   CAKE!

Kat  :)

Where exactly do you stand on that?

I've reported two incidents to the police in as many days.

Yesterday whilst I was walking Roly at Faringdon Cricket Club (there's a lovely path that circles the ground and is used by dogwalkers, joggers, mums and buggys etc) I witnessed an Audi backing into, and seriously damaging a fence.

He'd driven up the approach drive to the cricket club only to find the gates locked, and he had to back out.  It's a private drive and he attempted to reverse 3 point turn, but as his car was so big (A6?) it took him 5 goes.  I wasn't spectating on purpose.  He just happened to be executing this manoeuvre as I was taking the dog that way, the way I go most mornings.  But when his rear bumper kissed the fence the first time I thought 'eh-up, we've got one here'....

The fence in question is about knee high, and is made up of wooden 4x4 posts with metal (scaffold type) rails in-between.  As I walked past I saw his car kiss the fence 3 times.  He may have done it more, but I was also trying to keep my eye on Roly's chosen spot for his 'business', so I could do my business - pick it up...

However, when he flat-backed into the rail, split the post, and knocked it awry I decided to make a note of his registration number.  Easier said than done that.  I do have a mobile phone - a 'brick'.  I use it as a phone.  I also use it for text.  I wasn't confident that I could write his number in a text message if I wasn't sending it to someone, so after some amount of fiddling with my phone I found a note 'app' and put it there.

He drove away and I continued to walk the dog ... and pondered.  Should I have got involved?  Could I have prevented it?  Would he have thanked me for helping - 'you're all right, you're all right, stop!' or given me a mouthful for interfering? And could I have (should I have?) anticipated that he had the driving skills of ... an angry jelly?

Non-verbal communication is a vital skill.  A sixth sense.  Intuition.  Something we use every day without even knowing it.  Sad to say, but in these times we're living in there are certain situations where it's best to keep your nose out.  Lone female dogwalker -v- aggressive Audi A6 driver. Hmm.  So why did I report it down at Faringdon Police Station that morning?

A point of principle.  I'd seen something happen.  I also wanted to apportion the blame correctly. In as much as the approach drive to the cricket club is also parallel to the skate park, and I didn't want people to assume the damage had somehow been done by the youngsters larking around on their skateboards....  so that's what compelled me to report the incident.

The second trip to the police station was at lunchtime today, in Wantage.

Non-verbal communication again. Body language.  Yesterday I'd seen a man walking along the driveway of our elderly neighbour, Mary. Nothing wrong in itself, but he caught my eye, and held my glance and I mouthed to him, from where I happened to be, my bedroom window, 'Are you going to see Mary?' to which he looked blank.  Something about his manner made me slightly uneasy, so I went downstairs, took the dog outside, and had a quick look down Mary's drive....  nothing, so I left it at that.

Whilst in town today I bumped into Mary, and she expressed concern as to whether I received the bag, with magazines and money for the eggs I give her, and which she leaves for me on my doorstep.  I said yes, I had thank you, and she said she was worried because after she'd left it she'd had this man round her house.....

So I had a good chat with her, and said funnily enough I'd seen a man, and she said he had knocked on her door, she'd opened it a little way, and asked him what he wanted and he said window cleaning and she said no thank you I've got a window cleaner and she closed the door and went to her kitchen to watch him leaving down the garden path, but she couldn't see him, so she wondered where he'd gone and she went down her hallway and he was peering in at the window having a good look, and she asked him what he wanted, and he said to get to the house next door, and she said to go back down the path, and he went... but she said she'd not slept properly, and I said I'd walk with her to the police station and we could tell them together what had happened and even if nothing could be done she'd get a bit of peace of mind, and the police would have some 'intelligence' and may be able to put a picture together and maybe he'd been reported already, and at least if the police knew then we'd done our bit, hadn't we?

Mary is 88 years old, widowed years ago and lives alone in her home where she's lived for 50 years, is visited daily by her only son, is fiercely independent, and we keep our eye on her, because that's what you do, isn't it.

So this evening at 7.30pm the nice young policeman knocked on my door, to say he'd just visited Mary, and taken a statement, and there would be a follow-up visit by the local PCSO (Police Community Support Officer) on Saturday, and they were taking it seriously and would keep an eye things.

Job done.
Kat.

Over a barrel...

Tom's primary school had me over a barrel this week.  There was an announcement in the weekly newsletter and on the facebook page that the school had been 'specially selected' to take part in recording the Christmas Single (as in record) with 'The 'X' Factor' in the London O2 Arena in November..  Year three to year six students were invited to participate at a cost of £22 per ticket.  Payment was needed by 22nd May.

My gut instinct was to say no.  Not interested.  No thank you.  How much??? Why??? 'Specially selected' I don't think so. Specially selected mugs to pay for it more like - they should be paying us if they want our children's talents.  Specially selected one in a million - well, how many schoolchildren does the O2 arena hold?  There's no real kudos in being a part of that bandwagon (all puns intended).  

And this isn't the aspiration I want my son to be exposed to.  How tacky. Vulgar.  Cheap.  Bad taste.

Why do I feel this way?  Why do I feel so strongly opposed to it?  Is it my age??? (again..).

I've never actually watched 'The X Factor'.  Thank goodness we were without a TV for so long.  But from what I've seen via the internet, and heard commented upon on the radio, and observed on the magazine stands, it's this fashion for populist TV.  Entertainment without talent. Talent without trying. Success on a plate.  15 minutes of Fame.  Z-list celebrity.  Pop culture.  Lowest common denominator. Emphasis on the common.  Emphasis on the low.  It's too easy, too seedy, too stars in their eyes.  Reality TV with nothing real about it.  All fakery, fake tan, fake eyelashes, fake smiles.  Takeaway TV for the generation that has no attention span.

It's something I lump together with Big Brother, WAGs (Wives and Girlfriends), OK and Hello Magazines and their ilk.  And something, under normal circumstances, I would choose to ignore.

But if I ignore this invitation I will isolate my son.  The rest of his class are going.  And he wants to go.    Well.  He says he wants to go, but he's more than likely got no idea what it is he wants to go to.  He wants to go because all his friends are going and because they were told about it at school, and there was probably a song and dance and they made it sound exciting and when you're 7 that's all you need to know.... and how can I as a solitary parent, go against the flow?

So here I am over a barrel, and I've grudgingly paid the £22 and frankly I'm not happy about it, but what can you do?

Grrr.

Kat.

Goody Two Shoes

I quite often find the refrain from the Adam and the Ants song 'Goody Two Shoes' in my head...

.... 'Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do? Subtle innuendos follow, must be something inside..'.

Not because I especially like or dislike the song, nor because it's particularly catchy, and it's certainly not played on the radio much, if at all these days.  Why then?  Because I don't drink, and I don't smoke.  And the experiment at the weekend (1 x G&T with the Eurovision, see previous blog) has strengthened my commitment to the not drinking.  I think it's partly an age thing (I'm definately peri-menopausal, and the abstinence from alcohol helps reduce certain of the symptoms).

I also think it's partly a parent thing.

In that, since becoming a mother I rejected alcohol whilst pregnant  - obviously.  My body was going through enough change without alcohol being thrown in on top and the potential for damage to the foetus wasn't something I was prepared to risk.  When they were babies I couldn't contemplate mixing alcohol with breast feeding.  Then in the early years you're so tired, that there wasn't any energy left to either enjoy a tipple, or feel relaxed from it.  Frankly I was a bit neurotic about being drunk in charge of a child - what if you needed to drive in an emergency and you were over the limit? so it seemed easier to leave it out of the picture.

Also, having children in later life (35, and 40), and with a 5 year age gap, meant that it's taken a long while for me to feel that it may be OK to have a little drink .... and then that was when my body (because of my age???) reacted badly to alcohol and rejected it for me. Typical!

Fine.  So I don't drink.  I also don't smoke.  Dabbled, experimented, tried it in my late teens, early twenties, and frankly, didn't much like it, thought it smelt vile and it seemed an enormous waste of money...  and I'm of the same opinion now.

So this all begs the questions.... 'What do you do?'.

Cake.

I feel a whole new blog coming on!

Keep it sweet y'all! Kat :)

Eurovision ...

The Eurovision Song Contest was held last night, and it marks a year since we returned to the land of broadcast television.

Before I discuss that though, I'd been nursing my health.  I'd managed to work all this week, and made steady improvement by monitoring my energy levels and not pushing myself harder than absolutely necessary.  The chesty cough is now a distant memory, along with the other symptoms, but it seems  the virus has moved to my throat and left me with swollen glands and low energy levels.

So, under normal circumstances on a Saturday, I'd have set to (with a vengence) on the myriad of jobs that have accrued since I'd been unwell ... clean the kitchen, clean the bathroom, vacuum the house, do the ironing, mow the lawn, pot on my seedlings, clean the hen house, etc, etc.  Instead, when I got back from work yesterday lunchtime I settled myself down with the newspaper, a cup of tea, a scone and the TV!  Well, they were showing The Dambusters again, it being the 70 year anniversary since the actual event.

Obviously, I'm not old enough to 'remember the war'.  Nor was I in the country when the Falklands Conflict happened in 1982.  (We were in Hong Kong 1981-83, but that's another story).  But there is something immensely, compellingly moving and humbling watching The Dambusters, the fortitude, the war spirit, the stiff upper lip, the sacrifice, the loss, the duty, the application to the task, the bravery, the modesty. It's almost a documentary, and I'm in tears at the opening music, and couldn't persuade my children to watch it.  When does it become relevant I wonder???

Meanwhile, in the interests of nursing my health I also parked myself in front of the box and watched the Eurovision Song Contest.  'From the sublime to the ridiculous'... you can decide which.  Phoebe was desperate for our entry to gain points, and at least this year we were more successful than last..  It's a colourful extravaganza, and the overall quality was better than last year, and also better than previous contests I remember from the 1980's and maybe 1990's.

It was the 58th competition, and is still, I imagine, a rite of passage for every child across Europe: a talking point in the playground, on the school bus, with friends, a ritual.  As adults we carry the memory of previous Eurovisions: our favourite song/acts, the groan-inducing trash that's so bad it's good, the genuinely good songs overlooked by political voting, the unfairness of it all, the travesty and drama, the misunderstanding of other cultures and the wonderfulness of ABBA.

Watching it with 12 year old Phoebe is entertainment in itself.  The costumes, the drama, the dancers (good and bad), the Greeks, yes the wonderful Greeks sang a song entitled 'Alcohol is free'.  Only the Greeks. And, in the modern incarnation of the show, the public are encouraged to participate by voting over the phone. So we had our favourites, and voted for Belarus, Hungary, Malta, Greece and Denmark.  You're not allowed to vote for your own country, and there is also a panel of professionals whose judgement is added to the public vote to give scores to the top 10 acts.  The overall winner last night was Denmark, followed by Azerbijan and Ukraine.

It does make it a late night, however, and as I was feeling relaxed(!) I (foolishly) said I'd try a gin and tonic.  Experimentally. To see how my body reacted to alcohol since I've been completely off the booze for a good 18 months or so.  It gave me a headache, so I went to bed with a couple of paracetamol, and took a longer time to drift off to sleep.  Woke up at 5.30am, with dry mouth and residual headache.  So, for me, I'm better off staying tea-total.

I'm not entirely happy about this, but feel I must listen to my body whilst it reacts like this.  It makes social situations difficult because I feel like a party-pooper, always the sober one, always the driver, always the one counting the  minutes so I can get home to a cup of tea, always the one feeling awkward, 'no thank you, I don't drink' is such a downer.  Better to avoid the situation than confront it, but it's such a part of 'adult' life in this country and it's such a bore.

The robins left the nest. I noticed they'd gone on Thursday, and it feels quite strange now they're not there.  I don't know whether to clear out the moss or leave it and see if another robin tries their luck....

Right, time to tackle the day.  Have a good one, and keep it sweet!  Kat  :)

Back to ....

.... normal!  Well whatever normal is, anyway.

Thank goodness for that. I thought the doom fairies were here to stay.  Looking back I suppose the dark mood was predictable.  But that doesn't make it any easier.

I've been ill.  Nothing dramatic. Nothing big or fancy. Nothing worth writing about really.  But. It dragged on and wore me down and that's what was predictable.  At Easter I had a chesty cough - a bad one, phlegmy and feverish, and it put me to bed for 3 days.  Which wasn't the end of the world.  Just annoying.  Sort of spoiled the Easter break, but it didn't dent my work attendance record....

But the cough, and the, ahem, phlegm lingered.  It took a long time to clear up.  4 weeks to be precise.  Just in time for Cardiff.  Nice.  And on the return journey from Cardiff the cough returned.  This time with a vengence, so I went to the Dr's to get it checked.  And after listening to my ailments (I won't list them all here) and doing the usual stuff, she said it was probably just bad luck that my immune system hadn't really recovered from the Easter bug, and I'd got ... another virus.

Great.  Really great. Just what I needed.  (not).  So I went to work on Tuesday and got through the day on painkillers.  Saw the doctor on Wednesday. Wondered why my zovirax (cold-sore stuff) wasn't working, and noticed it was dated 2012, but worked Thursday afternoon, coughing and spluttering, and by 4pm wondered if I would be fit to drive to collect Tom from school at 5pm.  Made it, but the Friday morning school run finished me off, and I had to call in sick Friday afternoon and Saturday morning. I felt like such a loser, I hate calling in sick, but sometimes it's better to stop spreading your germs....

I'm not a good patient.  I'm not patient at all in fact.  There's so much I need to be doing, and when I'm  ill it doesn't get done, and that's not conducive to me being relaxed or resting...  And it doesn't make for good blogging either.  You'll have noticed that recent blogs were more pictures and fewer words.  That's what happens when I'm feeling low I've noticed. My equilibrium, my oneness with the world and family, my mood ... changes, and it's not much fun to be honest.

It's an energy thing.  If I've not got it, I've not got it, and you can't push me to get it, and I can't push me to get it.  When I'm tired I need to rest. And that's not easy when there's so much to do....  I have to be ill, properly ill to stop, and that's just not in the game plan, now is it?  One good thing about being ill(!) was that on Saturday afternoon I managed to finish reading 'The Return' by Victoria Hislop, so that's one off my list.  Have now started reading 'How to be a Woman' by Caitlin Moran.  Quite a contrast....

Back to work today, and was good to be back, and my energy levels held up quite well.  Will get the hens to bed next, and then myself to bed too, but thought you'd like an update on the robins...  not long now before they leave, I'm sure.

13th May 2013

13th May 2013

apple blossom tonight

Time for bed said Zebedee... night. Kat  :)

Oops! ....

'I did it again', as Britney Spears might say.

Browsing the charity shop bookshelves in Faringdon last week, I got 6 books for £2.

Two by Peter Lovesey: Stagestruck and Skeleton Hill.

Not my sort of thing, thought Simon might give him a try. If he's not impressed I can always donate them to the Library.

There was a pristine copy of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce -

I really enjoyed reading it, so have sent it in the post to my Mum for her to take on holiday with her....

Then I was taken with the cover and blurb of this non-fiction/science book:

"The Monarch is the only butterfly to migrate the way birds do, yet nobody knows how they do it.  Four Wings and a Prayer tells of the quest to trace the journey of the Monarch as it flies up to three thousand miles across North America, from Canada, through the United States, to a small mountainside in Mexico - and back again."

Finally two more, one author I like, and one I've seen in the Library and have been wanting to try:

 Curiosity got me with this one, and if I'm not engaged I'll donate it to the Library...

This one I do want to read.  I usually get on well with Sebastian Faulks, and this modern one sounds like a good read.... "Sweeping, satirical, Dickensian in scope, A Week in December is a thrilling state of the nation novel from a master of literary fiction".

What's not to like?  Kat:)

Robin-watch 2013!

27th April

3rd May

6th May

So, here they are.  5 in the brood.  The first photo I took of the chicks (3rd May) I think they were a little camera-shy... This one, they all pop up when you go 'ttch ttch ttch' - you didn't know I was fluent in Robin did you?  However, I got a telling off by their mum, who dived me for getting too close, so I've left them to it for a couple of days.

They'll be getting too big for mum to sit on them soon.  When I was putting the hens to bed last night, 9.15pm, mum was there feeding them, but it must have been the last feed for the night.  But she'll start early, the sun's up at 4.45am, and I'm assuming that's when she starts work. No wonder they grow so quickly.  They'll be gone before we know it.

ttfn.  Kat :)

Cardiff!

If a picture can paint a thousand words..... Cardiff 4/5th May 2013.  Beautiful!

Kat.

I like my routine.

I don't like my routine being distrupted.  Which makes things a tad difficult from time to time.  I've come to understand that this routine is my way of measuring achievement. Am I on top of it? Or as they say around here and, I believe, in horsey circles, 'up together'.

Well, mostly it takes a lot of effort on my part for the house, and consequently me, to feel 'up together'.  No sooner have I mopped the floor then it rains and the dog's paw-prints ruin my hard work.  No sooner have I emptied the dishwasher then there are dirty pots again.  No sooner have I got the clothes washing done, then there's another load waiting in the basket.... it never ends... There's always all this 'stuff' to do which would seem to be inconsequential - until it's not done ... you get the picture.

And, yes I nag the children to 'put it away' or 'put it in the dishwasher' or 'pick it up off the floor' and 'put it in the washing basket'.  And my stock answer to their perennial question of 'have you seen my?' or 'where's?' is:  'Where you left it.'

So my routine is a guage, a measuring stick, a way of handling the chaos of family life and checking that I'm on top of it.  And if I'm on top of it (is the house up to my standards? and believe you me, they're not particularly high standards...) I can reward myself with something I like doing. Make a cake. Do some gardening.  Spend/waste an hour mooching around the charity shops.... and at the weekend, go to somewhere nice and National Trust with the family - got to get our money's worth.

Therefore by the very nature of travel I am discombobulated. Is that the right word?  I am out of sorts.  Uneasy. A little anxious.  Why? Because I don't like to leave my comfort zone, because my routine will be disrupted, and consequently there will be a pile of stuff waiting for me when I get back... Either from this weekend's adventure to Cardiff (we'll see what awaits me on my return), or from a week away with the family.  There's always more stuff that will need doing, and until I win the lottery I don't see any way round it.

Borra dar.  Kat.

On chimneys

That is to say I'm not very impressed by the new houses going up in our locality with fake chimneys added.  There is a recently completed housing development in Wantage, where the false chimneys appear to be made of plywood with a brick-style render, normal chimney pot and then plomped atop the building like a cherry on a cake.  What's the point of that?  (Not the cherry, at least it's edible as well as decorative).

I followed a truck carrying some of these artificial chimneys as I was taking Tom to school the other day.  Where do they get the clingfilm from is what I'd like to know...  Seriously, they'd wrapped the fake chimneys onto the truck with layers of that industrial sized (and presumably industrial strength) clingfilm.  It does make me wonder...

What I don't like about these chimneys is the artifice, the deceit, the posturing.  The purporting to be something it's not.  The airbrushing cosmetic waste of space, time, effort, energy, and resources, the no-value added, the cheapness of it, the fact that decisions were made at the planning and design stage of the process - who thought that was a good idea?  Who's taking a back-hander to design them in? Who's pushing the bribe to include them?  What's behind it all?   Nostalgia?  I don't think so.

Fake chimneys are too twee for words, they're not right and shouldn't be there.  Didn't they teach the mantra 'less is more' at that school of design??  Grr.  I feel better for getting that off my chest!

Busy weekend coming up in Cardiff.  I'm meeting my oldest and dearest girlfriend to celebrate her birthday with her family. And I'm going by myself! Leaving hubbie behind to look after the children, dog and hens..... And I've never been to Cardiff before, so that should be interesting. Will no doubt report when I get back.

Our robin's brood has hatched. Either yesterday or today, and from what I've seen (not much) they're tiny.  Looks like there's about 3, difficult to say as the nest is so deep.  Last year there was a brood with 6, but it's been a much harder winter, so not surprised the brood is smaller.  However, the weather much nicer this week, and plenty of midges around, so the feeding should go well. Will post photo when I've got one...

TTFN.  Kat :)