Quote of the week..

.. and every week really. We were talking about going on holiday today, and I asked Kate what she was thinking of wearing on the plane...'mmm, mini skirt and boob tube' was her quick reply.   Trouble is, last week when I was heading out for Hazel's party , I had asked her what she thought I should wear and I got the same answer... 'mini skirt and a boob tube'... ahh, those were the days, though myself I favoured satin trousers!!!  No!!!!!!

 (the question was asked before the famous dress or no dress incident.. and by the way, I kept the dress, planning to love it and wear it, when the fancy takes me, probably to see Calendar Girls with the scrap ladies at this rate!... yeah, yeah, or out in the dark, with a coat or overalls on top! 

The truth is I couldn't face taking it back to the small little shop and explain that I didn't have the courage of my convictions to just wear it.)

But then I looked out a pic for this from our last holiday, and hey presto.. my 'almost a boob tube and mini skirt moment' ... though for the sake of comments I think 'boob and expanded waist tube' might be a more fitting description!

Sisters!

Some of you (at scrapbooking) may have seen this picture before, but I just had to jot down something about it. It's a 'not very special' kind of photo, taken in 1970 in my Auntie Edna's back garden in St. Buryan.

She is on the left and my Mum is on the right, not a common site to see them posed together with this much closeness. Mum was always the younger sister and Auntie was always, yes, always the bossy older sister!

I read a quote the other day that every picture has a story, even the most ordinary looking one, and this is no exception.  Mum would be about 44 in this picture and Auntie Edna about 48.  My mum had been widowed the year before, had a big operation and my brother got married so the family had changed in so many ways in just a short time. We spent quite a bit of time with her family in St Buryan, I guess looking at it now, it was company for her, it broke the monoteny and I guess they expected her to 'return' to them then. 

I can't get over the almost bare piece of mat they are sitting on; was it the coldness of the mat or the need for something a little colourful that has them sitting on an old purple shirt? And as for little old me, aged 10.. some fashion faux pas taking place there..I showed this picture to a  foreign waiter at a hotel where we were scrapping and he told me that  'you should never show this picture to anyone!'   Thanks! But I'm not proud and I'm too old and ugly to worry about it now, let alone the middle name Mum bestowed on me because she made Auntie a daft promise, as in her heart she thought I'd be a boy!!

(And yes, it is a layout in progress.. maybe I'll finish it this week)

It must have been a favourite dress, that yellow one my Mum is wearing, she had it on in every photo of that era, ... or maybe it was her only dress.. or maybe the photos we have were all taken pretty much at the same time, you know how it was, use the film up so we can get them back soon.    She even wore it on the Sunday School trip I featured in my Newquay layout last summer.

Little did we know when these pictures were taken that Mum would have a new lease of life when she remarried and we moved to Mousehole in 1973...a city of 2000 people.. and streetlights!! (at least that's how Phil sold it to us!)

Remembering.

While Kate & Taylor were at dance, I bimbled around Newlyn thinking my brother might be about, but guess he's still at sea....so I took an hour out to visit Mum's old friend in Mousehole.

My visit had been long overdue and I felt quite guilty at the length of time since I last called in.  But it was just sweet, a cup of tea beside her huge wood burner, talking about our friends and family, enjoying the same old memories we bring up each time and remembering the people and the times fondly.... how her grandson who lived with her used to like to slide from one end of the bath to another, while she leaned out of the window telling me of his antics...how she and my Mum would stay up late, laying tables for B&B, then chewing the fat over the crossword in the paper...the men had long gone to bed by the time they tired of chat.

I felt glad to have made the time, promised her and myself I'd call again sooner and as I drove off to rejoin the hubbub of the 'big food shop' and my 21st Century rush I thought about how much I like to spend time with people who knew my mum.

Many years ago I met (through a friend of a friend) an old guy who showed us around his house. As we talked about his days working in Newlyn amongst the fishermen, I told him who I was and how I lived in Mousehole etc. He walked beside me and said that he knew my step-dad, and quietly he leant across and said 'I knew your Dad too' .... it meant a lot, then and now, as he would have been 88 this year, and those who remember him from 1969 or earlier would be a decent age themselves.

Seemed like a good idea at the time...

.. if you know anyone who wants to book accommodation in west Wales, in a Blackpool styled B&B, masquerading as a country hotel, then let me know!

... it seemed like such a good idea at the time.. close to the party, a nice 'Country House Hotel'.....I should have heard alarm bells when they read me my 'cancellation rights' when I booked the room for two nights, about a month back.  The last of their 4 rooms was the 'Bridal Suite'... ahh, maybe THIS will be the stay we refer to as our (long overdue) honeymoon I thought... we've had a fair few trips out but always a few snatched days and no time to wallow.

Well, it all looked okay initially, we booked in quickly and set off to spend the evening with our friends., some of whom arrived after also booking in.. then the stories began ..... 'Fawlty Towers' it was being referred to, .....rules to 'book your breakfast the night before to avoid wastage',.... the request 'before getting into bed, please remove and fold bed cover, to avoid creasing'....sticky notices on every switch to 'turn off to save the environment'
Oh and as you sit on the toilet, the threat of being charged an extra nights stay for 'cleaning and fumigation' if you break the No Smoking rule, is just what I want to see!

Later on we made our way back, gave our order for breakfast and enquired for the time....'from 8.30' I was told... and it being our holiday and if we were on honeymoon, part of our first few days of married bliss, I asked 'until when?', only to be advised 'til 9am'.....'to avoid the staff hanging around waiting' .... I should have read the writing on their wall!

We slept on and off (still thinking this might have been our first wedded night!) in socks and tee shirts, as it was soooo cold. The next morning we all met for breakfast, the waitress must have asked us three times if we were all finished as 'I can go home once you're done'.   Eventually she requested we move out at 10am  and we could maybe talk in the lounge so she could lay up for evening meal, as then she could 'go home!'

Half an hour later, the others had gone out, we laid on the bed, freezing cold, not speaking, shivering, not feeling very 'bridal suite' at all so we decided enough was enough and left. When Col explained we had been freezing cold and pointed out the heating was now off, our lady host said 'of course, it's 10am and a lovely sunny day!  He pointed out that maybe, just maybe we'd have wanted to stay in our rooms (again the bridal suite gives you all the clues), and she replied 'as I said it's a lovely sunny day'

Well, another couple, (same age as us, and obviously old enough to know what you want from a hotel) also left and it all made for a lot of laughing that evening... oh and my favourite rule was 'in case of spillage, please notify as soon as possible to enable swift cleaning up... hey, I'm on my 'honeymoon' lady!! 

Oh yes, and the jacuzzi bath.. 'I wouldn't use that tap, it just sends jets of boiling water at you', and if you think you are going to use the bubbles, it might affect the shower of the room next door.   Needless to say, the 'facilities' were not utilised, I don't like a listening audience as I bath / spill something or enjoy my first night of 'marriage'

Anyways, alls well that ends well.. we found a lovely, slightly tired but very warm, friendly proper hotel near Aberystwyth and the two couples who stayed at Fawlty Towers had their radiators bled and the offer of an extra heater ... They did however have to reset the alarm which had been turned off during the first day , we guess to 'save the environment'
All we need to do now is get a refund of the second night's stay which they decided to take anyway, even after we explained why we were leaving.

So, the lovely Bedford couple who have probably overspent on their twee hotel and are trying to recoup the money by skrimping on not-wasted breakfast, frugle heating and persuading people not to stay in the hotel and use the facilities, would probably be better off heading for Blackpool to run a place where even the guests expect to be chucked out at 10am every day!

Fantastic blogging material.. only a matter of time before this makes TripAdvisor!

Welsh Weekend.

I have known Hazel since about 1973 when I was (she tells me) just embarking on being a stubborn teenager.. see, real friends aren't afraid to tell you, even if it is 30years later! My mum and step-dad, a real old school Mousehole fisherman, had B&B guests who soon became lifelong friends, and they in turn introduced us to Hazel.  They worked at  NCH Children's Home in Hertfordshire and came to Cornwall on holidays and with the home choir (who famously were the backing singers for Showaddywaddy's Hey Mr Christmas!... present for the first to sing a line!)  I even spent a month one summer on work experience at the home and still have fond memories of the kids I met and the place.

A whole river full of water has flowed under the bridge since the 70's, one of Hazel's boys now lives about ten miles from me, and she has been the kind of friend who seems to be there just when you need them. We were so glad we could go up to celebrate her 60th birthday and spent quite a bit of time with her family and friends, she is much loved and has a great life in west Wales.  It was a fun party, plenty of food and drink, lots of nostalgic pictures and some great songs too, Cat Steven's made his mark with Wild World, I love it. 

At the end of the evening there were 6 lanterns, one for each decade, and we didn't feel the cold as we watched them drift away into the starry sky over Cardigan Bay.

A kind of emotional time, think I kind of felt I was there as Mum's representative, and it made me glad I have enough children and hope they will all be as close when they get older... there's a lot to be said for having people who share your history, even if they're not on your doorstep.

I love Wales!

We drove a lot over the weekend, as happens when you have an event Saturday and spend Friday and Sunday getting there and back. So most of my photos are taken out of the van, Col had been away on calls so we didn't have chance to take the car... but he does love the space the van allows and quietly I must admit it gives you a much nicer view of the countryside.

Wales offered the perfect snow cenario... roads passable so you can move about but white hedgerows and mountaintops and a fabulous winter sun....loved it!

Is there something about cloud formations in areas of high ground I wonder? Guess I should know, esp as I profess to love geography so much. But the skies were definitely something special as we travelled towards Aberporth for Hazel's party.. the pics don't really do it justice, but they did give me that special feeling.

Love-types.

....and I thought I ought to blog something whilst I have time in case the 'wine and evening meal kryptonite' takes a hold of me and I cannot move out of the sofa to blog this evening!

Incidentally, in case you were afraid to ask, the diet is non-existent and has not been a success at all...too many special moments in our house: a birthday, a good day, a bad day, a return home, a last night... way too many reasons to celebrate or commiserate with food and wine and even a bar of chocolate for me to have been successful in making the waistline a little less tight with food reduction alone!  My latest thought is that maybe Ross can get me motivated whilst on holiday and we can get in a little gym session each day, but hey, that is a very outside chance!  

And don't you think there are way too many programmes featuring excessively fat people on TV at the moment ... does nothing to help us 'just-on-the-comfier-side-than-I-used-to-be' feel like we need to be skinny whips!

So, last Thursday, I travelled to Bristol on the train, and ate my free first class fruit cake, biscuits and coffee... (seat was first class, coffee and cake were standard issue British Rail, just as I recall from the 80's but hell, it was free I suppose!) 

Managed to read stuff all the way, such a treat for me...the free copy of the Times, latest issue of Scrapbook Magazine (Linda features in both the main mag and the supplement and I think her bits are the best.. even with bias allowed) and an old Psychologies magazine dating from June '09. I had found this during one of my tidy ups, still wrapped and unread... reflects the stress and pace of life last May I guess...

...note to self: forget the magazine questionnaires about the state of your life, when you open the magazine 10 months after it was delivered you either:

a) have a life ..or

b) must have other ways of de-stressing which don't involve reading a subscription magazine!

But it was a good issue and I did a really interesting questionnaire about what love-type you are: either a builder / explorer/ director/ negotiator.  Even more interesting on the trip home when I ran the Q by Col... we did answer very differently and turns out that whilst we are both Builders (which is good), we are mainly a Negotiator and a Director (no prizes for guessing which one is which!.. but this is also good, makes us compatible)   Hahah, reminds me of when he said that we were like two peas in a pod to which I replied...yeah, you're the fully rounded pea in the middle, grown to it's full roundness and I'm the little, slightly distorted one in the corner of the pod, squeezed up to let the big peas grow.  

He didn't really like that at the time, but what I meant was, that I am happier being the supporting role, facilitating other people's journeys... and so proud to see him and the rest of the gang do things which excite and fulfill them. 

Yeah, ice skating, water ski-ing, diving, I'm always happier watching.. think I never had a danger-gene and any I did have were well and truly passed on with having 4 of my 5 babes as home deliveries..

That reminds me.. One Born Every Minute tonight I think..or is it tomorrow.. haven't met a guy yet who watches it!

More about the weekend later..

Getting organised..

..... to have a few days away brings out the best and worst in me. As a Virgo I'm branded a tidy freak, but don't feel that way really. Yes, I like things tidy-ish, but the amount of stuff in a household of 6+ people doesn't really allow a state of minimalism does it?  So I settle for hoovered and tidied as in tidy piles of stuff.... but for a trip away, leaving everyone at home, I create endless lists and challenges so that once I have left I feel a sense of achievement / done all I can sort of thing!

Like who needs to change all the beds in the house and have no washing in the basket as they leave the house for only 3 days?  Who will have left lists in duplicate of who needs to be where.. and when..and in years gone by a box of food for packed lunches, precise numbers of drinks / snacks/ cheeses etc, for the number of days, times the number of children!
Add to that the number of knickers, plus two for evening changes and another for spare.. etc etc, repeat for socks, spare trousers just in case, and numerous layers of clothes to suit every eventuality from snow storm to Indian spring (is that a term?)

Haha, laughing now, as I remember Linda's face when I went to Mullion scrap weekend and stayed overnight with only a vanity case...enough room for new underwear and a new top I reckoned.. well, with all that scrapping who can think of sleeping or a spare wardrobe of clothes!

We're away to west Wales, about as far west as you can get and I'm really quite excited!  Since an eventful (that's as much as I'm saying) 6th form Geography field trip to S Wales I have held it as a special place, and since then I have always had good visits there... to see Robbie Williams at the Millenium Stadium (he still has it by the way, as proved on the Brits last night, Jonathon Ross' show the other day and a BBC Electric Proms event .... me? a fan? yeah, okay, a fan!?)... and to stay at the fab Bear Inn in Crickhowell en route to the Rally GB the year Colin McRae clinched the title.  In fact on the way to the Bear one year we drove over the Usk River and I remembered walking on that huge meander of the river with the geography crowd, maybe 25 years before!

Meeting Col in Bristol tomorrow evening, like some kind of romantic rendezvous (if that's possible at Temple Meads station after he has driven 700 miles in 2 days and with 200 more to go?), I have bought a single ticket and turns out it is first class  for only £17.50! What's that all about, straight through train and free tea & coffee! 
Only got the last minute things to pick up.. will be interesting to see how much I take as Col has already taken everything I need.. boy, was that a task, chosing the day before I was leaving home.  Now I have a list of books I have to chose from.. only for the train journey..why don't I just carry on with the one I started, but no, got to create another decision to be made.. must thrive on stress eh?

Off now to iron today's pile and clean the shoes.. !

Zac & Jordan..

.. are just having a point scoring session. JB just showed Zac's year 6 autobiography to Emily, in an attempt to embarrass him.. it just backfired because in it Zac tells the story of how Jordan is often called DangerMouse because she falls over more than once a day (nothing changes there then honey!)

As a PS to the dress entry below I just showed Zac one of the pictures of me in the dress.. he asked if that was the picture I was using to sell the dress on e-Bay!

There is no hope for me, in this house.. and I have to go pack a bag for the weekend so Col can take it with him, otherwise I'll have a trunk on the train Thursday evening.. hey, I'll have 4 hours, all alone, Time Traveller's Wife I think??

Shopping for clothes, blah blah..

So, this is the thing..my baby Kate went off to have her hair cut & highlighted (not so baby Kate then is she?) and I was let loose in town for couple of hours.

Feeling pretty perky I tried on a cute little dress thing which (I thought) looked great with my opaque tights and flatty boots, you know the kind of flimsy thing a girl of 20 would wear with bare legs and shoes which would look more at home on a transvestite gladiator (you know the ones), but us forty-almost fifty somethings wear dressed down for fear of the 'sheep-dressed-as-lamb' police might be despatched with us in their sights.

The lady in the shop (I'll get her) said it looked nice, it felt nice (for nice read it wasn't too tight, didn't make my rolly bits look more rolly, and it didn't touch in all the right places) and most of all I thought it would work for the 'do' I have Saturday.. a 60th birthday, but social and disco, unsure of whether I should go full smart (and possibly way overdressed) or jeans casual, I thought flimsy retro with flatty boots would cover all corners.

So... getting to the point, I showed it to my gathered clan, (should have known better than to pull it on and show, untitivated, to an otherwise hungry family)  Well, there was a range of reactions: Kate said it was 'way too 70's', Jordan said just 'No', Col said it didn't touch where it was meant to (there speaks the man) and Zac has to have the last word.. 'It would look good ... under a pair of overalls'

Good job Jordan had made soup for tea, they'd all be eating crackers and cheese!

Anyway I kept it on for five minutes in the hope they'd grow to like it, or possibly see what I saw, but it appears not.  I'm not sure if I'll keep it, maybe for our hols,or 'to scrapbook in' as I think Jordan suggested. (what does that say about scrapbooking?.. that we're all a bunch of creative hippies, or that when we're doing that, there's no need to look okay.. or that it would be good to wear 'cos it's so colourful?? I don't know.)

Credit goes only to Emily, JB's friend, visiting, who suggested it'd look nice with a belt to match the boots.....oh, and I guess, begrudgingly to Col who always asks if his opinion is worth anything if it isn't honest.. and told me he'd to take me to 'the Causeway' to buy something,... for a minute I thought he meant Kingsley Village... surf gear I wondered, then realised he meant Cribb's Causeway, but hell, I'd come out in the first sack he half liked before the Kryptonite caught up with him and the trip rendered fruitless!

So.. judge for yourselves..and help me out..maybe it's a friend I need to go shopping with me..

(Shhh, I bought another wrap over dress too, with a voucher (so effectively it was free.... wasn't it) Jackpot, so soft, crease free, perfect for the evenings on holiday when you don't want to own up to sunburn..a little mumsy, but hell, when you're  Gran I guess a little Mumsy is okay?) 

I'm here now, with a rather large port. drowning my festering frustration by blogging and looking forward to the second episode of One Born Every Minute..Life in a Maternity Hospital.... last week rendered me feeling very guilty for putting Col through all the home births.. it is definitely easier to have these babes than stand by and watch someone else do it.. I even said sorry to him, he said he hasn't got over it yet (the having babies, not me apologising!)

... few minutes later... mmm.. seeing it from the other viewpoint.. Emily's camera.. okay, so it isn't what I usually wear.. and that's the problem, I think. they all want me to stay true to form, and if I go for this, it may mean I'm not me... bring back the black, the polo necks and the block colours...long live M&S??

(God, I sound like Carrie Bradshaw. too much self analysis maybe?)