so far so so-so

As a 'for instance' men looking for their keys...

They just glare at the same spot challengely (where they know they're keys can't possibly be) for a minute, then they might rotate their heads by 45 degrees and start again...

Women's looks are darting and inquisitive...

Sinister has been nicknamed 'The Finder' from dot one, because as a tot she could find anything simply by inquisition and intuition ('The Spanish' didn't have anything on her)...

When Sinister was still held up by reins, we met a woman on the beach who was distressed because she'd lost her keys, and the beach (as anyone will tell you) is a big place once you've set one foot in it...

Such was my faith in Sinister that I said 'Just give her 5 minutes' and let her off her baby-reins like an expert falconer...

The woman obviously thought I was mad-as-a-hatter and wasting her time, because she told me as nicely as she could to 'Bugger off!' and was heading up the road to the police-station when Baby-Sinister tottered back jangling the keys that were lost in mud 50 feet away in her determined mucky little fist...

(Andrew Motion tells a story of how he once found his keys by leaning down to the sand and looking for a glint in the sunset... I don't know how my baby did it)

Oh...

But...

That's my girl !

Beloved was playing it before the match !

I'm gone, man....

Solid gone !

I've learned the words and everything...

Anyone up for a spot of Karaoke ?

Strangely, I have skin like candlewax with a fair smattering of freckles (or 'Angel's kisses' as they are romantically called in Ireland)...

And my hair is reddish (the home of the 'Royal Enfield' motorcycle)...

Yet I do not burn or peel...

Just call me 'Lucky'...

Many happy returns matey...

Thanks for all the miles of smiles !

xxx

Hmmm...

Someone didn't think this through...

Firstborn was moved from a 'quiet' exam room to 'avoid the risk of potential noise from builders...'

How very fucking ironic...

We've spent the day and night with my cousin (who is marginally older) and his son (who is marginally younger) than me...

The Elder is a lifelong socialist and political animal who is leaning towards The. Right....

The junior is a fund-manager who is leaning towards The. Left...

The father picked his son up from a flight from the States this morning, and they drove all the way up here to see my mum, such is their respect for The Family, over which whole human organism (of a few hundred souls) mum is currently The Matriarch...

We had dinner, and after the first slivers of Stilton and a few paltry drops of port (it was a cheap hotel) I came home and left Beloved to it, which was just as well because Sinister was meant to be on a sleepover but came home in big scally weepy huff half an hour after I got in...

This family...

We have barely anything in common, and because of our difference in station I have been known to send the odd embarrassing,insulting email...(the rich have the skins of Rhinos after all)

But together...

Ooof !

How can I explain these bonds?...

This total rush of kinship ?

We've been tearing out hair out because of the rows between the LEA and school over funding full time support (the LEA are already paying for .5 and were standing off against the school for the other half)..

There is a transition meeting at the end of next month and I thought it would be overshadowed by this issue and was prepared to take legal advice (I don't care who pays, but someone must)...

So, in a general state of a-huffin'-an-a-puffin' I called the Chief...

Me : Right you... if...

Me : Take this sh... *applies brakes* ....'ankyou very much

This means that Firstborn's 1:1 who has been doing such a great job with him, can be offered a full-time contract for at least a year (she needed a full-time job otherwise she might have had to walk)...

And this meeting will not turn into a bloody battlefield over the dropped purse...

(Also, the school has applied to the exam board for dispensation over the bollixed-up exam and transcripts of that, with mahoosive apologies are winging their way to us as we speak)

*taps watch and killer pointy heels*

The Haircut

One day a florist goes to a barber for a haircut. After the cut he asked about his bill and
the barber replies, 'I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service
this week'. The florist was pleased and left the shop.

When the barber goes to open his shop the next morning there is a 'thank you' card and a
dozen roses waiting for him at his door.

Later, a policeman comes in for a haircut, and when he tries to pay his bill the barber again replies, 'I
cannot accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week'. The
policeman is happy and leaves the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up there is a 'thank you' card and a dozen donuts waiting
for him at his door.

Later that day, a college professor comes in for a haircut,
and when he tries to pay his bill, the barber again replies, 'I cannot
accept money from you, I'm doing community service this week'. The professor
is very happy and leaves the shop..

The next morning when the barber opens his shop, there is a 'thank you' card

and a dozen different books, such as 'How to Improve Your Business' and

'Becoming More Successful'.

Then, a Member of Parliament comes in for a haircut, and when he goes to pay his bill
the barber again replies, 'I cannot accept money from you, I'm doing
community service this week'. The Member of Parliament is very happy and leaves
the shop.

The next morning when the barber goes to open up, there are a dozen
Members of Parliament lined up waiting for a free haircut.

Wish I wuz at

Where you uz

Cat.

Have you seen the price of Cristal champagne ?...

Put needles in your eyes and plug up your ears with the wax of shame lest you be shocked to deathness and back...

£200 quid !!!...

Two pints of Cava and a packet of crisps, please ....

Anyhooo....

We're going to Wales soon, where we shall eat bucket-loads of raspberry-ripple ice cream...

Have at thee, Harlot
, Varlet !

Firstborn was meant to be taking his English Literature GCSE this morning...

This is the one that he was well prepared for, and he really wanted to prove himself...

But through administrative error he was made to move rooms after he had started. Despite being maladaptive at the best of times, he took this in his stride and settled again...

Then the laptop he had to use (being first centile dyspraxic) was a dud, some of the keys didn't work and the space bar was actually 'delete', he wasn't offered another machine and he was told to press on...

When he tried to talk to staff about the problems he was having because he couldn't write fluidly he spoke too loudly (because he can't hear his own voice) and was removed from the room... at which point he became distressed and gave up... I was called to fetch him...

I'm furious and have made my formal complaints to the school headteacher and the local authority, and the misinformation and lack of essential equipment are being investigated...

Life has conspired enough against my child. This was one thing that should have gone right for him and it was totally bolloxed up...

What little confidence he had in himself has gone up in smoke...

This is her son, "What little confidence"? I am abundant with confidence! always have been. Its just life has a tedious habit of kicking me in tha b***s time and again!

I'm so angry

(Btw, I have only just realized that Firstborn made a contribution to my post... (How ? I do not know!)...

I've just bought this book written in 2005 by Malcolm Gladwell and can't read it for a while because I've just started 'Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow'...

The hypothesis is fascinating and commonsensical, and Wiki describes it thus :

Gladwell explains how an expert's ability to "thin slice" can be corrupted by their likes and dislikes, prejudices and stereotypes (even unconscious ones), and how they can be overloaded by too much information. Gladwell also tells us about our instinctive ability to mind read, which is how we can get to know what emotions a person is feeling just by looking at his or her face. He informs us that with experience, we can become masters at the game of "thin slicing".

You see, I've spent a lifetime avoiding snap decisions in the interests of fair play... I've played Devil's Advocaat too often (hic)...

I'm not going to stop now, but I am going to shut the yapping muddled 'middle-man' in my middle class head up a lot sooner...

Intuition doesn't exactly win the day, but henceforth gets a seat centre court...

In short...

If 'if's and ands were pots and pans
And all the sea were ink
What would we do for food
And what would we do for drink ?

A slave I tells yer...

janeygodley ...

I haven't got sounds because the kids destroy laptops like they are Cocopops...

Is she good ?...

...

Fancy a top-up anyone ?

I took mum for x-ray results on Friday and they are dodgy...

There is a shadow on her lung on the site of long term pain. We have to go to oncology in two weeks, which is not a long time for the NHS, but all things being relative, it's a hell of a long time for her to have to wait in pain and fear...

We have a fairly robust view on life and death in our family. Mum at 89 is nearing the end of her time after all, and after a previous cancer op has hardly enjoyed life since (or much before for that matter)... as she says, this is no tragedy and many younger, better people fare much worse in the 'life-as-lottery' stakes...

I think the doctor felt that we hadn't taken it in, but of course we had. He moved uncomfortably from the arena of euphemisms to probable cancer pretty quickly, and still we sat there with 'and...so ?' written all over our faces...

Because it's the and's and the so's that matter...

Because this has come at a time when she is having to move out of the flat she's been in for 30 years because the council have other plans for the site, and after much resistance from her we were hoping to get her into a care-home...

At a time when Social Services refuse to help her, apparently on the criteria that she's not quite dead yet (I had a massive blow-out on the 'phone to them)...

And at a time when I can't be there for her so much because it's 'on-top-of' blah-de-blah...

I just feel so fucking desperately sorry...

If there is one constant in life it is this...

That there shall always be thirty-six sad odd socks at the bottom of the laundry basket, patiently waiting to be paired off like the bucket list of Cupid&FateDotcom ...

And they aren't always the same socks you understand, this is complicated, like sock-chess...

There must be some cosmic mathematical correlation at play here, a universal truth like the Fibonacci Sequence or Golden Section, and as soon as I've put my finger through the hole in the toe on it, I shall be picking up a Nobel prize...

The LEA took the unusual step of appointing 1:1 support for Firstborn for half of the timetable, while the school refuses to stump up for the other half, so half time it is then (and to be fair, that's enough to be going on with this side of September)...

He doesn't have to start 'til 10, but it's like trying to raise Lazarus (only without the bit at the end where Lazarus actually rises)...

Firstborn's insomnia has got a lot worse since he lost his hearing. We have sleeping meds, but then we have to waken not only an exhausted deaf Asperger's teen, but a drugged one to boot...

Unable now to call 'good morning, here's your tea' we must physically cajole him from the land of nod very gently for the first few seconds, then stand back out of harms way and deploy the pointy stick method...

However, he has been going into school part-time for two weeks and (hats off to you kiddo !) he took his RE exam this afternoon. He was the last one to stop writing...

He said he wanted to 'get some things off his chest'...

Uh-Oh !...

I hope not like the things I read in his RE exercise book...

Such as...

'Apparently God is omnipotent. If so he could easily overcome evil, yet he doesn't. Lazy bastard !'

and...

'Perhaps we are already living in hell. I don't see many angels. Death could almost be a release from this travesty. I know that I may choose oblivion over this existence'...

Part of me wants to gather all 6' of him up and weep buckets, and part of me wants to say 'You think God's a lazy bastard ? Just look at the state of your room and have a word with yourself'

Mind you, come to think of it, I felt pretty much the same way when I was 15...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/8045040.stm

Phry dismissed our humble wish not to be fleeced by our democratically elected (in some cases) representatives, as a 'tedious bourgeois obsession'...

Waving towards the camera and his appreciative audience the nation beyond, he drawled in J'accusery tones that we've all been fiddling our expenses and that it's no big deal...

Throughout the land nurses, teachers, office-workers and bin-men pulled themselves up by their cheating bootstraps and vowed to clean their own damn bogs and chandeliers in future...

And all those second homes that we own and sell-for-profit because we live more than ten miles from where we work ? We should hang our heads in shame ...

Yeah...

We'd better watch our venal asses veeeery carefully indeed...

Many happy returns Soy...

Make a wish...

I have been awake since 5am because the stealth-hound snuck onto our bed last night and promptly fell into a seven-stone deadweight snorking overheated mutt sleep...

Morpheus and I parted company and I lay for a while with my head filling up as from a dripping tap with important conundrums...

There was a part of me tugging at the sleeve of my consciousness looking po-faced and presenting me with a list of matters requiring my urgent attention... you know, mother, children, life, blah blah...

While my brain went on it's merry way and decided that Gaz from Two Pints of Lager should probably go back to Donna, the bathroom needs painting and I could easily deliver enough catalogues in a day to pay the food bills...

So that's the really tough decisions made then...

I'm off to paint the bathroom...

Well...

In case no-one ever noticed that she wasn't entirely the 'smoky-voiced siren' that she was er...cracked up to be...

I think the Coke ad says it all...

Donald Duck or what ?

Only without the sexy pants...

Yuuk !

A year from now we'll be expected to choose between them...

Carol Ann Duffy is the first woman and first Scot to hold the position of Poet Laureate, taking over from Andrew Motion.

Apparently she nearly got the job in 1999 (after Ted Hughes), but unofficial sources said the Tony Blair was wary of the possible negative impact that her homosexual relationship at the time might have on the sensibilities of Middle England...

Her work is straightforwardly and strongly phrased ,often from a macabre perspective

See what you think...

Education for Leisure by Carol Ann Duffy

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,
a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.

There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio
and tell the man he's talking to a superstar.
He cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.
The pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

Happy May 1st !

We are celebrating by getting a new toilet installed...

Out with the old and in with the loo...

I can't wait...

*hops from foot to foot*