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Red Writing
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I didn't forget to stop to let the children out this morning. Only, the car park was closed due to an impending Royal visit.............so I stopped in the middle of the road and let them jump out there............How safe is that in heavy traffic? Child protection agencies, here I am. I commend the School for their wonderful planning and being responsible for me being 30 minutes later at work, very harrassed and having to do at least a mile detour to enable me to turn and get back to work. I wouldn't have minded quite as much but having left my house with a party of eight builders - God knows what they are all doing there as the work doesn't seem to be happening quickly enough to warrant a posse of eight, I am now wondering what I will return to at night! (Now that the upstairs bedroom door doesn't close properly due to what I can only imagine is some kind of subsidance or just that the floor above the wall they knocked down doesn't like having less support than it is used to). I just have one little question to the School....If you don't allow the children to get there in the first place, what is the point in having a Royal visit? I bet the car park won't even be needed until at least lunch time. Don't you just love bureaucracy Yours truly a very irritated Red Writer For those who know where I work.................(although this is in particularly bad taste) I am going to buy one of these ...and use it on staff who don't stick to deadlines ....,just for the next few weeks you understand! Maybe it's because I have a lot on my mind, or maybe it's just routine! The thing with routine is that it only works well if you remember all the steps! Every weekday morning I take the children to school and drop them off in the car park. The route takes me past my work before dropping them off and several times I have indicated to turn into my work first. If it were not for the chorus of "Muuuuuuuuuuuum" in the back seat whenever the indicator starts ticking I would probably take them to work. This morning I remembered not to do that. I drove past work, towards the school, into the car park ...........................and then straight through to the other side! The timely chorus halted me and I stopped the car and let them out just before leaving the car park..................as I said.........perhaps it's just routine. My Father never got much time to read but when he did, he enjoyed the songs and poetry of Scotland's National Bard, Robert Burns, so there were always many books of his around. I used to dip into them occassionally and browse through some of the great words. My own favourite song is Ae Fond Kiss, especially the version sung by Eddie Reader who played with John McCusker at Celtic Connections in Glasgow, last night. It would have been wonderful to be there but it was SO's birthday and I had a very large number of tea lights to light to decorate the otherwise empty space previously known as the kitchen. Tonight we should be celebrating Burn's night by eating haggis, neeps and tatties but because of the lack of kitchen I think we'll have to postpone the meal for a week or so - which is quite strange, because I don't remember a year when I haven't eaten haggis on the 25th January (I wonder if a haggis supper would count???). For those of you out there who are celebrating or at a bash, don't forget the Address To A Haggis before you stab it with your steely knives (oops mixed lyrics are almost as bad as mixed metaphors!) and more importantly don't forget to wash it all down with a good whisky....at least I'll be able to partially celebrate the occassion! Slàinte Dad. Nice things: 1.Two car journeys in a row where I got a clear run through without being stopped at any red lights, 2.Finding the imagination site (courtesy of Pacarras) and which is the coolest thing I have seen in ages. 3.Buying a £60+ jacket for £5. 4.Browsing a book shop and finding books I want to read. 5.Eating three sweeties in one afternoon. 6.Winter sunshine. 7.A friend's engagement Bad Things: 1.Missing my writing class 2.Automatic doors closing on you when you have put one foot through. 3.Plaster dust. 4.Feeling sick because of no.5 above. I'll stop there because the good things must outweigh the bad things. Don't forget.....smile Perhaps there is such a thing as "bloggers block" which has prevented me from writing for the last few days. Strange, because since starting this blog I go around composing little paragraphs in my head of things I would like to write but if I can't get to the pc I tend to forget the gist of what I wanted to say and that can be a bit frustrating. Last night, I sat watching the news and several things popped into my head which I thought I'd write about. Like...... something my Grandmother used to say... "neither a borrower nor lender be". Perhaps it's a famous quote but it was issued more as a caution and was always said with a sense of warning, impending doom even. So, when I heard that the British army don't even have the right equipment to go to war (little things like, boots, jackets, trousers etc suitable for desert conditions!!) and that armies often borrow from each other until they can organise their own supplies, this phrase seemed very appropriate. That and a little historical knowledge on two world wars.... you know, the bit about uprepared armies not surviving in bad conditions....trench foot, freezing etc etc. Then SYD pipes up "Why do they want to go to war?.......What is the prize?" What is the prize indeed? Mr Blair and Mr Bush.....what is the prize? I'd like to know, just so I can give my daughter a reasonable answer. One which makes political sense, democratic sense, or even more appropriately, one which makes common sense? In an unofficial poll of everyone we met at New Year and Christmas, not one person asked wanted the country to go to war. On 15th February it is anticipated that 20,000 anti-war demonstrators will gather in Glasgow. I will try to be there with them. But sadly it seems we have all been here before in the form of the August 15th 1914, peace demonstration. If you want more information about the demonstration look at Stop the war coalition site. Perhaps this time it will not be too late to let the people make their views known. An interesting article from the Times Online (courtesy of gfdc). I was discussing this just the other day and tend to agree that "two opposing forces are gathering — those with children, and those who have opted to remain child-free." Which is fine if you are in a situation where there is a fair balance of the two. However, I have been subjected to the raised eyebrows and side-ways smirks and looks of boredom between those who have chosen to remain child-free, whilst I prattle on about anything to do with children. I agree choice is everything and no-one knows the circumstances of individuals although sometimes I do find it hard to understand those who have taken the obvious choice to oppose mother nature. Just as those who have decided to remain child free cannot fully understand what it is like to be a parent. But, hey it's a choice and that is what life is about. We are the choices we make, whether we make the right choices is a harder question to answer. I am happy with my choice but don't like to feel alienated because of it. As the article concludes "The charge often made by critics of working mothers is that “they want it all”. In an important sense, this is true, as is the much less frequently expressed charge that “fathers have always had it all and don’t intend to give any of it up to make things easier for the women”. This, in the end, was the hard conclusion to which our discussions led us." Sad really, that attitudes change at a much slower rate than things progress. Perhaps we will now begin to see clusters of those with children and those without in different geographical areas, or in different career zones. Just what the world needs - further disintigration of society!! Find yourself in some of these online assessment tests. Can online tests such as these really tell you about your personality? I haven't tried them yet so can't say how accurate they are but I am slightly intrigued. Yesterday's posting resulted in a few nice emails and comments. All very encouraging, thank you. One of my favourite ways of fighting off the dark days of January is to see how a real master conveys light onto paper using watercolour. The Vaughan Bequest of Turner Watercolours is on again in Edinburgh. This is one of my favourite paintings. Oh to be in Venice!  At about lunchtime yesterday this blog reached the 6,000 visitor mark. It has been going for one year on the 30th January, so I make that about 500 visits a month and approx 16 visits a day. The question is, does a blog outlive it's purpose? It is interesting to look back over the archives and I suppose it now constitutes a bit of my own history, but then so would a diary. Visitors drop in from all parts of the globe and the US military still makes an occassional appearance but these rely on the odd trigger word, some of them as obvious as, terrorist, security, war or spying. As most bloggers know, it's not what you write, it's how you write it and which words you choose. Adding things like film titles; The Two Towers, Harry Potter etc also encourages the search engines to pull up your pages and if you blog purely for the satisfaction of trying to get lots of hits then just add a few topical words each day and hey presto. The most frequent search on my site seems to be on my digital camera SiPix Style Cam Blink and I still say that this is a great little camera. Anyway, it all got me thinking about why I blog and at the moment there are days when I am not really at all sure anymore, so the upshot of that is that this little blog which has given me pleasure in the past may have outlived its purpose now. Perhaps it's time to lay it to rest. If anyone has any strong opinions, please let me know. Haven't posted much this year, so apologies to the faithful readers. This is a bit of a rant but I watched a desperate programme on Channel 4 last night called "Skinny Children" and was horrified at the whole thing. Children as young as 7 with eating problems and self-image awareness which goes beyond the norm. Parents who think it's ok for their 9 year old daughters to wear high heels and make-up as part of their everyday lives. I have a couple of questions 1. Don't the school's have rules about make-up any longer? 2. What happened to dressing up for fun and God forbid "playing" at being children? One mother even helped her daughter shave her legs, took her to get her hair highlighted and a manicure - the child was 9 years old! I know children are maturing at an earlier age but that was just ridiculous. As I watched this gruesome programme which only served to highlight the failings of parenting by some, my heart sank. What sort of society tries to ban parents from videoing their children at a Christmas nativity play but will blatantly show images of very young girls dressed up like teenagers...no mention of Paedophilia on the TV - but then I suppose there is money in TV. There was not enough of the "voice of the expert" to counter-balance these awful sights. They did try to explain the influence of the media; TV, Magazines etc. but there was no mention that the mother's of these children should have been taken away and locked up for bad parenting. At no point did I feel the programme was portraying these monster parents as just that...monsters. Their obvious vanity and delight in these pop-kids was truly sad. I do hope all featured are safely undergoing counselling now or at least that the social services have put them on their registers. As I have said on this site before, please just let our kids be kids. The only way to stop the money making industry producing the items which are so readily available to make children idolise and imitate in such a blatantly sexual fashion is to stop buying them. Don't even consider the padded bras for 7 year olds as a fashion accessory. Don't allow them to wear full make-up at such a young age. Sure, let them play and let them experiment. Kids learn by imitation but that doesn't mean it's ok to let them have a free reign on what they want to do. Parenting is about guidance. Look after your children when they require sensible guidance and don't let the money spinners away with it. Bought a couple of CD's for myself at Christmas. I love going into shops and buying cd's of previously totally unknowns to me, to find out that I have picked up a really good buy. Kathryn Williams "old low light" I can definitely recommend and now that I have found out a bit more about her on the web, am glad I'm not the only one. Beth Neilson Chapman was also unknown to me but anyone who sings with Emmylou Harris would get my vote anyway and deserves a listen - "Deeper Still" is great, I'm only disappointed I missed the Scottish tour dates for both of them last year. Back at work - sick through taking too many anti-inflamatory pain killers but hanging in. Made better by this courtesy of Green Fairy. It just sums up that back to work feeling.
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