Mum

25 August 1923 - 20th October 2008

Saturday 18th October

Well all told it's been a difficult couple of weeks or so - mum had a fall, and is recovering, but not as quickly as we might have hoped for. So that's taken a lot of time, and to be honest, blogging isn't the first thing that comes to mind under the circs!
Still things are beginning to ease up a bit - finger's crossed. Luckily, I'd scheduled a lot of listings onto Ebay, so those go live without any help from me. And I've been taking a few photo's here and there - so I managed to finish off my Flickr Monthly Scavenger Hunt list - and work has been very understanding about the shifts I've had to miss. So I'm kind of hoping that things will get back to normal.

Saturday 4th October

Well I've just fished a crumble out of the oven - plum and pear - which I'm taking over for Sunday lunch with the family tomorrow - it seemed to take forever to cook! And needless to say, considering I'm taking it on the bus for a considerable distance, I've made it in my heaviest cooking pot. I really don't know where my heads at sometimes. It's 'cos it's the only pot I've got left with the lid still intact!
So.. here we are on a Saturday night. Despite being off work, I've been busy today - listing stuff on Ebay, tidying up the end of the month lists, then rushing off to Sainsbury's, dashing back - sometimes I feel like I never stay still for more than ten minutes at a time. I've been doing more night shifts this week, and this afforded me the opportunity to watch the Vice Presidential Debate. Now contrary to expectations, this wasn't the car-crash tv that the presenters had been seeming to have expected - I have to say that I wasn't expecting to see a melt down performance by Palin either. Whatever you think about her, she must be a bright intelligent woman, and just because one doesn't agree with her views is no reason to trash the woman. And, above all, as a European, I don't expect to understand the full nuance of American politics. To use a culinary analogy, I may catch the scent of it, I may even taste the flavours, but it's never going to be the full Sunday roast. So when Mrs Palin says that she feels she can give a lead to a world on Environmental matters, I have to believe that's she's not up to speed on the state of environmental politics, because otherwise she wouldn't make such a statement in public. Unless, of course, what she means is she's going to lead the rest of the world into drilling into the Arctic Circle, no doubt expecting us to be merrily tripping along behind her. I really can't quite figure it out. And there's no doubt she was trying to hammer home the idea that Wall Street etc are actively corrupt. She had to have mentioned that at least three times.

Now it's very easy of me to sit here and abuse foreign politics, like some old style Anglo. But the truth of it is that our politics is just as weird - did you see Mandelson on the box after his comeback?? Third time lucky??? Is he serious???? It's almost exactly like the presentation given by Mrs Palin, it's doublespeak. For Brown, it's a very clever move. You're threatened by the gathering forces of Blairites, and the old style labour apparatchiks. What do you do? Divide and conquer. Strike a deal with one or the other, and you've bought yourself enough time for the financial crisis to have become a debacle and in six months time, it's unlikely anyone will be asking questions, they'll all be too busy falling over each other to stab someone else in the back. You can see it coming, check out the gleam in Cameron's eyes. Check out the pause before he speaks, gravitas, looming doom, unspecified promise for the future, gleam of deep unalloyed satisfaction. You know the truth of it is, it doesn't matter who's in number 10. At the end of the day, it really doesn't mean a thing. The world will go it's own sweet way, and nothing or no one can stop it. Remember Black Monday? Now there's a thing. Nigel Lawson was Chancellor back then, ever noticed him be reticent about his abilities? I watched one of the news programmes the other day and believe it or not, there was Lamont acting like some wise old man. Now I'm not saying he isn't, but look at his comeuppance. Yep, the day we crashed out of the ERM.

Essentially I believe it's all pretty pointless. It doesn't matter who you vote for, in the end they all fall apart. The Thatcherites believed that they were the Masters of the Universe, then they fell apart. Cameron will do exactly the same. It'll happen to him because it's destiny - it's the way of the world. He'll try and tell himself he's different, he'll try and tell you that he's different. But you know different, because you have the ability to look back and learn. He could win the next election, he could win the one after that, and even maybe scrape through the one after that. But at the end of the day, there'll be a young whippersnapper who will creep up behind him, metaphorical knife in hand. Just as the simpering boy wonder is doing now with Brown, just as Brown did with Blair, although I find it hard to believe that Brown could a) simper or b) sneak up behind anyone unheard. I guess that's part of the point, they don't have to sneak, it's politics. It's part of the job description. Personally, I feel it's time we re-wrote that job description because these people are more interested in their own ideas than the reality of any given situation. It's all me, me, me, my ideas, my party, my chance to be in the spotlight. I'd say the very fact that anyone wants to be in politics ought to be reason to bar them for life. Politics, government, it should be done by people who don't want to be doing it, who aren't interested in having their photograph in the papers. People who don't want to be top of the tree, who have to be wrenched away from their lifes' work in order to undertake it for a short period of time. People who are educated and know something about what they're talking about rather than because they happen to have an idea. And above all, no government should be allowed to serve for three terms. Now I agree that you may feel this is difficult under our system, but it's relatively simple - no MP should be elected for more than two terms. Cut the ground out from under their feet, bar them from any form of company directorship, or in fact, any form of corporate employment. Two terms as an MP max, and then they go into public service in an obscure position. If they want to run something, fine, give them a single hospital to run, a single prison. Limit any opportunity for further public prominence. Disallow anyone from being both the leader of their party and a member of the Cabinet. Automatically rotate top civil servants every 12 - 15 months, not within a department but out of departments, and move them to another city. 12 months in London? You're going to Leeds man. Or Norwich. Or Liverpool. Anywhere but an influential position in the upper echelons. And more than anything else, we need to find a way to inculcate the idea of the greater good back in to public life. We need to find a way to make kids understand and espouse self-sacrifice for that greater good. And we absolutely need to do it without the aid of religion. We need to absolutely split religious groups of all kinds out of public life, because these are more people who want to tell you what to do. I read this thing recently where someone was suggesting that everyone, but everyone starts off thinking they can make things better. They can't. In the end, all they can do is tell other people what to do. And when no one listens to them, they start shouting. And when still no one's listening to them, they start to force things. Therein is the road to dictatorship.

Ok, it's getting kind of late at night here, and I'm saying some daft things here. Blame it on the late cooking! But seriously, we do need to do something about all this. Not what I say, but something.

Thursday 25th September

Well... doing a night shift last night, and come the very wee small hours, I had the pleasure of catching President Bush doing his "We are on the verge of total destruction" speech. Now Bush isn't my favourite among world leaders, but right now he's doing a lot better than the German Finance Minister, who made it to the small box by blaming the US and guess who, of course, the Brits, for the current state of his own country's economy. It seems to me (and I ain't no expert) that whatever, we're in for a long recession.
Now my experience of previous recessions indicates we should all get ourselves ready. This means a sudden and unexpected return of Walton chic - layered clothing including pinafores, in cheesecloth, perfect for digging up the front garden to plant a crop of - well whatever you'd like to plant in your front garden. Anything we planted in ours is only likely to give us toxic poisoning of some variety given the traffic past the front door - in the course of last night I also learnt that when Beluga Whales die in the St Lawrence Waterway, the Canadian Government has to dispose of the carcass as being toxic waste, such is the level of pollution in the said waters. Poor little things, they're not doing anything different from what they did before, it's simply that we've adopted their home as the worlds busiest shipping lane.
Anyhow, recession also means you'll need to paint everything brown. Or a shade of brown. This is what we did in the 70's - you'll be out there working so hard to maintain any grip on your overdraft you won't have time to clean. Brown, grey or some shade thereof, will prevent embarrassment when the neighbours drop round for that essential glass of homebrew. Yes, the lurking menace of a home based brewery experiment will also return, threatening life and limb every time you open the cupboard under the stairs. I'd warn you about the smell as well, but - well some people like the tang of mashed hops.
Recession also strikes me as renowned for men wearing velvet jackets. Now the navy blue one's weren't that bad, but brown? No, no, no. Recession is also a time where what was a casual act of financial stupidity - such as the one I've just made, pitches you into financial disaster. What have I done you ask? Well there was this jacket on Ebay that I rather liked the look of, and when I last looked at it, looked as if it was going to fit and be lovely - but the listing had expired, and when it was relisted of course I hurled a bid on frantically without reading the item specifics. Now I learn it's at least four to five inches too small around the bust. Ah well, hopefully I will be outbid... if not I may be going in to the second hand clothing business. Another aspect of recession you may need to become overly familiar with. Knitting for example, will move from the charming hobby that you can carry with you, to the essential task for next school term, and where the hell has it got to? Yes kids, the home knitted school sweater is bound to make a come back, let's just hope things don't sink to the point where your mum needs to unpick last years and match the yarn in to this's. You'll love that feeling of tautness around the armpits. However bad it makes you feel it will be as nothing to the embarrassment of your smaller siblings having to grace the beaches in a home knitted swimming costume. And remind me one of these days to explain the arts of home-shoe repair. You wondered why we wore platforms and wedges? Why we tottered? It had everything to do with the fact you couldn't actually wear a platform sole through.
Anyhow I have to go. John Boy is tap tap tapping on the window ledge and the foreclosure men are at the door. Recession is here for the foreseeable future, and I wonder what joys it's going to bring with it this time.

Sunday 14th September

Well here we are, another week has gone by, and you'll just have to excuse the feeling of mild panic that's gripping me firmly by the throat. Yesterday, you see, I spent some time looking at all the stock I've put up for Christmas to sell in my Ebay shop, and parcelling it up into what's to be loaded in which week, and counting up the weeks to a safe date to post for Xmas and reach it's destination - and my only feeling since doing this is HELP!!!!
Still all in all, I feel I've made a positive start. I've got the bag with the next two weeks worth of bookmarks sitting right by the computer, I've photographed a good half of them, and I've even got about 15 scheduled listings. All to go live over the next two weeks. Fancy having an advance look? Here we go:
















These are just three of the collection I've made over the last nine months! The pink pendant bookmark is part of a group that feature wonderful glass pendant pieces made by Shoozles, who makes the most wonderful glass art. Check out her photo's on Flickr;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shoozlesfusesglass/
She does some wonderful work.
Anyway apart from all this, normal work continues - I still have to do my normal schedule, including night shifts!

I recently wandered on to a great website. http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/ is a brilliant site, where you can find tips on how to save food, and recipes to use up leftovers. I'm going to eat well tonight, and use up the left over hunk of a loaf of granary bread, half of an onion I used yesterday, and the end of piece of cheese. Sounds ghastly doesn't it? But in fact these are the primary ingredients of a Garlic Soup - go check it out on the website. I've adjusted mine a little from the recipe, but essentially when I got in this morning I cut the bread up into cubes and popped it into the oven to dry at 75degrees for a couple of hours whilst I slept. This afternoon, I sauted (or fried if you prefer) the finely sliced onion, and three cloves of finely sliced garlic in a little butter, and added about a litre of chicken stock - no reason why you can't use a vegetable stock! Then you crumble in the bread cubes, reserving a few to serve, and simmer the broth for 15 to 20 minutes. I'll float the cubes on the hot soup, and sprinkle over the grated cheese before I sit down to eat, and I have to say the aroma of this soup is just fantastic. And I feel really pleased with myself, because frankly the bread was heading for the bin, and probably the cheese too in a couple of days. You know what it's like when you have one of those tiny little cubes of cheese in the fridge - it inevitably ends up being thrown out when it's green and mouldy because you can't think what to do with such a small piece of cheese. And it's such a waste! So I'm pretty chuffed with this new site, you can look up recipes by clicking on an ingredient, so if you had - for example - part of a cauliflower left over, you could click on the cauli icon, and hey presto up comes a nice recipe for left over cauli! Cool or what?!

Saturday 6th of September

I'm still mid-nightshifts, although not tonight thank god. I was watching Shrek and just dropped off to sleep - terrible, and it was only what, half past five? Shocking. I do hate it when it happens to be honest, because you don't sleep properly later on. But then my sleep pattern's shot to hell anyway!
I had rather a nice message waiting for me when I logged on to Flickr today - one of the photo's that I'd loaded up after coming back from holiday had been seen by a group admin, who attached an invite to add it to their group. Nothing so very unusual in that you might think, and indeed not, but this particular group is the "Along the Piddle Valley" group! This will really not mean a great deal to you unless you happen to be living or visiting Dorset regularly - or unless you're my age, and spent a part of your youth watching Carry On films. The very idea that there should be an actual River Piddle is just too - well it's a slight snort of amusement at least. Not exactly fall over and roll around type laugh, but a well, whatever next type squeak. And then to find out that Flickr have an entire group of people who photograph this lovely area - and if you ever make it to Dorset, seek it out is my advice, you really can find anything on Flickr. And check out the group page, it's well worth a look. Find it at http://www.flickr.com/groups/772586@N21/

My but there's been a lot on BBC 4 about this Cerne Accelerator business. It seems we've a deep mine where they're doing more or less the same thing at half the risk - they're due to fire it up in a short while, and apparently there's a reasonable chance that they might actually create a black hole on the Earth itself, which will proceed to eat us all up. And I have no doubt my tax pound will have paid for this privilege. Now look, I've spellchecked that, but it still doesn't look right to me - priviledge? privelidge? Whatever, the spellchecker insists. I've probably used the American spelling.

Yes, mm. Talking of things American, I was on a night shift when the Republicans held their convention, and I saw more of it than I cared for. I have very mixed feelings about all this - firstly, it's not my place to comment on American politics. But I'm a rational European, and I can't help but say it - how can these people, who would like to suggest to us that they're intelligent, rational people, possibly even consider voting for such an appalling woman? What woman presents herself as being fit for public office by carrying onto a stage a five month old baby with a disabling condition, to be howled at by an assembled mob - that poor child was clearly rigid in her arms, and probably terrified. Let alone what's happening to her elder daughter. It's almost as if she's exhibiting the girl as some sort of specimen that suggests - well God knows what she thinks parading this child around at what must be one of the girl's most difficult times will achieve I really can't say, because frankly it escapes me. But don't let her fool you that she's some kind of caring individual, because she clearly doesn't have the nouse to put herself into her childrens' shoes that's for sure. I'm afraid I've always been one of those people who judge by people's actions rather than what they say, or at least I try to be, but clearly this is someone who is far more me, me, me than I want to keep my children protected from the public gaze. She's entitled to her views on whatever her views are - I don't agree with them but she's entitled to them. But the way she behaves where her family are concerned puts her beyond the pale as far I would be concerned.
The other thing I'd like to know is exactly what it is that the Americans have got against being Liberal? Clearly it must have an entirely different meaning from that the word has here, but every time they speak the word, all I can think is how offensive they're being. There are entire political and philosophical traditions built on the concept of liberal and liberalism, and every time they speak the word with their clear intention to insult those who aspire to it, they proclaim their inability to be tolerant of other people's views. These politicians like to proclaim their allegiance to the American tradition, the causes of the founding of America and all that goes with it, but in more or less the same breath, they want to decry the aspirations and beliefs of a large part of the rest of the world. It almost makes me wish that the Liberals would win the next General Election (oh how I wish they could pull that off, it'd be such a slap in the face for Cameron and his ilk) and they'd have to deal with it. Head on. A Liberal Prime Minister. Ok, a LibDem Prime Minister, but what the hell.

Anyhow, on a happier note, here are this weeks' 365 days of the next year photo's. For those of you who don't know, this is a set of photo's I'm compiling which will provide a record of my 50th year - I started on the day of my birthday - so far I haven't missed a day!

As you can see it's been quite a dull week, weather wise - in fact pretty torrential rain over the last day or so. Horrible! If you want to check out the rest of the set, find it at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sunspark58/sets/72157606563939959/

Thursday 28th August

I started out writing a whole screed of stuff about something that irritated me earlier today - piles of it there was, but you'll be pleased to know that I've deleted it. Now you won't have to be bored by my going on about something that doesn't bother anyone but me I expect - but it kind of leaves me at a loose end as to what to blog about!
But then I do have something to talk about. Firstly, I met up with some old friends this week - Sonia, Georgie and Vanessa. We all worked at the Box Office of the Theatre Royal, must be going on twenty years ago now. It was a nice night out, great to see them all again. It's great to catch up, find out what's going on in each other's lives.
I spent today making bookmarks for the Xmas box - I have a small box of things I've put away for the Xmas market. It's a fair part of my investment in my little micro business, and I was thinking, what am I going to do if no one buys anything this Christmas! All this credit crunch stuff, it's frightening when you think about it. Fingers crossed though.
Anyway it's going to be a busy weekend, working right the way through and a good part of next week. There's fun for you. So I thought I'd blog early for the weekend!!!!