Adventful time.

The countdown to Christmas begins, the craziness, the commercialism, the hustle and bustle, the prices slashed, the must have items quickly sold out, the siege buying shopping trolleys, the whole stress inducing hassle of it.

But, and it is a very big one, if you can ignore the mall mentality that surrounds us all, stay focused on what Christmas is really all about and hold fast to family and close friends, remembering that the true gift of the first Christmas was love.

 And that is the only gift that counts on Christmas morn.

Gods and Lobsters.

So I was down at the seaside for that lovely week-end to close up the caravan for the winter. Walking along the seafront so late in the year, well after the summer season is over, it is great how buzzy things still are. Some of the hardier stall owners are still selling their wares along the harbour side and the fish stalls are open, so that tangy smell is still in the air.

It was incredibly clear and bright in the autumnal sunshine and the visibility range was one of the best this year.

The tide was coming in and I stood and watched as the long spit of beach that people had been walking out on gradually disappeared into a line of ruffled water running transversely across the waves.

For a while it seemed like it was still the summer, but the illusion faded with the light, as soon as the sun disappeared the heat went with it and the chill of November evenings set in quickly.

There was a Christmas fayre on in the castle which added to sense of moving rapidly through the seasons of the year within a few short hours.

The great thing about the end of the caravanning season is that I can then start to look forward to opening up again next year and dream of long summer days and fish, lots of lovely fresh fish!

The First Scam of Christmas

So the phone rings and we get the usual am I speaking to…..My response as ever is what do you want?

“Well, madam our records show that your computer is being compromised via the window operating system, I am contacting you about a malicious virus that has invaded your computer system, from internet browsing via your window operating system, if you switch on your computer I will help you and guide you through eliminating this malicious virus that will destroy your computer.”

Obviously I get my jollies from stringing them along by pretending to be interested and gullible!! (sad isn’t it, I do have real friends who phone me honest)

Anyway that was pretty much the gist of it, fairly clever really as most people these days have a computer, I don’t know the stats, and frankly I’m too lazy to look them up this is a blog not a thesis! But I would guess that, at least 75-80% of people have one of windows operating systems. There was a lot of encouragement to act quickly with his help to save my computer now!

Strangely, when I said I already used expert technical support, he very quickly put the phone down.

Still it’s not all bad news I’ve still got todays calls about personal payment protection, debt relief and claiming for that trip or fall, unfortunately for the scammers I’m not falling, make sure you don’t either!!!

Supersize it!

Given the economic situation that we are in why is it that the predominant culture of this country seems to be pre occupied with emulating the American obsession with giant portions of everything? With the shocking news that a huge proportion of our children are either already obese or are heading towards obesity all we see in the high street is famous fast food chains offering to supersize the meal deals. Yes, I know, a lot of them do now have a salad option on the menu but have you ever seen a child eating one?

Look in a famous health food store window and you can see packs of their products that are bigger than the old party cans of beer that we used to buy back in the day, and yes they really did used to last the night!

Out the other day for a working lunch in an all you can eat buffet Chinese restaurant I couldn’t believe how high some people were piling up their plates. Yes, I really enjoyed my meal and no, I don’t have the appetite of a sparrow (would that I did!) but one of those plates would have been three meals for me.

Are we really all going to eat a whole society into ill health or death.

If we keep it up we won’t need enemies to hurt us we can just blow ourselves up and out with our greed!

True Mudblood!

They used to say you can choose your friends but not your family, however in these days when there is a vast range of famial set-ups, it seems that you can! You may well be forgiven for not knowing who is and who isn't family and who belongs in "our" family or "your" family, especially as that can seem to vary from situation to situation, from year to year and sometimes on the turn of an event or incident.  

Some people seem very definite and say it’s only blood relationships that count, if so does that mean that husbands and wives or civil partners are not family? because if they did have close blood ties they may well be on dodgy ground from a legal point of view! (not that it stopped Cersei and Jamie of course).

There are those who have very close blood ties, brothers, sisters, parents and children who say and do appalling things to each other, ever watched those poor, exploited, dysfunctional people who appear on a certain morning TV show?

So who constitutes family seems to be very different things to different people and within any given "family" there are also huge variations in the complexities of the relationships.

For some of us the baseline is that of unconditional love, which does not stop us from disagreeing with some family members over things, but it does mean that we still love them even when we despair over their behaviour.

So my keywords for family and special friendships are

·         unconditional love,

·         mutual respect,

·         positive regard,

·         active listening.

Obviously non-judgemental is clearly missing from the list and that is because try as I might I’m definitely NOT a saint!!!!

Underneath the Arches.

So there we were in Rome, must say they have let it go a bit, most of the tourist sites were in ruins!

Seriously folks, great time was had by all but there we were having “done” the Colosseo, we went to the Palatino, a pretty vast area and not brilliantly signposted. So as we came out of the museum we realised we had lost sight of some of our party, we had not crossed each other’s paths again for a couple of hours so we tried texting to find a meet up spot.

Our text:-                                      Where are U?

Their response:-                              By the big arch.

Our comment on reading it:-             Which bloomin arch?

Have you seen how many arches there are around that piece of pizza?

A Fringe too Fah............

OK, so we are spending far too much time watching Fringe and I am sooooo enjoying it, it has captivated me the way Robert Heinlein did when I was in my teens, A Stranger in a Strange Land probably my favourite, I was really caught with the whole thing. The premise of the Fair Witness influenced the way I thought about the subjectivity of the how we record account for and retell things, I think in a good way because we all see things from our own perspective but at least if you can recognise that fact then it goes some way to mitigating against our bias. The Fair Witness of course only reports exactly what is there, what is seen or heard, there is no judgement, no speculation no interpretation.

Back from digression, so given how tied up I am in Fringe I was somewhat bemused to find the comedy interlude towards the end of series 2, when we were treated to a musical, 1940’s detective story episode! So many other series have done this type of thing, including Buffy, that I was frankly disappointed that a serious science show should resort to such frivolity. Shows our universe up in a bad light, you wouldn’t get Walternate singing I’ll bet.

For a while there I really thought I was back in the Holodeck of the Enterprise!!!

Style Council

So packing for a trip, only a small suitcase, don’t want the hassle of a big one but what to take, it all won’t fit, always a problem for me as I do like to be well prepared.

This time of year it could be mild or it could get freezing so layering I think is the way to go. However there is also the problem of who you are you going to be this trip. The look is not about money but about putting yourself together in certain way for the occasion. So is it to be the scruffy tourist dressing down really comfortable and probably not likely to get into the Opera or a good restaurant, is it the smart visitor, neat clothes, elegantly draped scarves and a bit of slap and not a problem if you get your picture taken.

Maybe it should be a bit of both comfy for the walking around but tidy enough so that you don’t get rounded up as a vagrant when you try to go out to dinner in the evening.

We all have our own individual style, or range of styles, you can tell a lot about people by what they wear, whether they are confident or not, if they are independent or need support, if they are a follower or trend setter.

Uniforms of course are the ultimate leveller but other work clothes also can mask some of the individual, the work suit or dress code that is expected in a job leaves some people no room to express themselves yet others can appear to be following the trend yet still give it their own style or twist.

Seeing people out of the usual setting in which you normally interact with them can sometimes be a surprise, a stern boss who you always see in a dark three piece seems somewhat incongruous on the beach in flowered shorts, yet we all have different facets in life and usually our clothes reflect the role we are in at that point in time.

Are we agreed then, going with smart casual and comfy shoes, yes, so I’ll just unpack and re-pack the suitcase one more time, or just maybe get a bigger suitcase!