They call it Mellow Yellow

Yellow is apparently the season colour for this summer, who knew, original or what?

Well yellow was always a spring colour, crocus, daffodils, sunshine, for those who don’t remember that’s the big yellow ball in the sky.

As a young child when people asked me what my favourite colour was I would quickly and certainly reply yellow, probably for the brightness, lightness and happiness of the colour.

But then on my birthday one year my gift was an amazing box of double-ended coloured pencils and I fell head over heels in love with the one that had a dusky pink one end and a light purple the other, I just thought it was the prettiest pencil in the box.

This affair has lasted well over 50 years and I am still smitten with my pinks and purples as anyone with access to my wardrobe can attest to.

However in the interests of fashion I may have a go at a bit of yellow this summer!

Super Gran’ma

I was always a big fan of the superhero; when I was a small child I would run full pelt across the playground with my imaginary Supergirl cape billowing behind me.

If the truth be told I have never outgrown the fascination with superheroes, although I long ago realised that I was not going to wake up one morning and find I had new and incredible powers.

But today it happened for my very hungry beautiful new grandson I became:-

The Orange Blur, super-feeder!!!

Jump!

Obviously the serene, everything is beautiful in its own way, Gran’ma of the past 72 hours or so, was not going to completely wipe out the grumpy old woman.

So…….I may be forgiven for ooooing and ahhhing over the cute young ’uns on the TV who epitomise the endearing side of childhood, especially that sweet girl who does the recent biscuit advert and clearly is the boss of her Dad!

I also love to see the boisterous, rough and tumble of children exuding energy and life, however loud and uninhibited it is…..

But, yes it is a very big one, there is a time and place for everything and I am appalled at the advert of a certain furniture store showing children running and jumping all over the furniture, the place for that type of playing is outside in the fresh air or, in bad weather, a cleared space indoors.

Not only is it a really bad example but it is potentially very dangerous.

The one time my son forgot himself and stood up and jumped off the seetee not only was there blood everywhere and I was terrified that he had damaged his eye, but we were up the hospital for hours.

And he still has the scar to show for it!!!

Welcome to the World

The little one is here and he is an amazing heart-breaker, the way only new life can fill you to overflowing and then expand your soul so that there is still yet another space to pack with love and joy.

I am so proud of my Daughter-in-law and my Son they have blended a beautiful boy and send much love and congratulations to them

The gift of life,

Given in love,

Immortality,

Wrapped in one

Joyous bundle.

A Son.

And so say we all!

Baby Daze

The pudding has landed, the fresh, new, sweet pink bundle of a grandson is here, all is well and the anxiety and relief exude from every pore of my being.

He is safe, he is well, he is beautiful.

Preparations for our first meeting,

·         Am I prepared?                                                         Think so

·         Packed all requested items?                                         Check

·         Camera and Video?                                                    Check

Ok let’s go, coat, gloves, scarf, car keys, lock the door, unlock the back gate, open the car, glance down………………..

Return to house to take off slippers!!!!!

Marking Time

Time seems to fly by these days, the long endless summers of my youth have somehow transmuted into a quick splash of sunshine before sinking into the watery winter again, the months, seasons and years passing before my eyes like the scene from H.G’s The Time Machine.

Except for the past few weeks, whilst we have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of a new addition to the family, when time seems to have spread out in my poor befuddled brain into an over-shot slow motion sequence.

But the time is near now, fast approacheth the appointed hour and before too long time will catch up, the world around us will Keystone Cop and we will be flung flailing and flying into the frantic, frenetic future!

Can’t wait to see how it all plays out.

Rise of the Machine.

Now when I was younger, oh so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in the techno way. But now those days have gone, I’m not so tec-aware, now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the home tutorial, self-help, idiots guide to technology!

I always had, as far as I could afford, the latest stuff, sometimes it was the right choice, others not so much. I had super 8 when most people were still using standard 8, very cool and in the game, even though splicing was a ‘mare and lining up sprockets very time consuming, until the. Video camera came along and I moved to that.

I also had the disc camera, and an 8 track tape player, well you can’t win them all!!!

There was something to be said for the shortness of the old fashioned film, you really planned your shots, so as not to waste the film as once it was taken, like the old 35mm still camera, it couldn’t be erased and reused. However if you planned and timed your shots and made good use of the zoom, when it came down to running it through the editing machine and cutting and splicing, if you were lucky, there were only a few discarded frames of film on the floor.

I moved from film to video tape quite easily and loved the fact that there was now sound as well as the moving image and the length of filming time was an amazing transformation, but the best was the ability to play it back straight away and erase what you didn’t want, you could in effect edit as you filmed. My old video camera has been out of operation for a while now and I haven’t even used the video function on my digital camera, except by accident, and anyway I still haven’t figured out how to play it back, I really just haven’t kept up with the times!

Time has moved on again and the video tape has been replaced by tiny little memory cards, all very confusing and way out of my league, I mean let’s be honest I wouldn’t be doing this blog if my son hadn’t set it up for me and patiently explained what buttons to press!

But now that there is about to be a new babe in the family I thought I’d better pick up one of the new digital camcorders and try to overcome this late onset technophobia.

I may need therapeutic intervention, I’ll let you know!!

To Kill a Mocking Book

So whilst the wait is on, and it may be a long one, for the next book in the Song of Fire and Ice. Random thought years ago Torvill and Dean did an amazing show called Fire and Ice, maybe it inspired George Martin! Anyhow whilst we wait to find out what happens next, who will ride the other dragons, who is really dead and who not so much, who is alive as we know it and who still exists but not as a human being, I thought I’d give The Hunger Games a go. The film is out towards the end of next month and I found out about it on a promo trailer whilst at the cinema, said I fancied seeing it and my daughter-in-law told me it was based on a trilogy of books.

So I have read the first two and am already really hoping that they have made a good job of the first film so that they can make the other two books as well, unless of course they have done a condense job and wound it all up into one film, I really hope not.

I’m not going to say much because there is not a lot that you can say without spoilers but it is a very easy read, more depth of angst to the teenage heroine than Harry Potter but way, way less than twilight!

It has a topical premise, that of a reality show, kind of The Running Man meets Rollerball and we all like a good dystopia where the poor really suffer and the rich lead indulgent self-absorbed lives oblivious to the pain of the masses in third world conditions.

Oh wait, that’s the real world today!

May the Odds be Ever in your Favour!

Bus Boy

So there I was standing at the bus stop after work when I noticed two young lads walking down the road, they were probably around eleven or twelve years old. The bigger of the two had darkish hair and was dressed in dark clothes and in all honesty was unremarkable but I particularly noticed the smaller one as he looked very smart in a classic neat and tidy way, he could have stepped from the page of a clothing catalogue.

He did not reflect a particular era and could have slotted into several decades without looking out of place. Well-scrubbed and well-pressed, neat short blonde hair with a side parting with almost a brylcreem look about it, a red jumper and tan chino type trousers. In fact I have an old 50’s box game that has a picture of a boy not dissimilar on the lid: except, of course, back then he would probably still be wearing short trousers!

He was one of those children who you can look at and you can really see the adult that will emerge. Sometimes you can look at a baby or a toddler and see the child they will be or you can see the adult in the child.

They seem to be set or fixed from a very early age in terms of what they will look like and what their personality will be like when fully matured, as if the dominant genes are really in charge right from the get go.

For other children they seem to be subject to a turbulent metamorphosis in which the different traits emerge and submerge during the growing process and it is very hard to predict what the finished product will be.

There is something to be said for both scenarios, when you have a child who has very definite physical and personality traits from the beginning it is great if you consider them to be positive because you don’t have the depth of concern as to how they are going to turn out. Obviously not so good if it is clear from the beginning that your child is not the genetic mix you were hoping for!!!

If, however, your child, like most, is that fascinating blend where it is not clear what genes or personality traits are eventually going to dominate you have the eternal hope, when going through the bad patches, that it will all come good in the end!!!

Anyway back to the bus stop boys, so as they strolled towards the bus stop the lad in the red jumper dropped the bottle of orange fizzy pop that he was carrying, it was plastic so it did not break as it hit the pavement and then it rolled for a fair distance. He scooped it back up and the liquid inside really had that all shook up look!

He and his friend came to look at the bus timetable and his friend jumped on a bus, whilst he continued to study the timetable..

By this time the lad was sucking and chewing on the outside of the pop bottle and I found myself surprised at his behaviour and realised it was because value judgements had slipped in, as they do with all of us all the time, and my expectation of him did not match his actions.

At this point O’Seedy was quite concerned about two issues

·         the fact it had just rolled on the very, very filthy pavement and what deadly germs the child was ingesting.

·         that all of us standing at the bus stop were going to be treated to a Grand Prix moment, only with very sticky fizzy orange instead of champagne!

As it happened he, still sucking and chewing his bottle and apparently uncorned about anything, turned and walked back the way he came!

Reading Food.

At my son and daughter-in-laws at the week-end I ate my food off the written word.

They have the funky plates that have food related words on them. Now the food I was given was great and I didn’t need to have it identified but it did get me wondering if that was the designers purpose.

Had the designer had such a bad experience of pasta that s/he needed to label the bowl in order to know what was being eaten?

Or, more frighteningly, are we all losing the plot so much that we don’t know what kind of crockery we should eat particular foods from?

·         Please place your pasta in the bowl with the word pasta written round the edge and eat with a spoon and fork!!!

Whilst eating habits have changed considerably and the cultural norms around our food rituals are now less proscriptive and allow people more freedom to partake of a wide range of experiences, which I generally think is a very good thing, but, but, but it is very scary how many people do not know what a fish fork is for!!!!!

So cynicism aside I have succumbed and bought a tray with writing on it telling me what I can I can use it for

Carry, Serve, Tea &Coffee, Afternoon Tea, Coffee & Cream

All of which makes good sense, I do carry stuff on it like tea and coffee and serve stuff from it like cake.

However, still trying to work out how to execute the final word STIR, it’s just not working out for me!

Hip Hop.

The other morning, whilst dressing, I somehow mentally reversed the numerical digits of my age resulting in totally forgetting how unreliable this bod is getting!

Yes, for some inexplicable reason I thought I could still jump into my trousers from a perpendicular position, precariously perched on my right lower appendage.

It didn’t happen!

What did occur was a tricky, twisty, tribal dance as I tottered about trying to untangle myself from my treacherous trousers before I tumbled over.

Luckily, before it was too late, light dawned in my lethargic, little grey cells, that the ludicrous leaping could be lessened by extending my left leg and putting my foot on the floor!

Genius.

So much truth in the old sayings:-

You are never too old to learn.

Game On

Having managed to get through all five of the Thrones books I am very pleased to report that I have at last managed to start on the TV series.

Just racked up the first three episodes and was I riveted to my seat, yes I was, sure some of the characters look nothing like my mental picture and Tyrion sounds like Gaius from Merlin but I’m in and signed up.

Particularly liked the visualisation of the map at the beginning, often when reading the books I had to keep flipping to the map at the front to get my bearings, so I thought it was a good touch.

Looks like I’ll be through it quite quickly however, as I’m not good at self-restraint.

This is known!!!!!

Gran’ma’s Star Lights, episode VI The Return of the Parents

When the stars above are twinkling

And moonlight fills your eyes,

It’s time to sleep my darling,     

Here where your head lies.

Mummy and Daddy love you

And watch over as you sleep.

Your Gran’ma loves you too

And knows if your eyes peep.

So sleep now, little master

And dream of lovely things.

The night will past much faster

Until dawn the new day brings.

An new original lullaby, ready for when the new babe makes his appearance!

Getting my Oats

In these days of cold afflictions, this could be porridge for everyone, everyone!!

So I was happily making my porridge the other morning, in an effort to keep the winter chills at bay.

Now I wasn’t concentrating that much, chatting away as I was, so it actually wasn’t a surprise to find my friend Al was back in the room, his mood was cynical amusement as I was putting the porridge into the fridge to cook, well it was right next to the microwave!!!

Today’s challenge, write a sentence containing even more was or wasn’ts!!!!

Oh Still Small Times of Old.

Still thinking of how different things were when I was young, I remembered that we used to have a really, really tiny bottle of olive oil. It was literally no more than about 3 inches high, a very narrow traditional bottle shape with a tiny cork in its tiny neck.

It was nothing like the massive litre bottles we have in our kitchen these days!!

It was not for cooking with, or putting on our salads, no it lived in the medicine cupboard and only came out for the treatment of earache.

This precious liquid was dripped onto a heated teaspoon, in order to warm the oil, then into this so expensive elixir of healing a small wad of cotton wool was put until all the warm oil was absorbed. The oil infused cotton wool was then placed into the offending, aching ear.

And oh the bliss of that soothing warmth.

Now I am not suggesting you try this at home, it is not something I do these days, but I wonder what was so efficacious about this treatment, was it:-

·         The warmth, heat is often soothing for many ailments.

·         The placebo effect, sugar coated chocolate drops really do work.

·         The detailed ritual of administration, time and attention make a difference.

You probably won’t find the definitive answer in the NICE guidelines!!!

Cutting the Mustard.

Making the Mustard today for the full blow out Sunday lunch I was remembering how it was my job as a child to mix the mustard. A tiny little spoonful and then slow drips of water until it was a lovely smooth paste with no lumps. Now I make it in a ramekin, as it is a popular condiment in our house!

When I was young  I was only allowed to use a little bit as it was so expensive, and we only had a tiny taste of it on our dinners.

It was like that with a lot of things, Sundays was the only day for a sweet course or cake, butter only on very special occasions, high days and holidays, lots of things were luxuries.

Luckily for most of my childhood we lived in a house with a large garden so there was plenty of fresh fruit and vegetable even if other things were in short supply.

Now maybe it is my generation’s fault that we are becoming such a fatty society, because we tried to give our children the things that were restricted due to cost when we were young.

Now it seems we have difficulty in restraining ourselves and sticking to small portions.

So the mustard, whilst not an issue in itself, I think is probably indicative of these less constrained times.

Although if this country carries on the way it’s going we may all be tightening our belts several notches before long!!!!

The Great White Day.

So the snow’s may be arriving tonight and Heathrow has prepared by cancelling some flights, I have prepared by planning to stay home all day.

If we have lovely crisp settled snow I quite like to go for a walk in it but it is a long time since I played in it and built a snowman, it doesn’t quite have the same fascination for me these days. The cold and damp just get into the bones too quickly and re-heating takes far too long!

When I was around 7 or 8 we had a fall of snow that was quite distracting for me as it caused me to have an early encounter with forgetfulness.

Coming out of school I made my way home, playing all the way, when I arrived home I found that my Mum was not at home, did it bother me? Did I wonder where she was? No, of course not, there was a whole courtyard of snow to play with and play I did for ages, in fact until my hand were frozen red and I couldn’t feel my feet.

So I eventually began to wonder where Mum was and thinking about it I suddenly remembered that I was supposed to go straight to Grandma’s house from school and meet my Mum there. I can still remember that stone in the stomach feeling as of fright as I realised I was in trouble.

I brushed myself down and started running towards the gate, knowing I was now very, very late just as my Mother appeared in the gateway.

And the cry of generations of children left my lips “I’m sorry I forgot”!!!!!!

The Winter Winds.

Not going to harp on about how cold it is and how I said we would have the bad bit of winter running up to Easter. And I know Easter s on the way because there are cream eggs, chocolate button filled chicks and honeycomb rabbits everywhere in the shops. Anyway not going to go on about it as I sound like a grumpy old woman, which of course I am!!

Anyway pacing alongside this reality for me has been the alternate world that “Thrones” saga is set in and believe me in some chapters it is much colder than here and pretty unpleasant too. I have now completed “Dragons” and am left wondering how it is all going to turn out. Every chapter moves to another character or set of characters, a different location and almost always closes with a cliff hanger. So now that I have finished the book the fate of several characters hangs in the balance, it looks like some are dead, or are they?

I had a sneak preview of a chapter from the 6^th book, Winds of Winter and now can’t wait for it to arrive, haven’t been able to find out it’s due date but it is clearly past the embryonic stage.

Word is that there will be seven books in all and if they continue to get progressively bigger only the world’s strongest man will be able to read the final instalment, ‘cos I had trouble lifting Dragons!!!

The 3D’s

No not the animated cutesy, or the shock horror or even my favourites, the old sci-fi, ohh so can’t wait to go and see Star War episode one in 3D!

No, I’m talking about the Dragons, again not the D,R,V, 3 dragons from the thrones saga but the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I read all three books in the series last year and got through them pretty quick as they were a riveting read and aside from some of the nasties, which, to be fair, I didn’t find gratuitous, just nasty bits that carried the story along, I would recommend them if you like a good thriller and intrigue and twists and turns.

I also saw the original Swedish films, obviously the dubbed versions, my mother used to say I spoke Double Dutch and that is the only language skills I lay claim to, so I went for the dubbed English.

I can’t get on with subtitles, I never could, back in the day when it was fashionable to go see ponderous art house foreign movies with subtitles, it was too hard trying to watch the action, well for action read pensive, intensive and yearning looks and also read the heavy dialogue flashing on the bottom of the screen, so I never really got it!

So back to the Dragon, Ok, yes, it takes a while to get used to the words not matching up, the lip synch is not good, but once I got into the story I forgot all about that. I found the film dark and brooding and thought that it really took a good crack at the book, although possibly hard to follow if you hadn’t read the book.

When I heard that there was going to be a “Hollywood” version, frankly I wasn’t impressed but I went to see it today and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, they have taken a few liberties with the plot and missed some bits out, but the only way you really get a book on screen in it’s entirety is to do a mini-series, and this is a very good film. The treatment is very different from the Swedish version and whilst because I had read the book and seen the original film there were no plot surprises for me I was still completely caught up in it from start to finish.

So now I’m hoping they can bring the cast back and make the other two films.

Now it’s time for a bit of dancing with dragons, only got about 80 pages to go, no spoilers but OMG!!!

Before Seven 11

So a travelling tale today about my adventures on the Number 11 bus.

Now I use this bus because it is the only one that goes from this area that actually runs to a timetable, the others are all billed as “every 8 to 10 minutes” or “every 15 to 20 minutes at peak times”, you know the sort of thing.

My bus has a timetable and it is pretty reliable and before 7pm it runs four every hour and they usually hit the bus stops, no, not literally, within a few minutes of the predicted timetable, not bad for this day and age to be fair.

On the early morning run to work the bus is practically empty, as my stop is near the beginning of the route, so I have my favourite seat. Before anyone ahhhs at the old lady on her favourite seat, our eldest grand-daughter also sits in the same seat every day, on her bus to work early in the morning and amused me by saying nearly all the people she sees getting on head for their favoured seats every day too!!

Anyway I am so comfortable in my seat happily reading my book that twice in the last month I have gone sailing, well bus riding, passed my stop. Luckily the bus terminates only a couple of stops further on from where I am supposed to get off for work so the worst that has happened is that I have taken some unscheduled early morning exercise!!

Going home is a different story, the timetable is harder to maintain due to the volume of passengers in the evening and it is often a crush for a few stops until we reach the railway station when it often thins down a bit.

But yesterday I had a new experience that shocked me, a bit like when it’s dark and rainy and you look out onto the patio and suddenly see the eyes of a damp cat looking at you, the bus did not stop for me!

I was standing at the stop in good time, I saw the bus approach and put out my hand to hail it, it was coming quite fast and was not indicating it was pulling in so I stepped a bit closer and waved a little more vigorously and whoosh it sped past me. Now I’m too old to be embarrassed by such rejection but I was left wondering why I had been abandoned, yes the bus had a lot of passengers but it was not packed and could easily have taken one more Freedom Pass holder.

I had just decided on the scenario that he hadn’t picked me up because he had mistaken me for an unruly schoolgirl when another bus came along and I realised that the bus that hadn’t stopped was in fact the earlier bus running late and probably trying to catch up to his timetable!!

As Hila Baker would have said “Be Soon”