Help The Women Of Atenco

A friend sent me an e-mail today to tell me about the plight of the women of Atenco .

This is quite horrifying and while I am not 100% sure, that by colouring in butterflies you can change things, I do feel that by doing it you are at lest saying that you know what is going on in Mexico and you don't like it.

So I will be gathering my friends together for an afternoon solidarity and butterfly colouring.

Basically these women were activists from a local peasant organization in San Salvador Atenco, Mexico, over 45 women were arrested without explanation.

Many of the 45 women arrested were physically, psychologically and sexually violated by police officers who arrested them. More than two years later, they are still waiting for justice. Not one of the officers responsible for the abuse has been adequately held accountable.

Would you as a woman want to be arrested in Mexico, or would you want your mother, sister, aunt, girlfriend, or wife arrested in Mexico.

Please read the article and if you can't yourself do anything, please at lest pass it on, so that others can see it and maybe join in.

There is a pdf to down load, so you could send this to family and friends around the World.

Thank you for reading this and please try to help. If these women were women you know or your neighbours you would want to help, thing is the way I see it is, we are all neighbours of the World.

Bell Tent & Glamping It Up.

Oh boy am I getting excited now or as we say it in our house upsited.

The weather is picking up and I am hoping to go camping soon.
I spent a small fortune on new camping equipment or maybe I should call it Glamping now.

Back in January, way before the Spring, let alone the Summer thoughts started to enter my head, I decided that I could no longer stand the nylon modern, tent that we have had for years.
Now don't get me wrong, it has served us well, so well in fact that I will never get rid of it.

Anyway, having stayed with a friend in their tipi, I really wanted one, until that was I discovered the price of them. Well that was enough to put me right off, they run into the thousands. Still maybe one day.

Then a friend told me about Bell Tents and as soon as I saw one I was hooked.
Now I have always camped, sometimes, it's been the only way I can get the kids out of London for a few days, (money has always been tight, one wage one parent and all that) but I wanted to have something different form the normal nylon tents and to be honest.

After much searching round the web, I found a blog that told me all about FBA Tent Company, on further looking, I kept coming across nothing but good reports about this company and in the end, I brought one from them. I was kept up to date with when it would arrive and in fact it arrived a day earlier, lucky there was someone home lol.

Now while I haven't actually camped out in it yet, we have had it up in our garage and everybody loves it. I really can't wait to go real camping in it.
But in the mean time I know that as my thoughts are turning to summer camping, I realise that others might be, so I wanted to big up FBA Tent Company and their excellent service and products. Look out for more posts on my tent and glamping it up.

We have an air bed, sheep skin rugs, lanterns, a fire pit, well loads of stuff to make a girl really cosy, I told you it was more glamping than camping.

Bell-tent

Number Two Son-Callum.

My number two son Callum, surprised me tonight.

We were at the computer desk, him on the PC and me on the laptop. I was messing about with my playlist. Anyway I started to play Louis Armstrong's 'What A Wonderful Life' when suddenly Callum burst into song, singing along word for word. Callum has a good voice as he was a choir boy for his primary school.





After it had finished I told him, I was surprised that he a newly 17 yr old, knew all the words to a song older than his mother. He laughed replying " Who doesn't know it, I'd have to have spent my whole life on the moon not to know it and anyway, it's a good song, even for an oldie"

I love it when I learn something new about one of my children, what a wonderful world, mine is.

My Mother. (part 1)

I thought I would tell you about my mum.

Grab a chair, are you sitting comfortably?

I don't want you to think that she was this terrible person, but I have to say right here at the beginning, Mum had in many ways a rotten life and while I did know a fair bit about her while she was alive, I only really learnt more about her after her death. I can now understand her much better and have in fact put the record straight for a number of people who passed the buck on to my Mum. While my relationship with her was very rocky,(she always favoured my brother) I will not tolerate injustice towards my Mum.

Do we ever really know our parents, they say that our children are only on loan to us, but I have come to believe that this applies to our parents as well.
If you are very lucky, you do get to be close to them and maybe you are then lucky enough to really get to know them. I wasn't that lucky, but I have grown to know and understand why.
I only wish that, I had this understanding of her before she died.

Mum was born in 1939, she would have been 70 this July and I don't really know terribly much about her early years.
However what I do know horrifies me, to my very core and for me explains a lot about her and the way she was.

Mum was born to a large family of 9 and very poor parents, by the age of 3, she had been placed into a children's home, along with all her brothers and sisters. This continued until she was 16 and then she was on her own.
It wasn't until after her death that I found out the reason why. Basically I came across a letter in my own file at my doctors. Now the letter was actually written by a specialist about me, in 1968 and I was 4 1/2, in which he is discussing my behaviour. Don't worry turns out I was normal.

However, there is a paragraph in the letter about my mother in which it says.....

"Mrs X is very unstable and the root of her troubles lie in her emotionally deprived upbringing. She herself was rejected by her Mother at a very early age. She tells me both her parents went to prison for cruelty to their own children. Interestingly enough Mrs X's own mother also preferred boys to girls-the girls were rejected and the boys were over protected and spoilt"

At first it rocked my World on a number of levels. I had always known that my Mum favoured my brother Roy ( not a problem really as he is such a great brother, he's my hero, even to this day) but seeing it in black and white was a real shocker.

Then, the line "Mrs X herself is very unstable", now I don't entirely disagree with this, I do think that my Mum had a terrible time coping, after all she had no-one except my worthless father, (I will tell you more about him at a later date, but trust me worthless is not a strong enough word for this man) a man who beat her and abused her.

So, by 3 my Mum had been rejected by her own mother and father, been cruelly treated by them both and dumped into a children's home, it all so transpires that most of her siblings were scattered to the four corners of the U.K. In fact she never actually meet all of her siblings.
Mum was also shuffled from foster home to foster home. Where we do know she was further abused.

Then she turned 16 and was suddenly thrust into the World alone. This area of her life is even more sketchy and I know even less. One thing my brother and I know, is that she meet a man, had a relationship with him and conceived my brother.

Poor girl, must have thought that she had finally found someone to love her and a home, they were I know living together. Turns out, he was an older married man and the second Mum told him she was expecting, he was on his toes and running straight back to the wife.

By 17 she had given birth to my brother, again this is sketchy, but this was 1957 and Mum was in a mother and baby home. The Social Services tried to take away my Brother and luckily, as it would turn out for me, years later, Mum got wind of this and took off with her then 3 week old son. With no money and nowhere to go.

Where she went and what she did, I do not know, but I do know that she went on to meet a man called Peter. He was in the Army and I know they married very quickly, she then gave birth to a daughter Lynda in 1959 and then another son, Anthony in 1960. Mum and her husband lived in Aldershot in Army Quarters and in 1960, not long after the birth of Antony, the whole family was shipped out to South America, to what was once called British Guyana. (Now known as Guyana after being granted Independence in 1966.)

Mum wasn't in a happy marriage and much has emerged since her death and along with what Roy knows and I know, plus a massive pile of paperwork, I have managed to find out that she meet my own father, who was in the same regiment as Peter, by all accounts (I have meet Peter, so was able to talk to him about it all), they were close friends. Peter had already started to beat my mother

My mother began an affair with Albert (my father) and as her marriage collapsed around her, the beatings got worse. I found Army paperwork, that stated she and her 3 children were repatriated to Aldershot, on the grounds of health and safety by the Army themselves.
I think the plan was to get my mother away to safety. However the Army sent her home to Peter's parents....a big mistake as it later turned out.

Again, a lot of what happened is some what sketchy. Peter followed her home, as did my own father after both of them were discharged from the Army. I have no idea if this was a normal discharge or not.

This is where Mum's life then took an even worse turn.
Peter's parents, by all accounts did not like Mum and in fact idolised their son, who in their eyes could do no wrong. His mother was particularly mean to my Mum, an admission Peter gave to me a few years ago after He was confronted about the truth.

It is fair to say that while my mother was not entirely blameless, for the things that had happened to her, there should have been someone on her side. Just one blooming person.

What happened next is even worse and I can not even begin to work out, what this must have felt like for her then and for the rest of her life, but she did once say to me that she learnt then, that she could not trust and rely on a single living person, something which stayed with her for the rest of her life.

But I think for now, I have said enough.

Have you ever seen the film "Cathy come home" well I don't doubt that my Mum's life was very much like that and for quite some considerable time. There is a scene in the film where Social Services take away Cathy's children, for me this is a harrowing scene as it is very close to home for me, but it is mostly because it gave me an insight to what happened to my mother upon her return to England.

As it is rather harrowing for me, I will leave it here for now, but as I have said, don't see her as a terrible woman or for that matter blameless, I certainly don't, but she was with out doubt in my mind a victim of her circumstances and lack of support.

Lost In Translation!

Oh my god!

It drives me mad! Please, please can people put a translator button on their blogs.

There are some amazing people out there in the World, however I don't speak every language in the World and when I come across what looks like an interesting person's blog it drives me mad that I am often unable to read the blog, because of a language barrier.

I am a total newbie to the computer and blogging, however I did manage to incorporate a translator into my blog, so I really do know it's not so hard.

I'd really love to be able to read more blogs and find interesting people's, so if you do have a blog or you are reading mine through the translator and you don't have one on yours, please please put one on yours and tell your family and friends to put one on theirs.

I got mine from babelfish and it couldn't have been easier. Go on people have a go, if I can do it, so can you. Plus it's a totally free service.

Self Esteem.

self_esteem

Here I go again the link above will take you to a self esteem quiz.

I was pleased with my score. I got 70% out of 100%, now it did say that there was room for improvement, but hey I am a work in progress and a firm believer that life is for learning.

In the last few years, I have learnt a lot about myself and feel that I have grown into myself a lot more. I have come to like myself more and more.

I don't believe that I am perfect, far from it.
Well, I'm off to jump back on the learning curve of life.

This Surprised Me

I also found another quiz on www.goddess.com.au About what your like at work. I was surprise to find how close this is to me at work, people have said to me that at work I am different to the way I am outside of it.

I had always put this down to the fact that I work in a male dominated Field, construction and that I needed to be accepted. I always knew that I was serious about work, but again I had put this down to being the sole provider for my growing family and being self-employed, no work, no money, the last thing I needed was unemployment.

I also do often doubt my own abilities and strengths, but I have got better with this and I do think some of that is down to experience and age.

I do find it very intriguing that a simple quiz can almost describe how I am at work.


Here is my results:-

Your work style Persephone-inspired gals generally present one face at work that is quite different to their private face at home. This is not a bad thing, mind you - it simply means you know where your boundaries are, and how to behave appropriately in personal and professional situations. One area you need to be careful of though, is that you learn to honour your innate skills and abilities. You have multiple talents which allow you to keep a lot of balls in the air at once, but these can come crashing down if you take criticism personally, or if you allow self-doubt to creep in. Become your own best friend by loving all facets of your persona, and you can be the ultimate leading light in your colleagues' lives. Note: pronunciation of Persephone: Purse-EFF-oh-nee	Look on the bright side, Persephone gals ;
MORE ABOUT PERSEPHONE To find out more about Persephone - her history and how her energy applies to you as a modern woman - you may join the innergoddess group (free) and receive a goddess message by email every Monday. Your details are strictly confidential.

Who Is Important.

I have been thinking again, which led me to look for a site that I have been to before and I found this at http://www.goddessology.com

I thought it went well with my last post.

Don't bother getting a pen and paper... just read... If you can't answer them, just keep going.(trust me)

1. Name the five wealthiest people in the world.

2. Name the last five Heisman trophy winners.

3. Name the last five winners of the Miss America contest.

4. Name ten people who have won the Nobel or Pulitzer prize.

5. Name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for Best Actor and Actress.

6. Name the last decade's worth of World Series Winners.

How did you do?

The point is, none of us remembers the headliners of yesterday. These are no second-rate achievers. They're the best in their fields. But the applause dies. Awards tarnish. Achievements are forgotten. Accolades and certificates are buried with their owners.

Now here's another quiz. See how you do on this one:

1. Name three teachers who aided your journey through school.

2. Name three friends who helped you through a difficult time.

3. Name five people who have taught you something worth while.

4. Think of a few people who have made you feel appreciated and special.

5. Think of five people you enjoy spending time with.

6. Name six people whose stories have inspired you.

Easier?

The lesson?

The people who make a difference in your life aren't the ones with the most credentials, the most money, or the most awards. They're the ones who care.

Five Things I Am Proud About.

Got thinking today, I know it's dangerous, but hey you got to try it some time.

1. That although I was a single parent for years and years, I went to work full time.
It was hard at times, but someone has to lead the way.

2. That I raised decent people, dispite being a single mum and living on a big
sink estate for most of their early years.

3. That by working hard, (in a job I seriously hated), I got the kids out of there and
into our home where we have lived since 1996, fairly happily.

4. My wonderful partner, who is very much younger than me and the happy
years we have spent together.

5. Me, I am very proud of me, for all the above reasons.

More five things to come.

Blogging Buddies

I thought I would look around and see if I could find some people to inspire me and to ad to my blog list, glad to say that I did and so I have happily added them to my list.
I'm not done searching and will add more as I go along.

I like the idea of being able to go and visit other people around the World, pull up a seat and learn something.
I have always believed that information is for sharing, if it wasn't for early humankind sharing how to light a fire, where would we all be now, cold I expect.

Information is like food, it should be shared amongst us all, so as to nurture us and make us strong and healthy.

So far I have found some very interesting people and I can't wait to find more. You just never know what your going to learn from the next person you meet.

Everyone has something to offer to us all.