Life with Lia

Let Them Know You Loved Them.

2011-09-27T20:21:00.007+01:00

Hello My Lovelies,

I expect your wondering where I have been!

Unfortunately, I had to unpalatable joy of staring into the abyss of Hell!!!
And; have only just started to make my way back from there.

As you know I have a daughter who we call Kitten here. We are very close, but like a lot of Mother/Daughter relationships it was rocky for a while during the teen age years.
However Kitten as grown into a wonderful young woman and I am immensely proud of her.
She is my sun, my moon, my north, my south.

OK Kitten hasn't changed the World or solved world poverty, but while her accomplishments in life have not been world changing, she has never-the-less grown into the kind of woman that I always wanted her to be. She's kind, feisty, funny, loyal and a wonderful to spend time with or have on your side. She's just lovely.

Just when I thought I could take my eye off the ball, her world came tumbling around her.
Crashing down and levelling her.

You see Kitten had been seeing a young man called Graham. They'd been together for 4yrs and while I admit that they had, had their ups and downs they were making good head way.
I adored him and being me told him how it was when he needed it. We were good friends.
I found him inspiring, courageous, hard working, well just great really.

Last year Graham started planning a trip to Indian. The kids had split up for a while and Graham felt that he had lost his way a bit. So to try and sort himself out he had decided to travel.
The kids got back together and decided that he would go along with his plans to travel.

February rolled round.
Passport done.
Ticket booked.
Visa's obtained.
Injections had.
The time ticked by, the kids fought, they were on, they were off, back on again. It became impossible to keep track of them.

We saw little of Graham. Kitten doesn't live at home, so most of their shenanigans were kept away from us and at their own flat. I spoke to Graham from time to time and kept in contact with him via Facebook and phone.

Then the day he was to leave arrived. He came to see us all at the new family house and we were delighted to see him.
So full of energy and vitality. Graham hugged you like your life depended on it and it was so very good to see him.
He was so excited and chatted on and on non stop. He filled the house with life as only he could and in his own way. Graham had lived with us all in the past, at our old house. Before he and Kitten moved to their own place. You always knew when he was in the house. There was a vibration of energy all the way through it.

He and I had a private chat and he said he would be coming home to my Kitten and that he wanted to settle down and stop "dicking around" as he put it; get married and have babies.
I'd always known there was a deep love between them. They had been through a lot together and grown with each other. The last split had shown them that and I really believed they were meant for each other and would make it. They were back together and planning for the future. It was obvious to all that they were serious now and that a shift had occurred between them.

Graham went away a few days later and all went well. He and his friend Luke got to Mumbai safely. Made a few friends and had a great time.
They decided to go to Goa for a few days.

On March 3rd, I got a call from Kitten, she was screaming and screaming and screaming!!!
I couldn't calm her down, couldn't get her to hear me.
I couldn't get her to stop screaming.
Then she went silent. It was the most eerie of silences.

"Kitten, it's mum. Talk to me baby!" Silence.....
"Please talk to me baby?" Silence.....
"Tell mummy what's wrong baby girl, I'm here".....

Silence total and utter silence. I have never felt more hopeless, helpless and useless in my whole life. Then I heard gentle sobs. I waited.....

"Mum, he's dead.....he's dead Mum"
"Whose dead baby?"

Silence.........then a small tiny whisper of a voice, barely recognisable as my daughter's.

"Graham mum, Graham's dead!!!!"

Every thing after that was a blur, a dizzying, terrifying blur.
I remembering phoning Edward, Graham's brother as I knew him and had his number.
Oh God! No! it was true, He filled me in on the details. We chatted a bit about what was going to happen next and I said how sorry I was, that I would get there as soon as and that I had to get to Kitten.
I phoned Francis (still with an i). They were friends and it shocked him to his core. He said he was on his way home, would meet me at Kitten's.
I phoned Frankie, my long term foster daughter and Kitten's best friend, she was in shock, would leave now and meet me at Kitten's.
Next came the boy's. How would they take it.
Callum just couldn't take it in, it was impossible, I was lying to him.
Ashley, poor Ashley, he'd not had a good relationship with Graham. They'd had a bad row about Kitten. Guilt hit him bad.
I don't remember getting dressed.
I don't remember the drive to Kitten's.
I do however remember the frail. tiny, pale, trembling little girl who open the door of my daughter's flat.
Was this really my little hell-cat who stood there before me.

Time stood still for so very long......
Days I have forgotten and time I have lost, but worse than Graham's death at 23yrs is the loss of my daughter. For she is lost.

We all lost Graham that day and a light went out forever that will never be replaced. He was a unique and wonderful human being. You don't meet many like him in your life time. I am proud to say, that for awhile he shone brightly in our lives and we are all the better for knowing him.

When the day of his funeral came around it fell on 25th March. It was a glorious day.
Bright, beautiful warm sun greeted us all that morning. Very unseasonal weather for England.
It felt as if the sun had come out to welcome Graham home. He adored the sunshine.

No one, especially a Mother should ever have to dress her daughter for a funeral. Kitten was just numb, now deeply lost and distressed. But so very, very silent. Even when she did talk she was so quiet, it was barely a whisper.

The funeral was beautiful, if you can say that about a 23yr old man's funeral. So many people turned out for him. It was so heartening to see.
Afterwards we went to a hotel where his family had invited everyone and we all cried, talked about Graham and laugh at some of his mad antics.

As you know it doesn't end with the funeral and the days that followed were some of the worst of my life. I honestly don't know what kept my girl upright and what got her through those early days.

Everybody lost Graham that day, but I lost him and my Kitten.
Kitten's not the same any more and although it is 6months since he passed there has been a marked change in her. The devastation of his loss has been all the more harder for her because she feels they wasted so much time. Dicking around as Graham would say.
I can't lie to her and tell her that time is a healer and that things will get better.
Instead I told her the truth, (as I see it)....time doesn't heal you, it just teaches you how to live with the pain and loss.
That eventually she will feel able to cope with her life again and to take her time.

It is devastating to watch some one you love so very much, struggling to come to terms with some thing you have no power to change and can barely understand yourself, it's so wrong to have to young people die. It's like a crime against nature and time.
There is a long way to go yet and no end in sight.
There are now however small glimmers of hope.

Kitten knows I'll be there. I already have been. And; I'm going nowhere fast.

It's changed me, made me think deeper. My own Mother use to say "Life isn't a dress rehearsal."
I have never been afraid of dying, only of leaving those behind I love the most.
Just when they need you the most, you can't be there.
Now I am terrified of death and my own demise....I have seen the pain and destruction it leaves those you love the most in.
However, I have realised that the time you have now is it, so you better dang well make the most of it, work out your priorities and make sure those you love...KNOW YOU LOVED THEM.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

(sorry if this is a bit sad and gloomy. But that's the way things have been. There have been a few other things that happened, happy things, but that's for another day)

LIFE.

2011-09-22T18:07:00.001+01:00

Everyone Needs A Helping Hand Sometimes.

2011-02-08T15:06:00.006Z

Hello My Lovelies,

How have you all been, well I hope. I will come and visit you all soon I promise.
I've been a little busy, as you know we moved house and after having such hateful neighbours it has been a joy to move somewhere where there is still a community that want to be nice, get to know you and help each other.

Two doors down from us, is an elderly couple called Jean and David. Jean is 76 and David is 84, now I know it isn't polite to discuss people's age and I would normally refrain from doing so, especially where a lady is concerned, but I do have my reasons for this so please bear with my tardiness over this.

They are a wonderful couple and have in fact been together longer than I have been on the Planet. Just to balance things I am 48. They have lived two doors down from us for 34yrs and are well known in the area.

I first met Jean when we moved in and although it was September, it was still rather warm. Now I'm not sure if I have told you this, but we actually live above the shops in the High Street. This means that we have a little patio out the front of the flat like a roof garden (which is a two story flat, go figure) and in order to get to our flats we have to climb a lot of stairs and go along a walk-way. This means that we are very sheltered and it's a bit of a sun trap and we met Jean one day on the walk-way.

To me it was obvious that she was either suffering from alzheimer's or dementia but then I had come across it before, as I use to do voluntary work in an old folks home, where they specialised in alzheimer patients. Anyway we as a family went on to make friends with them both and it turns out that while Jean normally likes nobody she has taken a liking to me that David and Jean's sister say they have never seen before.

I have to say that I adore Jean, she is lost in her own bubble and you only get the occasional glimpse of the woman she must have been. It's sad really , as up until she was 71 Jean worked and ran a very, very busy estate agents. In fact the very people we rent off of. Small world or what.
Once she retired; Jean just seemed to have slipped away as David once put it.

I think Jean sees me as a kindred spirit and although she is locked away from the real world it doesn't make her silly. I make her laugh and when she is babbling away about nothing on this Earth I act as if she is telling me the most interesting or funny story. My love of History, especially social history is coming in very handy.

David himself is a remarkable man and it amazes me how he gets on with it all. Cooking , cleaning although David will tell you that he's not that good at the cleaning side of it all.. Basically he does everything for Jean and I do mean everything. There must be times when he is down or when it all gets too much for him, but you never see it.

Since Jean is very happy with me on Thursday evenings I look after Jean so that David can go out to a club where there are other people who have partners with alzheimer's, it's only for 3hours, but David gets a lot out of it and I enjoy my time with Jean.

Last week however David hurt himself rather badly and as a result had to go into hospital for surgery and myself and "E" (my sister) decided with David that instead of Jean going into a care home for the week that we would take care of Jean. Jean has been into care before and came out in a terrible state, so he was reluctant to put her back into care for such a short period.

Oh my gosh!!! We knew it would be hard but this has to be one of the hardest things I have ever done before. I have never shied away from hard work before, but this was something else.
I have no idea how David copes 24/7 with Jean. There was 2 of us and we are half his age. Jean lead us on a merry dance the likes of which I have never been on before.

I have to say that it has to be pure love and devotion that must get him through the week. There was times when we were climbing the walls. I have to take my hat off to David and to anyone who takes care of a loved one with this condition.

For her part Jean is very happy. Locked away in her own little world. She dances and sings, sometimes she cries. But mostly she is just repeating things or saying things over and over and over. She's a lovely lady and I think the world of her, but I hope that I never have to look after her for that amount of time again.

As for David, well he is doing really well, but then he was in excellent health, so it is to be expected that he would recover quickly. And of course we continue to help as much as we can.

On another note I would like to ask all of you to take a look at the plight of this woman. HERE

Now I'm not saying that she did the right thing; however I do believe that the punishment should match the crime. Really what was her crime, the fact that she wanted to do better and have better for her children...oh me! oh my! if that were the case, the prisons around the World would be full to bursting. How many of you could say that you might not actually be in one? lol.

I would if I could sign it, however you can only do it if you have ZIP CODE, which is like the British postcode for America and I so obviously don't have one of them.
If you have American followers on your blog would you be so kind as to just do as I have done and pass it on. In fact I actually got this from one of my American friends.

Like I said, I don't think what she did was right, but there is nothing I wouldn't have done or would not do for the futures of my children. And I really get why she did it. I just really feel that this is too harsh, considering she just wanted the best for her children.

I guess I should confess that when we moved house there was the possibility of Ashley having to move schools. As he was in his last couple of years there we kept quiet about it. Lucky we knew the people who had moved into our old house (I'm not talking about the house we just sold but the one before that) and they kept our secret. Now fast forward to Callum going to secondary school (high school) and the choices in our area were bad. Callum is a bright boy and deserves the best, by then we were firm friends with the people in our old house and when the latter came to say did I want him to go to his brothers old school or a different one, I didn't hesitate and the people in our old house backed me up. We got him into the school waited a until he was at exam stage and then said we were moving to our last house and that we were worried about his education and moving him at that stage...the school let him stay as they have to have 5% of kids out of the catchment area. As you know Callum did well and yes I did wrong. But seriously I'd set myself on fire if I thought it would be good for his future.
The only way for kids from poor families to improve thier lives is through education and Callum is now headed for University, so I while I was wrong, I know I did the best for my boy.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

Shhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

2011-01-29T13:45:00.003Z

Hello Lovelies,
I hope you are all well. xXx
Still got horrid "boy-germs", family are loving it as I am either asleep or when awake my throat is so sore that I can't talk. So I am reduced to writing notes. The boys are taking the mickey out of me royally, but pay back is gonna be hard on them Mwhahahahaha!!!

See the picture above, well keep it to yourselves as this is very hush hush and your the only people I can tell...don't trust real friends not to drop me in it lol.
Well on the 19th of May 2011, Francis ( you know him with the i) and I will have been together for 10 years. I thought it would be really nice to mark this event in our lives together so have booked us into THIS lovely place and booked the beach house for 5days.

I found it while looking for places in England to hunt for sea-glass and at the time thought how lovely it would be to go there. However I am a greedy girl and didn't want to stay for one or two nights and then the idea struck me that it would be a lovely place to spend a few days for our 10th anniversary.

So today I booked it, but we are not to tell him with an i. I have even managed to get him to take the day off work. That proved a little harder to do, as our day is on a Thursday. But I whined like a big baby and said that I would have thought that having the day off to mark 10 yrs would have been as important to him and that was that, got my own way haha. I am pure evil at times, that or I just know how to work him......I am a puppet master!!!!!!!

Of course what else he doesn't know is that, I phoned our contractor and told him about it all and that I wanted to book him off for 6days. Lucky for me that the guy is a sucker for the Ladies and an old romantic...that and he knows me very well and is aware of the fact that I can if I want make his life a misery.....but I prefer that he is an old romantic, but then I would wouldn't I..

So Him with an i, will be treated to a nice breakfast in bed and then I am going to tell him that I am taking him somewhere nice for lunch. I do of course realise that once we leave the confines of the M25..you know that car-park that surrounds London, that the transport department like to call a motorway. He will become aware that all is not as it should be.

By then it will be too late and he will have been snared in my oh so clever and devilishly cunning plan, that and I'm going to lock the doors and drive at break-neck speed until London is so far away that it is a dot on the horizon. It only 4hrs and 50 minutes, he should stop screaming after about 2hrs.

I now have months of teasing him to look forward to. I have told him that he is not to plan anything at all for our 10th as it is my turn anyway. We try to take turns at organising something and it so happens that it's my turn.

So we have to keep very quiet about this and not tell Him with an i.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

Nelson Mandela.

2011-01-27T18:37:00.005Z

Hello Lovelies,

I hope you are all well. Been a bit busy this last week. Although to be honest I can't quite remember everything I got up to. Just normal humdrum boring everyday life stuff. All except for the "boy germs" that Callum feels the need to share with me. So I am a little under the weather and sleeping a lot. My mum use to say that there would be plenty of time to sleep when she was dead. Would appear that I might live for a very long time, if I'm sleeping like the dead while I am still alive.

I am holding my breath right now for one of my favourite icons. Mr Nelson Mandela.
I expect you have heard that he is in hospital ill. The news is that he has a collapsed lung.
So while I couldn't exactly say that I am a girl driven to prays, I am in my own way praying that he will get better.

At 92 you could say that he has had a good innings and yes I guess to a certain extend he has.
That is until you remember that he spent 27yrs in jail. I'm not going to get into some sort of political row about Mr Mandela, after all some one once said that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. The line between the two is very thin at times. A lot has been said about his past, but well that's just it, it's the past.

If you have never read his books I strongly suggest that you do. They are brilliant, illuminating and inspirational.

Anyway, I am wishing him well and sending out my own little prayers for him to what ever God wants to listen.

Much love
Lia
xXx

Shaddy.

2011-01-20T22:55:00.012Z

SURPRISE......HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHADDY.

Today's post is just for you. For being such a lovely Lady, my friend and just because you are you. And; I am still flatly refusing to believe you are the age you admit to. No one as vibrant as you should be defined by numbers, it's simply rude!!!!!!

I do hope that the Butler is looking after you. Yeah I know that he is Gerard Butler, but he owed me a couple of favours and I called them in. I mean after all what girl wants one of those stuffy old fashion types of butlers, when you could have Gerard for a few hours!!!!

I do hope you like the flowers, but come on girl get your glad rags on.

Knowing how much you enjoy a sweeping staircase I ordered this one in especially for you. Only you are allowed to sweep up and down it all night long if you want. But do be careful if you decide to slide down the rail. Oh it's okay to do it as Gerard will catch you at the bottom. Promise. Now that's going to be irresistible now isn't it...........go on I dare you!!!!!

As you are such a popular girl I had an enormous table laid out for you on the beach, (I know you love to be outdoors) so that every body you know can join you on this your special day.

These guys will cook anything your little heart desires. You name it and they can make it for you. Oh the joys of the blogsphere where all your dreams can come true.

In the meantime Gerard will be happy to open your champagne, only the best pink champagne for you my darling and while you sip away on it, you can also read The Times with the headlines for the day you were born.

I baked you a cake, well because it simply wouldn't be a birthday without a cake don't you know.
And; as I am still not believing your age I decided to put roses on it instead of candles.
I do seem to remember Shakespeare saying "A rose by any other name is still a candle".......lol

When the party is over I hope you will enjoy sleeping in this lovely room with it's wonderful French feel to it and I hope you have the sweetest dreams

To help you relax I have told Gerard that he must draw you a bath, in order for you to completely relax.......because......

Tomorrow you are off to this delightful retreat by a lake with a boat as I know you like to go out on lakes and fish lol. Well if nothing else it might help the juices to flow so that you can carry on with your creative writings.

Have a wonderful day Shaddy and you know that if I could really do this for you I would.

Much Love
La
xXx

visit Shaddy at Paper Cut Screams she's lovely, adorable and I'm proud to say my friend.

Looking For Unicorn Teeth.

2011-01-19T22:16:00.007Z

Hello Lovelies,
Hope your all well today.
It's been a good day here in my mad hormonal life.

Kitten (Patricia) as I said before (I think) has been out of work for a few months now and has been fairly fed-up with it all. She started a course on Monday set up by the job-centre and something to do with the Government.
By yesterday at at2:30 I received a text saying "Woohoo I've got a JOB! X" (she always puts a kiss at the end of a text). It's such good news for her.

Okay, so it's not a great job and under normal circumstances she wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. But as she put it, it's better have a job and work, then look for a job while she has a job.
Kitten will be working in a warehouse distributing luxury fashion goods. In many ways it's up her street as she is young and funky and has expensive tastes. It will be starting at the bottom but the chances to rise in the company are good.

We had a small nightmare today mind you, as Kitten has to have safety boots with steel toe caps. However as I have said before, she is tiny and that includes her feet. Despite the fact that women do work in industries that require safety boots it's like trying to find Unicorn teeth. She was meant to start on Monday, but having spoken to the woman running her course and being so upbeat about the job, the woman phoned the company this morning and then got a reply saying that they would like Kitten to start tomorrow (Thursday) at 7am. Not a problem........much.

I spent ages on the computer and the phone trying to find these boots. We got them, however they were on the other side of London. Any one whose ever tried to get to the other side will tell you what a nightmare it is. Even using public transport it can take two hours. We didn't have 2hrs. The shops we needed to go to close at 4pm, they keep construction industry hours. They tend to open at 6:30/7am and close at 4pm.

The nearest person was Francis(with an i), he was 13miles from the store, took him 2 and half hours to get there. Luckily I had phoned ahead and sorted most of it out and left my phone number. They were kind enough to phone me at closing time to find out if Francis (with an i) was just about to walk through the door, they knew they were important to us.
As it was I had just spoken to him and knew he was struggling. I explained where he was and they said he was so near someone would wait at the shop for him. He got there at 5pm and they were true to their word.

Next came the trip home....nightmare for him. as he never got back until 7:45pm. He had ,had to head out to the most famous car park in the whole Universe or to give it it's real name the M25, the motorway that circles London. I managed with traffic updates to get him home another way.
Luckily Kitten rather likes her boots and his favourite football team won tonight, but I don't think he liked the 6hrs driving around and through London.

Lets hope her job goes well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also today I cooked a big pan of Carrot and butternut soup for my freezer and a massive pan of of spaghetti bolognese. After feeding the boys the spag bol, Kitten took off with 4boxes of spag bol and 4 tubs of soup.
Now I'm going to have to cook it all over again, still at lest she will eat well, so that's one less thing to worry about. Now all I got to do is get her up at 5:30 am for her new job as she is worried she won't get up. I have also just noticed that it is now Thursday lol..

Beginning to think that the hunt for Unicorn teeth might be a tad easier.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

The Three C's....carrot, camera, common sense.

2011-01-18T12:11:00.006Z

Hello My Lovelies,

Just a quick one today as you know from my last post that I headed off down The Thames River today to go sea-glass and sea-Pottery collecting, got some lovely stuff but you'll have to hold on until tomorrow to see it as it needs a scrub, in order to look it's best for you all. Now don't go getting impatient even the worlds top models like to look their best for their photo's.

Instead and because I had to get up so early, so as to get where I needed to be for low tide I thought I would share with you my own recipe for Carrot and butternut Squash Soup.

This is a wonderful warming soup, just what you need after a morning on a freezing cold Thames River. Was really mad at myself this morning as I forgot my camera and the mist was beautiful; along with the wading birds and the river it's self, it was really magic there today.

INGREDIENTS:-

Olive oil.

1 large onion.

1 1/2 lb of carrots sliced............. I don't peel carrots I just wash them.

1 butternut squash..... peeled, reseeded and chopped. (my one weighted about 3lb)

2 to 3 garlic cloves peeled and crushed.

1 1/2 pints of stock, Chicken or vegetable. (I use knorr chicken stock cubes because they don't have chemicals in them that effect my fibro, so they are very good.)

Nutmeg, sage and thyme, to your taste. Alternatives are chillies, curry powder, cumin and coriander.

Salt and black pepper to taste. (I always use sea salt for health)

METHOD:-

Using a large pan , as this makes heaps. Heat a little oil in the pan, over a medium heat. Add the onion and gently fry them until they are soft and translucent.
Add the sliced carrot and mix well. Once mixed with the onions and half of the stock. Bring up to a gentle boil and let it boil for about 5minutes. After 5mins add the butternut squash and the remaining stock.
Add the garlic, adding the garlic at this stage will give it a nice gentle garlic flavour.
Add the nutmeg, sage and thyme. I think this is better if I leave you to work the amount out for your own tastes, as we all differ. Also because you may be using different herbs and spices to me.
I try to use fresh herbs wherever I can. But dried will do the job.
Add the salt and pepper to your requirements.
Bring back up to a gentle boil, then turn it down in order to simmer the soup and slam the lid on, leave it for about 20 to 30 minutes.
To see if it is ready.....push the point of a knife into a slice of carrot and squash to see if they are cooked through.

Using a stick hand blender, blend the soup until completely smooth with no big lumps.
Now is the time to adjust any seasoning, spices or herbs that you have used.
Also check that it is of the consistency you like, if not either add more stock or water.
Bring the heat back up and serve.

You can serve it with a dollop of crème fraiche, natural greek yoghurt, or be naughty and use cream.
I often serve it with home made cheese scones or some nice crusty grannery bread.

ENJOY

This is a great soup for any of you who are on a diet or health concious as it is low in fats, but high in vitamins and fibre.

Why the title of this post
1 Carrots... this started as a carrot soup years ago and one day I threw in a squash that needed using and the rest is history, but the kids still call it carrot soup.
2 Camera...note to self..TRY TAKING OUT THE HOUSE SOMETIMES D'UH
3 Common sense, remember camera and Wellington boots. The Thames River is very muddy and my hiking boots are now a total mess.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

Direction........ Lost

2011-01-17T18:55:00.007Z

Hello Lovelies,

As some of you know I'm a little bit obsessed with sea-glass and recently discovered that there is a growing market for sea-pottery, as sea-glass is running out. Mind you that does greatly depend on who you are talking to, as I have no worries finding it and I think it's a case of word of mouth.
I'm going to go off to Cornwall camping this Spring, as I have found out about a couple of really good beaches where you can find good quality sea-glass. I would tell you about them but I am sworn to hold the secret till my death or old age which ever comes first. Mind you there's no guarantee that I won't get dementia and blurt it out.

I meet a really nice man digging a big hole down by the tide lines of a beach who was doing what they call "bottling". It's a bit of an odd thing to do, but you can dig up bottles and all sorts of ceramics dating back to the 16Th century. There are places along the Thames River were there are heaps and heaps of this stuff just buried a few feet down ready for the taking.

Basically what happened was that for hundreds of years London's rubbish was taken down the Thames and dumped along the shores further down. Now people go along and dig it up and I have also found some great bits that have simply washed up on the shore.
I go mostly for the sea-glass as you can imagine not all bottles, glass and ceramics survived intact and often after a storm or a big dig you get a lot washed up. Which is good for me as I can add to the collection. The banks of the Thames River are very muddy and I don't do mud, unless I am camping in Wales lol.

Back to the man in the hole...anyway he told me about a really quite and remote beach a long way down the Thames River that is very remote and quiet. So following his advice I went in search of it, after that is swearing in blood to never tell publicly where it is or how I found it.
I did indeed find it, wasn't easy but I eventually did, Aided and abetted by my sister "E" who seems to be totally dyslexic when it comes to reading a map or directions. At one point she had it upside down...no wonder I went around in circles for 2hrs.

We got lost....a lot,..... a hell of a lot. However some times getting lost isn't actually getting lost, it's just life redirecting you to a place you would never have thought of going to. As was the case when in December 2010, we set out to find this secret beach.
Instead we found a place that is so utterly charming and beautiful.

We took these photos while there and I will tell you more about it in another post soon.

We did eventually find the beach and I am off down there tomorrow, as we have had some storms of late and there will be a fair amount washed up on the beach if I am lucky.

Much love
Lia
xXx

Hello, it's me.

2011-01-13T21:31:00.013Z

Hello Lovelies,

I know, I know, it's been a long time and you properly have forgotten me or felt abandoned by me. What can I say, sorry just won't cover it and filling you in on ALL the details will only send you to sleep. Obviously if you are having trouble sleeping just drop me an e-mail and I will give you the full unabashed edition.

I want to tell you what has happened, however the family are finally getting back to normal and I have no real desire to rock a leaky boat having spent a lot of time and energy plugging the bloody holes.

So in order to protect the innocent and some of the not so innocent I will give you the shortened and some what sanitised version of events.

In the true award ceremony style and IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER the awards go to......

My eldest son ASHLEY, for finally getting off weed.

Yes! I know you didn't know he was even on it, but hey it's not really something you shout about, OK well at lest I don't.
Ashley was never really badly behaved on it or gave me any trouble. He just had a flipping chimney placed in his head and buried himself in his room and forgot about life, friends, family, everything.
Did I try to get him off it before? YES! Did I talk to him seriously about it? YES I did!
I could have thrown him out the house, but felt that would make things worse for him and could lead to other more serious stuff. I keep him close and kept trying to help him off of it. But like all addicts you can't help them until they are ready and my son wasn't ready. I played the long wait game. I think I won!!!
I always felt we'd get there in the end; when he and I had a huge fight, something that really never happens between us and he got very nasty with me it scared the life out of him.
Ashley gave up over night, literally overnight. He asked me to take all of it away.
He's had a huge up hill struggle, but he's getting there now and has even taken up jogging and weights to help him. Slowly he is coming back to normal.

I am immensely proud of him and admire him greatly for how he has achieve this huge turn around in his life. It great to have him back, he's just wonderful and a shining star.

Next award to the hated neighbours. For being total.....i can't type the word it's to rude, but it starts with a c...!
Who made life so utterly and unbearably difficult. They upped the nightmare. I didn't think they could get any worse, but was clearly just deluding myself. I can't go into details for legal reasons...never thought I would hear myself say that!!!
Suffice as to say when I can talk you will know. PROMISE.

The next award goes to PATRICIA, the beautiful daughter, who left home last year....

Strange award I know. You see she has left and come back before, however Patricia got her own flat from the council and that means she won't ever be coming home to live again.
This sent me into a funny little spiral. Stupidly I felt abandoned, finished with, not needed, useless, worthless and completely bereft. Silly really because I still have the boys at home.
But for some reason her leaving meant all of the above and more.

However she sensed this..bless her and she has made lots of effort to include me in her life and the plans for her flat and future. We have been designing her flat and saving money and are about to start decorating it in the next couple of weeks, photo's to follow.

Patricia and I are in fact closer than ever and she is still the constant joy in my life.

The next award goes to CALLUM, for being so completely amazing.

He's come along way, has done very well at college despite the chaos around him.
He is now applying to 5 universities and is expected to get into 3 of them.
Callum has done all of this with very little financial support from me or the state recently I found out that he could have got a grant for college and would have been getting it from 16, but he decided that he wanted to do it for himself and by himself. He's amazing.
He has also made a few short films and was chosen to make some video's for an up and coming band.
He has shown a lot of love and affection for his siblings and been very understanding of Ashley's struggle.

For doing well at college in all the chaos, doing it by himself, and for just being amazing he deserves my uttermost respect, (some kids would use that as an excuse to not get up and on with it all).

The next award goes jointly to FIBROMYALGIA, DEPRESSION, HOSPITAL & WEIGHT GAIN.

Fibromyalgia..for just being a pain all over, for getting the better of me, just when I was doing so well. For forcing me to be bed bound for weeks on end.
Depression..for setting in along with the fibro' and taking over my life by becoming close best friends with the fibro' making everything worse; just when I truly didn't need it to. Took me a very long time to work out what had gone wrong and blamed myself for it all. Turns out they are evil twins who like to tag team....buy I know who they are now and how they operate. I will win.
Hospital....for while eventually taking care of me and the nurses were great. However they didn't listen and this made it worse.
Weight Gain..for making me put on weight due to fibro', depression & hospital...a nightmare.
I went from 12st 5lbs to 13st 7lbs, really annoyed and it didn't help that the hospital gave me meds that meant I was bound to put on weight, which depressed me more and made fibro' worse.

The next award goes to MOVING HOUSE & CHRISTMAS.

For Moving house....now your all thinking that must have been stressful, funnily enough it turned out to be a relief. I have no idea why I resisted it for so long.
Did we sell the house, no we simply gave it back to the mortgage company. Is that a collective in take of breath I hear!!!!
I know you think I am mad, but as many of you know I don't do anything that involves the family without due care and consideration. After a long drawn out battle with myself it made sense. You see we were lease holders and as such had no say in what was going on around us. When the council wanted to do improvements to the area they sent those of us who had been smart enough to buy, (so we thought) a huge massive bill for the works. My bill would have ruined us, with no way ever of getting out of that house and away from the hated neighbours, who had not brought.
This meant that for the rest of my life I would be paying for them to be made snug and comfortable, so they weren't going to leave. It put me in a position I didn't want.
I came to an agreement with the mortgage company and moved on. We did well and have since heard from the good neighbours that their bill has now doubled.....I have no regrets.
The new flat is great and rented, the maintenance is the landlords headache and I like that. If I don't like the neighbours I can move.....
Also it is helping me to get better again, which I would put above owning my own house any day.

For Christmas...just because while we were in some ways not able to celebrate it the way we had in the past; it reminded us of who we all were and what we had all been thorough and how we had stuck it out together. Patricia stay here at the new place, it was quiet and just us and I think we really needed that. New Year was just as good.

The final award goes to FRANCIS..(with an i)... for being my hero.

When I was faced with some real life changing decisions Francis (with an i) was calm and clear.
When I argued with myself about the house and my failure to get things right he stood steadfast by my side and listen to me go over and over and over it all. Finally telling me that I hadn't been a failure that in fact I had managed single handily to hold a family together, go to work, run a home and keep it. That what was happening was beyond my remit, but that my response to it was and that he had every faith I would do what was right for us all.

For reassuring me, being there, having the wisdom to know I am a nut job with a heart and loving me anyway, he has my undying adoration and love.

Well I think that covers it all as briefly as I can and I feel like I have blown away the cobwebs, time to let the butterflies out now........

Oh yeah and one for ALL of you....... just for putting up with me....I have missed you all.

Much Love
Lia
xXx

Boo!!!!! Tiggers Back.

2010-06-20T15:32:00.004+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

Bet you all thought that I had dropped of the face of the Earth.
Ok! Ok! I'll give you the fact that I did for a while there and I guess I really do owe you all an explanation for my long absence.

I did decide to take a bit of time away from blogging, as I felt that I was going a bit stale and was in danger of boring you all to sleep or worse. I had some articles that I was going to write up for you all and then take a month off. In the hope that I would come back all bright and sparkly again. Got a bit more than I bargained for.

I woke up one morning swollen and puffed up and with symptoms of a serious hang over...which is all well and good if you drink, but I don't. I was also a grey colour and felt very very weak. I had been feeling a little unwell for a few days, but nothing like before, so had put it down to maybe over doing it in the gym.
Then I got sick for a week or so and then I got really ill, which made me depressed a bit and all I really wanted to do was pull the covers up over my head and lie down for a very very long time.

Having done so well to get better and to find my life back in my hands again, it came as a total shock to find that I couldn't even get my head off the pillow and that I was now having to add chronic fatigue to the list of things fibromyalgia has given me to deal with.

Now I will admit that I was bloody totally miserable and felt that I had worked so hard to get better that this was undeserved and so I definitely wallowed in self pity, not that I really knew that I was doing so at the time. That took me a little longer to work out...gosh I am silly at times.

I did learn that wallowing around in self pity wasn't actually going to make me one tiny bit better and that in fact I had helped myself into misery faster than the fibromyalgia was going to let me out of it. They say that misery likes company, I would like to add that misery very much enjoys the company of fibromyalgia and in fact they actually became very good friends, went on holiday together and have now moved into a flat, set up home and brought a dog.!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Seriously that's how well they got along.

Sooner or later I had to come back to my senses and stop being a baby about it all. As you know by now I don't really want to let this stupid fibromyalgia beat me and in general like to give it a run for it's money. I think I got complacent with it. I had done really well and really did think this was going to be as easy as the England football team in the World cup to beat, but it appears that fibromyalgia is a World cup champ at this game and it cheats as the lines men and referee seem to be on it's side.

I have been up and about now for about ten days now and can honestly say that I am almost back to normal, unsure what normal is any more, but I am more myself than I have been. So I would say I am as normal as I can expect to be.

My fighting spirit has been restored and I now realise that taking my eye off the ball and not keeping my head in the game is not something I have any desire to repeat. I have an action plan now, basically I am going to take a big bat and beat the hell out of this illness at every possible turn. I have worked out that keeping a diary of events and foods and rest is going to be a good idea.

I'm not now, never have been and most certainly will never be a girl who has a routine, which is by all accounts exactly what I am suppose to have in order to stay on top of it.
I'd go mad if I had to do the same thing every day for the rest of my life, it's so not me.
I'm a fly by the seat of my pants kinda girl.

Anyway I'm back and fighting on. Misery and fibromyalgia can carry-on living happily together, but threes a crowd and I have no intention of moving in with them again.

I have missed you and thought about you all and thank you for the e-mails which I found a few days ago, along with all your concerned comments on my last post.
I'm truly sorry to have worried you all and to be honest I really should have been more considerate of you all and your feelings towards me. I have no excuse as I said I was busy wallowing in self pity, not a pretty thing to do and certainly not a considerate thing to do.
I can only apologise and promise to not do it again.

Much love to you all and I look forward to catching up with you all

Lia
xx

Please! Ladies, A Bit Of Decorum

2010-04-27T18:28:00.004+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

Sorry I have been A.W.O.L. for a while, but to be honest it is this silly illness again. Some times it makes me really tired and I need to sleep lots and then when I am awake I am trying to look after my family, who bless them take it all in their stride and are very good humoured and kind about it all.
I picked up a tummy bug from Francis and it sort of floored me. But am ok now.

I have just finished watching one of the single most stupid programmes I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. At first I sat through it because I couldn't find the remote control to throw at the telly and then after a few minutes it was a case of, I really couldn't believe how dump, stupid and desperate some women really are.

This show was about older women and younger men. For obvious reasons this always intrigues me, which ever way round it is. As you know there is an age gap between me and Francis. Although you would be hard pressed at times to work out who is the youngest in this relationship, as I am such a big child at times and he can be a real grumpy old man.
Well maybe that's not totally true. The bit about me being a child is, I'm so immature at times it scares me and Francis is so mature it scares everyone else at times. He really is a man beyond his years and people are always surprised by him, me included.

This show was about women who go to Turkey to find themselves a younger husband.
I never can understand why people go in search of this type of relationship. I certainly didn't go on the hunt for it, and neither did Francis. We meet and fell in love and have been inseparable ever since.

The attraction was not that I was older than him or that he was younger than me.
Sometimes you just click with a person and if your lucky you find them at the start of your life and travel through life together. That wasn't the way it was for me and Francis is my 3rd long term relationship.

However he is certainly the best one and it's not because I get to play boss and be in charge of our relationship. No-one wears the trousers in our relationship. Sometimes I take the lead in things and sometimes it is Francis who takes the lead. We play to each others strengths and supports each other through our weaknesses, but hey isn't that what being in a partnership is all about.

The best advice I can ever give anyone in a relationship is that you have to work as a team.
If you have a team of horses pulling your wagon and one goes to the left and the other pulls to the right, your going nowhere, but if they both move forward at the same pace together, going in the same direction a smooth journey will be had by all.
The best marriages I ever saw were like this and they lasted the longest.

These women go out on holiday and expect to find a lasting relationship within two weeks. Good luck with that one!!!! How mental is that!!!

One woman went on a date and was over an hour late. When the man asked her why she was late she berated him about who the hell did he think he was, a young boy telling her, a feminist what time she should or shouldn't turn up!!
Well correct me if I am wrong but if I am to meet with someone the least I can do is turn up on time, it's called manners love!
What the hell did it have to do with being a feminism? It's rude to be late for any one, plain and simple.
If the other person is putting themselves out there and going to the trouble of turning up on time for you, is it too hard to accord them the same respect. Whatever their age!
But that's not really what got me about that little scene, for me it was the fact that she knew full well she was going to meet a man much younger then her, he was in fact about 27 and she was about 53. What got me was that she called him a BOY. Again correct me if I'm wrong, but at 27 that makes him a man. So already she is diminishing him to the level of a child and asserting her dominance.

Yes! yes! I know men never really grow up and there is a Peter Pan quality to men, but that's just one of the things about men that make them such wonderful creatures to spend your life with and be around, what ever their age. There is a sense of fun in men that is irresistible, to me any way. I have men in my life who are in their 50s and I just adore the Peter-Pan in all of them.

I was once told that if I wanted my sons to grow into men that it was a good idea to treat them like men and not to mummy them, this I would say holds true for men of any age. Too often I have seen women mummifying their partners and taking charge or asserting their dominance and then saying that their partners are useless or not man enough.

Desperation is no foundation for a relationship. Neither is thinking that you can go into any relationship with the upper hand just because you are the older party. There is a lot to be said about treating people as you wish to be treated.

One woman had been in a relationship with her younger husband for 8yrs and went on and on about how wonderful it was and how it was all so perfect. But under the surface it wasn't all that and a bag of chips. Her husband often went missing for several days and came back exhausted and slept. He also seemed to enjoy spending her money and the life style it afforded him. She on the other hand seemed to be drunk most of the time and acted like an irresponsible teenager, as if she was having her second childhood.

Hardly a great advert for an age gap relationship.
It really angers me when I see stuff like this. Not because I think my relationship with Francis is the perfect example, but rather because I strongly feel that this type of display is why we have faced so much prejudiced.
People like to judge and yes! yes! I see the irony, I know that this is what I am doing to these people, but please bare with me when I say that there is good and bad in all things, I'm just sick to death of seeing only the bad.

There are plenty of woman sharing their lives very successfully and happily with younger men.
No one bats an eyelid at younger women taking up with older men. You don't see a whole stream of shows about the downside of those relationships and I bet there are plenty.

I really don't care about who you are in a relationship with or even for that matter your sexual preference. I just wish that when people get into relationships that are shall we say, beyond the normal, they don't bring others in the same type of relationship down to the level of side show freaks for others to pick holes in and ridicule. A bit of decorum, dignity and respect wouldn't go a miss. I mean would it kill them!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you want me, I'll be banging my head off the wall in the corner again.
Much love
Lia
xx

Advice Please Ladies

2010-04-21T10:46:00.005+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

Thanks for all your comments on the last post. The planes are back in the sky over London. But there are very few of them and it is still strangely quiet.. You see we live right on top of city airport and there has been nothing in or out of there for days.
I have noticed the bird song much more which is enjoyable.

I found the camera cable and am sorting out a few things to show you, so watch this space.

Ladies I need some advice. I have always had rather nice natural nails. They have never been overly long, but I have always despite my job kept them nice and during holidays I have even managed to grow them longer.

Problem is that since I got in the pool they have gone to pot, completely.
So much so that even Francis has commented on how dreadful they look.
They look like I have been gnawing on them, something I have not done since early childhood.
They keep splitting down the nail, not across as is normal but down it which is so painful.

Do any of you have any advice as to how I can stop this or do you know of any really good products I can use to strengthen the nails.

The photo's above show you how bad they have got and I really don't like them looking like this, so if you do know of any products that can help with this please let me know.

Off swimming
much love
Lia
xx

Media Volcanos.

2010-04-19T14:32:00.014+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

Had a great weekend and will tell you more about it as soon as I find the cable to the camera and can up load the photos. Look it's here in this house somewhere, but it's a very naughty cable and is hiding somewhere. Really it's not me who has misplaced it, what sort of slovenly housewife do you take me for!!!!!!!!! Answers on a postcard please.

Am sick to death of listening to people moaning about the unpronounceable volcano and the nightmare it is causing. If you listen to the news it's all the Governments fault and certainly Gordon Browns fault.
Yeah right, Gordon Brown set off the volcano and is now mucking it all up.

Fact -it's a natural disaster, nothing anyone could do.
Fact- people are stranded, but the Government didn't ground the planes, The European Organisation For The Safety Of Air Navigation, also known as Eurocontrol are the guys that closed the skies.
Now if you don't know who these guys are let me put it to you this way, they have more powers that any government when it comes to the safety of our planes flying over Europe and when they say they are closed they mean it. That means that even our military can fly, unless the Government over rule them, due to a state of emergency, which frankly this isn't. There is also talk that we will run out of food on our news. God the media people are driving me nuts.

If your reading this in a country outside of the European Union and think it doesn't effect you, try flying into London, Paris, or Rome today and see how far you get. Our Prime Minister couldn't take off today and Mr Obama himself couldn't land here if he wanted to.
The media are fixating on the Government and it's involvement, they have to do what they are told and right now it's grounding the planes and waiting.

In the meantime they Government are to send out 3 Navy ships to rescue the Brits stranded abroad and that in itself is an adventure, normally you can't get anywhere near these ships.
The ships HMS Ark Royal, HMS Ocean and HMS Albion are heading for Spain and unspecified Channel ports. I'm not sure that I would be happy about being stuck abroad, but I wouldn't say no to a trip home aboard one of these. (Dances round house singing, All the nice girls love a sailor)!!!!

As usual in this country, or so it would appear in ever increasing volumes, the media is going mad over all this. They have reported that the last plane to fall out of the sky because of volcanic ash was in the 1980's, well frankly my dear I don't give a damn. You see I don't want one single plane to fall out of the sky, not even a teeny tiny little one and certainly not one loaded with adults and children. A friend of mine has one of her kids stranded abroad right now and while it's not ideal at least that child is safe. My friend said that she doesn't care how long it takes to get her child home so long as they arrive here safely.

Above is a photo of the ash cloud taken on April 17th, top left of the photo is Iceland and you can just see it, the rest of the white cloud is a volcanic ash cloud.

Above is where the cloud is now and where they expect it to be tomorrow, scary when you see it like this. Looks like a case of the UK being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but short of moving the country I guess we are just stuck under it for now.

Thing is it's not just a job of keep the skies safe, what about those of us on the ground. Not sure I would have enough tea-bags in the house for 400passengers who just happen to drop in.

Can you imagine the headlines around the world if one single plane comes down because the media are running the show right now. I swear to God I always thought that the reason for Govenerments was to sort this type of thing out. Not the sodding Newspapers or programme editors.

The World has seen the devastation of what can happen when planes are brought down over major cities. The thought of another 9/11 should be enough of all of us to stop moaning, the media to stop over dramatising this and for us all to find a way to help anyone stuck any where in the world right now.

Lets bring loved ones home safely, if not on time, it's the right thing to do. Life is far too short and precious to be messed around with, just because the media think they know what's best for us all or that they know better than the powers that be doesn't make them right and who are they exactly to try and run the show. The media can sit around all day pontificating and frankly that does seem to be what's on the agenda, but the safety of us all, both in the air and on the ground must be the first priority of any government.

Oh well am off swimming now. By the way it is eerily quiet in the skies over London, normally from where we live we can see them and here them stacking up over London waiting to come in.
Very reminiscence of 200, but thankfully not for the same reason.

I hope everyone gets home safely and soon.
much love
Lia
xx

This photo is just what can happen when planes were sitting on the tarmac after the volcano
Mount Pinatubo, erupted in the Philippines.
View of World Airways DC-10 aeroplane sitting on its tail because of weight of ash on June 15, 1991.
Cubi Point Naval Air Station. USN photo by R. L. Rieger. June 17, 1991.

Your Guess Is As Good As Mine!!!!

2010-04-14T20:51:00.004+01:00

Hello My Darlings,
Thanks for all your e-mails and messages on your blogs, trying to let me know what was wrong. Thing was I didn't put comment moderation on and the settings were saying it wasn't on.
Oh well just another mad day or 12 in the happy world of blogger.

Thanks for not abandoning me. Your the best followers in the world.

Okay so here's a quiz for you all, well more of a conundrum really.

As you all know I'm well into my health campaign now, having declared war on my fibromyalgia and I am most definitely winning the battle of the Bulge. Last weigh-in which was yesterday said I am now 12st 9lbs. Have also gone up to 40 laps in the pool a day.

Only 3lbs since my last weigh-in, however we have had 2 birthdays and Easter and another birthday to come at the end of the month...this is what I call silly chocolate season, as in our house a birthday is not a bithday unless I make them double triple chocolate cake and huge ones at that. It's hard to resist chocolate. Even on a health kick, but I think I did well not to gain any weight.

Back to the conundrum.
On Saturday we went out for the day (but that's another post) and I wanted to look good, so I raided a wardrobe I haven't been near for over a year and found some clothes that fitted now.
A quick look in it and I realised that there was a whole load of clothes that looked promising and some lovely stuff I had sort of chosen to forget about...to fat to get in them basically!

All day I thought about the wardrobe and what treasures it might be hiding. For the life of me I could not really remember what was in it. As soon as we got back, dinner cooked, kitchen tidied and cleaned, my sister packed off home and all the boys happy doing whatever it is they do in the computer world, I made a beeline for my wardrobe of secrets.

I should be ashamed to say this but I'm way to excited to be embarrassed I actually found £400 worth of unworn and still tagged clothes:-

4 white blouses, all different.
1 black jacket.
3 tops all the same but different colours.
1 top that is exquisite and has beading on it, that in fact I spent an age sewing on.
1 top.
1 pair shorts white.
1 pair cropped jeans, white.
1 pair of black trousers for evening wear.
2 dresses.
1 jumper dark red.
1 wrap dress purple and black.
1 kimono style top with butterflies on it in blue.
1 beach top pink more like a dress than a top.
1 beach top light blue.
2 tee shirts the same but different colours.
3 pairs of pjs cotton for summer. pink, yellow, and blue

Almost a whole new wardrobe ready and waiting for summer. Oh I should hang my head in shame........................... however whooooopeeeee for me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I spent Saturday evening trying on clothes, my bedroom looked like a bomb site and I had to keep running up and down the stairs to look in the big mirror downstairs. Nearly everything in that wardrobe fits, there are a few snug fits, but another month or so and it'll be better.

Now I have about 3 different sizes in the wardrobe ranging from a UK 14 to a UK 18.
There are 5 pairs of trousers all different, lots of skirts and dresses and tops in all shapes sizes and colours.
So why do some 14s fit nicely, while some 16s won't do up. Some 16s that fit nice and 18 that are too snug or won't do up. Then there are the 16s and 18s that are hanging off me and need to be taken in???????

Sorry to shout but
WHAT BLOOMING SIZE AM I?

Seriously it's mad how can a 14 do up, yet an 18 be snug. I don't shop cheap, in general I don't spent a lot on myself....yes, yes I am aware of the £400 worth of tagged unworn clothes but I'm not being fashion driven and tend to buy in good shops when they have a sale on, but only if I really like something, some of those clothes have been in there awhile. Patricia said that some of them are from when we went shopping for her trip to Crete which was 2yrs ago in June. She remembers making me buy myself some clothes then and helping to pick them.

Any way I digress again ha ha!!!!! If talking was an Olympic event I'd be a gold medallist or is that mentalist.... oh that was so nearly funny.

Francis says he doesn't care what size I am so long as I wear the blooming clothes and am happy within my skin and that it's far more important than worrying about the blooming label size.
Ok so he has a point and is properly right....but if you tell him I will cry and scream and stamp my feet!!!!

Am I the only woman with a mad range of sizes in her wardrobe that has a weird way of fitting you when the size is supposedly small and not doing up when it's supposedly big? I actually got stuck in a size 18 dress and Francis had to come and help me out of it, while laughing his head off. Thank the Gods it wasn't the first thing I tried on or I might have broken into the nearest chocolate factory and eaten my way through the contents! I mean, well that sort of thing couls seriously demoralise a girl.

We can put a man on the moon, but we can't get correct dress sizes.
Oh well why am I moaning I have a whole load of new clothes to wear and have reacquainted myself with a whole load I had forgotten I liked so much.

I guess size really doesn't matter after all.

much love
Lia
xx

Hide and Seek

2010-04-13T11:43:00.003+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

Don't you all you beautiful today. I found you all.

For some reason known only to blogger your comments were not coming up on my page and I thought you had all abandoned me on mass.

Which I know sounds daft as a brush (why are brushes daft, not that I have ever met a really clever one or it would have a far better job than sweeping up dirt.....,I have the oddest of feelings that I might just have answered my own question......oh well I digress!).

But not having seen any of you all for days 12 to be precise I was beginning to think that I had broken some unknown to me golden rule of blogging and as a result you had all been so mortified and offend that you were all showing your disapproval of my behaviour by not indulging me with your company.

I really did think that I was on some sort of blogging Mary Celeste.

But come the morning and cometh the comments you have all left me, there they all were. You have left me 31 comments over the past 12 days and I only got one of them, how very odd.
Do you think it was the powers that be at blogger blocking them all because I threatened to take my blog elsewhere or just the Spring fairies being a little naughty.

What ever it was I am so terribly pleased to see you all still love me, yippee!!!!!!

I have loads to blog about, wait till you hear what happened when some stupid ignorant woman called me a cougar!!!!!! Or exactly what I think of Mersea Island in Essex.
And don't get me started on David Cameron quoting J F Kennedy "Ask not what your Country can do for you, but what you can do for your Country" speech at me this lunch time!!!!!!!
Can I please go live on the Moon until the election is over, it's driving me nuts already, never before have I been so confused by politics.
It would appear to me right now that they are all the same out for them selves party, just with different colours!!!!! They seems to be very little differences between them all.

Well I am very pleased to find you all again and am off now to swim for a while.
Oh and I so want to tell you about Nordic Walking that I recently found out about and my new volunteering thingy that I am doing this year.

Love ya all and so missed you, should have known better that you wouldn't just abandon me.
Much love
Lia
xx

Was It Something I Said?

2010-04-12T16:38:00.003+01:00

Hello Darlings,

Did I say something to upset each and every one of you?
Only according to my post edits no-one has been near me since the 4th of April which is 12 days ago!!!!!

You are still all out there, I know you all are as I have been leaving you comments, but for some reason you lot have sent me to Coventry.

Now I'm more than sure that Coventry is a nice place to visit but I wasn't planning on moving there any time soon.

So what is it?

Do I look fat in this blog?
Am I just boring ?
OR worse than boring have I upset you all, was it something I said????????????????

Dancing Man

2010-04-04T23:33:00.006+01:00

Hello Darlings,

In an attempt to cheer myself up. (I'm feeling pretty down at the moment) I thought I would share this with you.

I can't watch this video without laughing and crying all at once.

There is something very magical about this video.

I hope you enjoy it.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Easter In A Straight Jacket!

2010-04-04T14:55:00.007+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

I do hope you are all having a good time.
My Easter is rather flat. No family, no friends, no get together. All plans fallen by the road side and to be honest I am really fed-up.

For starters Francis (with an i) kicked off on Friday about how he didn't need breakfast in bed, was a big man who was capable of getting his own breakfast. (Pity he didn't remember that today) So I left him to get on with it.
Then when I asked him to come to the gym with me he replied "Why would I want to go, you know I hate swimming. All that up and down rubbish, you must be mad" I tried to explain that I had him booked in to which he replied "well you should have asked me".

I decided that he was perhaps over tried and just wanted to sit around and not have to do anything or be anywhere and that he does work really hard to keep me, so if he wanted to just be at home that that would be fine. After all this is his Easter holiday as well. No point in being angry and upset with him. Why row for the sake of it, I was annoyed I won't deny it, but like I said I can't see the point in forcing the issue or even making the whole thing into an issue.

So I went alone and had a good time . I met a South African women who is one of the most gracful swimmers I have ever seen. We were sharing a lane and at one point I was just watching her and admiring her easy grace and flow with the water. We got talking and it turns out that she has been a swimmmer all her life, having grown up with an outdoor and indoor pool, lucky girl!
She described herself as half fish. I told her that I had only just come back to swimming and was still trying to get myself to breath and swim correctly and get the right lines.

Swimming isn't just about getting in the water and thrashing about. Most people swim badly and as a result get too tired or suffer injuries that frankly are avoidable. The basic rule is the more splashing and waves you make, the less efficiently you are swimming. The idea is to glide through the water and not battle with it. She very kindly said that she would put me through my paces and it turned out to be a very good training session. With lots of very good pointers that I had forgotten. She also said that I am a natural and that it wouldn't be long before I was half fish myself. So I am very smug with myself over that. She's going to meet me there next week and train with me again. Such a lovely lady. Silly me didn't get her name, how rude of me to be so remiss. Lucky my mother doesn't know!!!!!

On Saturday I always see my sister E, but this week she wasn't up to it. Which was a shame as I was going to take her to a nearby farm as they had an open day and it is lambing season.
I know she would have completely enjoyed it all and I was looking forward to it. So yesterday was flat. I did housework instead, not my favourite pass time.

Today was meant to be a family Easter Sunday lunch, but Patricia couldn't make it as she has to work. But Mr Francis (with an i) has gone out with his family, gets a phone call and takes off as if his arse is on fire. I didn't get invited, I never get invited out with his family. Nine years nearly we have been together. I always invite them, they don't come, but they get an invite.
I'm really mad about this and am sitting here stewing over whether or not I want to make an issue of this and I think I do!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's not that I want to go, it's that I'd like to be invited and after nearly 9yrs, I am wondering when his family will get beyond the age-gap shite!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm also annoyed that Francis (with an i) allows this to go on. I wouldn't let any of my family do this to him. In fact I have told mine that if they can't get on board with this relationship that I will not see them. We are a package, a team, a couple and have been together long enough now to have proved that we can make this work and that we are indeed a serious couple.

It is to his shame that he allows this state of affairs to continue. It's not as though he didn't know what he was getting into when we started this. He pursued me. I was the one with doubts, who had far more to loose than him. I have in fact always taken full responsibility for our relationship when people have said things.
But he knew he was getting into a relationship with an older woman, he's aware of that and was in fact the one that said we had to be sure of what we were doing, as he didn't ever want to hear the "we knew it wouldn't last/work" and that there were too many people who would get hurt by us or point fingers at us for being different. For daring to fall in love and cock a snoot at the normal conventions of society. About time he grew a pair and lived up to his words.
God, I'm so annoyed!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tomorrow is Monday and I can't wait to get back in the pool. Anything to take my mind of this seriously flat, dull and boring Easter.

Anyone fancy a house guest for next Easter.

And don't get me started on my youngest again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On March 31st, Callum was 18.
Did we have a party....NO
Did he want a party.....NO

He didn't want anything, no cards, no presents, no party, no trip to the pub, no friends over.
He wanted nothing, nada, zilch, zero................

One day I will do that to the lot of them. Next time they say they want nothing, that's exactly what they will get a big fat nothing from me.
While I head for the airport, passport and credit card in hand, now that sounds like a plan.

If you want me I'll be the lunatic in the corner banging her head off the wall in a straight jacket.

much love
Lia
xx

Ps. The beautiful Patricia just phoned and is hoping to make it here later afternoon tomorrow, all being well at work....light on the horizon.

Nutty As A Chocolate Cake.

2010-04-01T23:02:00.006+01:00

Hello Again My Lovelies,

It would appear that blogger has heard my moaning and sorted itself out.
I'm going to catch up with you all over the Easter weekend as we have nothing planned.
Thankfully Francis has the whole 4 days off. I say thankfully as he has been working really hard and has been doing 6days a week since Christmas. It's 23:10 and he is flaked out next to me fast asleep. He needs this time off. Tomorrow I am taking him to my gym in order to use the spa, he doesn't know and I am cooking him breakfast in bed, so long as he stays in bed that is.
We don't normally roll our blind down and shut the curtains but I have tonight as I don't want him waking up at first light.

See the cake at the top of the post. Nutty made it and send me the photo stating that was meant to be for Sunday lunch but that she doubted it would make that long. I think she is trying to tease me with it. If she's not careful I will drive the 2 hours up the motorway just to have a slice.
If your reading this Nutty remeber that I can get past your dogs Mwhahaha!!!!!!!

Speaking of recipes, I think I might have perfected the bacon egg cheese cupcake things.
I made them again and they went down very well, so I will put them up tomorrow with photos for you all to enjoy.
As for the polenta pizza crust I haven't done that yet, but the boys have asked for it this weekend so I will get that one to you as well. But I just want to try it one more time before I give you that one.

I have been swimming this week and increased my laps to 30 now. It's going better than I thought and I am noticing a difference in my shape. For a start it's not such a struggle to actually get into my swim costume. It was a wee-bit tight, well ok it was a lot tight, but as it is the biggest one I own (I have 3) and didn't require a shoe-horn and a tub of butter it get into it's the one I am using. No way was I going to buy another even bigger one!!! Anyway this week I have noticed that it is going on easier. I'm not one for mirrors, haven't been for years (the having no hair thing is just to hard to look at.) But I did get some photos of me at the start and I compare them this week in the mirror and thigs definately look better.

I found a new pair of trousers that I brought in September and when I got home they were to tight, so I shoved them away. I got them out this week and found that they are now too big for me and keep falling down, so I will need to take them in. Had to buy some new undies as well as they keep falling down. So while my weight hasn't changed much I have gone down a dress size.
I hope to drop another one before summer really kicks in as I have some great dresses that I would love to get into again.

One last thing, the boiler blew up!!!!!
No heating and no hot water for at least two weeks. Plumbers are like looking for rocking horse poo and about as useless. The house is freezing downstairs as it is mostly open plan, not a good idea when you have no heating. We have electric back up radiators for upstairs, so we are all mostly upstairs at the moment. We are having to go to friends and family for showers and baths. I'm ok as I go to the gym, but it's annoying the hell out of the boys. Washing up is a nightmare ( I refuse to have a dish washer, long boring story).
Suddenly when you can't just turn the taps on you become very aware of how much water you really do use. I feel a little guilty to be honest, suddenly it seems really selfish to have the luxury of just turning a tap, when so many in the world have to struggle.

Will catch up with you all soon, I have missed you all.
Much love
Lia
xx

No Wonder Others Are Moving!!!!

2010-03-29T20:40:00.005+01:00

Hello Lovelies,

I am fed up with blogger, it's driving me nuts and it would appear that I am not the only one. A few log buddies have move their blogs to other sites for similar reasons and I don't think at this rate I will be far behind them.

You see the reason that I haven't put a post up for a few days is that I have been unable to, due to some stupid glitch. Not content with that, but I am having trouble even seeing some of your posts and when I do get into them most of the photos are missing.

I don't even have any idea if this post will get out to you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Haven't done much at all this weekend.
I did do some messing about with recipes, but as I am perfecting them it is pointless to go into to many details as yet.

First recipe is a polenta pizza, (or cornmeal to my American friends) I have made the base for the pizza's 3 different ways now. The first two goes were ok but not quiet what I was looking for and this led to me taking the best bits of the two recipes and working with them to perfect the crust. Still a little more work to do till it is right and I can boost about it to you all.

Also been making a baked egg, cheese and bacon dish that you bake in cupcake tins, had a go at two of those, but can't decide which is the best recipe to share. The boys love them (Francis, Ashley and Callum), but the jury is out on which are the best ones. Also as it was a bit of an adhoc recipe, a little of this, a bit of that and was adapted from a recipe that I considered too expensive, it too could also need a bit of a tweak.

I am going to make both of the recipes again this week and get the boys to compare. Plus I could do with getting the right quantities written down before I share. Don't want you to be disappointed with the result should you want to try them. Got some great photos that blogger won't let me load. So not a lot of point trying to put up either recipe at this time.

I am beginning to understand why people keep leaving blogger to set up elsewhere.
I have tried to load this a few times now...oh this is nuts will try one more time.

Much love to you all, hope you get to see this.
Lia
xx

Bad Moody Me!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-25T19:29:00.005Z

Hello You Lovelies,

I am in a bad mood, I have no idea why I am in a bad mood. Just that I am in one.
It's gone on for days now and has now reached a point of annoying me, which is making it worse.

One of my older friends has told me that it's rather normal for women of my age to be pissed off for no discernible reason and that she suspects hormone levels.

I, on the other hand think that I am just being a moody cow for no real reason. Well no reason I can put a finger on.

EXCEPT!!!!!!!!!

That is of course if you discount that despite swimming 5 days a week and managing to do a quarter of a mile each time and only losing 1lb in two weeks. People keep saying that it's because I am building muscles and they weigh more ....whatever, it's not easing my mood.

I hate veg, fish, chicken, fruit and any thing that is even vaguely healthy. Don't get me started on natural yoghurt and herbal teas!!!!!!!!

I want to eat chocolate and drink pepsi or coffee and biscuits. I want chips and white bread and butter or scones and jam, anything but the bloody healthy rubbish I HAVE to throw down my throat.

3 months now!!!! 3 long bloody months of healthy tosh and I am truly fed-up with the whole thing.

I know, I know, I know that I am doing the right thing, but just this week I am sick and tired of this whole thing.
Sod Fibromyalgia, bloody, bloody, bloody!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well that's that off my chest some what!!!!!!!
But if you hear distant screaming you'll know it's me.
Mind you if you also hear that a woman in her 40's from London has drowned in a big vat of chocolate you'll also know that I broke my diet..............it's not a diet it's a healthy new way to live without pain, so why does it feel like diet torture hell right now!!!!!!!!!!

NORMAL SERVICE WILL BE RESTORED, ONCE MISS THING HERE COMES DOWN OF THE MOOD SWING.

much love
Lia
xx
EDIT :- forgot to say that I am now 12st 10lbs.........uck!!!

Is It Time To Draw A Line Under The Holocaust?

2010-03-21T10:53:00.004Z

Hello Darlings,

Thanks for your wonderful responses to my last post. I don't want to be a meanie, really I don't. I just want to be able spend time with people who take time out of their busy lives to spend time with me.

I don't really have many friends in my life. Although I do have some really great friends, they tend to be scattered around the Globe. So having other friends around the Globe is almost perfectly natural to me. As you all know I speak to Nutty on a daily basis, but she is 150 miles up the motorway and a 2 1/2 hour drive. If we lived nearer we would see each other all the time. Friendships can easily be formed regardless of time and distance and the inter-net is fantastic for that, but I don't think we should ever lose sight of the basic rules of friendship and one of those is about putting in the effort, which you all do in abundance and have made an impact on my life. I am very grateful and thankful for that and have become fond of you all.

On Sundays I often watch a show call "The Big Questions" it's on BBC 1, one of todays questions was "Is it time to draw a line under the holocaust?". For obvious reasons I do have an interest in a question about the holocaust. Not just because I am Jewish, but also just on a very human level. I am aware that there are people out there who either totally disbelieve that the holocaust took place or who believe that it is over exaggerated, but that's not what the question was about and I don't want to get too bogged down in the details of that. People are entitled in my humble opinion to believe in what they wish to believe in. Life as I always say is about choices and I am no-one to remove choice or freedom of speech. I may not believe in what you or they believe in, however I would defend your right to believe as you wish, so long as you are not about to murder innocent peoples or oppress them and make them bend to your will. None of us are Gods, to play so mercilessly with peoples lives.

The premiss of the question was that now that the perpetrators of the atrocities are in their dotage years, being around about 80 to 90 yrs old should we still be trying to track them down and bring them to justice. Many seemed to think that enough time has passed that it is time for us to stop looking for them and bringing them to justice. That in fact no-one wants to see someone that age in the dock.

I disagree and had to ask myself why!!
Is it because I am Jewish?
Would I feel the same way if it was a Catholic or a Muslim?
Is it because I have a vengeful nature?
Is it my natural instinct and sense of justice?
Or indeed all of the above!!!!!!!!

Having worked it through my brain I have come to the conclusion that it is right to bring these people to justice. They committed crimes against humanity and if we do not bring them all to justice by tracking them down, what ever their age, we ourselves are guilty of crimes against humanity.

It is indeed a crime against humanity, to not do anything. When we sit on our collective hands and do nothing we send a message that says, go out and commit the worst atrocities you can think of, it's okay, lay low, disappear, we won't trouble you. Get married raise a family, become respectable, a pillar of your community. Even enjoy your old age and dotage. Play with the children you have, the grandchildren they give you and even the great grandchildren What ever it is you wish to do, even grow old, all the joys of life you denied others with your crimes.

Since time began there have been many many crimes against humanity and in the last century
Bosnia and Rwanda were but two of them. Then there are the crimes that the likes of Saddam Hussain committed. I could go on for hours naming them all, but that's not my point.
I seriously believe that we must bring all perpetrators of crimes against humanity to justice. We owe it to the victims, to their families and to ourselves. You never know when you will be next on some crazy lunatics list.

"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."

-- by Martin Niemöller, prominent German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor, best known as the author of the poem First they came....

Oh and please don't think that I am against ordinary service personnel, far from it. They do an amazing job protecting us against the mad men , a job I wouldn't want to do. I am talking about the heavy weights in all this.

To let the serious perpetrators of some of the most serious crimes against humanity, to forgive the likes of Hitler is to shame all of humanity.

Being A Little Meanie!!!!!!!!

2010-03-19T14:05:00.005Z

Hello Darlings,

Thanks for all your lovely comments on my last post, you are so very encouraging and I am almost up to date with you all now. I have decided to be a little mean, in that I have stopped following some blogs due to the fact that they have never ever been to visit me once.
I have realised over the last few months just how important some other bloggers have become to me and I like to think that in my own little way I have become important right back at them.

This being said it has slowly dawned on me that these are indeed friendships, now maybe they are not conventional, in that we may never meet, but I had a pen-friend for years who was important to me, so in a sense we are all pen-friends able to communicate at a much faster speed. Doesn't mean that we know each other any less.

But the thing is that friendships, how ever you have them are two way. Both of us have to put in effort in order for us to have any form of a relationship. I am just not willing to be the one who puts in all the effort at the cost of neglecting friends who are prepared to put in the same effort for me.

So while I will keep some blogs on my dashboard, just because I rather like them from time to time, in a sort of magazine flicking kind of way. I am only going to have those who are regular visiting friends in my sidebar, that way I will be able to keep up with the important blog buddies. I know this might sound a bit mean, but honestly what is the point in wasting your time on people who never put the effort back into you.
I seriously wouldn't keep going over a friends house and doing what she/he wanted and encouraging her/him in my real life so why bother in my blog life.

I am hoping to finish catching you all up in the next day. Either that or I am going to ban you all from blogging until I do catch you up.

Right I am off for my now daily swim and I have to see the doctor tonight, can you believe that I could only get an appointment at 7pm. I mean 7pm on a Friday night "Oy Vey"

Much love Darlings have a great weekend, in fact take the weekend off, especially from blogging!!!!!!!!!!

Lia
xx

Trying.

2010-03-16T17:18:00.006Z

Hello My Darlings,

I have a confession and that is that I am having a bit of trouble keeping up with all your blogs.
So please forgive me if I am a little behind in being there for you. I think I might have told you all before that I am dyslexic and never actually learnt to read and write till I was 8 when my older brother Terry realised that I was in trouble and so taught me the patterns and rhythm in reading and writing. Over the years I have developed tricks to help me along and in general it works well for me.

However if I don't read and write for a day or two it can throw my World into chaos and often means that I have to go back to square one and start again. This in turns means that I slow down to an almost stop. Sometimes I am really stupid and don't read or write, even though I know I should be doing so, what can I say it's the rebel in me..she's so very naughty at times.
I will catch up with you all and soon, but in the meantime please know that I am trying very hard to catch up with you all.

The gym is killing me, very very slowly. I am enjoying it and today I did my swim and then did aqua aerobics. My gosh that's a lot harder than I thought it would be. Everyone was saying it was good and I should do it as it is easier than normal aerobics and I did watch it yesterday, thought to myself that looks good and it didn't seem hard. At least the ladies who were doing it made it look easy. So today I had a go. I can't tell you how many times I actually fell over during class, I seem to lack co-ordination and balance. They went left I went right, they went up, I went down.

I couldn't help but laugh at myself and how stupid I must have looked. One lady got annoyed at me and made an unkind remark. To which I replied that it was my first time ever and she should try to be more pleasant and that I didn't expect a lady of her age and abilities to be quite so rude to a new member; and that after all I was looking to ladies like her to be more inspirational towards me and others like me.
She moved away from me, I was relived. Afterwards another lady told me that she is always rude to people and that it was about time someone told her off.

I have never seen the need to be outwardly rude to people, but if someone brings it to me, I don't shy away from it. I prefer to treat everyone in a decent and friendly manner, as this is the way I would like to be treated. It's not hard and it's not rocket science to be nice. In fact it often returns to you ten fold. Life is hard enough and you never know what a person is dealing with on a daily basis. So I try not to make peoples day harder by being horrid.
Oh well tomorrow is another day and another class. But I shall keep well clear of that lady.

Right I am off to try and catch up with you all.
much love
Lia
xx

For All The Mothers

2010-03-13T21:58:00.003Z

HAPPY MOTHERING SUNDAY.

I hope you all have a wonderful Mothering Sunday and are shown how much you are loved.

End of the Week Thoughts

2010-03-12T17:37:00.005Z

Hello Darlings,

Here's hoping you are all well and bouncing like Tigger. I am and I smell of strawberries, but more of that later.

I thought I would clear up some confusion that I have obviously sent out there as a few of you seem to think the same. Sorry about that, I guess I am not the writer I thought I was!!!!!!!!!

"E" is my adopted sister and not my best friend, although that's not to say that we really aren't the bestest of friends, as we are. But our relationship has transcended a bond of friendship and we have been adopted into each other families, so we consider ourselves to be sisters.

Nutty is my best friend, she gets me, really really gets me. More so than some of my friends whom I have known for years and years. I simply adore her for just getting me right from the get go. I have never met anyone who is so in tune with me. I would be her sister in a heart beat, if it wasn't for the fact that she is over run with sisters already.
Anyway some one once said to me that friends are the siblings that God forgot to give us and I have 12 brothers and one real sister (a sister I can't stand to be honest as she is a liar and I have caught her out to often for comfort). So I am a little short on the sister front.

I didn't actually cut my thumb, but it was the only photo I could find that didn't involve blood and I know that some people do not get on with the sight of blood. Plus I was trying to convey that I was alright and it was a sort of thumbs up. It is healing unbelievably fast. Francis is convinced it is all the good food and veg I have been cramming down my throat under protest, dang it he maybe right AGAIN.

My weight has gone down Yes!yes!yes! I have gone from 13st to 12st 11lbs, *does little happy dance* am very pleased with that and hope to keep improving it.

And the really big thing this week is that I rejoined my gym. I went in on Tuesday and did all the paper work and photo ID, saw the trainer and sorted a plan out.
As you know at the moment I can only do swimming and pilates. But they do have everything you need there, plus they have changed a few things and you can now use the dance studios for your own practise if they are not in use. Which is a huge wow factor for me, as I love to dance.

Anyway it took me a while to dig out all my swimming gear and I finally went for my first swim today. Was really surprised at how much I remembered and how easy it was in many ways to step back into a pool.
To be an effective and efficient swimmer requires a lot of co-ordination and I am pleased to report that I seem to have lost none of mine. Mind you I did have to fight hard with myself to learn it all in the first place, so I think it might be well in grained in there. A couple of people commented on how good my technique was. But at the moment I can only do two lengths and then I have to stop and catch my breath, but it won't be like that in a month and 3 months from now I want to be able to do a non stop mile, which is 88 lengths of that pool.

Well I think that's me done, got to go and do something now, anything to burn off some more energy, I am so full of it that I am like a little Duracel bunny.

Have a good weekend.
much love
Lia
xx

Roll on Monday I can't wait to get back in there, I only have off-peak membership, I doubt I would do evening and weekends, so just went for off-peak mon to fri, that'll do it for me I think.
Oh yeah and why do I smell of Strawberries? While I was rummaging around in cupboards and dark scary places for my swim gear I found a whole load of shower gels and lotions from when I use to go swimming before and I thought I would use them up. That's why I smell of Strawberries. I know it's all a bit old but it all smells lovely and is still in the use by date. I had hidden them in there away from one very beautiful daughter.

Boys Are Stupid! Throw Rocks At Them!!!!!

2010-03-11T12:05:00.005Z

Hello Darlings,

Stupid, stupid, stupid boys.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks to my wonderful sons not doing there chores and emptying the recycle bin I have cut my finger really badly on a tin lid. I perhaps should have gone to the hospital and had it stitched up, but it was 10:30pm and no-one in their right would go to a London A&E that time of night.

Bloody boys, I would kill them, but then I would have to empty my own bins!!!!! Oh hold on a minute if I did that I wouldn't end up cutting my finger.
It's not as though I haven't chopped into my fingers before, having been a joiner I have pretty much chopped every single one of them at some time or another, but I am seriously annoyed about this as it was so unnecessary.

Right now my finger is still throbbing, which I hate, even though I do know that this is a good sign and I don't feel much up to typing, so here's something sweet to get your head round.
It's a clip from a seriously lovely film that if you get the chance to see, you should.

Am off to plot and plan how to get my own back on my boys, Mwhahahahahahaha!!!!!!!
Oh I know one way, no more cup cakes,
"Oh sorry boys, I can't make cakes, I HAVE A BAD FINGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

much love
Lia
xx

I want to tell you something. At a certain point in your life, probably when too much of it has gone by, you will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are, especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful normals, and you will say to yourself, 'But I am this person.' And in that statement there will be a kind of love.

Wednesday, Daffodils and Mothers.

2010-03-10T08:23:00.007Z

Hello Darlings,

Am bouncy, bouncy, bouncy, today. Woke up full of bounce and am rearing to go. It's back to normal Wednesday's now that "E" is back in town. We always spend Wednesday together and often Saturday as well. But Wednesday is very much our day and a great way to spend Wednesday in my opinion. You see Wednesday has always been my favourite day of the week. Long before it was given the rather dubious title of "humpday Wednesday" I loved it.

You see to me it means that I am more than halfway to the weekend and as a child the weekend with all the family was magic. Magic because I grew up in a family of characters, all bright and beautiful, with different accents and ideas. Loud noisy and extremely funny people.
Wednesday meant I was so much closer to seeing them all and getting a break from my Mum. As you know I never really got on with her, so this meant that there would be a bit of space between us. Plus I have always seen Wednesday as "MY" day, this is because I was born on Wednesday and I refuse to be full of woe, but that's just the rebel in me who always likes to prove the opposite, don't tell me to do something or for that matter that I can't do something as that will just elicit the opposite response.

I just love, love, love Wednesday. Not sure what we will get up to today, but it's Wednesday and "MY" day so nothing can wreck it, not even those grey skies over London.

Here's a couple of things I have found out in the last day or so.

Spring is about 3weeks behind over here and as a result the daffodils are not growing as fast as normal. So there are fewer of them about to buy. One company normally sells 26million...yes million in the Spring and has only brought in a million so far. Which means there will be a shortage of daffodils this Mothering Sunday. Daffodils are traditionally given to Mothers on Mothering Sunday by their children.

Mothers day is not actually it's correct title, it should be called Mothering Sunday, but the media has changed the name of it over the past decade as it is easier for them to say. Plus in America it is held in May and called Mother's Day, the media has let this creep in over here and no disrespect to America, but could we please stick to the way we have called it for the last God knows how many centuries now. While America has only had theirs for barely a Century.
Seriously it is a difference in our cultures that should be marked and people should learn.

Here's some history for you about Mothering Sunday...............

Flowers on Mothering Sunday.

Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday of Lent in the UK, though it falls on different days across the world. Although it's often called "Mother's Day" it has no connection with the American festival of that name. Traditionally, it was a day when children, mainly daughters, who had gone to work as domestic servants were given a day off to visit their mother and family.

History of Mothering Sunday.

Most Sundays in the year churchgoers would worship at their nearest parish or daughter church. Centuries ago it was considered important for people to return to their home or mother; church once a year. So each year in the middle of Lent, everyone would visit their mother, church, or the main church or Cathedral of the area.

Inevitably the return to the "Mother" church became an occasion for family reunions when children who were working away returned home. (It was quite common in those days for children to leave home for work once they were ten years old.) And most historians think that it was the return to the "Mother" church which led to the tradition of children, particularly those working as domestic servants, or as apprentices, being given the day off to visit their mother and family. As they walked along the country lanes, children would pick wild flowers or violets to take to church or give to their mother as a small gift.

International Mother's Day.

The earliest Mother's Day celebrations can be traced back to the spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honour of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods. During the 1600's, England celebrated a day called "Mothering Sunday". Celebrated on the 4th Sunday of Lent (the 40 day period leading up to Easter).

Mothering Sunday honoured the mothers of England. During this time many of the England's poor worked as servants for the wealthy. As most jobs were located far from their homes, the servants would live at the houses of their employers. On Mothering Sunday the servants would have the day off and were encouraged to return home and spend the day with their mothers. A special cake, called the mothering cake, was often brought along to provide a festive touch.

As Christianity spread throughout Europe the celebration changed to honour the Mother Church - the spiritual power that gave them life and protected them from harm. Over time the church festival blended with the Mothering Sunday celebration . People began honouring their mothers as well as the church.

In the United States Mother's Day was first suggested in 1872 by Julia Ward Howe (who wrote the words to the Battle hymn of the Republic) as a day dedicated to peace. Ms. Howe would hold organized Mother's Day meetings in Boston, Mass ever year.

In 1907 Ana Jarvis, from Philadelphia, began a campaign to establish a national Mother's Day. Ms. Jarvis persuaded her mother's church in Grafton, West Virginia to celebrate Mother's Day on the second anniversary of her mother's death, the 2nd Sunday of May. By the next year Mother's Day was also celebrated in Philadelphia.

Ms. Jarvis and her supporters began to write to ministers, businessman, and politicians in their quest to establish a national Mother's Day. It was successful as by 1911 Mother's Day was celebrated in almost every state. President Woodrow Wilson, in 1914, made the official announcement proclaiming Mother's Day as a national holiday that was to be held each year on the 2nd Sunday of May.

So there you go a little history of how it all came about and why over this side of the pond it should be called Mothering Sunday and on the other side of the pond it is called Mother's Day. It also explains why it is held at different times.

In case you would like to make a cake for your mother I have looked around to find the traditional cake recipe and found a couple of goods ones.

RECIPE 1 this one will give even more history and a great recipe for the cake.

RECIPE 2 if you scroll down a bit on this one you will find two other recipes for a mothering cake.

By the way this cake is more commonly known as a SIMNEL cake and is more of a traditional Easter cake now. So you might know it better as that name.

Also you will find some recipes for a "mothers day cake" which contain chocolate, this is because they are more to do with the American version of mother's day. If you know your history, you'll know that it would not have been possible for a Mothering cake to have had chocolate in it as it did not arrive in this country till some time later and the traditional cakes dates back much further than the arrival of cocoa.

I love the differences in cultures, it makes for some very interesting learning.

Oh and if one more girlfriend phones me up and either asks me what she should buy her Mother or moans to me about having to spend time with her Mother on Mothering Sunday, I will scream so loud down the phone their ears will bleed.

I along with Nutty don't have our Mothers and it is a constant pain to us both and one of the things we both have in common and there is nothings we wouldn't do to spend just 5 minuets with our Mothers. In fact I'd almost go so far as to sell one of the kids to the devil to be with my Mother. So if you have a Mother, stop moaning and bloody well enjoy her while she is still here to enjoy, because trust me and Nutty when we tell you she is IRREPLACEABLE and you will miss her beyond anything.

Much love Lia xx

Encouragement

2010-03-09T09:13:00.003Z

Hello Darlings,

I love you lot and your wonderful encouragement of the things I do, no matter how mad they might be. I don't think that at any other time of my life I have had so much positive encouragement and support from so many people. You might not realise this but you all give me far more support than my own family and I'm not talking about the ones I live with under this roof, but rather my wider family. In fact some of them I haven't seen for years and have no intention of ever seeing again.
I miss them but I don't miss their criticism and sniping at me.

I don't believe me "Yes men", good grief that's just madness. You can't go through life having people say yes to you all the time, that's how dictators, mad-men and power hungry fools are created. Everybody should and simply must for their own sanity have people around them that say No to them, that tell them when they are in the wrong, about to not something that's nuts and are just being a pain in the rear at times. You only have to look to a lot of celebrities to see what I mean. Some of them really could do with a foot planted very firmly upon their backsides.

But neither should people have others in their lives that are over critical, as it can eat away at a person and my them feel less than they are.
Francis was the very first person to ever say to me that I was not a bad person, but rather a person bad things happened to. That was a bit of a shock to say the least and took some getting my head round. A whole new concept to take on board.

He, having planted a seed in my head then just stood back while I ran around trying to make sense of all the things he was saying at the time to me. It was ok to be strong willed, determined, ambitious, independent, feisty, talkative and lively. There was nothing wrong with any of those things and in fact that was what made me, ME and he loved me. And; after all weren't they all the things I encouraged and celebrated in my own daughter.

He asked me to tell him everything that was wrong with me and there was a massive list, then he asked me to tell him what was good about me and I couldn't do it. The only thing I could think of was that I was a good driver. I've been driving since 17 and I have only ever had two parking tickets and a totally clean licence.. I thought that was good. The only other thing, when pushed I could think of was that I was good to my friends.

Who do you think encouraged me to blog, which ultimately lead me to all of you.
Now I have all of you rooting for me and encouraging me and it has been wonderful for me.
I can't thank you all enough for all the support you send my way daily.

Much love
Lia
xx

Fairy Cake Volunteer Troops.

2010-03-08T08:48:00.006Z

Hello Darlings,

I hope you all had a good weekend. We were so lazy and did nothing. How terrible is that?
When I say nothing I do mean nothing. We did a little shopping, a little cooking and a lot of time wasting.
I think the most productive thing I did all weekend was to make cakes, box them up and give a box each to the 2 sons and Francis.

Now, I am aware that this sounds very odd, however there is method in my madness. You see I am struggling with this whole weight loss malarkey. For 4 weeks now my weight has not moved, well that's if you don't count the 3lb I put on and then took off again. I have no idea how that happened. To say that I am a little fed up would be like saying that the Amazon River is just a little stream. I won't give up, but I am annoyed. I tried changing my portions, but how do you cut down on the amount of fruit and veg that you MUST eat in order to get your illness under control, so that you can lose the weight and go and exercise, as the doctor says you have to be a certain weight in order to do that.

I feel screwed. Really, really screwed. The good news is that the weather is getting better and on Friday I picked up "E" from the airport. Over 10 days later due to air traffic control in France and it being the first flight they could put her on without it costing us more money. Anyway she is back now, which means we will be spending lots of time together and I will get us out for walks. So that might help the weight nonsense.

Anyway back to those cakes. I make great fairy cakes, or cupcakes as some call them and I actually miss making them right now as it would be too tempting. Or so I thought, that was till Francis remained me of the fact that when I actually make cakes and biscuits I very rarely eat them on the day as I am for some reason put off by them. It's normally the next day or day after that I start to nibble on them. So Francis suggested that I make fewer of them than normal and that the boys would gobble them up. But I never see the point in getting everything out and putting the oven on for 12 cakes. Seems a waste of time and energy to me.

So I made loads of little fairy cakes, I made plain ones, vanilla ones, fruit ones, chocolate ones, lemon ones, and orange ones. I then decorated them with butter icing and swirls of chocolate, sprinkles and all sorts really. Stood back admired my handy work, then immediately panicked
What was I thinking? Is this diet suicide or what? What do you do with 50 fairy cakes??????

I could feel the will power slipping away and called the boys to rescue me. They being the wonderful young men that they are and each of them a self sacrificing cake warrior that they are, immediately threw themselves head first into the battle.
There was cup cake paper flying everywhere, the kitchen was awash with sprinkles, butter cream icing, and the noise of men in the full throws of a battle that they must win at all costs.

One by one my wonderful troops began to fall, shot down by chocolate cream and frosting. Overcome by the sugar feast that was slowly beginning to defeat them, they decide to re-group and pull back. Oh no what was a girl to do?. We decided to form a battle plan. We discussed calling in more troops, but my boys insisted that they could beat the demoed fairy cakes. Once they had fully recovered from the first wave.

In the meantime I decided to sneak up on the cakes and take them all prisoner. Sneaking under enemy lines I quickly overcame them and managed to take them all down and got the boxed into 3 boxes of equal amounts of cake.
They begged and pleaded with me not to put the lids on, they even told me that they didn't contain that many calories, that they could by pass my hips and that they wouldn't make me ill, even though they have ingredients that do make me ill. But I was ruthless and jammed the lids on tightly.

3 boxes, 3 men, genius, so I re-gathered my troops and gave them the responsibility of their prisoners and asked them to remember to treat them humanly. You see now that the boys have control of the cakes it is beyond my control.

So you see there was method in my madness of boxing them up and then giving them away to the boys as a gift. Stops me from eating them.

Much love
Lia
xx

Vajazzled !!!!!

2010-03-04T12:48:00.004Z

Hello My lovelies,

Oh boy have I got a post for you today.
Believe it or not I was on a site looking for something completely different.
When I came across the word Vajazzled, being dyslexic this new word totally baffled me and at first I sat here for awhile trying to work out what the word even said, never mind meant.
Oh boy!! was I surprised when I went in search of answers.

In my search to find the answer I came across a couple of other articles that you can go and look at, just make sure that you are sitting down when you read them and don't be drinking any form of liquid like I was or you may end up like me having to clean your keyboard.

The 6 weirdest things women do to their vaginas.
Jennifer Love Hewitt talks about it here. by the way she has a book due out this month and the cynic in me thinks this is all a ploy to get sells for a book that is properly shite.

Also when looking around at this new and ridiculous craze I read one young women's comments where she had said
"This is really the modern form of feminism for my generation"

Yeah right, that's why the suffragettes marched on Downing Street and threw them selves under the King's horse on Derby day, that why my grandmother and mother fought so hard for you to have equal rights and that's why I went on demo's and stayed at peace camps through the winter and got myself arrested countless times, so you could get your fanny all sparkly. But it's ok 'cos they use Swarovski crystals, what next diamonds!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah modern feminism ROCKS!!!!! or maybe it just sparkles!!!!

Well, I'm off to bang my head on a brick wall and ask myself some very serious questions.
Much Love
Lia
xx

Note- fanny over here in the UK means your vagina not your bottom. Just in case any of my American readers don't know that, only I am aware of the difference.
First time in America at 17, as I passed through the airport, a guy called out nice fanny at me....so I turned on my heels and slapped his face, calling him a few unladylike names. Luckily another guy realised that we were lost in translation and step between us to explain. It's funny now.

Relax Boys! This Won't Hurt!!!!!!!!

2010-03-03T13:58:00.004Z

Hello Darlings,
Yet another bright day in London, you'll all be pleased to know I made it out of bed today.
Sounds terrible doesn't it. I can only imagine what people who are reading my blog for the first time must make of that!!!! I like to imagine that I am so witty and intelligent that hundreds of people come here every day and read all about my funny, exciting and full life!!!
Yeah right but a girl can dream!!!!!

As you know my life is actually full of men, now that sounds even worse to a first time reader!!!!!
But as you know dear reader, they are but one, family members.
You who know me better, know how much I adore the opposite sex and the mad things they all get up to.

However there is a side to men that worries me a lot.
It is the subject of them going to the doctors when ill or for regular check ups. As we all know men are the worst for going to the doctors. Unless there is something sticking out of them or hanging off of them they just won't go. No matter what we women folk say to them and no matter how much they really know in their hearts and minds that they should go.

When ever a friend says she had to drag a man to the doctors this is the vision that I get.

Come on you know I am right.
Anyway being surrounded by so many men, I try my best to get them to go when they need to. I realise for men that going to the doctors is like admitting defeat. That some how they see it as a weakness within themselves and a failing. While we women seemingly just go off with a spring in our steps and a happily go lucky attitude to the whole undignified processes of getting a check up, we know secretly that it really isn't any easier for us to go.

It's not in my opinion that it is a case of we find it as women easier, I think it is more to do with that fact that we "know" that we will spend time having uncomfortable check ups. We know about it from a young age when we hear our mothers talking about it, when we become young women and talk to our friends and we sure as hell know about it when we get pregnant.
We talk, we learn, we laugh about it all, but we do it regardless of how uncomfortable we may feel at the time...we do it. Men are notoriously bad at talking about health issues, even to their closest friends, wives and family.

Recently I noticed that one of the older men in my family was having a problem, I won't go into details, I'll spare him his blushes. Upon suggesting he see a doctor for a prostate check up, you'd have thought I had asked him to run naked through the local gay club. I tried to joke about it all, to no avail and in my search for a way to get my message across I found this on you tube and sent it to him. It is 10 mins long but so very funny.

I think the script writers did a brilliant job of turning what is to men possibly the scariest examination they feel they could have to face. Every male should be made to watch this, so if you have a man in your life who is reluctant to go for this examination pass this on to them. After all the more we know and laugh at it, the less scary this will become for our men folk.
By the way, the man in question watched it and went to see his doctor and is perfectly ok. Again I will spare him his blushes and not tell you what the problem was, but he's fine.
I asked my boys if they knew about this examination and they both said they did. When I asked them rather surprised how they knew, the answer was because I had told them and talked them through it....my work is done!!!!!!!!!

Buckle Up

2010-03-02T14:37:00.002Z

Hello Darlings,

Beautiful spring day here in London, but I can only look at it from the window.
Oh well there will be other days when I am well enough to go out, just not today.

I found this today on a really lovely blog, that I stupidly lost. I did leave her a comment so I hope she pops by, as she did have a really nice blog.
Anyway on her blog she had found a Public Service Announcement (PSA) that is from the UK.
I did tell her that I had never seen it and that in fact we do have a couple of very graphic ones on TV right now about what happens to your internal organs when you are in a head on collision and not wearing your seat belt.

Watch this PSA, I promise there is no gore in it, but oh my is it powerful click here

I am a stickler for making people wear their seat belts, front and back of the car. I have refused to start the car until people do buckle up. I even once asked a friends sister to get a taxi cab, as she refused to buckle up. She didn't want to get her bloused creased and I didn't want her death on my hands should we have had a crash. Apart from anything else, it is the law in this country and there are very few exceptions to that law. In my car I am responsible for safe driving and getting you from A to B in a safe manner, but I don't have a crystal ball and while I have every intention of getting people there safely accidents do happen.

If I found my kids driving with out their seatbelts on, I would remove their keys and I don't care how old they are.
Please watch it, trust me it is amazing and no gore either.

Clunk, click every trip.

Much love
Lia
xx

Language Barrier.

2010-03-01T14:15:00.004Z

Hello My Darlings,

I'm stuck in bed today bored, bored, bored, funny really 'cos when I was working my backside off 6 days a week 16 hours a day there is nothing I would dream of more than time to lay around in bed all day...fast forward to now and I can, but not 'cos I want to. Life is never simple is it?

So stuck in bed I thought I would catch up on some shows that I have been meaning to watch.
One of them was about my beloved Spain.

Spain is always a sure fired way of cheering me up and making me feel good. One day I will get back.
One of the shows I caught was about British people leaving it all behind and going off to live in Spain and was in fact a return show to see how they had all got on.
It was 10 years since they had made the show and in all honesty they had all done well.
No surprises there then, as Spain has a wonderful way of embracing people who want to e self employed and go for it.

What was a shocker for me was that of all the people who went and there were 8 couples and 2 singles, so 18 people in total, only the singles had bothered to learn Spanish.
How can you move to a country that speaks another language to yours and be so blooming ignorant as to not bother to even learn the basics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One woman actually said that she had never needed to speak Spanish as she actually never met any Spanish people, due to the fact that all her friends around her were English and all the shops she went to were owned by English people, the kids go to international school and even her cleaner was English.
God I was embarrassed watching it.

How can you move to another country and not embrace the culture, the food, their lifestyle and the language!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On a lighter note....I do speak Spanish, badly but at least I speak it. I actually read and write it far far better than I speak it, but that's mostly I have no one to practice my bad Spanish with.
I would rather attempt to speak another language and make a fool of myself and be laughed at than appear ignorant.
Although last time we were in Granada in Spain, a very nice elderly Spanish gentlemen said that I was very good at it and had a good accent for it. But I think he was flirting with me and it was fun to flirt back with an 80yr old and be told what a lovely "girl" I was.
I'm not sure whose day got made out of that one, but I still laugh at it.

Much love
Lia
xx

Take Twice A Day. (if not more)

2010-02-26T08:29:00.008Z

Hello Everybody,

Are you all well? I do hope so.
Thanks for all yor wonderful comments about my story of the table. It's very encouraging.
I have been very busy trying to sort the house.
I do say trying as so far I have managed to make it worse that when I started, seriously!!!!!!!

We have lived here since 1996 and I am beginning to think that I never once sorted out ANYTHING. It seems to me that over the years we have just shoe horned more and more crap into this teeny tiny house. Where did all this junk come from.

Moving house will actually be a great way of pairing everything down. I use to be a minimalist and was well organised. So much so that my friends referred to me as Monica, from friends and if they needed help to sort and organise they would naturally call me.

Oh well onwards and upwards, I am about to get beyond ruthless and fire-bomb the whole house, wait to see what's left and move......well it sounded like a plan to me.

When I use to go to work, I would leave very early in the morning and even at weekends could not actually sleep passed about 6am. These days the mornings are like a whole different life to me. But I still tend to wake up early, well by 7am most mornings and as you know pain is my enemy and none more so than in the mornings. In order to start the day I have to take pain meds. Then lie around waiting for them to do their thing. I use to read in the mornings, but found that some days I couldn't concentrate because of the pain.

While waiting for the pain to become manageable I now normally turn on the tv in my bedroom, but soon found the news and other stuff terribly boring.
To the rescue came Channel 4 in the shape of their morning of comedy, that consists of Will and Grace, Frasier and my new favourite Everybody Loves Raymond.
Channel 4 screen two episodes Monday to Friday and although it has been on over here before I have never had the time to watch it.

I have come to the conclusion that comedy is far and a above the best way to start the day, but today Everybody Loves Raymond very nearly put me in hospital. I don't think I have laughed for so long and so hard in a long time. I just had to put the clip up for you all to see how I start the day.

And; then again there is always Nutty, who sent me this today in an e-mail click HERE
Laughter is indeed the best medicine and I intend to keep overdosing myself in it.

The Table Part 2

2010-02-23T14:02:00.008Z

At first the table was at odds within it's new surrounding.

The peace, quiet and daily routine of Vera and Bert's home was beginning to become a distant memory.
Now the table found itself surrounded by noise, hustle and bustle.
Clearly life had taken on a new meaning for the table.
More often than not now, the table found that both it's fold away flaps were extended out and actually left out.

The table found itself in almost constant use these days and had began to realise that this was perhaps it's sole purpose. To be busy, busy, busy.
The table was happy with the new woman, she lavished love and attention on the tale and that made the table feel comfortable. But the best thing was that Vera still came to visit and clearly these two women were the very best of friends.

The women were often to be found at the table, mostly due to the fact that the table now lived in a huge kitchen. While the table was still used for high days and holidays it had a more general purpose now.
The new family was large and noisy and brought their friends to sit, talk and eat at the table.
But it was when the two women sat at the table and chatted while making clothes for the numerous children, knitting, sewing and all manner of crafts, that the table was most content.

Thelma made the most lovely lace and was more than happy to teach her friend.
Over the years the two women, chopped veg, made jams, marmalades, cakes, bread, prepared meals and feasts at the table.
They polished it to such a high shine that it could almost blind a person when the sun shone upon it.

On high days a holidays the table would be laid with the best crisp white linens and silver and fresh flower., The table was soar away happy and couldn't fathom out what it had done to deserve such wonderful people and events to share it's time with.

One day some new people arrived, there was a big happy reunion and lots of chatter about how big all the children had become. The table had long concluded that children were nothing like tables. Children were noisy, grew at an alarming rate and were never still. Tables were quite, never grew, and stayed very very still.

The room at the reunion was full to bursting with children, but the tables attention was drawn to the smallest of the children. A tiny little girl with blonde curly hair and wide eyes, she seemed shy and had ventured under the table. The tiny girl sat very very still and she unnerved the table in her quiet stillness.

Her mother kept calling her to come out from underneath, but she steadfastly sat there staring into space completely ignoring her mother. It turned out that the family who had come for the reunion had in fact known Thelma and Robbie for a number of years and had faced adversity together during the second world war. The family of the little girl were in deep trouble and the parents of the tiny girl were facing prison and need to keep the children safe or they would all be put into care. There were alot of children in the tiny girls family and it would mean that there would all be separated.

All the adults decided that it would e for the best if the children were to stay with Thelma and Vera and their husbands. After much talking Thelma and Robbie took in the boys. Vera and Bert suddenly found themselves with a house full of girls. They rose to the challenge and soon their house ran out to the sound of squealing girls giggling a way when ever Bert came home from the docks as he chased them around the house with his big dirty working hands threatening to ruin their clothes.

Every weekend Thelma, Vera, their husbands and the children would gather around the table for Friday night prayers, then they would eat. On Saturdays the families would get together and play board games at the table, laugh and eat. On Sundays they would all squash a round the table again after church and have Sunday lunch.

The table helped them to celebrate birthdays and spent weekends, holidays and high days with this large and extended family. The new children rarely saw their parents and after a few years they stopped coming all together and the table never saw them again. Some times the tiny little girl would sit under the table and be completely still, quiet, just staring off into space. Sometimes she fell asleep under the table which the table liked.

The tiny girl grew up into a lovely young girl, although still tiny and rather quiet. She had a laugh like falling rain and the table loved to hear her laugh, then one day she was gone. In fact all the children had grown and left.

The house became very quiet and only sometimes did they all get together.

The Table part 1

2010-02-23T11:24:00.007Z

The table stood there groaning under the weight of the food laid out upon it's surface.
It wasn't the first time in it's long and illustrious life that a feast had been laid on it's surface and the table seriously doubted it would be the last. In fact it knew it wouldn't be.

The table wondered who would be present at this feast today.
It could hear the chatter of the woman, whose house he now occupied.
How many women had there been now?

There was the very first women back in the 1930's when the table was first conceived.
She was a lovely tiny woman called Vera, who was the aunt, but not a real one to the woman who he lived with today.

Vera her name was and a newly married Irish Catholic girl, who had lived in Southampton with her docker husband for a little over 6months when she first came across the table.
Bert had been born and bred in Southampton and had followed his Father into the docks, in a long held tradition of Father and Son dock workers.

Vera, had found the table in the city centre sitting in the window of a swanky shop.
It had been love at first site for the both of them and Vera had brought her husband Bert along to the shop in order to introduce them.

Bert and the table had soon got the measure of each other.
Bert had ran his large shovel like, honest rough, working man's hands over the top of the table.
Had sat at the head of the table, murmured that with the two flaps that could be pulled out, this was certainly a table a man and his family could grow into.
Bert very much liked the clean masculine lines of the table, the beautiful oak and dark stain of the table.
Bert nodded his approval to Vera of the table and declared that this table would be a piece of furniture a man could be proud to have in his home and break bread with his sons and daughters to come.

Vera smiled, patted the table and whispered," I'm so going to love you, you'll see."
The table knew this to be true and could see the days of feasts and family and fun to come.
Vera, could see white linen table clothes and napkins, her mother's silver and her Grandmother's white crockery. She could see the table heaving with food and surrounded by her sons and daughters to.

On the way home Vera and Bert stopped outside the shop and stared into the window at the table. The table for it's part took in the measure of the young couple, it had, had grander ideas of where it would eventually find a home, but there was something about this tiny Irish Catholic girl and her big rough docker husband who had hands like a shovel.
She had a sweet nature and he had a steely gruff nature, but they complimented each other so perfectly, that they put the table in mind of salt and pepper shakers, "you can't have one with out the other" the table thought and it was content to be going home with the young couple.

The table happily lived with the couple, they often had friends and Bert's family over for meals and feasts and although all three of them were happy living side by side and enjoying each others company there was a shadow hanging over their happiness.
Despite the years and the physical love between the couple, no children had emerged from their union.

The Second World War came along and there were times because they lived so close to the docks, when the bombs rained down from above and on the odd occasion the couple had to hide under the table, as there hadn't been enough warning for them to make it to the bomb shelters.
The table stood fast, silently vowing to protect the couple he had come to be so fond of.

One day the table found itself being carried out of the house and away from the couple it had come to think of as friends and was fond of.
It felt confused and could not understand what was going on around it.
Suddenly it was thrust into a noisy home with lots of people, children and ways that the table at first couldn't understand.

TO BE CONTINUED>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Love & Happiness.

2010-02-21T17:22:00.005Z

Hello my darlings,

Are you all well, I do so hope that you are.

I heard this line below while watching the telly today and it got me thinking about how inter-related the two states of being are.

LOVE IS BIGGER THAN HAPPINESS?

You see, I got to thinking, can you have love with out happiness?
Or can you have happiness with out love?

Let me explain....I have thought that I was deeply truly madly in love with my husband (Adrian) and yet happiness was not a friend to me while with him. There was always the shadow of the misery he could inflict.

My next partner (Tony) I knew I would never be "in love" with him, but I thought (in fact he did know and said he wanted to take the chance that I would grow to love him and in a way I did, but as a sister would love a brother) . I never once said I loved him and in more ways than one that did more damage to me. He certainly cost me a small fortune and in fact in order to get him out of my house, the final bill was 72 thousand pounds. My experience is not, that the women gets everything when relationship end. I was happy for awhile with Tony, but not in love with him...ever.

Adrian to his credit, finally walked away from me and said he wanted nothing from our marriage and that he wanted me to have it all, as I would be raising the kids alone, so needed it far more than he did. For this I can respect him, that and the fact that his only other wish was that the children knew peace within their own home.
Adrian was indeed an arse-hole, but he wasn't always full of shit and in the end, it was the right thing to do for all of us. We had met when I was 17 and were together until I was 31/32.

Tony came along a few years later, had all the manners of a gentleman, was very pleasant and everyone around me got on with him well. We dated once a week for months and he never met my kids until we had been together for 6months. He was a school teacher very high up in his feild and an F.A football couch. He was every ones darling. My brothers adored him and thought the sun shone from his backside. It wasn't till years later that I realised why the sun shone from his arse...because even the devil didn't want that one kept in the dark, the World needed a warning sign.

I brought the house, he wanted to moved in, even though I was reluctant.....everyone told me he was good for me, good for the kids, they all liked him. So instead of listening to my own misgivings and having had the most god darn terrible last relationship I bowed to my family and friends thoughts and despite my own misgivings in he moved. I was happpy for a little while.
Well, I tried to be. The kids certainly were and in turn seeing them happy made me so.

Turned out he was deep in debt, I bailed him out and a year later had to do the same again.
He was spending money like it was growing on trees...turn out it was my money.
We had been living together for two years when I couldn't do it any more, so ended the relationship.
He cried like a baby said he didn't want me to take the kids from him "After all Lia, they have already had their father leave them, it isn't fair on them".
He had a plan, we would buy a sofa bed and he would sleep there, we could carry on living as a family, it would be better for the kids in the long run.

I spoke to family mine and Tony's (he has a wonderful family, and in truth I miss them more than I ever have Tony) I spoke to friends and asked the kids what they wanted.
Everyone with out exception said it was a good thing and even congratulated us on our mature and positive approach to our break up. The kids were happy with it as well.

It worked and it worked well for awhile. But I wasn't happy, in fact I hadn't been happy since he moved in, when I really think about it now.
I knew he loved me deeply, that was never in question. He loved me the way I had loved Adrian and I felt really sad for him.
Then I felt it was all too much for me and I asked him to leave.

That's when I found myself in court and a bill for 72 thousand pounds.
Tony hasn't seen the kids for 4yrs now, yet he loved them, didn't want to leave them ever, they needed him, he needed them.
Last time he saw the kids they all rowed with him and told him that he had treated their mothers house as his own personal ATM machine. That their mother had been his banker and he had played foot loose and fancy free with their inheritance, while speaking in platitudes about love and family values.

So back to the question! Is love bigger than happiness.

My own life has taught me that the answer is NO.
Love is not bigger than happiness, but neither is happiness bigger than love.
The two are inter-woven, you simply can't have one without the other.
You can't be happy without love and you can't love without happiness.

Love by it's very being is joy.
You can be deeply passionate about someone and something, and it will give you joy. Most of the time.

Take a look for instance at how men are deeply passionate about their favoured team, now at times it will make them sad, but the love never wavers .
A woman can love a pair of shoes, even if at times they cripple her feet.
But both will go back to their teams or wear their crippling shoes, because they love them and they bring them happiness.

Love can hurt you and tear you apart, but happiness never will.
I know what love and happiness is now... it took Francis to show me that.

I have never loved or been this happy in love with anyone my whole life.
Excluding the kids, 'cos they are just love and joy to me by being in my life.
Francis is a whole new ball game to me, but with out doubt love is not bigger than happiness to me, they are as one.

How TO Get Out Of Saturday Shopping- Lesson 1.

2010-02-20T19:49:00.005Z

Hello, My Lovelies,

As normal I am wishing you all well and hoping you are all okay.

I was doing well today. It started so lovely. I actually got to wake up next to Francis this morning and had a snuggle...just a snuggle..stop it with the muck minds you!!!!!
Now waking up next to your beloved is normal for most people , but since Francis went back to work this is not our normal way to wake up.
I swear the man is part cat burglar the way he can sneak out in the mornings undetected.
Francis says that if I actually went to sleep before 2am, that I would wake up, but as he leaves by 5:30 to 6am every morning I am too unconscious to notice...there he goes with that being right again!!!

And; of course I haven't been sleeping well for a little while, but it comes and goes....the insomnia
and I have learnt to live with it by reading or drawing or designing.
I use to get up to all sorts in the wee-hours of the night, cleaning, dancing, exercising, paperwork, decorating, baking, bread making and re-arranging the rooms was a big favourite of mine. The kids didn't know for years what they would get up to in the morning. I even use to re-arrange their rooms with them in their beds, then tell them the fairies had done it. That was until one of my brothers, a child psychologist said that it could actually cause them upset and uncertainty and make them feel insecure at night. Years later when they had worked it out and we talked about it one day they all said they had liked it and felt special, as none of their friends had fairies visit them to re-arrange their rooms.
I use to do the same with decorating the house at Christmas, when the kids got up it would all be done. They thought it was Santa and the elves.

Any way I don't do much at nights now as Francis has night terrors and finds it a comfort to him when I go to bed when he does and as a result he has less of them, so he actually sleeps well because I'm there....oh the irony!!!

We thought we'd do the weekly food shop...I hate doing on Saturday and would rather go Sundays...in fact I hate having to go out of the house on Saturday..I think it's a Jewish thing, with me as we always stayed at home on Saturdays as a family. So Saturday has always been my Sunday and Sundays are for family time...mind you I feel almost the same way as Sundays as I do Saturdays...but I rather go out on a Sunday.

It's one of those mad things that happen when you are raised in a religion that is from one culture, while being raised in a country with a different culture.
For instance, all the women of my family are modest dressers, including the young women and girls. Patricia is a very modest dresser, up to date with fashion, but modest. This was never taught to her, it's what she saw and is normal to her. As a result all her friends wear less than her and show more of themselves and think she is a little odd for being so modest and tell her to show a bit more. To which she says, she is not comfortable with this and that less is not always more.

Here I am waffling again...... how do you all put up with me?

Day was going well, wasn't too happy about food shopping on Saturday but oh well such is life.
Bear (the out door cat) arrived for one of his many meals and in the process of taking a tin of cat food of of the tower that is our Callum, we dropped the tin ( I say we as neither of us were really to blame) straight down onto my foot, hitting my second and middle toe.

No SATURDAY in sane shopping for me......RESULT!!!!

Mind you, I must give you a word of warning here.
Being hit on the foot with a tin can is not to be done lightly......it hurts....it really hurts,
it hurts so much that I actually cried like a little kid, for about 10mins.
I couldn't stop crying, it is so darn painful.
The toe next to my big toe is almost the same size as the big one, walking is getting better, but I had to hop for a while and have had my foot up nearly all day.

In case actually doing this is a tat too much for you, I have come up with a cheats way to this:-

Using the green and blue shades of your eye make-up palette and throwing in a little purple and dark grey.
Use only matt shade, no sparkly shades, no bruise glitters!!!
Apply make up to area and work away like an old Master until convincing nasty bruise is obtained.
Next hop up and down cursing....you have to throw these in.
Cry on cue, if you need help chop an onion to make it look like you had a reason to be in your own kitchen.
Try not to speak, but rather making moaning high pitched noises, point at tin then your foot.
Do not let any one one get too close to foot, make lots of noises to put them off touching.
Come up with a well practised limp as you hobble away to sit down, after all that work you will need to sit down.
IMPORTANT NOTE:- remember to place can on floor. Vital evidence.
Demand ice pack wrapped in a towel and place on foot, this will hide your handy work and keep it away from preying eyes.

Result.. you get to put your feet up and be pampered all day

Right now all I need to do is get out of Sunday shopping and I am on a roll.

Much love
Lia
xx

I Live With Some Very Smart People.

2010-02-19T14:33:00.006Z

Hello Darlings,

Where would I be if I didn't have you lovely, wonderful and special people to help me out.
Along with you and Nutty, I have an answer for Francis.

Okay, we're going to do this. (Be brave Lia, be brave!!!!)
I'm going to pack up this house, clean out the cupboards and bury the bad memories in the back garden.

And; while I am at it, I think I will find every Holy man I can find, to bless this house for the next people. As well as wishing them luck with the neighbours. When I really did think of it ( I was up till 5am thinking), even the good neighbours aren't that great. The only thing that makes them good is that they aren't the bad neighbours. But it's not as if we have friends here on the street after being here for 14yrs.

I can't say I have a friend here any more, we did have some wonderful people on this street in our lives, but over the last few years they have all gone. To be replaced with people we are barely on a nodding terms with. Don't get me wrong they are in general nice people, but I have spent more time with you and know you better.

In fact all our friends are spread out around the Country or the World. In 2hrs I could be sitting drinking coffee with Nutty, hardly a million miles away, if I would only leave the house and my fear of what the bad neighbours will get up to while I am gone.

So it's madness to be here!
Why am I so attached to the bricks and mortar, they are only the things that hold our roof over our heads.
It's not what holds us together as a family.
The roof has done a good job of keeping us warm, dry and away from the elements.
But I did the hard work of holding the family together.

Everybody told me how brilliant I was, you know raising the kids, going to work and then buying the house.......buying the house.....mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
That's it I think, everyone telling me what a great achievement it was, for someone like me!

Did they mean because I was a single mum, or because I worked 16 hour days to hold the family together?
You know, I think they meant the house!
Was it such a big achievement?
Was it the biggest achievement of my life?
Was I suddenly more smart, clever, witty, stylish, fun to be with Or just plain more NORMAL!

Did it mean to my family that finally, at long last people had something normal to be proud of me for. Some sort of normal bragging rights and I have a very strong feeling that I played my part in all that.
I never really wanted to buy the house, I just got caught up in it all.
It was cheap because I had been a council tenant for so long.
People said I would make loads of money because of the way house prices were rising, well that only works if your going to sell and we all know the market has dropped in the last few years.

Francis says there is nothing in the rule book that says a house HAS TO make a profit and that a house is for living in and mostly being happy with your life within it.
Francis is right off course.....darn him for being so mature, forward-thinking and caring!!!!!

We have 18months before Callum leaves the college he is at, that is only a 10minute walk at most right now, so we would have to stay some what near but, as it was pointed out to me, he does have a mother with her own car who can very easily drive him in or pick him up on the days he is early or finishes late.

I live with some very smart people!!!!!
I asked the boys about us moving, not bothered and don't care where we live, but do care about you.
Were the answers.

In the words of Francis......
"There are better places and better ways to live our lives, than this way!"

I live with some very smart people.

Moving House????

2010-02-18T22:44:00.004Z

Hello Everyone,

Hoping your all well. We are all okay here. I haven't heard from the beautiful daughter, but she must be okay or she'd be on the phone.

The much loved Francis is putting his foot down and firmly, or at least that's what he's telling me.
You see he's fed up with living here and has told me that it isn't good for me any more as I seem to have lost my mind some-what.

Yeah right!!!

On further explaining things to me, while placing foot down very firmly, (he'll hurt himself if he keeps it up!) it would appear that he has been quietly keeping an eye on me for some time now.
Well...since September it would seem and since one of our cars was damaged and the light, plus camera HAD to be put up.

Apparently, I have lost my creative spark and am spending too much time watching the street or the camera. I also spend way too much time in the house, than is actually healthy for me and I don't want to go out to visit friends, go to see a movie, out for a meal, go away for weekends, or leave the boys alone at home....it's a long list!!!!

Okay so he has a point, I have to concede after a row that he's right. (yes' I told him he's right)
I just didn't realise it myself.....
I have been making up excuses as to why I don't want to do any of the above mentioned things and more!!!!
I just didn't realise it.......

So the cure is to move, according that is, to the oracle that is Francis.
I know! I know, he's only looking out for me like a good partner should, but does he have to be so bloody good at it.

My heads a whirl!!!
I have lived here since 1996, brought it in 2001, blood sweat and tears went into this house, MINE!!!! Plus the 16 hour working days.
Then there's the market and the fact that it needs some work doing on it, it's 3yrs since we decorated not 2 as I thought.
I've raised my kids here, we have yo-yo'ed up and down here as a family, but it's been home and life is like that at times.

Do I want to go?????????????? Yeah, but No, but..................
My head is a whirl!!!!!!!!!!

His parting shot was,
"There are better places and better ways to live our lives, than this way!"

My heads in a whirl!!!!!!!!

But Francis has a very good point.................

Just Stuff In My Head!!!!

2010-02-17T11:26:00.006Z

Hello My Lovelies,

I hope the day finds you and yours well. It's very bright and sunny in London today and I thought that I would go off into Greenwich, take a walk and take some photo's to share with you all.
Well that was the plan, it would appear that the car has other ideas and seems to want to spend the day in an entirely different manner.

It might have the flu, I mean it's been so cold out there of late that even I didn't want to venture out till now. It did try to start, but it just coughed and spluttered and died. So Dr Francis will have to look at it when he has the time. Oh well back to the drawing board.

I could in all honesty get the bus into the centre of Greenwich, but I don't do public transport, or as I call it pubic transport....this is because if some mad fanny/penis gets on the bus you can be sure it will sit next to me and annoy the hell out of me all the way. That coupled with having been attacked on a London bus while travelling with my then two small kids and being 7months pregnant with Callum at the time. People did nothing but watch, it was truly frightening.
This was a packed bus on a busy route and people just watched while I was attacked and there was no mistaking that I was expecting. As a result I don't like to travel unless it's by car now. Or with people I know.
And this from the girl who travelled the World alone most of the time from the age of 16 till 22.

I woke up so hungry this morning. I can not stop eating today. I stuck a huge note on the fridge door that says "EAT SENSIBLE TODAY YOU CRAZY WOMAN".
Callum who is on half term holiday from college thinks that I have gone mad and maybe I have, but I know what a hungry day means...it means that I won't bother to think and will just grab the nearest thing that looks remotely edible and I don't want to undo all the work I have already put into myself.

Did I tell you that I had found a whole wardrobe full of new clothes, well I did.
Turns out to be my old wardrobe full of clothes that I haven't worn in about two years!!!!!
How great is that, I swear I thought I had opened my own boutique when I opened the wardrobe and discovered clothes that fit me again or will do very soon. What a result.
Now I really am not into fashion as such. I like what I like and wear what I am comfortable in.

My mother who was a Chanel, Dior, French couture glamour queen, once described my fashion style as "Rag dolly Anna, meets the circus, falls in love with cocco the clown and gets dressed in the dark, eventually grows up and becomes a colour blind hippy"
Sarah Jessica Parker eat your heart out, I was ahead of my time.
My daughter the beautiful Patricia, has inherited a combination of me and my mothers fashion sense. Basically she is very glamorous, beautifully groomed and marries fashion with her own sense of self and isn't afraid to try something different to her friends. I recently made her a tutu and she puts it with her rock chic look. Fantastic. She is so adventurous and such great fun to shop for or dress..I never played with dolls as a child and now I have my own dolly Anna to play dress up with.

Patricia is a tiny girl with a great figure and is one of those women that would make a black bin bag look like French couture. One of the best things I ever had to teach her was how to walk in high heels.
Surely every girls right of passage towards womanhood. I started her off in a very small kitten heel, which was apt in away as my own personal name for her is Kitten.
We had such a lot of fun that day and now she can happily walk, run and dance in 3in heels, just like her mother and grandmother.

Oh well that's it for me today, am off to raid the kitchen...for healthy stuff, I can read, I know what the note says.........

Much love
Lia
xx

Ps I called this post" just stuff in my head" as I couldn't think of a title for it, anyone else ever struggle to know what to title to write or is it just that the madness in my head has no name lol.

Have You Not Met Me Before!!!!!!!!!

2010-02-16T15:59:00.004Z

Hello Everyone,

I'm so glad you all had a good time at our Valentines Ball, it was a lot of fun getting it ready, but off course due to the fact that you all like my dos and carry-ons I will have to come up with something even better next time round, or you might all stop coming.
I can already here the cogs in my brain doing overtime.

I had an interesting conversation today. It would appear that I am not in fact Jewish after all.
Well this is according to my friend, who is under the misconception that in order for me to be Jewish I must talk, walk, dress and act in a certain manner which can only be described as a comedy act.

I'm also not funny or neurotic like Woody "bloody"Allen and I can't sing like Barbara Streisand.
Couple that with an ambivalent relationship with God and you get me...apparently.

I was going to explain to her that as my Mother was Jewish, as was my Father, but more importantly my Mother, that in itself makes me Jewish.
The fact that I was raised in a large Jewish family made me Jewish, the fact that my whole culture is Jewish and that my whole being meant that I was Jewish. My morals, principles and beliefs were strongly reinforced by my Jewish upbringing. Yes! I know I am not so good on the God stuff...I don't see it as a failing in my Jewishness.
All my little idiosyncrasy make me Jewish, the way I run my house and my kitchen, darn it even my bloody fridge is laid out in a Jewish fashion. Then there is the way I pack a shopping bag, never raw meat and dairy in the same bag. Right down to the way I raised the kids.

But in all honesty I had to pity her, after all if I wanted to have a conversation with an IQ that low, I'd be in the supermarket talking to the cabbages.
I have never once said that I was good at being Jewish. What I will stand by is the fact, that I am what I am and I won't apologise to anyone for being me and being proud to come from a Jewish heritage.

I'm sure God will deal with me as he or she sees fit, come the time. When God asks me the question "What exactly were you playing at down there?" I shall look God straight in the eye and say "I was doing the best I could do with the circumstance you gave me to deal with"
One of us will get a shock and I can't say right now which one of us it will be. Me for suddenly realising there was a God all along OR God for realising that he/she has a challenge on their hands.

I shall not be phoning her again in a hurry, not that I phoned her. She the Catholic girl phoned me to say that she was cheating on her husband and would I cover her sorry backside for her this coming weekend by saying she was here in London with me.

No! I bloody well will not!!!!!

There are a lot of things I will do for my friends.
Phone me at 4am and I will be there for you.
When you are suffering and in pain, I will try comfort you.
Find yourself homeless and I will put a roof over your head.
When your car breaks down, I will drive you places you need to be.
Realise that you need a break and I will try to take the pressure of you and have your kids.
When you have no food, I will share mine with you.
If you are sad, I will cry with you.
I will celebrate with you.
Watch Rom-Coms and pointless soaps with you.
If you ask me a question I will answer honestly.
Cry with you.
Mourn with you and help you through all the stages.
I will shop, laugh, sometimes get drunk, drink coffee and put the World to rights with you.
Listen to you while you moan about your boyfriend, partner, husband, kids, sisters, brothers etc. etc....even if you moan to me about your mum, although this is hard for me as I would love to have my mum alive to annoy me.
Dance around your lounge and sing off key like a teenager, just a laugh with you.
I will be there for you to talk over your problems and worries and try to help you find a way through it all.
I will even back you up about the price of those shoes or that dress you have marked down by at lest 25%, when your significant other asks the price.

But I will not cover up your infidelities and if for some twisted reason that makes me NOT Jewish, well good, frankly because I wouldn't want to shame my self, let alone my Jewishness.

I don't hold with infidelity, never have and never will.
I don't judge people who commit infidelity, if it floats their boat so be it. However I won't cover up for any one who does and that would include my own family.
I have been known to see it going on and tell people to get it together and sort out their mess, but I will not hide it for anyone.
If my friends man was up to no good, I won't tell her, but I would tell him that I know and that if she asks me directly, if he was having an affair, I wouldn't lie to her for him.
That my loyalty lies with my friend and not him, simply because she is my friend. But I won't be the one to break her heart unless she asks me directly.
No one needs me to do that for them when their partner is about to do it so much more effectively and anyway even if I do tell them it then gives the guilty party chance to cover their tracks and carry on as if it's normal.
Why would I want to do that, she my friend.

Infidelity is a mean, selfish and nasty thing to do. Lie builds, upon lie. For me it wouldn't be the fact that my partner is having sex with some one else that would hurt, but rather the lies, upon lies he told me in order to get that sex with some one else that would rip me apart or that my own friends helped with the lies.
Why the hell would I want to be involved in that?

You'd think after 12yrs of friendship she would have known my answer, after all this is not her first affair or the first time she has asked me to cover for her.
One of us clearly doesn't know the other one very well.
Time to review that friendship I think, after all I haven't heard from her for 6months, funny the same length of time she has been having an affair.

Valentines Day Ball.

2010-02-13T16:05:00.011Z

My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Welcome, welcome to The Valentines Ball. We have lots to delight you with and we hope that you will have an excellent time time with us.

We hope you enjoy your time with us here at our lovely country house.
Let us show you to your rooms before the fun starts.

Just in case any of you don't like the country side views we had this room put in so that you would feel more at home, tee hee.

Look how sweet, lots of petals on the beds.

I think the maids have been messing about, I mean who needs balloons and a hot-water bottle!!!!

This one below if my personal favourite. It is completely opposite to my room at home which is actually various shades of white and cream, with a little splash of lilac.

Which is why I won't be picking either of these rooms below, as they are very much like home, only way bigger.

As you can see the maids have been very busy, so we can't really blame them if they take a break and lounge around for a while. After all, all this preparing for Valentines is bounded to make a girl want dream of her own beau.

Oh look they are all at it now. Aren't they so very sweet in their day dreams.

Come on you girls back to work. Oh it's no good I can't make these darling girls work today and keep them away from their beau's. I will ask the fairies if they will take over and give the maids the rest of the day off.

Ah! Bless her, the Love Fairy says that she will take over for the maids today.
The Love Fairy has even brought us all a little fairy dust, make sure you sprinkle it on yourselves....................liberally.

I see the Love Fairy brought her sense of humour with her and by the looks of it something for the boys.

I just need to remind you all of the power of the Fairy Dust and why you should all sprinkle it very very liberally over your selves. You see while you are here with us, we can get up to all sorts of mischief and nonsense.

For instance, fancy a ride on a carousel in Paris.........

No worries you can, just don't go around too often or you might get dizzy..........

Then there's the food, no calories, no cholesterol, no diabetes, no a moment on the lips, a life time on the hips.

You could off course always start with a reasonably healthy breakfast, but why not get Mr Right a nice juicy steak.........
all heart shaped and cute.......

Personally I'm going to sprinkle enough Fairy Dust on me to last a month or more, so I can tuck into these yummies...................

Heart shaped macaroons *slurp, slurp*.........

This isn't our normal spag bol...... it's made with a raspberries, but wait what's that..............

Chocolate.........*swoon, faint*

Sorry, where was I, Oh yes I remember calories don't count.

Don't forget to pop along to the little cake shop.

I see someone is by the lake, very romantic...........

The garden is quiet romantic as well, even the plants are in a romantic mood.........

Aren't the gardeners great they grew these little roses just for us today.

The gardeners have placed champagne around the gardens, feel free to help yourselves.

You could grab a little table together and just sit slipping champagne and whispering sweet nothings to each other.

This bench looks like a sweet smelling spot to sit with your Valentine.

Ah, look everyone even the sunset has got into a romantic mood, it must be picking up vibes from all of you and your sweet nothing whispering in the gardens.

You know what this means, come on every one time to get our glad rags on and dance the night away.......

Tonight's dress code is beautiful red ball gowns for the ladies and tuxedos for the gents.
Now I was going to ask the men to wear red tuxedos, however I was scared that they would all end up looking like this.......

and I just couldn't have any of our lovely handsome gents looking like a dog's dinner......

So I have opted for a nice selection of tuxedos that are far more refined and classic.......

And if any of you gents think you will end up looking like this.......

Don't worry you won't, just use a little extra Fairy Dust and you'll be far more handsome and desirable than any Prince Charming.....honest.

Ladies the courtiers are here with our gown selection......

Red lace how beautiful.....

I just love the way this one is tiered don't you, I bet it's very floaty......

This one is very vampish, oh la la Mrs.......

Oh which one to chose, so much choice tonight.................
Do you think that I could do the can-can in this one, now that would be a sight for sure!!!!!!

I love the splash of white on this one................

This one will actually go very well with my shoes.......

However this is the one I am going to wear tonight

Mostly because I just love the back detail.......

And here are my shoes for the evening.......................

We are all going to be such a wonderful sight in our beautiful gowns on the arms of our handsome beau's.

So it's off to dance the night away under a starlight sky............

And; a full moon...how romantic....

This is where we are going, all the way to the top....................

Where there is a Ball room set up for us..................

Remember we all learnt the Tango at my last ball, well now you can dance it in the most romantic of places...on top of the World...................

I see some of you are already in the swing of it............................

Time for some more champagne I think...................

Just remember Ladies to check you glass, you never know what might have been slipped into your glass.................

Just a couple more surprises for you.........................Romantic fireworks....

And when you get back to your rooms, look out for a little cupboard with this on the door handle..

Because inside there you will find the single most expensive sundae ever made.........

I know. It sounds crazy: $1,000 for an ice cream sundae? But, the sundae is The Grand Opulence Sundae from famed Serendipity 3 of New York City and it's made up of the best of the best.

The Golden Opulence Sundae, the "World's most expensive sundae", was created to celebrate Serendipity's 50th Anniversary last year.

Made with "5 scoops of the richest Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream infused with Madagascar vanilla and covered in 23K edible gold leaf, the sundae is drizzled with the world's most expensive chocolate, Amedei Porceleana, and covered with chunks of rare Chuao chocolate, which is from cocoa beans harvested by the Caribbean Sea on Venezuela's coast. The masterpiece is suffused with exotic candied fruits from Paris, gold dragets, truffles and Marzipan Cherries. It is topped with a tiny glass bowl of Grand Passion Caviar, an exclusive dessert caviar, made of salt-free American Golden caviar, known for its sparkling golden color. It's sweetened and infused with fresh passion fruit, orange and Armagnac. The sundae is served in a baccarat Harcourt crystal goblet with an 18K gold spoon to partake in the indulgence served with a petite mother of pearl spoon and topped with a gilded sugar flower by Ron Ben-Israel."

And, yet more champagne...should you be in need of it......

Happy Valentines Everyone........

Much Love Lia xx

Here Is The News!!!!

2010-02-12T12:44:00.003Z

Hello You lovely people,

As always I hope this finds you and yours well and happy.

There's been a lot happen that I haven't been able to tell you about. As you know we lost Papa and had to observe the 7days, but that's another story for another time.
However I do think that E and I will be spending a fair amount of time in France in the months to come. Mama is so obviously at a loss after 47 yrs of marriage and we feel a need to cocoon her a bit and help her find a way through the loss of Papa, her life long partner and friend.

Although in all honesty, neither of us can even begin to know where to start to help her as neither of us will ever experience 50yrs of our life with one partner, sharing all the ups and downs of life and raising the kids and just waking up every day to some one who is so totally on your side.

I always think how wonderful it must be to have spent your life with your best friend and lover all rolled into one. It always makes my heart flip when you see older couples holding hands or just the way they can sit so comfortable in silence with each other. I can't even begin to imagine how hard it must be to loose that person.

It's funny really while I have a very ambivalent and distant relationship with our friend God and religion drives me nuts at times, mostly because it tells me, a woman, that I am not equal to a man and tries to shove me into a box marked "How a woman should behave" ie subservient a man...but don't get me started on that or we could be here all day. There are times when being Jewish is rather a comfort.

Judaism provides a beautiful, structured approach to mourning that involves three stages. When followed carefully, these stages guide mourners through the tragic loss and pain and gradually ease them back into the world. One mourner said her journey through the stages of mourning was like being in a cocoon. At first she felt numb and not perceptively alive, yet gradually she emerged as a butterfly ready again to fly.

The loss is forever, but the psychological, emotional, and spiritual healing that takes place at every stage is necessary and healthy, somehow I need to find away to give this to E and her Mama, as without doubt it has always got me through.

Hey look at me admitting that I do actually do religion from time to time. I'm like a bad Catholic that only goes to church and confession once a year at Christmas. I know all the prayers, rituals, traditions and what order they go in, I just don't really "GET IT" the way others around me do. I will admit that it is a bit strange and at odds with just about everything I have ever said before. But let me explain.

It's the rituals and the routines, the knowing that this is what is going to happen at this stage and what to expect from the next stage and the rituals and routines involved in it. For me the prayers are just said in an absent minded manner and the words don't really mean that much to me, they just wash over me, as opposed to run through me.

But there is something comforting in the rituals and traditions even for a heathen like me.

The beautiful daughter has decided that she will be returning home. When is to be arranged. I am over the moon about it, I have missed her so very very much.

I am going to buy a 10 x 8 shed and make it into a craft room. Am so excited about this, I will never have to give it up to make room for a returning child, it is to be my summer project.

The swelling in my hands has finally gone down and I can now tentatively start to craft again in another few days, I hope.

We have secured a contract for most of this year, so the worry about meeting bills and where our next meals are coming from is over and Francis is back working hard and refusing to allow me to go back to work, stating that my skills lay else where and that is is time for me to explore them...oh I love that man.

The hated neighbours are so busy with their restaurant that we haven't seen hide nor tail of any of them for weeks now....wish them well every one. Life on the street is so, so, so, so much better.

Callum has been chosen to make a music video for an up and coming young female pop-star, very exciting news that could help him to go further in life, but will certainly help on the old C.V.

Ashley is doing okay on his course, not that he says much. Ashley is a man of few words, although I will say that they are normally worth listening to. But he seems a bit more positive about things and I am hoping that this year willb e better for him.

The diet is going well and I now weigh 12st 12lbs. I am rather amazed at how well it is going. I have never been on a diet before, so the whole thing is new to me.

Actually this isn't even a diet, it's a way to manage the fibromyalgia and it is working on all levels. I never want to be that sick again and will do whatever it takes to make sure that this illness never overwhelms me again. Just wish that my own doctor had worked out what was wrong with me before hand back in 2004/5 when it first started to get bad. But I did learn a lot about myself from the experience

I have just finished reading Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist, if you haven't read it again do your self a favour and read it, it is a small book under 200 pages in fact, but it packs a punch and make you think about your connection to this planet we call home. To get a sense of this book and how amazing it is....it was fist published in 1988, by 1999 when it was translated into English it had sold over 20 million copies, not bad in 10 short years. Click HERE to find out more.

Oh yeah! One last thing......Misty the cat seems to be developing some sort of dementia. It is possible honest they really can develop it. Poor Misty is so very confused and it is getting worse. We love her and will carry-on looking after her, but I am becoming afraid of letting her out the house for fear that she will wander off, forget where she lives and die. Which is what the vet has told us can happen. I am going to get one of those extending dog leads, so if she does go out she won't be able to leave the safety of our garden.

And I think that's about it on the news front.

I'll be back to my mad self in a day or so and don't forget your all invited to our Valentines Day Ball on Sunday.

Much love Lia
xx

Twenty Years Ago Today.

2010-02-11T11:02:00.008Z

Hello My Lovely Friends,

How are you all, well I hope. Thank you for all your wonderful support for "E" and myself, it has been a comfort.

What were you doing this day 20 years ago, can't remember. Never mind, I won't remember by just looking at the date or if I didn't write it down on every calendar I have ever had for the last 20yrs.

This day 20yrs ago, I along with millions of others from all over the globe was glued to my television. Waiting for the very first glimpse of a man who the outside World had not seen for 27years.

I was at my house that day with friends and family, the kids were all on a half term holiday, so they were all there too playing and waiting.

Suddenly there he was Mr Nelson Mandela walking out of the gates and into freedom.
I remember bursting into tears at my first sight of him and all my family laughing and reminding me of how many times I had been arrested because of Mr Mandela and that I should be jumping for joy.

Feb 11, 2o10 – It is years twenty since Mr Nelson Mandela was released from prison.

On February 11, 1990, after 27 years of incarceration, Mr Nelson Mandela was released from Victor Verster Prison outside Paarl, following the relaxation of South Africa’s apartheid laws by the then ruling National Party and President FW de Klerk.

Mr Mandela was accompanied by his then wife, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, and was greeted at the gates of the prison by thousands of waiting supporters. From there, Mr Mandela was taken in a motorcade to Cape Town City Hall, where he addressed a 50 000-strong crowd and millions of television viewers in South Africa and worldwide from the balcony.

Before he began his speech, Mr Mandela greeted the world with “Amandla!” (“Power!”), an expression used as a rallying cry by activists and organisations through the decades of racist policies and persecution by the apartheid government.

In the speech, Mr Mandela described himself as a servant of the people, and placed the remaining years of his life in their hands. At 91 he is still very much off the people and for the people of a country that once locked him away for 27yrs. If you have never read the book he wrote about his time locked away for 27 years, do yourself a huge favour and read it.

It is without doubt an amazing story of trail and tribulation, but more importantly it is the story of a remarkable human spirit. Yes people will tell you that he was a terrorist, but it has been said before, that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I have not always been able to make up my mind as to what is or is not a terrorist, as opposed to a freedom fighter and to be honest I would will leave that to greater minds than mine. What I will say is that Nelson Mandela has been a huge hero of mine and one I will continue to draw inspiration from.

I remember it like it was yesterday, there we all were at my instance that my family and friends be there to enjoy this historic moment. I spent ages holding my breath, willing him to appear on my T.V.

Suddenly there he was Mr Nelson Mandela walking out of the gates and into freedom.
I remember bursting into tears at my first sight of him and all my family laughing and reminding me of how many times I had been arrested because of Mr Mandela and that I should be jumping for joy.

I was inside, but outside I was overcome with emotion at the sight of my first ever hero becoming a free man. I had been introduced to Mr Mandela's struggles as a youngster, I even had an old poster of him on my wall for years and years. As a teenager I went to South Africa House in London and protested outside. In fact the first time I was arrested on a protest was for Mr Mandela and to this day I am still proud of that fact, I have in fact been arrested several times for protesting and a few times for protesting against apartheid. Mum always said I was a "Rebel Without A Clue", but I always knew what I was protesting for and about.

He's 91 now and still one of my hero's and I would still be arrested for him any day of the week, having said that I would also sit down next to Rosa Parks on the bus, because I truly believe that under the skin we are all the same, with the same dreams, wishes and goals in life and I don't care what colour, nationality, sexuality or culture you come from.

We are all from the same race.....THE HUMAN RACE.

Much love Lia xx

Ps Did you know that as late as April 2008 the United States still had Mr Mandela on the list of terrorists not allowed to enter America without special permission. I do hope that's changed, I'm sure that they have and I suspect it was more an oversight, than a deliberate thing.

Click HERE to read more

For anyone interested in the book click HERE where you can read the first 8 pages.

Gardening Is The Purest Of Human Pleasures

2010-02-09T11:32:00.008Z

Hello Everyone,

We are to bury Papa today. Papa has been cremated and had asked that he be placed under his favourite tree within the grounds of his and Mama's home. He loved the garden and was often to be found pottering around happily.

Obviously I am not there and this has saddened me more, but "E" phoned to tell me that they are going to bury a card I sent him that he never got to read, along with him. So sweet and lovely of "E" and Mama to include me.

"Gardening is the purest of human pleasures" - Francis Bacon.

In the garden, nothing bothers me,
Not the flutter of a butterfly, or buzz of a bee,
At one with nature, there is no gloom,
That is why the garden, is my favourite room. - Francis Bacon.

Au Revoir Mon Pere xx

When Being Right, Just Isn't Right.

2010-02-03T13:59:00.004Z

Hello My Dear Friends,

I have sad news to bring you today.

For some time now my adopted sister's Father has been ill. He is 83 and had been unwell for a while.
He went into hospital for some routine tests to find out why he felt unwell and kept loosing his balance.
While in there the hospital ran a whole batch of tests and discovered that he had cancer of the lungs, further tests showed that he also had cancer of the liver, the kidneys and a tumour on his brain.

The hospital in France (which is where they live) gave him 3months to 3 years, but also said that they could do nothing for him.

To be honest we have been living with this knowledge for some time now and while it is a terrible shock for us, it has obviously rocked my sisters world.
We talked about a lot of things and have already cried together over Papa (as we both call him)

On Sunday I took "E" to the airport and sent her to France to be with her Papa and her Mama.
E is going out there for 3 weeks and she asked me, "Do you think Papa will go while I am out there" I have a lot of knowledge about cancer and how it works and a close relationship with death due to a job I use to do. I didn't want to lie so I told her the truth and what to look out for so that she would know when the time was coming.

10 minuets ago I took the call I so didn't want to have to take and that is that Papa has passed.
"E" said to me you were right it happen just as you said it would; and my heart just sank.
He was a dear sweet man whose presence in my life will be missed.

This is one of those times when being right just isn't right.

One day I will tell you all about Papa and how the old German soldier became the surrogate father to this crazy mixed up Jewish girl. But right now I need to close the curtains, light the candles and cover the mirrors as well as gather the family together. If you don't see or hear from me for a few days, I know you will understand.

Much love
Lia
xx

Oh!! Monica, Who Made That Mess!!!

2010-02-02T18:20:00.004Z

Hi My Darlings,
Am fine and well and hoping that you all are as well.
I haven't blogged, as I don't really know what to talk about right now.

I'm busy trying to re-organise the house.
I used to be called "Monica" by my family and friends as I was so like Monica from "Friends".
I have to admit that in many ways they were right, but over this last year and if I'm honest for a longer period really, I have kept the home clean but just shoved things away like some demented magpie, stuffing things in any space it would fit in. What with working and household chores and being sick, I'm surprised anything in the house ever got done.

What exactly is camping tent pegs doing in the kitchen draw with the first aid kit and the cats flea shampoo.....I shudder to think where my head was at on those days!!!!!!!

But now I am feeling better it's time to take the house apart room by room and reorganise the home. It's a mess; I use to live by the saying "A place for everything and everything in it's place"
This really wasn't to do with keeping house, but more a way of keeping my head in order. I seriously didn't have the time to go on a treasure hunt for things every time I needed it. I very much wanted to be able to say top left hand draw in the bathroom, for the so-and so. That way I didn't have to think, or search wasting time I didn't have. This might sound mad, but I always found it to be very freeing and less stressful in the long run.

Raising kids is, lets face it is hard enough. I know two parent families that have a hard time doing it and keeping a clear head and I really hate being surround with mess, it's almost as if the state of the home very much reflects the state of my mind.

Now despite having a lovely craft room to work in, I just can't get my head round creative thinking, as all I can really think of is, that I really should tackle the rest of the home.
I can't open the airing cupboard with out placing my own life in danger, getting stressed at the thought of going in there and then wondering if I should seek out my protective work clothing, hi-vis jacket, so I can be found when buried, hard hat so that I don't sustain any serious head injuries and eye protection so as not to loose and eye while looking up at the falling derbies, that I know I should have sorted before my impending death by my own mess.

And; I refuse to even talk about any draw, in any room, in any part of this chaotic small square box I lovingly call home.
It's almost as if I have just woken up from a deep sleep and while I was sleeping goblins broke in and threw a party.

So at the moment I really truly need to sort the house out and turn it back into a home, before the goblins move in and take over.
Did you note the manic look in Monica's eyes at the top of the post, well that's my standard look at the moment. I keep thinking I am going to find a new life form every time I open a draw or a cupboard.
Below is a fair representation of my own airing cupboard. I think I will find my protective gear before I attempt this one.

WISH ME LUCK....I THINK I'M GOING TO NEED IT.
oh and if you don't hear from me for a few days please send me a rescue dog, you know the type the ones with the little barrel around their necks. Well you'll need to send one with a keg of brandy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Much love
Lia
xx

Into The Wardrobe You Go

2010-01-29T12:45:00.012Z

Hello My Darlings,

Well here we are nearly at the weekend and some one has stolen the sunshine. Yesterday was glorious in London and I went out in a dress with a little thin jacket and legging under it, with my favourite boots on.
Today I woke up to find the bed empty, Francis as returned to work and I had got so use to him being there over our long Christmas holiday, so I guess it's official now the New Year is here.

I got up thinking it was much, much earlier than it was and padded into the craft room. Which as you all know is at the front of the house and looked out over London.

GREY

Totally dark grey for as far as I can see. I watched the clouds sprinting over the sky as if they didn't even want to be in London today. As we are up so high we often have the wind whistling passed us and there it was, the horrid eerie low tone whistle that whips around the house enveloping us all in what feels like a chilling murder mystery.

I thought to myself, it's no good we all have to get out of here and find some real sunshine.
Please follow me into the wardrobe, there's a little door in the back of it that leads to somewhere magical..........

Notice there is no mirror on the outside, well that's because I don't want you lot wasting your time looking to see how beautiful you are....I already know how lovely you all are so there's no need for you to waste your time...come on.....

Ahh that's better, just feel that sun and how the warm breeze kisses your skin.
If you want you can walk across the jetty, but personally I am going to swim across (there's no illnesses on this side of the wardrobe) as I want to see the fish and say hello to them.

The fish all say Hi and if we could just refrain from eating them today they would be very grateful.......me eat fish I replied, never not this side of the wardrobe anyway!!!!!!
Ssssshhhhh don't tell them I lied, I told them we are vegetarians, they seemed happy with that.

Oh I do feel some much better for that swim. Don't I look great. I love the wardrobe as it means I can be and look any way I feel. I think I am looking rather fetching as Ursula Andress.

Oh yummie the cocktails are here,

Cheers everyone, bottoms up!!!!!

We have a choice now, we could all just lie around in hammocks and talk nonsense and gibberish.
This one is my personal favourite hammocks,

But it's ok there are loads here for all of us........

Or failing that those of you who want to stay and right the world can, but I'm all for going off for a walk and seeing what we can get up too.........................

Rocks....lots of them, ok which one of you dreamed up the rocky beach. I think I have to explain to you how the wardrobe works.
This is not a Narnia type of wardrobe, where you go through the back of it and there is a whole new world. Oh no, don't be fooled, this is far more special. You see whoever has the strongest desires and imagination can dream up anything. So stop thinking about rocky beaches.....stop it I say....this is my fantasy and I won't have rocky beaches in it....tut tut!!!!

Oh well we might as well walk to the end of the rocks and see what's around the corner..........

Oh you lot are just impossible at times...........ok lets try the next corner then......

Which one of you did that.....I think you had one too many cocktails!!!!!!!!!!!
No that is not the entertainment for the Ladies.......decorum ladies decorum.
Now come along, gosh your so naughty sometimes....lets go this way.

Can you all hear the gentle swish of the ocean slowly rolling up the beach, it's so lovely here.
Total escapism.......What's that in the water.....

Oh no!!!! It's pirates,......is that who I think it is?....Johnny Depp, well that's better and at lest he has his clothes on, although he does seem to have come across as a bit..............

.......................shy all of a sudden! What is he up to?

I think he is leading us to the pirates hang out.

Or is that a pub, oh well they have to get their rum from some where.........

I think we might need to dress up as pirates to get in there they seem to have rules which always seems to go against the way they actually live their lives.

Trust you lot to find the dressing up box so quickly, anyone would think you all had a taste for rum. Although I must say you do all look very fetching.............

Your a rum looking lot you really are, your all so getting into the spirit of this or are the spirits getting into you all!!!!!

Seeming as you all look like your having so much fun I think I will leave you all here to carry on enjoying yourselves and go home to cook tea for the family. While we have been here it has been snowing in my area of London.

Enjoy the pirate cupcakes, bet you didn't know they like to make cupcakes. Here is some they made earlier.

Oh and don't worry about finding your way back to the wardrobe and home, this little guy will show you the way.

Much love
Lia
xx

Bouncing Like Tigger!

2010-01-28T20:42:00.004Z

Hello My Darlings,

Have you all missed me, tee! hee! I thought you all would be by now!!!!!!
Well I'm ok and the family are fine, they are all still alive, so they haven't annoyed me that much!!

Went off to the hospital today to see the Specialist and finally got diagnosed. It's only been nearly five years since I became ill. I have no idea how many doctors I have seen over that time period, but it's a lot. I woke up this morning bouncing around the house like I was Tigger.

Francis was glad to get me to the hospital, although I do think that secretly he was hoping that the doctor would section me and he could have a quiet life for awhile.

So I get to see the Specialist and she tells me that it is definitely Fibromyalgia.
After running a round of some of the most extensive any doctor has carried out on me, I have had blood works to look for liver and kidney function (I was only born with one kidney, which is one reason why I don't do alcohol, too risky), mineral levels, iron, potassium, etc,red cell function, cancers (although I couldn't help thinking that surely that would have shown up a few years back if I had it.) Scans for brain.(most surprised they actually found one) heart, lungs and my whole body looking for arthritis and rheumatism and tumours. Not to mention a whole load of other things that passed over my head she finally looked up and smiled and said.......

"For a woman with Fibromyalgia and a rather severe case you are in excellent health, even your heart is doing well, considering the problems you have had with it since childhood"

I laughed what else could I do, as I have said before we were certain that Fibromyalgia was what has been plaguing me for years now, it was nice to know that on the whole I am in excellent health and that I was right.

We chatted for an age and she is very pleased that I am losing weight and that I have such a positive outlook...I MAY HAVE FIBROMYALGIA, BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE ME!!!
I told her that and she likes it. We talked about what is my next step and I asked about swimming, yoga and pilates. She says I can get back in the pool as soon as I am ready.....

I'm READY.....I'm READY......I'm READY....look out pool here I come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

She actually suggested that I do pilates, as she feels that yoga is too tough on the joints for people with stupid fibromyalgia. Now I need to find some where to go and learn pilates. But in the mean time I am to start with stretching exercises and I can use my stepper machine I think it's proper name is a latteral thigh trainer.

So this is to be the second stage of my recovery....

Keep up with the diet.
Start to gently exercise.
Get in the pool.

She was pleased that I have come so far in such a short time and basically told me to keep up the good work, positive attitude, and that while she can't really give me any treatment except pain management, should I get worse I can go back and see her any time, just call the clinic.

So lots of good news from me today and a second phase of recovery. I can't tell you how happy I am about this. Am bouncing around like Tigger......still.

Much love
Lia
xx

Return To Pooh Corner.

2010-01-26T13:26:00.009Z

Hello My Darlings,
Do you know who the guy in the photo is? Don't stress if you don't I didn't either!
He is Kenny Loggins and he wrote the theme tune to Footloose the film that starred Kevin Bacon. Any way he also wrote a lovely little song called "return to pooh corner".
I found a sweet little You Tube today and thought I would share it with you.
I had Liz and Mel in mind when I saw it, they are both doting Nana's.

Kenny Loggins' House At Pooh Corner was a big hit for Loggins and Messina in the 1970's. In 1993 Kenny wrote an additional verse for his son, and re-released the song as Return to Pooh Corner on his best-selling recording of kids' songs. I found the lyrics so you can all sing-a-long

Christopher Robin and I walked along Under branches lit up by the moon Posing our questions to Owl and Eeyore As our days disappeared all too soon But I've wandered much further today than I should And I can't seem to find my way back to the Wood So help me if you can I've got to get back To the House at Pooh Corner by one You'd be surprised There's so much to be done Count all the bees in the hive Chase all the clouds from the sky Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh Winnie the Pooh doesn't know what to do Got a honey jar stuck on his nose

He came to me asking help and advice From here no one knows where he goes So I sent him to ask of the Owl if he's there How to loosen a jar from the nose of a bear Help me if you can I've got to get back To the House at Pooh Corner by one You'd be surprised There's so much to be done Count all the bees in the hive Chase all the clouds from the sky Back to the days of Christopher Robin and Pooh It's hard to explain how a few precious things Seem to follow throughout all our lives After all's said and done I was watching my son

Sleeping there with my bear by his side So I tucked him in, I kissed him and as I was going I swear that the old bear whispered "Boy welcome home" Believe me if you can I've finally come back To the House at Pooh Corner by one What do you know There's so much to be done Count all the bees in the hive Chase all the clouds from the sky Back to the days of Christopher Robin Back to the ways of Christopher Robin Back to the days of Pooh

Prayer Of The Woods.

2010-01-25T17:07:00.004Z

Hello,

It's me again. I really can't remember where I found this photo, but I have a feeling that it was while visiting one of you lovely lot and then going off for a wander around your blog friends.
Ooops just let the cat out the bag that I go off for a wander run your friends, how do you think I found some of you!!!!!

Nosey Moi!!!! I can assure you I am not nosey, just curious about life.....that's my excuse and no amount of bribery with chocolate, shoes or diamonds will get me to change it. Off course if you are offering me chocolate shoes with diamond upon them...well maybe I might be persuaded to change my excuse, but they would have to be seriously pretty shoes!!!!!

So anyway while rummaging around in the back of your blogs I came across this wonderful photo and just had to share it with you. If you know whose blog it's on can you let me know so I can thank them and link back to them. I may be "curious about life", but I don't want to appear rude.

much love
Lia
xx

Polenta Biscuits.

2010-01-25T11:58:00.004Z

Hello My lovelies,

As promised here's a photo of the polenta biscuits that I made on Sunday. I have made these often for family and friends and very few people dislike them. One of the reasons I make them is because they are gluten free, well almost and as a SIL has to have a gluten free diet they are great for her. Over the last few years we have made them with cheddar cheese, herbs and sea salt all without the sugar in them, with the sugar we have made chocolate chips, iced them, ginger, dried fruit, mint, lavender, rum, brandy and just about anything really.

They actually come from my all time favorite chef the irrepressible Jamie Oliver. There is an ordinariness to Jamie that I like. Jamie always strikes me as the sort of guy you could have a good laugh with and talk rubbish with down the pub. He seems to be just a really nice fella and in fact one of the schools he worked at while sorting out the school dinner fiasco was one my Callum went to and Callum says he was lovely to the kids and very down to earth.

Anyway these biscuits come from Jamie's book called "The Return Of The Naked Chef".
Published in 2000 by the Penguin Book Group (I S B N 0-718-14439-2)

ORANGE & POLENTA BISCUITS.

Makes around 25 biscuits

170g/6oz of soft butter
170g/6oz sugar (I use raw cane sugar, but it's simply because I prefer it)
255g/9oz polenta (I use the fine yellow polenta)
100g/3 3/4 plain flour ( I believe my American friends call it "All Purpose Flour")
zest of 2-3 oranges ( I often use orange essence instead and just judge it by taste and smell)
2 large eggs.

Rub butter, sugar, polenta, plain flour together in a mixing bowl before adding the eggs and orange zest. (TBH I use my food processor these days It's easier and quicker) but if you fancy doing it the old fashioned way it works just as well.

Once you have mixed in the orange and eggs well, cover with film and place in the fridge for about an hour. Now I don't always do this and tbh they turn out just as well. The mixture is easier to work with if you do place in the fridge as it becomes slightly firmer and less sticky, but it makes no odds to the taste if you don't place in a fridge.

Place greaseproof paper on to baking trays and and spoon small teaspoons of the mixture in lines about 5cm/2inches apart. As you can see I didn't do this, but that's because the boys spooned it out this time and they used cereal spoons, luckily they didn't use my table spoons!!!

Bake in a preheated oven at 190c/375f/gas mark 5 for around 5-6 minuets, bigger ones will take about 10 minuets. Bake until the outside edges of your biscuits are lightly golden.
Remove from oven and allow to cool for 15minsuets before eating.

These are great with chocolatey things or ice cream or just a cup of coffee.
So there you go give it a try. I have given you the recipe as it is in the book. I how ever use sunflower oil and honey instead of butter and sugar if I am making them for my SIL, if any of you want that recipe let me know and I will post it up for you.
I can make these in just under an hour so long as I don't chill the mixture and I use my food processor. Let me know how you get on.

Much love
Lia
xx

ps. I made it...I weighed in at 13st 1lb today, so I have managed to loose a stone and I have the hospital on Thursday, can't wait to see the Specialists face when she sees how much I lost.

If The Mood Takes Me!

2010-01-24T11:23:00.005Z

Hello my lovelies,
Did you all have a nice Sunday. I decided to get busy in the kitchen and bake biscuits. Will put up a photo and the recipe tomorrow. I made them with polenta and they are rather nice.

If I look half as good as this at 53, I think I will parade around in my underwear too, should the mood take me.
Kim Cattrall was in one of our papers over here this week and I was totally shocked by the way the female reporter spoke about her. This reporter seems to have not realised that one day way, way, way, sooner than she expects she to will be a woman of 53.
No matter what any one else thinks, to be honest, I think she looks amazing and very sexy.
What is it with the World that as soon as a woman hits 40-45 we are all suppose to wear twin set and pearls, start knitting, drink coco and go to bed early. Nothing wrong with any of those, if that what a woman wants.

Heaven forbid that we have opinions, options and our own money.
Oh and ladies don't even think about talking unless you want to be patronised and patted on the head. Why is it when a woman turns 40 she goes from being addressed as Miss, to being called Madam?

If you look this good or even feel as great as Kim seems to in these photos you can rest assured that you could give any young pretender to the throne a run for her money.
I'll admit, if I had her money and I was paid to look this good it would influence me to drag my wobbly bits to the gym, but regardless of my tardiness when it comes to the gym if I feel sexy and vibrant I'm sure as hell going to show it off, should the mood take me. Although I will be wearing more clothes, it could get cold out there and I might have to go to Wal-Mart or Asda as we call it here, don't fancy being up in their rouges gallery!!!!

The reporter goes on to call Kim middle-aged. See what I mean about patronizing. Kim at 53 does in fact fit into the box labelled "middle-aged" if you feel so inclined to shove women into boxes and stick labels on them, by why is her age even an issue?
What is it about women that we must go around shredding each other to bits and sticking labels on each other. Am I the only one to notice how it is always younger women that feel the need to deride an older woman?

We are so much more than daughter, sister, aunt, wife, mother, co-worker.
Despite what we are told we really can't have it all, well not all at once anyway. I think you can have different things at different times of your life and if you have been way too busy raising a family, going to work and running the home, you might not have had the time, money or energy to have been able to invest in the woman of your dreams.

But if like so many women you have run the gauntlet of raising a family, going to work and running your home, you may just now have the YOU time, you have so longed for.
It won't stop you being the wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt , co-worker but it might just give you the chance to be the YOU , You want to be.

Women have come along way from where we were just a few short decades ago. Even in my life time. For crying out loud unmarried women couldn't even get the contraception pill until 1967 in this country.
When I look at how much our lives have changed when compared to our Grandmothers and Mother, when I think about all the things that I can do or that my daughter can do, I am so very proud of all those so called middle-aged women who having achieved the impossible of pushing water up a hill while juggling, work deadlines, school reports, and home making somehow find the time to be their selves and follow their own dreams for a while, making it so much easier for me to follow in their footsteps and find my own path I want to shout from the tallest building in the World "THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!"

So quite frankly while most of us won't achieve a body like Kim Cattrall, due in part to the fact that we don't have an airbrush tool to help us out, I do celebrate the fact that because there are so many vibrant, sexy, wonderful women out there doing their thing and loving it. As it means should the urge ever take me to parade around in my underwear, middle-aged or not I can bloody well do it.

I'm very lucky in that most of my girlfriends are older then me (expect Nutty, who is younger than me) not only that but while I have been blogging I have found some amazing and inspiring women to look up to and these women are showing me a path that was never available to my mother and Grandmother.
Younger women should do well to remember that one day when they aren't looking, they to will fall into the box labelled MIDDLE-AGED. I just hope for their sakes that they can find at lest one sexy vibrant, "if I want to parade in my underwear" woman to help them find the path to finally having the time to be who they want to be.

Much love
Lia
xx

Tall and Short Of It.

2010-01-22T17:13:00.003Z

Hi my lovelies,

What have you all been up to today. I have done very little, sleep seems to be top of my list of things to do at the moment. I'm blaming the grey skies for that.
I made up with Callum and we had a chat about things. We both said sorry for being horrid and I think he gets where I am coming from. That and his sister and brother both told him that I'm easier to handle when happy and they joked with him that they had spend a very long time and put in a lot of hard work to bring ME up properly and just 'cos he is the youngest didn't mean that he could ruin all their endeavours. And; besides his job was to let me kiss and cuddle him, it is his job as he is the youngest. So we all ended up laughing and poor little Callum had to endure my kissing and cuddling of his 6ft 4in self.

I also cottoned on to something today that made me laugh.
The beautiful Patricia always stands away from Callum. So if they are in the kitchen she will be one side of it and he will be on the other side, if he moves, she moves and they sort of dance round the kitchen in this manner. I have always found it odd but never thought to question it.
Today the penny dropped. You see Patricia is very tiny, I know I have said this before but she really is tiny and can still buy clothes for 13yr old girls and I am often asked to adjust clothing to fit her. Patricia is about 5ft 2in. Where as Callum is unbelievebly tall, he is the tallest of the kids.

Patricia stands away from Callum so that she can make eye contact with him with out having to strain her neck to look up to him. When I mentioned this they all laughed and Patricia was as red as a beetroot. Callum thought it highly amusing and said to her

"Ha ha your so small you have to look up to ME, my BIG sister has to look up to ME!" to which she replied,
"Listen squirt, I don't care how TALL you grow, you'll always be my LITTLE brother"

I like the banter between the kids and am pleased that it never goes beyond banter. They are all rather good natured towards one another. I have seen some of my friends kids get totally out of hand with their siblings both verbally and physically and I don't understand parents that allow it.
There are plenty of people outside the home who will be mean to you for no apparent reason, why would you have it inside your home. It makes no sense to me, after all shouldn't people teach their children to respect others and surely it starts at home by learning to respect your own family.

My mother taught me that you only get out of kids what you put into them, which still makes me laugh, as I had a terrible relationship with my mother. In fact after 3days with her I had to leave or it would end up in a disaster, with one or the other of my brothers having to come and get me and take me home. So I got it down to, arrive day one, late in the day. Spend day two with her, but go to bed early. Day three leave ......early, by lunch time at latest. It worked out ok for us. So if you know anyone in a difficult relationship with their mother, feel free to pass on my top tip for getting along with them over three days enforce time sharing.

Much love
Lia
xx

Just Another Day.

2010-01-21T20:59:00.004Z

Hello all my lovelies,

I do hope your all well warm and comfortable,
I am freezing and have whacked up the heating, Francis (with an i) is frowning at me, as he says the house is nearly the temperature of the sun. Do I care no, 'cos I am cold!!!!!!! and moody tonight.
Misty is sitting on the dinning room table with her head in a porridge bowl. I really should stop her, but it's not everyday you see a porridge eating cat sitting on your dinning table and it amuses me.

I've had a row with my Callum, it doesn't happen that we row often, but this one has been brewing. Bloody kids can't live with them, can't clot him as he's now 6ft 4in and I would have to jump up to reach his ear.
I know what his problem is...his mother didn't smack him enough, for long enough and hard enough when he was smaller.........oh darn I knew I was doing something wrong when I raised him.
We'll be alright, but right now we are skirting around each other, it's just one of those teen/parent rows. But having been through this twice already I know we will be fine. Both need to calm down and talk tomorrow.

In a way I have never really minded to kids having rows with me. I am a very strong person and a stubborn streak, I can be opinionated and I'll never back down if I believe I am 100% right. I will apologise if I am in the wrong, I strongly feel that you should if you are wrong and put things right. No one should be too big to say "I was wrong" or "Sorry".
There are certain morals, standards and beliefs that I demand the kids adhere to, but other than that I am a rather relaxed and informal parent. They just better not cross a line or I will unleash hell on them. And because I know this about myself I can't help but admire them when they do row with me. I mean part of me would like to slap the hell out of them (I don't by the way) and the other half of me is laughing and saying "you go kid, if you can stand up to me, you'll be fine in life at fighting your own corner."

I don't believe in rowing for the sake of it, but I won't run away from them when they come my way. Having spent the better part of 30 years on building sites, being the only female there and being the youngest of 13 and the only girl, standing my ground has never been a problem and in many ways I can recognise myself in the kids when we do row and I admire them for it. Just not going to let on to them that I do. Well come on......they out number me 3 to 1. Besides some one just has to be the boss and I don't do orders well.

Which reminds me did I ever tell you about the time I joined the Army? No! Here's the short version........

At 16 I joined the Army much to my poor mothers horror, but she signed the paperwork.
I arrived at the camp at 10am, by 12 noon I wanted out.
All those people shouting at me and me not being allowed to shout back.
Don't get me started on how unfashionable the uniform is!!!!!!!
Unfortunately I had to stay for 6weeks, I was so much trouble and even tried to get the other girls to go on strike, till they stopped shouting at us.
They let me go home by the 8th day.

There is still the family joke that I joined the Army and tried form a Union. It goes......

"Our Lia, the only woman to join the Army, moan about the lack of fashion sense in the uniform, refuse to take orders, tell them not to shout at her and try to form a Union and all on the first day"

It is always meet by raucous laughter and much mickey taking by the family, which normally ends with some one asking me when am I planning to take over the World, as if I'm going to tell that lot, they'll be the first to go, for crimes against my teenage rebellious self and 30years of laughing at me about it.....lol
See I told you I was opinionated with a stubborn streak. Oh and I still think the uniform sucks!!

Much love
Lia
xx

Getting There.

2010-01-20T20:03:00.005Z

Hi Everyone,
How are you today, well I hope.

Stood on the scales again today, I know your not meant to do this, but I'm new to this diet lark, so I'm allowed to be silly.
I'm 13st 2lbs today, ain't that great.
I was so shocked that I got off and on a couple of times, just to make sure it was right.
Even went and put my glasses on, how mad is that.

I can't say I understand this weight loss business, but I do rather like it's surprises, well the nice ones anyway.
I have to go back to the hospital on Jan 26, so I hope to loose the other 1lb by then and be able to show the specialist that I was serious when I said that I might have Fibromyalgia, but it ain't having me. I will beat this thing or at lest have it on the run, as there is no cure.
I do so hope that she tells me I can get in the pool again, I know she wanted me to loose weight and wait before I got back in, but I'm impatient by nature (a failing I try hard to keep in check) and I just want to move on to the next stage, which is to muscle build.

Now I don't want to look like some muscle bound knuckle-head, I'm not even doing it for muscle tone, but from what I have read about this silly illness if you have a good muscle structure you end up in less pain, this is hard to explain, but put as simply as I can.........
A good muscle structure leads to stronger ligaments and tendons, there fore supporting the skeleton in the right positions. This leads to less stress on your whole being and therefore your posture is better. There's also a thing called the Alexander Technique that teaches you about the right posture for you body and then later on this year once I get a bit more movement and flexibility I can move on to Pilates.

Oh hark at me babbling on like like I did something truly amazing, all while eating a digestive biscuit......Ha hahahahahahahaha, but I am only having the one and I am feeling rather smug that I will loss the stone by the time I see the Specialist again, only I don't think she quite believed me when I said I was determined to do it, but then she'd never meet me before.

Oh and I have a bone to pick with you lot......useless you are!!!!
Totally useless, what am I going to do with you all, I ask you for help and you lot clam up.
Excuses, excuses........that's it you might not get invited to my Valentines ball, your just all too naughty.
Mel had the best idea, names in a hat....Mel you get to come to the ball.
As for the rest of you....useless and naughty.
And... and...I still don't know what to do,
I hope one of you have a hat for me to stick the names in.

Much love
Lia
xx

ps I love you all really...honest I do. xxxxx ok no whining you can all come.

Good News, Diet, Landshare & Confusion!!!!!!!

2010-01-18T16:13:00.011Z

Hi Everyone,
I do hope you all had a good weekend. I certainly did.

Well to be honest any weekend spent without the hated neighbour making life hell on the street is a GOOD weekend, and they were no where to be seen. In fact we have hardly seen or heard from them in weeks, so it's bliss here right now. I have just found out that they have opened a restaurant in Greenwich. Good luck to them I say. After all the more time they spend there the less we have to put up with them and the happier the street is, with neighbours talking to each other and everyone happy and relaxed.

Mind you, I wouldn't want to eat there, you see their kitchen is next to mine and the horrid smells that come out of their kitchen don't inspire me to want to eat there. Funny really as a few of the neighbours have made the same comments and all this time I thought it was just me being nasty, 'cos I am biased against them. Turns out that quite a few of the others think along the same lines.

We saw a couple of reviews for the restaurant and they weren't favourable since they took it over. Most of the other neighbours want them to fail and are praying for it, personally the better they do, the better for my family and the street in general. So I really mean it when I wish them luck. They are open twice a day, 6 days a week, so they are going to be too busy to bother the rest of us on the street and hopefully too tired when they are here.
That can only be good for the rest of the street.

I recently came across a site about land sharing. Put simply it is for those who have a garden and helps put them in touch with people who don't have a garden, can't get their hands on an allotment, but really want to be able to grow their own produce.

Just in case you haven't ever guest about me there is a bit of a hippy chick in me and I think this is an excellent idea. So I put us up for it. I figure there are a few good things about this:-

A- I can't do the garden any more, small as it is, it is too much alone and no one else in the house has one iota of interested in helping me. So I will get some help.

B- I get to met new people and possibly become good friends. Although I am not stupid enough to believe you can make friends over night, like a garden they need to be tended.

C- I get to help others to grow their own food and food for my own family. But mainly for me, as I have to have organic veg now, due to hated illness and my garden has been organic since 1996.

Sounds great so far. Here's the problem, I have been inundated with requests. I have told people it is small and that it must be organic, non-smoking, no dogs, fences need fixing and that Bear and Misty (the cats) must be taken into consideration, especially Misty as she is old and never leaves the garden these days. Now how do I pick who is to share the garden, I have managed to whittle it down to 4 couples, but am stuck now as I know I will be disappointing some people and I really wish I didn't have to.

I was thinking that maybe I should send them a link to my blog; after all they may not like me after they read it. But then again I have just gone and put this post up about what to do, so they will think that I'm mad!!!!!!!

So, do any of you have any ideas about how to pick someone to land share with!!!!!

Oh!!!! What's a girl to do? Anyway I am off to visit you all now and see what you have all been up to. As you can see from the above photo, my diet is working and my hair is growing back.....no seriously it really is growing, but then as I "HAVE" eat my body weight in veggies everyday (due to stupid illness) I suppose there really should be some benefits to all that veggie chomping, not that I didn't eat them before, just that well I really do mean body weight and there is a hell of a lot of weight lol. Didn't do well last week, am still 13st 5lbs, oh well am not going to give up, as I do feel a bit better.

Much love
Lia
xx

The Mind Boggles!

2010-01-15T11:56:00.005Z

Hi Everyone,

A friend of mine who lives near by sent me the quote below from another neighbours blog. I have to say that I do not really like this other neighbour as I think she thinks she is above the rest of us and something special, well after reading this I can honestly say that my opinion of her still hasn't changed. During this bad weather spell and the one before Christmas we have gone to various elderly neighbours and checked that they are okay. I have phoned them to see that they don't need anything on an almost daily basis. I firmly believe that it is both our civic and moral duty to do so. This just astounded me, she spent 10mins pressing the old dear to go home, when in fact they were that close to the shops, she could have used that time to take her to the shop, help her shop and in another few short minutes be helping her home. As you may know we live on a hill, this is actually one of the biggest hills in London and you can not get anyway round here without having to go up or down steep and I mean steep hills to find flat, level ground. Something many of us with cars have been unable to do!!!!!!!

QUOTE

Thursday, 14 January 2010

2 weeks in...

Hello all, I'm back! We had a relaxing holiday in Scotland..mainly because we were snowed in and so couldn't do much. I have been following many blogs but mobile blogging made it hard to add comments.On Friday we returned to London.
After being stuck indoors for weeks, I made the monumentally stupid decision to take tot for a walk this morning. In the rain. And on the way, met a very silly neighbour who was inappropriately attired for walking about in rain with ice covering all the pavements. I had gone out in wellies, a fleece and raincoat. As I approached from behind pushing tot in her stroller I was a bit aghast that this elderly lady was inching her way down Cheriton Drive clinging to the wall. On asking if she needed help, she began to regale me about how unneighbourly others had been in not helping her. She was going to go to Woolwich. Not bloody likely love as you would probably kill yourself on the ice. After a few steps of trying to help her along, I spent about 10 minutes trying to convince her to turn back as even if I could help her reach the Co-op, who would help her on the way back. There was NO way she could manage it herself. She eventually agreed to turn back. I continued on our walk but even I had the sense to abandon it before the tot drowned in the rain." END QUOTE.

If that wasn't annoying me enough about this woman, she then goes on to say the below. Without thought or hesitation for what the old dear has already told her,
A- She NEEDS to go to the shops....to me this says that no-one has gone for her in the last couple of weeks
B- She has already said people have been unneighbourly...which is why she NEEDS to go to the shops
C-She jumps on the health and safety band wagon...Oh woe is me I might get hurt if I help someone.
D- She assumes that the old dear has enough money in her pension to pay out monies for shoes to walk on ice!!!!!

Quote.....
"Now, I'm a strong believer in assisting your neighbours, especially if they are elderly. And I think it's great that these ladies go about independently doing their shopping etc. (wow I sound a tad condescending now). However, I am also a bit annoyed if said neighbours take unnecessary risks. What if someone helps them and in turns gets hurt. She could have gone shopping later. Also, the snow's been about for a bit now, she could have got proper shoes for walking on slippery ice. And here's me thinking age brings wisdom." ...........END QUOTE.

Am I the only one who can not see this woman's strong belief in helping neighbours, especially if they are elderly?
I feel like killing her, the horrible mare couldn't be bothered to put herself out enough to help an elderly member of her own community and yet on her blog she will often bemoan the rudeness of others and complain that we have no community spirit.
"The lady doth protest too much, methinks" Hamlet Act3 scene 2.

I'd leave a message on her blog if I thought for one second I could do it without wanton swearing or if I felt it would make her wake up and smell the coffee. After all if you want a community I suggest you partake in caring for those around you, especially the elders and more vulnerable amongst us.
This is Britain 2010!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.How To Build Snow Candles

2010-01-14T12:58:00.007Z

Hi Everyone,

For those of you with any snow left, mine as almost gone now or I would be out there doing these. I found these today on some very eccentric mans web-site way thought you might like these. I say eccentric as he seems to do a lot of stuff with wires and batterries. I'm sure his not really eccentric, but anyone who can recharge their ipod from a bicycle dynamo has got to be a little eccentric, but I mean it in a mad nutty professor kind of way.

Here's what the guy said:-

When I grew up in Sweden a common thing to do with the children (that would be me back then) was to build snow lights. As you have a lot of snow, it gets dark at 3pm and you want the children to play outside you would hand them a bunch of candles and send them out to build snow lights all around the house. Later on you would light them up and stand in the kitchen window to look at them.
Well, back then, being a child and everything, it was the coolest thing to see as a well build one can burn all through the night and still be lit in the morning.

Now I have kids on my own and of course this was something I just had to do with them. But - no one here (I moved to the Netherlands a couple of years ago) ever heard of these and they were all amazed of my innovative little product when I lit it in the evening. So if people here haven’t heard of them then surly there are more people in the world missing out on some winter time fun with the children.

You can do this as long as the snow can be compressed into snow balls, so between +1 c / 33 f down to -7 c / 19 f or so.

To avoid some frustration later on we will take a piece of paper and shape it into a cone. This will be placed on the candle while we’re building it as we don’t want the wick to get wet by snow. You could skip this and if it gets wet by snow then you just have to use a couple of matches extra before it gets lit.

Cut off the candle so that it has a proper length. In my case I just had to cut it in half. Then place the candle in some snow and press some extra snow around it so that it stays stable.

Make snow balls! Press them together firmly but not too hard. They have to be able to slide into each other later on so one or to firm presses is usually enough. A good size of a snow ball is about 5 cm / 2 inches. Place about eight of them in a circle with about 5 cm / 2 inches space to the candle. Smaller ring and the snow balls with melt and larger and it will easily fall apart.

Build another ring of snow balls on top of the first one. Carefully try to push the ring together but don’t use more then a little force. Press to hard and all of it will collapse. We don’t want that

Now make the third ring with less balls, like 5-6 so that it gets smaller. As they will tilt inwards you will need to make them balance on each other without falling down into the centre. It takes some practice but it isn’t that hard.

Then place a last three snow balls on top to close it off.

Wait until it gets dark and lit ‘em up! You would think that the heat from the candle would make the whole construction to collapse but that doesn’t happen. What does happen though is that the top balls melt on the inside but as it’s (hopefully) freezing the cold keeps the majority of the snow ball frozen.

To light one of these I usually use a candle lighter, you know one of those with a long tube. Just stick it in through a gap between the balls and flip the protective paper off then you can light it.

If there’s a lot of wind then you can carefully take some snow and close off the gaps between the snow balls. It will loose some if its effect but the candle will stay lit.

If you build one - send me a picture. I’d love to see how creative you are!

Found HERE on an eccentric site, not really for us girls, more a boys site as the guy seems to want to make things or take other things apart.

NOTE TO NUTTY:- don't let the boy near this site!!!!!!!!

2010-01-14T10:36:00.006Z

Hi Everyone,

Hope this finds you all well.
Was woken up this morning by what at first seemed a very unusual noise.
Rain, loads of it. My bedroom is at the back of the house and there was an awful din coming from the front of it, upon looking out the craft room window I discovered that the hill has been turned into a waterfall as the snow is being melted by the heavy rain.

I can't believe that over the last week or so that I have forgotten how noisy London can be.
The snow has muffled all the noise, that and the fact that people have stayed home, well they did if they had half a brain. I could hear the traffic over on the big main road, it's not that I can normally hear it loud, but this morning it was positivity screaming at me.

But the nicest noise was the bird song, I didn't realise that I had missed it till I heard it. We have barely heard them in recent days, so it was very plesent to hear them this morning.
Funny thing is that I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like opening my bedroom window, I wasn't hot or anything, just had an overwhelming urge to open the window.
I guess my sub-concious knew something I didn't.

Here's something to give you a laugh click HERE Seriously go look, I'm laughing too much to be able to post about it. Francis (with an i) is beside himself.

much love
Lia
xx

Meip Geis- A Heroine

2010-01-13T15:37:00.003Z

Hello Everyone,

The sad news that Miep Gies has died aged 100 reach me today.
In case you don't know who this lady is I will explain.

Along with her husband, Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman and Bep Voskuijl, she helped to hide Edith and Otto Franks, Anne and her sister Margot. They also hid Hermann and Auguste van Pels, his wife and their son Peter and Fritz Pfeffer. As you may know Anne Franks and the rest of them were hidden in a secret office in an attic at a spice factory from July 1942 to 4th August 1944, kept safe warm and fed by the above named people at a great cost to themselves as they could have been shot for hiding Jews.

Early on the morning of the 4th August 1944 acting on information from an informant the Gestapo raided the attic, arrested and took away everyone, including Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman. Despite 3 inquieries after the war this informant was never discovered.

Before the authorities could get into the attic to empty it, Miep got there first and found Anne's Diary, she took it home with her and kept it safe in the hope of being able to give it back to Anne once the war was over. When the war was over and it was confirmed that Anne had perished in Bergen-Belsen Meip gave them to the sole survivor of the attic, Otto. Anne's father. They were more a collection of papers and notebooks, then one diary.

Miep actually did not read the diary while it was in her procession, she said years later that if she had, she would have destroyed them, as they named all the 5 helpers and their relation to them all. This was in a time when diaries were considered private and it simply would have not occurred to Meip to read such a private and intimate portrayal of someone's life, even if they were only the writings of a 13 year old girl. In fact Meip did not read the diary until Otto Franks persuaded her to read it on it's second printing. The first publication being in 1947.

In 1994, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 1995, she was awarded the Yad Vashem medal.
In 1997, she was knighted by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

Although Jan (meips husband) was arrested on the 4th of August he was eventually reunited with Meip, they went on to have a son called Paul, an only child.
Jan died in 1993 from complications caused by diabetes.

Here is a quote from Anne's own diary where she talks about the struggles of those helping the Jews, as she knew they were not the only ones being helped and in hiding........

"The best example of this is our own helpers, who have managed to pull us through so far and will hopefully bring us safely to shore, because otherwise they'll find themselves sharing the fate of those they're trying to protect. Never have they uttered a single word about the burden we must be, never have they complained that we're too much trouble. They come upstairs every day and talk to the men about business and politics, to the women about food and wartime difficulties and to the children about books and newspapers. They put on their most cheerful expressions, bring flowers and gifts for birthdays and holidays and are always ready to do what they can. That's something we should never forget; while others display their heroism in battle or against the Germans, our helpers prove theirs every day by their good spirits and affection."
from The Diary of Anne Frank, entry of Jan. 28, 1944

I was first given a copy of Anne's diary on my 13th birthday, it had been given to my mother on her 13th and I passed it on to Patricia on her 13th, whom I hope will pass it on.
I remember when I first read it thinking that she was rather sullen and a misery, it wasn't till I re-read it later that I realised the true implications of the book. I have re-read it many times and it never fails to move me.

Anne's diary is to this day one of the top selling books World wide, but it is thanks to Meip that we have this wonderful insight into what it must have been like in the attic.

It is as some of you know only thanks to the quiet bravery of unknown people that I and my family are here today. In a strange way it has also made me realise that we will now never know who the people were who did help my Grandparents, but I will always hold people like Meip, her husband and all the others who helped in the highest regard, as I am only to aware of the dangers they put them selves in for strangers that they would never see again.

Meip has her own web site HERE if you want to know more about this heroine of WWII. Don't worry it is in english.

2010-01-13T09:32:00.005Z

Hi Everyone,

I should really think before I come out with stuff, but some times I simply forget that we don't all live on the same street and have the same little quirky things that make our lives go round.

Little did I realise that my American friends would not know what a Twiglet was/is/are.
Basically they are a knobby crunchy wheat based snack that taste like Marmite, which is a yeast extract.
You either love them or hate them. I think it depends on if you like Marmite or not.
Marmite is a yeast extract that is in a spreadable form and is very spicy and tangy as are Twiglets. You may have heard of Vegemite, which is similar but no where as good. Sorry my Aussie friends, but I was raised on Marmite so I am possibly biased!!!!!

Twiglets were first made in time for Christmas 1929 and for many years the only time you could get them was at Christmas, this was certainly true when I was a child and I use to really look forward to Santa bringing me some. The flavour comes from brewer's yeast which is a by product of the brewing industry and a little something extra, but they don't tell you what the extra is!!!

Personally I love both Twiglets and Marmite and as Twiglets are baked and not fried they really are not fattening....that is till you eat a family sized packet to yourself and bearing in mind that I have to watch how much wheat I eat, as it can make me very ill.

While searching around the net for some info on Twiglets I found a few things that you all might find funny, remember or just find plain interesting.

Here's a blog dedicated to to the wonderful world of Twiglets click here

This is Justin Lee Collins doing the voice over for a Twiglet ad, For those of you who don't know he is a mad comic on British T.V and this was made before he hit the big time in fact he did the voice over for a number of Twiglet commercials . Also this was filmed on Brighton beach and next to the pier on a wet day. This advert is about curry Twiglets, which were not that nice and simply vanished ...thank goodness!!!!!

I thought I would put up a photo of Marmite and Vegemite, both these products have their own web sites if you wish to know more about them. Marmite has been around since 1902 and Vegemite was first released in 1922.

By the way it's snowing, I wonder if I will ever get off the hill!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Boredom, Twigglets and Pink Things.

2010-01-12T20:47:00.005Z

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are all well and keeping warm.
Well silly here is well and warm, although I do seem to be sleeping a lot lately, I guess it's just me hibernating. I'm just like a grizzly bear come winter and I hate to be cold. Every year we have a big winter bill as I simply refuse to be cold. I stopped worrying about the bill years ago. I figure that as I don't spend money on myself and I now neither drink or smoke, It's a luxury I can afford.
I would love a log burning stove, but we live 7miles from the centre of London and therefore we are in a smoke free zone and the council won't give me permission to have one unless it's a smokeless one and we have to burn smokeless fuel. So that would make it almost as expensive to run, so what would be the point.

I still haven't been out as such, the boys took me to the supermarket, but other than that I have been nowhere, other than my own imagination. My sister won't be over tomorrow and I haven't seen her since Christmas day. I am missing her and her daft ways always make me laugh. The pavements are still really icy where she lives and not a lot better here.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I am bored to the number 99.99999999999 recurring. But it'll pass, maybe it's like Nutty keeps saying to me and that it's just the January Blues. But I'm bored of the snow and being stuck in.

Weighed myself today, shouldn't have bothered really as I knew it would be a disappointment.
You see there was this big big bag of Twigglets and they kept calling me from the kitchen....eat me! eat me! eat me! go on you know you want to.! So I did, all of them, lol.
Oh well they are gone now. Before you shake your head at me, in my defence I did try to give them away to the boys, but they refused to rescue me from my dilemma.
So due to the Twigglet debacle, (oh ok, my lack of will power) I have only lost a pound. Still it's one less to carry around.

On another note. Patricia wants to come home. Yippee!!! But she doesn't want to come home! But she does want to come home, but she doesn't.........the kid is driving me nuts.
I have decided that she can come home any time she so wishes, but I am not going to pack up my craft room and move everything about until she darn well makes up her mind!!!!!!!
Blooming kids, there's nothing I would not do for them, but seriously they have to know what they want before I will turn the house upside down for them.
I'm just glad we didn't decorate it yet. This way she can just slot back into it with all her pretty pink things.

Funny thing about Patricia, when she was growing up she hated pink. It was partly my fault as I didn't really want her to she Pink as the colour of femininity. So many people get wrapped up in believing Pink is for girls and I wanted my daughter to be an individual.
Now I find that someone has come up with a campaign against pink called pink stinks wish I had thought of this 21yrs ago. It really is right up my street.
Anyway for 19yrs I managed to keep her away from the dreaded pink, then when two years ago we decorated the house, she asked for a pink room. A total shock to me and I got the colours for her. Now when she is here it's like a pink palace in there. But I am pleased to report that blue and yellow remain her favourite colours.

Anyway, I will keep you up to date on whether or not she returns home.

Much love
Lia xx

2010-01-08T12:30:00.003Z

Hello Everyone,

I almost forgot this; If he had lived the great Elvis would have been 75 today.
Much over the years has been said about Elvis and I really don't want to add anything to it all.
Except to say that if I ever had to choose 10 songs only to listen to for the rest of my life this one would be one of them. It's simply beautiful and his voice is so wonderful on this song. It is with out doubt my favorite Elvis song
I choose this video not because it is one of the better made for YouTube, but rather for all the great photos of him.

Rest In Peace Elvis

Why Panic, When The Media Can Do It For Us!!!!!!

2010-01-08T09:09:00.005Z

Hello Everyone,

I think I may have to lie down in a darkened room for the rest of the day.
The reason for this is the BBC, yes that wonderful British Institution, we all love so much.
I really have come to the conclusion that we have become a nation of media lead zombies and common sense has taken a holiday, maybe it's off in Greenland on a golfing trip with the Gulf Stream.

This is the latest madness from the BBC. Just this morning they said

Don't go out and panic buy as it will lead to shortages, however due to the cold weather many isolated farms are unable to get their milk to market, so if the weather continues there could be shortages of milk..........by Monday.
(The National Union Of Farmers are saying this is not true, there is plenty of milk in storage and it is in fact only the very, very isolated farmers who are having this problem)

Super markets are running out of food, due to panic buying (which I believe the BBC may have started last week by telling us all that food would run out at supermarkets if the weather got too bad!!!!!)

We are running out of gas, due to a (stupid) Government. (Nothing to do with selling all our gas and oil stocks from the North Sea back in the 1970s..check out Norway they didn't sell theirs and they are doing really well)

We are seriously running out of grit, due to councils not ordering in enough or not using it correctly. Now the Government have taken it over and are rationing it.
Come summer there will be floods, this is due to all the salt and grit being put on the roads, as it won't wash away easily and will block drains. Therefore leading to floods when we get heavy summer storms.

Oh and lastly, the recession will last longer now due to all the money being lost as people can't get into work.

Now none of these are actual reports, they are the stupid talk between the presenters.
The milk one comes from the man who reports on the financial world, who happens to have a brother-in-law on an isolated farm, who can not get his milk picked up due to the isolation of his farm.

These people are paid a stupid amount of money for what amounts to reading the news and telling a story. We over here have to pay a stupid license fee of £142:50 per year for the privilege of having the BBC even if you don't watch their programs, but have a T.V.
The very lest I expect them to do is to REPORT THE NEWS and READ THE FACTS. Not make up stupidness as they go along to fill in time.

On the other side they showed us all how to dress up against the bad weather, what ever next, lessons in how to breathe and blink!!!!!!!!!!!
Mind you it's not all doom and gloom, as sales of condoms have gone up since the bad weather came in........now what do you suppose they use them for apart from the obvious, am sure if I watch TV for long enough today some smartypants on the telly will tell me!!!!!!

Gulf Stream Is Off Playing Golf !!!!

2010-01-08T00:09:00.002Z

This is what Britain looks like right now, Thanks to NASA, we can all get a clear view of what the country looks like from space right now.
I'm tucked up under the swirly bit of cloud.
I left the photo big so as to give you all a good look. Now it's said that we get are weather from the Gulf Stream, however this just maybe a myth click here to read more.
I don't know if it's true or not, however I do know that the Gulf Stream is at present over Greenland and I bet they are coping fine.

Random Thoughts

2010-01-07T14:15:00.005Z

Hello Everyone,

I hope your all well today. I'm fine but snowed in on the hill again and the children refuse to take me out in it as I fell over so many times in February '09. I think I told you all before that I went out with daughter and No 2 son, who ordered me home after I kept falling over. I did say that I would get snow boots for the next snow storm. Well I didn't and so they won't let me out.

Horrid kids, will feed them vegetables for dinner Mwhahahahaha!!!!!!!!

Here's some random thoughts that are buzzing round my head.......yes! yes! I know thinking is bad for me, but sometimes I just can't help myself!!!!!!!

I wish Bear would come in the house and stay. Bear has been found a couple of times under the dinning room table, but the minute he spots one of us he is up and running. Despite all the recent cold, he is looking really well now. It's taken us a long time to get him into shape, but he has filled out a treat and his coat is glossy and thick. But I worry about him out there in all this snow. We really do believe that he is a stray as he calls on us so often during the day, sometimes up to 5 times for a feed that if he was doing that and eating else where he would be huge. We know he sleeps in a shed in one of our neighbours gardens. Maybe one day Misty and Bear will get along and he will feel more confident about coming into a warm home.

What is it with me and watching the Jeremy Kyle show (British version of Jerry Springer). What is wrong with me that I like to watch car-crash TV...I really need to get out more!!!!!!!!

Why do all my friends keep telling me about how much they had to drink over Christmas?
I'm almost tee-total and not one bit interested in how drunk they got?
The obsession British folks have with drink is shaming us all. Everybody wants to talk about how smashed they got and how they can't remember any thing. I'm so not interested!!!!!!

Am I the only one sick of seeing the cash for gold adverts....people are only buying your gold because the banks are buggered. What happens when the gold price drops because the market is flooded.

Is it too early in the year to be planning the summer camping trips?

Why is the £20, that I can't find and keep looking for still bugging me 3 weeks later?

Why is this country almost at a standstill because of the snow?

What new skill am I going to try to take up this year? I don't do resolutions at the new year as it leds to failure for me, instead I do "take ups". Basically I take up a new skill or a challenge. One year it was to read two books a month. I have lapsed a little on that one, but still mostly do it.

I'm I weird for getting excited about flat-pack furniture? I love making it up!!!!!!!

Why do some weight sites say I am a large frame or that I am morbidly obese and others say I am a medium frame and overweight? note to self.....listen to the doctor!!!!!! she said lose 3stone.

What am I going to make that lot for dinner tonight? Oh yeah I remember vegetables!!!!!!

Well that's it for today, am off to peel a ton weight of veggies now Mwhahahaha!!!!

Much love
Lia
xx

ps, stupidly forgot to post this when I finished it. Told you thinking is bad for me!!!!

2010-01-05T22:34:00.010Z

Hello Everyone,

Great day today, I feel really well and it's now 22:54 and snowing, which is great for two reasons, a) it's pretty and b) the hated neighbours won't be about for a few days so it will be peaceful....(does hand stands and chart wheels round house!!!!!).

Have you meet Mamma over at Mamma has spoken .Well if you haven't pop over and see her, she's very sweet, rather funny and a lovely blog friend of mine. Mamma is also the mother of four strapping young men, one of whom is an American soldier on a tour of duty in Afghanistan. I don't know how she stays sane, but I think blogging helps.

Today she put up a post about not forgetting your underwear. At first reading the title, I thought maybe she had been to Walmarts and had her eyes melted by some hidious deluded female, who thought it was sexy to go out with no drawers on her backside or the smallest of small shorts, or the highest hem line equally with no underwear on. uck!!!!

But to my relief it was more to do with her weight loss. Mamma has lost about 50lbs in weight over the last year. I think that is amazing...a round of applause to that woman. I won't tell you what happened to her, you can read that for yourselves on her blog. But it's rather funny.
Mamma has inspired me to keep going with my weight loss, I have been quietly losing weight.

I say quietly as, I have never really had to diet before, so the whole idea of it was a bit daunting to me. However I have been told; rather ordered to be honest to lose weight by the Specialist I saw in November.
Funny how the weight creeps on and you don't really notice it. I knew I had put the weight on, that started a while back when I gave up smoking, but giving up work has only increased my waist line. I did ask people if I had got fat, but all I got was "a bit" and "your tall, so you can carry a bit of weight"....did I ask that?

Anyway it turns out that I had got fat. In fact when they weighed me at the hospital and the nurse told me how much I weighed, I was so embarrassed, as I was more than on the day I gave birth to Callum and he wasn't exactly a big baby at 7lb 12oz. I wanted the ground to open up. No wonder I was tired and so ill. Not exactly doing myself any favours.

I resolved that, that was it. No way was I going to carry on like that. Saw the Specialist, had a good chat about what to do, where to find help etc and came away knowing that no-one was ever going to tell me that I weighed that much again.

Did some research and found out that there are foods that can actually make the fibromyalgia worse. Which in turn means that I couldn't, wouldn't, be able to get energy, meaning more bed rest and even less movement. I took on board what the research told me and have slowly been getting a bit better. Just got over a nasty little "man-germ", but am feeling better and better.

Much more energy, not as much as I would like but hey, I will get there.
But the funny thing is., I to have a similar problem as Mamma has just encountered, which Francis (with an i) found so very funny and I was mortified. Mamma however seems to have taken it all in her stride, as she does just about everything. So knowing that she has lost 50lbs is such an inspiration to me.

Having revealed so much about myself recently, I might as well tell you the really horrid truth of my weight gain, which I'd like to say creped up on me when I wasn't on the ball, but the real truth is that I knew I was gaining weight, just didn't realise how much. Never having had a set of scales before, something that was also corrected on that fateful day.

I'm 5ft 8in tall and a medium frame and my weight was always between about 10st 7lbs and 11st; roughly, on the odd times I stood on a friends scales. If my clothes felt tight I just sort of cut out things, mostly chocolate and bacon (no not eaten together, silly you!!!) and cut down my portion size and upped my fruit in take. Never really worried about my weight as I felt good.

So I'm 5ft 8in, medium build.

November 26th I weighed......14st 1lb.
December 17th I weighed.......13st 5lb.
January 05th I weighed.......13st 6lb.

That means I had Christmas, which was a bit of a worry and oh so tempting and only gained a pound. Yay for me. I can't wait to say I have lost 50lbs like Mamma has. That will be amazing and now I know that Mamma has been so successful I won't find it so hard to stay on track.
So thank you Mamma, as always another blog buddy is an inspiration to me. You lot rock.

Also now that I have told you all that I "have" to diet and it's out there for the whole World to read, I guess I really have to stay on track. I will keep you up dated on how well I do.
Am going back to swimming soon, well when I can get back into my swim suit. I love swimming.
Francis (with an i) got my the wii, wii fit board and wii sport and wii fitness, but the Specialist says I have to wait a little while before I go mad on them and then I have to start slowly.

Did I tell you it's snowing. Big fat pure white, as big as your palm snow flakes yippee!!!!
Francis (with an i) is home tomorrow, which means I will get to go out and play in it this time.
Am gonna make a snow angel for Mel, over at Melsdream.

Much love
Lia
xx

God Was In The Cricket Bat!!!!!

2010-01-04T19:45:00.006Z

Hello Everyone,

Thanks for all your lovely comments regarding my last post. I thought I would make a post rather than just some small little comment that you might not check back on. Besides I had also been thinking a lot about the things you said to me and how I got to be the me I am today.

I do always value your comments and try to take on board what you say to me, as you have all become valued friends. I am a firm believer that if enough people, that you know, value, trust and respect are telling you the same things, then you really should take them on board as much as possible. But I didn't always believe in that and often ignored the well given and good intended advise.

It took a long time for me to work out who I was, still not sure I know where I am going, but the journey has been a blast to say the lest about it all.
I never really started to come into myself until rather late in life, (I was 32) compared to my friends around me, who all seemed to have it so together, while I lurched from crisis to the next crisis. With my poor 3 kids in tow and the poor little things wondering why they were being raised by a headless chicken.

I remember when the penny dropped that life wasn't a dress rehearsal, when it did the noise was deafening. I can remember the clank, clank of the penny as it dropped from a high place.
I knew that day that I had reach my limit and that somewhere in all this mess I had played a part in it. That I wasn't as innocent in it all, as I had thought. We do whether or not you choose to see it, play apart in what happens to us. After all we put ourselves in to that place, at that time. Be it that we don't see it at the time, but in hindsight we do. We have choices in life, I made bad ones. But it's not the mistake you make, it's what you learn from the mistake that is important.

So finally the penny dropped.
It happened the day my husband came home drunk again and he completely lost it.
Here's what happened.

He went out early in the morning and like a dog that knows it's going to be kicked, I knew, I just knew that when he got back that there would be trouble. He came in just as I was serving dinner, said he was starving and that he would eat with us. For the briefest of moments I thought we would all be ok. The kids were all happy and relaxed and he seemed to be in a good mood.

Until that was he realised that Patricia wasn't eating the same as the rest of us. (I don't believe in feeding kids things they really don't like and she really didn't like the dinner I was serving that night,. She still doesn't in fact and with good reason.). I still find it hard to put into words what he did that night, but he suddenly reach out for Patricia and before I had chance to take it on board he was banging her head of the table and screaming at her. The World stopped for a moment, I couldn't take in what was happening in front of me, there was a horrid sounding thud, thud, thud, then I realised. I remember hitting him with a chair to get him off her, I remember getting in between them and protecting her, she was 6, I remember Ashley 9 at the time, grabbing his baby brother (18 mths old) out the high chair and then getting hold of his sister and pulling her towards the door, while I stayed between them and the maniac that was their father, as he rained down blows on me.

We lived in a town house and it was over 4 stories, instead of heading downstairs, the kids in their confusion headed upstairs to Ashley's room. I heard the door slam and the children screaming. I ran for the stairs and the kids, he grabbed my ankle and dragged me down the stairs, face first, I twisted around to kick him in the chest. He leaped back at me and I could feel his hands round my throat and it was suddenly harder to breathe, there were spots before my eyes, my body started to become heavy and then he whispered almost lovingly and softly "When I'm done, I'm going after them". He didn't have to tell me who "them " were I knew he meant our kids.

I had a choice in that moment, die or fight. When I say that please believe me, it really was a case of die or fight. We had, had many fights before this one, but instinctively I knew this was a fight for my life, but more importantly a fight for the kids lives. This would be the last fight.
I only weighed about 100lbs (about 7 1/2 stone) and he was at least twice my weight. I still to this day have no idea how I got the strength, but somehow I brought my knee up and connected with his.......bits for a better word. As he let go and bent down I kicked him down the stairs and ran for the kids. He was right on my heel, as I ran into Ashley's room, he yelled "Quick Mum, use this" and threw a cricket bat at me. In what can only be described as a nano second I had caught the bat swung round and clobbered him with it. There was a horrid noise, like a dry twig snapping violently and a scream from him, but he kept coming, so I hit him again and again and again and again and I kept hitting him till he was on his knees and then out cold on the floor. The silence was deafening and I wanted him away from us, as far away as I could physically get him.

I dragged him then out of our home, down three flights of stairs, making sure he banged his head on every stair all the way down. I dragged him up our garden path which was about 30ft long and was concrete, not the smooth stuff but the rough textured stuff, face first and I dumped him outside our garden gate. I remember looking down at him and then exhaling, a huge exhale as if I had been holding my breath my whole life. When I breathed in the cold air stung my lungs and burned all the way down, yet never has fresh air felt so bloody good.

In the distance I could hear the sirens of the police I knew they were for me. One of the neighbours asked me if we were ok. I looked at him lying there, turned to the neighbour and said "We will be now". In that very moment I knew, that things would never be that bad again.
I felt strange, as if a weight had been lifted and a light had been switched on in my head.

I had broken both his collar bones, 7 ribs, fractured his skull in two places, fractured one of his wrists and he had grazes all over his face. I'm not proud of it, it's the worst thing I have ever done to another human being, but one of us was leaving that night and it wasn't going to be me. He tried to have me arrested and charges pressed, but the police, sick of coming to our home refused and told him that it was self defense and I was not going to be charged. Some of the neighbours told the police that he had come home from the pub in that state, had fallen over in the street, so some of his injuries must have come from that. I did however have him arrested and charged with the assault of our daughter. Funny he didn't like it one bit.

The next day I woke up a different woman. I think she had always been inside me, but now she was rising and nothing and no-one was going to get in the way. It wasn't the first time I had woken up with black eyes, bruises and marks all over me, but as I looked in the mirror I knew it would be the last. Never again would my kids be in such danger.

Years later during a phone conversation with the husband he said to me that; when I hit him with the cricket bat there was a look in my eyes that scared him and I remember thinking GOOD!
He said that at that moment, he knew there was no coming back from this and he wasn't surprised to come round in hospital with a police man standing next to him waiting to arrest him.

Another odd thing happened in the few days after that, friends have told me how they noticed a steeliness to me and a determination that they hadn't seen before and people knew I was serious. They helped a lot and I got serious about life.

We've never looked back from that day and we never will. We have talked about it, which has been good for all of us. But we will never be there again.

Some one once told me that there has to be evil in the World, so that when good comes along you will know the difference and appreciate it all the more, (I think it's a quote from Buddha).
I can say that, even if I could go back in time and change what happened to me that I wouldn't
Funny thing is that everything that happened, led me to who I am today and I like me. If God was there, I think in was in the cricket bat. I'd have never believed a cricket bat could do that much damage, if I hadn't have seen it first hand.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not the end of the World if crap happens to you, sometimes it can be the start of the journey to your self.
Personally speaking, I wouldn't have missed any of it for all the tea in China (do they still grow tea in China????)