just borrowed this off my daughter's facebook page:

"I love my past, I love my present. I am not ashamed of what I have had, and I am not sad because I no longer have it."

- aww, she loves me :)

definitely on a repeat pattern!

it's been almost a month since i posted, no excuses i just wish that today was the 27th then things really would be on a repeat pattern.

i want to write something everyday but get distracted by interesting forums, mad message boards and dumb television - what is it that sticks me like glue to the ridiculous rubbish i watch on TV?

i also get distracted by my cat who feels that the laptop is stealing her warm and cosy place, she wants and needs to sit on me or she will yowl, a sort of meow with volume and distance that often says 'give me what i want or i'll be sick then you'll have to put that laptop down to clear it up!' - cats, very prone to fur balls and blackmailing!!!

and what's all this christmas stuff - surely it can wait until december starts, people will be putting lights outside their houses before the weekend's out. my ex used to say you shouldn't decorate the christmas tree before the 24th december - well he said that's what they do in norway where his father came from.

i remember the days when we decorated the tree the week before christmas, it helped to build the excitement up and made sure the tree lasted until christmas was over, of course those were the days when we all had real trees and the world was a nicer place.

but was it really a nicer place or was it just that i didn't have the years of experience i now have? reality is a real put down isn't it - oh to be young and innocent again!

actually i'm starting to see the point of getting organised early, you'll have longer to appreciate the 'lovely' decorations and if you do get organised now you'll have less hard work to do when the dreaded day comes looming towards us.

and on that note i shall go off and remember those happy days when presents were a real surprise and snow was something that came every year, if you didn't have a sledge you could always use a tea tray! and the skating, i remember skating on a frozen pond and thinking nothing of it but know it is a wonderful memory of my childhood.

is it just me or do things have a habit of repeating themselves - every year when it's autumn half-term the internet slows down, people get flu and other annoying bugs and i get an attack of the up chucks. i'm starting to wonder if i should keep a diary so i can check if life is on a circular tour or if it just seems that way to me - in other words, am i just mad!???

i heard the first fireworks this week, hmppfff, it's not november yet, they'll be saying it's nearly christmas soon - oh wait a minute, they already are.

i'm in a treacle fog at the moment, i'm trying to organise misplaced furniture on it's way down to Plymouth and trying to work out which is the best deal for my daughter's birthday present. i want to get her a replacement for the one she had as an 18th birthday present which she she kindly gave to me when my laptop suddenly died on me, she knew i needed my internet fix and would have been lost if i couldn't talk to my cyber friends, she didn't even think twice before offering me what had been her prize possession and feel compelled to find her some kind of replacement having taken over her 21st birthday present laptop for myself. ok so this gorgeous laptop had a broken keyboard which i had to pay to replace but it outlives my dreams and is a wonderful and powerful being, but something that is of not so much use to my daughter now because it is too old to connect with her iPhone, another must have which has unfortunately broken but will be updated on contract renewal at the end of the month. anyway, the need to give her back some kind of internet access is purely for a selfish reason, i like to be able to communicate with her and she often doesn't answer her phone, not because she's ignorant, more like she's too busy with 3 gorgeous children under the age of 4 to look after. i also feel guilty for getting so much pleasure from what i still feel is her laptop, the fantastic Applemac G4 PowerBook.

must go now to check emails, i've completely lost track of what i wanted to say anyway!

... yet again i'm waiting, on friday it was for my new fridge freezer to arrive, 8am to 6pm they said, i'd hoped for 10am but it arrived at 5.10pm! a small amount of frozen and fridge food had been in cool bags with ice blocks all day, i had to let the fridge stand for 4 hours from delivery time until switching it on so it was 9.10pm and the poor frozen food was looking less frozen by the minute, then it was about another 2 hours before the freezer had got to the right temperature for frozen food. so, after 13 hours being out of the fridge i decided to chuck the old stuff out and start again, changed my Sainsbury's delivery from tuesday to sunday at an extra cost of £2. i now wait with baited breathe for new frozen food to put into my new fridge, what an exciting life i lead.

the waiting can only be topped in interest levels with watching the midges playing in the garden as the light was fading tonight. they reminded me of a group of teenagers on the edge of a housing estate, they looked like they were play fighting and running around kissing each other. if i was outside i wouldn't have liked to be amongst them but watching them from inside was almost magical!

waiting ...

... and waiting and waiting some more - for a new fridge freezer to be delivered. i've been waiting since 8am, and all because i didn't want too pay £25!!! at first i was told i could order a fridge before 1.30pm and have it delivered the next day, this was last thursday at 12.30pm. then when i did order it i was told that to get next day delivery i should have called before 12.30! so i ordered delivery for saturday morning then at 5.55pm on thursday someone from the store called and said they couldn't do saturday but could do sunday, as i was in the middle of doing something else i just said yes but then realised it didn't fit in with my plans so called the next day and said i would be out on sunday and if i was paying for a delivery i wanted delivery on the day i ordered the delivery. they said i could have free delivery but it would be the following friday and it would be an all day slot. that saves me £25 so i think it will be ok - until today when i am waiting and have been waiting since 8am - what's the betting that the delivery turns up at 5.55pm or i get a call then saying they can't deliver at all today!!! 3.30pm and still waiting, only 2 and a half hours to go, ouch, i think i cut off my nose to spite my face!

please remind me not to go on a 15 mile bus journey again, i went on 2 today and that was 2 too many, why oh why did they close the train station at Sidmouth! travelling by train is sedate and fun, travelling on a bus is just stomach churning. wearing acupressure bands that prevent motion sickness helps in that i know i will not vomit but it doesn't stop the feeling sick - i had to shut my eyes and meditate silently to survive on the way back, it was that or walk!

why oh why do some people think life's rules don't apply to them? a strange car has been parking in front of and blocking my driveway for a few weeks. today i was alert and awake enough to confront the witch who was driving it, turns out she didn't want the bin men's lorry to scratch her precious car - if she thinks it won't get scratched outside my house she could be wrong! there is a car parked in the drive, ok, its tax disc has run out but that doesn't mean we won't want to move it, and it is my drive, what happened to having respect for other people property? i am totally sane to think this, access to my property should not be blocked by some stupid neighbour. the car is still parked just meters away in what should be a turning space, i hope i don't have any sharp objects in my pocket when i go out!!! ~ joke - honest! ~

another day over, another battle with mobile phones survived, almost, only tomorrow will i know if i can make it work. it's the technology thing again, it just totally fazes me!

just watched a programme about a family who go back to the 70s for 10 days, the lack of technology was so great in those days, and children played out because there was nothing else to do.

moving weekend!

like all good children my daughter is having a moving week rather than just a day. to be fair it's not what she wanted, rather misunderstandings and holidays combined with workmen who can only work on certain days!!! hopefully by the time they get back from their holiday they will be able to unpack and settle in to their new home, but it's a long time between packing up and unpacking. i hope the monday-friday at Butlins is a good chance to relax for them all and something they love and remember. i will miss my daughter, her 3 gorgeous children and even her big, beefy husband but they are only 40 miles away so it isn't the end of the world.

ok i'm over feeling sorry for myself. now i've just got to work out what i want to do before i can do it.

oh and i've got to stop using the word got! when is was in junior school we had one teacher who made us bury the word got and look for other words to use in its place. that was about the only grammar i ever remember being taught, sadly. as an adult i became interested in crossword puzzles and using a thesaurus and dictionary together to cross reference words, it's amazing how soon you start to sound intelligent. sadly if you stop then you start to sound like the normal run of the mill pleb you've always known you are.

today my daughter told me she will be moving herself and her family into a new house 40 miles away, i so want to follow in her shadow but realise i must let them go so that they can then come back.

no one ever said how painful it is to let your children go, believe me it is the most heart wrenching thing to ever happen.

dilemmas

is there anyone out there who likes these?

it's a bit like facing a new 5000 piece jigsaw puzzle really when you think about it, solve a small bit of a dilemma and then more pieces fall into place. ok problem solved, now i can just get on with the rest of my life!

... if only life were that simple.

maybe just putting the dilemma to the back of my mind will help, let things settle in my brain until the most important one surfaces - is that the way things happen or will the most annoying thought surface first?

i have an brilliant idea of how i want things to turn out but it's really just a fantasy, it would be great if everything worked out the way i wanted but that only happens in fairy tales and this life is far from a fairy tale.

has anyone noticed, tonight there is no moon and no stars even tho the forcaste said it will be a clear sky tonight! maybe there is a clue to the dilemma in that, or maybe not, could just be a part of the moons cycle.

maybe i should just stop taking life so seriously!!!

a whole day went past without me writing anything, all i can say is that yesterday the news came out that Patrick Swayze and Keith Floyd had died, both legends in their own right and nice people as well, hopefully they will both now be at peace.

unfortunately the sadness wiped all thoughts of writing right out of my brain, that and the happiness of chocolate waffles shared with grandson number 1 of course :) having tea with my daughter and her lovely family will always send my mind blank. too busy playing with the red London bus which had small coins as passengers in the absence of tiny people to even think about writing.

ok, i'll get back to serious thinking tomorrow, i hope, the great thing about blog writing is that there's no one to tell you off for not writing, no one to frown or disapprove when you get sidetracked by the lighter side of life.

goodnight

oh dear, i want to go to bed but i want to write something, just so i can say i write something on here every day.

brains on go slow, words stuck in a treacle overflow, so this might be all i can give tonight. lucky no one else i reading this but me :)

sunshine + rainbows

it's lovely to have sunshine and warmth in september, it chases the autumn away, giving us a few more precious days of summer to bask in. i always love the late afternoon sun as it shines on the crystals hanging in my window ~ yes like Pollyanna i hang my crystals ~ and such glorious rainbows they make. if i put the fan on they dance about, different shapes and sizes all dancing around the room ~ on the floor, the walls, the ceiling and sometimes they even land on me, which is quite magical.

i want to write something but i don't know what, how stupid is that?

ok, will start with a British classic: the weather :)

the sun was out today, what a glorious summer day, just when we thought that winter had set in the weather changes to give us the nicest surprise. does this mean that we're in for a colder winter when it eventually arrives? i grew up in Sheffield and was born further north in Middlesbrough, a place whose name i never knew how to spell until fairly recently! now both of those places used to have snowy winters so i grew up loving the cold white stuff. now as an adult i think it looks glorious on day one but after that it just becomes a nuisance. how come our attitudes change? i now live in the south west where snow doesn't happen very often but when it does the whole world stops, it's as if the idea of gritters on the main roads has not yet been invented. consequently everything grinds to a halt, which sadly makes the snow seem like a very bad idea all round, no one can get out, the roads and pavements become icy danger zones and the chance of getting a bus are virtually nil unless you live within city limits.

when i moved into this house i didn't like the area, too far away from civilisation, and yet it is only a mile from town, i live at the top of a very steep hill, watching people try to ride their push bikes up it is funny. a bus driver who lives down the road told me he has to ride his bike into work on a sunday as the buses only run once an hour from here, but he always pushes the bike back up the hill! now, years later i like living here for the exact same reasons as i used to dislike it ~ it's quiet, peaceful and too far up a steep hill to be bothered by many door to door salesbugs or other obnoxious people. anyway, i now quite like living here and although i was planning on moving, i now can't find anywhere else i would like to live.

so either i'm just one of those people who changes their mind or i grow into or out of things as i age!

thoughts for Friday ...

... or not, as the case may be. if i just start typing will the words please make their way to the ends of my fingers, NOW!

oh dear, there seems to be a road block on the way between the thoughts and the escape route, unless the thoughts are just not happening today, which is quite probable as i've been on a spending overdrive today. went to buy paint and came back with 2 pairs of jeans, 2 purple t-shirts, one glorious blouse and 24 noisy bangles, all for £40 which is quite good, i think, i don't buy clothes the way i used to so have no idea what other people spend on their clothes but i know someone who spends a lot more than that. oh and i completely forgot to buy paint!

Q. am i pleased with my new purchases?
A. yes i am, very pleased.

Q. will i wear my new clothes straight away?
A. no.

ok, this might just make me sound quite mad but i have a thing about not wearing new clothes straight away, which is not a good idea because by the time i've realised i don't like them it's too late to take them back. yet still i don't wear new clothes straight away, i just like to get used to them before wearing them, makes perfect sense to me!

anyway, a day of shopping has probably frightened all my thoughts away, all the sane ones anyway!

if ...

if you look through a dirty window do you see an unclean world?

if we see the world through different eyes are we living in the same place or is it just a different space?

if i ask you a question and you tell me a lie does that mean you don't like me or do you really like me and are you trying to protect me?

if we all knew the same things would it be boring?

if i had everything i wanted would something else go wrong?

if i could live my life again would i make any changes or just do everything the same?

if i wasn't on the internet what would i be doing???

escape!

why is it that words escape? just before i go to bed these words form great stories and i assume they will line up in my head like all good words should do, maybe it's stupid of me but i hope they will remain in line until the following morning when, after getting a few hours of much needed shut eye, i will collect them up and frog march them into my blog. instead i find nothing, total blank space looking a bit like ................................................... that (had to insert dots or there was no space) only so much bigger. throughout the day odd words jump back in to my conscious mind but they are usually out of sync and if written down would look like an unmade jigsaw dropped from a great height. so i trawl through the day, trying to collect the words and assemble them into good order but it's a bit like trying to get 100 cats to do what you want at the same time - impossible!

Technology 2 or rather the lack of understanding it!

during my anti technology rant i was interrupted by the doorbell and the words just ran off to play elsewhere, as they tend to do.

this is about all the new things which confuse me:

things like my super dupa new camera which i chose as a Christmas present ~ i went into the shop and asked for something simple and easy to use, i came out with a fantastic camera which was far from either of those requirements. it's now September and although i can use said camera on it's basic automatic settings there are so many other things it does which i will never understand - read the booklet they said, all 100 pages of small print, which is in English but may as well be in Dutch for all the sense it makes to me.

things like my new super dupa mobile phone ~ i went in with the intention of buying a simple flip top pay as you go phone to replace the much loved 4 year old one i had recently broken, i came out with a slider contract phone. again a very good phone and a good and cheap contract deal, but i don't understand it at all and to get it to do one thing i have to answer 50 questions!

is it just me or are they making new things more difficult for anyone over the age of 40 to understand.

many more things confuse me, from everyday simple stuff to the more complex and utterly absurd, i'm sure i will share those details soon enough but i need to raid the fridge right now before night falls.

technology!

why is it that it becomes more difficult to keep up with modern technology the older we get?

when i was a child the word was rarely heard, TECHNOLOGY, it did exist but it was far enough away for it not to affect me. now it's round every corner, in school children have lessons in Food Technology, they're probably the same as the lessons we had called Domestic Science but somehow adding the name Technology makes it seem more important on the school curriculum.

everything seems to have technology following it, as if having a suffix of such importance makes the world more grandiose.

9/11 TV Coverage

am i the only person wondering why we are being shown coverage all this week of 9/11? 8 years later and it's still as haunting as ever. i tuned into BBC1 just after the first plane struck and witnessed it all from the comfort of my home in the UK, it was deeply disturbing and unforgettable, i don't need to see it on screen again to remember. i would like to think that the film and documentary makers were giving their profits to the victims' families and to those who survived but must still be wondering how come they were chosen to be the lucky ones.

... would the world be any different?

if i knew what i was doing would everything fall into place, or would it just continue to fall around my ears?

why is real life more complicated than fiction?

why am i doing this???

ok, i thought i could write, thought it would be as easy as talking and i can talk the hind legs off anything and anyone, but ... it's not as easy as it was in my head during the middle of the night. the words of the night flow free, all problems are solved, i wake up to a wonderful world before realising that my dream world evaporated with the morning dew.

what am i complaining about, i have a lovely daughter, 3 gorgeous grandchildren and a big and beefy son in law, my parents are still alive and kicking, my sister is, and always will be, older than me and my niece is nice. i have no complaints, not really, it's just that i want my life to be something that it isn't, what i don't know, the only word i can think of is Zingy but does anyone really know what that means - answers on a postcard please.