Poetic Wisdom

The brilliant American author and poet Maya Angelou once said
'when someone shows you who they are, believe them'
She also said 'If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude'.
These are wise words indeed from a wise woman who has a courageous soul despite the most horrendous childhood experience of abuse and then (her) selective mutism. We can learn so much from the older generation.
A person who can rise from the ashes of personal tragedy and choose the tougher,alternative path is living wisdom.

The death of common sense

Whatever happened to plain old fashioned common sense?
A news story grabbed my attention this week. Two police officers looked after each others children so the other could work, in a bloody sensible job share arrangement. Some sour faced do gooder ( who probably pays the local nursery a grand a month to look after their child) reported them to the powers that be who duly informed them that their happy, mutually convenient arrangement was 'illegal.'
Our country, our government, knows what's best for our kids and you'd better sit up and pay attention before we all stumble blindly into an Orwellian Dead-End.
Yes, it beggars belief. But no, it did happen and as a result one of these women has decided to have no more children.
She can't afford it. There's a fairly recent trend for one child families(through choice not desire) since it means the childcare arrangements are manageable and obviously much cheaper. Double up on the sprogs and double up on nursery fees, obviously.
When I was researching the possiblities of returning to work when the youngest was born, and pondering on the cost of expensive and not always entirely suitable full time childcare options, I made the somewhat old fashioned and sometimes socially frowned-upon decision to stay at home with both of them. I worked out that, factoring in daycare costs, travel costs, and other sundry costs, my income would have to exceed 45k to make it worthwile, and even then I'd be exisiting in a state of constant shatterdom,( this is not a real word ) working 12 hour days in a stressful environment which makes no allowances for parents whatever bloody government directives are issued, and only seeing them both briefly in the morning and evening. Over the past ten years or so, this government has tempted/forced more and more parents to use full time daycare so they (women mostly, it seems Harriet Harman wants us all to get jobs as MP's )can work. Well, what if we don't want to ? What if we want to look after our children at home, all on our very own without any state intervention or Ofsted ruling? What if we prefer to do that ?
What if a Mother wants a few years out to raise her brood, or part time work which fits in better with a growing family ?
Is that so very twee and 1950's?
Harriet Harman insists that we need more women in Parliament. Well, wake up and smell the coffee, Hattie... most women don't want to live in a secondary residence all week (even if they can claim fraudulently for a new plasma telly on expenses) whilst a Nanny has all the fun at home with their children. Most women would shudder at the thought of working away from their children week in, week out.
The best thing to happen in 2010 will be the removal of Harriet Harman from government. Gordon is a bit crap too, but HH makes my blood boil.
Sod off Ofsted.

London Baby Yeah !

As I've mentioned before on three or four occasions, I live in Biggleswade.
It's a quaintly pretty market town in Mid Bedfordshire next to the River Ivel and half an hour from Cambridge, Stevenage, Bedford and London
(on a good day.. on a bad one it takes 45 minutes and shudders to a creaking standstill at every small town between Biggleswade and Kings Cross)
If you ever catch Biggleswade on a bright Autumn Saturday, when the market is alive with the animated flurry of early risers, you will see it at its best.
Grab a steaming Latte and an almond croissant at the market square cafe, before settling back for a spot of people watching. This is cafe culture Biggleswade style !

We moved here because of its practical proximity to London (for work) and the M1, which helps when we visit relatives ooop north. That, and the very pertinent fact that a move to Biggleswade
makes it possible to buy a decent house in a good area but on a mainline service into the capital.
Just a few miles down the road in Hertfordshire, house prices shoot skywards and the towns there hold no greater appeal
( except perhaps that the train journey shaves a handful of minutes off the journey to London and you can choose between a Costa, a Nero and five or six Starbucks )

Anyway, where is this all leading ?

Last weekend, my American cousin Lynn came to visit and we headed off to London, home of Queen Elizabeth II, that most resilient sovereign, who endured many an annus horribilis (in the past ) thanks to her errant offspring.
There's something quite magical about being in the company of a spontaneous person.
I'm often paralysed to the spot in my desire to plan ahead, just in case this or that might occur, but never does.
So you can imagine my consternation when we jumped off the tube at Covent Garden and after climbing (dragging our weary selves) 200 steps to daylight
( the lift was out of order ) stumbled upon a ticket office selling half price tickets for Wicked, Chicago, Avenue Q, etc. Serendipity in motion.

We picked up cheap tickets for Hairspray in the Royal Circle with a perfect view of the stage. When Brian Connolly (Edna ) and a superb Wilbur understudy performed 'Timeless to Me', they both lost control for a few minutes of body wracking hysteria somewhere around the lines ' You're like a broken down chevy, all you need is a fresh coat of paint'. The audience of course loved it, and it added to the authenticity of the unpredictable live performance.
We strolled around Covent Garden, browsing the Apple Market and all the cute stalls selling everything from original art to handmade chocolate to sex toys and an assortment of yet weirder items.
We passed the living statues and a heavily tattooed man trussed up in heavy chains Houdini style and the clown and the street dancers and Kenny and Karly from Big Brother, who seemed totally at home in this bizarre scene.
We caught the tube to Green Park and peered in through the windows of the Ritz, grinning at an amused looking security guard. We asked some bewildered looking German tourists for directions and strolled across to Buckingham Palace through the beautiful Green Park. I've been there a dozen or more times, but it's always a delight to see the Queen's splendidly stern sentry guards, the ornate palace gates and the mass of foreigners outside grasping to get a better shot of their group in front of this iconic building.

Delightfully Exhausted

My lovely, vibrant American cousin just spent a week chez nous and it was the busiest, most entertaining week I've had for ages and ages. We spent 48 hours in London and saw Hairspray and Thriller Live and a couple of reality TV stars (Karly and Kenneth from Big Brother ) hanging out at Carllucio's in Leicester Square.
I'll do the London blog later. Tonight, Cambridge.
We drove to Cambridge, whose ancient majestic halls of academia are just 30 minutes down a newly built dual carriageway (not yet available on Sat Nav, alas) from our house. We went 'punting' down the river, escorted by an affable young surfer-dude guide aged v.early 20's, who had recently graduated from the world famous Trinity College. In awe of this marvellous achievement,a degree from the worlds highest acclaimed College, I asked what his future plans might be. I'm only 36, so not quite old enough to have given birth to him, so strenuously avoided a maternal tone. God Forbid that I might patronise the youngfolk!
He informed me, in an impatient 'this-is-not-the-first-time-I've-been-asked-that-question' voice that he had:
'No Plans' and that he 'didn't want an office job' and that he just 'wanted to travel for ten years'
No Plans?
Back up.
Back up and steady on there just a second Mister.
No Plans?
You graduated from Trinity College Cambridge, possibly the most academically esteemed Hall of Learning in the whole hallowed history of Learningdom and you have no bleeping plans ?
Not good enough, surfer dude.
Please try explaining that to the many failed applicants of the toughest College in the country whilst you are backpacking around Phuket.
Call me old fashioned, but you don't spent three or four years at Trinity College Cambridge to exit stage left with no-effing-plans.

Holiday Fun

The inevitable post holiday blues have kicked in.
But what a wonderful wonderful holiday.
We flew Easyjet. If you ever catch the programme 'Airline' you would be forgiven for thinking that Easyjet= Machiavellian cowboys hellbent on nicking your hardearned so you can wait several long hours more than originally intended in a depressing departure lounge before getting on a faulty AirbusA319 and sit sardine-packed into tidy rows of pissed off passengers before being deposited, several hours later, into a stuffy Meditteranean aeroport.
But you would be wrong.
Because the flight was good. And the trip was better.
We arrived, after a few hours of travel and the disconcertingly simple collection of a lovely Seat Leon from the shockingly well organised Alicante Aiport, to Casa Vista.
And what a view indeed!
Corny cliches aside, it was like stepping inside a holiday villa brochure. Since we hired it out for a snip, I assumed it must be faulty somewhere, but it couldn't have been more perfect. Winding steps, littered with bougainvillea led up to a raised balcony with the most incredible view of a cerulean sea, complete with cliched white yachts and larger liners drifting past in relaxed slow-mo.... But, peace disintegrated into cries of 'where's my swimsuit' and ten minutes later, two little girls were jumping into our swimming pool like they owned the place. We don't. Sadly.

Inappropriate Blog Material

Someone just looked over my shoulder and asked why anyone in the world of Blogville would care a jot (give a damn, actually ) about my opinion on some random book by some random novelist ?
They forget that I am not writing a ruddy novel and trying to entertain a discerning readership- read the summarised profile folks! These are merely :
random ramblings let loose on an unsuspecting web !
Not high art, entertainment or even attempts at witty banter. If I accidentally drop in some witty observation, it's a happy accident rather than a contrived attempt to impress or entertain the three people who read this.
The main purpose of The Blog is for Charlotte and Rebecca's benefit, so they can see what their Mum was like way back when.
(but he's right, I did spell Haworth incorrectly, oh the shame )

Reader, I married him

I love Gothic novels.
Since Horace Walpole wrote The Castle of Otranto in 1764, other writers have been emulating a version of this romantic terror from behind heavy castle doors a million miles from the normal world. A parallel world where Byronic heroes, madwomen in attics, monsters, angels, sirens and vampires replace stock characters of the realist novel. I remember visiting the Bronte Parsonage, in the quaint village of Haworth, many many times. And walking the same moors which provided the setting for Emily's 'Wuthering Heights' and wondering how Charlotte coped alone after the death of her brother and sisters. I remember walking around the tiny rooms, with their collections of original garments worn by Charlotte, the rooms where they sat and wrote Jane Eyre, the Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights, and wondering where that genius comes from. The Bronte women rarely left the Parsonage in rural Haworth, so the vast majority of their work came from their imagination alone. Jane Eyre is one of my favourite novels. I read it (again) whilst I was pregnant with my eldest daughter and decided that, if she was a girl, she would be a Charlotte. And I found a beautiful edition of Jane Eyre when Charlotte was a baby, which I tucked away in a keepsake box for her.
I'm in a book club and we are reading 'The Thirteenth Tale' which was suggested by one of the women.
Who also just happens to be the sister of the Author, Diane Setterfield.
I didn't really enjoy the last novel we read ( Miss.Garnett's Angel ) which was unnecessarily confusing( I don't mind wordy prose and clever plot devices, but logic and clarity is appreciated) and had a silly, silly ending.
But this novel was really very satisfying, in the Gothic tradition. I loved it. The only criticism I might level towards it is that there was really no need to remind us that the inspiration came from the Bronte sisters. Most of us are familiar with Jane Eyre and would have spotted the association almost immediately. Words never die.
Thank goodness I loved this novel.
I would have been forced, by conscience and sheer bloody mindedness, to confess my dislike for the novel had I hated it, and then probably offended the writers lovely sister. But no need, because it's wonderful. Biographer Margaret Lea goes to a remote house on the Yorkshire moors to meet the elderly writer Vida Winter ( the novel has some other wonderfully named characters such as Aurelius Love ) and write the story of her incredible life..... what she discovers is a tale of Gothic tragedy, secrets, ghosts and self discovery. It's beautifully written. At one point, I wondered if the writer was about to parody the Gothic genre, in the style of Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey, but no. And I've been long overdue a thumping good story ( I normally select novels which are beautiful character studies of people and families ) so this went down a treat.