On Poodles

 

When I was young I had an assortment of carers, after school, holidays, weekends. It comes with having parents who both worked. It was much less formal than now, I assume they got paid, but there were certainly no checks. The one I remember most clearly was Marion. She lived in a beach house (two railway carriages put together with a space between and a roof over the middle) next door to my best holiday friend and had an assortment of people staying with her and, always, poodles. The small yappy variety, grey and smelly but very affectionate. She had a greenhouse full of fuchsias and, wonder of wonders, a TV. I spent lots of summers there, mostly playing on the beach. Not a beach as you would think, sand and sand castles, but a good, old fashioned, hard to walk on, pebble beach.

One summer was the one my dad died. He was taken ill and I was sent into the garden until the ambulance collected him and then to Marion's. He never came home and I never saw him again, children weren't allowed in hospitals in those days. I sat watching Wimbledon, Chris Evert, so I know it was summer. I was nine.

About me: how much difference has it made growing up without a father? How can you know? My Mum was always busy, but so are many mums. We has enough money for reasonable comfort, very few holidays, but that was usual then. I has a de facto stepfather from when about 12, but no real emotional relationship there, and he didn't live with us until I was at boarding school, and even then wasn't there during the holidays. Physical affection was not a factor in our family. I remember Dad carrying me on his shoulders, but not with enough memory pictures to be sure it was a real event.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Dr Who? and Books!

The news of the day, and it made the headlines - a new Doctor.  It's an interesting fact that a TV show, however good, can raise so much excitement and angst. It has been running for ever, well 50 years this year. I remember it when I was little. We didn't have a TV, so I would go around to a neighbours or a friends. We used to watch it from behind the sofa, with a blanket to hide under when the daleks  appeared. But nothing was so frightening as the weeping angels. The can still send shivers up my spine, and I have been known to wish for a cozy blanket to peer out from under.

Truth about me:

I am not interested in television. Yes, I admit that I do watch some programmes, mainly SF and crime, with the occasional documentary thrown in. I wouldn't miss it though, and I rarely remember to put things on unless someone else in the family reminds me. I  have the ability to tune it out , so can read or plays games with it on in the room, and end up with no idea what's been on. Books are my thing. Reading, anything and everything. Words on the back of the cereal packet if there's none other around. Our house sinks under the weight of thousands of books, and I've run out of space for  bookshelves. Thank heavens for eBooks.

Books!

A very small portion. The shelves stretch along the entire wall, and reach almost to the ceiling, and ours is an old house, with high rooms.

When I was young I acquired books whenever and wherever I could, but the best source was the library van that came around every week. You were allowed 3 books, and I had my allowance, and my Mums every week. I started at A and worked along the shelves, they had to let me read the adult books early, as I'd run out of the child's fiction. 

 

Tea and Cake

I've just returned from having tea (and a rather delicious piece of lemon drizzle cake) with a friend in town. We met at a  local cafe called Reubans, part cafe, part wine bar. It's a very relaxing place where you never feel rushed, even if you sit for hours with one pot of tea. It sells an excellent range of malt whiskies, which is definitely a plus, although a minus for my purse. Last year my husband and I went to a whiskey tasting there, put on by Adelphi Bottlers,a fabulous range of six generous helpings of whisky, accompanied by cheese and biscuits. I needed the carbohydrates to sop up and walk home! Not that I was drunk, far from it, just a little tipsy. We had the oldest whisky I have ever tasted there (at least at that time), a single grain, yes, grain not malt, whisky that was 46 years old. Wonderful.

Anyway, back to today, I had tea with Gillian, one of my few friends. I am not being sad when I say that but realistic. I don't really do friends en masse, never had, and I doubt if I ever will. That is not to say that I am lonely. I have family and a few friends I treasure. There is a great difference between being alone and being lonely. It may stem from being brought up in the country where there were few other kids my age, or from being a only child. Or it might just be intrinsic to me. It can't be just genetic as my mother is a socialite, the type of person who makes life-long friends on a train journey, and, as far  I know, my father was very social too.

Gillian

Truth about me:

I am very rarely lonely, I have enough hobbies to last me the rest of my life, and a never ending queue of books to read. I also have to be interested in people all day at work. Alone time is precious, but I do value the few people who I can talk about anything with, without having to fill in the gaps, or pretend to be conformist.

On googling 'alone but not lonely' there is a large number of results, including the song lyrics I was trying to track down. Interesting how many people find the need to talk about it. Most seemed to be trying to convince others, or possibly themselves, that solitude is not an illness. It is, in truth, a long tradition, including many religious hermits of many faiths. I think it is easier to be lonely in a crowd. There is a book that I am halfway through reading, part of the ever increasing list, called 'A Book of Silence'. While silence is not the same as solitude they have similarities, and both are, too me, valuable.

Knitting going apace, working on the third part of my first love potion. Yes I'm officially a witch. A good one, an earth witch, and I still have yesterday's earth under my nails to prove it.