They don't give a Fig !

Proof positive that MP's don't give a FIG about the ordinary working man/woman.


How can they justify that, indeed how can they justify the building of the Atrium at all....?
Cost 30 million for Bronze cladding for the place, why Bronze cladding ?
Supposed to last longer......Hmmmm
The way thing's are going, I wouldn't be surprised if we had another Guy Fawkes, type attempt in the future ;0) ..wonder how the Bronze cladding will hold up then :0)  ;0)

Was I spoilt as a child ?

Well I suppose I was, in as much as I had excellent parents.   But I think compared to today's standards my upbringing was strict.
Our house wasn't a democracy and you couldn't call it an autocracy either, as both parents took a role in every decision to do with their children.
But they definitely ruled the roost, it would just not have occurred to us children to answer back/disobey our Parents in the manner I have heard and seen so many children doing in the last 20 or so years.
They were in charge and made that evident from the 'get go'  Of course we weren't Angels, I did say we wouldn't answer back etc in the 'Manner' that they seem to do these days.
I never said a Damn or a Bloody or a Bugger in front of my parents until I was married , and even then got told off !
When I look around me and see teenagers and early twenty something or others, I get the feeling that they just aren't as mature as we were at similar ages.  Of course I mustn't generalise, and there are I'm sure many exceptions.
 Is it due to an over protective attitude that seems to prevail these days?  Blimey ! Sis and I used to disappear for hours at a time exploring the surrounding countryside, only returning when our bellies told us it was time for tea.  Our parents didn't worry or at least didn't appear to do so.  Is the world so much a more dangerous place than it used to be, that children don't seem to have the freedom we had ?  There were dangers then too, but it was only by interaction with others outside our home that we became aware of and got to recognise these dangers.
There's the question of cleanliness too,  look on any supermarket shelf in the toiletries and house cleaners aisles, and it's anti bacterial scrubs and wipes and the same for surface cleaners.
Yet I've seen women come out of the toilets in a supermarket and not wash their hands before leaving,  yep the same women who are buying the anti bacterial products ..........The mind Boggles !  Kids being brought up in a house where everything is spotlessly sterilised,  I can envisage not taught to wash their hands after the toilet and not washing them before a meal. 
Thank god my kids liked making mud pies and digging for worms, to me that's normal kid behaviour.
I suppose the upshot of this post is it seems the kids are in charge of the parents in some areas,  and definitely spoilt, yet in others they are denied the freedom to be 'just kids' 

I Cannot believe that it is

Nearly a year since I posted on my blog..blimey the time goes so quickly.
After having Jilly put out of her misery, I really did not feel like participating in anything much.....
But hey ho life must go on...but before I carry on, this  post is for Jilly in memory of her.........
Two very short videos one of her in the park with son's dog Shadow, and the other the last one taken before she was sadly let go some 4 months later.

Her bark was worse than her bite. Honestly !

Ah Bless !

Will never tire of watching this

Stavros-flatley

Jenny Wren

When I was in school, for wet weather we wore our  Burberry Macs {Remember them ?} Vintage Burberry they would be now :0) and just think what they would now cost. And my very first  Burberry had a picture of a Jenny Wren Tab inside the collar............Of course this was picked up on  by teachers and kids as my name was Jennifer, and I was frequently called Jenny Wren, which I loathed
Ironically, now as wrens frequently build nests in my garden, and they really are very entertaining birds especially when they have fledglings, my animosity towards the name Jenny Wren  has disappeared...........I think !      
And do you remember Clarks children's sandals, we used to wear them with white socks, or just with bare feet,they had crepe soles, that used to stick to the tarmac on really scorching days. Very comfortable, wish you could still get them now and  in adult sizes, great for slopping around the place. As you can read I'm having a bit of a remiss, thinking of all that was once available that now isn't.    Ra Ra skirts and the multitude of petticoats you needed to make them stick out, which in turn had to be rinsed in a 'sugardip'  each time they were washed to bring back their stiffness, and the obligatory wide elastic belt to cinch your waist in, and wearing your cardigans back to front { you couldn't afford sweaters and cardigans} Toreador pants, and fluorescent socks,  Pearlized shoes and pearlized stockings to go with them, in shades of Grey and  Bronze and Blue...Raglan and Dolman sleeves, shirt-waisters..............Panstick { Blimey can still get that, I remember it more for its smell Yuck !}  and block mascara, pinching Mums Eau-de-cologne and lavender water.
Well Burberry at least has come a long way from Macs  Well I never !       ;0)

I'm in the mood for dancing

Awww Bless

Society now and then

Image via Wikipedia

I was born in 1943 yet looking at pictures of my town's main shopping area as it was  Then I can hardly credit it when compared to the Now. Notice only one car is visible in the first picture, so in Fifty years great changes in the types and levels of transport.   I can remember having our milk delivered by horse and cart , and the mad dash to be the first kid to get the  horses droppings into their  buckets for their dads veggie patch. They were heady day's back then, hours spent when not in school, playing  Fox and Hounds, hide and seek, rat tat ginger, no matter what the weather. Warmer months were spent out in the nearby countryside, at the three ponds or  bluebell wood/primrose dell..........walking through the half mile field with its stream and other cultivated fields to get there, all the time keeping a wary eye out for the farmers, and we'd be gone all day  with pockets stuffed with odd bits of string, a penknife and an apple if you were lucky and mum was in a good mood, we would pool together what money  and sweety coupons we had for a large bottle of Pop, which we would purchase at Mr Kelloways shop en-route. Mum's didnt seem to worry about us then, knowing we'd return  when our  tummy's started to rumble.    What healthy young beasts we were !
Of course there was a certain level of 'bad behaviour' from us too, scrumping apples and being 'rowdy at the sat matinee for kids, always aware though that 'Copper Moore' knew where we lived and if caught would give us an option, either a clip around the ear or be taken back to face your parents, you always opted for the clip,  you knew it would be more than a clip from your parents for bringing the Cops to their door, Oh the shame of it !
Of course inner City Kids then and now, were not fortunate to have the open spaces me and my peers had.  But still seemed to be able to make their own fun and games , as we did. Crime linked with kids was something neither small town or cities had that much problem with then, or did they? and its just that media coverage has made it an 'issue' these days.


More families now with both parents working, more pressures in the work places, a three tier class system [ when I was a kid there were the rich and us] more pressure from advertising to have the 'latest' in everything.  High levels of unemployment and a good few parents who are not prepared to work for home and family, expecting the state to keep them, higher levels in under-age pregnancies, more children truanting from school, the lack of the ability by parents to just say simply NO to kids demands, the use of bad language by some young parents in front of their kids, and no respect for anything. And its obvious from the two pictures that children cannot play out as safely now when living in a town due to high levels of traffic.   A large number of children come from homes where there is alcohol /drug abuse, they have childhoods we can  only envisage in our worst nightmares. They live in a home where the respect has never had a place.   


 In my youth we grew up with respect , for our elders, for authority , for property and more importantly for ourselves.


Today we have lots of technology that allows kids to have access to computer games etc, mobile phones  televisions in their own rooms.. They don't have to interact with their peers outside of school if they don't want to. A fair few of them don't seem to be able to make their own  fun, bad behaviour often goes unpunished, swearing in public seems to be tolerated by all and sundry, some of them have no concern about damaging others property, Teachers, Police, seem to have their  hands tied  by legislation, re punishment.
Kids are constantly reminded of the Dangers of interaction with strangers,   People who genuinely like kids  are fearful of approaching them.
But most importantly there's a lack of Respect, and that something that's learnt at your parents knees, so in many cases the kids are not to blame, as respect for the individual seems to have taken a nose dive over the last couple of decades.
   


All in all I think my generation had the best of it, of course it wasn't all sunny days and fun we had our family up's and down's too,  and we faced the same dangers from 'strangers' the difference being we as street kids knew when to recognise someone who was a bit off the norm, in most cases. So are Kids too protected these days/ or is it that you cannot ever protect a child too much?
 We were first and foremost a Family, sadly that seems to have gone by the board these days, and I'm not saying that some single parent families don't raise their families as well as two parents, in very many cases it even works out better, but it does seem to me at least that the family as a whole don't seem to do things together, of course there are exceptions, but a lot don't even have an  evening meal sat at the table together, where things like fears of a stranger, bullying at school, where finding out what kind of a day each member of the family had could be talked about.


 Yes we had a few 'bad apples' who ended up in Borstal/Approved School/ prison, and speaking about the ones I knew locally most of them grew up in Dysfunctional families. 

• Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Will we never learn about child crime? (independent.co.uk)

I'd say its more realistic

Twiggy via last.fm

The sort of figure I never had I mean !    Although looking at Christina Hendricks I think even though she has a good figure, I'm kinda glad that in the sixties I didn't have those curves, being the 'Twiggy' era, and as all friends were madly dieting yours truly was quite smug , of course pre-Twiggy I had been  out in the cold.


    However Christina  seems to have Government approval cos "Christina Hendricks is absolutely fabulous," says Equalities Minister Lynne Featherston.


And she would be a better role model [figure wise] for teenagers to aspire to..........rather than the emaciated Catwalk Model  examples we see regularly in the news and on our screens.
Still I did really like Twiggy in her heyday :0)
Taking about figures brings to mind dieting which in turn brings to mind food.
I like this new little gadget I've put on here, you just type in an ingredient and it come up with suggestion recipes from a web site. Great for me cos I often cant make my mind up what to cook. 
  

• Fashion industry faces airbrushing clampdown (guardian.co.uk)

Poor Mouse

Awwww ! :0) ;0)

Some cards I'm working on

I like Japanese Images so have made some with those, and I have started with some xmas cards too[ sorry to mention it :0)]
I do make and put bookmarks in some of them as an extra..
Mine seem to be amateur efforts when compared to some of my friends though... They really knows their stuff :0) 

I'm green with envy [Click to link to Barrywales ]where pics came from.

Image via Wikipedia

My friend Chris-Anne has found herself a new car a lovely little ford escort, ok its T reg , but lovely and clean and seems a good runner..............So come Saturday off we went to Cosmeston  Country Park, it was beautiful, hot but with a strong breeze to compensate.  We took a long leisurely walk around the lake, and had a coffee in the cafeteria. Then off to town to do some shopping and that's what I miss most, the convenience of a car, the ability to get from A to B  with minimum fuss...........Boo Hoo .    :0(   Still if it wasn't for Chris-Anne's kindness Saturday would have been dull indeed.............:0)

Has anyone

Read Anthony Browne's Retreat of Reason...............I'd not heard of it til I came across this on the web....Civitas   Just wondered if it was worth a read......

My time clock is all out

I mean I'm running early today, when  in  actual fact I thought I was running late..........I shot out of bed this morning,  'well maybe that a bit of an exaggeration' I stumbled would be more accurate..........And when I got downstairs the clock showed 11.15 .....Blimey have not been that late up for ages I thought.

So after a cuppa, a strip wash ( shower's on the blink) and a tobacco fix I logged in, now why didn't I look at the clock on the pooter god alone know's, but by 1.15 all the chores I was prepared to do had been done, and the dog had been fed....something I don't usually do until after she has been walked together with Shadow, by my son each morning at about 10/11 am, but as he had not arrived I fed her, thinking that I would give her an extra long walk in the afternoon.........

When low and behold my son walked in..........Your very late I said did something hold you up ?  Well he said  I didn't get up until 9  but I have to be heading towards Cardiff by 12.30............Um think your going to be a bit late then sez I, its 1 .20 now............. 

Mum what planet are you on?  say's he laughing at my obvious confusion, well my clock says 1.20 I replied.  Batteries Mum batteries he laughed.

Well if it had been sunny I would have known by its position in the sky I said to cover my embarrassment............

Well I did do a good turn today because Son went to Cardiff accompanied by a chuckle........... 

Fears

Image via Wikipedia

Reading the subject of spiders and such on Chinwaggers about cat ladders and all the comment's made. Got me to thinking how we don't really know what fears some friends and family have and to what degree those fears affect them.
As I said in my comment I don't like spiders, but I don't let that fear really take hold to the extent. where I cannot even look at them, or appreciate what wonderful engineer's they are in their web building. I also have a fear of flying but again, I haven't allowed it to stop me taking trips abroad........ I feel you have to face your demons or life would be hell..........However I can sympathise with anyone who has such a dread of  certain things................... because one demon I cannot conquer and that is a fear of heights.

Fat thigh's win the day

Ive always had skinny legs, and it seems as though they will be my downfall. Hooray for big girls every where, long life and happiness will it seems be yours.

All Done and Dusted

Well all the older grandchildren bar one, have flown the coop this week

Chelsey is now sharing a house in Cardiff with friends from Uni, Mark likewise has gone up to North Wales, where he will be studying and has a house there he is sharing. Andrew has gone back up South where he is living on campus........That leaves Richard and Sean the only ones living here, Richard flew the coop a couple of years back and shares a house with girlfriend Ying. Which leaves Sean (Chelsey's older brother) the only one still living at home, and of all the older grandchildren he was the only one who knew what he wanted to do once he got his degree........He graduated this year but as yet has not been able to get the job he wanted in the Police Force..........He has to wait for recruitment dates, and apply wherever he sees they are doing so.

All this has taken it's toll on my eldest son Richard and his wife Joy......can you imagine having to help supply that lot with bedding, furniture, basic kitchen things etc

Richard left early on Friday to take Mark to North Wales..(after settling Chelsey in her house the day before) he left with a transit van full and didn't get back till late Friday evening...........I haven't as yet seen Joy but going on previous occasions when the kids have 'gone it alone' she will be in a rather tearful state.

I'm glad that the kids are all doing something with their lives, and indeed rather proud of them all.

Why doesn't my spagbol ever come out the same twice, even if I do it exactly the same.....A long advocate of the bung it in and hope for the best brigade.........I was determined on producing a lovely spag bol one day, to stick to exactly to the same amount of ingredients the next time..........I was sorely disappointed it was nowhere nearly as nice as the first batch .can anyone explain this to me ?

Off to eat my nearly nice spag bol now........:0(

SCREAMING AB-DABS

Well what a day, at last have nearly-new pooter installed, and am nearly ready and set to go..........no more sudden shutdowns I hope and no more weird goings on in the middle of something interesting.

Trouble is all my passwords were saved in my google chrome and are resident on the old pooter, and we couldn't configure it to transfer over from one pooter to another. But its up and running that's the important thing the only thing is I haven't got sound, maybe there isn't a sound card installed will have to check that...........This took Simon nearly all day, as he fiddled with the belkin transfer tool he has, but it wouldn't transfer xp to xp only xp to vista......its lovely to be able to watch videos again without pooter crashing even if they don't have sound :0)

Autumn

Seems to be well on its way, since the beginning of this month the berries have been appearing on some of the bushes in the back garden, and the brambles which proliferate in our back lane have held blackberries this past six weeks. it's hopeless to rely on my hollies as an indication of the advance of autumn as they seem to have berries year round.

Autumn and Spring are my favourite time of the year, Spring as it heralds a new beginning, for flora and fauna, and Autumn with all its vibrant colours as it gradually sheds the cooling greens of summer in preperation for the mantle of winter............I was hoping this Autumn would be a crisp and dry one, as I dont like to see the reds, browns and oranges of the leaves drooping down in wet weather.....If the summer is any indication though I'm hoping in vain.

Theres none so blind as those who won't see

Well this month has been an eyeopener. I must be the most unobservant and scatterbrained person imaginable.....The month started badly when my neighbour, said to me "Those are lovely Cherries on your tree !" Err Cherries I said " I haven't got a Cherry Tree" He laughed and said "Jen do you mean you've gone the last 20 years and not noticed the cherries on that tree?" I stood there mouth opening and closing like a goldfish......." what tree? I managed to splutter out "The dark red leaved one in the front garden he replied....That's a Copper Beech I stated, coming over all indignant at his description of my beautiful Beech as a Cherry Tree. Right I'll prove it " says he, and off he went returning a moment later with two lovely dark red cherries..........Boo Hoo! It seems my Copper Beech has been masquerading as such all these years, and is in fact a red leaved Cherry Tree...I had always wondered why it was the first to bloom each year.

And so the month has gone on in much the same vein, and today didn't help to boost my confidence at all, when I asked 'That Woman' to re-send me something only to find I had already stored it in my filo fax.