Squeeze Up There Is Room For More, NOT!

Tilly on Her Soap Box About Suffolk Primary Schools

As I was making the pack up this morning I was listening to radio fours ‘Yesterday in parliament’ program, when I did a double take see what you think '80,000 separate plots of public land have been earmarked to build first time buyers houses to kick start the building market?'

So what do you think? I know Bacton middle school has building permission? Is this the real reason they are going to get rid of the three tier system here in Suffolk? Are we going to cram our children in like sardines, taking all their facilities away to get this country out of a banker’s recession or am I the only one that has made this connection?

I had my day planed to the last second as usual but intended to write a blog as soon as I had the time. But dropped everything to write a quick thought down to see what you all made of it.

Now I was in a real flap as I couldn’t find the one piece of paper that I needed the one with the tickets for Angus’s pantomime. We are only allowed three seats each family for grandparents, brothers, sisters etc. so my husband or I will have to forfeit seeing the production. Space you see is at a premium not that you can see the children anyhow as they squeeze them on a small block stage about a meter wide and we sit on small seats and I for one can not see over or around the people who sit in front.

I only got to see a glimpse of Angus last year once and he spent the whole of the performance looking for me. It is a very sad occasion that should be one you treasure and reflectively smile at.

Twenty years ago I lost twins separately at this time of year and as the nativities took place on the morning breakfast shows I longed for that experience. So when after much heartbreak I held my first child in my arms, I looked forward to the nativities at school. But they don’t do Nativities at our school. Everyone works so hard to make the best of it but it hurts when you just cannot see the results. They are going to squeeze more into our little Suffolk primary schools and I’m not sure what will happen then.

It makes me deflated and despondent, why and how can I teach my children values when the Government lie and constantly support those at the top of the pyramid society we have? Us at the bottom are already under a heavy burden from a lucky few whose prosperity is more than self indulgent?

Now off to find blue bird wings for Angus knowing I will probably have to make some, I will put my heart and soul into it and my heart will break because I won’t be able to see him in all his slender.

A very Sad

And Finally

Tilly has grown a Pair of Male Appendages!

It’s just a pity they are the size of raisins

Just think little fairy with small balls trying ever so hard to grow a bigger set! It is so wrong on so many levels but you have to admit it makes you smile and gets the point across. You have to prepare yourself for the world of writing.

Everyone has a view on what they read and the beauty of the written word is in the eye of the reader I guess. But when you have spent hours slaving away compiling a story or any piece of written work, you need someone who is going to take just as much effort giving you feedback.

My friends enjoy reading my work and so are bias. I have to say I like writing for them and would hate to turn that relationship into a professional one but I do learn from their reactions and their thoughts. None of them are trained in the field of critiquing and like everything else it has to be a professional art form to be constructive to the writer.

I had researched to find someone that was not going to rip me off and whom I could trust the opinion of but all they came back to me with was a couple of typo’s and your work is very nice! My fairy don’t do NICE what can anyone do with a word like nice.

My poor little scrotums were sucked up hiding and quivering. Was my work so bland nothing could help it improve! Well I started again and from small beginnings I have grown them into the size of raisins. This week I sent off my work to two competitions, now I have to inflate them to the size of plums and send my novels away.

Stephen king in his book ‘On Writing’ said something on the lines of ‘grow a pair of bollocks’ those five words have stayed with me and I have chanted them to my self all this year, ‘write and grow a pair and send your work out’. After all a writer needs to be read! Hence this blog and three nearly completed novels and one ready to send. More inflating needed I feel.

It has worked well so will be chanting all of next year too and I'm aiming for them to be the size of watermelons by the end of 2012.

Sloe Gin is Rather Good

Finally Margret and I got together to sample her Sloe Gin, unfortunately the parsnips and beetroot crisps took a tumble. I had frozen the beetroot out of Margret’s garden and the water content made it difficult to get them to crisp up. Well in my defence I could’ve made a better job of it if I hadn’t been doing the school uniform wash, preparing the evening meal and a few odd jobs in the office. I have decided multi tasking is not my forte!! Will give this up for the New Year! I sit here wondering with a big smile on my face how that will work and I expect as you read this you’re smiling because you know it won’t.

Kevin will say from time to time if you just concentrated on one thing at a time you would get the job done quicker and better! I wish I had that simple luxury, I will retort. We have special facial expressions for this particular interchange of words and known facts. My face holds the thought “State the obvious” his is “Silly woman”; he would deny this but I can read faces.

Though his view on this multi tasking lark changes when it is him needing something done while I’m in the midst of the fray of family life, trying to be a master of something while tackling a multitude of skills. He has this pitting and pleading look and a hesitant question lingering on his lips that I find amusing. I always think at this point he should give me credit for the situation that is motherhood and never state the obvious. I make him wait until he almost asks (Kevin never asks for anything) and does this goading dance that shimmies with my emotions. It’s painful to watch so I relent. I can almost read his mind he would also deny this!

So after the fluster, I finally make it to Margret’s. My redeeming gift of fresh Figs poached in port went well with the Sloe gin. We talked and laughed our way through the history of womanhood and life as it was in our lifetime and what it has become, laughing as we always do. There is nothing finer than spending time in good company.

Now I woke up the morning after, no not with a headache, we only sipped a glass OK maybe two and I sit here and think to myself my dad makes Sloe Gin. He talks to me about it and has offered me a glass on the odd occasion but I have always refused saying ‘I don’t like Gin dad’ he will always shrug his shoulders ‘fair enough’ he would say. But I must say I feel he has let me down in my education of village life! Education is sometime hard to impart but you should never give up on trying! I do think he could have tried a little harder to educate me on the finer points of Sloe Gin making.

I would like to take up the revival of Sloe Gin making after all it is part of my heritage and the taste is refined so worth the effort but as you have to painstakingly prick every Sloe Berry I’m not sure I could fit this in without multi tasking in triple duplicate. I am wondering though how many bottles dad has managed to make this year, perhaps I will give him a call!

While writing this I have unloaded and loaded the dishwasher and washing machine, folded the clothes and taken a load off the clothes airier and put them in the dryer while trying to fix the wii. I have come to the conclusion kev is right, perhaps I should just concentrate on one task and perhaps my writing would improve, what do you think?

On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month We Will Remember you!!!

On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month

We Will Remember you!!!

Mr Spring told me of the time that Colonel Dick Pedder rallied his men around before the Litani River raid in Syria, where over 120 men gave their lives needlessly due to a mix up with a map.

Colonel Dick Pedder said to his men as he formed them into the 11^th Scottish Commandos “you must be ready to fight against all tyrants and oppressors”.

Tyrant meaning: - absolute ruler who uses powers cruelly and unjustly, an exerciser of authority.

Oppressor meaning: - dominate harshly or cruelly, to be a source of worry, stress or trouble to somebody.

Those words are as poignant, true and rousing as they were when he stood in front of his men in the Second World War, and just before he died fighting for those words. Mr Spring would say that you did not have to be fighting a war against tyrants or oppressors, as they walk amongst us. Over the years I have thought back on Colonel Dick Pedder’s chosen words.

There will always be tyrants and oppressors of countries and governments, local authorities, in our work place and around us in our everyday life; it is a frailty of human nature. It is up to us all, to ask questions and to strive to have humanity in our societies. That humanity is hard fought for and guarded by a few who pay the ultimate price.

History in general and Europe’s History in-particular, shows us what can happen if one group of people believe that they are more intelligent, or more worthy than any other. Disrespect of others breeds War, greed, pain and suffering.

No one human has an absolute right over another. Against the frailty of human nature democracy is all we have. But democracy comes at a very high price and is hard to keep. So on this day on the 11^th hour I will remember every child, woman and man, civilian or soldier, who has or is striving to hold onto humanity through the adversity and give thanks for their bravery, grit and determination.

This year 2016 more than any other in my life, Mr Springs story of Colonel Dick Pedder gathered more meaning, and never have I truly understood what this could mean. It is a very strange time to be a woman, and a mother and it is not just Donald Trump we fight. It is the injustice done to those who fight to support those less fortunate, the ill and infirm, those that are left to fend for themselves while our tick box society, leaves their morals in rhetoric and justify their actions by sanctions. When the powers of government, establishment and media, that think they can hoodwink us, make us fight each other on all sides of a tangled web of lies. We are braver than that, we are stronger than that!

I will ask questions, I will strive for justice and humanity and I will remember you!

Signing up for Motherhood

Well did they like the Figs? Do you know I’m not sure, we were all too busy talking but the plates were empty. Well the wine flowed and so did the conversation and as I looked around it dawned on me how far our lives had travelled. Our children are now becoming adults and although it was inevitable, it’s always a shock when someone mentions that twenty years have past.

I find my self looking at my youngest son Angus, who is six and then my oldest Axl, who is sixteen and find it hard to equate one to the other. How small Axl once was and how big Angus will become.

I was talking about this to my friend Margret, who lives up the road, she was telling me about her grandchildren! Who were adults now! Well I said that’s not going to happen, they didn’t tell me about grandchildren when I signed up for motherhood! Mind you they didn’t read my birthing plan that I painstaking wrote out neither, I pacifically said the Stork method but my children were not delivered by the stork, oh no! They most certainly were not! So I guess signing up for anything in reality means, you just get what you’re given and do the best you can.

Margret likes my work and when I post my blogs I print a copy off for her and in return she gives me beetroot out of her garden. I like pickled beetroot but I love beetroot and parsnip crisps and when I made the figs I thought they would go together well. Now if I had had the time I would have made some to put on the top of the figs in a pretentious chef style.  So when they come back into the shops I will be giving it a go and will let you know if they do indeed go together well. Margret has made some sloe gin and has asked me around to have a taste and there is something rather pleasing and deeply satisfying about sipping home made Sloe Gin (if it doesn’t blow your head off) while nibbling on garden picked fare, even better when in good company.

Breaking news on the Fig front……… Figs are back in the shops in Suffolk!!

I brought some port too, now do I poach the figs in port then bake with the cheese or should I drizzle port over the opened figs and then bake them with the cheese. I fear the possibilities are endless.

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