Walt Disney is on thin ice! or "Frozen"

This should have been last nights piece, but I got a bit excited about one of my posts receiving 100 hits! As ever please share, it's the only way anyone ever reads what I write xx

When I was a child the Disney Princess world did not exist.  Indeed I only ever went to see Snow White at the movies and was so scared of the wicked witch I hid behind the chair, lost one of my red mittens and remember the whole experience as being slightly traumatic.  To this day I have never again watched Snow White.

These days a whole generation of little girls love and adore Disney princess's, frazzled parents have to buy into the marketing machine tat that is the Disney store, and every little girl seems to own at least one princess dress. Little girls play princess all day, and discuss between themselves whether they are Belle, Ariel, Snow White, Tinkerbelle, Cinderella, Tianna or Pocahontas and now we have Anna and Elsa from Frozen.

Squeaks attempts at being a Disney princess when she was a little girl were rather funny.  Although she loved the big dresses, she loved her trainers, and getting dirty more!  A tiny little thing with an unruly mop of curly hair she would charge about the garden with a ballgown and trainers on, very often ending up with getting stuck in a tree with a ripped princess dress, cut knee and woeful expression on her face. She would take the scissors to her dress's in an effort to make it more practical, or even draw on them if she ran out paper!  I got used to rolling my eyes at yet another dress disaster, and all in all I never really worried about the effect being a Disney princess might have on my daughter.

I know people complain loudly about the appalling way Disney treats it's princess's, suggesting Belle has Stockholm syndrome, that the real story behind Pocahontas was not that pleasant, that as long as you are basically a nice person it's fine - you will have a fairy godmother and marry a prince, and that the only ambition mermaids have is to fall in love with one! We all have to find out one way or another that in order for a girl to find her handsome prince, she has to kiss a hell of a lot of frogs first! I  want to be clear here - I am not a raging feminist who bangs on about all men being tossers, neither do I burn my bra's (I seriously couldn't - the amount of reinforced scaffolding my bra's require to just hold me in place is frightening) but just recently Disney has started to really get on my tits!

I bought Squeak the "Frozen" DVD for Easter and she loves it.  Plays it almost constantly, knows all the words and all the songs and is currently saving her pocket money up to by an Olaf (he's a snowman if you have not seen the film). Frozen is the latest film to emerge from Disney, has received critical acclaim and is universally adored.  Hailed as revolutionary because our heroine does NOT marry a prince, she is saved by the true love of her sister. The film also goes on to debunk the "love at first sight" thing and still promotes good old fashioned family values. So why am I so bugged?

Has anyone actually seen this film?  It's terrible.(WARNING!!! spoilers!!)

Basically two sisters grow up together, the elder (Elsa) has magic, the younger one (Anna) does not.  Anna's actions as a little girl basically mean Elsa uses her magic and accidentally hurts her.  They visit the trolls in order for Anna to be saved, and while they are there the trolls frighten Elsa in to being scared of her magic. A few years later their parents have died and Elsa has locked herself and the kingdom away for fear of her magic.  However it is coronation day, and the gates are to be opened.  Anna meets and falls in love instantly with someone, and when told by her sister she cannot marry someone she only just met provokes her again into using her magic.  Elsa accidentally sets of an endless winter in the kingdom, runs off up a mountain singing a song (Let it go), builds an ice palace, transforms her stuffy clothes into some sexy dress thing and determines to live her life in isolation. Anna sets out to rescue her sister, leaves the love of her life in charge of the kingdom, fires off on a horse, meets another man in a shop, demands he helps her, meets a cute snowman, and finds her sister.  Provoking her yet again her sister uses magic and puts ice in her heart.  Her companion takes her to the trolls who say only an act of true love can help her,(another song).  Her companion races her back to castle to meet her handsome prince, receive a true loves kiss and be healed.  The prince has no love for her and leaves her to die, imprisons Elsa and takes over the kingdom.  Yet more snow arrives, Anna and the Snowman escape, Anna's real true love (the man who helped her) is searching for her and Elsa is also stranded.  Anna jumps in front of the prince to save Elsa and turns to ice.  This act of selfless bravery is the act of true love, everyone is saved, Elsa no longer fears her magic and everyone lives happily ever after.

It's not the way Disney portrays women, big bambi eyes, barbie like figures, and impossible hair that I object to - or its "revolutionary" use of the love at first sight thing, I don't even mind the annoying snowman. It is just that the character portrayals are terrible.  Anna comes across as self absorbed, stupid, and annoying, she never seems to learn from her mistakes and believes she is always right.  The day of the coronation she is more interested in herself and meeting someone than she is in her sister, the kingdom and the reasons why Elsa shut herself away.  She honestly thinks her sister won't hurt her and she can sort it all out. I think she is meant to come across as charming, naive, brave and courageous but I end up wanting to slap her and tell her to get a grip and grow up.

Elsa also annoys me, the big scene where she changes from a repressed princess frightened of her magic to a sexy lady declaring " the cold never bothered me anyway" simply meant she had swapped one life of isolation (without magic) for another with magic.

The whole you can't fall in love with someone you have only just met kind of falls flat on its face when you think that the real love of Anna's life had also only known her for about a day, and (this is the most important bit) there was NO decent villain at all whatsoever in the whole film. A decent villain drives a story like nothing else. I like villains and anti-heroes, if a film has a good enough villain in it  there is a good chance I will watch the film to the end. There is no point at all being a hero or a heroine if there is no one to beat.  I like Cruella De Ville, Ursula, and the Evil Queen,  I loved Pitch in Rise of the Guardians, Lord Farquaad in Shrek was screamingly funny,  I like Loki in Thor, and  I adored Snape in Harry Potter.

This piece is not meant to be academic or snobby about a kids film, it just annoys me that this film encourages stupidity.  If little girls take anything at all away from the film it will be that it is ok to be stupid, or not learn from your mistakes or think things through -  you will still get your happy ending!  Thinking about it, it's no wonder my kids describe me a witch sometimes.........

aahh.....I feel a whole lot better for having a rant.

P.S - I have not told Squeak I have written a piece dissing her favorite film - I think I will leave it that way!

Thanks for reading xxx

Thank you xxx

No stories tonight,  I just wanted to tell all of you who have supported me, helped me,  left me feedback, listened to my whingeing, my paranoia and my insecurities about my abilities to write a blog that I did today achieve my first milestone,  100 people have read  my post "How nice it is to be beside the seaside".  So this post is really to say a massive thank you to all of you for liking, sharing, retweeting. reddit, google+ ,and  reading bits of it to your other half while he eats his cornflakes.

It is a very scary place deciding to write.  You worry whether your posts are good enough, too long, too short, not interesting enough, to blase, too rude, not rude enough, whether people understand your humor, whether you should be more politically correct, or whether to write about politics, dogs, animals or kids.  The list is endless and I create about ten more reasons to worry every day.

I don't write to promote films or television, I am not a cookery or kiddie writer or gardener.  In the end - I can only be myself, stick to my guns and write about what I initially decided to blog about. Nothing serious, just things that have amused or entertained me that hopefully may bring a smile to your faces also.

Please keep sharing, without all of you I would not be writing this tonight.

Love "n" Hugs

40somethingbitch xx

Roy Hattersley saved my sanity!

One more about our jolly holidays and then I will write about something else.

Just before we left I had a conversation with the Dowager about the caravan.  She had written down all the instructions she could think of (even down to how to open the door!) and her parting words to me were "you might have to riddle the gas jets in the oven before you use it - I think I might have got some oven cleaner stuck!  As I had no intention at the time of using the oven (I'm on holiday - I have better things to do with my time than spend hours sweating over a ready meal!) I was not particularly concerned.  Oh foolish woman - I should have known better.

By the Easter weekend our mountain of supplies was running a bit low so a trip to Asda was needed.  The kids suggested pizza and I found a chicken in a bag.  I decided to try the chicken in a bag thing for our Easter Sunday lunch, and pizza for our Good Friday tea.  Getting back to the caravan, we were looking forward an evening of slobbing out with Pizza, chocolate, and the Hobbit on the DVD player.

The first problem I encountered with my master plan was the pizza was too big to fit in the oven!  I had to chop it in half and use two shelves.  This would mean that one bit would cook faster than the other one, but hey ho it's still pizza.  I tried to light the oven.  Nothing happened.  I tried again - still nothing.  I sighed, got down on my knees and stuck my head in the oven.  The gas bit was hidden behind a metal plate which meant I had to unscrew it. I did not have a screwdriver so ended up using a knife! Two hungry kids sat at the table open mouthed listening to 40something bitch rant with her head in the oven and her bottom stuck in the air.

"Got bloody oven cleaner stuck in the gas jets - she's only managed to disconnect the entire bloody plate, which is why the ****ing oven does not work!  Now what am I supposed to do!  I have two hungry kids, a delinquent dog that is going to the orphanage if he does not pull his socks up, two halves of an uncooked pizza and a bloody chicken in a bag in the fridge waiting to be roasted on Sunday.  Got bloody oven cleaner stuck.....I'll give her bloody oven cleaner!"  I hope you are getting the picture.

I managed with some jiggling and poking about (and quite a bit of swearing) to reconnect the plate.  I managed finally to get the oven lit - and about an hour later we finally sat down to Pizza.  Hurrah I thought - I am superwoman.  Then, and I kid you not - the electrics went out and we lost all power!

By this point I lost the will to live.  A single mum of 40 something, with 2 kids in a caravan in Wales on a bank holiday weekend, with no power!

This was a site wide thing, 50 caravans all boiling a kettle at the same time for their late night Horlicks was a tad too much!  We did not have an electric kettle, we had a stove top one that whistled. (It also takes about 3 weeks to boil).  This meant we could not watch our film as the telly runs on 240V, so after boiling our kettle, we flicked over to 12V and listened, with hot water bottles and hot chocolate to one of the books on tape I had unearthed from the charity shop.

Busters Diaries as told to Roy Hattersley had me absolutely crying with laughter.  The diary details the life of Buster a mongrel dog, told from the dogs point of view.  For every incident he recounted the kids would laugh and say that's just like the Delinquent!  Buster was so outrageous that for a while Roy Hattersley actually considered moving to Ireland if the authorities were to insist on having him put down.  Busters antics included killing a goose (which belonged to the queen!) mistaking a man doing Tai Chi in the park for a tree and peeing on his shoes! Catching all manner of hedgehogs, frogs and rats, eating rubbish and generally being a pest.

I am going to write to Lord Hattersley this afternoon and thank him for restoring my sanity.  That evening in the caravan listening to someone elses stories and disasters I gradually calmed down and came back to planet earth.

It seems even left wing members in the House of  Lords can have problems with dogs!

All the best people do you know :)

Thanks for reading. xx

Diet Coke and a large chips

Conwy is for anyone who does not know, is a very cool place to visit.  A vast medieval castle towers over the town and the castle walls completely encircle it.   Built by Edward I between 1283 - 1289 it was designed to keep the Welsh out and protect the English within the walls.  So amazing is the castle and the walled part of town that it has been assigned a "World Heritage Inscribed Site" status.

I can be a bit of an anorak about history and was completely carried away with myself, reading all the information boards dotted about the town and creating vivid pictures of battles, markets, smugglers and donkeys to the kids.  Bubble and Squeak are used to their mums eccentricities and just rolled their eyes and humored me. We decided to walk along the walls of the town, it was a nice day, the sun was shining, we were on holiday and life was good.  I should have known then it was too good to last!

Anyone who knows me, is aware that I really, really, really do not like heights.  I had not quite realised how high the walls were and on reaching the top felt my stomach drop, my heart start pounding and my legs turn to jelly.  The kids turned round, saw the look on my face, and promptly burst out laughing (their love and support for their mummy often amazes me!).   I was holding on to the delinquent, who was trying to catch seagulls in mid air on a very high bloody wall!.  I was not very happy at all.  Not wanting to be a party pooper and spoil it for the kids by insisting we all go back down  I decided if Superwoman could do it then I certainly could.  We set off around the town walls. Actually some bits were not too bad, (the lower bits) and I quite enjoyed looking at the rooftops and gardens, but other bits were very high, I was scared, the kids were bouncing about and the dog who has no fear at all kept trying to jump onto the top of the wall!

Finally we came to the end of the wall which is in the sea, it was a bit wider and lower so I started to feel a bit better.  Telling the kids what an amazing place this was, and how it is such an important place that it is recognised as a world heritage site, the delinquent promptly decided to do an enormous poo!  Only I can have a dog that disrespects places of cultural significance!

Wandering slowly back along the wall, still having wobbly legs and palpitations I now had the poo bag in one hand and the dogs lead in the other.  This meant I could not even hold onto the railings! Bubble suddenly said  "it could have been a lot worse mum.....he could have cocked his leg and wee'd on all those people underneath us!"  I was very glad to finally get off the wall and have made a mental note - NOT to try and inspire my kids to love history ever again.

The afternoon found us at the quay.  This was good as it was busy and bustling, we could watch the boats and eat ice cream.  Wandering past a shop I spotted a sign that said we could buy a crab fishing kit for £3.  This sounded pretty reasonable so I purchased 2.  We got a bucket, a line, a weight, a bag of bacon and a net thing to put our bacon in.

Returning to quay we duly found a spot and settled down to spend the afternoon fishing.  It was pretty good fun, we did not catch many crabs and eventually we gave up.  Walking along the quay we came across two lads who made everyone elses crab fishing attempts (especially ours) look pathetic.  Turns out their secret ingredient was to use fresh sardines rather than bacon.  I made a note of this interesting fact and filed it away for use another day.

A few days later, we decided to try crab fishing again, we already had all the kit so all we needed to do was turn up.  I remembered about the sardines and stopped at Tesco on the way.  Guess what?  Tesco in Wales by the seaside does not sell sardines!  I was disgusted.  The poor fishmonger must have been quite taken aback when he was accosted by 40somethingbitch demanding to know why - in a coastal fishing town there were no bloody sardines!  He asked me how many I wanted and when I told him I wanted 2 - he quite seriously explained to me that there simply was not enough demand to justify him selling them!  I scratched my head and decided to try the fish pie mix!  The fishmonger looked delighted when I said please could I have some of his fish pie mix, and he tried really hard not to show his disappointment when I said I only wanted a pounds worth!

Tesco fish pie mix must be like heroin for crabs!  Setting ourselves up on the quay once more we baited our little nets and dropped them in.  Immediately we felt a tug and pulling up the lines there were about 10 crabs hanging onto the net! This we thought was going to be good.  It was - within half an hour I had been dispatched by the kids to go and buy a bigger bucket! Then they wanted another one - I tried suggesting they tip them back and carry on fishing but they were having none of it.  Quantity is key!

Three large buckets of crabs later, Squeaks stomach began to growl - I was dispatched to the chippy and bought a large portion of chips, and big bottle of coke.  Sitting on the quay, surrounded by crabs sharing chips and coke with the kids I suddenly thought I must be the only woman in the world who deliberately set out to catch crabs!

Thanks for reading  x

How nice it is to be beside the sea!

40 Somethingbitch, the delinquent and the kids have been on our holidays!  A sleepy town in North Wales that has, as far as I can see not very much going for it. The town consists of a single street with a supermarket at one end and a caravan sales place on the other.  The sea front consists of a car park, a cafe, public toilets, a gift shop and an amusement arcade.  That's it.  No McDonald's, KFC, or Pizza Hut, no cinema or bowling alleys, no donkey rides, no rock pools for spending the day with a net. No aquariums, visitor centers, or swimming pools, no nightclubs or discos.  It is in fact a bit like going on holiday in the 1970's and that in itself does lend itself to a certain charm.

The caravan is on a site 4 miles away from the town, on a sheep farm,  and is a pleasant, well run place if perhaps a tad quiet.   There is no mobile phone signal, no internet and no telly!  We took a telly with a built in DVD player and loads of DVD's.  I found some books on tape which proved to be a life saver, lots of pens, pencils and paper, some revision stuff as we are close to our SAT's  and of course the lifesaving pack of playing cards.  Enough food rations to feed the 5,000 and the mountain of stuff the Delinquent needs (Dog blanket, food, bowls, poo bags, leads, spike, reinforced steel chain).  We were I thought ready for anything (have I mentioned optimism is new middle name?).

The first challenge as a single mum with two children aged 11 and 8 was to actually set the caravan up. It was actually easier than I had imagined.  We arrived, got the dogs spike out of the car, screwed it into the grass and attached him to his reinforced (very expensive, galvanised steel) chain.  This meant there was absolutely no way he could be a nuisance or eat the lambs that were bouncing about in the next field.  We managed to connect the gas bottle, plug the electrics in, find the hosepipe and set up the waste water, unpack the car, find places for everything, and sit down with a cup of tea. We investigated the chemical toilet and decided that as the toilet and shower block was only 50 yards away we would not need to use that,  I very smugly decided I was superwoman!  Squeak and the Delinquent were to prove me yet again very wrong!

Squeak was born to be a gypsy! she is awake at first light, plays out for hours and hours, coming in when it gets dark.  After 3 days of waking everyone up at 6 am I eventually in desperation devised a new plan.

40 something: "Squeak... for every day you manage not to wake everyone up until 8am I will give you a pound!"

Squeaks eyes lit up - "to spend on whatever I want?"  40 something "of course sweetheart"

The first few days of this plan involved waking me up at 8am, getting her pound, shooting off to the garage at the top of the site and buying the biggest chocolate bar she could find.  Returning to the caravan she would make a nest, pick up her Enid Blyton book, and eat choc until she heard other kids playing.  Then she would shoot off out until I eventually had drunk a bucket of coffee and felt human enough to make her breakfast.  Once again I smugly decided I was superwoman.

It was the Delinquents ADHD problems that set Squeak off on her new mission.

The Delinquent HATES the caravan!  He has to behave!  We can't let him off anywhere as it's lambing season and I have mentioned before he has issues with small fluffy things.  He is a very vocal dog, and likes to bark, especially when the kids are playing with balls or frisbees.  If he barks he gets locked inside the caravan as he is not allowed to annoy the other happy campers!  Caravanning according to the Delinquent is the worst nightmare he has ever had!

I devised a new plan.  Every day I would take him to the beach, where he could run about, bark, chase seagulls, roll in dead things and generally be annoying all by himself.  However he decided to be knob about the beach!  If there was another family on the beach with a ball - he would steal it!  Because his teeth are sharp he would more often than not burst it and leave said family in tears with people shouting at me about controlling my dog! (I know my dog is not very well behaved, but I am amazed at how many children these days are terrified of dogs)  I was not to be beaten!  I found a beach that families don't use.  Then he decided that everything the kids picked up, shells, stones, seaweed was his to be shredded, thrown about and rolled about in.  Not giving him their treasure involved lots of barking and jumping to get the particular item.

I threatened that he would end up in an orphanage if he carried on and ended up buying him a "Halti" which makes him look like a dangerous dog as it looks like a muzzle. It is just designed to stop him pulling, and encourages him to behave.  He predictably hates it.  Holidays now involve no barking, no freedom, and a stupid muzzle thing.  He hates me!

Squeak discovered that the "safe" dog walking beach was next to the only arcade in the village.  Squeak loves lights, music, candy floss, penny sweets and arcade games with a passion.  An already stressed 40somethingbitch now not only has to walk the dog (who looks like Hannibal Lector with his Halti on) but then has to indulge her 8 year old daughter who has earned her pound in the arcardes every morning. Feeling frazzled, no make up often not even having had a shower as my goal is to get the bloody dog walked, I wonder if the cool dudes who hang around these arcade places thought we were a family of new age travelers or potential Jeremy Kyle guests.  It's not every day you see a forty something woman with waist length purple hair  (amazing grey roots) leopard skin wellies and a fag, hanging on to a dog that looks like Hannibal Lector  whilst the apple of her eye buys candy floss and plays on machines at 10am in the morning!

Thanks for reading

HOLIDAYS :)

40something bitch and family are on their HOLIDAYS!

We will post again when we are back,  happy Easter!

Second Hand Rose, Buttons and Maths!

Last autumn I was at home wondering for the millionth time why there was always too much month and not enough money, and how with Christmas approaching a single mum with two kids was ever going to afford a turkey, let alone the enormous lists, stuck to the fridge, written to Santa which were getting bigger by the day.

The phone rang and it was Rose,  "erm.......Hi are you ok love....I have done something and I wondered if you could help me out?"  A phone call that starts like this is always entertaining as you never know what you are going to get yourself involved in, so I settled down on the sofa to have a chat and find out what my barmy ex mother in law had got herself into this time.


Rose had decided that "Memory Bears" were the future.  This was going to make her a LOT of money. (For any one unfamiliar with memory bears, they are teddy bears made out of old clothes from your loved ones.  They are really popular with parents and look something like this.)  As usual she threw herself into this project with gusto, making amazing teddy bears in all shapes and sizes, (rabbits as well now I think about it).


However, she did not have enough black buttons for the eyes, so had been looking round for a source of cheap black buttons. She ended up in a place that deals in bankrupt stock and found in a corner some buttons.  Careful enquiries established that they had been there a good few years and had been stripped out of a bankrupt haberdasher and no one really knew what to do with them.  After pausing for about a millisecond,  Rose decided that here was yet another opportunity to make money, so bought the whole damn lot!

Rose: "Well love, the thing is I have bought some buttons "

40Something: "Rose why on earth are you ringing me up to tell me you have bought some buttons? Your always using buttons?"

Rose: "Well there might be a few more than I can actually deal with"

I gave this some thought,  "how many buttons are we talking about?"

Turns out Rose had stumbled across a complete haberdashers stock and bought the lot. There were 8 crates of vintage buttons. Each crate held 96 tubes, and some tubes held upwards of 600 buttons! The average contents per tube was 500 buttons! So:96 tubes x 500 buttons = 48,000. 48,000 buttons X 8 crates = 384,000 plus some extra ones! (Bubble worked this out!).

I asked Rose how she thought she was going to sell all these buttons and discovered the flaw in Roses plan.  Rose had decided to put them on ebay, in small lots and really cash in this time.  However she was only allowed 100 listings in a month, and obviously selling buttons in bags of 20 or 30, still left her with an awful lot of buttons! Sitting in crates - in her kitchen - that everyone fell over.  Even my abysmal maths worked out that she would have 19,000 lots to sell and if she could only sell 100 lots a month, would take her at least 15 years!  Assuming she sold all of the lots every month! And....considering she is in her late 70's she would be more than 100 years old by the time she had sold them all!

Rose wondered if I had any spare listings on ebay that she could bung a few on.  I agreed to take a crate and said I would see what I could do......

To be continued.....

Thanks for reading






,

Preparations!

I do know I have a story to complete at some point for those that are interested, but I have been on a mission with the Dowager today, which is always an adventure so thought I would write a bit about that.

Last year the Dowager decided (at the grand old age of 70 something!) that caravan holidays were the future!  She wanted nothing more than to be able to take her 4 grandchildren to the seaside for weeks at time.  They could paddle on the beach, eat ice creams, play board games and eat fried spam to their hearts content!    I think in her head she thought caravanning was a bit like it was in the 1950's where you toddled along an "A" road at 30 miles an hour, holding all the traffic up, with your checked teatowels hanging out of the window.  Your thermos flask was filled with brown tea stewed to the point where it became orange sludge, and it took you weeks to get to your destination. Frequent stops were made and sandwiches and scones brought out to be enjoyed sitting in your deckchair.

The reality is very different, these days caravans have an aluminium chassis, are built out of fibreglass  and thunder down the motorways at 70 miles an hour.  Woe betide you if you don't lock a cupboard, drawer or shelf, your belongings will be splatted all over your caravan walls when you arrive.  They have complicated things like bottled gas, central heating, 240 volt hook up, water tanks, 3 way fridges, banks of batteries, hosepipes, drains, and waste water,  all of which was completely beyond the Dowager.  All she wanted was to eat cake, drink tea. and play with the grandchildren. Last summer was a steep learning curve for us all but ultimately the end result is, there is a nice caravan on a nice site, in a nice part of Wales, waiting for a nice family to have a lovely holiday.

Last summer was glorious and she did indeed have a wonderful time with her grandchildren.

The Dowager has decreed that the caravan is going to be too much for her this year so 40something and family are expected to make the most of it before she sells it next year.  This is an amazing piece of good fortune for us, but we are more like the "Clampett" family than the "Buckets", the delinquent dog on a welsh sheep farms involves a reinforced galvanised chain on a spike, there is no broadband or mobile phone signal or TV signal and its Wales!. .......and it's going to rain -  a lot!

40Something and family are off on our jollys when school breaks up, but thinking about all of the challenges we are going to face I set off on a mission today to try and find "stuff" that would pass the time.  The Dowager dropped in just as I was getting ready to go and promptly nicked my ham that I had just pulled out of the freezer to cook and take with us. She is going to cook it for me - (bet you 10p it is significantly smaller when it comes back!)

So - I decided I needed new wellies for Bubble, some books on tape, possibly some new dvds and some BORED games.  I hit the charity shops.

I love charity or thrift shops, rummaging about and looking for treasure is something that is just so much fun.  Very often the the old dears who volunteer to run these places have a cracking sense of humour and it always brightens my day.  I did not find what was I was looking for today, but did pick up 5 brand new tops still with their labels on.  Squeak supervised the trying on and fitting of these tops and as ever gave me her honest opinion.  "Well 4 of them are fine mum but that one.....is for someone a lot younger, and sexier, and a bit more of a fashionista than you are!"  "OK Squeak - I get the message - I will stick it my wardrobe and take it out and look at it every now and again - and dream of being young and daft!"

In other news I have now demolished the kitchen.  Squeak needs to take a decorated cross into school for Easter.  I have dismantled a wooden wine rack, had the hot glue gun out, utilised millions of buttons, found a box.  The place is bedlam AGAIN!

Thanks for reading

Second Hand Rose

Tonights story will be one told over a few days as it's a long one.  I will probably post bits of it every now and again until I reach the end of this particularly epic tale!

Second hand Rose is Bubble and Squeaks Nana, Whilst the Dowager personifies Downton Abbey,  Second Hand Rose is a scatty, harebrained ditsy eccentric who CANNOT pass a charity shop, car boot, church sale, garage sale or table top sale without stopping to have to have a quick look. Many bargains are to be found, the odd bit of treasure unearthed, and more often than not promptly sold on at a quick profit.  When we were all young and daft, she delighted in finding "stuff" to furnish the odd assortment of flats, houses, caravans and boats we took up residence in.

A seamstress by trade, she is always, always busy. Now in her 70's she still has barmy ideas to make her fortune and spends hours and hours making stuff, secure in the knowledge that "one day" she will drop on something that will make her a fortune. An extremely talented and hard working lady (I have a dustbin bag full of patchwork caps that I am still trying to sell), she upholsters, makes curtains, bedding, dresses, carrier bag holders with owls on, teddy bears, laundry bags, knits, crochets, does the crossword every day, finishes the suduko, finds time to eat out most days and generally has a pretty good time.

The downside to being an eccentric however is that everyone around her cringes when she says "Hang on minute.....I have an idea!"  or even worse  "erm....I have done something!"

To give you an example of just how off the wall she can be, I want to share one of the stories the ex-beloved used to tell me about his childhood.  The ExB was one of 4 children and when he was a little boy his sister had a pet mouse which duly escaped.  Every conceivable attempt was made to catch his sisters pet, all of which failed spectacularly.  The little mouse managed to make itself a comfortable residence in the bottom of the sofa and when anyone went anywhere near it it used to scuttle back under the sofa never to be seen again.  Time passed, and the mouse was by now happily ensconced in the front room king of its castle.  Trapping was out of the question, as was poisoning - this was after all somebodies beloved pet.  Rose came up with an amazing idea - "I know we will get the mouse drunk!  It will fall asleep and we can just pick it up!"

The drink of the time was Newcastle Brown Ale  (it was the 1970's and we are northern). A bottle was duly bought and some of the potent brew tipped into the lid.  The mouse loved it!  Drank the lot, retreated back to it's lair a happy mouse and slept the day away.  The following night two lid fulls were left out and the mouse once again drank the lot.  By the end of the week the ExB has vivid memories of tiptoeing across the front room with his younger brother on their way up to bed, trying not to disturb the plethora of Newcastle Brown Ale lids, all strategically placed around the front room while Rose kept a lonely vigil with a dustpan and cardboard box!  

Finally at long last (about 10 days!) the mouse drank enough Newcastle Brown Ale to sink a battleship, and triumphant at last Rose emerged from the front room with a comatose mouse, a gazillion lids from the beer bottles and a smirk on her face.

Roses ideas range from the bizarre to the downright eccentric and last autumn I answered the phone one evening to hear the words  "Erm....I have done something, is there any chance you can help me?"

Nuns with Guns and Men in Black.

Homework at 40Something towers is a bit hit and miss,  To be fair, Squeak who is 8, is extremely motivated and always has hers finished weeks before any deadline approaches. Happy and cheerful to be doing something new she will take a scatter gun approach to her projects. Very often she misses the point entirely and bounces in to school confidently expecting the teachers to believe she is a genius. The eternal optimist that is my daughter, is slowly learning to think things through and I have high hopes that at some point we will hand in a piece of work that has actually been requested.

 Bubble on the other hand views homework as a kind of optional extra, and begrudges spending his time doing stuff he is not interested in.  Should a topic take his fancy then he will cheerfully complete his project, before confining it to the back of his extraordinary brain never to be talked about again, often knowing more about the subject than I do.  However if he is not interested in his homework then the scene at home resembles something from an emergency ward!.  We have headaches, stomach aches, mystery pains and ailments, he is hungry, he needs the toilet, there is a program he must watch.  He will use every delay tactic he can possibly think of, leaving it to the very last minute before ending up slumped over a piece of paper with a pen in his hand.  Last night was a full on homework epic, I have given up suggesting he do a bit each week - so yet again Bubble did a terms project the night before it was due to be handed in.  This meant a fairly late night for both of us, and as Monday morning is generally chaotic, needing military planning and a International peacekeepers beret, I was determined to be on the ball and not end up turning up at school with my pajamas on looking like something the delinquent dog frequently drags through the kitchen!

After my son had completed his heroic quest I decided to talk to him about school, and specifically what was happening at the moment.  School received a terrible Ofsted report, and as a result, it is looking likely that the school will undergo a process called an  "enforced" Academy status. This effectively privatises failing schools, and the government keep those schools doing well.  Becoming an Academy is something the Governors of the school believe would have a negative impact on the children of the school, not to mention the whole board would be replaced by a team of 4 "experts" from the chosen sponsor, which would allow no local representation from parents, the church school or local community.  There are petitions floating around, parents are being urged to write to Lord Nash, the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for schools or to attend meetings where everything will be made clear.

As ever when dealing with children I make the effort to explain things in such a way that Bubble and Squeak can understand.  So last nights conversation went something like this:

Me: "Bubble do you know anything about this Academy schools status thing?"

Bubble:  "Yeah - it's because we got really good results in year 2 and now in 6 we are getting rubbish ones!"

Me:  "Well I am not signing any of the petitions and stuff to try and keep the school as it is now, so if any one at school asks you to ask me to sign anything I am not doing it.  As far as I can make out mate, It is a church group that will be taking over and they will put 4 of their own people in to oversee the transition, I am not at all religious, but I think morals with money might be ok."

Bubble has a sense of the ridiculous that equals my own and his eyes started twinkling,

"Mum does this mean that if we become an Academy there will be 4 nuns with guns patrolling the school saying "work harder boy!"

Me:  "No...it's a Church of England trust, I don't think they have nuns,  I think the 4 people would be a team of experts a bit like a SWAT team or the Men in Black"

Bubble " That's even cooler!  I want Will Smith to patrol the school....In fact Nuns with Guns and Will Smith together will be even better!"

I really have no idea what will happen to our local school!

Thanks for reading xx

blah, blah,blah.... blog - and "Enforced" Acadamy status

I have decided not to write a blog post every day!  (Hurray I hear some of you cheering!)  This is because not only do I have other things to do, two lively kids to contend with and the delinquent who needs 24 hour care, but also because I think I might actually be able to write something worth reading! (Optimism is my new middle name). When I decided to write a blog, as usual I did little or no research on the subject, just jumped in and away we went. The last few days have been filled with endless research on blogs, blogging, how to blog, circles of blogs, adding meaning and content to blogs, embedding buttons in blogs, blog, blog, blog.........

All I wanted to do was just to write a few things about my day that amused me, and hopefully anyone else that is kind enough to read what I do. The first thing I discovered is that bloggers are supposed to utilise social media all over the place.  This is in order to generate "traffic" and drive people to seeing what I write. At 40 something towers we do have a fair bit of information technology knocking about the place so I thought this would be a breeze.  WRONG!

The Facebook thing was quite easy, probably because I like FB, and I am pretty familiar with its set up.  Creating a page was well within my comfort zone and I felt pretty smug about the whole thing.  Then I realised that my blog was connected to my personal email. The last thing I want is a shed load of notifications and emails landing in already overcrowded inbox that I rarely clean up. Are you ready for this..... I had to create a new email, invite myself to be a co-author, accept the invite, log in, log out, log back in, accept it, then make myself a new admin, then delete my other self!  That did not take any working out AT ALL!

Creating an account on Twitter seemed quite easy.  Just sign up, stick a bit about yourself (which I copied from the header page) and away you go.  Then it asked me who I wanted to follow.  This stumped me for a few minutes as I don't use twitter and don't know anyone who does yet!  I decided to "follow" some eye candy so selected people who set my heart aflutter.  Then I had a panic because I realised that anyone who looked at my profile would think I was some kind of weird celebrity stalker so deleted some of those, (leaving Robert Carlyle in obviously!) and added some really not at all interesting news channels.  I looked at my feed and it was full of news!  This makes me look like some kind of political activist (which I am not) so I added quite a few comedians!  I am hoping this makes me come across as a balanced individual but  I am guessing probably not. Google + was straightforwardish but again needed some tinkering with.

Bubble, who has appointed himself "editor in chief" then said we needed "reddit"  I have never even heard of this.  He explained it is really popular and lots of people talk about it.  Bubble can be a geek about what he is interested in, and I am not sure that gamers who play minecraft and watch "The Yogscast" would ever find a 40 something womans blog about housework and dogs interesting!  The "reddit" button has been duly added.

Then I was informed that you should sign up to some blogging sites and get to know your fellow writers,  (do you have any idea how many of them there are out there?).  I signed up - verified myself and guess what?  I now have to wait for my application to be accepted!  Why is everything so bloody long winded and complicated.  All I want is a simple stress free blog!  For now, I have managed to put all the links onto the page and please do feel free to like, follow or share any of them, (although, I am not guaranteeing that the twitter thing will be a success) it's always kind of amazing when someone likes what I do, and I am truly grateful for the comments or shares.

The big news today is that it is looking likely that school is to have an "enforced" Academy status, we have a letter telling us all about it and asking us for our views.  It is NOT enough that as a single mum I have to do everything  - plait sawdust, cook, clean, paint, decorate, garden, do the DIY, fix the car, find enough money, be a counsellor, look fab, pick up poo and stay abreast of happenings in the real world, I now have to look into something else!

The first point the letter made was that the school have adopted and implemented a "robust improvement plan," for improving results and by becoming an Academy it will jeopardize this.  I have no idea how true this is, as I don't know what new measures would be implemented.  The second point was that in the opinion of the Governors, becoming an Academy would mean the Governing Body would be replaced by an Interim Executive Board during the consultation period and would consist of 5 individuals who have no current links to the school.  We would lose the people who represent parents, the community, church, staff and LEA.  My understanding of Academy Schools is that there should always be 2 elected representatives from parents on the board of Governors and so fail to see how replacing one board with another would affect parental representation.  I have no idea how long an Interim Executive Board is expected to be in place, but would assume that those appointed have the schools best interests at heart.

The Ofsted report has already led to the resignation of the current headmaster, a guy I have had no real issues with so I think his resignation is a shame. Bubble and Squeak generally do very well at school, are happy to go and with very few notable exceptions I think their time spent at school has been well spent. So what do I think about Academy schools?  I have no idea!  A quick google search told me the basics, another search revealed pro's and cons, and a last search revealed a lot of rubbish.  Do Academy schools show improvement?  I have no idea. Is it some part of some wider government agenda? - probably.  Is there a potential clash between the teaching unions and Academy status?- most definitely. If I am honest I think after the last terrible report the school had ANYTHING they do would will be an improvement and could not possibly make things any worse. Once you are at the bottom the only way you can go is up!.

Apologies if you were expecting more tales from the dog side -I decided to write about something else today.

I have discovered putting Harry Potter on the telly is the most effective way of getting half an hour to myself to write this blog!  Happy Days!

Thanks for reading

The Delinquent and The Robber

I did not mean to write another post about dogs so soon, so if dogs are not your thing then check back tomorrow, when I will have thought of something else to say. But yesterdays post got me thinking about all the disasters I have with my dog, so I thought I would share a few more, which is probably much more interesting than telling you a load of techno rubbish about how easy (not) it is to add buttons and stuff to your blog so people can follow you.  I have spent a good proportion of my day doing this and learning as I go along, and if cleaning causes me to lose the will to live then googling "How do I ...........? and reading the various answers and solutions causes a reaction in me similar to major blood loss trauma. However I think I have cracked it.  There are now buttons you can press to follow my blog, and buttons to share my blog, and I even managed to set up accounts with twitter etc.   I am superwoman!

If the delinquent is the Frank Gallagher of the dog world, then the Robber is Benedict Cumberbatch!  A large graceful black lab who weighs in at 7 and half stone and is the gentlest giant you could ever want to meet.  The Robber often comes to stay with us and the two dogs have a great time trashing the house, scrapping, taking over the sofa's sleeping on my bed, and having competitions between themselves to see which of them can make the worst smell!

We all adore the Robber, the delinquent puffs his chest up and thinks he has his very own gang, and the the kids get a lot of fun with him, generally at my expense (more about that later).  The Robber, does have a few things though that get some getting used to.  Walking him is like walking a baby bull elephant.  He has no concept at all of walking to heel and charges about like an over excited toddler in a sweet shop.  His weight, combined with fact that the delinquent is on a lead in the other hand means I end up being dragged all over the road, or fields, or grass, or rivers, or footpaths or wherever he decides to go really whenever he feels like it.  The kids laugh their heads off, and I just look like a total doofus.  His other major failing is that he is a born robber and there is no food he will not eat. The robber has been known to sniff out a chocolate advent calendar safely stashed away in a bedroom, steal it and retreat back to his bed so he can snaffle it in peace, and then look completely  innocent and surprised when the evidence is discovered hours later.

Walking the Robber is problematical,  obviously having no control over two dogs going down the street is not a good look, not to mention quite dangerous sometimes, so I solve the issue by throwing both dogs in the car and driving them somewhere remote where they can run about to their hearts content.

It was a horrible day in autumn, wet and windy and we were at the canal.  I had a fancy new handbag and my plan was to park the car, walk the dogs for a mile or so down the canal where there is a Tesco, tie the dogs up outside, pick up some bread and milk and walk back.  Simple

The reality was the Robber, who loves to swim, jumped in the canal.  I did not worry overmuch (he is a dog, he likes water, and he can swim) the delinquent quite happily stumped along the towpath and everything was serene.  Till we got to a bit of the canal that used to have a small lock on it,  The Robber was quite happily swimming along the canal when we came across two yummy mummies out with their precious darlings feeding the ducks.  One of the mummies started yelling at me that the sides were too steep for the dog to climb out and she thought he would drown.  I tried to point out that the Robber would just swim to the end of the steep sided bit and climb out but she was having non of it.  So I carefully put down my new handbag, knelt down in the mud, and yanked out a seven and half stone dog onto the towpath who promptly landed on the new bag!  Then proceeded to shake the spare water off all over me and the bag!  I arrived at Tesco looking like something the cat dragged in, smiled at the checkout operator who looked slightly taken aback to be confronted by such a vision, trudged the mile back to the car with two happy dogs and a wrecked new bag!

I need a deep breath to tell you my next story as it's not for the faint hearted.  The Robbers predilection for stealing food when ever and where ever he can get it sometimes leaves him with a bit of an upset stomach.  The Robber had been staying with us for a day or two and had managed to beg, borrow or steal quite a lot of extra titbits.  Sunday morning dawned and the kids very graciously let me have a bit of a lie in,  the plan was, clean up, stick a roast in the oven, load the dogs in the car, drive 3 miles to the local reservoir, walk the dogs for an hour or two, come back have Sunday lunch.  Job done.

What happened was very, very different.  We set off all loaded up, two dogs, two kids and myself.  After the usual spat as to who was sitting in the front,  Squeak ended up in the front, Bubble went on the back seat with the dogs. (I did have a guard to keep them in the boot, the delinquent wrecked it)  Bubble had his nose in a book when he suddenly said  "Mum - one of the dogs has done a whiffy"  we sighed and opened all the windows.  The smell got worse and worse, Bubble finally took his nose out of his book and said  "erm....Mum - The Robber has had an accident in the car!"

Things went from bad to worse after that,  I could not stop as we were on a main road, so I turned off onto a narrow country lane pelted along, hell for leather with all the windows and the sunroof open until we reached our destination.  Letting the dogs and two horrified kids out of the car I assessed the damage.  The robbers "accident" looked like an elephant poo.  This was compounded by the fact that he had walked through it and so was all over the back seat and window!  Looking in the boot I discover the only bags I had for cleaning up were the extra large fabric bags from Aldi!  I cleaned up as best I could and we all set off to walk round the reservoir

While I walked I formulated a new plan.  We would walk the dogs, then drive to Tesco, park at the bottom of the car park (so no-one would know what we were up to) and buy stuff to clean and disinfect the car. We got back to the car to discover one of the tyres was going flat and the kids point blank refused to sit in the back.  We ended up with Bubble in the front seat, Squeak in the footwell,  two happy dogs in the back, and me driving very carefully.

Supplies were duly bought, we let the dogs out of the car and operation clean up began.  An hour later we limped into the garage to put air in the tyre and finally we made it back home.

Dinner was burnt!

Squeak is disgusted at us today.  Her April fools day pranks was not appreciated.  Offering to make Bubble his morning cereal she promptly put lemon juice into the milk to curdle it.  Bubble was definitely not amused when not only had she done that - she had used the last of the crunchy nut cornflakes so he had to have Weetabix.  I was even less amused to find there was hardly any milk left for that all important first bucket of coffee that always starts my day.

Thanks for reading