Stickville

Ski-jump boobs

Had a fab day shopping yesterday with two good friends, L and M.  There's nothing quite like wandering round shops and sitting gossiping over coffee.

L loves nice lingerie.  Everything she buys is gorgeous, from proper well-known bra manufacturers like Playtex, and usually in matching sets - unlike mine which tend to be whatever greyish bobbly bra comes to hand, along with a generic black thong.  But I need new bras, so while M stood and watched tolerantly, L and I rushed round the lingerie department comparing sale prices and waving brightly coloured scraps at each other saying "Do you like this one?  What about this one?"

 I used to be a 36B.  At least, I thought I did, until I went into a proper lingerie shop aged around 26, and found I was actually a 34D.  Then I got pregnant, and my sizes went haywire while I breastfed, and finally settled into a 34DD.  Thirteen years later, I've been wearing a 34DD all the time, even though my weight has yo-yo'd from 10st to 12st5lb.  I recently dropped just over a stone, and my bras just don't seem to fit right, so I decided to treat myself.  I went out last week and tried a few bras on, and figured I was probably a 32E, but couldn't find any decent ones.

But here, in this lovely lingerie department, with a nice helpful lady assistant, I went to town and tried on loads of bras.  None of them fitted 'right'.  One in particular looked exceptionally odd - the tips of my boobs pointed upwards, exactly like the end of a ski jump!  I stuck my head out of the cubicle and called M over, and both her and the assistant stared at my boobs.  I looked like Madonna in her cone corset.  But then... I found the right bra.  I really liked this one design, but the closest they had to my size was a 32F.  I figured I'd try it anyway... and it fitted.  Like, really REALLY fitted.  I called the assistant, and she had a tug and a pull and a poke and declared it perfect.

So I am now officially a 32F.  Bloody hell, I'm never going to be able to buy cheap bras again, am I?  Perhaps I can persuade S that buying expensive lingerie for me is a Good Thing...

A tale of three cats

First there was Toffee.  We needed a mouser as our old cat Apple had a habit of bringing in live birds and mice; however, Toffee, despite coming from a half-feral family at a farm, proved to be just as useless.  Mice and birds were playthings, and playthings aren't fun if they are dead.  One day I saw Toffee catch a bird in the garden, and I rushed out the back door yelling at him, only to find him sitting innocently in the middle of the lawn. His wide eyes and perky ears seemed to be asking "what bird?".  Unfortunately his innocence was marred by the single wing sticking out from under his furry bum, beating the air frantically as the poor little bird tried desperately to escape!  Toffee is most definitely S's cat.  He will deign to sit on my lap, but only if S is not around.  As soon as S makes an appearance, I am abandoned.

Then Bailey arrived.  Bailey was not impressed with us.  He came to us as an overfed, antisocial 4 year old; he is now older, a nice healthy weight, and we are here for the sole purpose of providing him with food.  Except for C.  He adores C.  She can pick him up and drag him around; he sleeps on her bed; he goes up to her asking for a fuss.  At least we know where we stand.


And then last year, along came Callie.  Well, S and C both had 'their' cats, and I felt left out.  So down to the rescue centre I went, and I came home with a little tortie bundle of joy.


She was tiny, and perfect, and all mine.

A year on, and they have all come to an uneasy truce.  Bailey ignores Toffee completely, the same way he always has.  He ignores Callie too, unless she comes too close to him, and then he hisses and swipes; she used to run away, but now stands her ground and swipes back so we are entertained with a cat boxing match.  She's not daft though; she jumps on a chair first so she has the high ground.  Smart cat.  The biggest change is in Toffee, though.  A year ago he was a very elderly cat, spending all day sleeping and eating.  But now Callie plays with him, and he turns back into a kitten for a few minutes before he wanders off to nap.  I've even caught him playing with his catnip mouse, though he would deny it.

Like most cats, ours love to sleep.

and if they are really unlucky, they sleep on the patio, where C has been playing with chalk.

Bailey was unfortunate enough to roll in the chalk rather than just lie on it.  He is still slightly pink three weeks later.  He is most definitely not impressed.

Stickville

Skinned knees and washing-line swings

I was born as the hippie culture was at its height, and grew up in the glorious 1970s, a time of polyester clothes and the Purdey hairstyle, Star Wars and ABBA, Chopper bikes and cars without seatbelts.  The world had never heard of HIV, computers were in their infancy, and TV had three channels.

We children of the 70's had two options for entertainment - stay home and read a book or play a record (or if you were lucky, an 8-track cassette), or go out on the street and play with our friends.  I would get home from school, have a cup of tea, then straight out to play.  I lived on a nice council estate in East London, and there were always 8 or 10 kids knocking around the streets playing games like run-outs or it or Bulldog.

Mum would call me in for tea, then I might watch an hour or so of telly before bath and bed (no showers back then).

I invariably got sunburned in the summer.  I am cursed with skin that turns bright red then peels to reveal a total lack of colour.  I've never had a tan in my life.  Sunblock was unheard of; mum managed to find Piz-Buin oil in some ridiculously low factor but I still burned and peeled every year.  On our few holidays abroad, I blistered - not the tiny 5p-sized blisters you get on your heels, but huge water-filled blisters covering my entire shoulders, and on one memorable year, my face too.

During the summer holidays, six weeks of running wild and being left to our own devices all day long, we quickly tired of the little local park - three swings and a sandpit - and devised our own entertainment.  A favourite was a washing line, strung in a loop from the first floor railings of our flats, forming an excruciatingly painful swing.  You could either sit in it and have it cut into your bum, or stand in it, which was less painful but with the added danger that it was further to fall.  Onto concrete.  Which we invariably did, as washing line isn't really up to that sort of strain and would snap at the moment of greatest height or velocity.  Nobody actually broke a bone, which is a miracle in itself.

One of our neighbours took pity on us all one day, and piled us into the luggage bit of his Cortina estate car, with the back seats folded down.  There was a car park in front of our flats about 50 yards across, and he floored it at one end and screeched to a halt at the other, with about six of us tumbling about in the back screaming with laughter.  Then he did it in reverse.  Over and over again, with every kid from the nearby streets lining up on the kerb clamouring for a go.  Harmless fun...

These were the days when whisky was routinely rubbed on babies gums to ease teething; when the cure for a cold was being sent to bed with a large mug of milk with loads of sugar and a shot of scotch (at age four!), when butter was good for you and yogurt was for weirdo health-food hippies.

If someone bullied you, you were told to hit 'em back.  If a teacher told you off, you hung your head and hoped to hell she wouldn't tell your parents.  If your parents smacked you, you'd cry, and say sorry, and five minutes later have forgotten all about it (but hopefully learned how to NOT earn another one).

We had permanently skinned knees, from the concrete or tarmac under the climbing frames and swings.  We never washed our hands before dinner, we played marbles on drain covers, we made go-karts out of old wheels and milk crates.

Good times.

Shakespeare and murder!

For our anniversary, we booked a Murder Mystery weekend with Joy Swift.  Three days in a gorgeous hotel, with gory murders and lots of good food and laughter.  You can't do better than that.

We were staying at Ettington Chase, near Stratford-upon-Avon, so of course we had to go and look at the lovely old town.

 So many little shops, so many little side streets and alleys!  We found a winding old alley with an amazing sweet shop, hundreds of glass jars on shelves in this tiny shop.  I felt about six years old.  Further down the alley was an antique shop, and at the end was a fortune teller.  It was like stepping back in time.

 

We took a walk along the river, and stood on a bridge watching about 30 swans enjoying nice healthy snacks being thrown in by tourists.  Bread and chips seemed to be the most abundant.  But at the back, almost hidden by the sea of beautiful white birds, there was a mother coot with five chicks.  They were tiny and fluffy, and hiding among some low branches.  Mummy coot would swim out and gather food in her beak, and then swim back, and these five fluffy chicks would tumble out of their hiding place and surround her, like little clockwork toys, bobbing about on the water.  Then she would turn and swim back out to the river, and they would vanish back into the shelter of the leaves as if by magic.  We were mesmerised.

It was a hot, lazy day, and we found a hot, lazy dog on a narrowboat.

Right on the river is the church where Shakespeare is buried; it had the most incredible nave and organ, and the wood carving was amazingly detailed.

The huge wooden door to the church has a tiny door set into it, with a 'sanctuary knocker'

Apparently, any fugitive could grab the ring and claim 37 days sanctuary within the church before facing trial.  I am sorely tempted to install one on my spare room for next time the family is driving me nuts.

Note to self: stock spare room with wine and chocolate.

Remarkably messy.

My daughter’s bedroom is a constant source of entertainment for me.  I am astounded at the enormous mess that can be created from the tiniest amount of effort on her part.  And I am amazed at the amount of effort (on my part, naturally) required to clean it all up again. 

When she was two, it was tissues.  She had an endless fascination with tissues, and would sit for hours carefully ripping them into tiny, weeny shreds, and spreading them over ever available surface.  I, as the super-modern ever-patient mum, had to remind myself that she was merely indulging her inquisitiveness, as I spent the next three days picking tiny white shreds out of the carpet.

When she was six, it was games.  Counters, dice (or is that die?  I can never remember the plural), tiny models of people, tiny white wishbones and apples (Operation, anyone?), any and every component of a game would have to be taken out, examined, and abandoned on the floor.  I lost count of the number of plastic bags I had lined up on a shelf, each containing a selection of brightly coloured bits of plastic and card; if we ever wanted to play a game, we needed at least an hour’s notice so we could retrieve the appropriate bits from the bags.  We should have paid the neighbourhood kids to do a scavenger hunt - give each kid a board game with all the bits missing and a pound for the first one to come back with all the playing pieces.  Although, come to think of it, with the number of times we had to go ‘hunt the counters’, it would probably have been cheaper to ditch all the bags and buy the games again.

Now she is a glorious 13.  Yes, we are the proud parents of a Teenager.  If ever a word deserves to be capitalized, it’s that one.  Her room is a certifiable disaster area.  You know those Super Party Poppers, the ones that are the size of a kitchen roll tube, and you twist them and millions of sparkly bits of confetti and paper streamers shoot out and settle everywhere like multicoloured snow?  Well, her room looks a bit like someone has done that, with a Mega Party Popper the size of a Ford Focus, and filled with books, paper, pens, clothes (clean AND dirty, of course), soft toys, sweet wrappers, CD’s, and various electrical bits and bobs. 

Yesterday me and Mum rolled up our sleeves and got stuck in.  Six hours and several cups of tea later , her room is beautifully neat and tidy.  There is a bed.  That should’t really be news, but I haven’t actually seen it for at least a fortnight.  The carpet is beige - I did vaguely know this, but it’s so long since I’ve laid eyes on it I’d almost forgotten.  I have a full cupboard of towels again - a bit strange really, as I asked her a few days ago if she had any towels in her room and she assured me she didn’t. 

The most satisfying part of the day was the last half hour when we bagged all the rubbish that we’d tossed out of the doorway.  A total of eight bags (four were recycling, so we can at least claim to be ‘green’).  I am just a bit concerned that the cat seems to have vanished too…