house

house

Tuesday 26 June 2012

my hundreth blog[ 100]!

I was just watching the Real Housewives of New York, and its mindless trash, but still an interesting people watch programme. The girls were going to have an at home girl night, and one of them range to say their husband would be coming with her!! Amazingly the others didn't say no, so she took it as an agreement and bought him along! One of the other guests who had not known the husband was coming threw a fit and was most ill mannered and left half way through the meal..

So, would you expect a man to be on a girls night out!!? I certainly would not, and would not even expect my husband to ask if he could come along.. We live separate lives as well as close together times, so we have our own spaces when we need to.. this wife would have said, and did say, ah well, their marriage isn't as close as mine is!!! Ah, but is this closeness or control!! What do you think?

I am also sitting here having watched another programme where the young people got their clothes off and did discreet lovemaking, and it made me sad for those days when I would never think about defects of my body, just revelled in getting Au natural with my darling and having a great time.

Now I am aware that at my great age, you are not expected to have feelings like this, ha ha, but the old body is not what she used to be and I do miss her**. After five children I have slipped lower and lower and all is different now.

I remember how my breasts felt after I had fed my first child, and they felt different to the touch , but you can get used to anything.. so it is with my body at the present time. I need to lose weight, I need to try and be more active,  but with two replacement knees a hip replacement and my bodily paralysis in parts, I don't have much going for me.

  I am not ready to give up the ghost, but my life has changed drastically since last year and the operations. I shall never be able to be sponateous again in this department, it rankles me that this is not my fault and no one cares.

oh oh, I am getting on the depression horse here, so I shall end this rant tout suite!!

Thursday 14 June 2012

Did your Dad influence your relationship choices?

I have just heard a programme piece on the radio which asked, Did your Dad influence your choices on relationships!
I guess the first off reaction is to say/ No Way!  But listening to the people taking part in the programme it did seem, even subconsciously, that the relationship with your father is very defining.  I know that there are a lot of poor girls who have a terrible relationship with their parents, but luckily I was not one of them. I cannot imagine how much heartbreak they have gone through in surviving all sorts of hardships and difficulties. 

My father was a school teacher who taught French to children all his life. He loved being a teacher and had a special rapport with Kids and Animals.. babies would reach out to him and sit on his lap quietly for hours. He was always smiling and had a very positive attitude to life. He also believed in sharing what he had with others..
 As we grew up he was friendly but we always knew not to overpass the mark. He could be a disciplinarian when called for, but most of the time he was just Dad who listened and was happy to share time with us.  

He used to brush my long hair as my mother dressed my younger brother. I would stand on a step on the stairs whilst he brushed away then tied it up in a ponytail. I had worn it in plaits,  but at school they always came undone when he did them, so now we chose a pony tail that would stay all day and look tidy!
 My mother worked in dress shops and during the summer holidays we would travel up to London and visit the sites and museums and then go to fetch my mother when she finished working. To save her cooking we would invariably eat our evening meal whilst on the way home, stopping at a coffee shop to do so.

 My dad had the job of looking after us after school was out and during the long summer holidays.
We would also go to France in August, when he took a troupe of young school boys with us and visited Normandy each summer for two weeks. It was a magical time as we returned time after time to the same hotel with the same lady proprietor who made a big fuss of my brother and myself.

As I grew older he would drive me to the places where I joined my friends for the evening and then come back to collect me when the night grew late. He would be sitting in his big car waiting patiently for me to come out into the night, and always was there... of course that used to bug me that I could 'nt travel home with friends on the bus, but he took his parenting seriously and would have died himself if any harm had come to me.  He had a very positive attitude to life, had many friends, loved to entertain at home and adored going on holiday.

When my mother met my first husband she said to me.. 'oh Jeannine, he is a romantic just like your father*' Of course I didn't know what this actually meant, but now I do. It was because he didn't really actually cope with reality well..
 
My first husband did try to live a good life, but found his past experiences living at home, so hard and difficult he was a real mess below the surface.  However although that would prove to have awful consequences later, I loved him because he was kind, and clever and made me feel good about myself. The same could be applied to my Dad, he always made me feel good about myself and loved me deeply.

If I really do keep thinking about things that happened all those years ago, I do realise that he had a tremendous impression on my choices.  I chose men who were brainy and intellectually interesting. Who were capable of achieving a lot, who had an optimistic view on life.. but who really never got the money thing right...

My dad loved to spend and would come back from holidays broke but happy.. I never managed to find a husband that made a lot of money.. My husbands made just enough to keep us going, but without extras like holidays!!! 

My darling Dad I would never have changed in a million years, but money was always tight and made my mother very nervous all her life with him.

 I guess its also why I am no good at money, having the attitude that something will always come along and things will be ok.. well, my life has been up and down with a lot of great happiness at times, and I am always optimistic that just around the corner, there is a whole new adventure waiting, which is the best thing that my dad gave me, this feeling of good and positivity..

 So yes, my Dad has influenced a great deal in my choices in life, and I would not change anything, except to have him back with me in life..

Monday 4 June 2012

60 years in the same job!

Yesterday I watched the river pageant unfold on the TV.. watching all the flotilla of boats going slowly on the Thames, with the Queen and her close family and friends waving and waving to the crowds lining the banks and bridges of the river.

 It was magnificent, despite the rain that got heavier as time went on.. didn't dampen the spirit of the crowds though, all waving and cheering for her Majesty!  We have had the programmes  on television,showing her as she grew up, when she took over the Throne, and then as a young mother with her children and all other events to the present time.

At 85 she  still seems so strong and energetic,  its amazing. !What strength of character she shows.. she stood up the whole time the boats went slowly by, waving to her subjects.. a very long time, just standing up and waving, never sitting down, [so everyone else had to stand too]!!

I have always found her an enigma. She seems in the photos to be happy with her family, but outwardly never showing her emotions in public. She seemed very cold when Diana died and she was not going to mention her death outside the family, but the government of the time said she should make some notice of the fact as her subjects were waiting to see it. She has fulfilled her job as Queen in a very very responsible way, but I DO NOT  envy her one bit. She never has a moment to her self, she is on view the whole time, and everyone has an opinion of her.. Must be very hard to be so public.

What would we do without her? Probably go on in the same old way, but something would be lost too... Having a Royal Family is part and parcel of the whole thing of England and being English.. WE need our Royal Family to hold all the disparate parts of the nation together. They are the glue that sticks us all together and makes this Country whole. WE have so many different peoples now making up this land, that we need something in common to share ,in order to work together and I think the Queen does do this for us. 
WE have watched her grow from a young woman into this elderly lady who still makes the crowds cheer and wave happily.  There won't be another Royal person in the foreseeable future who will be able to claim this record of longevity in the job! Charles if he inherits doesn't have that many years to be able to do it, and even William inheriting later will mean he is unlikely too to reach this number of years in the job..

As  for Queen Victoria, who is the only other person to have achieved this record, -she was 19 when she ascended the throne, and this Queen was 25,. she did find it hard to keep going especially after she lost her darling husband so early..

 it will be far into the future if anyone has a chance to succeed and reign for so long... quite an amazing record and almost unique in its longevity.!

[ I think that she has a couple more years to be the same as Victoria, and it looks as though she is going to do it, and then pass that record too!! ]

These four days of holiday are for us all to try and appreciate her reign in all that has happened and been achieved.

It has not been totally successful, we have lost all the lands that the Victorians gained abroad, but somehow this tiny Island still has a place in the world, where they mainly listen to what we have to say... they might not act on our advice, but at least they give us the courtesy of listening. But in other areas we have succeed far more than anticipated.. look at mass communication today for example..

  It is funny that when I was growing up in school, the maps all showed areas across the world coloured in red, that were the outposts of our commonwealth, and gradually over the years they have all had their Independence handed back to the original people.

For some it has turned out worse than under Colonial Rule, for others it has turned out well..

Governing others is an Art that is sadly misused and mistreated, but our Queen has shown us , at least here in England, that it is possible to govern with kindness and awareness and example, even if your position as Queen is merely Head of State without real political power.
 A queen who leads by example, trying to live a fulfilled life and believes in her Religion, and tries very hard to be the best at what she does.

 I think that no one could fault her as being a Queen, and that is what will be remembered by time and history.

I hope the next incumbents will be as positive a role model in their role of Kingship !