house

house

Saturday 24 November 2012

Who'd have dogs!!!

 My dogs this week have driven me almost insane..
On Thursday whilst I was having tea with a friend in the lounge, John peeked in to say he was taking Reiver, our boy dog [who is part staffie with a lurcher...]out for his walk and that he had left Millie the girl dog [part collie,part staffie] in the kitchen...My friend and I carried on our conversations for another hour, and then as she was leaving and we both came out into the hallway, we could smell burning... I closed the door behind my friend and went and opened the kitchen door, to be met with a cloud of awful choking smoke!¬ Then the Smoke alarm went off, Millie came out the kitchen with her tail between her legs and slunk away.. At first I had no idea what caused this smoke until I looked at the top of the Oven and there was a pile of scones, merrily scorched, burning and letting off acrid smoke..In investigating what had smelt so nice and edible, Millie  had  obviously leaned up to see, and when she could not reach, on the way down, her paw touched the button and turned on the hotplate under the wire holding the scones!!! I had baked enough for us all to have through the week, and had to throw away more than half of them being charcoaled as they had! I almost fainted trying to get the window open and then the back door, and finally managed to get rid of the smoke, which had all disappeared by the time John came back from his walk!!I swear I was ready to shoot her for all this trouble, and then to add insult to injury, the rhubarb pie my friend had bought and left on the table, Millie had seen it, and scoffed the lot... she has a cast iron constitution that dog****

But worse was yet to come----- John had left the bedroom door open, and Reiver after his long and muddy walk had come upstairs and found the door open and crawled into our bed....big black paw marks all over my coverlet which is stunning white...

God was trying me out  that day, that's for sure ! I really did hit the roof over this one, as it takes many many washes to get the layer of dirt out.. it had happened before...

 and so John got the brunt of that one!!!!!
but like I said, Who'd have dogs!!!!-

mind you, I wouldn't really be without ours, they are really lovely, just sometimes life gets a bit trying when they are around!!

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Another birthday to celebrate**

Tomorrow,. my daughter in Canada will be celebrating her 42nd birthday. I cannot believe where all the years have gone, but now I do know what tomorrow brings, that my daughter is healthy and happy and doing well all those miles away! But back then, 42 years ago, I had no idea I was going to have another daughter. I already had a boy who was 4, a girl who was just over 2 and now this little one was arriving soon to join us. Of course, then, not having scans, we waited until the whole nine months were up before we knew.. so different from today's new mothers..
However, I thought I had had it cracked, as I was carrying this bundle in exactly the very same way I had carried Daniel. So, I followed through with buying a lot of blue things, and knitting in the same colour.. When the Doctor held her up, and said a lovely girl, I remember saying, it can't be, I thought it was a boy, he said 'well, I can't put her back!'  Too right he couldn't!! She did, however look exactly as Daniel had looked, and when I saw her for the first time all swaddled up and pink and warm, my heart literally did a somersault, and I fell totally for this little bundle of joy.
 She was born at 9.10am, and a couple of hours later her siblings came with their dad to meet their new sister. Then, after they went away to home, I just lay there with her cot by my side and gazed forever at her, feeling so full of joy and happiness that once again I had another baby.  A few days later [ we stayed much longer in hospital then*] my parents came with my husband, and he was so proud to show her off to them.. On the way home, he got them to stop the car, and he danced and jumped for joy on the pavement, that was how much her arrival meant to him, and one picture that my parents told me about, and how they all laughed all the way home..

42years later, she has her own darling daughter, and a son, and a loving husband, so I am so pleased for her that things have turned out alright in her life... that's all you want as a parent, that your kids have a happy and loving life together with family.

Despite all the pains and tribulations that life does sometimes throw at you, being a mum is the very best job in the whole wide world!

Tuesday 13 November 2012

A month later

Well its almost a month since I last wrote my thoughts down.. and maybe they have been a little dark recently.. I was puzzling over why this should be. I get up and do all the usual things and take Millie for a walk,but all the time I am feeling distressed at my core. I realise that as one gets older, you have to accept that things end. I am in the process of winding up my recruiting business that I have run for over 30 years. I have loved the whole process of recruiting,.both meeting the clients and interviewing the candidates and finding the best match.  Even though  for the last 14 years I have  worked from home, I was always at my desk by 9 am ready to talk to my contacts and work the business.  However since my last set of operations, I have found it difficult to manage to get up to town to see my clients and also for interviewing. So I have come to the conclusion that I have to close my business by the end of this year, which gives me about another 6 weeks or so.  Having run this business for so long, and enjoying the whole process so much, it has made me feel very low in spirit and I know that this has caused me to write many things that I have never discussed or spoken about before..

When I meet up with old friends, and we are all checking out to see who has aged the best, I hate to feel less than good about my appearance. Once a long time ago, you could disguise the little bits of age, like the odd grey hair, the wrinkle at the corner of the eyes, the cheekbones that needed highlighting now that you were getting older.. But, now, nothing works... no cosmetic in the world is going to lift those cheekbones to their previous lovely height.The eyes have sunk further back and no colouring of the eyelid surface will bring them back. The lines from the side of the mouth seem to have deepened, and are there for everyone to see, so now, when I look in the mirror I see a mixture of my mother and grandmother looking back at me!

I used to be a size 10, with  long dark brown hair, slim shape and never worried about makeup or eye liners. I didn't need to wear much makeup at all, and have never worn lipstick either.Now I am grateful if anything works to help put back what was once there naturally!  When I see an older person, garishly plastered makeup on their face, I don't pity them as I might have done when younger, because I know it is their attempt at not becoming the invisible.  When you are young, you take it as a right, that people look at you, smile, open doors, give you jobs, all because you are fairly pretty.  When you become more mature, especially if you walk down the street with one of your adult children, its quite a blow to see that people are looking at them and you have become quite invisible to all and sundry!!

So, my dark moments spent out in words previously are a combination of dislike at being so old that I am no longer newly pensionable, and the constant feeling that I should be doing more with my life !! The days slip by so fast and we are at the end of another week which has not turned out to be particularly affective.

 One of my friends told me that this feeling would go if I found a hobby to get involved in.. She's right of course, but I never really had a hobby outside work and the home that occupied my time. I was too busy being a mother, going to work and that took up all my time.  I read the other blogs and they are mostly by younger women who have so much to offer and share,.or older beings who are very busy with their little businesses. 

I simply have to stop and really get to the core of what I want to do with the next 20 odd years I have left.. And if they go as fast as this one has, I shall still be there, sitting down, wondering what to do!!!!