Month: January 2010

Oooh, me lumbago!

On January 31, 2010

It’s been a painful week, taken all in all. The Cough is still plaguing the bejeebus out of me and making me wake up at least three times a night. Which is not good for the sleep at all. But somehow, between the coughing and the cold, I’ve managed to do something nasty to my back. P says I have a bruise at the base of my spine. I can’t remember bashing myself against anything, though I wouldn’t rule that out. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d hurt myself and couldn’t remember how or when. (And no, nothing medicinal or alkymoholic is involved.)

I think that it’s a combination of the cough and having to sit for long periods of time on an uncomfortable chair, studying. Since wednesday last week I’ve been in a heck of a lot of pain and walking around like an ancient and decrepit old person. (Quit it!) When P said he would come home on thursday night instead of friday, I don’t mind admitting that I had a bit of a weep for relief. I’d just about managed to sort out the hens and I’d even put the bin out; though both activities were a bit of a struggle. P has been wonderful all round, doing the shopping, putting deep heat on my back and generally taking good care of me. And he’s arranged to take tomorrow off work just to make sure that I’m the way to getting better.

Because I do think that I am. I seem to have a little more mobility and the pain has died down to a dull roar, as the saying goes. Funny thing though, I think I’ve grown in height. I was standing at the bathroom sink this evening, and it occur ed to me that I was taller. You know how you’re taller first thing in the morning and then shrink down a little as the day goes on? Well it’s just like that, but without the shrinking. Odd. Anyway, I hope the stupid back hurries up and gets better because P and I were going to go to Shrewsbury on saturday and meet up with L. Fingers crossed!

Beginning again

By admin

On January 29, 2010

In domains

No, not beginning a blog all over again (though I’ve been guilty of that a fair few times). I lost just about everything I’d ever put onto a computer over the past few years, when my external hard drive fried. I don’t know what happened: a tech bod my husband consulted thinks there may have been a sudden power surge that fried its little bits. At the moment, it’s being sent to a company who, hopefully, touch wood, will be able to recover the data. It has graphics, websites, stories, my OU essays: all sorts of things. I’m trying not to think about what is on it, or I’d cry.

I’ve been able to get back most of my sites by downloading them from the ‘net. The problem is, so many of them had their passwords stored on the hard drive and I hadn’t put them in a notebook, as I usually do. Thankfully, some of them were on my resellers, which enabled me to change the passwords, so I could them download them. Some have been lost. I had cancelled one reseller and company that hosted another of mine had closed down. I had reassigned the domains, but had not yet uploaded the content, which is sitting, you’ve guessed it, on that hard drive. I can only hope.

However, I was very naughty today and treated myself to a new .nu domain. I’d been renewing rainyday.nu and noticed Namecheap’s “marketplace”. Which is where customers of theirs can sell their domains. I’d bought one through that before and now I thought I’d just check the .nu domains. Just in case. And bought enchanting.nu. I know, I know. So now I have seven .nu domains. Seven! *sigh* I am addicted to the pretty things.

TMI! WTF! OMG!

By admin

On January 19, 2010

In thoughts

I was sitting on the ‘bus this morning, as you do. It was a typical tuesday morning crowd. There was a young woman with her two year old son on her knee at the front, and I sat down in the seat behind her. And then was treated to a lengthy discussion by her, of the birth of her son, blood clots and all. Apparently, she delivered her son herself, despite the presence of her mother and a midwife in the room. She then went on to tell all and sundry about her son’s forthcoming operation to drain a cyst on his brain. To give her her due, she did not aim her comments at the rest of us. It was all part of a conversation she was having with a man three rows away. Why could he not move to sit beside her? I don’t know the answer to that one. But she seemed to think it necessary to conduct her discussion at length in a very loud voice, just to make sure it carried to the back seats.

Then, while I was waiting for the ‘bus back home later, two young women arrived and met up with a friend sitting at the ‘bus stop. They then proceeded to talk about their recent smear tests and one woman’s IVF treatment, again, in loud voices, just so the rest of us got the picture. It was not edifying, I can tell you.

Is it just me, or am I old-fashioned in thinking that the intimate details of one’s intimate life are best shared in a more, well, intimate environment? I’ve noticed that the young seem to feel it acceptable to conduct every detail of their lives in public and the more people who are let into the details, the better. As well as blaming the parents, I blame this texting culture. Just watch an average episode of the Jeremy Kyle show and you’ll see what I mean. In one episode, there was a young lady who talked about having got pregnant at a ‘bus stop. What’s next: maternity units at ‘bus stops? It’s no wonder that the elderly feel bewildered and frightened by it all. Personally, I’m disgusted.

late monday night

By admin

On January 18, 2010

In books, waffle

It’s one of those occasions when I want to write something, but can’t think of anything to write about. Don’t you just hate it when that happens? I guess I’ll just waffle on and hope that I find something as I go.

I’ve just finished reading the second book in my 52 books plan. I know, it’s slow going, but I seem to have hit a blank phase. My current obsession is “Morse”, after P and L gave me the boxed set for Christmas. I thought I’d see how different the original books were and bought “The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn”. I found that Lewis is pretty much the same, but Morse is really not so nice in the book version. He’s even more obsessed with being celibate but is pretty nasty to women he fancies. So he’s defeating his chances from the outset. Silly man! He’s also obsessed with his hair, for some odd reason. I think I prefer the TV Morse and the late, cuddly John Thaw. He was a great actor.

I’m currently working through “Tom’s Midnight Garden” by Phillipa Pearce, as I have to read it for the children’s literature course. I didn’t care for it at first: I thought it not half as good as other time-slip, secret garden novels, such as “Moondial”. But now that the boy is no longer interested in the Edwardian boys in the garden and has made friends with orphan Hatty, it’s much more interesting. I’ve read the other books for this section: “Harry Potter” (the first one), “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” and “Swallows and Amazons”. Some good books there.

And see, I managed to find something to write about after all! Off to bed!

musing on a sunday

By admin

On January 17, 2010

In politics, thoughts

P asked me, which party will I be voting for this year and why. (Why he asks me these questions when I’m in the bath I do not know!) I thought about it and said:

Definitely not the Conservatives. They’re not for the likes of ee and me and I deeply regret having voted for Mrs Thatcher first time around. They’re not interested in any group of people except people like themselves: Eton etc., Oxford, that kind of thing. They’re not vicious, just callous.

Labour? No thanks. Their problem is that they invariably come in after several terms as the shadow party, nipping at the heels of the greater mortals. And when they do suddenly get into government, they don’t know what to do with all that power. They start off with good, noble intentions; faces shining with pride in the working class. But then power corrupts them and they quickly become venal, dishonest, selfish and greedy. And they make stupid decisions that the rest of us have to pay for.

The Liberals? Well now, I suspect that they could actually do a decent job, if they were given a chance. They’re honest: the current leader has gone on record saying that they will have to backtrack on their promise to stop student loans and give grants instead, because they just cannot afford it in the current financial situtation that we’re all in. I admire them for them. Their honesty is refreshing given all the crap we’ve had to put up with from the Labour party. And if the Liberals had been in power, I doubt that we would have so blindly followed the USA into Iraq.

But, I’ll probably vote Liberal in the next election simply because I like our local MP. Mark Williams is a decent chap who actually answers his emails, unlike a lot of technology-challenged bods. Our family have all had occasion to ask his advice, or to give ours, on several topics (mine was on the plight of battery hens) and he has always sent an answer. He went to bat against Arriva Trains on behalf of P, who travels to London and back every week. Personally, I could care tuppence about the national government (and that goes for the National Assembly). Mr Williams is a good chap in my book, and he’s getting my vote!

Sixteen, Maybe Less

By admin

On January 3, 2010

In music

Last year: by which I mean 2009 of course: I picked up an album called “In The Reins” by Calexico and Iron & Wine. (Iron & Wine being the singer, Samuel Beam.) I absolutely loved it, being a big fan of Calexico. I hadn’t heard anything by Iron & Wine before, so the other day, I downloaded a couple of his albums on Amazon. (Not free, I hasten to add. I paid for them.)

I liked them well enough, but felt they lacked something. Calexico, perhaps. Mr Beam’s songs are good and interesting to listen to. They remind me of Nick Cave’s, but with a lot less fire and passion. I think that is the problem. Calexico’s songs are passionate. Mr Beam’s songs are not. They’re fine to listen to but I don’t think I’d call myself a fan.

There’s a lot more I wanted to write this evening, but it’s rather personal. So better suited for my paper journal I think. So that’s it for tonight. Nos da.

Saturday

By admin

On January 2, 2010

In books, films

Well, I’ve managed to finish my first book of the year and watched my first movie. I didn’t actually go to the cinema though. I have something of an aversion to cinemas, so all the movies, if not most of them, will be via dvd. I won’t count movies I watch as TV programmes as they’re usually chopped about and full of adverts.

The movie is “Moon”, that low-budget SF movie. Though I just know that someone is going to bleat “it’s not really sci fi”. *shudder* It was a good movie, though it threw up a few questions. I love those slow, languid, movies that are confined to one ship; like “Event Horizon” or “Sunshine”. But never ever “SuperNova”. Let’s just pretend it never existed, shall we? I adore James Spader and admire Mr Diamond Phillips too, but not that movie. Dreadful is too mild a word for it.

The book is “Painted In Blood” by Pip Vaughan-Hughes. It had me rushing to wikipedia to read up about the Cathars and why the 13th century Catholic church hated them so much. Brilliant stuff; great characters and a cracking plot.

In other news, I’ve been rather let down by my Buffalo external hard drive. I’d put all my files onto it; not just used it as a back up. And now the thing’s knackered and I’ve lost everything. It’s enough to make a perfecti swear. (Little Cathar humour there!) With a bit of luck, I’ll take it into the computer shop on monday and they’ll be able to fix it, or at least recover my files. I hope!

I’ll Never Stop Being A Mummy

By admin

On January 1, 2010

In blogging, family

Today I want to write about mummy blogs (or mommy blogs, if you’re from t’other side of the Big Pond). Oh, and why they irritate me.

Oh come on, I don’t mean that I’m irritated by people, specifically mothers, who blog about their kids. I read Dooce, and some other blogs by mothers. But, it would seem that mummy blogs are limited to women who are mothers of small children: babies, toddlers and so on. So what about someone, i.e. me, who is the mother of a 23-year-old daughter. Am I not a mummy too?

I’ve not seen any blogs by older women with older children. It’s usually the 20-somethings who are blogging about their own kids. Which begs the question: is blogging confined to young women? Actually it begs for another question: are the thoughts, memories and opinions of mothers of adults not worth tuppence ha’penny?

Being the parent of a child who is an adult has its own problems, worries and amusements. There’s the whole empty nest symdrome for starters. I was fully prepared for the fact that my daughter had more or less home when she went off to university at the age of 18. Then, we were living in Merthyr Tydfil and she went to university in Aberystwyth, which is quite a considerable distance, especially when you’re a family with no car and no one can drive anyway. Then, just before she started her final year, we actually moved to Aberystwyth. She lived in town, in a student flat, but came home on the ‘bus every saturday, with a bag-full of washing. I would also meet her in town on a tuesday, to have lunch and do a little shopping together. We actually became closer, L and I, enjoying some mother and daughter time.

After graduation, she stayed at home and worked in a local pet chain store for a while, then she went away to Anglesey to work for the RSPB for six months. She came home again for a few more months, then in october 2008 she went to New Zealand for seven months. Again, it was back home for four months, then she started an MSc at Manchester Metropolitan university. So again, she has left home. I have no idea what she’s going to do when she graduates this year. She might come home for a while, get a job locally, or she might be off again. I know she’d like to work as a warden on Skoma Island one day, and she’s often talked about working in the South Pole, of all places!

So as you can see, it really is not the same as being the mother of a toddler. When my daughter was very young, there were no blogs. Imagine that! No internet as such either. I know, it’s the stuff of nightmares, but I coped. We all coped, in fact, at that time. But if there were no blogs about it, does that mean that it didn’t exist? Of course not, I’m being absurd. What I am trying to say is that it is the category “mummy blogs” that annoys me. It doesn’t leave any room for blogs that go beyond the early teens, nor does it acknowledge that motherhood is for life: the life of the child and the mother.

The reason why baby/toddler mummy blogs are so popular is because of the commercial potential of them. Advertisers do not want to hear about old people, unless they are in the context of old folk’s homes, provision for the elderly etc. There is no commercial reason for sponsoring parental blogs when the child is an adult. The ‘net is about now, not then; anything that happened yesterday is old and boring.

Well tough. As I wrote in an earlier post, I really don’t care what other people write about. I am a mother, I am the mother of a 23-year-old daughter who might end up working on the moon one day and I’d like to blog about it. In fact, I willblog about it, if that ever happens. (Could you know, she is very interested in exo-biology.) This is a mummy blog; and a cat blog, and a hen blog and a making cards blog and a whatever-I-feel-like-at-the-time blog. Sorry, no pigeonholes here.