So…I thought my two weeks away from the big smoky choke were eventful, but to come back to London and find that there is carnival in the cement mixer (odd metaphor conveying the goings on at Westminster).
Do you ever have that feeling after coming back from a “holiday” of wishing you could take another holiday to recover…and a gentle introduction back to the fast paced life you lead?
Well…I have had to get right back to the grindstone. In every thing I do, the people who were covering my holiday were not able to do what was asked. So, it is looking like I am going to be playing catch up for some time.
I do sort of want to find a remote chalet – at in this sweltering heat, I am imagining a snowy hideaway – and hide away from the sinking ship (the political system) and from all technology (simply so that nobody can allocate more work to me).
It was nice to be away…it was wonderful to see my family…but now I am wondering how I will get through the rest of the week. It all seems too much right now.
It was interesting to see the questions from 
Take a look at the fabulous Liebster Award post from 
The thing about most famous people is, I only see a glimpse of them, often a carefully coordinated glimpse that is controlled by their media agent. They have very little interest to me. I did not have a television for over ten years, so I am not very up to date with who is famous anymore, there seem to be a lot of “celebrities” whom I have never heard of or seen before.
I only strive to be like the people I know well, mainly my parents and some of my wonderful friends who have spent years or even decades working as volunteers. I have a few famous friends. I strive to imitate wonderful qualities like kindness and compassion in any of my friends whether they are famous or not. Fame is a very fickle thing indeed.
I have never dyed my hair.
My mum once left us with Dad one afternoon so she could go to a hair appointment. She came home with an unusual shade of red and a perm. We were all a bit shocked to be honest. Mum now has beautiful long golden white hair. It’s not white, and there is no hint of grey or silver and it’s not blonde, it’s almost platinum blonde I guess. Anyway whatever it is, her hair is in gorgeous condition. She normally wears it up when she goes out. But around the house she might have it down and it is very beautiful.
But I remember when we used to visit my Grandparents during December, they always had quite a large tree in the corner of the front siting room, near some French doors that led through to the larger living room at the rear of their house. I was quite taken by the Cinderella carriage lights they always had in gold, blue, green and pink. They were kind of pretty.
Well, for years I have worked during the holidays because I have been working in healthcare and that requires staff 24-7-12-365! My oldest sister is a nurse. My brother is a Doctor. Mumma was a nurse and always worked on the bank holidays. She could get either double or triple pay on bank holidays. Dad was a window-cleaner, and so it made sense for him to take time off during the winter holidays when the weather was rotten.
There were a lot of older ones we knew who might be alone over the holidays, so Dad would often take us to visit some of those he knew would be alone. At the time, I don’t think we understood how much it meant to some of them to have my Dad turn up with his young crew who invaded their home for a couple of hours before he took us elsewhere. We thought it was great because we were fed cake and pie and chocolates everywhere we went. So we were well up for it. We chatted away to our hosts who apparently would have spent the holidays on their own. Dad couldn’t bear to think of older ones without any family being all alone. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement – I think. I don’t know if it was odd. But I do know we were a very popular little crew.
On days when we were all together we would visit my grandparents. They would give us a parcel each with one “big” present and a host of other things like a new year diary, embroidered handkerchiefs, a jumper, gloves, sweeties etc. Other days we would meet up with lots of other friends and their families and go for a walk, sometimes there were about a hundred of us. Either in the Lake District or North Wales. Or a couple of times we went somewhere like Chester Zoo. Then we would split up into smaller parties and go to someone’s house for food and games.
There are a lot more heart attacks, mental health break downs, suicides during December and January, so of course that is one of the reasons why working in healthcare, this time of year is dreaded. I have often worked long hours and come home completely wiped out.
This year I will be off from December 24th right through to the following Monday. I am so so thrilled to have almost a whole week off. I think it might be the first time for over fifteen years. I will be in Wales, but will be seeing all of my direct family and a lot of the in-laws.
I have only heard of Black Friday within the last couple of years. But so far I have not had chance to make the most of the sales. I think we have just had Black Friday – I worked for fifteen hours that day and was not involved with any shopping – except that I did pick up some vegan fish-style burgers. But they were not in any kind of sale. I just really wanted to try them because I am curious as to what they might taste like. I have not had fish since before I was six years old, and the only fish I actually remember is fish-fingers.
The post office staff are so lovely. They all know my name and where I work now and where I used to work. I have noticed they always look a bit fed up with some of the customers who take out their frustration about the long queues and not being able to obtain the service they had queued for. So when I appear, their little faces light up. I always try to cheer them up with a little friendly chat and a joke (I don’t know many jokes). It seems like a nice little token towards someone who has spent the morning having customers shout and grumble at them.
There was a man at a railway station I went through who was randomly giving out beautiful roses to people passing. One rose each. I thought he was selling them at first, but he said to me, he just wanted to do something kind. People do look very stressed at this time of year. Maybe he wanted to try to brighten someone’s day?
Have I paid it forward? Well, I have not been giving out roses to strangers outside railway stations myself no.
Before my head injuries I hated hats – the only hats I was willing to wear were hard-hats on construction sites. But now I have twelve wide-brimmed hats, a couple of bucket hats and eight woolly hats. I feel a lot more confident when I wear a hat.
I love my food processor. I love making my own hummus, pesto, coleslaw and how much easier it is to make parts of other dishes – for example a biscuit base for cheesecake. It’s really hard to imagine not having a food processor now.
That has changed a lot. I was working in healthcare and I had to read a huge amount of training books and manuals to keep myself updated. I had to keep a record of my reading and I still have it. Here is a friendly looking training booklet. A lot of what I have read was rather grim.
I still do so regularly. I write handwritten letters to family, friends and Goldfinch. The last handwritten letter I posted was on Thursday.
Yes…I love cursive handwriting. Reading and writing in it.
At one stage when I was living in a town with lots of families, I was shocked at how many front doors were covered with eggs. flour, paint, soil the day after Halloween. One year some youths demolished all of the drain pipes on the terraces houses in one street and vandalised every single car. There was a community project to build a flower garden for people to go and relax in. One Halloween a gang completely destroyed it, trampling all the plants and setting fire to the benches. When I lived in that town, I decided to just go away for a holiday to 
escape the terror. It was too disturbing.
I find all sorts of cultures and traditions fascinating, but Halloween has had me baffled since I realized what goes on that night. I don’t understand how people could be so cruel. I just don’t understand Halloween. Neither the encyclopedia explanation of how it originated nor the acts of terror carried out against people. The only tradition I have had is helping older neighbours to clean up all the mess the day after Halloween and debating what to report to the police.
I can only guess that America celebrate some kind of Disney-fied version of Halloween because otherwise how could it be so popular? Unless you don’t like cats or your neighbours? I am guessing Halloween in America is all candy and pie and “harmless fun” and fancy dress parties and watching creepy movies. That is not what I have seen of it in the areas it is popular here. I think that is what retail chains are trying to promote. That just about sums up a lot of holidays now…a big commercial bonanza.
I love ironing! Love it!
Hmm…how about don’t go to the park on your own…!!! Yikes! I mean how many times have I lectured friends when they have first moved to London on their personal security? Then I completely lost my senses and put myself in a dangerous situation…and well, as I have mentioned on numerous occasions, I woke up the next morning in an ambulance on my way to hospital!
I guess walking in the woods with friends (especially Goldfinch) and seeing the pretty colours of the trees and then after being outside in the crisp air, heading back somewhere warm for a huge cuppa and some hot buttered toast….if it is really chilly, throw in a steaming hot bowl of soup – yum!
I think I can say yes to that. Especially after visiting West Africa when I was about twenty-two. This is going to sound really stupid, but as a teenager, I started to think our family were poor, and that we were missing out on so many things our school friends had.
Life was so warm (literally, it was roasting hot!) colourful and people were so friendly and gregarious. I picked up the journal I kept during my time in Ghana when I was at my parent’s home recently. I still plan to write some posts about our adventures out there and the very special people we met.
Ooooh very rarely have I had chance to read when I have travelled.
Cerbeza = 
I have always loved opportunities to travel. Of course I want to travel again in the future. Right now, my desire to get back to my home on the other side of London is far greater than any desire to travel elsewhere. I feel lost at the moment. I hardly have the appetite for anything like adventure until I am feeling settled back at home.
I have been gifted by a friend. A friend whom I shared a rather memorable holiday with in Turkey a few years ago. 
One of the highlights of the holiday for me was scuba diving. I had always wanted to…and it is something I would love to do again and again and again for the rest of my life. My sisters and I are total water-babies. I was transfixed by tiny colourful fish who were not at all shy of our presence. They swam all around and in between us. It felt as if they were greeting us with delicate little kisses. It was one of the most special experiences I have enjoyed.
So when my friend came over to visit me, the gift she brought me was a tub of Whittard’s Turkish Apple Flavour Instant Tea. I opened it and we had it chilled with ice-cubes. Tonight I had some with steaming hot water.
Caramel 