Friday 30 July 2010

Feeling Better

This is the first day that I can honestly say that I am feeling better. I had some sort of virus over a week ago and it left me feeling totally washed out, Sam had it too and he also struggled to shake it off.

We are planning a ride on a train tomorrow, Robbie insists that it has to be an HST so it will be an uncomfortable journey for me with my legs not reaching the floor when sitting down. We are not sure where we are going yet, it depends on the weather.

I am fairly used to Robbie managing to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, but this was a bit extreme even for him. During a 'close' moment he decided to recall the names of all the characters from Crossroads. With Robbie I know that it is pointless to ask why, gut I must be really boring if his mind strays to subjects such as Crossroads.

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Cardboard Furniture - Yes Really!

Looking to a Cardboard Future

Introducing the 100% Recyclable, 100% Sustainable PAPERWEIGHT DESK.

Cardboard is so common in daily life, that we tend to overlook its potential as a highly versatile material. In fact, if we really think about it, cardboard has made a revolutionary contribution to the worldwide packaging and shipping industries. But beyond that, what can cardboard be used for?

Well, an astonishing new range of furniture products has been developed, made entirely of cardboard. These products have been designed to be highly functional both for use in the home and in the office. They are composed of 74% recycled paper and 26% virgin fibres, which come from fast-growing sustainable sources, making these products extremely environmentally friendly and cost effective in today’s commercial society. All of these cardboard products are fully certified, and meet UK and European legislation, making them fit for purpose for demanding contract and commercial use, as well as in the home and small office.

Friday 23 July 2010

A Pride of Lions

Why don't lazy people ever get out of the house? What are they afraid of Lions?
Proverbs 26:13 (Good News Bible)


From time to time sightings of a big cat are reported in Northamptonshire (the beast of Bodmin Moor on his holidays perhaps) but this is the first time that Northampton has been invaded by Lions. 40 beautifully decorated life size lions and 25 smaller lions have taken up residence at various places around the town including the railway station. They are part of a 10 week public art exhibition and they are amazing, there is even one called Alion Carr made to look like Alan Carr who is from Northampton.


We visited a similar exhibition in Norwich a couple of years, but they had elephants not lions.

Thursday 15 July 2010

A Very Special Day


Yesterday was Emily's graduation, it was a very special day and we all felt very proud of her as she received her degree. She wasn't impress with what she had to wear, the gown was OK, but Emily doesn't do head-wear and she really struggled with the cap, it sat on top of her head like a pimple and looked as if it would fall off with the slightest movement.

As always with important events it is always the trivial things that take on a greater significance than they should. I took a spare blouse because I have a bit of a reputation for spilling things and when we went for lunch I was extra careful. I really shouldn't have been tempted by the cheese and tomato panini, especially one containing red Leicester cheese. I kept my blouse spotless but a small blob of orange coloured cheese escaped onto my skirt right in the middle at the front where it would be obvious to everyone. Desperate times call for desperate measures, the only thing I had available was hand sanitiser, thankfully it worked well enough to leave hardly any trace of the stain and I was able to enjoy the ceremony without worrying about my skirt.

It was lovely that Robbie was able to be there to share in the day, an added bonus for him was a sighting of a particular kind of bus, it looked like any old bus to me, but Robbie went into a state of rapture when he saw it. As if trains weren't bad enough we have to cope with bus spotting as well!!

Tuesday 13 July 2010

I Don't Believe It!

To borrow a phrase from Victor Meldrew, I don't believe it, I really don't believe it! Just when you think your life is much too difficult, another problem pops up and brings everything to a complete standstill. On Monday morning I took Emily to the other side of town to start her new job, all seemed to be going well, we got there in good time and after wishing her luck I headed home. It began to rain - that irritating sort of rain that forces you to keep turning the wipers on and off. There was not enough rain for the intermittent wiper function to be useful but it was still necessaries to keep clearing the screen. Suddenly the wiper flickered and then stayed firmly stuck in 'ground old Duke of York position (half way between up and down).

I got home and tried everything I could think of to rectify the problem. Nothing worked, so I had to make an emergency dash to see my mechanic. What I thought would be a quick repair turned into an over night job with a bill to match. I was car-less, but my step father saved the day by lending me his car over night.The Galaxy needed a new wiper motor and new linkage, but when my mechanic found out how much the new parts were he sent them back and set about making the most of the parts that were causing trouble. after stripping it all down and cleaning everything up he coaxed the wipers back to life. It still cost £170 because Ford insist on burying all their parts in impossibly tight locations, so it takes loads of time and effort to get at them. I hope this is more than a short term fix because new parts will cost about £700 and with labour on top it would be around £900!! I have had a stern word with the car, and warned it that it's days are numbered! I really hope no other problems rear their ugly head for a few weeks.

Thursday 8 July 2010

A Moment of Panic

I was just getting ready to go to work yesterday when the phone rang. As always I had to sprint downstairs from the bathroom before the answer service cut in. A worried female voice at the other end asked if it was me, then she identified herself as Emily's friend Fi. Panic set in as soon as I realised who it was because Emily is away on holiday with a group of friends including Fi, if Fi was ringing something must have happened to Emily and her boyfriend. As it turned out Emily and everyone was was fine, they had all decided to cycle the Camel Trail from Padstow to Wadebridge, but Fi and her boyfriend were a bit slower than the others and they got lost. They did not have their mobile phones with them so Fi rang me from a pay phone to ask me to contact Emily. The others had to do a lot of cycling to find them, but in the end they were all reunited. I guess it is hard to keep a mobile charged when you are camping, but it shows how important it is to have a phone on a trip like that.

Tuesday 6 July 2010

Special Memories

The subject of death and funerals has been much on our minds recently and it is hardly surprising that thoughts of my first husband's last days have been very much to the fore. Sam was only eight when his dad died, so for him even more than the rest of us, grief has been a gradual process as he has grown in maturity and understanding. Eric pops up in conversation all the time, but sometimes Sam needs more specific information about his illness. Yesterday Sam and I were chatting about funerals and he told me that he remembered some parts of his dad's funeral vividly. I asked him if he remembered choosing the music for the funeral, he didn't, but when I told him about it he laughed out loud. Memories are precious, even the sad ones, they bring the people we have lost a little closer and sometimes when you least expect it you find yourself smiling. Here is an extract from my diary, it will explain why we had to laugh about the choice of music for the funeral.

Italic
Emily chose the music for the end of the church service, Eva Cassidy
was one of Eric's favourites and we used to play that CD in the car
all the time. Sam and Laura had taken responsibility for choosing the music for the crematorium. It was a difficult choice because Eric and I
didn't share the same taste in music. Eric liked Cliff Richard while
I quite definitely didn't! We both liked Eva Cassidy and the whole
family liked the BeeGees, Eric used to 'sing' along in the car and he was
surprisingly good at the high bits. They chose one of the songs
Eric liked best, I was horrified when they announced that they had
chosen 'staying alive' !! I had visions of the curtain closing as
that song rang out, Eric would have found it hilariously funny, but
it just wouldn't do! In the end Laura was put in charge of the
seating arrangements in the cars and together we chose Somewhere Over
the Rainbow by Eva Cassidy for the crematorium.

Monday 5 July 2010

The Wrong Answer

This evening Robbie sat in the lounge contemplating his feet before announcing his momentous decision. He is going to wear shoes for the funeral tomorrow! Due to the idiosyncrasy of his feet Robbie really needs the support of boots to keep him safe and upright, but has a pair of shoes which he reserves for very important occasions. He rather reluctantly bought the shoes for our wedding, but he rebelled by wearing loud 'Robbie style' socks! This is taken from a previous blog entry

Robbie's choice of socks is almost as eclectic as his taste in shirts! He likes loud colours, and why settle for one loud colour when you can have loud stripes – he likes stripes! They even put in an appearance at our wedding. I have written before about the compromise we reached concerning Robbie wearing shoes rather than Dr Marten boots to get married. The little detail I had overlooked was the socks. On the day we were getting ready to leave the house when Robbie emerged wearing a very nice suit and bare feet. In his hand he carried a brand new rather noticeable pair of pink socks. There was no way that he was leaving the house in those, and after a forlorn attempt to fight his corner he headed back upstairs get some different socks. I thought nothing more about it until we were asked to sit down during the ceremony. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Robbie’s immaculate shoes and his hideous socks – they were clashing stripes of different blues. I have held a grudge against those socks ever since, but the dratted things never get separated in the wash and they show no signs of wearing out!

Robbie has only worn his shoes once or or perhaps twice since our wedding. It seems fitting really, the first time that Robbie and Chris met it was one of the very rare occasions that Robbie saw him wearing a tie, he was never comfortable in a tie. Robbie is never comfortable in shoes, but only shoes will will do for his friend's final send off.

Thinking of the wedding shoes and the gruesome socks reminded me of another episode related to our wedding. I asked Robbie "do you remember our wedding" he got the answer wrong and his reply "yes, vaguely" elicited a snort of disgust from me. It is not as if he has had a long time to forget, it was only five years ago!

The episode I remembered was instigated by Chris, he and some of Robbie's other colleagues parked themselves on the platform at New Street expecting to see us as our train stopped briefly at New Street. I am not sure if the intention was to embarrass Robbie or to catch a glimpse of me, to be fair we do make an odd couple. Anyway their plan was foiled by Robbie's stomach. When we got off the sleeper we were delayed at Penzance by a rather wonderful bacon sandwich and we didn't travel north on the train that they thought we would. Just in case you are wondering we really did spend all of our honeymoon on trains and it was absolutely brilliant!

Tomorrow will be a very sad day, but Robbie and all those who knew Chris have a wealth of good memories of happier times.

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." ~ Helen Keller

Panic Stations

Robbie had a very busy day ahead of him, so he was up before the birds in order catch a very early train to work. He wanted to get well ahead with his work today because he has a deadline to meet and most of tomorrow will be taken up with his friends funeral. He left the house bright and early ready to face another week, all was going well until he was just yards away from the station when with a sinking feeling he realised that he had left his bags (including his laptop) at home. He has been suffering from very bad back and leg pain in recent months he has been trying to carry less to and from work in order to reduce the problem. Using a rucksack instead of a briefcase has helped a little bit, but it has put Robbie out of his routine and I think that is why he didn't pick up his laptop. At least it proved that I have my uses, I was able to make an emergency dash to the station to reunite him with his laptop!

Saturday 3 July 2010

How Did He Do That?


Why do the men in my family have so much problem with their clothes and why does it always have to involve me. On Friday morning Robbie was not wearing his suit (because it was dress down Friday), so when I spotted his suit trousers on the bedroom floor, I escorted them to the laundry basket. A little later I was downstairs wondering why Robbie hadn't left yet when I heard what sounded like an entire army galloping around upstairs, after a series of loud manoeuvres a read faced and breathless Robbie thundered down the stairs clutching a Roy Cropper style shopping bag containing his suit. Apparently I had made him late by hiding his trousers and made him miss his bus so I had to give him a lift to the station. He had a meeting during the day so he needed his suit for the meeting and I had creased his trousers. According to him he had not hung them on the floor, he had draped them near the television in full view so that he didn't forget them!

I may have inadvertently hidden his trousers, but I am fairly useful when it comes to sewing buttons on and general mending, both Robbie and Sam get themselves into some very odd scrapes with their clothes. When we were on holiday Robbie managed to catch his stomach on a door handle and tear his new shirt, it took ages to mend it. How on earth does anyone catch their stomach on the door handle, I can understand how you could scrape your arm or perhaps even rip your pocket, but he must have been walking sideways to catch his stomach on the door handle!

Thursday 1 July 2010

Thinking Outside The Box

I think I am going to scream, I can't stand the clutter and chaos any more, it is driving me mad. Emily and all her belongings have arrived back from university and the house is bulging at the seams. Meanwhile Laura getting ready to move into a shared house with some of her uni friends, so she busy is packing. There are cardboard boxes everywhere, it is impossible to tell which are coming and which are going. The only sure thing is that wherever you are in the house you have to step over a box, walk around a box or fall over a box.

This evening when I got home Robbie was topless, it was scary, he popped out from behind a pile of cardboard boxes and trotted over to me carrying a shoebox. He wanted yo show off his new Converse boots, they are so 'Robbie', black and white polka dots in the inside and black and white comic strip drawings on the inside. However bad Robbie feels, you can rely on a new pair of shoes to being a smile to his face!