Mr Bump

Robbie had a disagreement with his feet yesterday evening, he walked from the kitchen into the hall armed with a very large carrot (he was on his way to feed the guinea pig) when he slipped and fell. He hurt himself quite badly because he scraped against the furniture before he hit the floor. He has a badly bruised hip and side but it was his dignity that suffered the hardest knock. He was furious about falling, according to him there must have been a shiny patch on the floor that made him slip - I guess that makes it my fault! Robbie thought I was very unemotional and uncaring about his fall, it wasn't because I didn't care it was because I was trying to suppress an attack of the giggles. I could cope with the ranting but when he told me that his fall had been broken by a carrot the urge to laugh was overwhelming! Poor Robbie!

A Rather Special Person

People say that everyone remembers where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had died, they say the same about John Lennon and Elvis Presley too. I am too young to remember the death of Kennedy and I have no lasting memories about the other two, but I can vividly remember where I was and how I felt when I heard of the death of John Peel on 25th October 2004. The shock of the news hit me like a physical force. Without him my Saturday mornings would never be the same again. I have been a Radoi 4 addict for almost as long as I can remember and Home Truths with John Peel was the highlight of my week. Home Truths was a rather like John Peel, in touch with real people, interesting, eclectic, hard to define yet always charismatic. John was a natural communicator with an informal conversational style, and those of us who listened to him regularly felt that we knew him because he shared something of himself and his family with us.


In a way it was John Peel who led me to write the blog. I began bloging when my first husband Eric was ill with colon cancer. It started as a very practical way of keeping everyone up to date with how he was, I couldn't cope with everyone ringing every day, so the blog gave us the freedom to just be a family for a few more precious weeks. It was Home Truths that gave me the idea for the blog, sometime before John had interviewed a man who had used a blog to chronicle the last months of a terminally ill family member. I remembered the interview and I realised that a blog could help us too. It enabled Eric to keep in touch with all his friends and they could check on his progress and leave messages for him as often as they wanted. Gradually I noticed that the blog was helping me to process what was happening and after Eric died I continued to write blog, it kept me in touch with people and in a way it helped me to look beyond my grief. I have been blogging ever since.


Life moves on and sadly we have to part with some of the people we love along the way, but we will never forget them and our lives are so much richer because their lives touched ours.

A Quick Flash

Robbie was sitting at the table reading one of his magazines the other day while I was chatting to a friend online..He made several appreciative grunts and sighs which caught my attention  and when I looked up his expression told me that he was up to no good. He was unusually silent when I asked asked what he was reading and he looked as guilty as a kid caught with a top shelf magazine. He said that the photo on the centre page was awesome, grudgingly he lifted the magazine and opened it to give me a quick flash of his guilty pleasure - a milk float! That man needs help!

Issues with Underwear - and Worse!

Robbie and I had a lovely lazy morning and a leisurely lunch on Saturday, we are so busy during the week that it is extra special to enjoy time together in and feel completely unhurried at the weekend. After lunch we went shopping in town, Robbie needed some pants because according to him people keep stealing his knickers - why would they want his underwear? I wanted to buy a new bra and Robbie seemed perfectly happy to loiter in the lingerie department while I tried on the items that I liked. Sadly we left empty handed, I think I am the wrong shape for absolutely everything I want to buy; I am too wide, too short, and apparently I even have a difficult bust size. The odd thing is that every woman I speak to seems to think that clothes are not made for them, so isn't it about time that stores sold clothes that actually fit real women!


Robbie was keen to get to his beloved M&S. He spent so long looking at underwear that I almost lost the will to live. Either the type of material was wrong, the waistband was wrong or Robbie thought they would not keep everything in place. I got so bored that in the end I was very tempted to tell him to just go commando but I thought better of it - he doesn't need any encouragement! When he finally gave up on the pants I though we would finally be able to go and get a coffee, but that was only the start of our meander around the menswear department. Robbie fell in love with coats, raincoats, trousers, suits, ties and assorted accessories, but then his eyes fell on a shirt that he absolutely had to have. At first I thought he was joking, but no, he was deadly serious, he really wanted an expensive white shirt with little pink roses printed all over it! To say that it was hideous is an understatement, but I can honestly say that Robbie never ceases to surprise me!


After a shock like that I really needed a nice calming cup of coffee at Costa! Can I face going shopping for pants again next week or dare I let him go shopping on his own - I don't know!!

The Mystery of the Missing Pants

Robbie had a very busy weekend, we had a nice day together on Saturday, but in the afternoon I dropped him off at the station knowing that he would be away until the next evening because he was going milk float spotting with his friend on Sunday. According to him they were bus spotting and the milk floats just happened to be there, but I have my doubts, he has some very odd interests so I suspect that he is a closet milk float spotter and the buses are just a clever way of disguising his interest in milk floats! Anyway he had a lovely day out with his friend and he came back with lots of photos of buses - and milk floats!

While he was away I took the opportunity to sort out his drawers and wardrobe. When he came home his clothes were nicely folded and sorted into neat piles on the bed so that he could put them away in the correct drawers. One pile was topped by four pairs of his favourite M&S pants which he had previously alleged were missing. I sat on the bed and chatted to him as he put his clothes away - he likes to be in control of his drawers! Suddenly he complained that there was no underwear in his drawer and none on the bed. There was some underwear in his drawer but not his favourite type. I searched high and low for his pants, I knew they had been there earlier in the day so either we'd had the oddest burglary in history or Robbie had misappropriated his own knickers! Robbie was muttering darkly about being forced to go commando, so desperate measures were called for. An emergency load of washing was put on, so at least Robbie could go to work fully clothed for the next few days!! I searched everywhere for his missing 'smalls' and I finally found them hidden away on the top shelf of his wardrobe. So could it be a poltergeist with a preoccupation with pants or is Robbie losing his marbles?

Who am I?

It is such a long time since I last wrote the blog, It is a very strange time for me just now, lots of changes and new things to adjust to as well as a very busy time work wise, so I am struggling to cope with the blog. It isn't just that I struggle to find time for the blog, it is more about finding the right words, some things are too personal for the blog while other things things just seem to be difficult to put into words, but no doubt I will sort it out in time.


In my last post I wrote about Robbie changing the goal posts when we set out to go to York for lunch and ended up in Manchester instead. Some people seemed surprised that I didn't like his alternative suggestions about places to visit, so perhaps it is time that I wrote a little more about myself to explain the things that I like - and the things I don't like!


One of my favourite poems is Warning by Jenny Joseph, if you don't know the poem you can find it here
http://www.netmender.net/glenna/Purple.htm
I am not sure that I want to do some of the things that she mentioned in her poem, but I am enjoying life and I am definitely getting more reckless in my old age. So be warned, I have already started to wear purple!


I am not a hat person, I never have been. I hate people to touch my hair and as far as I am concerned having to go to the hairdressers is torture. The only hats I have ever possessed are riding hats and crash helmets. I take a large hat size and I can still remember the embarrassment of going to buy a new riding hat and telling the assistant my hat size only to be met with disbelief. It was a rather old fashioned shop with several different departments, rather like Grace Brothers in some ways. When the hat that the assistant had selected perched on my head like a pimple he would sigh as if I was doing it on purpose and we would go through the ordeal of trying on a succession of hats in ascending sizes. Finally we would find a hat that fitted and the assistant would grudgingly admit that I was absolutely right about my hat size!
So for me the mere mention of hats evokes feelings of discomfort, humiliation and messed up hair - I hate hats!


I love history, art, poetry and all sorts of other thing and I am passionate about books, I love bookshops of all kinds, but to me second hand bookshops are best of all. I could happily spend a whole day in a bookshop. One of my favourite place to visit is the National portrait gallery, but I loved visiting the National Railway Museum and I am really keen to go back there again.

Manchester Piccadilly

When diplomatic relations had been restored on Saturday morning we decided to go out on the train to have lunch at York. All was going well until Robbie decided to change the goal posts and started chatting to his friend (via blackberry) about alternative places to go. I don't like it when he tries to change the arrangements in that way. He came up with all sorts of crazy ideas about places to go, it didn't really matter where we went because we were only going out for lunch but I was getting increasingly irritated with all the silly suggestions. An old library, a hat museum (whoever wants to go to a hat museum?) and assorted ancient or historical places - were they trying to say that I am an old relic?


In the end I agreed to go to Manchester but just for lunch, not to the library. When we caught the train at Birmingham first class was packed, but we managed to find a seat. Robbie said that it was probably busy because everyone was going to the Labour conference. If that is the case judging by the elderly occupants of our train the Labour Party will probably die out within 15 years!


I liked the station at Manchester, but as soon as we got outside I was scared and I didn't want to go far because it was so noisy and crowded. As it turned out we has a lovely time, we went to the Ian Allan bookshop, I could have spent hours in there it was brilliant! Finally we had to drag ourselves away and we went to Costa before heading back to the station. It was a nice day.

The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

Marriages, if they are going to work at all have to have an element of give and take. Sometimes if people love each other and they take time to talk things through and really listen to each other it is possible to overcome even the most difficult issues. However everyone has their breaking point and it can be a seemingly minor issue that tips the balance. It has been a bit like that with us recently.

In August Robbie and I had the most amazing holiday, all on our own with no children. It allowed us to really enjoy each other's company, we talked, laughed, enjoyed being close and most importantly we listened to each other. Within the space of a few days we had reviewed and redefined the boundaries of our marriage, in a way which recognised the needs and feelings of each of us. I am not talking about the imposition of a narrow and suffocating set of rules, this was the sort of unity that enables each person to be who they are, while respecting the needs and feelings of the other. When we got back from holiday we were determined to nurture our relationship, by making time to be together and to have fun, even when that means taking a few hours away from the demands of family and household responsibilities. So far we have managed to do that and it has been really good.

So here comes the 'but'. In every relationship there are issues that are guaranteed to cause friction and things that the one partner does that the other is uncomfortable about. I am sure Robbie could provide a long list of things that I do that annoy him, but for me the one thing that bothers me far more than any of the other things is his involvement in the union. I mind for lots of reasons; he has taken on far more than it is reasonable for one person to do and I think he is spreading himself too thin. I don't like the union, I think they talk a lot of nonsense and I think they have changed him in a way that is deeply unattractive. More than anything else I don't like the union taking away our family time, I don't like the way they behave and I think it has led him to make some very poor choices. Of course he would say that I was wrong on every count, but I am judging by actions not just words.

I'd had issues in the past, especially when he went to Dublin earlier in the year, but we had put those behind us, so I didn't have too many concerns about him going on a training course on Thursday. Unfortunately things went down hill from there, he promised that he would ring me in the evening, so after work I looked forward to his call, I didn't want to ring him because I wasn't sure what he would be doing and I didn't want to interrupt. The call didn't come so eventually I took the phone to bed with me and read a book while I was waiting. I must have fallen asleep because I was woken soon after 2am by a text arriving. It was the briefest text informing me that he had been out and was going to bed. I was really hurt, how much effort would it have taken to make a quick phone call at some point during the evening.

The final straw came in the morning when he compounded the problem by not ringing me. When I finally spoke to him he said that he had forgotten about me, poor choice of words perhaps, but that was the final straw - I would never forget about him!! An argument followed and small as this incident was it had tipped the balance for me and I gave him the choice - me or the union. Robbie has always been a slow learner, he chose the union! Lets just say that Friday wasn't a pleasant day for either of us. I walked around the house thinking how much space I would have if I got rid of all his junk and he spent the day telling me that I was totally unreasonable. It was stalemate! Robbie has never understood that when in a hole you should stop digging. He decided to 'light the blue touch paper' by leaving a comment on facebook agreeing that the course was fantastic, I am not sure if it was the comment that annoyed me most or the fact that the woman whose status he was responding to had a rather dubious, near naked profile photo! If I was angry before I was furious after that!

Saturday morning dawned and Robbie's negating style of giving no ground and and insisting that I was totally unreasonable was making matters worse. I will not say how he won me over but if he tried that tactic on anyone else I would kill him!! The result is that he has agreed to give up most of his union work by November and I have agreed to accept him keeping the health and safety stuff. This brings us back to the level of involvement that he had when we got married. He is not entirely forgiven but we are working on it!!

A Knicker Nicker - Surely Not?

Robbie decided to abandon me on Thursday to go on another pointless union course. He was only going for one day and one night but he packed enough for a week, how many shirts can one man wear in a day? He wasted all the previous evening packing and working out his travel arrangements to Birmingham - a journey that he should be familiar with by now as he does it every week day! After all the messing around I expected him to be totally organised and ready to leave in good time for his train on Thursday morning - I was wrong! I woke him up on time, I even managed to get him out of bed without too much difficulty, but it all went wrong after that.


When I got up I realised that his arrival in the bathroom had been seriously delayed and when I went downstairs to investigate I found him trotting around in his knickers muttering obscenities. According to Robbie someone had stolen his knickers to prevent him going on the course! I had plenty of good reasons to stop him going on the course, but if I had set my mind on keeping him at home I could have achieved my objective without resorting to pant pilfering! I went up to the bedroom and found half a dozen pairs of Robbie's pants, but when I offered them to him he found reasons to reject every pair as unsuitable in some way. He insisted that he had to have his best pants for the course (perhaps they help him to think better!) and he plodded off in search of the perfect pair of pants.


In the end he settled for an 'inferior' pair to pack in his case and he insisted that his best pants had been stolen. By this time we were in the car racing towards the station in time for hid train. I tried to make him review the evidence, Sam is skinny and he couldn't possibly wear Robbie size garments, the girls have an interesting selection of underwear but it is somewhat skimpier than Robbie's, neither of them has a use for the kind that he wears. So who nicked the knickers? The only person I know who wears trunks like Robbie is Homer Simpson, but I believe he prefers white rather than black. The truth is that there was no conspiracy to steal his pants, he just hadn't looked in the right place - they were in the tumble dryer!

Writers Block

There are a number of things that prevent me writing the blog. Sometimes I am very busy and despite my best intentions I fall behind with the blog. I try not to write when I am feeling very unhappy or angry because it doesn't seem fair on whoever I am angry with. I don't write very much about Sam because he doesn't like being written about and I am cautious about how much I write about the rest of our family. As if those reasons were not enough a new reason has popped up recently - I am really happy! I don't mean that I am usually unhappy, but right now I am enjoying life so much that I am struggling to find the time and energy for the blog as well, but this weekend I have promised myself that I will catch up and get back into a routine with the blog.