Tell the truth and shame the devil

I remember my grandmother telling me to 'tell the truth and shame the devil' when I was a child. I doubt that she knew that she was quoting Shakespeare or that the origins of that phrase dated back even further. She just knew that it was good advice, that it is better and easier to tell the truth even when you are tempted to lie. I am not sure if Robbie received similar good advice, but from what I have been told about his grandmother I suspect he was. However there have been a few occasions when he thought that he could pull the wool over my eyes - he is a slow learner! He always seems surprised when he gets caught out and he asks how I knew. I don't tell him because I like to keep him on his toes, but it can be quite comical. He had heard me tease my brother because his voice becomes noticeable higher in pitch when he departs from the truth so Robbie makes a conscious effort not to to do the same. What he doesn't seem to have noticed is that his accent becomes more 'West Midlands' when he is caught out telling a fib. In fact the other day when he tried to avoid telling the truth he sounded so much like Lenny Henry that I almost burst out laughing. I hope he has finally worked out that it is easier (and safer) for him to just tell the truth!!

The human voice is the organ of the soul.

Saturday was our first day off since getting back from holiday, we had loads to do but we didn't do any of it so we have a busy Sunday ahead!


We had a nice lazy and quirky Saturday - any day with Robbie ends up being quirky. I didn't wake up very early and it was lovely to cuddle up to Robbie and know for once that we didn't have to rush. Robbie (always a creature of habit) paused during an intimate moment to share one of his random snippets of information. According to Robbie you can only use 420 characters when updating your Facebook status. It left me feeling rather anxious, I don't want every aspect of my life to become a Facebook update!!


A trip to Morrisons proved more challenging than usual. I have done something to my ankle and I was struggling to walk. Thankfully Robbie was walking quite well (but still in pain) otherwise it would have looked very odd with us both limping. We treated ourselves to a meal at Morrisons and in a weak moment I agreed to let Robbie have a curry - I hate curry! All went well until later in the day when he came bounding across the room to give me a kiss. He had scary breath and I sent him off to the other side of the room for the rest of the day.


We still managed to have fun at a distance. Robbie wanted me to listen to a voice message from his cousin in America. They found each other through a family history site and they get on extremely well. I knew what she looked like but until yesterday I didn't know what she sounded like (except for Robbie's very inaccurate rendition of the way she says his name). It was really interesting to listen to her talking about ordinary day to day things, well most of it was ordinary, one or two things were so random that they were worthy of Robbie. Clearly they share a randomness gene, but in her case it seemed much more controlled. One nice surprise was her voice, it was lovely and very easy to understand. I don't know why that came as a surprise, I guess we are exposed to a few scary American accents on television and I just seem to expect that American women either sound like Marge Simpson or Minnie Mouse. Anyway she had a very nice speaking voice and a lovely accent, but I couldn't help wondering what she makes of Robbie's accent. He says that she has no trouble understanding him, I doubt that somehow - but maybe the family connection helps.


'Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.'  Maya Angelou 

Talking to the Wall!

Robbie is still talking about the lovely breakfast he had on Sunday. If he thinks I am going to spoil him like that he can think again – but if he wants to cook for me I wouldn't object! He said that the people he was with couldn't understand what he was saying, it doesn't surprise me, my mum still struggles to know what he is saying. Everyone thinks it's funny because Robbie talks enthusiasticly and very fast, after about two paragraphs worth my mum will look at me and ask what he said - I can usually sum the whole lot up in one sentence!

I wish Robbie would accept that he is not superman, I have written about it before but he really has to recognise his limits preferably before he falls over. When he got home on Sunday he'd obviously had a great time on the rail tour but he was struggling to walk and he had a lot of pain in his legs. The said that his legs felt as if they didn't belong to him, I can't imagine them belonging to anyone else, they are like him – unique, but if he wants them to keep working he needs to treat them with a little more respect and at least rest them for an hour or two on a long journey like that. I tried to tell him that but I may as well talk to the wall!!

He is off to the North today, to York I think, needless to say it involved an early start and I expect he will be late home too. By the time I get to see him in the evening he is so tired that he nods of mid sentence, but at least I can look forward to the weekend, I may be able to have a whole conversation with him!

Pictures in My Mind

When Emily came home last weekend she asked where one of her old toys was. 2XL is an interactive robot that works with cassette tapes and he also plays ordinary cassette tapes and that was why she wanted him after so many years. Someone had lent her a set of Chaucer tapes and she had nothing to play them on because we have cd's now. Surprisingly I knew exactly where 2XL was because I had almost thrown him away last year, but Emily had loved him so much that I couldn't bring myself to part with him. After such a long time he needed a new set of batteries and he was a bit sluggish when he first started but he was soon chatting away in his robot voice, making corny jokes and asking endless questions. She took him back to university to play her Chaucer tapes and a couple of weeks ago I joked with her about listening to Chaucer spoken in a Robot voice with an American accent. It plays tapes normally except for the special robot ones but she said that the miller sounded very much like one of her uncles who has a strong Plymouth accent, he also has amazingly curly eyebrows so rather than Chaucer in a robot voice she is listening Chaucer with a strong Devon accent and amazing eyebrows!

Homage to Homer 16.02.07

Robbie was late home because his train was too full to get on! When he finally got home he sat down to watch the Simpsons with his clone (Sam), they both like the television and the Simpsons is a particular favourite. Not surprising really, Robbie is built like Homer and behaves like Bart. In this particular episode Bart said that he would like to run naked in the forest like a pagan it seems that Robbie and Homer even share the nakedness gene!

Laura was trying to get Robbie to speak proper English, but without much success. He can't say bus, he always makes it sound as if it has several z's in it, he also has trouble with the words stuff, tooth, grass, bath and countless others. He also has an unnerving habit of using the word 'just' at the end of a sentence, it doesn't make sense. We can't change him so we are teaching him new words instead. He will never have a chance to use them because he couldn't possibly fit any more words into 24 hours!

The Cossack Dance 14.02.07

Valentine cards for Robbie? You will be making him big headed! To be honest if you had told me that this morning I would have paid whoever sent the cards to come and take him off my hands - but more of that later! If he does have a harem of women (well I assume they are women, with that gay walk you can never be sure!) sending him valentine cards I better put him on a course of vitamins to keep his energy levels up!

Bad Walsall Woman, you have him completely freaked out, he doesn't know who you are! Kempoian, Robbie says you are just trying to get him into trouble, surely you realise he can (and often does) do that all by himself!! Sheffield rocks, I used to work there (in Nether Edge) in the dim distant past, lovely accent, a few nice men and a really nice area. I had worked in Dundee just before that and when my mum heard how that odd combination had influenced my accent she nearly had a fit. She said she hadn't paid good money all those years for me to end up speaking like that. I moved to Plymouth next and hated it, so despite marrying a Cornishman my accent gradually reverted to something that passes for normal.

Now to explain this morning's upset. We got up in good time and Robbie had as long as he needed in the bathroom, so things were going well. Considering they only have fractionally more to wash than women, I can't understand why men need to take so long in the bathroom!

The trouble started when we got to the station, Robbie went to get the parking ticket. I realised that he had brought his rucksack, I attempted to lift it and found that it contained a hundredweight of work documents as well as, diary, i pod, magazines, snacks and all the 'essentials' to deal with any conceivable railway emergency! Samuel has an unhealthy attachment to his rucksack too, he hates to be parted from it, but he has Asperger's Syndrome, Robbie is allegedly normal!

I took his i pod, pager and sweets out of his rucksack and put them in my handbag. When he returned I refused to let him take his rucksack. He would look ridiculous with a suit and a rucksack, I didn't want him to look like a Sherpa! Robbie went mad and had a full scale tantrum in the car park. I won the first round and he thundered off with what I can only describe as a cross between a stomp and a shuffle - if it had been speeded up it would have looked like a Cossack dance! He was impossible and he continued the argument on the train, I was tempted to tip my hot chocolate over him, but it was too expensive to waste. It took him until almost lunchtime to recover his temper - so much for Valentine's Day!

The university visit went well, I would be happy for Emily to go to Leicester, but she will make her own decision in due course.

A Man of Many Words

One of the things I found attractive about Robbie when we first met was his voice – especially on the telephone. I don’t recall having too many problems with his accent, but most of my family behaved as if he was speaking in a foreign language. The problem is that when he gets excited or enthusiastic he speaks much faster and he is harder to understand. Robbie is a man of many words; his philosophy seems to be to uses as many words as possible in the hope that a few of them make sense! My mum finds him especially hard to understand. We often visit her on a Sunday and Robbie chats away about all sorts of things, sometimes I notice my mum wearing a polite but confused expression and she has to ask me what he was saying. Much to her amusement I can often distil five or ten minutes of Robbie’s conversation in to one sentence!