Guilty Pleasures?

I had a very interesting discussion with one of my offspring when we were driving in the other day. It is worthy of note because most of the time all I get is one grunt for yes and two for no, so it is reassuring to find that they can manage more than a growl when the mood takes them. The subject under discussion was teenage angst, I have to be fair, none of my children have given me too much grief during their teens, it is just that teenagers are hard work. I joked that I had missed out because I was too well behaved in my teens, so I plan to enjoy a mid life crisis instead. There was a deep sigh from the back of the car, "Mother, you have already had it, it's called Robbie!" 


When I clicked on the list of blog topic suggestions that I sometimes use, the subject that I was given to write about was was Guilty Pleasures. At first I thought no way, I can't write about that, but I don't give up easily and I decided to to take up the challenge. Robbie doesn't have any guilty pleasures, he has plenty of pleasures but he doesn't really do guilt. I will not list all his pleasures it would be a mix of  X rated and terminally boring stuff, and I have I have written about most of them on the blog in the past. So it is confession time, I am the one with guilty pleasures.


Dave is my greatest pleasure, in some ways he is a lot like Robbie, he is warm and affectionate, and he is very determined. They both love their food and come to think of it they both have some pretty disgusting habits! They have a number of differences too, Dave doesn't abandon me in favour of a train, he always has time for me and he likes nothing better than to snuggle up next to me. He may be just a cat but he is very special to me.


I think most of my other guilty pleasures involve spending money  that I can't really justify. I am not high maintenance when it comes to clothes or shoes (that's Robbie!) and I don't spend a lot on having my hair cut or styled. I can't waste my life messing about with my hair, I prefer a practical easy care style. Books are my weakness, I cold spend a fortune on books and I get very possessive about my books, I will not part with them. 


I have a passion for paints too, not the sort that you paint walls with, I mean artists paints. I love to paint and always want the best quality paints, I could never have enough paints, brushes, paper or any kind of art/craft materials. Good quality paper is a must, it is an extortionate price, so yes buying art materials is a guilty pleasure.


I often write about Robbie's love of Polish Jaffa Cakes, dripping  and various other types of food.  I must admit that my likes and dislikes are a bit unusual too. I love liver and bacon with rich thick gravy so much that sometimes I have a craving for it. I am the only one in the family who likes liver, so having it seems rather self indulgent, but from time to time I give in to my cravings. It seems that Robbie has had a life long aversion to anything green or healthy, so he is completely mystified by my love of runner beans, spinach, swede, beetroot and tomatoes. 


I do have a few other guilty pleasures, but you can't expect me to tell you everything. The only one that I am willing to admit to is John Major, I have a bit of a soft spot for him. It is true that he has a face best suited to radio, but I like the way he speaks, I think he is a powerful and sincere speaker. I have to confess to a sneaky admiration because he got his own back on his critics, misbehaving with Edwina Currie shows that he wasn't such a grey man after all!

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.

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.

An Inspiration

I didn't post on the blog on Sunday because it was a very busy day for me. It was my brother's birthday so we had to pop over to my mum's house to take his presents, then later on I had to work so the day passed in a blur of activity.

In the morning I was sitting on my bed doing some work on my laptop when Emily came into the bedroom looking very sad. She told me that Tony Hart had died, and she went on to say that he was amazing. I'd heard the news of his death on the news earlier in the morning and my reaction had been much the same as Emily's. As a child I had watched Vision On an amazing combination of art and performance, I loved the art part of the show especially the gallery of viewers art work. Tony Hart was original, inspiring and clearly very talented, he made art fun and he made it accessible to everyone, in so many ways he fired our imaginations.

When Emily was a child Tony Hart was there to inspire her too be creative too. He had moved on with series that were entirely based on art and animation such as Take Hart, Hartbeat and Smart Hart. All of my children love art and Tony Hart played a part in inspiring them to try many different aspects of art. Laura was always very good at three dimension work and Sam loved those very large pictures made of household objects that you have to look down on, he used to create them on the lounge floor. They still love art, all can draw and paint well and all have their own style. I wonder how many children have been influenced to enjoy art because of Tony Hart - what an incredible legacy. I can't write about Tony Hart without mentioning his annoying little sidekick Morph, a plasticine stop motion animation who appeared with Tony. Morph lived in an artists pencil box and he appeared in short clips of little more than a minute, he was fun and it was just one more way of introducing children to different aspects of art and creativity.

Tony Hart made a huge contribution to children's television, and he will be sadly missed by the many people who have enjoyed and been inspired by his work.