The Differences Between Men and Women

I met a really nice man a couple of weeks ago. We had an interesting chat about all sorts of things including trains. He observed that men tend to obsess about things and women tend to obsess about people. That made a lot of sense to me because Robbie notices things such as minor changes if product packaging, bus numbers, car numbers, the design of post poxes and lamp posts, that sort of thing. I hardly ever notice those things, but I notice if someone is wearing odd socks, looks sad, or seems worried, things that Robbie  would probably not notice. 


Yesterday I received further confirmation that men and women have a different way of looking at things. My son announced to me that his English homework had been to consider gender stereotypes and to analyse the way that Robbie and I use language, then to present his observations to the class. Apparently is caused his teacher considerable amusement when he told the class that I'd told him that men almost always consider their cars (and trains) to be female, but I know for sure that my car is male because it is unreliable and expensive to maintain! He went on to tell the class that our use of language indicated that Robbie is submissive and I am dominant because I use imperatives and Robbie uses tactics such as hedging, fillers and hesitation in response. I have to admit that it feels a bit creepy to think that our use of language gives away so much about us (assuming his observations are accurate) we will have to be more cautious in future!

Enjoy the little things, for one day you make look back and realize they were the big things - Robert Brault

Today has been a day of noticing small things that I would usually be too busy to notice. To be strictly accurate something not quite so small nearly came to public notice this afternoon, but more about that later.



It was a nice morning, sunny but breezy, not a chilly breeze, a warm comfortable breeze. Robbie had missed his mouth and spilled coffee on his pale lemon coloured T-shirt yesterday, so I soaked it overnight and washed it out this morning. Robbie grumbled when I asked him to hang it out on the line, he was missing the tumble dryer, but having time to line dry clothes is one of the pleasures of Norfolk for me. Robbie spent the morning spotting ships (or perhaps they are called boats I am not sure) from the lounge window while I was fascinated by the t-shirt dancing in the breeze, it was dry within a couple of hours and so and it didn’t even need ironing!

Robbie’s excitement about ship spotting gets a bit exhausting after a while, so I left him with his binoculars and wandered down to the garden gate to look out across the sea. The sky seems to stretch on forever and the power of the sea can’t be ignored even on a fairly calm August morning, but then as I looked down at the rough grass by the gate and I spotted a ladybird scurrying about doing whatever ladybirds do. It reminded me to appreciate the beauty in small things as well as the more obvious things.

After lunch we went to North Walsham in search of razor blades for Robbie. Until now he has worn shorts, but he decided that jeans were the order of the day for a trip to North Walsham. He was dressed and ready to go when he discovered that he had not packed his belt. I thought it would be OK but as soon as we started walking around it became clear that it was only a question of time before his jeans fell down, he kept stopping to hoist them up, but it did no good. We had to buy a new belt to preserve his modesty. Ok I know modesty is not a word that most people would associate with Robbie, but you know what I mean. Even in North Walsham he found time for a bit of bus spotting – he never gives up!!


Robbie took a lovely moody picture of the sea as he walked along the coast path this evening, being here overlooking the beach really makes me appreciate the beauty of the world around me.