Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. - Francis Bacon

Sunday 4th August

Walcott Sunrise

Sunday morning dawned bright and sunny, I got up to go to the bathroom then went to the back window to enjoy the beauty of the morning and the sounds of the sea. Then I crept back to bed, I was tired, it had been a busy few days, and there is nothing better on a Sunday morning than listening to Radio 4 in bed. Sleeping Beauty was still in 'the land of nod', he'd stayed up late last night enjoying the freedom to do as he liked without worrying about an early start in the morning.

It was nice to have a lazy start to the morning, but we weren't going to waste the day - and we weren't going to miss the Archers! We drove back to Mundesley at midday, Sunday lunch at Jonet has become a bit of a holiday tradition with us, this week it was roast chicken. Robbie grudgingly agreed to have a few peas but he left all the cabbage and carrots for me - I love cabbage. We spent a couple of hours in Mundesley, then we came back and sat in the garden until about 8pm. It was a beautiful day.

I have a lot of writing to do while I'm here (I'm writing a book) but I want to have fun too so I've brought a book with me called ' From you to me - A journal of a lifetime' my older daughter bought it for me. It gives lots of questions and prompts to write about my life and hers. With a bit of luck it will help to get the 'grey cells' working so that I can get on with my book. I also have my question and answer journal with me (another gift from my daughter), some of those questions are really challenging. Anyway I made a start on the lifetime journal, it is harder than it looks, but I am enjoying the challenge.

You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.

I started my Question and Answer journal yesterday, it was harder than I expected because I only had a few lines to write my answer and the questions (I have only answered two so far) are more tricky than they first appear. The question for yesterday was 'what is your mission?'. I had check that I correctly understood what the word mission meant before I attempted to answer the question. I have often been described as a woman on a mission (usually when I am trying to get Robbie to do as he is told!). I think that is because I am a bit of a Jack Russell Terrier, when I get my teeth into a problem, I don't let go. 

In the end I thought about the term mission as it is used by companies and organisations they have a mission statement to describe their core aims and values. Their mission statement sums up their reason for existing and when I think about it in that way it is much easier to answer the question. My family are my reason for being, they will always come first and I will always do my best to love and support them. Having said that I have never wanted to be a burden to my children so it is important that I have my own identity too. Sometimes it is nice just to be me and to enjoy some time doing whatever I like, I am never short of things to do. I am very happy with my own company but I love spending time with Robbie too, life is never boring, but it is exhausting at times!

The next question was deceptively simple 'Can people change?'. There was a time that I would have said "of course they can" now that I am older and wiser (or more cynical) I have to admit that people rarely change. I still believe that people are capable of change, but the motivation has to come from them, it is not possible to change someone else. Judge Judy has a saying "Never try to teach a pig to sing, it doesn't work and it annoys the pig". It means that people are what they are, what you see is what you get and however hard you try you can't make someone change their nature. I wish I had understood  that years ago, it would have saved a lot of heartache.

Today is the first blank page of a 365 page book, write a good one.

2013 arrived with a bang or to be more accurate it arrived with an irritating cacophony of bangs from fireworks which began way before midnight and went on for far too long afterwards. I don't approve of fireworks at New Year, they are a fairly recent intrusion into our new year celebrations, when I was young fireworks we only had fireworks on 5th November. It is a pity we can't go back to the way things used to be, in fact it I would be happier if they banned them completely except for organised displays because they are dangerous and they frighten pets and other animals  

Yesterday we spent the day at my mum's house celebrating her birthday. It was a real house full, my brother, his partner, my two little nephews, as well as my family. It was such a lovely day, my youngest nephew has just learned to walk and he spent the day showing off his new skill. His big brother who is four and a half enjoyed lots of attention from his grown up cousins. Today was a perfect start to the new year, my mum and stepfather spent the day with us, it was a nice relaxed family time. So we spent the last day of the old year and the first day of the new year with some of the people who matter most to us, our family. Tomorrow we will be back at work and the I will be up at the crack of dawn to drop Robbie at the station. I don't really mind, I have some very happy memories of Christmas and the New Year, we have to get back to work and the normal day to day routine because the bills will not pay themselves. For now Robbie is making the most of his freedom, he is sitting at the table playing with his Lego! When I have finished writing for the blog I am going to answer the first question in my five year question and answer journal.

“One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.” – Socrates.

Being the parent of a teenager certainly keeps you 'real'. There was a time in my 20s and 30s when I thought  that I was reasonably intelligent with a fairly wide general knowledge. There was a time when my children were little that they looked up to me and trusted me to answer all their questions, but now they treat me as if I know nothing. My son is always keen to share his 'vast knowledge of life' accumulated over 17 years! To be fair he does have a wide general knowledge, but like most young people he only sees things in black and white, he will need to notch up a few more years before he starts to see shades of grey and then he will gradually realise how much he doesn't know. Until then he is content to tease me abort my astounding ignorance. I am not very good at sitting still and I have never been terribly interested in films and television and with one or two notable exceptions I have no interest whatsoever in sport so it is hardly surprising that I do not know the names of actors or sports personalities. Not so long ago my son decided to test me to find out exactly how challenged I am when it comes to knowing who does what. The whole family roared with laughter when I though that George Clooney could be a golfer, apparently he is an actor. I don't mind the teasing, after all if we did a similar test on history, poetry, literature or various other things I am fairly sure that I would know more than them!

Recently I encountered a woman who told me that she intended to return the game that she had bought for £32.99 the previous day because it was not fit for purpose. I asked what was wrong with it and she said that the questions were much to hard (the game was age 12 to adult). I must have looked a bit sceptical because she told me what some of the questions were.

- Who was Nebuchadnezzar

- What is an archipelago

- Who was Samuel Pepys

I was able to answer all the questions so she posed a few more which I also answered correctly. It was probably just luck that she chose questions that I was able to answer, but I was deeply offended when she told me that I only knew the answers because I am old! I thought (but didn't say) that old or not, I would not wish to publicise my ignorance by returning a game because it was too difficult! Maybe I am old, but I like to think that I could answer the questions because I have a wide general knowledge and I had a good education.

These little episodes along with the start of an annual recruitment phase at the company I work for has led me to realise that it takes all sorts to make a world - and it takes all sorts to make a good workforce. A group of people with different and complementary skills (and personalities) will make a stronger and more competent workforce. Only a fool appoints in his/her own image.

"Why didn't you tell me? ......."

Having Robbie in my life means that I am used to strange questions and not to be out done, my son has spent his whole life bombarding me with questions on every imaginable subject. Believe me there is never an easy answer where my son's questions are concerned. Here are two diary entries, my son was 9 or 10 at the time.

...........He was almost back to normal, asking his usual stream of questions.  Among several other things he wanted to know how exactly it is possible to kill 2 birds with one stone! 

...........My son questioned me in detail about the ageing effect of space travel, it made my brain hurt.  He said that if there were identical twins and one went into space while the other stayed behind, one would end up older than the other.  Having thought about it, he must be right, I saw William Shatner on TV not so long ago and all that space travel has clearly taken its toll on him!

Usually my older daughter is more likely to tell me the answers than to ask questions but yesterday she was even more 'random' than Robbie. When I came back from work she came into the lounge and said "Mum, why didn't you tell me about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore?" I was lost for words, there are so many things that I have tried to pass on to my children, but I am fairly sure that Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were not on the list. She went on to tell me that she didn't know that they used to be a double act, but having come across clips of them on YouTube she had discovered that they are very funny. I don't think forgetting to tell her about Pete and Dud makes me a failure as a parent, but it has left me wondering what else I should tell her about.

If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts - Albert Einstein

If you asked Robbie he would tell you that I am pretty good at spotting clues and gathering evidence, as he has found to his cost in the past - I don't miss much! Unfortunately the detective work that I am engaged in at the moment is even more difficult than keeping tabs on Robbie, because the clues are old and there is no one left who can tell me if my conclusions are correct. It is like trying to complete a jigsaw when most of the pieces are missing. That is the 'joy' of family history research, reaching out to grasp detail that you know is there but it is tantalisingly out of reach.


Over the last few days I have been making renewed efforts to identify the people in my grandmothers photo album. There are lots of photos of my dad, poor chap, I thought I'd had some dodgy outfits in my time but you should see what my grandma dressed him in! I also recognise my grandfather, my grandma and some of her siblings but most of the other people are strangers to me. I don't know if I should be grateful to my grandma for preserving the photos or infuriated that she didn't label any of them. Even the few that have writing on the back have proved challenging. I was overjoyed when I eased a photo of a family group out of the album and found that it had writing on the back, but my pleasure was short lived. The writing wished my grandmother a happy Christmas wit love from "us all". There should be a law against such things, if I had my way people would be compelled to write first names and surnames on the back of each photo!

My advice to others is not to jump to conclusions and to ask lots of questions, however foolish they sound, because that will give you more chance of getting to the truth. Thanks to the good people on the Roots Chat forum I now know more about my great uncle Frank Buswell. He died in World War 1 and his obituary described him as 'Driver Frank Buswell of the Royal Field Artillary'. To me a driver is a person who sits in a vehicle behind a steering wheel so I wondered why his uniform included spurs and a riding crop. I assumed that it must be some sort of tradition, but today I plucked up the courage to ask why. One of the Roots Chat members patiently explained that As a driver he would have rode/Controlled teams of horses that pulled the guns and equipment of the Royal Field Artillery so he would have worn spurs etc. Another mystery solved and in the process I have gained a more accurate picture of his military service. 


When it comes to family history, finding answers is only part of the problem, the most difficult thing is finding the questions. There are things we do not know we don't know! 

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers - Thomas Jefferson

There are many things that I love about Robbie, but his choice of newspaper is is not one of them. I detest the thing I resent the waste of paper and I resent the waste of money, I would rather he spent it on a railway magazine, even if he spent it on  Lego or any of his other many and varied obsessions it wouldn't seem so pointless. I have managed to change or modify many things about Robbie over the years, but he remains stubbornly attached to his limp lefty newspaper, so I do my best to ignore it.

Yesterday evening we settled down in the lounge, me with my laptop and Robbie across the room with his newspaper. I was lost in my own little world writing the blog when I glanced up to see Robbie holding his phone out to the cat, and more worrying still the cat was looking at it as if he was reading a text! I asked Robbie what he was doing and with a totally serious expression he said that he was showing the cat the time to prove that he had to wait another hour until feeding time. 

I shook my head in disbelief and settled back to writing the blog. A little later completely out of the blue Robbie asked "How much does mum pay for David's socks these days". It seemed such an odd question that I had to ask him to repeat it in case I hadn't heard him properly. I told Robbie that I have never given a passing thought to the price of my step father's socks - but thanks to Robbie I have now! Once he get's started on a subject there is no stopping him and I heard all about the advantages of loose top socks, a very good deal he had spotted; the price, the colour, it went on an on until I begged him to stop.

Finally he was quiet and I went back to what I was doing. Peace reigned for a little while, then Robbie's voice rang out asking "Have you noticed that you don't often see radishes in the supermarket these days?" I thought about it for a minute and decided to try my luck with a one word answer - no! It was worth a try, but it just encouraged him to provide more radish related information. I listened for a while but I really couldn't summon up much interest in radishes. I asked if he had ever eaten a radish and he informed me that he hadn't. I informed him that he hadn't missed much! I told him that if he was that interested I would buy him some radishes, but he quickly declined and told me that it just was something he had been reading about. 

So now yo know why I dislike that dratted newspaper, it puts ridiculous ideas in his head!

What Planet is He On?

I know Robbie can be a bit random at times but on Friday evening he looked up from his laptop and started talking about the Clangers and why they didn't fall off their planet. I have considered many questions about the clangers over the years but I have never given the atmospheric conditions of their (imaginary) planet. I have wondered how Major Clanger acquired a military rank when the clangers do not have an army and I gave more than a passing thought to the soup dragon's reproductive habits, apparently there was only one soup dragon so where did the baby soup dragon come from? I was very tempted to tell him that being knitted allowed them to cope with the sparse atmosphere of their planet, but I know Robbie too well and such a comment would have led to him talking about Clangers all weekend. So I just asked him what made the Clangers pop into his head, he explained that one of his friends had commented about it on facebook, apparently her son had asked why Clangers don't fall off their planet. Obviously kids go for the easy questions these days. When Sam was little he liked to watch Coronation Street with his Grandma and one day he asked "How did the doctors make Hayley into a girl?" I would have preferred a nice safe question about the Clangers!!

Questions, Questions

On Friday and Saturday Robbie was on his best behaviour because he really wanted to go 'out to play' on Sunday. Robbie being extra nice is certainly better than Robbie in a strop, but it is still fairly challenging because it seems to send his brain into overdrive and he bombards me with daft ideas and constant questions. On Friday he made me stop in the dog food section at the supermarket while he explained exactly how he wanted to reorganise our bedroom, interesting ideas but why did he have to choose that moment?

On Saturday morning he cuddled up to me and asked “do you ever wonder why the fluff that collects in your belly button is always blue?” I can honestly say that I have never considered the matter, but that wouldn't be a good enough answer for Robbie so I told him that it was a chemical reaction when the fluff was close to the skin for too long – he believed me for at least ten minutes!

A little later at a time when it would have been reasonable to expect his full attention he announced that there was something that he had never understood, he then asked “what is anti pasta?” I told him that judging by the way he pronounced it, it was probably a militant organisation that disliked Italian food! By then the 'moment' was lost, so I explained that he probably meant antipasto and as far as I knew it was an appetiser offered at the start of a meal. I don't like foreign food so I am not really the best person to ask about such things.

He got through most of the afternoon without incident, but only because he was saving himself for a seriously tactless random comment. That evening I was standing in the kitchen cooking while Robbie was washing up, when he suddenly asked “do you think you will have the menopause soon?”. I was tempted to answer it with my own question and ask if he thought he would need stitches today, but listening to him trying to dig himself out of trouble was so entertaining that I forgave him!

Horns and a Tail!

Robbie has been totally horrible all weekend, he went down to make a cup of tea on Saturday morning and came back with horns and a tail! He thumped and clattered around all day and as I wasn't feeling very well, I really didn't have the energy to be bothered with him. He was just as bad this morning, but thankfully he went out to take his frustration out on the garden and left me in relative peace to get on with my work. He declined a trip to Tesco's so I went without him, then he turned down a visit to my mum's so I went without him again. He waited until I had got to mum's then rang me to complain that I had gone without him apparently when he said no what he actually meant was yes. I have always known he was in touch with his feminine side, but that is ridiculous!

By 9pm this evening he decided to speak to me again. It began with a 'do you know' then he went on to ask me about the most frequent and least frequent causes of death in the Miss Marple books by Agatha Christie. As soon as I had answered his questions on crime fiction he embarked on a whole series of facts about the shipping forecast areas, and I found myself wishing for silence. It seems he bought himself a book called Shott's Original Miscellany when he went out yesterday. I managed to silence him with a stern look, but his colleagues better watch out because the book is small enough to slip into his briefcase and it is bursting with enough facts to keep Robbie talking for weeks!

The Meaning of Life

Robbie gets up at about 5.15am on weekdays and I get up shortly afterwards. I am not that keen on mornings, they always seem to come around far too soon. It takes a cup of tea and a large dose of Radio 4 (I have a radio in the bathroom) before I am ready to face the day. Even then I find the sight of Robbie trotting around the house in his knickers a bit hard to cope with and I am certainly not ready for 'meaning of life' type questions. This morning Robbie asked "Why are lemmings so suicidal?" I have no idea, perhaps it is because people keep asking them impossible questions first thing in the morning! Once again I was left wondering what exactly goes on in Robbie's head, but that is certainly not a question to contemplate early in the morning.

Why Are Men Such Slow Learners?

Why are men such slow learners? You would think by now that Robbie would have learned that certain behaviour provokes a negative response, but when Robbie finds himself in a hole he just keeps on digging!
He rang me at about 4.30pm yesterday to say that there was a problem with his usual route home, and he would try to get back via Nuneaton instead. I know he can't help it but it drives me mad when I am left in limbo, either everyone has to eat late or I have to cook several different meals. We were having roast pork and it wasn't something I could cook in stages, so everyone had to wait.

After several more progress bulletins Robbie hoped that he would be home between 6.45pm and 6.55pm but they encountered further hold ups and the train didn't get in until 7.30pm. A journey that should have taken an hour took three hours and by the time we sat down to our meal it was well past 8pm. I was irritated about him being late, not so much cross with him as frustrated by the situation because it happens so often. I'd had my own frustrations in the afternoon so by the time Robbie got home we were both tired and frustrated. That really wasn't the best time for him to start getting critical about the cooking! He came into the kitchen and started to tell me that I had cooked the peas too soon, he even tried to tell me how to fill the kettle! These are all trivial things, but I have told him about it so many times and he just will not learn that it winds me up. A few words were exchanged, but instead of backing off he started to micro manage how the plates were set out when I dished up the meal, I told him to be quiet and leave me alone - something he seems physically incapable of doing!

After our meal I was trying to get some work finished on the computer and I just needed to be left alone to get on with it. The others were watching the Soap Awards but Robbie did his usual thing, he started flapping his arms and demanding to know what he had done wrong. I tried to focus on my work but with Robbie flapping around like a cross between a dodo and Why Bird! Do you remember Why Bird from Playdays? he had such an irritating voice. In the end I couldn't ignore Robbie any more and I told him to go fry his face, everyone has their limits - even me! The children thought it was hilarious, but I wished I hadn't reacted. It had the desired effect because Robbie took himself off to bed leaving me to tackle the washing up.

This morning he was sorry, but still annoying, I wasn't cross anymore, just exhausted. He sent me a text in an attempt to get back into my good books, a simple sorry would have been fine, but it was a typical Robbie approach. The text said Excellent and rather touching piece on Gwyneth Dunwoody in Rail by Nigel Harris. It is a good thing I can read between the lines! Gwyneth Dunwoody was a bit of a rarity in politics, she said what she meant and she meant what she said, and she would stand up for what she believed was right even if it didn't always suit her party. You have to admire a person with that sort of strength and independence even if you don't always agree with her politics. She will be missed especially by those involved in transport.

Questions, Questions!

I sometimes wonder if I am just talking to myself when I write my blog entries, nobody ever leaves any comments. So I just write about the things that amuse or infuriate me. Having included a couple of entries about Sam I realised that 'the saying's of Sam' are almost as priceless as 'Robbie's ramblings'. Writing about Sam prompted me to revisit my old diary entries and before long I was helpless with laughter. Below is part of a diary entry from March 2004 when Sam was 9.

I was faced with one of those `go and ask your father questions' this evening. After I had struggled to unpack the car and put the shopping away Sam wandered into the kitchen and said "Mum" in that ominous tone that children are so good at."I have been meaning to ask you something, what are tampons for?"
I was exhausted and not really in the mood for deep and meaningful discussions so I played for time and asked what had prompted that question. He looked a bit sheepish and said"Actually mum I know what they are for, they are a special kind of firelighter. I just can't work out why they sell so many of them at Safeways".
I was about to reach for the phone, surely this was a case for `men in white coats' but suddenly it all started to make sense. Sam confessed that he had gone into Emily's room and watched her video of the Survivor TV series and that is where he had seen them used as firelighters. I was afraid I would burst out laughing so I sent him off with a biscuit and postponed the discussion until later!