When a man opens the car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife - Prince Philip

The title of this post has very little to do with the content, I came across it and I liked it so I used it. My son pointed out to me the other day that I am getting more Random. He claims that I go around assimilating all sorts of odd information, facts and quotations and then when I find an unsuspecting 'victim' I share all my all this information regardless of whether they are interested or not. I told him that he was describing Robbie not me, but he said that was his point, I am getting more like Robbie.


I thought about what he had said and I had to admit that I do have some random thoughts. The other day I found myself wondering why some of the things that my grandmother considered essential are hardly used at all today. People can't have changed that much in my lifetime so why is it that we no longer need such things as back scratchers, shoe horns and smelling salts? Could it be true, am I becoming as random as Robbie?

I told my son that he was completely wrong, I could never be like Robbie because I would never wear the same sort of clothes as him. My son has the unnerving ability to raise one eyebrow (I wish I could do that). He looked at me, raised his eyebrow and reminded me about the coat that Robbie bought for me which is similar to his Berghaus jacket. I told my son that his theory was rubbish but in my mind I had visions of Robbie and I becoming the next Howard and Hilda with matching anoraks! What a terrifying thought.


With that thought still niggling in my mind I turned to the internet for support. I found some research from America that suggested that couples do not grow more alike over the years. What they found was even more worrying, they suggested that people tend to settle down with people whose traits mirror their own. So couples don't grow alike over time, they are fairly similar to begin with. That can't be true, Robbie and I couldn't be more different. I dismissed the research, after all it was done in America and I have serious misgivings about the collective judgement of a country that elected George W twice! I told myself that the results would be different if the same research was carried out in England. I remembered a quotation about statistics from my school maths book 'Statistics are like a lamp-post to a drunken man - more for support than illumination'. The American researchers may have questioned 1300 couples but their conclusions didn't support my point of view; no doubt if I had looked hard enough I could have found more favourable research but why bother. Despite my son's dire warnings, Robbie and I are very different people and that is exactly how it is going to stay. Just in case those researchers are right, we will be the exception that proves the rule!!

Flushed with Pride

I understand Robbie fairly well (he doesn't get away with much!) but just occasionally he does something so random that he manages to leave me lost for words. Yesterday he came downstairs proudly carrying my birthday present, it was beautifully wrapped in colourful paper. He was very keen for me to open it and he seemed convinced that he had chosen exactly the right present for me. I opened it to find a boxed toilet roll! What exactly are you supposed to say when presented with a boxed toilet roll? I opened the box hoping that the roll itself would bring me inspiration. The individual sheets had a message printed on them 'Hygiene and cleanliness are essential to robust good health and longevity'. Could it be a subtle way of pointing out that I am getting old? I thought not because Robbie doesn't 'do' subtle, but I spent the rest of the day wondering exactly what it said about our relationship!!   

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 

To dare to preserve the randomness of mind which in children produces strange and wonderful new thoughts and forms - Gordon Webber

Robbie has been keeping up his reputation for randomness, this afternoon he asked me if it was true that gooseberries were green. When I told him that they were he expressed amazement and said he had never known that. We have been together for quite a few years now and I am certain that the subject of gooseberries has never cropped up until today, the odd thing is that he went on to tell me that he doesn’t like them!

Robbie showed a marked reluctance to get up this morning, so we didn’t go to the North Norfolk Railway, we went to Cromer instead. Cromer is not very big, but it has two very nice book shops and both have a good selection of railway books so it will not come as a surprise that Robbie bought a couple of books, one was about buses and the other is about British industrial locomotives. We also bought a board for Robbie’s jigsaw, he has brought two jigsaws on holiday with him and predictably both have a railway theme.


This evening I haven’t been able to get two words out of him, he has been busy reading his Bus book and reading bus timetables that he picked up in Cromer. There is no hope when he is not train spotting he is bus spotting and when he runs out of buses he stands at the window with his binoculars spotting ships!

To dare every day to be irreverent and bold. To dare to preserve the randomness of mind which in children produces strange and wonderful new thoughts and forms. To continually scramble the familiar and bring the old into new juxtaposition.

Gordon Webber

A Bit Too Random

It has been nice but rather exhausting to have Robbie at home over Christmas, but over the last couple of days we have been able to take life a little more leisurely. It is wonderful not to have to get up at the crack of dawn it is a real luxury. The other day we were still in bed enjoying being close when Robbie suddenly sat up and said "sock bag". I thought I had misheard, but he went on to enquire exactly how to wash socks using a laundry bag. I explained, but I was rather sad that relaxing in bed with his wife only made him think of socks! It is a good thing that I am used to his random comments.

Why?

It is half term this week so Sam came out with me to do a couple of errands. I am fairly used to him wanting random things when we are out shopping but yesterday he he took randomness to a whole new dimension. First he fell in love with a set of Chinese bowls and chopsticks, he really wanted to buy it, but I refused. Sam is the only person in the family who can use chopsticks proficiently and he already has various different kinds. Maybe I should have let him have that set because worse was to come. A John Lennon style pair of sunglasses slipped themselves into the basket without me noticing, clearly he hasn't noticed it's almost winter! Then he absolutely had to buy two old books; the first was crammed with random facts that according to the title every boy should know, the second book was an English - Mandarin Chinese dictionary. Not for the first time I found myself asking why? Once armed with his new books he read random words from the dictionary to me, he found it very entertaining but it didn't mean much to me. He then bombarded me with facts from his other book, I have managed all these years without needing to know about all that obscure trivia so I think maybe I will survive without needing to commit it to memory!

Feeling Like Death Warmed Up!

It's official Robbie is ill! I just want to make sure that everyone knows that, because every time he has spoken to me today he has informed me that he is 'not very well' and then he has gone on to accuse me of not caring. Of course I care, I know how rough he is feeling because I have had the cold/flu or whatever it is for a week and I still feel rough. He has an evil sore throat, a high temperature, a heavy cold, a nasty cough and he feels like death warmed up. I am not unsympathetic, but honestly we need to get a sense of proportion about this! I went out and bought him two giant boxes of tissues, some maximum strength cold relief tablets and some stuff to stick up his nose to help him breathe. He is sitting in the corner sniffing and sighing surrounded by a mountain of tissues looking like misery personified. I hope he gets better quickly because I'm not sure how long I can cope with this!

This morning Robbie listened to The Archers while I tried to get on with my writing work. Despite his sore throat he couldn't be quiet and he fired a series of questions at me about storylines in the Archers. I answered each question and tried to get on with what I was doing, but then he began to ask about another character and we had a slightly confusing conversation for a few minutes. Suddenly I realised that he now talking about a family member who by coincidence shares a name with the character I thought he was talking about. I moaned at him for not giving me any clue that he had leapt from one subject to another, but he just grinned and said 'they don't call me Random Robbie for nothing'.

Lead For His Pencil 21.10.07

I should be used to Robbie sharing random and distracting snippets of information. This after all is the man who announced to a full car that he had just bought a bulk supply of lead for his pencil because he didn't want to run out! It is hard to drive with tears in your eyes, sometimes they are tears of laughter but on other occasions they are tears of exasperation. As we drove to the supermarket on Saturday, Robbie informed me that he preferred the 'emergency' washing up liquid to our usual brand because it was more aesthetically pleasing. According to him the shape of the bottle 'worked' for him and he thought the diameter of the dispenser hole was perfect. Fair enough, but he had overlooked one thing, it is rubbish when it comes to washing up! He had a bit of a strop when I insisted on buying my usual brand, but when he didn't win the battle of the washing up liquid he turned his attention to other things. During the weekend he has provided a detailed analysis of why the packaging of Morrisons own brand baked beans is preferable to the Heinz version. Just in case I actually cared he also informed me that there have been subtle changes to the Kwik Fit logo! He's hard work sometimes!