Forgetful?

I was rather confused this morning when Robbie told me how much he enjoyed last night in bed. I didn't recall anything deep or meaningful, I admit that I have become a bit forgetful since my bump on the head last week, but surely I wouldn't forget something like that? I wasn't sure what to say so I just cuddled up to Robbie and left him to do the talking. It soon became clear that his enjoyment didn't involve me at all. His pleasurable time involved sitting up in bed eating chocolate finger biscuits and reading his new book about Scammell lorries!!

The Wrong Answer

This evening Robbie sat in the lounge contemplating his feet before announcing his momentous decision. He is going to wear shoes for the funeral tomorrow! Due to the idiosyncrasy of his feet Robbie really needs the support of boots to keep him safe and upright, but has a pair of shoes which he reserves for very important occasions. He rather reluctantly bought the shoes for our wedding, but he rebelled by wearing loud 'Robbie style' socks! This is taken from a previous blog entry

Robbie's choice of socks is almost as eclectic as his taste in shirts! He likes loud colours, and why settle for one loud colour when you can have loud stripes – he likes stripes! They even put in an appearance at our wedding. I have written before about the compromise we reached concerning Robbie wearing shoes rather than Dr Marten boots to get married. The little detail I had overlooked was the socks. On the day we were getting ready to leave the house when Robbie emerged wearing a very nice suit and bare feet. In his hand he carried a brand new rather noticeable pair of pink socks. There was no way that he was leaving the house in those, and after a forlorn attempt to fight his corner he headed back upstairs get some different socks. I thought nothing more about it until we were asked to sit down during the ceremony. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Robbie’s immaculate shoes and his hideous socks – they were clashing stripes of different blues. I have held a grudge against those socks ever since, but the dratted things never get separated in the wash and they show no signs of wearing out!

Robbie has only worn his shoes once or or perhaps twice since our wedding. It seems fitting really, the first time that Robbie and Chris met it was one of the very rare occasions that Robbie saw him wearing a tie, he was never comfortable in a tie. Robbie is never comfortable in shoes, but only shoes will will do for his friend's final send off.

Thinking of the wedding shoes and the gruesome socks reminded me of another episode related to our wedding. I asked Robbie "do you remember our wedding" he got the answer wrong and his reply "yes, vaguely" elicited a snort of disgust from me. It is not as if he has had a long time to forget, it was only five years ago!

The episode I remembered was instigated by Chris, he and some of Robbie's other colleagues parked themselves on the platform at New Street expecting to see us as our train stopped briefly at New Street. I am not sure if the intention was to embarrass Robbie or to catch a glimpse of me, to be fair we do make an odd couple. Anyway their plan was foiled by Robbie's stomach. When we got off the sleeper we were delayed at Penzance by a rather wonderful bacon sandwich and we didn't travel north on the train that they thought we would. Just in case you are wondering we really did spend all of our honeymoon on trains and it was absolutely brilliant!

Tomorrow will be a very sad day, but Robbie and all those who knew Chris have a wealth of good memories of happier times.

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us." ~ Helen Keller

Do You Ever Wonder How Your Mind Works?

Do you ever wonder how your mind works, or whether you think in the same way that other people do. I'm absolutely certain that Robbie's brain works differently - goodness knows what goes on in his head! I used to read the Beezer when I was younger and they had cartoon characters called the Numbskulls who managed the various departments in their man's head. Their antics were always very funny and they often got their human into very embarrassing predicaments. Now that could explain a lot, maybe Robbie has little men in his head!

Anyway, back to the point. Yesterday I was busy working when suddenly I found myself thinking that Rev Awdry (creator of Thomas The Tank Engine) was extremely sexist. Why were all the engines male? Why were the subservient characters and carriages female? and why did he choose such dreadful female names? I wondered what train of thought could possibly have caused those particular thoughts to pop into my head, and I tried hard to think backwards. I had written my blog article much earlier in the day and I had included a photo of the Class 20 from Robbie's trip. I'd noticed that it had a 'face', somehow it reminded me of a character I had seen before, but I couldn't remember who or where. Even when I closed my eyes tightly I couldn't quite make the link so I moved on to other things, but my brain must have continued to work away at the problem. I wrote my other blog about the books I have read and I made a mental note that I still needed to write about the railway history book that I bought last week. After that I got on with my real work and didn't give another conscious thought to trains or books. At lunchtime I was working on something completely unrelated when up popped my thoughts about Rev Awdry and his engine characters. I presume my earlier observation of a 'train with a face' had combined with my thoughts about books and my brain had wandered off at a tangent.

I guess the answer is that the Railway Stories of Rev Awdry are sexist because they reflect the time that they were written when matters of gender, class and even race were treated very differently. I don't know why he chose such dreadful female names, but perhaps it was his revenge on the world for lumbering him with a name like Wilbert! I loved those stories when I was a child and my own children loved Thomas too. I am so glad that times have changed and I it is nice that Thomas has adapted to the modern world.

Eventually I remembered who the Class 20 looked like, it was Rodney Copperbottom from the film Robots. See what you think.