You learn something new every day!

There are many occasions when I wish I could put a smile on the faces of my children but I rarely succeed.  Teenagers seem to turn drama and disapproval into an art form and even when they are no longer teenagers old habits die hard, so it is very unusual to see all three of them smiling at once. 

Tonight was an exception, all three of them were helpless with laughter. I guess on balance I would rather have them laughing at me than sitting there looking miserable. The cause of the hilarity King Richard III, or to be more accurate it was a joke about him that led to the laughter. It was confirmed today that a body found buried beneath a car park in Leicester was Richard III the last Plantagenet king, and the last king of England to die in battle. Having warned me that it was in slightly bad taste my daughter shared a joke from Twitter 'What was Richard III doing in the car park - dogging'

My other daughter was crying with laughter at my reaction and she made this comment on Facebook
That awkward moment when your stepdad has to explain what dogging is to your mother.. 'You are joking arent you...? What are they, double jointed?!'

Oh well, it was nice to see them happy, and it led to a nice family evening, with everyone chatting and laughing. They helped me to choose a ringtone for my new phone, it is 'Me and Mrs Jones' - it was the obvious choice really!

The Sights You See When You Haven't Got Your Gun.

That was one of my grandmother's sayings. I always found it rather confusing because I knew very well that she didn't have a gun. She used the phrase when she saw something that she disapproved of, she used it often because she had turned disapproval into a performance art! Other people of her generation used it with a little more humour, to express amusement or incredulity at some of the things they encountered.

I don't go to town very often, so you can imagine my surprise when I encountered a gorilla in the centre of town! It was no ordinary gorilla, it was dressed as a boxer or a wrestler or something of the sort. On closer inspection there was something haunting about his face, it was just a bit too real for comfort. I had to ask Robbie to take a photo for me. I don't know why but it really made me smile - maybe in some way it reminded me of Robbie who knows.

As we walked around the town we came across more wildlife. There was a life size giraffe in the shopping centre and whole herd of very colourful elephants. Elmer the Elephant would have fitted in very will with this techinicolour group! There are even lions in the park - whatever is the world coming to! I am not a great fan of street entertainment etc, but these creatures made me smile and brightened my day. 

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising. Mark Twain

Yesterday evening I put a huge smile on Robbie's face - I brought home several packs of the newly released Lego Olympic Minifigures. He had been waiting for them to be released and they turned up several days early, so when I gave them to him he was really surprised. He sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and set about making his first Olympic minifigures. His little expressions of excitement caused my son and daughter to shake their heads and exchange exasperated looks. My son made two posts on facebook which supped up the situation perfectly.

"You know you're set out for a career in mental health care when your stepdad sits in the corner calling a Lego man beautiful...and you don't question it"

"I would worry when my stepdad says he can feel the difference between a weightlifter and a an athlete... Until I realise he is on about Lego men."

As far as I am concerned it is harmless, it is not especially expensive and it gives the kids something new to disapprove of, it takes the 'spotlight' of my perceived failings. When you think of it that way the minifigures seem much less irritating! 

"The world was my oyster but I used the wrong fork" - Oscar Wilde

Robbie had undercarriage problems at the end of last week. On Thursday I bought him a Lego City police van set with the police dog and the police man minifigure. He sat down at the table to build it with a big smile on his face, but after a few minutes he announced that his undercarriage was missing. We checked but there was no sign of it in the box, all the other bits were there, but they were useless with the vital part missing. So Friday saw back at the shop in search of the missing part, the things I do to put a smile on his face! He was delighted when he got home and the part was waiting for him on the table. He built the police van, equipped the minifigure with an impossibly large pair of handcuffs and then called me over to admire his work - he even set the scene by creating a range of police dog noises! Okay, I  know he is a bit weird, but it is a harmless pass time, there are plenty of worse things that he could be doing. Anyway seeing him smile makes me happy too.


This morning he cuddled up to me in bed and somehow got on to the subject of one of his odd little obsessions. We have two different sets of cutlery, but Robbie will only use a three pronged fork while my son insists on only using a four pronged fork. They are as bad as each other, but both try to convince me that the other is much worse when it comes to weird obsessions! Robbie warmed to his theme and went on to tell me about the perfect dimensions of a tea spoon. Apparently there has been a serious upset at work, his personal tea spoon which was perfect in every way has been stolen! According to Robbie it is irreplaceable - but that will not stop him trying, he intends to scour ebay in search of a replacement! I scored a minor triumph, I managed to distract him before he got on to the subject of knives! I'm sure I haven't heard the last of his very specific cutlery requirements, but there is only so much that I can cope with in one day.  

Putting a Smile on His Face

I remember my dad telling me that if my grandma needed cheering up (or buttering up) a new hat was the order of the day.  I don't think she ever went out without a hat; she may have influenced me in many ways, but I wasn't built for hats, the only hat that I have worn willingly is a riding hat! A hat would be the very last thing to cheer me up!

There are many things that put a smile on Robbie's face and shoes are close to the top of the list. He really should be grinning like a Cheshire cat because by my calculations he has six new pairs this year! Four pairs of Dr Martens and two pairs of Converse. His latest pair were delivered yesterday, a pair of low Converse All Star's. The colour is called 'Waterfall' which is very close to turquoise. They were a real bargain from the Office sale and they are intended to replace his light blue pair which have seen better days. He had already bought a pair to replace his red patterned Converse that are falling apart.  

The only bit that he hasn't got around to is throwing the old ones away. I reminded him of this and he agreed that he would throw them away. I was lulled into a false sense of security until he said "but I am going to keep the material ....". I thought he was joking at first, but he was absolutely serious. He plans to cut out and keep the material from his smelly old shoes! OK I admit that they are not smelly, but seriously why on earth would he want to save bits of old shoe! I blame his railway friends for putting crackpot ideas into his head, they have some very weird habits. He told me the other day about someone who collects bits of moquette from old train seats, now that really is weird, it makes Robbie sound relatively normal!      

The best remedy for a short temper is a long walk - Jacqueline Schiff

The church in Abington Park 

Robbie and I don't manage long walks these days, but if you pace yourself it is surprising what you can do. We are so lucky to have a very beautiful park on our doorstep, whatever the season there is always beauty around. We always enjoy a visit to the park on crisp winter afternoons we retreat to the Park Cafe for a warming cup of coffee, but when the weather is kinder we prefer to sit on a bench watching the squirrels chase around under the trees or to sit by one of the lakes watching the ducks. If you are weighed down by the troubles of the world, watching ducks is the best medicine, you can't watch their antics without smiling.   

St Peter and St Paul Abington

The Church of St Peter and St Paul is at the heart of the park, it looked magnificent in the sunshine and we had to stop for a moment to take a photo. The trees look beautiful at this time of year, suddenly there is blossom and signs of new growth all around us. The park was busy with people having fun and enjoying a lovely spring afternoon, and as we walked I felt grateful to those people who cared enough to provide this wonderful park for the town all those years ago. I wonder what the people of my own time will pass on to future generations? We have a lot to live up to.

Enjoying the early spring sunshine

I hardly ever appear in photos on the blog, but this is a rare glimpse of me sitting on a bench with Robbie, enjoying an ice cream in the sunshine before heading home

Tears at times have the weight of speech - Ovid

I will probably get into trouble for writing this, but sometimes you need to find words to express the way you really feel. In the last couple of weeks Robbie has said two things that have brought tears to my eyes. The first was so unusual and so out of character that I had to check with him that I had understood him properly. He said that he felt as if he should wear a label saying ‘I may look alright but I’m not’. Robbie has had to cope with spina bifida throughout his life and he has such a good attitude towards his disability that most people don't even notice it - he just gets on with life. So his comment came as a surprise.

He explained that it was very hard to cope with chronic pain. I am well aware of that, but I learnt long ago that he doesn’t want to be treated differently because of it. When I have tried to avoid situations or protect him in various ways I have had my head bitten off and been told loud and clear “I'm not a (insert expletive) cripple you know”. He is determined to be Robbie, a person who just happens to have a disability rather than being defined by it. He can do almost everything that everyone else can; he just needs to pace himself and to be creative about the way he does things. He doesn’t need a lot of fuss, all it takes is just a little bit of understanding and the freedom to do things his own way without constantly having to make reference to his disability. His comment reminded me that even if he is his usual bubbly self with a big smile on his face it is still hard, but in true Robbie style he is ‘just getting on with life.

The second thing that he did that brought tears to my eyes was something he wrote on Facebook

“....as they say, 'behind every great man, there's a great woman', I am far from great, but I would not have survived the last two and a half weeks, without the love and support of Mrs J! Thank you Mrs J, I love you very very much x ♥ x”

I am certainly not a great woman, just a very determined one. I am like a Jack Russell Terrier, I may lack height but I am as brave as a lion and I never give up. Robbie isn’t the only man in my life with a hidden disability; my son has autistic spectrum disorder. He manages reasonably well these days, but it hasn’t always been that way and there have been times when it has taken all of my strength and determination to ensure that he had the right support. Apparently I became a bit of a legend among his school friends because on a couple of occasions I had to deal with teachers who failed to take account of his specific needs. Thankfully most of his teachers were excellent.



Robbie’s words meant a lot to me. I am pleased that he values my support, I often feel useless because there is so little that I can do to make things easier for him. Perhaps just listening and trying to understand is more helpful than I realised - and heaven help anyone who makes things harder for him!

Robbie, I may be understanding but I don't miss much - don’t think I haven’t noticed that the quote you chose was suspiciously close to a Groucho Marx quotation!

“Behind every successful man is a woman, behind her is his wife.”
                                                 Groucho Marx

Communication Problems

I rarely write about my work, partly because I don't want to cross any boundaries but mostly because it probably wouldn't make very interesting reading. I meet some really nice people in the course of my work, but sadly I meet plenty of the other kind too. I always try to be helpful but is not unusual to get shouted at and called names, you would be surprised how nasty seemingly ordinary people can be about the most trivial things. I have even had to deal with threats of physical harm. So you can imagine my confusion when an Indian gentleman approached me with a broad smile and began to remove all his outer clothing. Hat, scarf, two pairs of gloves, coat, padded waistcoat etc, etc. It wasn't an especially cold day but it seemed that he was dressed for an Arctic expedition. It is rather unusual for customers to remove their clothing, they are not usually with us long enough for that, so despite his smiles I was a little weary of his motives.


Thankfully he stopped disrobing before it became embarrassing, but then I was faced with another problem. He began talking to me and I didn't have a clue what he was saying. He repeated himself several times but I was making no progress at all. I asked him what language he was speaking (thinking I could perhaps find someone else to converse with him) but he informed me that he was speaking English! A very long 20 minutes followed with lots of smiles, nodding and waving of arms but not a lot of progress in terms of communication. He had brought out all sorts of documents from his pockets. He showed me pictures of his wife and children and he taught me how to pronounce their names. He showed me a train ticket indicating that he had been to London the weekend before and a series of mimes suggested that he had visited Madam Tussauds, Buckingham Palace and other landmarks. After 20 minutes, I knew his name and job title from a business card, I knew the names of his wife and children and I knew what he had done with his leisure time in the last week or so but I hadn't got a clue why he had come to see me! 


At that point we were joined by a second smiling Indian gentleman, also dressed for the Arctic. He possessed a few more words of recognisable English and over the next ten minutes the pair told me that they were here for two weeks for a training course, but they both lived in India. They had enjoyed their stay here very much and they wanted to find out as much as possible about our town and how different businesses worked so they had come in to have a look around. The first man had just stopped for a chat and he had showed me the pictures of his family because he missed them very much. They left still smiling and promised to come and see me again next year when they are back in England. It was rather a surreal experience, but it is something I will remember with a warm smile, it was much better than being shouted at!

Why Are Bananas Funny?

After a hectic and exhausting week I always look forward to Friday evenings because I don't work on Fridays and it is lovely to spend some quality time with Robbie. Usually Friday evenings don't live up to my expectations for one reason or another and this Friday was no exception. I had made an appointment for Sam to have his hair cut at 5pm, thinking that I would have plenty of time to pick Mr B up afterwards, but he changed the goalposts and decided to come home on an earlier train. Robbie said he would get the bus, but by some miracle I managed to be at the station by 5.35pm to pick him up! I thought he would be pleased, but being Mr Autistic he got himself into a right strop because I had changed the goalposts and it took him ages to get over it.

I tried my best but I couldn't manage to put a smile on his face, so I had to use my secret weapon - Lego! He carefully opened the bag and tipped out the pieces of his latest Lego man, he was very impressed, it was a man in a gorilla suit holding a banana. I thought there was something vaguely familiar about it but Robbie seemed to be deeply amused by the banana. I am not sure why he found it so funny, but at least it put a smile on his face!

A Short Lived Smile

I managed to put a smile on Robbie's face last night - I bought him some Polish Jaffa Cakes! unfortunately the smile didn't last too long he is like a bear with a sore head again this morning, but at least I know he is still capable of cracking his face. Actually he even laughed at one point last night, but that was only because he was laughing at me for not knowing who Jane Fonda is. I know now, I looked her up, she was in that L'Oreal advert, apparently she was in some films too but I didn't see any of them. When he stopped laughing at me for that he decided to test me on other people I may not know. He started with John Lydon, but I did know who he was because he was in a butter advert. I didn't know what group he was in but I don't think I would have been interested in him, I was never that interested in music and judging by the song that Robbie played last night his music wasn't exactly attractive.

Robbie says that his colleagues keep teasing him about his yellow T-shirts, I don't really understand they just pick on the yellow ones they are quite tame compared to his vivid blue one, and his lurid pink one can only be viewed with sunglasses! If that is not enough to scare you, there's always his luminous green and brown shorts. Robbie wouldn't be Robbie without his loud and slightly alarming clothes, they are just like him really!