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Parental Choices: Consider Me Shocked.

admin / May 25, 2012 / Anger, Family, Parenting, Rant / Permalink

Last night, I went to the chip shop to fetch some tea after a busy day for all of us and after I ordered I stood outside because it was frightfully warm with all of the fryers going. Our local chippy is along a busy main road which is mostly residential but has shops at various points along it, a busy dual carriageway at one end and a large alley running next to an allotment opposite the chip shop.

The reason I bring all of this up is this:

I want you to focus on the lighter silver coloured Ford car in the picture. Can you see, the rear passenger window almost all the way open? Can you see how far away it is from where I’m standing? It’d take at least 4 seconds for me to get to that car from inside the shop and that’s if the traffic is clear, which having lived along this road I can tell you it rarely ever is.

Now, consider this: there’s a kid in the back of that car.

I watched the Mum get out, lock the doors and tell her little boy who was probably a little younger than Sausage, so around three maybe three and a half, “I’ll be back in a minute”. I then watched the mother disappear inside the newsagents next to the chippy, which has completely papered over windows so no view out once you’re inside. I stood there for over 4 minutes watching that car with the little boy inside. I stood there thinking how easy it would have been, even with locked car doors, to drag that little boy through the open window, get in my car and drive off.

I realise I’m in danger of gaining a reputation of being judgemental, but I’m begging you, tell me, it’s not just me who thinks this is mental, right? Even if the kid was slightly older, the windows were shut, the car was closer, I’d still think this was a stupidly risky thing for that mother to do. Does she not read the papers? Do the names Madeline McCann, James Bulger, Danielle Jones mean nothing to her?

I’m genuinely sitting here unable to get this event out of my head. Something that the other mother probably hasn’t thought twice about, a non-event in her day to day comings and goings. All I can say is, I pray and hope my anxieties are never realised for this woman, no matter how careless she may seem to me.

Is this something you’d do? Am I a mental, over-protective mother? Does it make you sad that we are forced to think this way because of crime? Let me know.

27 Comments

Melanoma – You know it can kill you, right?

admin / April 6, 2012 / Personal, Rant / Permalink

Please read the comments before reading the first paragraph of this post. I jumped on something someone said and took it the wrong way and seem to have got things arse about face. Either way, the main content of the post still stands, just not the catalyst that got me writing it.

Apologies for the provocative title, but I’m feeling rather provocative and I need people to listen.

Yesterday, I read a tweet that bemoaned the lack of sunbeds available by 9.30am. I replied somewhat snarkily and said that I was amazed that people even use sunbeds these days. Maybe I shouldn’t have been snotty, I don’t really know the Tweeter in question and I guess people are free to do what they like, but after watching someone I love die from a disease that can be caused by these machines, it makes me wonder why the hell anyone would go near them?

Lorraine was an otherwise healthy 40-year-old woman when a ‘dodgy mole’ on her leg became malignant. I’m not sure if she used sunbeds, I think she said she had once or twice, but she lived in Jamaica for a portion of her adult life too, enjoying the sun and the easy way of life.

Lorraine’s mole was removed and as she had an aggressive form of melanoma, the doctors removed her lymph nodes in her right groin too as this was the logical place for the cancer to spread to. Unfortunately for her and us, although she had no lymph nodes for the cancer to attack, it went to her brain and her lungs instead.

She had radiotherapy which made her lose her hair and had just been accepted onto a trial for a new drug when the cancer got the better of her. The melanoma in her brain (and yes, when melanoma spreads it’s still a melanoma, unlike other cancers) caused her to have seizures, become confused and made the pressure in her skull build. On the day she died, I stroked her face and was amazed by how hot she felt. They explained that the pressure around her brain was giving her a fever.

Lorraine died 20 days after her 42nd birthday. Melanoma killed her.

This post may seem harsh or insensitive and if my Dad or Lorraine’s family ever read this, I hope they understand the intention behind this post.

Melanoma is not just about having a mole removed and moving on. Melanoma is aggressive and it can end your life. Think about this next time you decide you want a tan at any cost. Think about this next time you look at your kids and decide not to wear sun screen.

Some facts about Melanoma:

Unlike most malignancies, malignant melanoma is more common in women than men. In 2008 it was the sixth most common cancer in females. Between 2007 and 2008 malignant melanoma moved from the ninth most common cancer in males to the sixth most common. This is due to an extra 600 cases being diagnosed in males in 2008 than in 2007.
In 2009 in the UK, 2,633 people in the UK died from skin cancer.
If diagnosed at stage 1A, 88% of patients will live for 10 years. If diagnosed at stage 4, that number becomes 7-19% living past five years.
Overall, people from higher social classes tend to have better survival rates than people from lower social classes.

I know this may be a shocking or depressing post for the Easter weekend, but if I can make just one person wear sunscreen when they go out in the sun, I’ll have done something really important.

9 Comments

Things That I Am Too Old To Do…

admin / March 31, 2012 / Rant / Permalink

I’ve got to a certain age now, or maybe a certain point in life rather than an actual age, where I’ve realised that there are a few things that I’m definitely too old to do. It’s come as a shock because I thought I was still young and cool, but I sense my siblings and younger cousins cringing occasionally which has made me realise that I’m firmly in the ‘Embarrassing Adult’ group. Here are a few things that I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m too old to do.

1. Do my hair in bunches.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties, it looked cute to stick my hair in bunches – you know, on a beach holiday under a straw cowboy hat, at a festival when you can’t wash your locks etc. It helped that I was naturally baby blonde too, it was all a bit Scandinavian, you know? Now, I’m in my late twenties and am definitely not baby blonde anymore and I’m just too damn old for it to look cute. I’m too old for it to even look ironic. It looks ridiculous.

2. Wear hot pants.

Let’s face it, I’m in neither the shape nor the climate to go out in hot pants, regardless of my age. But, were I 4 sizes smaller (oh, alright, 5 sizes…) and living in Miami, I’d still not be pouring myself into short shorts. Why? Because regardless of whether my legs and arse look like they’ve been loving smoothed out of alabaster, I’m at an age where hot pants cease to make me look cute and perky, but rather desperate and street-walkery. Full stop. You can quote the fucking Pussycat Dolls or any supermodel over 30 you like at me, but take them out of the context of performing on stage and put them in a suburb of the UK and she looks like a prostitute. End of.

3. Wear things ironically

You don't look cool. You look disturbed.

You know how there’s this trend of wearing big National Health-looking specs and slightly gimpy clothing? How just about every kid on the High Street looks like a cross between Erkel and Deirdre Barlow? Yeah, once you’re in your late 20′s, that doesn’t like ironic, it looks frumpy. Especially if you’re carrying 4-year old baby weight. If I walked around in bottle-bottom glasses and brown slacks, people would think that’s just me being desperately UNfashionble, not cutting edge like all of these so-called trend setting children.

4. Ride a scooter

I recently got asked if I’d like to test out an adult Micro Scooter. I understand there’s something of a trend emerging for parents to ride alongside their kids during the school run and such times. But, honestly, if I were to ride around on a Micro Scooter, I would simply look a MASSIVE PRANNY. Come on, admit it, if you saw a full-grown adult scooting down the street on a silver monstrosity, you’d be walking along looking for their carer, wouldn’t you?

5. Have a cutesy decal/eyelashes/zany bumper stickers on my car

Just. NO.

I apologise if I offend anyone with this one as, again, I gather that lots of people are in the habit of zazzing up their car with various adornments, but I genuinely cringe when I see most of these. In my immediate vicinity, there’s one neighbour who has a purple sparkly car with about a billion stickers on it, proclaiming her to be a witch, no less than THREE people carriers which have full sets of Betty Boop decals ALL OVER THEM and a car with eyelashes.

I think people are under the illusion that using these bedazzlements gives the impression that they’re full of personality, but actually it belies a human with very little to offer in the way of humour or personality. These stickers can be stomached if on the car of a teenager, but if you’re my age or older – grow up.

So, I’ve given you mine, now you tell me yours – what are you too old to do?

7 Comments

Postcode Lottery

admin / February 13, 2012 / Opinion, Parenting, Personal, Rant / Permalink

Like so many people in their late twenties and early thirties, Husband and I rent our house, we’re not in a position to buy and social housing is nothing short of a joke, so we pay through the nose to live in someone else’s house.

Our lease is up in April and while we’re happy with our current location, we seem to be outgrowing our little bungalow and so looked into our options for moving. First, we looked in our local area; prices seem to have gone up a lot in the two years since we moved here – no great surprise seeing as no-one can afford to buy – it’s well and truly a landlords market at the moment.

The reason we live where we do is mainly because we’re in the catchment area of a really good school, so in terms of moving it only makes sense to stay within a catchment of an equally good or better school. This is where we’ve come a-cropper. The only school in the area which has better results than our local school is a mile or so up the road and the cheapest rental property within that catchment is £300 more per month than we pay to live here.

Our local school is something of an anomaly, it’s smack-bang in the middle of a council estate, and most of the private houses locally are modest homes, but the school had the advantage of an amazing headteacher, who sadly retired last year but did an incredible amount of work within the school and community. This means it’s one of those rare schools that’s able to offer great results to people from middle to lower socioeconomic groups, equally.

So, this leaves the options of either staying where we are, or moving out of town or even out of county. Husband and I have had wander-lust for some time, even considering Canada or Australia and would dearly love to give Sausage a better life away from the grind of living in a large town. But then, there are other things to weigh up. Yes, she could potentially attend a school with far fewer pupils, live in a rural setting and in a place with a lower crime rate, but does all of this weigh up against not seeing our extended family, not knowing anybody or anything about the new town, or just the general upheaval of starting again?

I’d love to hear from anybody who’s made a big move, whether you think it was a wholly positive thing to do and whether your kids have got over the huge change. Also, do you find this kind of class division in terms of education in your local area?

Answers on a postcard…just don’t ask me which town to send them to!

9 Comments

5 Things I’ve Learned Since Becoming an Adult.

admin / January 22, 2012 / How To, Humour, Parenting, Personal, Rant / Permalink

There are certain facts that you just don’t know until you reach adulthood/move out of your parents house/have kids. I was pretty much wrapped in cotton wool until I was 21 (that’s not a complaint Mum, just an observation) and these facts just did not enter my consciousness until I made the decision to propel myself into the big wide world.

Just in case anyone is reading this who is new to the ‘grown-up’ thing, or just wants to brush up on some harsh realities, here are five of the most important things I’ve learned.

1. Any rubbish bags you buy with the words ‘large’ or ‘heavy duty’ printed on them will inevitably actually be the same size as a leprechaun’s scrotum and in fact have the same strength qualities of wet rice paper. I thought this was confined to the ones I bought from the Pound shop or the ever so slightly cheaper 99p shop, but it happens everywhere.

2. Some men seem to think that MILFs (if you don’t know; look it up but keep your Google Safe Search on!) are this exotic breed of experienced older women, and while I won’t debate that many women regain their pre-baby body, the vast majority end up with nipples that point towards the floor, a stomach like a road map and either a whacking great scar across their pubic line or a chuff like a Wizard’s sleeve from squeezing human beings out. Then there’s the sick in the hair, sleep deprivation and cracked nipples (or so I’m told). Sorry lads, that’s just the cold, hard truth.

The Fantasy

The Reality

3. It doesn’t matter if you’re a brilliant cook who can make things from scratch. You may be the master of the meringue, the queen of the macaroon, your talents know no bounds. But I guarantee the first time you boil an egg for yourself, you’ll have to look up on Google how to do it and I bet, even then, it won’t come out perfect. The best advice I can give you? Buy one of these:

The Tefal Toast n Egg. Genius.

4. People will ALWAYS surprise you. Unless you’ve spent every waking moment of your life with someone, there will always be information about a person which will knock your socks off. The other day, my boss was telling us a story about how, a couple of years ago, she and a female friend booked a cheap package deal to a Greek island that turned out to be horrible due to a rotten hotel and largely rubbish beaches. One day, they stumbled upon a nudist beach which was the nicest sun spot on the island and spent the next ten days returning to play beach tennis, stark-bollock naked, with a group of young ladies. Just so you know, my boss is 67 and an accountant.

(I won’t be illustrating this point with a picture, as above. I wouldn’t want to scar you for life)

5. If you’re the type to have kids, you’ll no doubt have a set of ideals that you’ll formulate once expecting, or maybe even before. Once your little bundle of joy is born, largely, these ideas will be torn up and thrown out of the window. I’ve lost count of the amount of parents-to-be who insist they’re anti-dummy, anti-bottle, anti-TV, anti-everything-that’s-not-organic, Gina Ford worshippers who, within weeks of bringing the baby home have given up on their hard-and-fast rules and are helicoptering their arses off with a dummy in one hand, a bottle in the other and a Baby Einsteins DVD on repeat for 8 hours a day. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s called COPING.

So, there are my pearls of wisdom for a Sunday morning. They may not be profound, but they may save you a lot of time and effort and what could be better than that? YOU’RE WELCOME.

4 Comments

Where the Hell Did That Come From?

admin / January 10, 2012 / Anger, Opinion, Parenting, Personal, Rant / Permalink

Skanking. See what I did there?

One thing we’ve started to noticed since sending Sausage to nursery is that she comes out with things that Husband and I have never heard her say before. It’s largely all positive and her vocabulary and comprehension, although already fantastic, seem to be improving daily.

However, yesterday she came out with an expression which was totally alien to us, but not in a good way. She’s been poorly lately and has very dry lips and whilst watching The Simpsons with Husband she turned to him and said “Daddy, my lips are skanky”. Now, skanky is 100% NOT an expression that either Husband or I use, nor have I heard any other adult use it in our company.

So, our thoughts turn to the kids. The only kids she socialises with outside of nursery are her cousins and not only have we not heard them use the word ‘skanky’, I can’t imagine any of them telling her that as generally, they all seem to dote on her.

We know it’s definitely not come from the telly, ‘skanky’ isn’t a word I’ve ever heard on CBeebies, and I know that Peppa Pig is causing kids to become riotous and end up in juvenile delinquent facilities (what a load of bollocks, eh?) but I don’t think I’ve ever heard such an utterance from her baconey lips.

The thing is, when we questioned Sausage on where she’d heard the expression from and after about ten minutes of clamming up like a good’un, she said to Husband and I “No, I refuse to tell you”. So, where do we go from here? I hate the thought that someone at nursery may have said something so negative to her, but she doesn’t seen adversely affected by it. Do we go to the nursery and ask them to look into it and keep an ear out, or do we drop it and hope it doesn’t happen again?

For the moment, as we have no firm idea of where it came from, I guess we have to just leave it. I don’t want to be one of those parents who flies into the nursery and scolds her teachers for the slightest thing, but at the same time, letting it go has left me feeling utterly impotent.

Any advice, dearest readers?

1 Comment

Enough is enough.

admin / November 23, 2011 / Anger, Rant / Permalink

: Excuse the dry skin, it’s still healing

Let me start this blog post by saying that I consider myself to be a charitable person. When I was a kid, I went door-to-door selling raffle tickets for Meningitis Trust, as an adult I’ve organised events for Lupus UK, I spent a whole year giving up my Saturdays to work in a Child Contact Centre and back in May I ran Race for Life to raise money for Cancer Research. A few weeks ago, I even went and had a black ribbon tattooed on my leg for melanoma at an event organised by one of Husband’s good friends where the proceeds of every tattoo was donated to cancer charities.

But today, I can unequivocally say that I’ve had a gut-full of charity. Whilst walking up the high street to do the banking for my boss, one of those obnoxious charity collectors (who get PAID to fund raise…can you explain the logic of that to me?) stepped towards me and starting shouting her script at me, telling me that it was my responsibility to end poverty in Africa. On account of the fact that a) I didn’t have time to stop and b) I have a moral objection to that type of fundraising, I politely told her that I didn’t have time to stop and carried on walking while she stood behind me muttering.

On the way back down the high street after I had run my errands and much to my complete and utter incredulity, the very same chugger (as I’m reliably informed they’re called) tried to stop me again, this time by physically blocking my path. I told her that she’d already tried to stop me and that I STILL didn’t have the time to stop, only for her to make facetious comments about me as I walked away. Now, is it just me, or does that seem a little bit out of line?

This evening, we had Husband’s father and his wife over for dinner as she’s American and we wanted to give her a nice Thanksgiving dinner and just as they were leaving the telephone rang. I answered and a man introduced himself as a caller from Cancer Research. He thanked me for my money-raising efforts for Race for Life and asked me if I’d had a nice day. Next, he asked why I’d chosen to do it and I explained about Lorraine and how she’d recently lost her fight. He expressed sympathy and proceeded with his spiel, offering me the chance to give £8 a month directly from my bank account. I explained that I couldn’t afford to add to my monthly outgoings this close to Christmas, but said that if he was able to phone back in January that I may be able to contribute. He barreled on (I must add, totally ignoring the fact that I was crying on the other end of the phone, after he decided to tell me about the wonderful new treatments for extending the lives of cancer patients) pushing me to sign up. At this point, Husband had had enough of seeing me upset and told me to put the phone down, so I interrupted the bloke for the third time and told him that I needed to hang up.

As I’ve gone to great lengths to stress, I consider myself to be a charitable soul, giving not just money but also as much time and effort as I can spare too and yet I got off of the telephone this evening feeling as though I’d been completely wrung out by this charity worker. I don’t know if it’s the policy of Cancer Research to treat people this way, and I’d never speak ill of a charity which has done so much, but I really feel that these aggressive methods of fundraising are a step too far. I feel as though I’ve been harangued in my own home, chased up and down the high street and generally treated like shit.

I won’t say that this has put me off of donating to charity, I’ll always give where I can. But I hope someone, somewhere, will read this post and maybe think about the way that they approach people. I don’t deserve to be made to feel guilty and reminded of personal grief. I’m a good person and this isn’t the way to make me part with my cash.

7 Comments

The Last Word.

admin / September 13, 2011 / Anger, Rant / Permalink

Last year, not long after I started this blog, I wrote THIS post about how I collect straws. The basic premise of being a straw collector is that a person who collects straws goes about their day and if something negative happens, they store it up. Then the next minor thing happens and they store that up. They collect up all these ‘straws’ of anger, until they get to the final one and then they snap. I’ve been trying my hardest to not do this, and although I still have a bit of a temper if I’m pushed, I am a lot more chilled out in a lot of ways.

There is, however, a character flaw that I have which is something else that I should really work on, and that is the fact that I feel like I must have the last word. If I argue with someone or have a disagreement, I always feel like I’ve been totally wronged unless I get them to change their opinion. I’ve had disagreements with people in the past which still weigh heavily on my mind because I didn’t get an apology or a retraction from them, even though I know they were totally wrong. I’ll admit, I have a huge chip on my shoulder when it comes to people judging me wrongly. I know who and what I am, and I think I’m a very honest person when it comes to myself, but when people get it wrong, it winds me up terribly.

I have internal conversations which people where I say all of the clever things that I wanted to say during an argument, all of which prove them wrong, make me look wonderfully intelligent and urbane, whilst employing great amounts of grace and wit. Of course, arguments generally just degrade to a point where no one employs much wit, and all that’s being slung is something which rhymes with wit, so I never get to really employ all of these skills that I’ve honed so well inside my own head.

But it’s not very healthy, is it? Sometimes, when I’m walking the dog or washing up or going about some other brainless task, I go over petty rows in my head and I get so wound up that I end up with an ache in my gut and a mood like a bear who’s been disturbed, mid-hybernation. I suppose it’s a bit of longer-term straw collecting, but I just can’t seem to let it go.

I suppose I need to know that I’m not alone in this. Does anyone else do this, or am I the only one with an over-developed jaw muscle from all of the teeth grinding that I do? It can’t just be me, can it? Does this make me a terrible person, this need for people to know that I was right and they were wrong? Gosh, when I put it like that, it does sound that way, doesn’t it?

0 Comments

The Ultimate Betrayal

admin / August 21, 2011 / Anger, Opinion, Personal, Rant / Permalink

I never thought that it would end the way it did, with me finding out that you’d been cheating behind my back. I honestly never thought you’d do it to me, I thought you were honest and true, a real family man. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. You’d been flirting and courting the Russian for some time, or so it seems. I think that’s the bit that hurt the most, the fact that you were saying all the right things to my face, making an effort and going out of your way to pledge your devotion to me, and then playing away. I feel so stupid.

And more than feeling stupid, I feel so bitter. You made me believe in you and then took it all away with an ease that I never expected from you, an ease which almost took my breath away. I HATE feeling this way, I’m almost as angry with you for turning me into this cynical, untrusting person as I am for the betrayal that you found so easy

So now I know what it is you’re really after, you want more than I can offer, more money, more glamour, a trophy. And I just cannot make those promises. Honesty, hard work and integrity. That’s what I have.

But it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, is it? Far from being the prize you thought you were, you’re langushing. Oh yes, I’ve heard about your performance problems, your inability to fulfill needs. And I can’t say I’m surprised. I was willing to love you in spite of all of that. But you threw it in my face.

Sure, you were good for me at the beginning, but at the end of our time together your heart clearly wasn’t in it, you were no longer interested, your eye already wandering. I should have known. I should have known.

Does it kill you to see me doing so well without you? I’ve had my ups and downs, but I think I’m on the right track now, headed towards happiness and success. And I did it without you. Better off without you. It’s taken me a while to realise it, I still catch my breath when I see the odd glimpse of you, here and there, and although you’ve put on a good front, I can see you aren’t entirely comfortable, being touted about town like a cheap trinket.

So fuck you, Fernando Torres. I hope you’re happy. But just know, you’ll never find another club like Liverpool Football Club or fans like ours. And I reckon you’re still kicking yourself, even now.

I’ve been wantng to write this for a while, but in the deafening cacophony that was the aftermath, I had trouble finding my voice. So here it is, dedicated to each and every Liverpool fan. YNWA.

EDIT

I’d love it if you could sign this petition, demanding full disclosure of all documents relatng to the Hillsborough Disaster, which will hopefully lead to justice for the 96 people who were tragically killed on that fateful day. You don’t need to be a Liverpool fan to sign, just a human being with a heart and a desire for the truth. We need 100,000 signatures in total and we’re just under 10,000 shy of that, so every name counts. Thanks.

7 Comments

Race Relations

admin / August 15, 2011 / Anger, Personal, Rant / Permalink

I’d like to start by saying that although in the past I’ve written about some controversial subjects, I tend to stay away from the biggies because blogs can so often be taken out of context and come back to bite us on the arse. Subjects like sexism, homophobia or racism are always going to be emotive and I don’t expect to unite the world with one little blog post. However, I’ve become more aware of, and more shocked by, the levels of racism that seems to have become acceptable in so-called civilised society, amongst well-educated and usually moderate people.

I’m by no means a naive person, I know racism exists in all walks of life and have written previously about idiots like the English Defence League. Before I go on, I’d like to say that I do believe that racism is subjective and because of certain liberal values, political correctness has gone a bit mental. I remember a few years ago my friends’ Mum, who is a social worker, came home and told us that they’d been given a new language directive at work and they were no longer allowed to use the expression ‘mixed race’, and that they must now say ‘dual-heritage’. This seems rather an excessive way to go around the issue of ‘what to call someone’ to me, but I don’t make the rules.

But I think i was first made aware of “middle-class racism” when the furore over Rastamouse started. I saw several people complain about the use of patois in a children’s programme, bloggers and tweeters up in arms that their children would turn into thieves and layabouts. Aside from being a massive, glaring generalisation of an entire culture of people, their short-sightedness floored me. Surely, learning other accents and cultures enriches the lives of our children?

Since the riots, I’ve seen a shocking amount of Facebook statuses and Tweets, talking about how immigrants and people of non-British ethnicity were “99% responsible for the riots” and was shocked when my best friend (who is of Nigerian heritage) went on Facebook to say just how disappointed she was that no less than seven of her online friends had been making racist comments about the riots and surrounding events. I don’t want to get into a row about the cause of the riots or the politics surrounding it, but I know this; I watched HOURS of live news footage of those riots and I saw just as many white faces, or mixed race faces (you know, those people who are still HALF WHITE) in those crowds as I did black, asian or a.n.other faces.

But it’s not about the perpetrators or what percentage was foreign or domestic. It’s about the way we choose to react. It’s about the fact that yes, some were black, some were young, some were old, some were women, some were men….the only pattern is that they were all PEOPLE. They all committed the same crimes, so what the hell does their ethnicity or economic standing have to do with it? Don’t bemoan the colour of their skin, bemoan the fact that they were violent, opportunistic tossers.

I know I’ll never get everyone to agree and I’m sure you all have a scathing response to write, stating immigration policy and crime statistics, but I don’t want to be part of a community where colour is more important to people than criminality. It’s not a race issue, it’s a ‘raising your kids the right way’ issue.