It seemed to make sense at the time

Someone asked me about my expression "after the Lord Mayors show" the other day. I attempted to explain that it means that all things come to an end, sometimes messily. The full saying is ""after the Lord Mayors show, comes the man with the cart and the shovel". Presumably in the days of the horse and carriage, to clean up the manure.... Its one of those family sayings that don't always make sense to outsiders. We have another, that when pouring a drink, we used to say "just up to the duck", based on a child' s drinking glass with a cartoon duck on it that we used to have at home. Please tell me if you have expressions like that in your family.

My mother was/ is prone to spoonerisms. She will say something and will only realise that she has said something wrong when the giggles start. Her best one was waliking through Skegness and we noted a Hotel called "Alan a Dale". This started a discussion about Robin Hood and his merry men and we started to name them. Mom chipped in with "Friar Tuck", only it came out as "Try a ......."

One of my my families constant source of amusement was going on holiday. My parents were not good travellers. Like many Brummies we went to Skegness every year. We would set out very early (4-6am) to "avoid the traffic. We would pass through Leicestershire and Lincolnshire in the dark, to arrive in Boston just as the docks were opening. We would come to a roundabout with three junctions, and every year would take the wrong turning without fail, and would have to make an embarrassing tour around the docks to turn round.

We were used to being embarrassed in the car. My dad had an orange Mark 1 Morris Marina estate, a car that was so bad the motoring press urged British Leyland not to launch it. It was an embarrassing car in a decade of embarrassing cars. Still it means we were never fearful of it being stolen...

My mothers inability to tell left from right always made map reading difficult. She would often wave her hands in front of my dad's face to indicate the right direction. This used to annoy my father and we would sit in the back of the car and wait for the explosion. I think I learn't most of my swearwords that way. She also used to watch the road whilst passing my dad things, which was slightly inconvenient when he ended up with a boiled sweet up his nose, but more concerning when it was a lit cigarette.

I was 17 before I even went on a plane. When we graduated to package holidays we still had fun. My dad never smiled on photos, which meant that he ended up looking like an eastern block communist leader at a funeral, or a serial killer. We went into town to have our passport pictures taken at the Woolworth's store. Dad's came out of the machine, and it must have been five minutes before my brother and I could speak after being paralysed with laughter. Every border we went thought it would be passed around the immigration staff with comments and pointing.

My mother watched "Midnight Express" the night before our first Spanish holiday. Coupled with a bad experience her parents had had when going through customs returning from Spain (my Grandfather attempted to smuggle back lots of cheap Spanish cigarettes and got caught at the airport). She therefore expected to be whisked off to a third world jail at the drop of a hat. She understandably got nervous going through customs, which meant we got stopped...

One trip back, were were pulled over by customs and our bags opened. The customs officer found a parcel at the bottom of the suitcase, wrapped in plastic bags. He asked my mother what it was and got a panicking " I don't know". It turned out to be 10 days worth of my underwear that I had placed there just before leaving the hotel.

I wonder if in 30 years time there will be someone blogging about all my little foibles. I only hope that I'm alive to read them, and can post a comment!

Labels: family. live music, spoonerisms

I haven't posted anything for a while, so I thought I would give a brief summary of the last 3 months. It might work better if you imagine this as one of those time lapse films eg "London to Brighton in 2 minutes", or a prologue in a 2 part TV drama, where a smooth voice says "Previously on (insert name of program).

Since my last post were have enjoyed/ survived the long 6 weeks holiday. My wife has a flexible hours contract so is able to take annual leave/ time owing over the summer so we do not have problems with childcare. I was able to take more time off than normal as I have reduced my hours to four days a week.

Highlights of the holiday included a trip to Southampton, where we stopped overnight at a Travel lodge and went exploring in the Hampshire area. We were a family of 4 as my son was stopping with his grandmother, so we fitted easily into a "family room". As a family of 5 we frequently find there is an assumption that families are 2 adults and 2 children and facilities/food stuffs and events price things accordingly. In hotels there is normally a pause and then a comment offering us two rooms or a fold up bed crammed in the corner. Natalie has a friend in the Southampton area so he came along with us.

We also went to Stowemarket to see my brother and his partner. We left after work, on the day that the major route to East Anglia from the Midlands had a major hold up and 30 miles of stationary traffic around Cambridge. We ended up driving to Luton and going on a detour from there... We arrived late, tired and hungry. My brothers partner produced a fantastic supper within minutes and a great cooked breakfast the next day. I can only compare it to the fantastic feasts described by Enid Blyton in the famous five books, where they call at a farmhouse and leave with a hamper full of stuff from the farmers wife (always without paying I seem to remember)

We went to France as usual for our main summer holiday. We spent nearly two weeks driving down to the Dordogne via Normandy and the Loire valley. We stopped for 4 days in Normandy, an night in the Loire, and then the rest of the time in caravan in the Dordogne.

My wife does the majority of the driving (as she is a terrible passenger) which leaves yours truly doing the navigating. This normally involves me sitting in the front seat, surrounded by pieces of paper and a map, trying to work out what "toutes directions" means and being shouted at. There is a scene in a film called the Incredibles which features a family of superheroes. Towards the end of the film Mr and Mrs Incredible have to drive into the city center to save the day, and they end up having an argument about which is the best way to get there. At this point in the film my children all started giggling and pointing saying "that's just like mom and dad!"

This year to try and avoid this we invested in a satellite navigation system and paid extra for the detailed map of France which I tried to install at the last minute. This was a mistake as the instillation software defaulted to using the drive with the biggest amount of space and installed the maps onto my portable hard drive at home. The sat nav had basic maps of France built in, so we could navigate between major towns and cities. It certainly helped except when we were directed onto a motorway that was in the process of being built. The unit then sulked for 5 miles, telling us repeatedly to turn around and go back in a school teacher sort of voice. Great I thought, another bossy woman in the car.....

My wife has been wanting to go the Dordougne for over 20 years, to explore the prehistoric painted caves of the region. They feature in the Clan of the Cave Bear series by Jean M Auel, and are linked to the religion and beliefs of the people of the books. So we spent 2 days going around painted caves, going to Lascaux and to Font de Gaume as well as exploring the region and relaxing around the pool. A relaxing and almost stress free holiday, apart from a 9 hour drive on the last but one day!

So it was home for school and work. I got home to discover that I was expected at work on the Monday. However, I was in France and not home until Tuesday morning so there was a lot of apologising to do oops!!

Labels: anxiety, family. live music, holidays

I have always enjoyed reading accounts of peoples lives and their blogs. Here is my bottle thrown into the digital cyber ocean.

I have contributed to the one day in history blog, which is a project to create the biggest blog in history for the use of future historians and as a record of life in Britain in 2006 (for further details see http://www.historymatters.org.uk/output/page96.asp) but have repeated it here for my own blog.

I noted that I havent posted anything since July, where does the time go? In my case in the normal everyday round of work, family church and stuff.

Today was an unusual day as I have been signed of sick for 4 weeks with stress. I have had medication which has helped. I am trying to avoid taking any medication, but managing it myself with relaxation, guided thoughts and prayer. There is no one big reason why I am feeling like this, just a chronic buildup of stress at home and at work. I am planning to spend my time relaxing and catching up on all the things that you usually don't have time for, like writing something in my blog.....

So instead of going to work I went driving around doing jobs, went to a first appointment with my counselor. I collected a match ticket for my team Aston Villa, delivered it to a friend, and then treated myself to a fantastic sandwich from the best sandwich shop in Birmingham called Phipott's. I had a coronation chicken sandwich and a prawn and avacado wrap, ate half of each and saved the rest for today.

Then did some housework and spent time with the family. Dropped my daughter off at a church children's group and then went to a prayer meeting. My faith is very important to me and is really helping at the moment. A small group of us meet together monthly to pray for two particular people involved in missionary work The group has developed into a support mechanism for the people involved and we have seen prayers answered and God moving in a mighty way

Bed at about 1130 without any sleeping pills which was good

Labels: anxiety, aston villa, blog, church