A Moment of Silence

(image from here)

Today is Armistice Day and at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month I will be observing a moment's silence.

Today it is also 5 years since my Nana passed away. I can’t believe it has been so long. I miss her everyday.

Random Question

Which side of the bed do you sleep on?
Last week O and I watched the first episode of the BBC series Wonderland, The British in Bed (via iPlayer). The programme interviewed British couples, about their relationships, while they were in bed.

We both loved the elderly couple who had been married for 40+ years and were absolutely hilarious. Almost as soon as the programme started O noticed that some of the couples sleep on the wrong side of the bed, by wrong I mean different from us.

As you look at the bed I sleep on the left and O sleeps on the right (opposite to the picture). This is the same as both our parents and about 99% of the other couples we know. My sister #2 is actually the only person I know who doesn’t sleep on the right (i.e. left) side of the bed.

Remembrance Sunday

I’m not sure I have the words.
It has been a horrific week for those in the armed services and my thoughts are with them and their families.

I disagreed with us entering this war but we are there now and I would never want to take away from the amazing work that is being done. These men and women are doing work I can not comprehend with bravery and dignity I would not be able to muster.

Today I will remember those who fought and were taken, those who fight on through injury and adversity and those who are on the frontline.

Thank you

Poorly* Sick

I’ve had the** cold all week, I thought I was successfully battling through but then after three nights of barely any sleep I was hit by a fever yesterday. Having a high temperature has made me feel unbelievably pathetic. I’ve taken obscene amounts of paracetamol to try to control it to no avail. O is away this weekend which is not helping the patheticness – means I have to make my own chicken soup and fetch my own hot water bottles.

And yes I’m blatantly fishing for sympathy.

(from here)

* According to O I don’t pronounce poorly correctly. I say pauly (which I think is the Yorkshire accent) where as O says poo-rly.
**Scottishism, the Scots seem to have ‘the’ cold rather than ‘a’ cold.

It has taken me a while to write this post. (This is not about anything that has ever happened to me).

My friend Sarah* is the oldest of three sisters, she comes from a loving family and has what most people would call a normal happy upbringing. She is a strong, independent and courageous woman as is her younger sister. However her youngest sister Nicola for some reason has always been troubled. She was badly bullied at High School and left home at 16 claiming to have been kicked out (not true). She has never gone back to her parent’s home and moved in with her older boyfriend, she is now 19.


When we got off the plane in London last week I received a text message from Sarah to say that Nicola had been beaten unconscious by her boyfriend. It made me feel sick. But I knew that this wasn’t the first time he had beaten her. Sarah has agonised about how to get through to Nicola.


She told me about a conversation they’d had when she begged Nicola to leave and asked why she stayed. Nicola’s response – “I love him and it happens in all relationships doesn’t it. I mean can you seriously tell me that Chris (Sarah’s boyfriend) has never raised his hand to you?”


Nicola is lucky to the extent that her friends had been in the house earlier and had seen that things were not going well. When Nicola’s boyfriend kicked them out of the house they called the police. Nicola came round to the police light being shined in her eyes. He spent the weekend in the cells and was up in court first thing on the Monday morning. Sarah hopes that this will be the wake up call that Nicola means to get away and stay away – even though Nicola is stubbornly independent and after being discharged from hospital she insisted on going back to the flat that they shared, as it is her home. The system however seems to be mixed up. Firstly the police called Nicola and asked that she bring fresh clothes and belongings for his court appearance. This just seems ridiculous to me, of all the people to call, his victim? Secondly he has been released on bail because he pleaded not guilty – I don’t know the legal system and I’m coming at this from a purely emotional stance. But a man beats a young woman unconscious and he is allowed to walk free from jail after two days because he says he didn’t do it. Sarah has learned from their lawyer that this is a legal loophole at the main hearing he will probably plead guilty for a reduced sentence.


It makes me angry that a young woman believes that being hit is part of a loving relationship. It makes me angry that the legal system doesn’t seem to be able to protect her. It makes me angry that there is nothing I can do to help. It makes me angry that I can’t make him feel as scared and powerless as he has her. It makes me appreciate the loving, supportive relationship that I have with O. It makes me appreciate the fact that, to my knowledge, my Mum, my sisters and my friends have never been victims of domestic violence. It makes me grateful for the shelters and women that support victims of domestic violence.

* I’ve made the names up but the story and emotions are real

Blog Award

Thank you to the lovely Rebecca for this award.

10 things about me - physically

1. I have very thick curly brown hair. From when I was born to approx 6 year old I had blonde curls (I remember the dinner ladies at school calling me Goldilocks), from the age of 6 to 10 I had mousy brown, straight with a kink hair. When I was 10 I had my hair permed (it was the fashion). The perm never went away and I’ve had curly hair ever since, I’m just about coming to terms with the fact that I was pre-destined to have curly hair and it wasn’t the perm’s fault.

2. I dislike my curly hair but O loves it. I came home having had my hair straightened at the hair dressers, he saw me with straight hair for the first time and freaked out. He refused to look at me because I looked so different.

3. I have dark blue eyes. O has incredibly piercing pale blue eyes (they make me swoon).

4. I have my Dad’s nose which handily comes with a shelf for my glasses to sit on! (If I were to ever have plastic surgery it’d be a nose job).

5. I have large hands. I should be good at the piano however having tried to learn for many years when I was younger I just don’t have any musical talent.

6. I have deceptively large tatty bojangles that I don’t like showing off. (Love Russell Howard)

7. I have a long torso. I discovered this while lining up for school photos. We had to line up in height order and then when we sat down I had to get moved as I was taller when sat than those next to me.

8. I had my belly button pierced when I was 18.

9. My skin is a very pale blue colour. I don’t tan. The only time I have ever tanned, to the extent that you would notice (rather than just comparing the white bits) was when I spent 3 weeks in Italy after 1 week on a water sports holiday in France. Seriously 4 weeks in the sun and I managed a vague tan.

10. My second and third toe on my right foot are slightly webbed (no it doesn’t help with swimming). Do you remember the socks that had individual toes? They were a total nightmare for me.

So I now have to pass this on to 10 other lovely blogs:


Anna and the Ring (welcome back)
Our day by Design
Some Vague Utopia
Seven Weddings (Gee’s getting married this month eeek! Congratulations)
Dreaming of an Aga
Adventures of a lady in training

Now I'm going to cheat because some of the blogs that I love most, that along with the above blogs I will always read first have already had this award (Thank you ladies).

Buhdoop
Conversation Pieces
You can’t take it with you
Daydreams in lace

Rain Rain Go Away

(from here)

My thoughts and sympathies are with those affected by the flooding in the North East of Scotland this weekend.

Seriously have we not had enough rain already?

Our wedding date

So last weekend before we left for London we contacted our venue and asked to reserve our date 11/09/2010 (remember the angst). They said they didn’t usually do that and required a deposit to secure the date. After I explained we were going to be away they promised that they would phone if anyone else expressed an interest in the date, essentially giving us first refusal and that we should come in on Sunday, when we were back, to pay the deposit. Having not heard anything and checked that all our family would be available we went to pay the deposit. Only to be told by a very shame faced manager that they’d given our date to someone else – another couple had turned up cash in hand and they went with them instead of phoning us. We were stunned (I felt physically sick) and very angry, but what were we to do. We love the venue we didn’t like any other venue the same way. So all we could do was ask what other dates were available. It is funny that in a week we’d become so attached to a date that was arbitrarily assigned to us because that was what the venue had available.


So it turns out we are now getting married at the end of July 2010! Argh so soon, scary soon, so much to arrange. Turns out that, that it would have been my paternal Nana and Granddad’s 65th wedding anniversary, it would have also been O’s Granddad’s birthday so it does have significance for us (#1 got married on my maternal Nana and Granddad’s wedding anniversary so I guess we are carrying on the tradition). Unfortunately also means that one of O’s best friends will not be able to attend. He is in the merchant navy and is only in the UK 4 months a year which unfortunately doesn’t cover July. Give us a week though I’m fairly sure we’ll be as attached to this date as we were the other date. We’ve checked that there is a registrar available to marry us, hopefully there will be a photographer, florist and band etc…..

For the wildly curious, I'd rather not reveal the exact location of our venue but I will describe it as best I can in an upcoming post!

Happy House Anniversary

(image from here via here)

We got the keys to our little home 3 years ago today!

I wish my home looked like this photo, including the balloons.

Over the last 3 years we have very slowly decorated each of the rooms in the flat (4 so far). I’ve seen more woodchip wallpaper than I’d ever care for – it was even under the bathroom tiles (who does that?).

We’ve just got the kitchen to go (nothing like saving the best till last).

Oh and the rooms that we have finished need a new coat of paint. The lining paper we put up instead of paying for a plasterer seems to have sucked up all the paint.

Last Week

So O and I spent last week in London at #1’s house looking after my niece (E) and nephew (B). We had a great time – I just hope the kids did too. What we got up to:


Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!


We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!


Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!


I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).