Waving the flag for the NHS

I don't often get political in public, I don't like confrontation and nothing is more likely to raise peoples' hackles except, perhaps, religion. Some things, however, are just too important to ignore. Since the post war years the UK has been the envy of the world for its nationalised healthcare system, but now it is under threat and, except for one lone voice,nobody I know seems to have even noticed. Once I realised how big a threat this was to the one thing about all others that makes me proud of my country I had to do something, however small, so please read the following information, if you're in the UK sign the E-petition and pass on the details to everyone you know who has ever benefited from the NHS.

Thank you

Our treasured NHS is under threat. We believe that proposals in the new White Paper will break-up NHS services. At the heart of the NHS should be patients, but business motives are cutting deeply into the fairness, quality and value that we have come to expect. It is crucial for the public and NHS staff to join in opposing these proposals.

The NHS is already making £20bn of tough savings. So when jobs and services are under threat and waiting lists likely to rise, why waste £3bn on reforms that staff don’t want and which will make the NHS we know unrecognisable. Many people are now joining together to stand up for the NHS, so why not find out more and join them.

Sign the national petition at: http://www.nhscampaign.org/white-paper-comment/e-petition.html

Happiness, the greatest gift that I possess

Firstly - sorry about the title. I can never resist a rhyme or a song quote and that one kind of forced it's way in as soon as I typed the word 'happiness'.

My friend Laura sent me an e-mail recommending the following blog to me: The Happiness Project and reading it inspired me to send an e-mail to my husband to tell him how much he added to my happiness. I had been wondering what to blog about today, but the mail I sent to him (with all the soppy bits cut out) seemed like a ready-made post, so I hope he won't mind that I copy/pasted the following from the mail I sent him.

I've sat and read a few posts on it and mindfulness came up - do you know what that is? It's something I need to keep an eye on, I think. It's basically staying aware of yourself and the moment you're in - that if you want to spend the morning lying on the sofa eating chocolate cake and reading a trashy novel (to pick an example out of the clear blue sky ;-)) then that's fine and it will add to your happiness - as long as you've made a conscious decision to do it over anything else.

Does that make sense? It means that if you've done all the important things you need to do, or have prioritised and decided that they're less important than lying on the sofa etc, then lying on the sofa is a great way to promote your happiness. If, however, you're only half concentrating on the sofa-lying whilst the rest of your brain is occupied with the things you 'should' be doing, then you're getting in your own way.

So I'm going to empty the dishwasher (hurrah - we have a dishwasher here! Love the new gaff!), wipe down the kitchen counters, clean the litter tray (bleurk) and hang the washing out and then I'm going to, say, cut myself a large slice of chocolate cake and take my Georgette Heyer to the sofa (just as an example, y'know...!)

One Hundred!

Well, I felt I needed to mark the occasion of my one hundredth post somehow... so consider it marked.

I have managed to put aside the uselessness for today and not only did I shower and dress *as soon as I got out of bed* (and not, for example, after Loose Women), I also hung a wash out, took the post into town and set myself up for wife of the year award.

Hubby has been in need of some new shoes, but this was put to the bottom of the 'to do' list due to the more urgent items like moving house and switching over all the utilities. Buying him new shoes is not the easiest task in the world anyway, as he works 9-5 all weekdays and has an all-consuming hobby which consumes him all day every Saturday. With our most local town being a very cute market town which, adorably, observes Sunday closing still, this makes his opportunity to buys shoes almost non-existent, unless he wants a (not so foot-healthy) plastic pair from Tesco, I have to put on my personal shopper hat and bring things home for him to try, then return the rejects the next day.

Impressively, the well known chain I chose to patronise today (hello my good shop etc) were marking down all the sales pairs as I entered, so I grabbed two inoffensive size 11 black pairs, one laced, one slip-on, and was more than a little chuffed with the c.£47 price for the two together. Bargain. Let's hope at least one pair meet with approval.

Let's face it, doing this sort of personal shopper act for hubby sounds like a lot of faff - not least because it requires twice the number of trips to the shops, but it has two major advantages.
1- Not having to drag a -frankly- rather grumpy 29 year old man round the shops as he acts more like a 3 year old on the verge of a major tantrum.
2- By providing him with a small choice one gets to exert an influence over the clothing he wears without the accompanying accusation that one is trying to dress him or change him. Not that I do want to change him, but let's face it - I take far more interest in clothing and appearance than he does, so it's nice to have a hand in it, because who wants to leave that to the disinterested?

So - happy 100th post!

Turning uselessness into an artform.

Julie/Julia: what a delightful film. I'm watching it at the moment as I contemplate the few pitiful chores I have remaining to do and wondering whether I am really earning my keep as an unemployed wife (aka housewife). I mean, the flat is clean - it's much easier to keep clean than the old house - we have a full 'fridge, cake in the tin, emergency dinners in the freezer: what have I left to do to make myself useful? The only thing that needs ironing is a bunch of pillow cases that aren't going to be used for yonks and other than that it's personal projects - knitting/sewing/crochet etc which I love, but a) make a lot of mess and b) make me feel a tad guilty for devoting my time to something that benefits only me.

Of course... I say all this, but there *is* something I ought to be doing. I ought to be in town getting stamps so I can post stuff off, then I need to post it. But do I want to leave the flat in this awful cold weather? Do I heck. I think the post may have to fester in my handbag for one more day. I am a bad wife.

Now, in celebration of this blog being once more expanded I have decided to create another little list, because we all know how much I love them :-)

Reasons I am longing for Spring

1- We have no central heating and it's bitterly cold.
2- Did I mention the cold? And the lack of central heating?
3- The view is dreary (See below). I want sunshine and colour. Flowers and leaves of the most astonishing bright green. Something to look at when I go for walks. Already there are pussy willows and catkins - little silver velvet buds and delicate yellow earrings hanging from every slender branch and I am tense with excitement at the prospect of snowdrops, crocii, hyacinths, primroses, almond blossom, cherry blossom, mimosa, horse chestnut candles - oh - I'm sighing with longing just at the thought of it.
4- Hubby's probationary period at work will be up and that tiny little seed of uncertainty that insists on persisting despite my unshakeable confidence in his general wonderfulness can be thrown out and we can make a few decisions about our future in some kind of security - or as much as one can have in the current climate.
5- My birthday. Which I am determined to enjoy despite the fact it marks being another year older. It's a day to celebrate me and eat cake. That can't be bad.
6- Hubby turns 30. I am going to spoil him rotten and he will start the best decade of his life with a wonderful celebration.
7- I can dig out all my pretty-coloured spring clothing and finally stop wearing hubby's navy blue zip-up fleece which is very cosy, but unflattering to wear and probably rather in need of a wash.
8- I can leave the window open and the boys can let themselves in and out: this has two benefits. a) I don't have to act as their porter, letting them in and out ad infinitum ad nauseum b) if they can let themselves in and out then they will hopefully use the outside loo and I will not have to clean out their stinky stinky litter tray twice a day which is my *least* favourite chore.
9- Longer days. Hubby will come home in daylight and we can go for walks together and enjoy our new, carefree life.
10- Did I mention the horrible horrible cold? And the one, very expensive, plug-in electric heater? Warmer weather will not only be infinitely more pleasant, but significantly cheaper.

The view from my window yesterday morning when the sun shone, which improved the dreary winteriness considerably.


And now I'm done writing today's blog and will return to contemplating my navel. Anyone have any suggestions for something useful to do?

Oh - and guess what? The baby that hat was a gift for was born the day after I gave it to his mummy - ten days early! Welcome to the world baby Cameron.

New Year, New Hopes

I know it's been a while since I last updated. 2010 turned out to be a very turbulent year, with four family deaths, me on and off the work merry-go-round and lots of ill health. In November, though, hubby got offered a new job that required us to move counties and on the 1st Jan this year we took up residence in Oxfordshire. As you can imagine it wasn't the most relaxing of Christmas holidays, but it did mean that we got to start 2011 in an entirely new place, with a new house, new job, new prospects. We're hopeful that this year will be less of an upheaval and that last year's turbulence has paved the way for this year's peace and prosperity.

In crafty news I have worked on a couple of projects whilst I've been off-blog, including a rather lovely patchwork advent calendar for Hubby's anniversary present (2 years: cotton. There's method in my madness). I will try and photograph it soon and link to the blog that provided the inspiration.

In the meantime, however, here's a picture of the little baby hat I made over the last fortnight. It's a Debbie Bliss pattern for a garter stitch hat with a rolled edge. The primrose and cross stitching was partly because I love to embellish and partly because I dropped a couple of stitches that I didn't manage to successfully pick up again, so needed to disguise them, but I kind of like the effect :-)


I hope to keep up with the blog a bit more in the future, especially since I am, once again, a full-time housewife. I am also lucky enough to now be looking out onto fields and horses rather than tower blocks and the backs of other houses, so expect some lovely scenic photos, particularly once spring starts - the view is a tad dreary atm, but I fully expect it to blossom into something spectacular once it warms up a bit.

Don't Panic!

OK, maybe I'm over simplifying here, but how is a 'panic button' helpful when dealing with the subtle, long-term grooming of young people by paedophiles? Surely the whole reason that predators are able to achieve the results they desire is because the intended victims don't actually realise they are being targetted.

Fine, so now they have an easy way of alerting the authorities if someone creeps them out, but I've been a teenager and now I volunteer with them: don't tell me that some of them aren't going to find it hilariously amusing to report their friends and family just for the hell of it?

It sounds like a simplistic answer to a complex problem, but kudos to facebook for getting some good publicity out of it. It sure beats the privacy issues they've been in the news for recently. Time will tell if it's anything more than a bit of makeup on an ugly scar.

The play's the thing!

I think I've commented before on how life goes in circles for me, with my passion bouncing around and lighting on one thing for a while, and then on another, then another, and eventually back to my original love. Well, it's been a long time since the theatre held my fancy, ten years, near as dammit, because it's not since school that I've been involved with it.

More recently it's been photography, or writing, or knitting, or sewing, or cooking, but ten years ago it was the thrill of setting up a play, planning the costumes, makeup, hair, helping the stage crew and lighting guys by passing them tools and fetching things - I adored the teamwork, camaraderie, adrenaline rush of putting something together for the public to see, without the stomach churning hell of having to go on-stage.

Right now I'm watching 'When Romeo Met Juliet'. To quote the BBC website:-

One city, eight weeks and two contrasting schools come together to put on a professional production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In a unique experiment, each school is cast as one of the two feuding families at the heart of the world's favourite love story.

Romeo and his Montague clan come from a Coventry city centre comprehensive while Juliet and the Capulets are from a Catholic school in the city's northern suburbs. Trying to get the show on the road is artistic director of the National Youth Theatre, Paul Roseby. Also on hand as mentors - one for each school - are Hustle actor and RADA-trained Shakespeare fan Adrian Lester and his wife, actress Lolita Chakrabarti. Can they help the teenage cast overcome their preconceptions about Shakespeare, and work with each other, to create a Romeo and Juliet for a new generation, iambic pentameter and all?

For a start I just love the fact that these are two schools that I'm familiar with through my voluntary work with young people in Coventry - I keep looking out for kids that I know (haven't spotted one yet mind). It's made me realise how much I've adopted Coventry as my home town now - I'm getting so excited to see it on the TV, feeling so proud that they're doing this here. I've really settled in now and it's going to hurt if we ever have to move...

Secondly - it's reminding me of the rush I used to feel helping get productions off the ground. I miss it. I've applied for a job that might let me experience something of that thrill again and I really *really* want it. Watching this has just prodded me into realising how badly. Dangerous position to be in - bad enough to be rejected for a job that one only wants mentally, but to be rejected for a job that one has become emotionally attached to? I wonder if I ought to start stockpiling chocolate and tissues now, just in case...?

I know that a job is just a way of making money so one can live, but I would so love a job that could be part of my *living*. One that I can engage with and feel truly passionate about. Too much to ask? I'll let you know :-)