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21 November 2005
Subject: An act of kindness
Time: 09:12:38 o'clock GMT
Author: lifeseensideways
I am still really busy and have failed miserably to get around to reading anyone's journal, I'm in the middle of a run of fairs and away from home a lot. Apologies, I'm missing you all and I will get around to visiting soon but I'm not able to do much on my PC other than making labels for new antiques. Business has to come first or we don't eat!
This weekend I did a fair and two young teenage boys arrived on my stand. A couple of stall holders were looking at them a bit suspiciously, maybe becuase one was black ... there is an assumption on some peoples' part that young lads are trouble, and sadly there is racism in Wales like everywhere else.
The blonde one was looking at the coins in my cabinet but they are quite pricey, I drew his attention to a box I have with more pocket-money coins. He was a nice boy and chatted with me. His grandfather ahd bought him a book about coin collecting from a library sale and he knew a bit. He looked carefully at all the coins and chose one. His friend asked him which others he liked and he pointed out two but he'd spent up. Later his friend showed up, pulled out the two coins and paid for them. "Are you going to start coin collecting?" I asked. "No", he replied, "it's his birthday today and they are a surprise present". His friend appeared and he gave the coins to him. The boy was really touched by the kindness of his friend and so was I. I told them what nice polite boys they were and what a lovely gesture that was.
I was talking to someone later and I said "did you see the two lads that came round earlier?" "Yes," came the reply "were they a nuisance to you?" I told him the story of the coins ... I think it taught him not to make assumptions!
Written by lifeseensideways
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18 November 2005
Subject: Hello again.
Time: 16:10:12 o'clock GMT
Author: lifeseensideways
I have 91 alerts in my inbox ... bear with me guys, I'll get around to you all in the next few days. I have been away!
Written by lifeseensideways
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08 November 2005
Subject: A little bit of Italy, in North Wales
Time: 09:33:08 o'clock GMT
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: Campra - reqiuem
I have been to check out a new antiques fair. It is held in the remarkable village of Portmeirion in North Wales. The drive there through Snowdonia was marvellous, plenty of autumnal colours and the white plumes of waterfalls falling from the mountains. We were blessed with a brief respite from the heavy rain which Wales has had for the last two weeks as you can see.
Portmeirion is a village created by one man, Clough William-Ellis. It was built between the 1920s and 1970s and is in the Italian style. It is an bizarre confection and is tucked away on an coastal estuary. The Prisoner, an odd 1960s cult drama was filmed here and it is famous for its pottery. Personally I find it an odd addition to the Welsh coastline, an alien presence, yet at the same time it makes itself at home here.
Enjoy the views!
Written by lifeseensideways
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02 November 2005
Subject: We shall not be mooooooooo-ved!
Time: 08:49:20 o'clock GMT
Author: lifeseensideways
Today marks the start of a three day "milk strike" here in the UK. Some dairy farmers are refusing to sell their milk to supermarkets as a protest against the low prices they are being paid for milk, around 17.5p per litre. They were getting 27p ten years ago. Why the drop? Two reasons, milk imports from Europe and supermarket squeezing margins ever lower for the producer. Since the disbanding of the Milk Marketing Board farmers are at the mercy of the supermarkets, but have the milk prices dropped to the consumer? You bet they haven’t! The dairy takes a cut for processing, the supermarket takes a cut for retailing, fair comment, but if they can sell beans at 9p a tin they can surely sell milk at a price which allows the dairy farmer some pay for his or her efforts.
Dairy farmers work hard, I am surrounded by them here, they are cut to the bone by trying to make cost savings, most of them here are small family operations, their profits see them living very meagrely. They get up very early every single day of the year to do first milking, cows do not know what weekends are. The job is often cold, dark, damp and involves some hard physical work, stress, masses of paperwork and a lot of poo! British farmers have high welfare standards. The farmers in my bit of Wales really look after their “meadow ladies” and they deserve some recognition and a bit more money. There are high suicide rates among farmers, it's a hard and lonely life for the small family farmer. I would hate to see them all replaced by huge corporate businesses, and the countryside would be ruined as a result.
So … as they say, if you ate today thank a farmer! Think about what you buy and where you buy it! Please support your local farmers and growers. Look for natural products that haven’t polluted the environment by being shipped hundreds or thousands of miles, products that respect the animals involved in their production, the environment, and your health.
Written by lifeseensideways
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30 October 2005
Subject: Saturday 6 ... late as usual
Time: 08:27:00 o'clock GMT
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: Henry purcell - A New Ground
1.What is a bigger pet peeve for you: someone trying to talk on a cell phone during a movie, a baby crying in a restaurant, a dog barking on your street, or music played loud enough to rattle windows. I rarely go to a cinema so I can’t say I’ve every experienced the first one, and in the countryside we don’t get a lot of loud music. We do get barking dogs … usually mine. I like dogs, I can handle doggy noise. Baby crying in a restaurant … that would really ruin my meal. It sets my teeth on edge, there’s something deliberately programmed in people to be unable to ignore baby cries, fine if it’s your own, not if it’s someone else’s.
2. What is your favorite cologne or perfume that you wear most often? Which one is the one you like the scent of, but don't wear often or at all? I like Estee Lauder Youth Dew but it’s a bit heavy for daytime so I normally wear Hugo Boss Woman (Boss Woman seems kind of appropriate to my character!).
3. In your opinion, what is the best way to tell someone you value how much they mean to you? Feed them! I bake them a cake or cook them a meal. I find it easier than using words sometimes, words can sound trite or inadequate, a big cake hits the spot! Hint: don’t be my friend if you are a compulsive dieter!
4. Earlier this week, I posted a personality quiz: If you haven't taken it, please do; if you already have, how accurate were the results compared with your true personality. Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful & practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest.
Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it if that trust is ever broken. That’s pretty accurate actually!
5. When was the last time you feel you got as much sleep as you really needed in a single night? Last night … even though I spent some of it awake worrying about all the stuff I have to do, if I have too much sleep I wake up and worry so as not to be just lying there wasting time ...
6. If a stranger walked up to you and handed you a briefcase with enough money to pay off every debt you had down to the penny, do you think you could start from then on living debt-free? No, I’d give lots of it away first, then I’d invest some in my business, then I’d go on a little splurge … and then I’d find it had all gone!
Written by lifeseensideways
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29 October 2005
Subject: Sartorial sniping.
Time: 11:18:22 o'clock BST
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: None for a change.
I’m an old fashioned kinda girl. I like to see a smartly turned out man. My own is very nicely turned out in proper English gent style with tweed jacket, waistcoat etc. I do like fashion, I do like to dress in a striking, contemporary and eye catching way, but I’m not a fashion victim.
So now I am having a rare rant about dress standards on British TV … The issue is neck ties. The tie is a fairly superfluous item of dress you might think; not essential for modesty, not essential for anything. I beg to differ! The tie is in fact a real male essential, not that I expect to see it teamed up with a roll neck sweater or polo shirt … there are times and places for ties, but suddenly that’s all changed.
The rot set in a few months ago and is spreading. Tielessness has now reached epidemic levels in Britain. The tin hat was put on it last night when I watched the hilarious intellectual quiz on the BBC, Stephen Fry’s glorious QI. And there were five men and not a tie between them. Alan Davies could get away with open necked glory, he had a patterned shirt which happily declared casual and relaxed but not so the others.
What offends my eye is the suit, shirt and open neck. A suit says formal, it says businesslike, it says decorum and gravitas and seriousness. The open neck says casual, can’t be bothered, not at work. The two combined are an ill matched combination; a contradiction, and an abomination.
I have just watched Sky News and seen, to my horror, a news presenter sans neckwear but in a smart business suit and white shirt. Ridiculous! Is he at work or not? Am I supposed to take him seriously? His attire sends out conflicting messages and is so distracting I have no idea what he was saying.
Surely the worst offenders are the scraggy necked older men who look frankly uncomfortable and bereft of dignity when encouraged to go bare around the throat. Younger hunks fare equally badly come to think of it. What are we to make of an otherwise smartly dressed young chap with a tuft of chest hair poking out through his formal attire where a tie should be? Urghhh!
It’s nearly winter, it’s chilly now, there is simply no excuse for this sloppiness! Bring back neckwear. So ends my tie-rade!
QED!Stephen Fry on HIGNFY and QI ... before and after tielessness struck.
Written by lifeseensideways
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26 October 2005
Subject: Boooooooooooom!
Time: 16:43:13 o'clock BST
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: Vivaldi
My newly decorated Dad (see below) was given the honour of firing a salute at the Trafalgar Day celebrations. He was in the Royal Artillery and so well qualified. It was a live firing of a Napoleonic era mortar. The first image is the moment before firing, you can see my Dad is doing it with due care! The second is the result ... he is nowhere to be seen on this one having made a quick get away! Hope you enjoy the pictures ... not something you see everyday!
Written by lifeseensideways
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24 October 2005
Subject: My hero
Time: 18:19:05 o'clock BST
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: Campra - Requiem
This is my father being awarded the Canal Zone Medal on Trafalgar Day. He is the one on the left, though it's hard to see the medal he has it pinned on him. It's late being awarded as the British Government took their time recognising the efforts of the British servicemen in the Suez Crisis ... better late than never. I'm proud of him. For his country he got malaria and lost some of his hearing. This was the least they could do to thank him.
Written by lifeseensideways
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17 October 2005
Subject: A country childhood
Time: 09:51:32 o'clock BST
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: A new Ground - Henry Purcell
I'm pushed for time to add to my journal so here's an article I was asked to write recently for a history course. It's about my recollections of a special lady, Mrs Sylvia Grant-Dalton, owner of Brodsworth Hall, now in the care of English Heritage and open to the public. I can recommend a visit if you are ever in Yorkshire.
I attended Brodsworth School, a remarkable village school in many ways. For a dreamy child with a with a well developed sense of the past lingering on into the future it was a perfect place to be educated.
The school itself was a Church First and Middle School with strong links to the village, church and the big house. It had a markedly different feeling to the ordinary colliery village school I attended as an infant. Brodsworth School had a place in its community, a sense of continuity, a place at the heart of the village with traditions which came every year with the seasons.
Spring meant a trip on the back of Mr Morrell’s tractor and trailer up to the woods to pick bunches of daffodils for distribution in the Mothering Sunday service. Autumn brought a similar trip to a field full of Swedes to make Halloween lanterns. Christmas and summer brought the school into contact with Brodsworth Hall, and our beloved Mrs Sylvia Grant-Dalton.
I think some of us thought Mrs Grant-Dalton somehow owned the school. She was viewed with enormous respect, a rather distant figure, friendly, but grand because she lived in a large country house.
The summer visit involved much preparation. We would practice maypole and country dancing, some with greater enthusiasm than others; the older boysparticularly found it less than enjoyable. They were coaxed and cajoled by the indomitable head teacher, Mrs Mary Scott, and theendresult was always excellent. Having reached the required standard of dancing we would take the maypole, its coloured bands and weighted base down the road in a long, excited and apprehensive procession along the road towards the hall. By the time we reached the “big tree”, a venerable old elm that stood near the entrance to the stables and church hill we were quiet.
The climb up to the hall, past gloomy overgrown rhododendrons and shiny evergreens increased the sense of entering a different world. For me it was like walking back in time. At the top we emerged onto the sunny plain that was the lawn on the garden front of the house. Here the maypole was solemnly erected and the great lady would emerge from the house with her companion and dogs. The dogs ran round and met us. I remember them clearly; white poodles, with curly, woolly fur, threadbare in places and revealing scabs. My natural awe for the inhabitant of such a grand house did not prevent me from referring to her, in her absence, as Sylvia Scratty-Poodle.
The dancing would begin, those not taking part would sit on the grass and watch the slow weaving of the coloured ribbons until they magically created a colourful canopy, the dancers then reversed and the creation was unpicked to another folk tune. Mrs Grant-Dalton sat in a chair at the head of proceedings, peered over her spectacles, and smiled appreciatively.
At the end plastic cups of highly dilute orange squash were given out to the children, we would pack up, and go back. I don’t ever remember being told the reason for the ritual of taking the maypole to the hall. I assumed it was some form of payment for her patronage.
At Christmas we were all given the task of writing personal letters to her. “Dear Mrs Grant-Dalton” was written up on the board and the rest we did ourselves, once in draft, once in “best” with suitable illustrations. We were encouraged to write about our interests and hobbies. This was to give her some indication of what might make a suitable present for at the school Christmas party.
We would all dress in our party clothes, dance traditional dances, eat fish paste sandwiches and little buns, and then we were called out in turn to meet Mrs Grant-Doulton. I remember so well my personal audiences with her at the Christmas parties. I felt as though I were meeting a very elevated and important lady and I was on my best behaviour. I still have the book on pets she presented me with one year, inscribed inside to me with her best wishes. She had an uncanny knack of using the letters to find exactly the right present, and very generous presents they were. We were genuinely grateful. Of course, in our excitement, we didn’t always wait to open the gifts until Christmas day but we always wrote thank you letters on our return to school in January.
Looking back I can see how archaic this all was for the 1970s. None of it would have been out of place a century earlier. I feel privileged to have experienced being part of such a special place.
Written by lifeseensideways
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13 October 2005
Subject: Heavy weather
Time: 08:59:47 o'clock BST
Author: lifeseensideways
Music: Billie Holiday
I have a groaning inbox full of alerts and I’ve been too busy to do anything about it until now. I’ll be back on my rounds shortly!
We have had a bit of rain here, a months worth in a couple of hours, with resulting flooding. The house is unaffected but it made rather a mess of the land and garden, and the bridge over the stream blocked with slate shale, mud and bits of tree so the water went over it rather than under. I solved it eventually by standing under the waterfall (exhilarating!) and rodding it through, bit by bit with the handle of a garden rake, then digging some stone out and doing the same from the blocked end. When the sucking noise started I took that as my cue to get clear … watching the resultant hole appearing and the high powered, stone laden jet at the other end confirmed this was a good thing to have done. So I have been sodden (again) and grubby but no harm done.
At one time I might have complained but I remained cheerful as the rains drenched me and the combined stone, soil and water from several fields arrived in my garden on a raging torrent. At least I’m not in South America, or New Orleans, or the Tsunami, or the Asian earthquake. This year nature seems to have been particularly savage. Maybe she is just having her revenge … we are messing up our planet also.
My friend with family in Pakistan has now heard that all are safe and were unaffected but by a few tremors, they were out of the worst area. The only thing that happened there was the shaking of houses and the wall in her sister in law’s kids’school collapsed but thankfully no-one was near it at the time. Here is an extract from her email with her thoughts:
On my last visit to Pakistan we actually visited Muzzafrahbad, it
was beautiful, so much greenery and breathtaking scenery, its such a shame.
Wholegeneration of a family just wiped out in seconds. Saturday morning, when
it happened it didn't seem so bad, but the more you see the more your heart
goes out these families.
She goes on to ask how God can be so cruel and what is his plan here. It’s a question many people, of many faiths, will be asking.
Written by lifeseensideways
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