Horror of horrors, there is no hot water in my house. The immersion heater has been leaking for a couple of days and thanks to a supply of towels to rival any health spa, we have managed to save the floorboards - and the ceiling of the room below. His Majesty has battled bravely all day firstly trying to fix the existing tank and secondly by buying a new tank.. the old one refused to be mended.
As I start a new programme of study on Monday evening I needed to go into the city to buy the three set texts. I also wanted a little look at some nice yarns in the department store. H.M. being so busy, I went by bus. After all, it more or less stops at the end of my crescent (street) it would be daft not to take advantage of it. It certainly took advantage of me! The last time I travelled by bus it cost £3.50 for a day return ticket. The driver asked for £6. I had £5 in cash. No matter, I paid for a one way trip, after all I could pop to the 'hole in the wall' and get the return fare when I got there.
By car the journey takes about forty minutes. One and a half hours later and several chapters of Thomas Hardy I arrived, too stiff to move, hungry and needing the toilet. Ah well.
Straight to the cathedral book shop. Oh dear, all of my required texts are sold out. I ordered them and left, passing the 'Big Issue' seller.
" 'Haven't sold one all day love" he said.
I scrambled about in my purse, £1.90 something.
'They're £2.50 love' he added. I told him that I'd pick one up on the way back to the bus stop, walked about 100 yards and thought better of it, returned and gave him what was left in my purse. I may not see him on the way back to the bus stop, and I could get to the bank machine - he couldn't. I didn't take a magazine. They used to be £1. Inflation hits everyone!
No books and no yarn later it was time for the trip home. One bus at 17.31 and another at 18.01. Missed one, too early for the other....ooooh here one comes, 17.50. Work that one out.
Settled into a seat with the Kindle and began to sink into the novel again but the little child in the seat in front began to leap up and down and shriek. He was around two and a half years old with a gorgeous mop of curls and the brightest brown eyes I have ever seen. Mum looked dreadful, exhausted, drawn and ill. She was. Poor lady has the current flu bug. Jamilla and I sang all the way home. We sang about black sheep, wheels on the bus, Postman Pat, Bob the Builder, Miss Polly's dolly, Humpty Dumpty and a host of other top ten hit with tots. Mum took the opportunity to take her flu medication while Jamilla and I took the opportunity to discuss the sand and water play at his playschool. They left the bus in the village before mine, she looking a little better and he waving goodbye. Kindle and I became reacquainted and as I settled back into the story a voice behind me said
'You getting on alright with that darling?'
'A leading question' thought I, and replied ' yes, its great, got it for Christmas. Smashing on the bus. Can't replace a real book though, not the same'. Right answer. Gentleman works for a book distributor. It's always good to agree with people on a bus!
The day had faded into darkness when I alighted just around the corner from my house. H.M. had worked all day on the hot water system and we managed a couple of baked potatoes with cheese before he went to bed. The simple stuff is always the best.
And me? Well, I've been cared for by my lovely husband, mindful that I like to shower in hot water, snuggled by Poppy Chihuahua, I've been 'loved' by a homeless magazine seller and 'darlinged' by a warehouse packer. But most of all, I've been appreciated by a small miracle, a little boy with curly hair and brown twinkling eyes. What more could I want?
Saturday, 3 March 2012
Friday, 2 March 2012
Barred of soap
Gifts. Gifts are special, special to receive and special reminders of who gave us them. Usually gifts are welcome and appreciated but we all have experience of a gift that we might not have liked, or even one that insulted us in some way.
I love giving and receiving gifts and I try to take as much care of those I receive as possible, and to appreciate both the gift and the giver.
Today I have thrown away a gift. I've half-used it, disliked it, and thrown away a perfectly good gift. In the bin. Gone. Dissolved, deleted, eliminated. Oh what bravery!
It was a bar of soap, a simple bar of soap. Being a lady who appreciates lovely smellies as gifts - soaps are treasured. As children my sisters and I were well scrubbed with a bar of rough red stuff called carbolic (excuse the spelling if you know better). I can smell it now. Very coal tar - ish. I quite liked the smell. We would watch TV adverts for more beautiful and less utilitarian soaps such as Lux or Camay. Camay came in PINK. Important to three sisters used only to rough red slabs of scrub-a-dub-dub, cold water, kitchen sink and a shared towel. How we dreamt of such luxury as Camay.
'It's scenty' my mother would say 'No good for your skin. It will give you spots'.
Now children know what spots are. Itchy things with names such as Chicken Pox or German Measles. We'd had them and we didn't want them again, so we acquiesced and stopped piping about Camay and Lux, and, luxury of luxuries - Pears.
As teens luxury soaps became ours as friends and families moved their gifts to us from toys to more adult offerings. How we delighted in them. They were indeed 'scenty' and needed to kept well away from one's glorious complexion, but we loved them all the same. Later I became an Avon lady and would furnish my bathroom with soaps which reflected the changing seasons, always of course using a mild and gentle soap on my own babies and certainly not carbolic.
The gift I disposed of was a scented bar of soap which my subconscious presented as precious and needing to be used to the last tit bit . It was given by a Not Friend. That is someone who pretended to love me but didn't. This Not Friend was only too able to target me as someone to emotionally blackmail and bully...yes, you have read about her before. Anyway, the Not Friend has gone now but sadly some of the damage she caused lives on still. Why is she a Not FRIEND? Because she told me how fond she was of me whilst wreaking her trail of destruction, that's why. A friend? Not.
Remember the song 'I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair'? Well, using the soap I thought would wash the Not friend out of my mind. It hasn't. It serves as a daily reminder, and not only that, it has dried the skin of my hands into wrinkly claws. So begone, you demon. I want to be mended. I want my hands to be nice again and I want my mind to be fixed again. Into the bin you go. I don't want you, I don't even need you... there are other, less pretentious soaps in my repertoire that will be kind to me. And so, out with the trash went the soap. Finito. The emotional scars may take a while to surface properly and then dissipate but hey ho, they will go!
Imperial Leather. That's what you would normally find in my bathroom. I have used it since leaving my parent's home in 1978. It is simply the most gorgeous soap with a clean and crisp scent. Opening a new bar instantly transports me back to the camping days and my dad getting washed in the tent. He always had Imperial Leather on camping trips. Add to that memory those ones of my children playing with the lather and I have a lifetime of pleasant thought and happy memories to scrub out the Not Friend unpleasant ones.
Gifts. Good to give and good to receive, especially when they are given and received with love. Those precious gifts given by God may hold a few surprises, but they will be good. His most precious gift, that of His son Jesus Christ is one which will last a lifetime and beyond. Accept it and wash away the cares and the sins of the world. A true friend and a true gift. Enjoy.
I love giving and receiving gifts and I try to take as much care of those I receive as possible, and to appreciate both the gift and the giver.
Today I have thrown away a gift. I've half-used it, disliked it, and thrown away a perfectly good gift. In the bin. Gone. Dissolved, deleted, eliminated. Oh what bravery!
It was a bar of soap, a simple bar of soap. Being a lady who appreciates lovely smellies as gifts - soaps are treasured. As children my sisters and I were well scrubbed with a bar of rough red stuff called carbolic (excuse the spelling if you know better). I can smell it now. Very coal tar - ish. I quite liked the smell. We would watch TV adverts for more beautiful and less utilitarian soaps such as Lux or Camay. Camay came in PINK. Important to three sisters used only to rough red slabs of scrub-a-dub-dub, cold water, kitchen sink and a shared towel. How we dreamt of such luxury as Camay.
'It's scenty' my mother would say 'No good for your skin. It will give you spots'.
Now children know what spots are. Itchy things with names such as Chicken Pox or German Measles. We'd had them and we didn't want them again, so we acquiesced and stopped piping about Camay and Lux, and, luxury of luxuries - Pears.
As teens luxury soaps became ours as friends and families moved their gifts to us from toys to more adult offerings. How we delighted in them. They were indeed 'scenty' and needed to kept well away from one's glorious complexion, but we loved them all the same. Later I became an Avon lady and would furnish my bathroom with soaps which reflected the changing seasons, always of course using a mild and gentle soap on my own babies and certainly not carbolic.
The gift I disposed of was a scented bar of soap which my subconscious presented as precious and needing to be used to the last tit bit . It was given by a Not Friend. That is someone who pretended to love me but didn't. This Not Friend was only too able to target me as someone to emotionally blackmail and bully...yes, you have read about her before. Anyway, the Not Friend has gone now but sadly some of the damage she caused lives on still. Why is she a Not FRIEND? Because she told me how fond she was of me whilst wreaking her trail of destruction, that's why. A friend? Not.
Remember the song 'I'm gonna wash that man right outta my hair'? Well, using the soap I thought would wash the Not friend out of my mind. It hasn't. It serves as a daily reminder, and not only that, it has dried the skin of my hands into wrinkly claws. So begone, you demon. I want to be mended. I want my hands to be nice again and I want my mind to be fixed again. Into the bin you go. I don't want you, I don't even need you... there are other, less pretentious soaps in my repertoire that will be kind to me. And so, out with the trash went the soap. Finito. The emotional scars may take a while to surface properly and then dissipate but hey ho, they will go!
Imperial Leather. That's what you would normally find in my bathroom. I have used it since leaving my parent's home in 1978. It is simply the most gorgeous soap with a clean and crisp scent. Opening a new bar instantly transports me back to the camping days and my dad getting washed in the tent. He always had Imperial Leather on camping trips. Add to that memory those ones of my children playing with the lather and I have a lifetime of pleasant thought and happy memories to scrub out the Not Friend unpleasant ones.
Gifts. Good to give and good to receive, especially when they are given and received with love. Those precious gifts given by God may hold a few surprises, but they will be good. His most precious gift, that of His son Jesus Christ is one which will last a lifetime and beyond. Accept it and wash away the cares and the sins of the world. A true friend and a true gift. Enjoy.
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