What kind of country are we when people rejoice that an old lady had a stroke and died?

Reblogged from Female Imagination:

I didn’t much like my country last week because I saw a side to it that was ugly and coarse and cruel. Maggie Thatcher wasn’t even cold before the tsunami of hatred crashed through the plaudits like a poison riptide. “The Witch is dead”, “Rot in Hell”, “Rejoice, Thatcher is dead” said the vile banners, even though many of those brandishing them weren’t even alive when Thatcher was in power.

Read more… 457 more words

I had to reblog this I am embarrassed at the actions of some of my country men and women

One Year On

Checking he is in the right place and looking for his friends

The highlight of the day as always on Thursday is the visit to the Hospice.  Are you all getting bored hearing about this?

This year is the 100th anniversary of the death of the Venerable Mary Potter and many celebrations of remembrance are proposed.

And looking back on last year’s blog I see that on this day Lotte and I were Looking for Andy.  Do you remember the armadillo and the adventures he had (we had) when he was visiting us?  I wonder where the little fellow is now and if he has arrived back home with Lenore Diane.

Well now on to today.  This is my lovely daughter’s birthday.  We don’t go overboard for birthdays in our family which is just as well because she had taken off today with the basketball team she coaches for a competition this weekend.  So there will be no riotous celebrations, she has to keep these young men in control.

Her own boys are spending the weekend with their father.  This all seems to be working out well for the family.  When they are with their father, apart from driving them to the various sports fixtures (they can’t get there easily from his house) he devises all sorts of interesting things for them to do together.

And lunchtime at the hospice today was rather a hectic affair.  Clients/patients choose what they want for lunch shortly after breakfast each morning,  Well today something went wrong and we had the wrong food for a couple of people.  No problem really; it just meant my going to the kitchen and reorganising the lunches.  This of course, takes time and throws the timing out.  So that by the time we got back to the first people with their desserts some had gone to sleep having become tired of waiting.

The lady from the SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) usually comes on Thursday with one or two dogs in tow.  These dogs are those available for adoption and most clients are pleased to see her each week.  Well, today she didn’t turn up and one elderly lady asked plaintively where the dogs were.  Obviously they derive a certain comfort and normalcy from the animals.  One man who has been there for several weeks has his wife bring in their dogs – two very large dogs from South Africa.  They could eat my Bella in one chomp but they are very quiet and placid.

Bella is settling down, barking less and accepting my friends and family when they come to visit.  She is still my shadow and doesn’t like me to leave her but today she slept in the car while I was in the hospice.  I do think she prefers that to being left at home, and as the weather is becoming cooler (by the day almost) it is not too hot for her to be left in the car.  She joins us on the terrace for lunch on sunny days and so doesn’t spend too long in the car alone.  Of course her exuberance and delight when I return has to be seen to be believed.  She reminds me of the Energizer bunny jumping up with all four feet in the air.

And from my little book of dog wisdom* :-

“Life is a precious gift.
Treat it delicately and be grateful for it,
but most importantly celebrate and enjoy it”

* dog wisdom to lift your spirits and brighten your day.  Published by Blue Angel Gallery, Australia.

My Father’s Hands

I have said before that I read and use Judy Reeves “A Creative Writer’s Kit”  As part of this kit there is a book called ‘Prompts and Practices”.  Each day of the year has a suggestion for what to write.  And today’s was “Write about your father’s hands”.

Well if you have been reading or following me for a while now you will know that I consider myself the luckiest person alive in that my father was a fabulous person.    I wrote about him in September last year - Memories of My Father.  He was a special man.

But now his hands.  These were the strong hands of a working man.  He had been a cabinetmaker all his life and so his hands were rough to the touch and scarred from using and being nicked by his tools.  The hands were  strong and capable.  Apart from being a master craftsman he was a virtual jack of all trades.  He it was who reupholstered the couch when it needed to be done; he decorated the apartment and then our house, he fixed leaking pipes and he fixed his daughters’ lives when any of his girls was unhappy.

On my wedding day those were the hands that held mine in the car on the way to the church and those were the hands that passed  me over into the care of my DYS (dashing young Scotsman).

Those were the hands that lovingly cradled his first grandchild the day she was born.  Those hands went on to cradle each of the other grandchildren in turn.

Those were the hands that helped a small boy build with Meccano pieces and on a later visit showed that small boy how to use some of his tools.

Those were the hands that picked up small people when they had mishaps with their tricycles.

The nails were short and bluntly cut.  I remember when I was visiting him in London late in his life that I offered to do his nails for him.  He agreed and so the next day when I went to see him I took my manicure things with me.  Of course, I had no intention of giving him a manicure, it was just to get a laugh out of him.  He took one look at all the implements and said “Just cut the nail straight across”.  However, he did enjoy my applying hand cream.

So my memories of my father’s hands are many.  He was a good man and his hands feature in many of my memories of him.

Sadly he is no longer with us and is sorely missed by his three daughters and their families.  At his funeral they played “Unforgettable” and that certainly sums up my father.

“To live in lives we leave behind
is not to die.”
Judith Baxter, daughter, sister & friend.

Dead Heat

I have talked before about one of my favourite authors, Bronwyn Parry.  Bronwyn  romantic suspense novels set in Australia’s wild places. She lives on 100 acres of  Australian bushland, and travels extensively through rural and outback areas of the country for background research for the novels.

I read Bronwyn’s  first novel, “As Darkness Falls” a few years ago and then discovered that in 2007 it won the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award for best romantic suspense manuscript in 2007.  In 2008 it was a finalist in the Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year Award.

Then I read her  second novel, “Dark Country”and found that it was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America RITA Awards and the Romance Writers of Australia Romantic Book of the Year Award in 2010.  It also  won the Australian Romance Readers Award for Favourite Romantic Suspense novel of 2009.

And then sad news.  Bronwyn could not attend the RITA Awards in 2010 as she was awaiting brain surgery.  Fortunately, she seems to have made a complete recovery and last year her third novel “Dead Heat” was released.  This is another great read, set in the Australian outback – a romantic suspense novel indeed.

Then a few days ago I received an email with the exciting news that “Dead Heat” is a finalist in the romantic suspense category of the Romance Writers of America RITA awards.  This is great news for Bronwyn, her very supportive partner/soul mate and her readers and this time Bronwyn is well enough to travel to the USA for the awards.  How exciting for her and how pleased those of us who follow her are.  This time hopefully, there will not be a dead heat and her novel will win the award.her novel will win the award.

For those of you who don’t know. Bronwyn says “The RITA awards are often described as the ‘Oscars’ for the romance genre – the winners are announced at the gala awards night at the end of the Romance Writers of America conference, which this year will be in Atlanta, Georgia, from July 17-20th.”

I wish I could be there to cheer her on.

“There are three rules for writing a novel.
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.“
W. Somerset Maugham

Spirits?

I have only one relative (apart from my children and their families) living in New Zealand.  This is a cousin of my Mother’s who is only a couple of years older than me.

We talk from time to time on the phone.  Reminiscing about growing up in London during and after the war and generally catching up with each other these phone calls have been known to last an hour or more.  And yesterday was no different.

We talked at length about our families where they were at and how they were doing.  His second wife is Samoan and I always love to hear about their culture and how they do things so differently from us.  Apparently family comes before all else and if you have something and they don’t you either give it to them or share with them.  Isn’t that lovely.  Although as my cousin says, this can go too far.  He is the only one with a car and so he runs a taxi service for the extended family 24/7.  But he is good humoured about it.

We then got back to the subject of London.  His father was killed during the war and he and his mother moved back home and lived with her parents and two aunts.  From the outside it looked like a perfect set up.  There was always somebody to look after the young child while his mother worked.  But there were drawbacks for a young boy brought up in a predominantly female household.  As he grew up he spent less and less time at home and played in the streets amongst the ruins of houses that had suffered in the bombings.

Other times he spent with his grandfather “Pop” whose business was making  spirit levels.  You have all seen these things and no doubt many of you own one.  Well, Pop was a master craftsman and the spirit levels were made of beautifully carved and finished hard wood – sorry I don’t know the type of hardwood.  Each one was lovingly hand made and as soon as he was old enough, my cousin would rush home from school to help Pop.  I never understood his explanation about the little bubble that showed when the surface was flat/level nor the complicated way in which the liquid spirit /alcohol was put into the small glass vial.

On occasion we girls would visit the factory in the mews where in earlier times horses had been stabled for the wealthy.  We would stand and watch in wonder as the liquid was poured into the tiny phials.  I remember it being hot so I suppose that Pop was also a glass blower.

I should like to say that my cousin carried on the tradition being one of  only two males in the family, after the grandfather died, but instead he became a printer and emigrated with his then wife and two small girls to NZ.   I understand he still has one of the levels given to him by his grandfather as a birthday present.

Now of course, spirit levels are mass-produced.  No more the lovingly produced articles of all those years ago.  But wouldn’t it be lovely to own one of them.

“A man who works with his hands is a labourer;
a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman’
but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.”
Louis Nizer.  British born US lawyer and author.
1902-1994.

To The Gasworks

We were watching something on TV tonight and the subject of coke came up.  Do you know that coke is the end result of coal that has been burned.  According to Wikipedia “Coke is a fuel with few impurities and a high carbon content. It is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes made from coal are grey, hard, and porous.”

Don’t know about any of that but I do know that it gave off enough heat to warm our apartment.

During and immediately after the war coal was rationed and as open fires were the main form of heating in most houses it was sorely missed.  I remember one day my Mother dressed us all in our coats, hats and gloves and took us outside the apartment.  There, sitting at our front door was a pram borrowed from a neighbour.

About a mile or so from where we lived was the local  gasworks that consumed enormous amounts of coal and then discarded the coke that was left.  One day Mother had heard that one could buy coke but that one had to go to the gasworks yard to collect it.  Hence the pram borrowed from the neighbour.

Gasometer in East London via Wikipedia

I remember it was a bitterly cold winter day – I think mid afternoon – and the four of us walked to the gasworks.  When we arrived we were met with a long line of women who obviously had heard the same rumour.   I seem to remember there were only women in the queue, I suppose all the men were away fighting.

The line moved slowly, oh so slowly for three little girls with nothing to do but stand around.  I remember putting my youngest sister into the pram and my elder sister and I wheeled her up and down the line, talking to strangers and showing off our darling sister.  I can’t imagine any mother allowing her children to do this today.  Talking to strangers and accepting candy from some of them.  And they were all glad of anything to relieve the monotony of standing in line. I think other children joined us in our perambulations.

Eventually we were at the head of the queue.  Mother asked how much she could have and was told two bags.  She paid whatever was asked (2 shillings comes to mind but I may be wrong) and the kindly man loaded the bags into the pram for us.

By this time it was dark as well as bitterly cold, but mother was in an exuberant mood.  She had bought extra heating fur us.  And I do remember that as we trudged back home she balanced our youngest sister on top of the coke bags while my elder sister and I skipped along the road.  Mother’s excitement was catching although at the time we really didn’t understand the reason for it.  But in the cold nights ahead we were very pleased that we had gone to the gasworks.

How strong those women were who kept their homes and families together while their men were away fighting for King and country.  I wonder if I would have been as resilient as my Mother in the same circumstances.

When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
Author Unknown

Thoughts on Thursday

Today being Thursday, Bella and I made our usual trip to the Hospice.  I have said so many times how impressed I am with the total dedication of all the staff, Doctors, Nurses, Therapists, Assistants and cleaners.  They all go out of their way to treat their clients with respect,  and do all they can to make the client’s life more comfortable.

And each Thursday I am joined in lunch duty by a retired bank manager.  He is one of those cheery little men who always has joke, pun or a story to share.  He has apparently been volunteering at the Hospice since his retirement some 15 years ago.  He not only does lunch duty on Thursday but serves on a couple of the committees as the volunteers’ representative.

Today was a Thursday much like any other.  Unfortunately there had been a death this morning so the atmosphere was rather subdued.  But none of the other clients would have been aware of the death.  This part of the operation is handled so well – dignified and respectful in all aspects.

Once again I was approached by a couple of visitors who commented on the great service being offered. Of course, I thought they meant the staff and quickly agreed that we were so lucky to have the free services of the hospice and that the staff was  fantastic.  They surprised me by saying that it was not the staff but the volunteers they were commenting on.  Isn’t it nice when you do something with no expectation of any reward and then receive compliments.

As you know, I always say that I get more out of the 2 hours I spend at the hospice each week than they get from me.  However, it is nice to be appreciated.

There were few clients today and so the lunch service took little over an hour and we were out of there earlier than usual.  So Miss Bella and I went for a walk before meeting my daughter for coffee.

Oh I really do like Thursday.