The Twisty Turny Path of Time

I find the longer my sojourn on this spinning orb of water and rock the more friends are gathered along the way.   everybody needs a hobby and i collect humans.   so,  not  simply  the  "crazy cat lady" but also the "crazy people person".........though it has to be admitted that cats are far cuter and much funnier on video.

Can you remember the name of the kiddlie who most often sat next to you in primary school?   or your "very bestest fwend ever"?   how about the the muppet who was your  " very bestest fwend ever"  the next week ??   or the next ??   there are some who can remember the names of those they were at nursery with !!!    now that really does freak me out as i don't remember anybody before age 15.   

When i look on Friends Reunited there isn't a single name i recognise and the few people of my year i've  messaged don't remember me either.    of course  you  know my theory  don't you?......... i'm actually an alien......    the mother ship left me here to improve and will come back once they think i've  ceased to be a disruptive influence.......ok.......it's probably that my generation are less likely to be computer literate........but that's boring.

Throughout  adulthood there have been  friends who have  moved on,  or i've had a bout of gypsy feet and left them behind.    some i  still miss and regret not making an effort to keep the connection,  some were probably best left  and forgotten,  and others i don't even remember to forget.......or should that be forget to remember........i can't remember.

Occasionally though there are those special faces who leave for a while......sometimes a long while.........and then life takes one of those strange twisty, twirly,  turns and they re-appear,  and that twist becomes a time warp,  and the time warp becomes a grand reunion,  and the grand reunion steps back onto the conveyer belt of time and it's like those years between had never passed and you had shared this universe without ceasing.   

 

Some of you who share this blog are my time traveling friends and i want you to know how very, very glad i am that we found each other and then re-found each other again,  even though many miles might lie between us now.   somehow i can't help feeling that wherever and whenever  life leads,  our paths will intersect.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff and I'll Blow Your House Down

 

Now my self imposed political purdah is officially over and we know the apocalypse will be upon us before the end of the next five years,  perhaps you would indulge while i break my fast with  a subject close to my heart.

Many children  born in the early 1950's entered the world  dragging  a package of poverty behind them in those post-war years.   my parents and sister shared a three bedroom house with a  grandmother,  an aunt and uncle,  a single uncle and a  guide dog.   six adults,  two children,  one large  dog,  three  bedrooms.   do the math !!

It wasn't until i was born that they were declared officially overcrowded.    my joyful appearance meant they qualified for one of the shiny, new council  houses  that had started sprouting up on every inch of wasteland.    the houses had big rooms with lots of window  and  a garden that went on forever.  it was the beginning of social housing estates with the catchphrase "a home for everyone".    i lived in that house and sun bathed in that garden till i was 16,  understanding that in his lifetime  my  father, a self employed builder,  wouldn't earn a fraction of the amount needed to buy a property and that a caring government had provided us with a home for life at a fair and affordable rent.    that house is now in private hands with an estimated value of £214,000.    do the math  !!

                                 

The  quote attributed to Mrs Thatcher that "a man over the age of 26 on a bus can count himself a failure"  may be mis-attributed,  it certainly can't be found in writing anywhere, but it sums up an attitude that became prevalent during her reign, possession equals success, support equals failure and social housing paves the way to Hades.    only.......we didn't end up in the land of the damned.....my parents lived on the same street until their late 80's, my sister has been  in a large bright council flat in a different part of Bournemouth for four decades and i'm in a lovely little Housing Association Supported Housing cul-de-sac in Hexham.   look at it......not all hell and high water is it?

Why am i seething?   because, in it's nasty party, flog the lot  little mindset, our esteemed new government wants to sell off  housing association properties to tenants at huge discounts, in the same way as it has council housing, even though it's own ex-housing minister has said  "it could affect the future provision of affordable housing". 

   
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/18/tory-cameron-hopkins-right-to-buy-home-sales-housing-association

Now i wouldn't have a problem with this if the proceeds of this sell off were used to finance the building of replacement social housing.    if someone has paid rent for years it's understandable they would want to buy if they could afford,  but if the past holds any clues to the future this wont happen.   for every 21 council houses sold only one is built and that's one reason there are nearly 2 million people on waiting lists.    do the math  !!!

The other iniquity in all this is the evidence that 36% of houses bought from councils are being  re-let on the private market.   so, a low rent council  house is bought at a knock down price by the tenant,  he sits on it for a while then lets it out at full market rent often double what he was paying, he uses that rent to cover a mortgage for himself.  the new tenant of our ex-council house claims housing benefit  and  the council is hit by a double whammy.  do the math !!!     read the article below from The Independent to get the full picture

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/great-council-house-selloff-scandal-righttobuy-council-houses-leave-nowhere-for-poor-to-live-9832339.html

Social housing will continue to be essential as we will always have the underpaid.   on a minimum wage of £6.70 an hour it's impossible to dream of home owning let alone home maintaining.   do the math !!

If the roof flies off my flat in the middle of the night the state pension wouldn't even cover the call out fee for a roofer.   having lived in the private rented sector i know first hand the insecurity of living month by month wondering if a lease will be renewed, that's no way for anyone to live especially those with children.   we sell off our social housing at the risk of a huge increase in homelessness and slum landlords.   if you see a petition about this please sign it and keep a roof over the heads of those who need it.

Rant over for another few posts........thanks for listening.

 

Oh Be Careful Little Mind What You Think

 Wotta-mistaka-to-maka, !!!       misunderstanding on a nuclear scale  !!!

What i wrote in the note was 

"Goodbye,  i hope you are happy now you are back in your beloved village."

                                              what i meant was

"Goodbye, i hope you are happy now you are back in your much loved village."

                                            what she read was

GOODBYE,  i hope you are happy NOW!  back in your precious village"

Isn't language a mine-field, especially when it's written rather than spoken.    our humanity has this nasty trick of hearing what we THINK a person intends and,  if by nature we aren't one of the earth's sunnier souls, like the recipient of my well intentioned moving home card, it's too easy to perceive the intention as criticism  rather than kindly.   There probably wasn't anything i could have written that would have conveyed warm future  wishes  in a manner that wasn't fraught with possible double entendre but it would, also, have been seen as a crime against humanity if i hadn't tried.

Of course, it doesn't help if you are cursed with an idiosyncratic turn of phrase.     i blame my mother, as people say i speak just like her,  and you can't live with someone for 16 years without picking up a style or two along the way.   she would have enjoyed swearing in Russian too, in fact she was half way there as she used Russian names when invective was required.    you have to admit there's something deeply satisfying in spitting Vladimir Ashkhenazi or Vladivostok.......try typing it without hammering the keys......impossibles !!

Anyway.......if there's a moral to my tale of woeful miscommunication  it's multi faceted........first of all,  the world isn't out to get you, and even if it is,  don't  succumb to  the temptation of  letting on that  success is  in sight.

Secondly, hold before you the old children's song "Oh be careful little hands/feet/mind    what/where/how   you  do/go/think."  do you remember it?   the pure simplicity of sentiment would silence the most philosophical  of philosophers.    out of the mouths of babes and infants shall come forth the wisdom of the ages.......along with an annoyingly unforgettable melody that takes up board and lodging at the back of the cerebellum and keeps you awake all week.

Thirdly,  if you find yourself putting nefarious motives on to things others say it might be worth asking where that comes from?    is it possible the suspicion and negativity come from the way YOU respond to others and you are simply seeing a reflection of yourself?     not very attractive is it?  

Strangers On A Bus

We talked,
We walked,
For a Moment in Time.
You passed through my life that day and left your mark.
 
You may never pass my way again,
Or you may stay for a lifetime.

I enjoyed the walk,
I enjoyed the talk.
I am blessed for that moment in time.

 by Cynthia Kepp

When you woke this morning did you have an inkling of what the day might bring?    perhaps you had an appointment arranged, or  planned to meet a friend for a coffee,  a regular get  together that you look  forward  to all  week maybe, or the chance to catch up with the life of a friend unmet for a long time.     it could be that when you stepped out of bed you believed the day was planned, organised, or an open book, an adventure waiting to whisk you off to places unknown,  people unmet,  opportunities undreamed of.    either way it's most likely other humans featured somewhere if only briefly and at a distance.    

One thing i can be sure of,  any time you or i step out to meet the world we never know where we could end up or who might transect our path.    most of my dearest friends have entered my life in the most unsought ways and a few have re-entered it repeatedly over the years, ebbing and flowing like the tide on Lindisfarne.

When my bizniz had to close i knew i would be devastated.   but what i discovered   when i examined my deepest thoughts and feelings was that it wasn't losing my livelihood or the closing of a very successful and popular enterprise that i dreaded  most but that i could lose the people who worked for me, laughed with me, supported me, who had become as brothers and sisters, friends, my "children."  when i woke the morning after closing the doors for the last time it was those humans who came to mind with the opening of my eyes, there was a gap in my world that was chris shaped, sue shaped, caron shaped, kat shaped, Nathan shaped, anne-anne shaped......so many names, so many memories, so much to miss.

Yet.......all those names had started out as strangers, people i could sit beside on a bus or wait in line with for coffee and cake and not notice, never think about again, not even make eye contact with.    yet........in one moment of time we  crossed a line, all  it took was a smile, a grasping of the  hand,  a  "hi, i'm jeni, who are you?"  and in that moment everything changed......strangers no more,  the etch of a smile already becoming dear and familiar,  the voice so quickly becoming as recognisable as my own. 
 

It's a cliche to say "every stranger is a friend you haven't yet met".   all those hundreds of thousands of strangers will stay just that......strange! !  but it's true.......  "every friend was once a stranger".......some of whom will still be strange but that's something else altogether!!    

I wonder if it's possible to train ourselves to see beyond people's otherness and recognise  a potential friend in the crowd......i wonder how much joy i've missed by walking obliviously past a soul sister without a second glance.......i wonder.........

To Care Or Not To Care

I hope those of you who know me well are impressed by the fact that i've avoided politics during this frenetic, over hyped time of General Election, and i hope you'll forgive me for succumbing to commenting on an issue that i can't ignore.

I know some of you feel  apolitical,  that "it's not for me", but anyone who has a heartbeat is subject to politics every moment of every day and to abdicate that responsibility is the way to losing our remnants of democracy.
   

For instance employment is subject to politics via wage levels, the right to join a union, taxes, national insurance, and at the other extreme unemployment support if you lose your job.

Disability and sickness and old age are totally at the mercy of politics and we are all going to face that unholy trinity at some point in our lives no matter how young and healthy we are now.   did you know that until recently,  when they put on a more friendly face, UKIP was committed to decommissioning the NHS?   and  did you know the Conservative party tried everything in it's power to stop the formation of the NHS right back at it's inception and a large number of it's politicians are still of the opinion that we should have an insurance based health system like the U.S. and are slowly working towards this by privatising step by  incremental  step.

Disability has been made a hugely political issue by this government and has affected millions of lives.   for the first time there was universal booing at the Paralympic Games when George Osborne gave out medals.  Such a response at an overwhelmingly feelgood event is unheard of.  watch the video link below

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/sep/03/george-osborne-booed-paralympics 

People are dying because of the cuts and changes to disability benefits, dying of hunger, dying by suicide.   Read this shocking article and ask how you can not be involved.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/more-80-suicide-cases-directly-5634404

Last year when i had to re-apply for disability benefits i was turned down and informed i had to take steps to prepare for employment.   my spine has nine different defects with additional problems radiating out from head to toe and i'm in constant pain and exhaustion, how could i find a job?   retirement rescued me from the soul destroying process of appealing the decision, an appeal that can take up to a year without any payment until it's over, that's how the disabled are dying of hunger under this government.

I wouldn't dream of telling you how to vote, but i would ask that you look hard at how different parties are planning to care for the most vulnerable in your land, your town, your street, your friends, your family, yourself !!!   and place your X accordingly.

Sleep The Final Frontier

 

                                 "There are some nights when 

                                  sleep plays coy,

                                  aloof and disdainful.   

                                  And all the wiles

                                  that i employ to win

                                  it's service to my side

                                  are useless as wounded pride,

                                  and much more painful."

                                      Maya Angelou  

"Goodnight" definition:  "a pleasant expression said at the end of the day"

Yeah right......so says the dictionary......i have a different definition......

"goodnight" jeni's definition: "oxymoron, contradiction in terms, interminable"

I am often accused of being an incorrigible optimist.   it's said with affection, mostly.    annoyance, often.      admiration, rarely.    but there's one aspect of life that can beat me down into oblivion........SLEEP......or the lack of it !!

I said in my last post that i've always been a sleepwalker when stressed.   during the moving house process i would wake to find all sorts of rubbish tidily packed, the contents of the recycle box folded neatly and laid between tissue paper, as pretty as a bride's trousseau.  And essentials untidily unpacked and strewn around different rooms, the cheese grater in the microwave, a lamp I N the loo, what depths of the psyche dredged that up?    

After we were burgled in the middle of the night a few times as we slept, i spent weeks  barricading the doors from the inside in the early hours, whilst asleep, to protect us from  Attila The Hun, with his sidekick Noggin The Nogg, coming to rape and pillage.   i suppose the sleeping brain doesn't differentiate between a couple of spotty oik kids and Thor of Asgard.    it took the installing of that wonder of modern technology to bring me back to the world of rationality, to whit......a burglar alarm  !!!!   simples !!!   old Attila didn't know how to contend with one of those now did he?

My wakefulness has a different cause now.   Disability has a habit of bringing some of his mates, pain, discomfort and insomnia, to the party, and they have a bad habit of boogieing  on down all night long with loud music,  pokes in the back and pains in the butt,  but i wish it wasn't  MY  butt being pained.

A typical night goes something like this:

10 - 11.00    climb into bed with cat and book

11 - 12.00    pet cat, read book

12 - 1.00        settle down to sleep,  fail, read book

1 -   2.00       sleep, wake,  read more book

2  -  3.00       wake cat, feed cat,  make cocoa, read yet more book

3 -   4.00       sleep,  wake, read forgotten previous pages of book

4 -   5.00        sleep, wake, swear (in Russian) at length

5 -   8.00       sleep

8 -    wake and leap out of bed full of joy and vigour, keen and ready  start the  day.......NOT !

Now, this isn't a complaint at the unfairness of the universe, picking on poor,  little old me.......the me who survived Attila.......the me who only swears in Russian so the cat isn't offended.......the me who quotes a worthy like Maya Angelou........the me who increases her knowledge by reading crappy sci-fi in the early hours........the me who is the universe's most optimistic optimist.......the me whose butt is the butt of too many butt jokes........the me ...............!!???!!!..........ok.......it is a complaint, butt (sorry couldn't resist)  every sentient being is allowed to whinge once in a while surely?    

Home and Away

I've always suffered from wanderlust.   as a child i was a sleepwalker,  still am when stressed, and would be found at the corner sweet shop in my nighty.   apparently all i  remembered  would be a vivid dream.  

As a teenager,  in the sixties,  i  hit the road to hitchhike round the country and lived on campsites and in squats, on the beach and in hostels and one time in a police station cell  at Dunfermline.    A couple of weeks were spent sleeping  UNDER  the beds of two lads in Cornwall.   their landlady  would burst into the  room in the middle of the night to make sure they didn't have "young ladies" in bed with them.   they could say, with all  honesty, hand on heart,  that  there  was  nobody IN  their beds.

For a while i was resident  in the cab of a lorry with a cat,  traveling  up and down the country on the few motorways that existed at the time........didn't enjoy that so hopped out at Bath and stayed in it's beautiful old houses for a few years.    i had a coffin shaped flat in the building pictured.

The cheapest flats were always in the basements because of the damp and the rats, or in the attics because of the interminable stairs.   the pay-off for five flights of the steepest steps in the galaxy was the view over the backs of the houses, much more idiosyncratic than Nash's sweeping crescents beloved of the lesser spotted tourist.    there were families of cats  on the roofs.    they lived, mated, had kittens and died up there, probably the descendents of  cats who had escaped out of the windows of the flats and never made it home.   a steady supply of rodents  made them   fat  cat  flat ratters  !!!

When children came, and "settling down" was delivered along with the placenta i had to find a different way of meeting the gypsy feet need.    for a while i would fold the pushchair down onto piles of nappies and clothes and take a coach to visit friends in different parts of the country, but a few small child, travel sick disasters took the shine off that experience.......for other travelers  too,  not just  me.

   

There's a certain light at dawn some mornings along with a smell and feel to the air that says move, move, move !!  and i have to move.    so instead of packing my backpack and stepping out onto the road with thumb extended  i would move all the furniture around.    my poor husband would come home to find every room in a different place.   i had to promise never to touch his study as the shock would have sent him into a major decline.   i'm sure this need for change was part of the reason i made a lousy wife,  perhaps polygamy has it's benefits for us waifs and strays. 

      

Disability has finally caught up with me and often i'm confined to my little cul-de-sac, not seeing the big wide world for weeks at a time.    some may see that as pitiable or expect resentment and anger at having freedom denied, but i can't see it that way.    we have been gifted with imagination and memory, nobody can take that away, even those with dementia remember times  long past as  though it were yesterday........it's yesterday they  struggle with.     the choice we all face,  sooner or later,  is to lament what's lost, or laud what's been experienced.    following the former leads to depression,  choosing the latter leads to warm reminiscence of times past.   i know which i would choose.