The best kitchen in the whole world

This week's Gallery is The Kitchen.  There is only one place where I actually adore being in the kitchen. 

Yes I know I moan and moan about the amount of shopping that I have to do.

And the planning and preparation that goes into 180 meals and I've no idea how many drinks and snacks

 How unbelievably tired I get.

The fact that this is tends to be the main view I get of the Brownies.

But I feel so at home here and I cannot thank enough the Guiders of yesteryear for having built this place so people like me could love it so very much so many years later.

For a Gallery many moons ago I posted this and it very much sums up how I feel and I would like to share it again.

Brownie Pack holiday is a time of mainly bedlam.  The last girls to go to sleep will be sometime around 3am and the first girls to wake up will be around 6am.
One year I didn't sleep at all.  I had roast turkey and meal plans on my mind.  The timings were whizzing around in my head and about 5am I crept up and made a cup of tea.
The other leaders were fast asleep as were the brownies, all was still and quiet.
I stood at the kitchen window and watched the world come to life.  The city in the valley in the distance was shrouded by the mist.  The tall trees proudly rising through it.  The pinkness of the sun starting to show.  All was still, all was quiet.
Slowly as I watched the rest of the world be still,  my mind cleared, I was the great kitchen Guideress, ready to take on the day.
The chalet floor started to rock a little as the first brownie feet came poddling through to get to the toilets and the world was awake with me, happy and ready to meet a glorious day.

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What is this life if, full of care

The busier I get the less I find to write about which is odd because my life is just overflowing with stuff.  You would think that there would be so many musings to recount, but I've become so busy and embroiled, I've forgotten the importance of observing.


What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


William Henry Davies


I did find an hour to stare at an airfield in Northamptionshire, The hotel attached to it is a old clubhouse and officers mess.  Quite a fantastic place still in it's 1930's Art Deco full glory.  The speakers in the bar played the happening aircraft to control talk (I'm sure it's got a technical name).

I sat in a large leather couch in an original conservatory, looking through the curve metal framed windows at something that reminded me a whole lot of a Dinky toy town.

A very pleasant way to spend an hour I could ill afford but the best part is for a very short 5 minutes I got to see a friend I used to spend a lot of time with and haven't in the past 5 years or more.  And yet she lives less than a 15 minute drive away.  Life got in our way.

And by the time I got to the shops they'd ran out of 4s, you do the maths.

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The Coolest Snow Sledge

Look at this, It's a SnoXross Sledge sold by GardenGames (outdoor children's products).  I have so got to have one of these.  I may have to borrow some one's boy (and I don't do boys) for a while just to justify having one. 

Or this.  I honestly thought people that had sledges like this was because their parents had looked after them and they were passed down the family.  I had one when I was young,  I didn't realise you can still buy them. But get this: (I'm now hopping from one foot to the other in excitement) it collapses so you don't actually rip your shins on it in the shed every time you try to get the mower out.

One wintry afternoon when COG was in her first year at school, I was working from home and the snow started to come down thick and fast.  I looked out the window for a while as the inches grew and then the impetuous me grabbed her wellies and the pull along sledge and marched up to the foundation class door (a completely separate building to the school) and knocked:  "I've come to collect my daughter"  "Why?" "I want to go build a snowman" ! I pulled her home from school on the sledge and we had a glorious afternoon.

It sounds so irresponsible I know, but it's one of the best memories I have of me and her, that afternoon, doing something naughty and yet so wonderful.

I've been having such a ball in my sledging memories that I'm forgetting to tell you the reason why I got here at all:

GardenGames (outdoor children's products) sent me Boules In a Metal Box

This is such a quality bit of kit. We have a Petanque court at our local pub that you can go play on and this summer we will.  In the meantime I'm hopping up and down waiting for the snow so we can give it a go in that.
After my father died my mother played Petanque(Boule) for many years, it's a lovely sociable sport.

The problem with this is we'll rock up looking like professionals and not quite make the mark.  I'll let you know how it goes!

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A worrying lack of morality

Have you seen this letter written by a burglar for his victim. The full story is here.

This person has no shame, no sense of guilt, quite simply no morality. Who brings a child up to think this way? Who teaches a child that someone in a particular area asks for abuse because of where they live?

The general spelling and grammer is an indication of their educational standard and probably matches their cognative intelligence.

If you walked past an open front door would you walk in and steal the handbag lying there or would you shout through "hellooooo, did you know your door's wide open"?

As I was starting to walk home from Brownies a late mum left her car engine running and ran down the lane to fetch her child.  She was clearly worried as she couldn't see her daughter "it's ok" I said "she's inside with Brown Owl and Snowy". Then I noticed 3 lads walking down the lane towards the car. Hmmmm. Did they have morals or were they like the person writing the letter?  I wasn't prepared to find out, I stood next to the car and gave them my full on 'I'm a Guider on the Edge' look. I suspected they were actually quite nice lads as they sauntered past.  But truth be known, if anyone had wanted the car, I wouldn't have died for it.

But my point is, yes we are all idiots sometimes, leaving keys in cars or windows open but that doesn't mean it's ok to take advantage of that.

Old ladies can't fight back, don't steal their handbag.
Mum's have to struggle with children in the backseat, don't steal their bags.
They forgot to lock a door, that doesn't mean it's ok to go inside.
Windows open for air not for a thief's benefit.

This isn't a sign of the times, I recall reading about a bomb hitting a nightclub in London during the war. The dead and dying had their wallets and jewelry stolen before the ARP arrived.

It just makes me feel very very sad.

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Christmas Tree Festival

It's my Church's Christmas tree festival this weekend.

We took all the brownies up to decorate a tree.

We made fir cone brownies, suitably glittered with ping pong heads, photo faces, wool hair, pipe cleaner arms and sashes.

They look quite groovy.

The leader cones have red arms and no sashes, that's me right at the top of the tree!

The Rainbow's have done a tree.

As have the Guides, although it's interesting that the Guide tree looks like it could have been done by the Rainbows!  I think that's because they were left to their own devices, which I rather like.  Theirs is a toilet-tree.

The Guides were all there at the same time as the Brownies and we narrowly missed the cubs, later there was another local youth group from the baptist church, plus many others.  The church was heaving - it's wonderful, just the way it should be.


There were about 10 of the 35  trees that are going up, decorated tonight.  It's going to look lovely.

I'm serving tea and mince pies on Saturday, I'm feeling Christmassy!

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This Guiding Life

This week's Gallery is 'something I am proud of'.  A hard one for me, I generally have always failed to meet the standard I would like to achieve in sport, academia and life in general! 

But I do have 20-odd years of voluntary time, effort, money, tears, sweat, occasionally blood and even eyebrows given to Guiding.

Many people have no idea of the sense of fulfillment giving time brings.



So whilst I am proud of what I have given, I am mostly proud of what Guiding stands for:

GirlGuiding UK enables girls and young women to develop their potential and to
make a difference to the world.

If the girls knew they were coming for that - they wouldn't come! But that is exactly what keeps me turning up week after week.

And I live my life by this:

A Guide is honest, reliable and can be trusted.
A Guide is helpful and uses her time and abilities wisely.

A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experience.
A Guide is a good friend and a sister to all Guides.
A Guide is polite and considerate.
A Guide respects all living things and takes care of the world
around her.

Although I'm rather happy I don't have to live by the 1926 version. I know I would fail completely to smile and sings under all difficulties, and purity has never been my strongest asset:

A Guide’s honour is to be trusted
A Guide is loyal to the King and her
Guiders, and to her parents, her country and her employers or employees.
A Guide’s duty is to be useful and to help others.
A Guide is a friend to all,
and a sister to every other Guide, no matter what social
class the other belongs.
A Guide is courteous.
A Guide is a friend to animals.
A Guide obeys orders of her parents, patrol leader or
Captain, without question.
A Guide smiles and sings under all difficulties.
A Guide is thrifty.
A Guide is pure in thought, word and deed.

PS: Brown Owl (I know you are reading)...I will also not obey without question!!!!!!!!!!!

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Misfit

I went to the closest out of town shopping park and sat with COG in the food hall having a necessary break.

Do Costa specifically train their staff to bark at customers or is it a talent achieved over time?

I mused over the subtleties of saying "Do you want cream with that?" that make the difference between it sounding like "look you saddo, stop wasting my time" or "I'm pleased you've chosen my establishment to drink at".

Whilst musing, I realised that the shoppers in there were different to me.

They had more panache, accessorised, co-ordinated, make-up, heels...I had come more in a "let's dash to Markses, pop in to WHSmith, grab a coffee and get the hell out of there" mode.  Whereas they had clearly dressed for the occasion, spent time on themselves before spending a mass of money.   I decided to try to redeem the situation and popped into GAP.  Instead of fitting in with the well heeled masses, I haggled over a discount for a clearly shoddy attempt at stitching on a gilet and looked at the maternity clothes for far too long before noticing I was in the wrong section.

I was so glad to get home, get back to where I do belong.

You can't compete with the beauty of nature, she's been at the game far too long, I know I don't even have to try.

Have you tried the new camera on ios5 yet?  It's great fun playing around with the exposure through the grid.  Finally I could take a photo of more than an orange sun in the evening and then I thought, why bother, I like it just the way it is. Which is how I feel about me too.

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The Burka and the Bikini

This cartoon has had me deep in thought.

I have never considered the confidence of the lady wearing the burka to have no need to display her body for male approval or the fact that she may actually be the more empowered.

We often consider ourselves to not be prejudiced and then we will immediately box off a room of people into types, attaching personas, demographics and possibly likely criminal intent based on their dress, mannerism or accent.

So I remind myself over and over to try to look from another angle, to think again and then damn me how often, true to form, does that initial gut reaction actually turn out to be right.  All the boxes close off again and my prejudice is back in it's unacknowledged place.

It is important to constantly rethink the way we look at things,  is the house concave or converse?

Squares A & B are exactly the same.  Much like the women in the burka and the bikini.

If you fancy looking at some more illusions, then this is a good place to go.

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It rocks my world (occasionally)

Do you remember those days when someone walked into the room and your stomach would jump, when your emotions ran so high that it was a physical feeling, when someone could do something that would make you so happy, literally rock your world?

I have to admit I don't really feel anything that strongly anymore.  Oh, I get all over emotional but I blame that on the shifting hormones. (How cruel was mother nature to put raging teenage hormones up against shifting menopausal hormones - curse you Red Baron).

But today something quite simple put me right back there, that lovely feel it inside happiness.

I was working away in the office, COG was home from school and laughing out loud at something on the TV and the sound of her laughter was a wonderful moment of inner happiness for me.  A lurch of the stomach niceness. 

I wish I could bottle that feeling and give it away to you all, it's quite quite wontastic.

So when I find myself more often than not feeling not entirely unlike the frog, it's nice to know there is still a bit of emotional movement in here, even if it's buried deep.

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Water Flowing

This week's Gallery is 11-11-11.

A time to mark out a day of what we were doing, to be honest my day looked so much like this one, I didn't want to repeat myself.  But I did spend a little time tying to get an 11 11 11 picture that meant something.

Sunday was parade.  My 25th.  It's a strange feeling watching the brownies and remembering the years and years of different types of uniforms, leaders, officials.  Seeing some of the leaders now and remembering them as shivering little brownies.  It is comforting that as time flows by nothing changes and yet the water seems to be running faster and faster, times between parade gets shorter.  For the first time ever my mum didn't come to see me, she said her age is catching up with her.  She just couldn't do it.  Water Flowing. 

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School Uniform in November

Why do shops assume that kids stop growing between the end of October and the start of March?

School trouser shopping is hard enough without the shops making it harder.  BHS school shop - nada, M&S School shop - nada, New Look - not a black trouser in sight, Miss Sexy - NO - you must be kidding, we are not even going there.

We ended up at Next, who start ladies at size 6 and 35 chuffing pounds. I'll repeat myself: 35 chufty chuffing pounds.

A shop assistant in New Look said "You need to stock up when we have them in".  Well actually I did.  In September I bought 2 pairs of trousers of increasing sizes.  In August she went back to school in the previous years, I let them down. She has now grown through the 2 new pairs too.

She has also grown 3 shoe sizes.  From a size 1 to a size 4 in 4 months.  It's no wonder the poor child has growing pains.

But I've got shopping pains, how can I account for that rate of growth when shopping at the start of a school year and besides, their shape changes too.  One months stomach and butt fit is next months adjusted button and gaping back band.

School uniform shopping in November is like firework shopping in July, possible, but a pain in the proverbial. So I have taken appropriate steps: Child of Guiding will no longer be fed or watered until February, when growth can restart ready for the spring uniform collection.

Any other suggestions on a postcard please.

The fact that she is growing so fast reminded me of a video I made a while ago for the Gallery, and was found again by Squidgyboo recently.

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Detention - let me just check my calendar

Daughter's geography homework given across the half term was due in today.  Apparently not many people actually did it.

"Boy, where's your homework"
"Sorry Sir, I was too busy"
"You will stay in this break time to do it"
"Sorry Sir, I have maths detention this break time"
"Tomorrow then"
"Ahh, no, that's RE detention, I could do lunch time if that suits you?"
"BOY! I have plans for lunchtime, it will be an after school one for you"
"well could we avoid Wednesday, I'm booked in for Science detention"

I am absolutely serious.  At least the child is getting some valuable time management experience!

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Burst the Child's Bubble

This is part of an article in Awake - October 2011 :

"Parents of infants are kept quite busy responding to their newborns everyday needs.  Baby cries, and someone is there to feed him.  Baby cries, and someone is there to change him.  Baby cries and ...

It is natural then that a baby believes he is at the centre of the universe and that adults, in particular, parents- exit solely to do his bidding....Remember that has been the baby's reality.  In his view, he is the monarch of the empire populated by big people who were put here to serve him...

It takes just short of two years to create this fantastic impression; it takes sixteen more years to correct it.  And that paradoxically, is a parents job: cause their child to believe in this fantasy, then burst - albeit gently - the child's bubble"

Ironically it came to my attention the day after I had publicly yelled at my daughter "This world does not revolve and you, you are not the centre of the bloody universe and the sooner you realise it the easier it will be for all of us"

I'm not sure that's entirely what they meant when they said "albeit gently", but hey-ho subtlety was never my middle name and Job Done!

Problem is that cheeky imp is the centre of my universe and she knows it!

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I met a man with Seven Wives

I was tagged by a tea making friend to do a seven things thing.  I'm rubbish at those but it set me thinking about this:

As I was going to St Ives

I met a man with seven wives

Every wife had seven sacks

Every sack had seven cats

Every cat had seven kits

Kits, cats, sacks, wives

How many were going to St Ives?

I often have this rhyme going round in my head.  I don't know why.  I can never remember the answer.  I always think the answer is 1, but then I can never remember if it is or if I am just wrong every time.  So courtesy of wikipedia, for yours and my own satisfaction the answer is any of 1, 2802, 2800, 2, 0, 8 (9) or 2752.  If you care how,  read them at the end of this post.

So there we are, my seven thing thing!  Now if my bloggerty friend was hoping for a slightly better commitment from me, in answer I share one of my other favourite rhymes:

If wishes were horses

Beggars would ride.

If turnips were watches

I would wear one by my side.

If wishes were fishes,

We'd all cast our lines.

And if if's and an's were pots and pans,

There'd be no work for tinkers!

In my world it's the effort that counts! And given my recent achievement record, that's a good job.

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Trefoil

Build long bridges Brownies. Build strong bridges Guides.

With arches of bright laughter, with beams and smiles besides

With chains of loving kindness, with girders of true aid,

Build these bridges, Girl Guides and let them well be made!

For bridges are much needed in a world that's big and wide

And there's no one like a Brownie and there's no one like a Guide

To span the gulf of loneliness with a word or two of cheer,

And a handshake that says plainly, "You've got a sister standing there."

There's a bridge that leads to beauty and a bridge that leads to truth,

And it's a Girl Guide's sacred duty to build them in her youth.

The world will be fairer, for those bridges beneath the sun,

For Happiness will use them, reaching out to everyone.

For the Gallery, but mainly for my wonderful Guiding friends.  I love you all dearly.

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