Colour Blind

Amongst the many surprises life seems to have in store for me is the discovery that I am colour blind. I cannot distinguish between blue and green or navy and black. I have several pairs of trousers, some navy and some black. I have worked out a system for sorting them. After looking at the labels through a magnifying glass I have put a small safety pin in the label of the navy ones so that's that sorted. I have been wearing a warm cardigan for some time thinking it was green. I am now told, on good authoity (my daughter) that it is blue.
A favourite card game in the family is UNO where you have to match the colours. Unfortunately when I play there are howls of protest from the grandchildren "No, no Grandma, that's blue" or "No, no Grandma, that's green". I wonder what I look like in my odd colours. Perhaps I should be like the poet and say " When I am an old woman I shall wear purple With a red hat which doesn't go. And I shall spend my pension on brandy". No, perhaps not. Better retain some decorum.

Fly on the Wall

I have never been a fan of Fly on the Wall television. How can one be natural with cameras following one about? There was a programme on TV about a family who were expected to live as in wartime Britain. It was doomed to fail because they lived differently from their peacetime neighbours. In the 1940s we were all in the same boat. We were all affected by rationing, the blackout, bombing, the worry about and separation from our loved ones, when was it all going to end, but there was a spirit of community that comes from shared anxieties and fears and shared pleasures, too, when something nice happened.
I was remembering how kind people in the USA and Australia would send food parcels to friends and relatives during rationing. The arrival of a parcel was so exciting. The contents would be shared with friends and neighbours - things we hadn't seen for ages like dried fruit and tinned ham and tinned peaches. Nobody starved but our diet was very monotous. You get something of the atmosphere if you read "84, Charing Cross Road" where the American writer is appalled to hear of our food shortages even after the war ended (rationing went on until about 1954) that she sent food parcels to the staff of a bookshop in London.
Of course, we weren't all saints. There were "wide boys" selling stockings off ration from a suitcase in Oxford Street keeping one step ahead of the police. (You might find when you unwrapped your illicit stockings that they weren't a pair, being different in size or colour) There was also the "Black market" and things sold under the counter. But the vast majority of the population were honest and law abiding and, what's more generous and kind-hearted as I think we are today. It is the horrid ones who make the headlines in the papers. If it were otherwise it wouldn't be news.

Endearments

Some time ago there was a move afoot to stop shop assistants, taxi drivers, bus drivers etc. from calling ladies "love or dear". I have been called - lass, miss, missy, missus, mum, Ma and Gran, as well as love, dear and pet. I don't think I've ever taken umbrage. My favourite is Grandma which has a certain dignity and is used not only by my grandchildren but, very sweetly, by their friends. My own mother was known to all and sundry as Nanny. which also cleared up the dilemma of what you should call your mother-in-law. However one friend of hers, Mrs. Pain, the dentist's wife ( not perhaps the right name for a dentist) always called her Buttercup. I think she must have been a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan as in HMS Pinafore Buttercup is referred to as "a plump and pleasing person" which Nanny was.
In Sandgate a regular stop on the way home by the Cubs from a Scout meeting would be the Fish & Chip shop. The lady behind the counter was from Cornwall and would greet the little boys with "And what do you want, me - andsome?" And what about this? My daughter was in Durham recently and the taxi driver called her "Flower".

Friends

So far, although it has been very cold, we have no snow in Hove. Yesterday Mike and I went to Seaford and on the roadside verges in Brighton there lingered traces of snow. The Downs were all white and looked beautiful but I can do without it.
We spent a merry morning at June's house. All present except for Josie who is recovering from an op. We missed her cheery presence. Most of my friends from former years have passed on, most of them being older than me. Two , in their nineties ,died this Christmas. I value my Seaford friends. We first got together to do patchwork about 14 years ago. When I left Canterbury I thought that was the end of my patchwork days but by a great stroke of good fortune my new next door neightbour ran a patchwork class and invited me to join. My circle of friends grew and we have been supporting each other through all the trials and tribulations that beset us as well as putting the world to rights every Tuesday.
Shakespeare was a wily old bird. Polonius says "Those friends thou hast,...grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel"
Another trip to the hospital today for another painful injection but the pain soon wears off so mustn't grumble, Mike escorting me again. I am seeing almost more of Mike than does Amanda!

"Th"

I read recently that small children should be taught the sound "th" as they find it most difficult. This difficulty extends to many foreigners (see below) but he was trying hard.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=A2AXlIX1s-M&NR=1