Skip to main content

Miixed bunch

With a few days off from babysitting I drove south to see my youngest son and one of my sisters.  My sister and I decided to go to the Isle of Wight for the day and visit Osborne House.  The price to go in was £20.50, an enormous amount.  I told the cashier that we were reeling from the price and she said there are 250 acres of grounds as well as the house.  'Are we expected to walk round all of it?' my sister asked sarcastically and all she got was a filthy look.  'We are old,' I said,  'does that give us a discount?'  'For the over 65s there is, £4 off.'  We paid up.

My sister is quite confusing to work out politically.  On the one hand she reads the Daily Mail and votes for Nigel Farage and on the other hand she thinks it is obscene for people to own big houses and have lots of money; money should be distributed equally among everyone.  Communism?

Trump thinks it is alright to let Russia help him win the election and still the Republicans gather round, protecting him while the 30% of the population who support him continue to believe that he can do no wrong.  It makes British politics seem almost normal.

It is still raining.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Playing by ear

My father could play the piano.  Not an unusual skill but he was deaf.  He lost his  hearing fighting in the army in India in the 30s so he was an adult when he lost it and therefore remembered tunes, even though he couldn't hear him.  However he didn't have the skill to learn anything new so  either you liked the old music or you didn't.  He used to say that he played by ear and then would roar with laughter.  He would have struggled in many ways with modern living but most of all during the pandemic, he would have lost his ability to communicate as he always lip read.  There must be thousands of people like him today who still rely on reading lips to understand,  in fact all of us do it to some extent, so please be patient if someone is struggling to communicate while you are wearing a mask. I went to the supermarket today and at the check out, the cashier asked me to move the trolley into a particular position.  As I manoeuvred it ...

Mondays

 Last Monday my son and daughter in law were due to catch the 8.15am ferry from Portsmouth to Caen.  It was 6.45am when I stepped out of the shower and heard my phone  going.  I snatched it up.  It was a video  call.  'Mum, we have big problems here,'  and before I could speak he thrust the phone into the hands of a Brittany ferries' staff member and said, 'Talk  to my mum.'  Barely conscious of my wet, tangled hair and trying to cover myself up with a  towel which thought gravity was fun, I asked what the problem was.  Apparently they had the wrong vaccination certificates and were being refused passage.  I asked what I could do and she said they could go and get a test and take a later ferry.  'Where is the nearest test centre in Portsmouth?'  I asked.  'There isn't one,' she replied, 'there  is one in Southampton, or Havant.'  What!  No test centre in Portsmouth?  They both have learni...

Equality

 I don't want to hear another person  say that women should be equal to men.  There is no 'should' about it, women ARE equal to men but they are not treated equally.  It has never occurred to me that I am  not equal to any man.  Am I treated equally?  Sometimes yes, sometimes no.  It requires a step change in the way women think of themselves as being equal before we can hope for attitudes, legislation, economics to  follow and that is my rant for the day. Ever since I have lived in France I have noticed a stark difference between the French and the British sense of humour.  The dry, irreverent humour of the British is completely wasted on the French, and the Dutch and the Americans sometimes for that matter.  Clearly the British humour is unique.  Yesterday I gave an article to a French friend to read.  It was a humorous piece, self deprecating about a woman suffering an attack by an insect on her face with hideous result...