Just a brief blog, bleat of protest. My name is a pain. There is nothing I can do about my name. My name has caused me problems almost from the time I could pronounce it, but, it is not my fault!
Oddly enough I didn't name myself, that privilege belonged to my misguided parents.
This latest rant comes about because your name is how people recognise you or think they recognise you and they make assumptions accordingly.
At weekly intervals, or thereabouts, someone or other around the blogosphere refers to me as a male.
I am a female, have always been a female, never wanted to be anything else (until now, that is), but, but, my name is Ray.
My parents were Welsh, which might excuse them in some circles, and I was their firstborn so they were still of the impression that there was something wonderfull about little girls. My mother when tackled about it said "we thought, ray of light, ray of sunshine".
Yuk!
Had they any idea how I would turn out they might have thought twice, though 'thundercloud', 'miseria' or 'pain in the ....' might not have been acceptable in the wider world.
I am tired of explaining my name to the curious and wish to state once and for all I am a woman, there are those in the world who could should they be questioned closely testify to that statement, and I wish to be known henceforth as MADAM!
Monday, 30 May 2011
Sunday, 29 May 2011
The Screaming Boredom of Solitary Sundays
After a good sermon, good sung eucharist (well sung though I say it myself) returned home initially glad to be out of the cold strong wind and sitting with coffee and feet up.
That lasted all of 20 minutes and the next thought was what next? Gardening? too cold and much too windy.
Housework? No it's Sunday, not today. Decluttering? Yes well it is going to take years and I've barely begun.
As previously posted, hundreds of photos going back 40 years have already bitten the dust. Today they were joined by roughly another 300. The bin is now half-full of palaces, castles, statues, views over rivers from all parts of Europe. Some of them really rather good pictures but in the main, no longer identifiable.
Why oh why was all that time occupied photographing buildings which have been photo'd by half the world and reproduced in magazines, books, catalogues and holiday brochures for donkeys' years?
Are we really so arrogant as to believe our version to be so much better than all the others or just too unimaginative to seek out things no-one else has bothered to photograph?
Having said before that few of ours (John's and mine) had people in them it seems peculiarly pointless to keep them now. I did have for many years a 'thing' about rooftops and gables, and since we spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and Flanders there was quite a lot of fuelfor my obssession.
Today having seen at least seventy Dutch gables, Bruges rooftops and Copenhagen 'red' houses I thought how totally meaningless even the very best of these seem viewed at a distance of some years. There is no-one to share them with, no-one to discuss which or where this or that one might have been, and no reason on earth that I can see why they were taken in the first place.
Surprisingly, despite having spent 4 hours on the task, and having half a bin-load almost no difference seems to have been made to the vast gallery of photos occupying the office.
Decluttering in theory clears space ( for what, remains to be seen), yet there doesn't appear to be any more room now than when I began.
Can't think what to tackle next. Ideas welcome, though not necessarily acted on.
That lasted all of 20 minutes and the next thought was what next? Gardening? too cold and much too windy.
Housework? No it's Sunday, not today. Decluttering? Yes well it is going to take years and I've barely begun.
As previously posted, hundreds of photos going back 40 years have already bitten the dust. Today they were joined by roughly another 300. The bin is now half-full of palaces, castles, statues, views over rivers from all parts of Europe. Some of them really rather good pictures but in the main, no longer identifiable.
Why oh why was all that time occupied photographing buildings which have been photo'd by half the world and reproduced in magazines, books, catalogues and holiday brochures for donkeys' years?
Are we really so arrogant as to believe our version to be so much better than all the others or just too unimaginative to seek out things no-one else has bothered to photograph?
Having said before that few of ours (John's and mine) had people in them it seems peculiarly pointless to keep them now. I did have for many years a 'thing' about rooftops and gables, and since we spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and Flanders there was quite a lot of fuelfor my obssession.
Today having seen at least seventy Dutch gables, Bruges rooftops and Copenhagen 'red' houses I thought how totally meaningless even the very best of these seem viewed at a distance of some years. There is no-one to share them with, no-one to discuss which or where this or that one might have been, and no reason on earth that I can see why they were taken in the first place.
Surprisingly, despite having spent 4 hours on the task, and having half a bin-load almost no difference seems to have been made to the vast gallery of photos occupying the office.
Decluttering in theory clears space ( for what, remains to be seen), yet there doesn't appear to be any more room now than when I began.
Can't think what to tackle next. Ideas welcome, though not necessarily acted on.
Thursday, 26 May 2011
IMPOTENT RAGE
Does anyone know what a Google looks like. Has anyone ever seen one. Where can I find one? so that I can kill it slowly and painfully!
I have spent the better part of two days desperately trying to comment on other peoples' blogs, access my email and reply to comments on my own blogs.
Each time I try GOOGLE fails to recognise my username and my password. When trying to post a comment on someone's blog I get as far as "publish comment" press it and am faced with the offer of setting up a blog and 'choosing' a username and password.
No matter how many times I insert my own user and pass I am told they are incorrect.
What in heavens name else am I to do.
I flatly refuse to be someone else, it's hard enough being me.
This afternoon, for the first time for ages, I was suddenly able to comment on my own blog, but still not on anyone else's.
Does anyone know whether this problem is just specially designed to drive me even further up the wall or are other 'privileged' beings getting the same treatment?
I have spent the better part of two days desperately trying to comment on other peoples' blogs, access my email and reply to comments on my own blogs.
Each time I try GOOGLE fails to recognise my username and my password. When trying to post a comment on someone's blog I get as far as "publish comment" press it and am faced with the offer of setting up a blog and 'choosing' a username and password.
No matter how many times I insert my own user and pass I am told they are incorrect.
What in heavens name else am I to do.
I flatly refuse to be someone else, it's hard enough being me.
This afternoon, for the first time for ages, I was suddenly able to comment on my own blog, but still not on anyone else's.
Does anyone know whether this problem is just specially designed to drive me even further up the wall or are other 'privileged' beings getting the same treatment?
Tuesday, 24 May 2011
I Don't Do Beige!
Getting back in a force-forty gale from St M's this lunchtime, I picked up my 'mail' as I opened the door.
Nothing remarkable (except that for once there were no appeals), but the usual load of unwanted catalogues were in a heap behind the door.
I virtually never, buy from these, but often flick through them before consigning them to the recycling baskets.
This batch were mainly womens' clothing for the 'older' woman.
Now just where did they get that idea from?
Older woman indeed! I don't admit to a day over ......well I don't anyway.
The thing that struck me most forcibly, apart from the exorbitant price of most of the stuff, was the assumption that any woman over 50 or so must conform to a regime of drab, shapeless garments, mainly in shades of grey or worse - much worse - beige.
Now I suppose there is nothing inherantly wrong with beige but I loath it. Colour is very important to me and as I may have hinted before everything, including my moods are seen in terms of parts of the spectrum.
Somehow or other my leanings are towards green, blues and violets and not to the reds yellows oranges and browns. As for beige. What is beige?
It's a non-colour, an absence of colour, the faded remnant of a once bright shade. It is what happens when there is no natural light, in short, for me it is anathema.
There is a tendancy when hair's natural colour fades for what remains to become a sort of brindled grey or white (if you're lucky) and whatever the original once was. Most of us sigh regretfully and live with it. A few go determinedly blonde or red. A few really sad specimens add the merest touch of heaven knows what colour to the pale original which then becomes......You've guessed it , beige!
Add to one nondescript head of hair, one fading skinned face a top and skirt of the dreaded non-colour and you have a premature ghost.
Why oh why do people (men too), not play to their strengths and emphasise what is worth emphasising rather than paint over the entire creation with a neutral wash.
I'm sure the good lord created colour to imrove life's perspective, why not meet him half-way?
Nothing remarkable (except that for once there were no appeals), but the usual load of unwanted catalogues were in a heap behind the door.
I virtually never, buy from these, but often flick through them before consigning them to the recycling baskets.
This batch were mainly womens' clothing for the 'older' woman.
Now just where did they get that idea from?
Older woman indeed! I don't admit to a day over ......well I don't anyway.
The thing that struck me most forcibly, apart from the exorbitant price of most of the stuff, was the assumption that any woman over 50 or so must conform to a regime of drab, shapeless garments, mainly in shades of grey or worse - much worse - beige.
Now I suppose there is nothing inherantly wrong with beige but I loath it. Colour is very important to me and as I may have hinted before everything, including my moods are seen in terms of parts of the spectrum.
Somehow or other my leanings are towards green, blues and violets and not to the reds yellows oranges and browns. As for beige. What is beige?
It's a non-colour, an absence of colour, the faded remnant of a once bright shade. It is what happens when there is no natural light, in short, for me it is anathema.
There is a tendancy when hair's natural colour fades for what remains to become a sort of brindled grey or white (if you're lucky) and whatever the original once was. Most of us sigh regretfully and live with it. A few go determinedly blonde or red. A few really sad specimens add the merest touch of heaven knows what colour to the pale original which then becomes......You've guessed it , beige!
Add to one nondescript head of hair, one fading skinned face a top and skirt of the dreaded non-colour and you have a premature ghost.
Why oh why do people (men too), not play to their strengths and emphasise what is worth emphasising rather than paint over the entire creation with a neutral wash.
I'm sure the good lord created colour to imrove life's perspective, why not meet him half-way?
Monday, 23 May 2011
THE CAMERA CANNOT LIE !!!
I've lost count of the number of times I've heard that phrase.
Is it true? No, I don't think so.
Cameras can exaggerate, embroider, select bits and neglect others - maybe they don't actually lie but they can very easily give a false impression.
So why do we keep photographs? Is it so that we can choose the best to give a particular emphasis to some incident or phase from our past. Is it so we can impress someone by selecting a particular back-ground. Is it to reinforce our own self-esteem? Or simply as a record of an event we hope to look back upon with pride?
A good and wise friend asked me recently to fish out some old photos of myself and my past life and I found to my surprise that most of the hundreds of photos I've kept are largely unpeopled.
This as far as I personally am concerned is simply because I have always hated being photographed and when unavoidably 'caught' on camera have been so horrified by the resulting image that whenever possible I've destroyed them. This however, is a different thing altogether from having a large collection of places buildings views etc, but almost none of people.
Taking it a stage further, I also realised that such few pictures as adorn my walls are in the main still lifes. These also are devoid of human figures. While I like artists such as Lowrie, Hieronymus Bosch, Bruegel elder and younger the people in their paintings are quite unlike ordinary people. Freud, think about that!
Since I am in process of decluttering, most of the photographs I have (taken in Nederlands, France, Prague Poland, Germany, Salzburg and many other places) will soon be in the recycling box, but asking myself why they are as they are and why they were taken in the first place has really made me wonder.
The person who asked me to sort out the photos drew his own conclusions, largely I think right, about the reasons for the lack of personal images and has helped me considerably to understand at least some of my attitudes myself and others.
Which is where we came in.
Is it true? No, I don't think so.
Cameras can exaggerate, embroider, select bits and neglect others - maybe they don't actually lie but they can very easily give a false impression.
So why do we keep photographs? Is it so that we can choose the best to give a particular emphasis to some incident or phase from our past. Is it so we can impress someone by selecting a particular back-ground. Is it to reinforce our own self-esteem? Or simply as a record of an event we hope to look back upon with pride?
A good and wise friend asked me recently to fish out some old photos of myself and my past life and I found to my surprise that most of the hundreds of photos I've kept are largely unpeopled.
This as far as I personally am concerned is simply because I have always hated being photographed and when unavoidably 'caught' on camera have been so horrified by the resulting image that whenever possible I've destroyed them. This however, is a different thing altogether from having a large collection of places buildings views etc, but almost none of people.
Taking it a stage further, I also realised that such few pictures as adorn my walls are in the main still lifes. These also are devoid of human figures. While I like artists such as Lowrie, Hieronymus Bosch, Bruegel elder and younger the people in their paintings are quite unlike ordinary people. Freud, think about that!
Since I am in process of decluttering, most of the photographs I have (taken in Nederlands, France, Prague Poland, Germany, Salzburg and many other places) will soon be in the recycling box, but asking myself why they are as they are and why they were taken in the first place has really made me wonder.
The person who asked me to sort out the photos drew his own conclusions, largely I think right, about the reasons for the lack of personal images and has helped me considerably to understand at least some of my attitudes myself and others.
Which is where we came in.
Friday, 20 May 2011
ENOUGH ! - ADMITTING DEFEAT
It is a regrettable fact that as we age we have less energy, less physical strength, less 'get up and go' than earlier in our lives. This is an incontrovertible fact, but one which most of us try to deny, or at least ignore, for as long as possible.
Personally, I never admit a physical task is beyond my current abilities until it becomes self-evident.
This was brought home to me again this morning. That's twice this week - first of all brass cleaning in church - and secondly today, attempting to cut down my poor dead Grevillea. Oh what a mammoth task (which is of course, why I've put it off for so long) this has proved to be.
This once beautifull and comparatively rare shrub was my pride and joy, until this Winter's spitefull and relentless cold, followed by weeks of drought turned its green spines to a murky, rusty looking brown.
I waited in vain for enough rain to rescue it, and watered the one little green bit near the base for a week or two and finally had to admit defeat. This being a day when I normally take it easy until evening's choir practice, seemed as good a time as any to tackle it.
An hour and a half later, back aching, thumbs and wrists painfull (I have arthritis in my hands), and with only about half of it cut down I had to stop. I haven't even attempted to gather up the evil spines and bag them up for collection, so they are sitting in the front garden like an early offering for fifth of November, and there they will remain until the next rush of energy arrives.
What is left to be cut is rather more like a miniature forest than the lower branches of a shrub so it is possible I may have to call on someone else to do the cutting.
Oh how I hate being beaten, but even my mostly abundant energy is flagging and I am reluctantly being forced to recognize that I am no longer 30 (or 40, or50 etc). Galling but inescapeable.
Another step down the slippery slope or maybe just a blip. Time will tell!
Personally, I never admit a physical task is beyond my current abilities until it becomes self-evident.
This was brought home to me again this morning. That's twice this week - first of all brass cleaning in church - and secondly today, attempting to cut down my poor dead Grevillea. Oh what a mammoth task (which is of course, why I've put it off for so long) this has proved to be.
This once beautifull and comparatively rare shrub was my pride and joy, until this Winter's spitefull and relentless cold, followed by weeks of drought turned its green spines to a murky, rusty looking brown.
I waited in vain for enough rain to rescue it, and watered the one little green bit near the base for a week or two and finally had to admit defeat. This being a day when I normally take it easy until evening's choir practice, seemed as good a time as any to tackle it.
An hour and a half later, back aching, thumbs and wrists painfull (I have arthritis in my hands), and with only about half of it cut down I had to stop. I haven't even attempted to gather up the evil spines and bag them up for collection, so they are sitting in the front garden like an early offering for fifth of November, and there they will remain until the next rush of energy arrives.
What is left to be cut is rather more like a miniature forest than the lower branches of a shrub so it is possible I may have to call on someone else to do the cutting.
Oh how I hate being beaten, but even my mostly abundant energy is flagging and I am reluctantly being forced to recognize that I am no longer 30 (or 40, or50 etc). Galling but inescapeable.
Another step down the slippery slope or maybe just a blip. Time will tell!
Wednesday, 18 May 2011
BRASSO AND THE BUDGIE
A few days ago I was unwise enough to volunteer for another 'little' job at St. M's. I'm not sure what kind of idiot that makes me since the most often repeated maxim when I was in the WRAC all those years ago was "never volunteer for anything".
At that time if you were in one of the armed forces, when volunteers were called for, the recommended practice was to keep your head down and play invisible. This usually resulted in anyone daft enough to catch the officer's eye being 'volunteered' to perform some dreary or humiliating task from which there was no rescue.
Since retirement I have done a few things on a voluntary basis including two-and-a-half years as an Adult Literacy teacher, feeding and trapping feral acts to get them spayed/neutered, collecting with a tin for a number of different charities, and since John's death, putting in a few hours in the Parish office of St. M's.
All these things have given me some degree of satisfaction, but as time has passed, energy diminished and options become fewer, I have found the need for more social contact and something to occupy my hands.
Among the considerable list of jobs in the church for whom volunteers are being sought was that of brass cleaning.
Hmmm I thought, doesn't sound too bad, and doesn't involve wet hands (I have eczema), I'll have a go at that.
I should say at this point that St. M's is blessed with some very fine looking candle-holders - I won't call them candlesticks, they're more like trees - and a truly wonderful lectern in the form of an eagle with spread wings. He is a magnificent beast and is known affectionately as, the budgie.
Having turned up in scruffy jeans, knowing I'd be doing a bit of bending and stretching I thought I was all set for a pleasant morning.
"What a mistaka to maka". First of all, he stands on a large round base resting on three lion heads, then the stem has a series of posts and discs all quite large, this then leads up to a globe with ornamental leaves, possibly acanthus, I'm not sure, then the large claws of the budgie rest on this globe his highly decorative feathers start on his legs and are full of intricate detail culminating in his head with curved beak and fierce eyes.
Without piling on the agony further let me say I started at 9.30 and finished at around 11.30 hot sweaty exhausted and with - to my eyes anyway- an only marginally brighter cleaner bird than when I started.
Never again will I, even for one second describe this form of refined torture as a 'bit of brass cleaning' and as for the remainder of the brass - well, it will have to wait till I've re-caffeinated my system sufficiently to tackle the next round.
Someone suggested using a small soft toothbrush for the 'feathers'of the bird, but I fear this might scratch him. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know.
At that time if you were in one of the armed forces, when volunteers were called for, the recommended practice was to keep your head down and play invisible. This usually resulted in anyone daft enough to catch the officer's eye being 'volunteered' to perform some dreary or humiliating task from which there was no rescue.
Since retirement I have done a few things on a voluntary basis including two-and-a-half years as an Adult Literacy teacher, feeding and trapping feral acts to get them spayed/neutered, collecting with a tin for a number of different charities, and since John's death, putting in a few hours in the Parish office of St. M's.
All these things have given me some degree of satisfaction, but as time has passed, energy diminished and options become fewer, I have found the need for more social contact and something to occupy my hands.
Among the considerable list of jobs in the church for whom volunteers are being sought was that of brass cleaning.
Hmmm I thought, doesn't sound too bad, and doesn't involve wet hands (I have eczema), I'll have a go at that.
I should say at this point that St. M's is blessed with some very fine looking candle-holders - I won't call them candlesticks, they're more like trees - and a truly wonderful lectern in the form of an eagle with spread wings. He is a magnificent beast and is known affectionately as, the budgie.
Having turned up in scruffy jeans, knowing I'd be doing a bit of bending and stretching I thought I was all set for a pleasant morning.
"What a mistaka to maka". First of all, he stands on a large round base resting on three lion heads, then the stem has a series of posts and discs all quite large, this then leads up to a globe with ornamental leaves, possibly acanthus, I'm not sure, then the large claws of the budgie rest on this globe his highly decorative feathers start on his legs and are full of intricate detail culminating in his head with curved beak and fierce eyes.
Without piling on the agony further let me say I started at 9.30 and finished at around 11.30 hot sweaty exhausted and with - to my eyes anyway- an only marginally brighter cleaner bird than when I started.
Never again will I, even for one second describe this form of refined torture as a 'bit of brass cleaning' and as for the remainder of the brass - well, it will have to wait till I've re-caffeinated my system sufficiently to tackle the next round.
Someone suggested using a small soft toothbrush for the 'feathers'of the bird, but I fear this might scratch him. If anyone knows of a better way, please let me know.
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