I have just got my entry in, why not give yourself a challenge and join in!
Don’t you just hate the type of women that always, without fail, manage to look perfect; from shiny, healthy, beautifully styled hair to their pedicured toenails! Unfortunately, I am not, and never will be one of those women, preferring to be awkward instead – but how I envy them!
Take how I dress for work, for example; aside from the very unflattering uniform, (which by the way, is the shade of grey that is achieved by putting a white and black item in the same wash on a high temperature; it looks dirty before I have even started). I never bother to wear any makeup (it would be pointless as I get soooo hot on the ward) and I usually put my hair up in a clip, so there is no styling involved. If I did make an effort to wear make-up and have some stylish up-do (which iI would have to get someone else to do anyway…I’m rubbish with hair), then it would all be ruined within the first hour of me being there!
As I mentioned, I get boiling and, after a while of running around, the sweat is dripping down my face, which is bad enough (and embarrassing) without imagining what the result would look like if I had carefully made up my face. Not only would I have ghastly streaks down my face from rivulets of sweat spoiling the foundation, but no doubt, the mascara would run, causing hideous black, spidery smudges mingling with streaky foundation! ( I am there to try to help the patients feel better, not scare them into an early grave)!
Talking of work, I used to have a colleague called Jenny who was one of these perfect women. We used to work in the Operations department of a busy travel brochure company, so could mostly wear what we wanted to work. On this particular day, she and I both turned up in identical outfits! We had on hot pink 3/4 trousers, a black top and black mules.
Neither one of us knew the other was going to wear the said outfit, and that was only the start of my humiliation! Jenny is tall, willowy and blonde, and she looked fantastic. I am blonde, but that is where the similarity ends, as I am also short and chunky! Needless to say, everyone commented on our outfits, and my other friend made it worse by calling us Bim and Bo (put it together and you get…the picture)!
Jenny and I became good friends, and used to go to the gym together during our lunch hour (why do I set myself up to fail)?! The day I remember vividly (branded in my brain as one of THE worst embarrassing moments) started when both of us were on adjacent treadmills… We built up the speed until we were running. Just before ten minutes were up, I was gloating over the fact that Jenny had slowed down and I had managed to keep up the pace! Well, we all know what pride comes before, and sure enough, I lost concentration and my footing.
I was flailing, desperately trying to stay upright..but no…BANG. I fell on the treadmill which was still going, and it resented my falling on it. So it spitefully chucked me right off and landed with a thud in a heap at the foot of one of the other exercise machines!
I sat there winded and rather red in the face, and my leg hurt and then, Oh no…here comes Mr Hunky Gym Instructor Guy. Great, I look like a right bloody fool. He comes over solicitously, helps me up and leads me off to the changing room to minister to my wounds, which I reluctantly showed him, ( I was dying of shame showing him my tree trunk legs, which were bruised and scraped)! No real damage was done so manfully (or womanfully) I decided to go back out there and workout on one of the machines.
I chose the one where you could sit down, and use the weights to bring your arms backwards and forward( you can tell I am no Gym bunny as I don’t know the names of any of the machines). Anyway, there was a bloke that was working out opposite me who was giving me a bit of a funny look. I assumed he had seen my little ‘accident’ and carried on. He still kept glancing my way, and I knew it wasn’t a lustful look (God knows, if it was he must have been desperate)! I looked down and to my utter mortification, noticed that the underwire from my bra, had somehow broken free and was poking out of my top! That was it, time to go and never return!
Jenny, of course, looked as elegant and fresh when she had finished her workout as she had before she had started!!!
I have entered, why not have a go too. 🙂
I was just reminiscing about the good old days, those carefree days of childhood when everything was so different…Thank God, some things do change for the better!
- Who remembers that awful scratchy toilet paper (or was it tracing paper)? that didn’t wipe anything at all, instead just spreading it around. Not only that but it was so rough and got into all those tender places making them sore. This was all we had at school so we had to like it or lump it!
- The note from Mum. I love this one, it was like a magic ticket in some ways that NOBODY questioned. It got you off PE (well it would if it were genuine, I tried forging it once and got found out straight away)! Your Mum would send you off to the shops with a note for 20 cigarettes or Dad would want some beer, If you had the note, it was fine! I can’t believe looking back that I travelled back from Germany on my own at 14 years old on my own, via train and Ferry with just a Visitor’s Passport and a note from my Mum saying I was not a runaway
- Buying a single cigarette from the shop. This might not be common everywhere, but I do remember buying one or two single cigarettes on the way to, or home from school. There was also a cigarette vending machine at the end of our road which sold 7 cigarettes for something like 20p.
- Another one about school, corporal punishment I remember when I was at school there were various forms of this, the cane, the slipper, the strap and the ruler being the most popular If a child was unlucky enough to get punished at school then the chances are they would get another clout when they got home for being in trouble as they always knew!
- Nitty Nora the bug explorer! Otherwise known as the school nurse! Although there are still school nurses, they don’t go through your hair looking for lice (nits), as they did when I was at school. They were quite heavy-handed as I remember, and would go through us one at a time in a room. The door was left open though and everyone knew if you had them. You would then be sent home in disgrace to get yourself treated before being allowed back.
- Another thing I remember from school is having to back all of our books. I used to hate doing this, especially if we didn’t have any brown paper or anything. I have used rather garish wallpaper before now when there has been nothing else!
- Doing PE in just a vest and knickers! When I was in primary school girls and boys would do PE in their underwear! It seems odd now, but nobody thought anything of it.
I have had fun looking back at this list from my childhood, but I am sure there are many things I have forgotten. Can you think of any? Please let me know in the comments,
Some time ago I read a post by Wendy on the Rock where she talks about her love for bad language, particularly the ‘F’ word and how this used to upset her mother to hear her swearing at one time, but now she has become used to it.
I could relate to this post, mainly as it brought back memories of how strict my mum and stepdad were when my siblings and I were growing up. I have to say that as a little girl, I was not much of a swearer, in fact, I was reticent and a bit of a ‘Goody Two Shoes’. Well, truth be known, back in the ‘olden days’ we didn’t hear much bad language, not even on the TV (Mind you I had to be in bed before eight until I was about 12 years old)!
I never heard my mother swear at all, growing up, (I don’t count ‘bugger’, ‘bloody’ and ‘Christ’ as swearing. She did let the odd ‘shit’ slip out though (Ha Ha! bit of a double entendre there). Woe betide any of us that dared say any of those words though, We would be threatened as Wendy was, with our mouths being washed out with soap. My stepfather was a bit different though as he had a broad West Country ‘oooh-arrr’ type of accent that made us laugh, especially when he described someone falling as ‘going arse over tit’. Commonplace now but shocking to us kids back then. Mum would give him a bit of a look, but he was oblivious to it anyway!
I remember when I was about nine years old and desperate to grow up quickly, was upset about my deficiency in the boob department. We had been singing Christmas Carols at school. A line from ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ had piqued my interest, which was …’a breastful of milk and a manger full of hay’. Hmmm, did that mean that if I drank a lot of milk, then a would get big boobs, which I desperately wanted ( I was very innocent back then). Anyway, I asked my Mum for a glass of milk, and for some reason told her why I wanted it. She asked me to repeat what I had just said,
“To make my breastful of milk grow bigger,” I chirped. WRONG! I got a clout for that!. We did not discuss intimate body parts in our house, not even allowed to say ‘bum’. Bottom was the correct term for everything front and back, girls and boys! Sex education we learned at school (or from other kids), and I dreaded telling my Mum when puberty started!
I would never swear in front of my older brothers and sisters either, particularly my eldest sister as I would probably get a smack off her as well (she dobbed me in to my Mum when she found a packet of cigarettes on me when I was 13)!!! Funnily enough, Mum wasn’t as mad about that as she would be about us swearing!
My younger sister was and is a lot braver, and much feistier than I am. I remember once when we were teenagers; she was sleeping in my room, and as we used to fight like cat and dog then. I for once got furious and told her to ‘piss off”. Oh, no, Mum’s room was next door, and sure enough, my stepdad yelled, but at my sister, not me! No-one thought I had it in me to use such language!
Now of course. Mum doesn’t seem to mind her grand-children swearing, in fact, she has been known to come out with a few choice words herself. Not only that she openly talks about sex (CRINGE), and has a filthy mind we’ve discovered. When we have large family gatherings, we quite often end up playing games, and although they always start reasonably innocently, ‘consequences’ ends up making an appearance, and the filthier, the better!
For those unfamiliar with it, everyone starts off with a bit of paper, you write a girl’s name on it, fold it over, pass it to the next person and they write a boy’s name on it, fold it over, pass it on. Then write where they met, what they did, what he said, she said and how it ended up each time folding it over and passing it on. When that is over, you take it in turns to read out all the combinations. It is a playground game really, but you can get some interesting scenarios if you have a dirty mind!
It is odd though that I still have that fear (or respect) in me that I will not swear in front of my Mum!
Today’s video poem is about a tree. That may not sound very exciting but you know how much they can change over time .
If you enjoyed those poems, and have time for a cuppa then you might like to check out my book Rhymes of the Times. It has many more poems like this and is perfect for dipping in and out of when you fancy a little pick-me-up.
Click here to be taken to my author page where you can purchase the book.
As some of you may remember, last September, I embarked on a low carbohydrate diet as recommended by GP in order to lose weight, I had steadily got bigger and bigger, and I knew that I needed to do something about it. The fact that I have Type 2 diabetes as well means that I have to be extra careful about what I eat to maintain healthy blood glucose levels.
I was going back monthly at first to monitor how I was doing, and to start with, I lost 5kg (about 12lb), and that gave me a great incentive to carry on. For over six months I had no crisps, no bread, pasta, rice, pastry or potatoes, and of course no cake either! Even at Christmas, I didn’t overindulge, in fact, I hardly indulged at all. This healthy eating lark was not proving to be much fun, but I was on a mission.
I didn’t lose any more weight, in fact, I put a little back on. To say I was disheartened was an understatement. In April I started University and still managed to keep to the no-carb lunches (mainly because I just took in fruit).
At the end of July, I went on my first placement, and this is where everything changed. The place that I was at offered a complete meal at lunchtime for a reasonable price, which often included starchy carbs of some kind. I piously left them for the first couple of days, but running around working twelve-hour shifts left me starving hungry, and to be honest, downright crabby!
I justified eating the carbs for lunch. Then I ate sandwiches now and again; oh, how I had missed bread. Chocolate crept in next, velvety smooth, milky chocolate, followed closely by crisps. I crunched my way through a 1/4 of a tube of Pringles without even blinking; they were soooooo good! Then came my home-made steamed puddings, Yes, I can cook, and by then I had started my holiday from Uni and placement so had some time to do so.
Bad idea! I have worked a couple of shifts for my old job, and I noticed that my uniform was a little snugger than before. I also felt bloated and huge (not surprising with all that stodge) and decided that I had better get myself weighed again. I am 4kg (about 10lbs) heavier now than when I started off in the first place last year!
That serves me right I know, but I wallowed (right word seeing as I feel like a beached whale) around in a bit of self-pity yesterday, had a good cry then decided that I need to get a grip of myself
So, it’s back on the low carb wagon again. I am going to eat a little bit of the starchy carbs but no more that about 120g a day. At least I won’t feel like I am missing out and there is a bit of substance there to fill me up! Oh, and I am going to take up exercise this time too!
There, I’ve said it! I bloody hate exercise, well I do if it involves me wobbling about with a load of skinny people, feeling ashamed and humiliated at the size of me. I haven’t quite worked out my exercise plan yet, but I am going to commit to doing it this time, and not using the excuse that ‘I run around a lot at work!’
Thankfully we have some of lovely bloggers like Sally Cronin and Carol Taylor who have joined forces to bring us lots of healthy and nutritious recipes which you can find here. In fact, I have already bought the ingredients for Sally’s Brown Rice Pilaf that I have been meaning to try for some time. Esme from The Recipe Hunter, also features many delicious recipes.
I am starting again with renewed vigour and determination and hopefully will not be making the same mistakes as I did last year: I have learned that
- Nothing tastes as good as losing weight feels (yes I have nicked this quote and tweaked it to suit).
- It is not nice to have squeeze into tight trousers that didn’t used to be tight!
- My scales did work, it seems I just didn’t like what they said!
- Healthy eating works better with exercise for losing weight.
By the way, I have started a Healthy Eating Board on Pinterest where I am going to pin recipes, inspiration, and some motivational quotes. If you would like to contribute to this board then please just send me a message.
I have submitted my entry, why not have a go!
Rhyme and No Reason! 
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