Week 8

Last week it was a war on storage. This week a war on paperwork and the amount of it that is currently coming through my letterbox regarding the Eastleigh by-election.  I think the Conservative Party have felled an entire forest in order to produce a daily bulletin extolling the virtues of their candidate.  I know she is local, and I know she is a ‘working’ mum with 4 children – this point is stressed in every pamphlet as if it should be main reason she deserves my vote. What  is it exactly that she works at? The omission of any specific job title makes me suspect she is a business woman earning mega-bucks. She’s obviously not a teacher, a doctor or a nurse, if that was the case her publicity machine would be crying it out from the rooftops. I suppose if I was that interested I would Google her to find out but to be honest, I’ve got better things to do. Several trips a day to the recycling bin are currently taking up my time.

Of the other dozen or so candidates all I know from the mountains of literature accumulating on the doormat is that they are all very good at slagging each other off. There are faults with all of them and it is becoming quite a dilemma. Who do I vote for?

The fact that I am even thinking about or debating this matter makes me realise I have too much time on my hands and I need to get busy. Having the teenager at home for half term has helped. I have to take her shopping for new shoes - always fun. I need to remember she has requested my presence on the shopping trip solely for my financial support - not my fashion advice. I must learn to keep quiet.

The sunshine has also fuelled my enthusiasm to get outdoors – the garden has been dug over, and is readily prepared awaiting the arrival of the landscaper who is going to aid my creative vision of horticultural heaven with the installation of a new patio and path. Hard landscaping should always be completed before any planting, according to my hero Alan Titchmarsh. I wish someone had told my sweet peas that. They need to stop growing. Religiously following the guidelines in my Gardener’s World magazine it said now was the time to sow sweet peas. I love sweet peas, they are one of my favourite flowers and I thought I would get ahead, sow the seeds indoors as per instructions, then have them ready to plant out around some fancy French rustic obelisk as soon as the new garden was ready.

However within a matter of 48 hours the seeds had germinated and are now romping way ahead of schedule in scenes reminiscent of Jack & the Beanstalk. These are not sweat peas, these are triffids and they are going to need planting outside long before the garden is ready.  What have I done to them – not enough light, too much light, have I deprived them of water or given them too much?

If one of those by-election candidates could actually do something useful and put some gardening advice into their leaflets, I might well be tempted to get out there and vote.

Week 7

I didn’t think I was a hoarder – I’ve watched those programmes on TV and I’ve seen the state real hoarders live in.  My spare room is nothing like that but it did need sorting.  Plastic crates that were carted from one loft to the next; a large selection of travel brochures and tourist information leaflets transported back from the US. It all takes up a considerable amount of space. This is a new house and a new start and some things are going to have to go.

Such as? I have collected greetings cards.  I have Wedding cards, Congratulation on the Birth cards; Anniversary cards; 18th, 21^st, 30^th and 40^th birthday cards.  Do I really need to keep them all? I have Sorry You are Leaving cards – leaving where? We’re Going To Miss You cards from former work colleagues from over 25 years ago and Welcome to your new house cards. I’ve moved  so many times I can’t even tell which house these relate to.

I have drawings and works of art that were once lovingly pinned to the front of the fridge when the kids started school. Do I really need to keep those? Will they thank me for them? Which way up do they even go? I have their first shoes, and the baby shawl. I have the photos,  I have them – what more do I need?

It’s not as if I have kept every back issue of Jackie or My Guy magazine like some hoarders, but I do have treasured old records.  Why? I have nothing to play them on. It’s all very good keeping an original vinyl of Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret by Soft Cell because of the happy memories but I’m never going to listen to it.

The wedding dress produced shrieks of hysterical laughter from the teenager – but we could both fit into it (not, I hasten to add, at the same time).  What an earth am I really keeping it for? It’s a two piece suit from Debenhams and I’ve donated far more fashionable outfits to charity bags over the years.

Sometimes we have to let go.

The cat had great fun playing with the knitted Clanger my mother made me when I was about five – although that was retrieved and put back in the box, along with nearly all the birthday cards, including  all the home-made ones, every Mothers Day Card, every Valentine’s card....

I still have the same number of plastic crates as when I started my clearing out. I retained the Dressing Up Princess Diana kit in the hope that one day it might be worth a fortune (definitely regret not taking that and putting it on e-bay in the US). I did retain the wedding dress although I’m still not sure why, and the masses of travel leaflets remain just in case, you never know, I might go back there one day.

And I suppose that’s the dilemma that all hoarders face – you never know I might need it. We never think   highly likely that I might not.

Despite a sub-conscious yelling BIN BIN BIN I took most things out of my boxes, wistfully reminisced, and then put them straight back in.

Week 6

I generally try and keep these posts to something that effects me personally and do my best to keep them humourous and light-hearted.  Any comments I make are my own personal opinions.

 I am not a political animal but  I’ve always voted because women died so that I could vote.

When we left the UK in 2009 Gordon Brown was Prime Minister. Things have changed a lot since then. We missed the 2010 general election but I will now have my chance to vote again because I live in the constituency of disgraced Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne. I’ve never met Mr Huhne – what little I know of him is from what I’ve read in recent newspaper reports and what I can remember from some dim and distant electoral bumf his supporters shoved through my doors several years ago.  I do remember him personally phoning us up at home on a previous general election evening to remind us to go and vote, even though we already had,  although not necessarily for him. My former neighbour happily recounts the story of his daughter handing him the phone on the loo when Mr Huhne phoned their household - obviously a man determined to go to great lengths to get himself elected.

Personally I don’t care whether Mr Huhne’s wife took his speeding points willingly or under coercion – we wives do an awful lot of self-sacrifice in order to support our husband’s careers – as I continually point out to my loving partner.  Mr Huhne must have known that as a politician every skeleton would one day come out of his closet. This was a man who could easily afford to take the taxi fares resulting from a speeding ban and while I often tell my husband he has sold his soul to the corporate dollar devil, Mr Huhne definitely sold his to further his own personal political ambition. As always in these cases it is the children who suffer – we are adults and make our own decisions; unfortunately our children have to live the consequences.

As women we learn very early on to make sacrifices – especially when it comes to career v family.  I was once a PA but exchanged that glittering career to become an undervalued underpaid NHS audio typist – because it meant I could take my kids to school at 9 and pick them up at 3. I have every admiration for anyone who wants a high flying career; ambition is not a crime, but deception and dishonesty are.  Mr Huhne was asking an awful lot to expect his wife, and his children, to remain forever silent, sacrificing their own integrity to support him.

Sadly I’m quite sure he is typical of many politicians.  And to think suffragettes died so that we could vote for men like him - that's what really makes my blood boil.

(Next week I promise to get back to something light and fluffy.)

Week 5

February already! January disappeared under a blanket of grey and a foot of snow. The teenager has sat the first part of her AS levels and life has returned to normal.

I have started walking again – not quite those sunny early morning power walks of Southern California but a chilly, brisk, just get on with it hike through slush and mud.   I have exchanged the potential hazards of mountain lions, bears, coyotes and a posse of Mexican gardeners for puddles and potential flooding – my regular route along the river has to be timed to match the tide tables. I’m lucky, we have settled in a rather picturesque village and if it is too wet then I head uphill and inland past chocolate box cottages and homes concealed behind automatic gates and hidden away at the end of very long drives. The most hazardous part of this route is avoiding being run down by a speeding Maserati.

Another high or low of this week’s endeavour to explore was a trip into Southampton and its relatively new Sea City Museum. I’ve always felt that my home town doesn’t really make the most of itself and its sea faring heritage, nor put a great deal of effort into promoting its historic buildings or its waterfront. The Sea City museum is housed in the rather bland Civic Centre – well away from the sea –  and has dedicated a large proportion of its exhibition to the ill-fated journey of the Titanic which set sail from Southampton in April 1912.  The exhibition concentrates on the lives of the Titanic crew (what no Kate and Leo?)  the majority of whom were from Southampton and the majority of whom, quite naturally, didn’t survive.  Whilst it’s an informative and educational experience, with an extensive selection of artefacts and rather (too) realistic sound effects, it’s hardly uplifting.

When we  arrived in California and I told people we came from Southampton I was surprised that very few Americans had ever heard of the place. It’s a major international port.  I mentioned the Titanic and the Mayflower which also set off from Southampton and carried the Pilgrim Fathers off to Massachusetts, I mentioned cruise liners and the Queen Mary, now resting in Long Beach, but it provoked little reaction.  Of course, now I’m older and great deal wiser, this doesn’t surprise me,  Americans do rather struggle with the concept of world geography. Eventually gave up explaining about Southampton and told everyone I came from south (of) London – it seemed to work much better.   (The teenager recently received a message from a former US school friend asking how she was settling in back in London, and when she replied she wasn’t in London, he replied, oh yeh – how close to London is England?)

And talking of the Mayflower and the Queen Mary,  a full size replica of one and the original of the other were both encountered on our travels in America, and  are major tourist attractions. Perhaps Southampton would draw more visitors if a life size model of the Titanic was moored up on its quayside, although perhaps not...

I think I’ve changed my mind about booking that cruise.