MY MATE KEV/THE MENOPAUSE

Been for a day out with my mate Kev. Been mates with Kev for 20 years but we both moved and lost touch for a bit. It was much harder to find him because he is not on Facebook. We are both 54. Kev is a brilliant singer a writer of songs and a guitarist. He was in a band in the late 70’s early 80’s. He could have been a rock star but he chose to veer off the path of fame and fortune for the sake of love, a love that lasted 15 years. Kev is single now like me. He’s a grumpy old man and I’m a grumpy old woman but we can both laugh about it now and talk about hindsight, what might have been and how life would have been so different if only…..

Kev was made redundant last year. He’s worked all his life. He might lose his house 'cos he can’t pay his mortgage. He’s selling it for a knock down price before it gets repossessed.

Kev’s great, and like me, he too can laugh in the face of adversity. Today we got onto the subject of the menopause. Kev knows I am suffering/going through/dealing with the menopause. Kev, Molly, Ruby, Niamh (our collective dogs) and me all walked up a quite a big hill. We stopped half way up so I could get my fan out. Heat wave + hot flush, not good. Bloody hot flushes, bloody menopause I said. Kev said “what is the menopause, is that when you have a pause from men?” So I said yes Kev, I think it is. How can you possibly consider romance when you wake up in the middle of the night, dripping with sweat, stuck to your duvet, to find your dog feasting off the sweat on your forehead? Then we got to talking about Always Ultras. These are some of my ideas to use them now I no longer have a need.

Although I no longer need Always Ultra
I’ve found a use for them now
I can lie down with one pressed
Onto my sweaty brow!

Another use for Always Ultras
I may well start a trend
I could use them as a book mark
When I ‘m reading Peoples Friend

Now I’m on a roll
I might design some posters
I can cut my Always Ultras out
And turn them into coasters!

And what about some insoles
To put inside your shoes
I still have 2 packets of Ultras
For which I have no use!

Anyway, Kev came up with a brilliant idea and we are wondering if we should take it to Dragon’s Den. This is what he said, we could use them to make Para gliders for Barbie dolls and sell them on e-bay!

Any comments on this would be most welcome.

SANTANDER

My flat is empty of life forms apart from Baby Niamh curled up on one of the old lady chairs and Ruby snuggled up on the old lady settee with her nose buried in Susie Warner’s furry pink cushion. I am not working today so I suppose this would be the ideal opportunity to clean the flat. I’m not in a domestic goddess mood. I have looked in my bedside cabinet for some reading glasses. I found 4 spectacle receptacles and opened each one with eager anticipation. Not one of them had any reading glasses in. I threw them all back in the drawer and slammed the drawer in disgust. No doubt next time I am looking for reading glasses I will go through the same rigmarole again, not remembering that I had already done this before. It would have been better if I had removed the spectacle receptacles there and then. Well ….. it’s not as if I have so much to do now I don’t have time to go looking through empty glasses cases. Anyway, it’s easy to get distracted when you’re not fully committed to the job in hand so I’ve been watching the American X Factor. During the adverts and whilst I was in the kitchen making a brew, I heard a Santander advert. Santander is my new bank. This is not a bank I chose myself. It is the bank that “took over” the Alliance and Leicester. They also changed all the paperwork, the design and colour of my bank statements and increased the charge of my overdraft facility by 100%. Changing everything does not necessarily make it better. It appears that I am to bear the brunt of the costs for these changes by Santander surreptitiously adding the 100% increase to the charge for my overdraft facility. I have written a poem and sent it via secure e-mail to Santander. If these wealthy bankers have a conscience I will soon have £100 in my bank account.

This is the poem:-

I’ve just seen an advert on telly
About switching to Santander
If you do you’ll get a £100
But I think that’s just not fair.
The reason that I think this
Is cos I banked with A & L
Who were taken over by Santander
So I should get £100 as well.
I was happy with A & L
It wasn’t my choice to switch
And the transition did not go too smoothly
Or sadly without a hitch.
The payments and transfers facility
I use to send cash to my son
With the faster payment service
When he finds that his cash has all gone.
I transfer the occasional tenner
Into his student account
And if you look at the state of my finances
It’s a relatively high amount.
But during the merge with my bank
The faster payment did not go through
And my poor boy was left penniless and starving
And did not know what to do.
Therefore as a gesture of goodwill
And so I keep my overdraft with you
Could you credit my account with £100
I think that’s the least you could do.
I have not put a question mark
It’s a rhetorical question you see
And the charges you’ve added to my account
I’d be obliged if you returned them to me.

MY BOY'S GONE BACK TO UNI :(

I’m not too keen on silence
It’s not a sound I like
But that’s the sound I hear now
My son’s gone to uni and taken his bike.
I’ve just been in his room
There’s no laptop or guitar
And although he’s gone to Salford
And it’s really not that far
I’ll leave his bedroom door open
Not a lot, just a little ajar.
I won’t put everything away
‘Cos I know that he’ll be back
So I think I’ll leave it a couple more days
Before I start to pack.
I know I should not feel so sad
My son is twenty four
And he only came for the summer
He’d already left home before.
I love my son you see
I think he’s a really good bloke
His feet are firmly on the ground
And I think he sees the joke.
The thing that we both share
And what I think he’s learned from me
Is no matter what life throws at us
We laugh in the face of adversity.

THE INEPT SHOPLIFTER

Yesterday evening, a rather inept shoplifter helped himself to a large case of Thornton’s Milk Chocolate Collection from the Co-op where I work. These are on offer, reduced from £11.00 to £5.00. He was seen carrying these chocolates out of the Co-op without paying for them. Not by me, I hasten to add. I am relaying this story as told to me by Colette. I have been on a conflict course setting out the procedure should we spot a customer leaving the Co-op without paying for his/her shopping. We do not under any circumstances chase the assailant or try to make a citizens arrest. This led to the shoplifter being able to hot foot it down the road laden with several large boxes of Thornton’s chocolates.

This shoplifter had not taken into account the sharp eyed neighbourhood watch team or the fact that a local police officer lived quite close to the bus stop. This is the bus stop where he was seen sitting holding on to these chocolates. These are quite large boxes of chocolates and far too big to fit in a Co-op carrier bag or even a large bag you would expect an experienced shoplifter to use.

I do not know why this gentleman decided to hang around this residential area with a sharp eyed neighbourhood watch team for 2 hours. I do not use the local bus service but I do believe it is a very good bus service even in the evening. His failure to plan his getaway more thoroughly resulted in him being arrested at the bus stop by our local police officer (I won’t mention Phil’s name as I do not wish to blow his cover) and taken away with the Thornton’s Chocolates as evidence. I am doubtful these chocolates will be returned to the Co-op. Forensics still has my jacket which was taken away as evidence when the Co-op was the victim of an armed robbery and I was man handled by one of the masked men – this was in January. I was asked at work last week if I would like a new warm fleece. I said yes please. If I do get my old one back it will no doubt be covered in Thornton’s chocolate.

I would suspect that as the culprit was caught red handed (with chocolate on his hands) the Thornton’s chocolates can be returned immediately.

FACEBOOK

I’ve noticed that a lot of the young people have posted photo albums on their profiles entitled Summer 2011. These pictures are full of young people having fun, drinking and partying, as you would expect from the younger generation. I got to thinking what pictures I would post on my Facebook profile for Summer 2011. I do not have these pictures as it did not occur to me at the time that I could make a photo album entitled Summer 2011 to share with my Facebook friends.

Here is a list in no particular order:-

1. The little bald bailiff man outside my door clutching a “notice to issue distress”.
2. The Casualty Department at Northern General Hospital where I spent an afternoon with Judybongo with separate, but tenuously related injuries.
3. My son and his friends dressing up as “ladies” in dresses and going out in the dead of night (I do believe there is some photographic evidence of this event).
4. Me talking to a policeman through the open window of my car. I was sent on my way without being charged. It was a little misunderstanding.
5. Last but not least and an excellent photo opportunity. After allowing my learner driver son to drive my car from Sheffield to Manchester and stopping off at various places and driving through Manchester City centre and up and down the Mancunian Way, covering more than 160 miles….. The look on my face when finally pulling up outside my flat at 11.50 p.m. with only 10 minutes left on my son’s temporary car insurance, to be stopped by the police. My son had stopped the car at the bus stop round the corner where his girlfriend was waiting. He turned the lights off when he got out to snog her and drove the few yards home with no lights on. I should have noticed this but I didn’t. Unfortunately, the police did.
6. My final picture would be my full clean driving licence.

THE MENOPAUSE

The older I get, the more I am reminded of the things my dear old Mum used to say and the things I used to take with a pinch of salt, for instance “Wait till you are my age”. Well I am now at the age my Mum was when she said that. I can assure you, it is not something I have been waiting for. Getting older is inevitable and the Menopause is nature’s way of reminding you of this. Hormones, testosterone, oestrogen, progesterone. These are all lovely words that roll off the tongue. They do not, however, describe the hot flushes and the sweat that rolls from your head down your face, neck and back or the random little whiskers that appear on your chin:-

As well as the horrendous hot flushes

There’s something else that’s weird

In between the beads of sweat

I’ve started to grow a beard!

The Sounds of Suburbia

When I took the dogs out this morning I was aware of the sights and sounds of suburbia. During the short walk to the woods down the tree lined streets, I could see and hear the chatter of the Mums and kids going to school, I could hear the wind whistling through the trees and the quiet hum of the traffic going round the little roundabout. I saw a golden retriever with a limp and I had to step onto the road to get past a mini JCB parked on the pavement.

The sound that made me think was the sound of empty bottles clanking into the blue bins. Could this have been the remnants of a weekend partying or just the empty bottles where at the bottom, the answers to the meaning of life, the universe and why we are here were maybe found, albeit briefly.

RUBY'S BAD NERVES

I have decided to be a blogger. Because I am menopausal I quite often don’t know what day it is. Things happen and I forget. I don’t think I will forget this morning, but in case I do, this is what happened:-

I was awoken at 6.05 a.m. (Sunday). My 24 year old son had been to a party and this is the time he came home, with his girlfriend in tow. Ordinarily this would not bother me; however, I have 2 dogs, one is called Ruby. Before Ruby came to live with me she had already had at least 2 previous homes. To say she is bad with her nerves would be a fair comment. To say my son was very drunk when he stumbled through the patio doors at 6.05 a.m. would also be a fair comment. I have no idea what happened to Ruby in her previous incarnations but this is not the first time my son has come home drunk in the early hours and it is not the first time that Ruby has gone hysterical in a small dog type way and wet herself. When I say wet herself, I mean dribbled wee all over my bed and pillow and also left a little pool on my lounge room carpet. Ruby is unable to tell me what happened to her previously but I suspect she was hurt or frightened by someone who was very drunk.

In conclusion, dogs are like people. If Ruby is approached suddenly, she will instinctively take a couple of steps backwards. She will always have trust issues but she also has an amazing capacity to forgive, but I don’t think she will ever forget, unlike me who has difficulty knowing what day it is.