A load of bollocks!

Last night I watched a newsreader explaining, with the use of overhead graphics, new proposals for paternity leave and pay. So bringing men more in line with womens' maternity rights.

I was totally gobsmacked by what I was seeing and hearing!

Will the powers that be soon be proposing that we share the pregnancy and birth too? Come on now, fair is fair, if they propose that they have almost equal leave and pay status, then let's share the contractions, the nausea, the episiotomy and stitches too! After all, fair's fair!

I am almost apoplectic with shock at these misguided do gooders. When will they stop meddling.

The extremes of women's lib - the pressures to go out and work and have it all, as well as look after house and home is for me an inheritance I have not appreciated. Nor have any of my women friends.

I prefer the structure of roles, men; women; knowing our limitations and our boundaries. In the work place I GET IT! But there ARE differences, can't we bloody well accept that fact?

This has really got to stop, I think it's all going too far. All in the name of equality,  equal opportunities or political correctness - which was a pretty subjective device to start with, has turned into a political and social nonsense in my view.

Women need time to adjust emotionally and physically after pregnancy and childbirth. Although I know that our maternity rights are of the most generous in the EU, let alone globally. Admittedly 2 weeks leave for our menfolk is a meagre gesture,  8 -12 weeks perhaps more appropriate and more useful in practical and emotional terms. 

I just don't think it's realistic to offer equal leave and pay to men, on so many levels.

The day equal maternity pay and leave becomes law should be the day a man has a baby.

Its my turn to hold the remote...

which is my way of saying, the day is mine, all mine!

Following on from my quiet start Sunday, yesterday must have been Manic Monday. After the kids went off to school, no mean feat I'm sure you know. I may not have to wash and dress them anymore, but finding change for school lunch and it hardly warrants the title, is an arduous task in itself, I admit to looking in Larry's suit pockets and in between cushions and the crease of the washing machine seal!

I then purposefully, but probably furtively, went to the hardware store to replenish some articles in the 'old' kitchen and returned to the scene of the crime - for that was how it felt yesterday pre-inventory check. After disposing of the tumble dryer at  the tip, sweeping up the previous nights windfall and reassuring myself in vain that the house looked at it was when we moved in 18 months ago, the agent drove up early. One and a half hours later the deed was done, to everyones satisfaction - least of all Larry with the pending cash return. Keys were exchanged and the underneath line could be drawn.

The utter relief was palpable, you felt it too I'm sure.

Last night was spent in a less harangued fashion to that of late. I think Larry and I actually sat down and not just to eat. Which brings me to the now. Kids gone, Larry has departed for work beyond Cumbria's borders and will return to refill his boots on Friday. Dog fed, not yet walked.

I am in the foreground again of the whine of the washer, I've set up my ipod with speakers in the kitchen so my choice of early morning harmony this morning is 'Taking it to the Streets' from The Best of The Doobie Bros  (with the wonderful and perfect blue eyed Michael McD who is also Fab live!)  A strange choice for this time of day perhaps, but I'm not going to curl up just yet on the couch and catch up with 2 epi's of ER and of Brothers & Sisters, just yet. I shall first catch up with my pals online and then I'll Take it to the streets for an hour or two, then come home and decide whether to chill or do more stuff around here, you know I may just chill as its back to work tomorrow and juggling it all.

So I'm to take advantage of the day until 4.30pm, when Watch with Mother is only a dream of what was and the kids return home to raid the fridge (which I should fill).

enjoy

Quiet time

I'm sitting in the ktichen,  on the table newspapers surround me like train sleepers, buffering and comforting me against another long day of cleaning and rearranging in the old homestead. 

But for now, I'm wallowing in the moment that is the tick of the new kitchen clock and the whine of the still busy washing machine, working more relentlessly than I at this time.

Larry has gone a Sunday visiting his Mum; our son is sleeping over again,  at his mate's home, (does every teenager think the grass is greener), Pippa is sleeping soundlessy upon my right foot; darling daughter is sleeping, probably shoring up energy for some petulant sneering when I attempt to waken her in an hour or so. I'll leave it to the last moment, no masochist I!

It is 9 am, no I must correct this, it is 10am british summer-  guffaw- time! I have eaten two pieces of toast, butter and raspberry jam with a cup of tea, I am contemplating having the same again, but my good side is arguing with my bad side. The ST Culture has been devoured as has the Magazine, I will leave the hard stuff until tonight or maybe Wednesday -  just before I chuck them out for recycling, then flick through for those crucial speakeasy columns that shout out to me, read me, read me or my short print life has been in vain.

 

If the conservatory 0r in FFF speak, the  sun lounge (circa 1971 speak obviously) was organised I could be sitting in the warm dappled sunlight, in my imagined wing chair and with a good book, the likes of which hasn't been firmly in hand for the last 4 weeks. A joy which will  no doubt return, when I have exhausted the 357 to do lists rattling around in my mind and handbag, kitchen surfaces and bedside table. Oh! to declutter this mind.

I could remonstrate with the idea of losing an hour overnight and so less time to do things ... remember the few years back in 70's land when the powers that be trialed no time changes and we arrived at school in darkness, loved it! But I am feeling that in sitting apart from the usual fervent and furtive rants , trouble shooting and organised chaos, I am ready to draw a line and say Enfin, enough! 

I am breathing in this quiet time, this adonis of bare, naked moments, pushing away all thoughts of industrious endeavours and effortlessly taking the pleasurable time to breathe deep of the lazy Sunday morning and check in and say Bonjour, Good day and hello, to share with my friends and mentors, copains and heroes.

My glass is half full and I am enjoying the moment.

POST OF THE DAY

 
Thank you David. 

Awarded by David 'authorblog' McMahon. 

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Normal service...

will be resumed shortly

Between trying to achieve some semblance

of order in the new home; getting the old house

clean and presentable;

whilst working nine days straight

Ater today I am off for four days

and so hope I may be able to magic up a post of some description

rather than this waffle!

(am a tad worried about the amount of posts I've missed!)

Hope springs...

There has been much expounding of the virtues of spring 

on the human psyche  (you see I have been lurking a little).

I have been mulling over spring for three weeks now 

and I have been too encumbered 

by the domestic travails of moving house and home, 

as you know - you would have had to be

 living in outer Mongolia to miss this titbit.

However all I want to say on Spring is encompassed in these few words ...

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:

The soul, uneasy and confin'd from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

-Alexander Pope,

An Essay on Man, Epistle I, 1733

Mum's the word

Happy Mothers Day

Mum and me

(and for those of you who haven't twigged)

Moannie & FFF

EXHAUSTED MOI!

or in the words of Moannie - exoisted! oh do go see!

We are kinda sorted.

Just the old house to clean

the new to live in

and make our own.

The sun is shining

all bodes well.

Give me a duvet week and l'll be in fine fettle!