Joan Morrison. Wife, Mother, Grandmother, Great Grandmother.

My Granny passed away on the 1st of September.  I loved her very much.  This is her eulogy.

Joan it could be argued was Idiosyncratic, opinionated, contradictory, strong, and occasionally stubborn, but certainly unique.  Our individual memories of her are also unique, but add up to a picture of Joan that is, as complex and colourful as she was.

Every family member here today, and those that couldn’t be here,  would agree that the trait that defines Joan the most was her generosity, and we have all benefitted from that in some shape or form.  In a contradiction to her altruism was her abhorrence of waste,  this was succinctly exhibited in her collection of literally hundreds of margarine tubs, and glass jars, tin foil, paper bags and cartons, she would hardly ever throw anything away, in case it could have further use.  This could give the air of frugality, yet her kindness both to family and the occasional stranger was inexhaustible, she would think nothing of helping anyone in need, whether they were a member of the family or a homeless waif at Waterloo station.

Joan was a foodie, in the true sense.  Everyone entering her home would be fed, whether they were hungry or not.  Feeding guests, for Joan, was a way of showing her love.  Her Grandchildren all remember her porridge. Sweet, creamy and certainly the best in the world bar none, and her frothy hot drinks at bed time, served with biscuits and limitless amount of love.

Joan would certainly not baulk at a challenge.  Whether it was learning a new language, learning to drive, or making heroic efforts to visit her family scattered over the country and world.  She put huge amounts of effort into visiting her family – whether by train, plane, automobile, her old bicycle or trusted shanks pony. (Her favourite method of travel!)

Joan also touched the lives of people who never knew her – through her idiosyncratic ways, and her strong sense of individuality.  For instance, where other people would simply complain about the litter on the street, Joan was a little different!

For many years as she walked the mile or so home from the station after a long day’s work in London, she ensured she always took a few carrier bags, and then picked up every scrap of rubbish on her journey home.   I suspect that a few people who saw that old lady, in her shabby coat, picking up cans and discarded wrappers along the main road would have thought she was a little mad.  But Joan was not one to care about what others thought of her.  The streets of Ash Vale are a little dirtier now, I am sure the residents miss her too.

If one word summons up Joan, it is “FAMILY” Her love of all of her family, and the importance of the family in her life is the legacy that she leaves us, and acts as a gene imprint for generations.  It gives us a sense of what is important, and what doesn’t matter.  This is what she has bequeathed us, the children, and the grandchildren.  An ideology that family is what is most important, and worth fighting for (even if it’s just warding off angry swans at a picnic!)  Joan will be sorely missed, but her personality was so strong that it has left a stamp on everyone here, a watermark so vivid, that we see Joan in aspects of all of us, and in ways that we pass on to future generations, giving Joan the immortality that she truly deserves.

We all love and miss you Granny xxxx

Head East and keep driving….

and you will eventually end up in King’s Lynn.  Or as I like to call it, the “twilight zone” .  King’s Lynn, for those that need a quick geography lesson, is about as far east as you can travel in the UK without falling off the edge of the world. I am not sure I have ever driven so far to reach somewhere so devoid of  soul or character, and also so utterly flat!  Perhaps I am being a little harsh, after all, 8.5 hours of driving for  90 minute conversation, that could have been so easily taken over the phone,  can make me a little tetchy to say the least.   So, in order to provide a more balanced view of what King’s Lynn has to offer I have google’d it, and have come up with a list of interesting facts.  Here they are:

1.  King’s Lynn spawned Alan Hill (no relation to Damon or Graham) who  is the BMX World Champion!
2. A new ASDA Store has recently opened!
3. ….

There is no 3.  sorry.

I’d suggest if you want to visit Asda, there may be a store closer to you.

Also, when I was a kid, they weren’t called BMX’s they were called Raleigh Grifters.  I never coveted such things, I was much more into the Raleigh Chopper with it’s cool saddle and and proper sturmey archer gear stick, which was strategically placed so that any degree of hard breaking would lead you to slide off the ridiculous banana seat and strike your goolies on the insanely silly gear lever.  Who cares about health and safety, it was COOLER than a skateboard.

I hasten to add, I NEVER owned a Chopper, the rich boy across the road owned one, but he had all the good toys, my mum was never in the position to buy us such frivolities, and as looting (as seen recently in London and elsewhere) hadn’t been invented yet, we tended to just make do!

Actually, I’m in the mood for a confession, I once “looted” a cadburys flake from the cornershop when I was about 8.  My mum found out and marched me back down the road, made me hand it back and apologise to the shop owners.  I wonder how many parents are marching their kids back into Tottenham right now, clutching 40″ LCD TV’s.  I suspect the majority won’t be, they will be too busy watching Jeremy Kyle.

I of course have made up for my “deprived” childhood since, and now have 2 lovely bikes, and they both get a fair amount of use.  I can certainly build up a lot of speed on the flat, and going down hill, but the merest whiff of a decent gradient can be a real challenge for someone of my fitness level.  Perhaps King’s Lynn does have something going for it after all!

Life’s not fair.

“Ahhh Mr White”,  often throws out the phrase ” Life’s not fair” and that seems so apt today as I learnt of the death of a friend’s wife, taken from him and his children, way too early.  I hardly ever think of death, either my own or of people close to me, but in times like these I’m reminded of mortality, and the importance of not taking things or people for granted.

Thinking of you Simon, and of your family.

 

 

Not dead, only sleeping.

I know it’s been ages, life sometimes has a habit of flying by when you are looking the other way, preoccupied with other things.  So what has been preoccupying my little head these days I hear you ask?  Ok I don’t hear you ask at all, since my assumption is a) nobody but my mother is likely to read this blog, and b) unless you are in the same room, I am hardly likely to hear anything.

Actually, whilst I am on the subject of hearing, even if you WERE in the same room as me I doubt I would hear you.  I had a proper bout of man flu a few weeks ago, I kid you not,  it felt like snot was actually leaking from my eyes!  The end result has been that I have nothing more than a muffled drone in my right ear, and have done for weeks,  A trip to the doctors with her magic ear syringe should do the trick, and that’s all booked up for Monday.

Having no hearing in one of my ears, reminds me of my Grandmother.  She lost the hearing in one of her ears, and I remember as a kid, how we always had to be on her good side, if we expected to be heard.  or on her bad side, if we didn’t want to be!  I remember once seeing an advert for hearing aids in the Daily Mail, and without thought, filling in the coupon on behalf of my Gran, requesting further information.  I forgot all about it until a rather distraught call from my Grandfather, who had basically had to forcefully eject a hearing aid salesman from their home, after some hours of arguing with the pushy man, that a hearing aid could not cure her deafness.  I shall take that guilt to my grave!

My Gran now is pretty much totally deaf, and since the onset of Alzheimers,  barely lucid.  I always make a point of reminding her when she forgets my name, that I am her “favourite”  grandchild,  though I suspect that if she ever recalls the “hearing-aid-gate” incident I will fall swiftly down the pecking order.

So, apart from the man-flu, life has been busy, since my last blog, I have moved house, and moved jobs.  I do like to get the stressful things over and done with in one go.  I think the phrase is – “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” . What a load of codswallop that is!

So the job, yes after 13 and a bit years at Big Blue, I was finally tempted to jump ship to that dirty upstart Dell!  Only time will tell if it was a good move or not, but I have 2 teenage daughters and an ex-wife to keep, so I need to keep the pennies rolling in.  Daughter 2 starts a new chapter of her life in college starting her A -levels, and I am sure she will do very well, Daughter 1 has been doing her A-Levels for a year now, and has also been learning to drive.  I  have taken her out a couple of times, and chastised her for her heavy right foot, constantly berating her for her tendency to go over the speed limit.  This of course is something that I now truly regret, as 2 weeks ago, I received a letter through my door advising me that I had been clocked speeding along my local road.  Grrrr!  Luckily I had the opportunity of taking a “Driver Awareness Course”  rather than getting stuck with the endorsement and fine.

So this week, much to my daughters mirth and my own chagrin  I attended a half day workshop where I learnt how to drive more aware.  And as for my daughters teasing?  Luckily I was able to turn a deaf ear.

First Freestyles and falling down.

It’s been at least a hundred years since my last update, and life has been full to say the least.  I will try to cram everything in, or at least what my BSE infected brain can recall.

Well, big news, my rod of chance managed to hook a lovely one, in the guise of long term dance partner Miss T, and despite us both not wanting to go on a “date” or being ready for a “relationship” it would appear that fate had other things in store. Good old fate! So after a non-date or two, we are now officially together.

Holiday season has also come and gone, and looking outside now at the Autumnal gloom and drizzle, it’s hard to recall summer, luckily I managed to grab a week away with Daughter 1, where we sat by the pool and ate ice creams in the Cretan sun pretty much non-stop. I actually managed to get a bit of colour (long since faded) and worked my way through a few books.  All in all a really relaxing time.

Daughter 2 on the other hand was honing her thespian skills at a summer camp for budding actors, and preparing for her debut at the Royal Albert Hall no less!  What a proud daddy I am!

It’s still all go on the cycling front, with the aim of doing another triathlon next year – and this time I want to make sure I have put in a decent amount of training, first things first though is attempting to loose a tyre or two – certainly before I start trying to run anywhere, as my poor knees are likely to just give up at the very thought of pounding the tarmac again.  So my short term goal is to loose 2 stone by February, and then get out running.  Not sure how achievable that is, so I have enlisted the help of Weightwatchers.  So far I have been losing about 20 pounds a month. (purely financial unfortunately). Still,  got to keep on that wagon and away from the chip shop.

I acquired some new pedals and shoes for the mean machine, and as predicted by the shop assistant at the bike shop,

I have fallen off twice.  Both at low speeds, due to the fact that my feet were locked into the bike.

The last time happened to be outside the local school, in front of children at the bus stop.  I feel my pride sustained more damage than my knee!

Ahh Mr White, in a display of true compassion, was slightly miffed that I didn’t stay in the middle of the road long enough for him to take a picture of my tumble, as is customary in these situations and long time friend Toe-Knee insists that stabilisers are the way forward.

Thanks!

Dancing of course continues unabated.  After over a year of jive classes I have now improved so much that I am now actually mediocre, rather than poor!   Does this mean I should give up?  Not on your nelly!  I still love it very much, and I sweat like a pig in a steam room, so it must be good for me.  I went to my first freestyle on Saturday night, and it was great fun, even though I might have spent a little too much time at the chocolate fountain!

Sunday night was pub quiz night, with Becca Boobs, Raymondo, Miss T and I forming the unstoppable team aptly titled “the middle of Scunthorpe” When I say unstoppable, I of course mean our unstoppable ability to pretty much loose every round,  Still, it was lovely evening, despite Boobs constantly checking her phone for messages since she had left her new baby with her lodger for the first time.  By baby, I actually am referring to a cute puppy called Lola, but you’d think it was a proper baby the way she dotes over her.

Well, dear diary (of sorts), enough of my inane ramblings for now. I shall update you again soon.

You’ll never catch a fish without getting your rod out!

Life is full of chances, when is it good to take them and when is it a bad idea?  I have been pondering that a lot recently, and I always seem to come to the same conclusion,  It’s clichéd I know, but for me it seems it’s better to have loved and lost than to sit on my derrière wondering what might have been .  I don’t consider my life to be any more exciting than anyone else’s particularly, but I am pleased in many ways to take risks on people and situations even if things may not work out the way I planned.

My good friend with the disposable ear, Becca Boobs, is always reminding me about the lessons that life teaches us, and I actually agree whole-heartedly, but sometimes the lesson doesn’t seem so clear at the time, but as the dust settles, and we sweep away the debris, there it is!

Anyway – deep stuff aside,  Dancing continues unabated,   Trying to eek out the extra few dances before I have to dash home, Cinderella style to my children.

My popularity at dancing is likely to increase over the coming weeks now that the Football World Cup is upon us, and of course this means that real men (unlike me) will be giving up dancing and have their arses firmly stapled to the sofa, watching agog as 22 men kick an inflated pigs bladder around a muddy field, and then start hugging and kissing each other when the manage to kick the thing on target.

Now, if this sounds a little bitter, it is only because IT IS!!  P.E at my senior school has left indelible scars, and none so acute as the memory of football.  I wonder how the current England manager picks his team. Is it still the done thing to pick the fat kid last and then stick him in goal in the vain hope that his size, rather than his agility may block goals?

P.E became such a traumatic experience for me that I ended up simply wandering off the school premises and finding more interesting things to do rather than face 120 minutes of torture.  This happened with such regularity that my last P.E report read “How am I supposed to assess Luke when he has failed to attend any of my lessons”  Of course I removed that entire page from my report book before handing it into my mother, who it has to be said,  didn’t even notice it missing!  (Sorry mum! X.)

Cycling though, now that is something I love to bits, and even when cycling with Ahhh Mr White with all of his competitive testosterone induced masculinity during our rides, it’s still thoroughly enjoyable.  I guess it all boils down to the fact that I have the choice about whether I want to be competitive or not.  I typically err to the latter.

Talking of cycling, I have managed to clear out one of my growing collection of bikes to my friend Nursey.  Making the most of the sunshine today, I delivered it to her and she cooked up a lovely dinner as a thank you, whilst her daughter, who is far too bright for a two year old regaled me with tales of collared doves, black birds and gazebos.

Nursey on the other hand, fresh from laser eye-surgery preferred to talk of the smell of burning flesh that she got a whiff of whilst her eyes were being messed about with.

Anyway, that is enough of my ramblings for today.  Time to polish my rod, and go fishing in the lake of chance!  :)

Who fancies my hot sausage?

Yum yum in my tum.

What’s in your sausage? I stuff mine full of euphemisms.  The great thing about making my own sausages is about having some control of what goes in them, no minced up pig snout in my sausages.– my pork was zested up with lemon and sage. The really tangible benefit though, has to be the huge number of double-entendres that you can slip in during the production and consumption.

This batch was made especially for a non-existent BBQ, (I got my Bank Holidays mixed up) but this was fine – as I could slap my sausage straight into the hand of Farmer Scabs, so she could shove it somewhere hot. (You see?  It is impossible for me to control my sausage related jokes.)

Farmer Scabs had prepared a banquet to celebrate the fact the she now had a table that would sit 12 people comfortably, and the inclusion of my freshly stuffed meat went well with her lovely roast. Myself, Becca and her import, and the whole Scabs Clan enjoyed dinner immensely. Where it has to be noted, NOTHING was burnt, in fact it all tasted rather lovely.

This of course leaves me in a bit of a predicament.  It has been some time now since the farmer has incinerated anything in her furnace, and if she continues to be able to cook well, she will lose her crown as the Queen of Caramelisation and Chief Smoke Alarm Tester.  But fear not, I shall endeavor to look for other characteristics.

Friday was a lovely day, capped off with a bike ride with Tennessee Ray,   A short route, but part of it meant a slow, long and horrid climb to the highest point in Basingstoke. But a great ride nonetheless, and a great way to work off those sausages.

How do you rate the morning sun?

“How do you rate the morning sun?” asks Mr Robert Williams. Well I certainly give it the thumbs up.  Something about the sun on my face lifts my mood like nothing else – even better than the daily dose of Sertraline hydrochloride.

Another thing that raises the spirits is getting out on my new toy.  A bright and shiny piece of engineering from Gary Fisher.  Although his resemblance to the now infamous deposed King of Glam, Gary Glitter is slightly scary, pushing down on those pedals he designed brings a big smile to my face.

One of the things that hasn’t gone without notice, is how nice people can be.  After cycling about 4 miles out of the village on my splendid new piece of machinery,  I hit a pot hole – of which 100’s appear to be popping up (or is that down) at an alarming rate.  Of course, pot hole + huge bulk on frame = ripped inner tube, and I began to trudge my way back home.  After 2 miles or so, a fellow cyclist, stopped, pulled out a spare tube from his shining armour, and got me back on the road in no time at all.

Talking of spare tubes, this year I have vowed to myself to rid myself of a tyre or two which I have no further use for, so getting out on the bike, and onto the dance floor as often as possible are up there on my priority list.  So much has happened over the last few months, and I know my blogging hasn’t been up to scratch.  So that is up their on the priority list too, as I know my many “fans” (e.g my mother and Becca Boobs) will have something to while away the minutes whilst the paint dries.

And Becca?  I haven’t seen as much of her as I’d like since her import arrived from Tennessee.  The goods in question, a chap named Ray has proven his mettle, successfully, the initiation session being dinner around Farmer Scabs, where he was subjected to a barrage of tortuous questioning, and then forced to see Becca having her toes sucked.

Still, initiation ceremony over, Ray has now been welcomed into the fold. Poor chap!

One initiation that Ray has yet to experience is the ritual of “burnt offerings” A hallowed event in which Farmer Scabs places food into her furnace and caramelizes it in a way that only she can.  I do have to say though things have improved since the infamous Bannoffegate incident.  Oh sometimes I wish I had another slice or two of that amazing delicacy. I would be able to offer it to my daughters friends when they decide they want friends to “sleepover”.  What an utterly ridiculous name. “sleepover”!  I foolishly agreed to Daughter 1 having a sleepover recently, when I was awoken in the middle of the night by her, and what she had described as a “couple” of friends. I do believe – at one point the entire town rugby team were in my lounge.

Still, I circumnavigated their bodies early the next morning, got the bike out of the shed, and rode out into the sunshine.  Nice!  :-)

Banks, Banoffee and Birthdays

Laughing all the way to the bank.  Hardly a phrase I’d coin after my recent debacle with the gloriously inept Alliance and Leicester.  A simple task of transferring funds from one account to another.  Firstly they refused to let me transfer anything until I had trudged the 16 mile round-trip to show them my photograph,  then they take the money out twice, leaving nothing but loose change and tumbleweed rolling around in my account, then to ice that cake of ineptitude, they charge me £25 for presenting a standing order with not enough funds in my account! Time to look for a new bank I think.

Still, not all doom and gloom, in fact,  a week stuffed full of friends and frivolity, culminating in a pre-birthday gathering over at my abode, with ahh Mr and Mrs White, Paul and Alison, and Farmer Scabs.  A huge amount of  Beef Rendang was consumed – according to the recipe – enough to serve 16 people!  Washed down with equally copious amounts of wine.  Enough to serve 16 normal people, or 1 Ahh Mr White in the party mood. Mr White also supplied his yummy chocolate cake, slightly reminiscent of a Barnes Wallis bouncing bomb in size and density, but gloriously tasty.  Farmer Scabs produced trifles sans Jelly, and her amazing Banoffee pie, which also could have been used in a war scenario, perhaps  to render spies speechless. It certainly did the trick with Paul whose mouth was jammed tightly with the sticky stuff for quite some time. We all laughed at that,  with the exception of Paul, who wasn’t able to.

On Sunday Boo and I went to Farmer Scabs for dinner to eat up the fridge left-overs.  Scabs is the Queen of Frugality, and use-by dates  are simply very rough guidelines in her world.   Besides, no harmful bacteria could ever survive her blast furnace cooking techniques.

So, to my Birthday on Monday, celebrated by getting up at some un-godly hour and driving to London.  Again the silver line to that cloud were friends, this time in the guise of Rachel, who cooked me a beautiful tomato, ginger and lentil soup, and a lovely banana and date Birthday cake.  Yum yum.

Good times!

Big Pants and Tossing.

A busy few weeks since my last posting.  I had a lovely weekend in Devon, visiting the Mum and the Stan, and the Gran.  I arrived, replete with 2 of my feathered friends, Mr and Mrs Dead Duck. It was great stepping out of the car with 2 mallards, I really felt those primal hunter / gatherer urges kicking in. And so did Stanley who skinned the wee beauties and enabled my mother and I to create a lovely warm duck salad with walnut and orange dressing. It was particularly yummy.

Friday evening was spent with the addition of the big bro, the sis and the nef, at the pub, spilling cider and talking about breast sensitivity.  On Saturday, mum and I went off to Exeter to browse the porn that is the kitchen shops.  How odd that I find quality cookware so exciting.  I gained a lovely stainless steel roaster, an early birthday present from my mum.

Dancing continues unabated, I was able to stay later on Monday night, with it being half term and all.  I danced pretty much non-stop for close to 3 hours, working myself into a big sweaty mess.  I was absolutely shattered by the end when I had to go and pick up Alex and her friends from the nappy night at the local nightclub in Basingstoke.

And that is how it came to pass that I had 7 teenage girls staying the night on Monday. Yikes! Lucky that I had tired myself out really, my head hit the pillow and I cannot recall if they were noisy or not.  I can confirm that I had to do a fair bit of tidying up the next day though.

Last night I continued the oriental recipe theme and tried my hand and sesame prawn toast.  The lovely Becca  and her boobs came to sample my fishy nutty delights.   I regaled her with my cooking talents and she discovered that prawns are only pink once they are cooked.  For desert we had pancakes. – Although it was actually Ash Wednesday. (Not that it matters – I have decided to give up lent for chocolate).  So Becca whipped up the pancake mix from a packet.  (Farmer Scabs would have been horrified!)  And I showed her my tossing techniques, calmly and confidently tossing the pancake out of the pan and on to the halogen hob, where it duly filled the kitchen with smoke.

We spent a lovely evening in front of the fire, wagging chins incessantly. A little later Dancing Queen popped in from a freestyle dance evening, and entertained us with tales of how she mooned at the camera during a dance.  “Don’t worry” she said reassuringly, “I had my knickers on”, and then promptly lifted her skirt to show us a pair of knickers that Bridget Jones would have turned down for being too conservative.