People

I have a much welcome day off today with plenty to fill it.
I so want to catch up on reading that I haven't got around to, people I want to give time to without feeling I have to rush off, but that may have to wait until this evening...

I mentioned in my last post two blogs from people who have just returned from a trip to Palestine with stories and experiences to share. I know the links were quite a way down the post, so here they are again - Big John and Paul, it is worth clicking their way.


Life at Rainbow dreams continues much as ever.
Inconsequential in the grand scheme of things but hugely consequential for those of us who live here.

I am mid way through my teaching qualification that I am studying for at night class. I have completed over half the written assessments and in just under two weeks I will have my practical assessment, after which I can relax a little about it all....I will be able to get off this hamster wheel once in a while and catch the news on tv and not think that working till gone 11 every night is normal!

The last night class was extra fun as I ended up in a group with a friend from school days - we both went out on a blind date together back then, and have been good friends ever since.
Lessons are lightened somewhat by meeting up although I am sure we weren't this disruptive at school.
However, amidst the (much) laughter and silly comments and innuendo - and egged on by the boys in our group too...who were far worse than we were, we did finally complete our task to design a lesson plan to teach someone who has never seen one before, to ride and maintain a bike.

I am appreciating meeting up with K, reconnecting and catching up ~ I wonder if I value the lessons for that reason as much as their intrinsic value to the course.
It also makes the lessons go more quickly, and makes the dryness of the essay titles slightly more palatable somehow.

I do love the idea that learning should be fun, not something we were familiar with back then!
and I shall try to keep that in mind as I write my next assignment later on today - at the moment my mind is blank!

Sometimes our worlds become insular, I am feeling that at the moment - it feels like I am being very selfish, that I don't have the time to spare for other people as much as I would like.
I know it's not a long term thing but it bothers me, soon I will have more to give, more to say, I am enjoying where I am, mainly that is... but so much gets a superficial taking in and filing 'for later digestion'.

Oh there was a very special moment I can share just before we went away... through the magic of macs and ichat... all my magic moments are around people ... the wondrous Jayne of Journey through Grace, one of my first blogging friends and I, finally met up and spoke face to face and our families were able to meet across the oceans that divide us.... it shall remain one of my highlights for a long time :)

No I am off to sort mountains of paperwork and make a start on my essay,
whilst pondering the bigger things in life

oh and talking of bigger things, I did rather like this post today from typewriter Kate.

Holidays and conversations - please click on links, x

It’s the end of our holiday, and we have walked back down the hill ready to wait for our taxi at 1am. Middle of the night flights add to the sense of adventure ☺
I am surrounded by three sleeping bodies and silence apart from their slow night time breathing.
It is still warm and balmy.
The widescreen tv sits looking at me, a wonderful decorative piece of engineering and a large black box with some tiny speakers next to it…neither of which works, the tv because of some fault and the speakers because they aren’t connected to anything.
The only place to access wifi was at a cocktail bar at the top of the hill (oh what hardship!).
Mobiles have been slightly dubious ~ I called my son, who was out of sight to see where he was, and a greek sounding Cypriot man answered! Fortunately when I did find him he was safely with his Dad, so the mystery of the Cypriot answering his mobile number will remain unless there is something I don’t know.
We have all struggled to adapt to not putting toilet roll down the toilet, but in the bin next to the loo, but on the other hand have found it exceedingly easy to adjust to the slower pace of life, at least in the short term.
Back though, to the isolation from tv ~ even dvd’s proved a slight problem, although the mac did save the day when the dvd player gave up half way through a film we were all watching…
and the absence of the internet as a distraction.
Oh and there were no board games either…

so just us and a whole island to explore ;)





Which meant we actually had to spend time with each other, communicating and being with each other…all of us…which isn’t really such a hardship, apart from ordinarily we break it up with the distractions we just didn’t have here. We do enjoy one anothers company and it is a luxury to find uninterrupted time as adults to talk at leisure about anything and everything.
However, it is also apparent that hormones are surging and raging through my children at the moment and the importance of chill out time and space has never been more evident. Thankfully there was a swimming pool within the complex very rarely used by anyone else but us (we didn’t take it personally) and so chill out time could be just that!

As I watch them sleep now I remember some things that have hit home this holiday. My heart still surges with love when I see them even though I am turning grey and I frequently feel like tearing it out in desperation
There is a slight consolation and some solace from the fact that apparently T’s Mum says exactly the same things to him about the same things…according to R that is…so I’m not alone and also apparently not quite as creative in my responses as I had hoped!

However, and I know it sounds daft, but so often I have reminded myself that, as far as so many things go, in fact this is it, the here and now…there are no second chances, well perhaps there are some, but there is no going back and redoing it over again, which brings things sharply into focus whenever I am drifting off.
Reminds me of how precious this time is with these very special humans who have been given to us. Too true it goes fast, too damn fast.

So when they want to jump in the sea with me I’m going to do it…and the other various things they want us to do with them…it feels a bit like we’re on limited time, when perhaps we’re not really… but just in case I’m not going to risk it.

We didn’t find Aphrodite but we did find the donkeys… all the way to Cyprus to feed donkeys?!



At least we could feed them and see them… I wasn’t sure that turning up at Aphrodites pool and telling the kids they couldn’t swim in it would go down too well.
I was slightly disappointed too – apparently you come out of it ten years younger ☺

We have had adult discussions, grown up ones about various subjects, time to let thoughts and questions be aired and taken seriously. I’d like to think we should have more time like this at home and not have to wait for holidays to do this kind of thing, but home is busy busy busy….full on, far too full on but there never seems to be a let up on activities that fit in around homework, and so space like this is indeed a gift.

Time to think about the important things to us and this family, and also to consider other people, what they are doing and where they are. What it is like to live as another person in another place, another situation.
Blogs we have checked as soon as we have had internet access are those of Big John and Paul who are out in Palestine right now and who will have stories to tell and share when they return, of humans just like all of us.
We have talked about things, realised areas we are so ignorant about and promised the children we will search out answers to questions they ask.
They need to hear the stories just as we do.

My family is growing up… what we say and what we do make a difference…in so many areas… It is important to find time to talk and do things inbetween the usual football and dancing and homework routine…
Tomorrow is school and work, normality returns, I hope we can mange real life inbetween and not become too narrow in our own worlds

Homeward bound

Am about to fly home.. a week without wifi and no tv or dvd either has meant lots of time to talk and discuss and share ideas...
not as bad as it first sounded I guess... though the chikdren don't get how we could ever come away without phones and the internet and no English tv... devastation!!
See you soon!, x

Small acts, possibility and hope...

You can’t be neutral on a moving train. In this world where the efforts of caring people often pale in comparison to what is done by those who have power, how do I manage to stay involved and seemingly happy? I am totally confident not that the world will get better, but that we should not give up the game before all the cards have been played. The metaphor is deliberate; life is a gamble. Not to play is to foreclose any chance of winning. To play, to act, is to create at least a possibility of changing the world. There is a tendency to think that what we see in the present moment will continue. We forget how often we have been astonished by the sudden crumbling of institutions, by extraordinary changes in people’s thoughts, by unexpected eruptions of rebellion against tyrannies, by the quick collapse of systems of power that seemed invincible.

Looking at this catalogue of huge surprises, it’s clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervour, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, and patience.

Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment (beware of such moments!) but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zigzag toward a more decent society. We don’t have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world. Even when we don’t “win,” there is fun and fulfilment in the fact that we have been involved, with other good people, in something worthwhile. We need hope. To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, and kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.

Howard Zinn

The more I read this the more I like it ...

Shenanigans..

Its half term now for both children, which meant that R wanted to catch up with his friends and so he wanted one of his mates to sleep over. They have had fun, messed around on bikes and done silly boy stuff.. not sure exactly what, but it involved lots of laughing and staying up late.
It also involved creeping outside to play in the garden in the dark after they were supposed to be asleep, the only give away being the noise of bikes landing off the ramp.. yes they were ramping in the dark...
Somehow they don't seem to mind being told to come in... surely they expected that? And the disappointed and let down, I trusted you and you betrayed my trust card worked well...
until it transpired this friend had somehow missed tea... arrived after we had had ours, and hadn't thought to say.. he was fine earlier but now is starving and it's 11.45pm....
after all the various options we settle on cereal.....why did noone tell me cheerios are full of zebedee like zing...or maybe if you're a teenage boy who hasn't eaten and you suddenly refuel you will appear like zebedee after a caffeine fix....
Added to which R is upstairs asleep because he still has to work tomorrow, so it's me who has this to sort out...
Now they have the giggles which I admit is quite endearing.. if only I wasn't so tired, plus apparently it's cool if you are a parent who stays up past midnight for no good reason other than obviously to look after the welfare of your child and his mate, that they wouldn't see as my motive!!
I also admit that I have indeed been up playing and not working - and I should be working, but there have also been late night shenanigans going on to keep me from my studies .
I'm just wondering if I can really use this as an excuse for not getting it in on time!

Rewards

Noone can continue flat out, there comes a time when we ease back... even a tiny bit... and it feels good, blissfully free, that sudden release of tension...
the feeling that makes it worthwhile ~
without stretching that can't happen
The addiction of new challenges, of always searching for something more, of new adventures...
I had almost forgotten how hooked I could be on it till now - how addictive it really is!

Of course there are other rewards too - I had just forgotten this one felt so good.

I have a respite from all the hard work, just for a while and I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts :)

Randomness...

that may partially explain the lack of coherent blog posts lately :)

R jnr is back from the schools football tour victorious, with scores of 9 nil and 7 nil, but having sustained yet another injury - I fear this is the start of a long relationship between us and physiotherapists...where rest is likely to be the most difficult instruction to adhere to!

Fortunately the hamster escaped massive infection, is still alive and there is evidence to support the fact that he has been picking his scab!!! Naughty hamster... but not a lot we can do there!! Did Blue Peter ever have hamsters and were there ever any sticky back plastic accidents with them? I wonder...
I never knew hamsters could pick scabs.

Yesterday, with dinner guests expected in less than four hours, it seemed the most logical thing (to one member of this family) to start to pull the kitchen apart and try to put it back together... and
considering as yet we have nowhere else to eat other than the kitchen, I was naturally a little perturbed.
However, in true makeover style, with minutes to go, it all came together :)

I adore the fact that since S started to learn the piano we are treated to live recitals but am starting to wish she wasn't quite as diligent in her practice, especially when I am trying to get my head around various legislation relating to work and issues of equality, diversity and inclusion... which I failed to submit in time last week and the days are fast running away with me this week!!

It hasn't happened in a (long) while, but I had a vague flutter of excitement on hearing about a new priest who is presenting things a little differently. We have been 'bad' people and not attended for some time, for various (always legitimate) reasons.
I am sure there will be some reaction relating to this within those who attend regularly, but am curious to experience for myself.... a fresh approach, a new presentation, a new way of relating...
and as ever I am pondering on how much the presentation is so very important on how the information is received and made relevant. We will see, and perhaps make a few people happy in the process. Who knows where it might lead..

I also now have an ever increasing ironing pile, and several movies I am waiting to watch...if only there were a few extra hours in the day, or if I could learn to function on less hours of sleep per evening.

I live in hope :)

Sunday silliness

It always takes time getting used to a new system...
I think my patient mac support would agree!

An interesting weekend...

An interesting weekend, it has to be said... (well for me anyhow!)
and tiredness deems this more of a diary entry than a thoughtful blog post.


if distraction was what was required then there was more than my fair share, shame it always happens all at once with little time to stop and savour the moments.

Football season is upon us once again and somehow this generates enthusiastic encouragement from the sidelines when R jnr is playing... I can't seem to help myself. It is, in my opinion anyhow, far more exciting than any other football game ever, and a little friendly rivalry amongst the supporters is all in good fun - what is nice is that because of differences between school and island teams they will often swap between playing with and against each other - how quick we change and form new allegiances!!

Then we juggled music lessons with dressing up as pirates to swim for charity and made a mad dash to the supermarket to prepare for friends coming for supper.

In the midst of supper preparations somehow, despite my warnings, the hamster got entangled in sticky tape and was naturally not best pleased - the poor guy was in pain when we tried to peel the tape from him, as was R when Houdini hamster bit him...
The poor little soul is now half bald since there was no option other than to trim his hair to remove the tape (lessons learned all round I think)

We somehow ended up with a house full of people staying over and then today I spent watching S dancing with The Royal Ballet school who were over on an outreach programme :)
A very special event and memory for us both.

Then to try and make some slow progress with assignments and essays and lessons for this week...

and I thought the idea of weekends was to relax?

Photos might well follow :)

x

Other news, or therapeutic blogging..

I didn't plan on putting this here but hey it's my space and it's life and it's real and so why not?
Am still getting used to the idea of this...but I can't seem to quite get past it to blog about other stuff.

It's been a funny old year health wise, and while my swollen joints and pain subsided after a few months and I was finally able to wear my rings and watch again, the doctors investigations and multiple blood tests continued.

Now I'm used to accepting that my body just functions and works how it is supposed to. In fact I'd have always said it was extremely efficient ~ can't even really grumble too much about childbirth... it kind of knew what it had to do and it did it.

It has to be said though, that although I have all the time in the world for people who really are sick or have a genuine problem, I am far less tolerant of those who are prone to whinge about the tiniest thing ~ a legacy of my Accident and Emergency days I guess, and I tend to apply the same logic to me and my family (at which point everyone feels sorry for my husband and kids...!!!)
I just can't see the need to go on about every ache and pain....

So, it came as a bit of a shock to me to be told that the reason for my swollen joints was that I have Lupus, an autoimmune condition which may at times cause my joints to swell and become painful, but also explains a whole lot of other stuff from the past, miscarriages, childhood migraines and raynauds which has got me out of swimming in freezing water and is a very good reason to lie in the sun on a beach reading whilst watching daft people splash in subzero temperatures just for fun...
turns out they are all linked together....

My initial reaction was, ok, that explains a lot, I assumed it would carry on in the background as it had for years, but perhaps that was hasty of me...
Am just starting to realise this is for real, real because my joints do hurt, they were fine all through the summer but they have started to hurt and I am fed up with my body for not just working properly.
Have had a few 'moments' today, moments where I felt so feeble and pathetic, and tearful, where I had to call to make my next out patient appointment - the good news is my consultant is gorgeous and lovely...interpret as you will...he is :)

I guess having to book an appointment made it real too...
and having to go back to taking painkillers did aswell.

Its not a huge thing, I'm fine, honestly I am, and I will learn to integrate this into how I live, I hadn't realised it was going to be worse from now on because I had had a flare up at the start of the year, but right now it's just taking a whole lot of getting my head round...easy to ignore when it's not around, not so easy when it is... time will tell how it is going to progress and I have been reassured it is mild and caught early there are things that can help...

Right now things that help are having a mad scouser telling funny stories about his day and making me laugh...and telling me it'll all be ok....
and good friends and chilling out, distractions...

laughter really is the best medicine :)