Happy

I've not done a Friday Happy for a couple of weeks.

I am feeling a bit tired at the moment. It's my own fault enitrely. I'm reading far too late in the night, and going full whack during the day. I've decided to take it a bit easier over the weekend, and then ramp it up again next week. We are off to France on Thursday, so lots of packing, shopping and cleaning to be done before then. I also want to visit a couple of local places of interest. Places I've been meaning to go for a while. I wonder if I'm cramming as much as possible into my final weeks with Pops at home full time?

Anyway, bumper happies!! Joining in with the rather gorgeous Gillian, who I met earlier this month. What a babe. What treat to meet her and her lovely family. Next time (because there will be a next time), I'd like to chat over a few beers and set the world to rights with her. She's that kind of a gal! And she wore a rather lovely necklace. I notice these things, you see......

Bristol

No sooner had I come home from Bestival, I was off again to Bristol. Probably not the best planning, but it was the only time I could go. And I miss my family a lot. We are a close knit bunch. It was the weekend of the annual balloon festival, and my sister's house is in the perfect place to watch them float by in the early morning. Olly was entranced by them. We went into central Bristol a few times, which is always great. There is a vibe to Bristol. It can be edgy sometimes, but it's a creative, vibrant hub, and I love it. Visiting Bristol has also sent me off into a spiral of thoughts and memories. I'm still trying to catch hold of them, and decipher what they mean.

Garden

The garden has been a mixed bag this summer. I have loved my sunflowers, thistles and Achillia. But the Dahlias are a poor show, and my greenhouse was infested with something that laid waste to everything. I did get some tomatoes and cucumbers, but in the end I admitted defeat. I have cleared it out, and given it a very good clean. Hopefully I will be able to start again with seed planting for Plot No 10. I am still picking blueberries, and the plums are ripening too. Everyone should have a blueberry plant. They are pretty and crop prolifically. Put it on your list, and go get yourself one next Spring.

New

I have bought three more cushions in an attempt to brighten up my horrid brown leather sofas. They were cheap as chips from IKEA and Asda. (Another reason for loving Bristol is the choice of retail options. I spent a couple of hours in John Lewis, just walking around with my mouth open..... but I digress). I have also bought a straw bag. I need another bag like a hole in the head, but it was in the sale. I love a sale. It gives me permission to treat myself - "Oh this? It was in the sale." I say that a lot to Marc. A sale justifies any purchase, however unnecessary, don't you think?

Read

I have been a proper little book worm of late. I stay up far later than I should, lying on my tummy with the pillows scrunched underneath me just so. I pull my bedside table closer to the bed, so that the lamp can shine down onto the page. I finished 'A Homemade Life' last night. I read about it on Isabelle's post for The Year In Books, and it sounded like my cup of tea. I would recommend it. She is a blogger, who has written a memoir/recipie book. Poignant and sad in places, but ultimately uplifting. My late submission for Laura's series is in the pile too - 'The Shock Of The Fall' by Nathan Filer. I shall be taking it with me to France.

Result

Last, but by no means least, Sam got his AS Level results!! He wrote them down on a piece of paper and passed them to me while I was on the telephone to a friend. I think that friend is now deaf. I can't begin to describe how proud I am of him. He has grown and changed so much this year. He has this amazing work ethic, both for his studies and his holiday job, and I have watched him with a quiet pride and great bursts of love. Yes he is a messy git, and I really wish he would get a hair cut. I hate that he has taken to eating pizza in his room late at night (I am woken by the waft of cheese and tomato regularly), and I hate his taste in music (I am a music Nazi, apparently). But, you know, sometimes all those years of pull your hair out parenting does feel worth it. This one of those times. And yes, I know that academic results aren't everything blah, blah, blah....but actually these are important to him and what he wants to do. So they are important to me.

That was the happy.

Right, I'm off for a date with my sister in law and a bottle of wine. Or two. See ya!

Leanne xx

We Should Have Called You Brett!

"Nigel says that Sharon Botts will show you everything for 50p and a pound of grapes."

The news of the death of Sue Townsend this morning has upset me deeply. Famous people die, and we commiserate and feel it a shame. And that's it. But I loved Sue Townsend. I thought she was marvellous. I think she would have thought me a berk for thinking that. She always seemed like she wouldn't suffer fools gladly, which was another thing about her I admired. She was one of several woman who had a huge impact on the teenage me, growing up in 80s Britain.

For any of you that aren't familiar with her, Sue Townsend was a British writer, who found fame as the creator of the eponymous Adrian Mole. Adrian kept a diary, and he started it when he was 13 and 3/4. I am a year younger than Adrian, and so his teenage years parallelled mine. I have also kept a diary since I was a teen. Spots, The Falklands War, unrequited love, poetry, underwhelming Christmas presents and general angst were Adrian's trademark. Mine was probably very similar at his age. Apart from The Falklands. I was never as politically motivated as Adrian. My diary contained more Duran Duran and less Margaret Thatcher.

"I have just realised that I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple.

 This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac."

Although marketed as children's fiction, it still moves me at forty four. I love her acid comedy, her ease at addressing 'difficult' issues and the way that she didn't patronise or talk down to kids. I have often felt that without her there would have been no JK Rowling. Not in this country anyway. I wonder if the parents who put her books into their children's Christmas stockings knew that they contained such strong opinions on the British class system, politics, feminism and losing ones virginity.

"Donkey Dawkins of 5P says that his thing comes off the end of a ruler."

When many of my class mates were reading about Judy Blume's Margaret and her periods, I was reading about Adrian and his love of Pandora Braithwaite. I cried tears of laughter at the poem he penned for her (Pandora, I adore ya!). At thirteen I, too, was a fledgling poet. I had written my best poem to date, and was convinced that I was just waiting to be discovered. So did Adrian. He realised that he was an intellectual at about the same time that I did. Alas for both of us, no-one else recognised it

 "I am an intellectual. But at the same time, I'm not very clever."

I still have my Adrian Mole books - The Secret Diary, The Growing Pains, The Cappuccino Years, The Prostate Years. They are dogged eared and cherished. I have read them more times I have read Pride & Prejudice or Jane Eyre.

If our whole is the sum of our parts, then a little part of me belongs to Sue Townsend.

Leanne xx