Speaking Of Strawberries...

Yes, Well. Strawberries.

I had a bowl yesterday afternoon in the interval of the children’s choral concert I mentioned in my last post, and utterly gorgeous they were too. I love strawberries; can’t get enough of them.

    WHEN, that is, they are in season. Which leads me to my rant.

Modern living is responsible for many things, but the one that I am going to concentrate on today is the way it has changed production of crops that previously were available at certain times of the year.

    Thanks to commercial farming and air travel and other such wonders, you see, we here in Blighty are now able to – supposedly – enjoy the majority of our ‘seasonal’ fruits and vegetables all year round. 

     Well, that may well be true on the vegetable front – up to a point – but on the subject of fruit I whole heartedly disagree; strawberries a case in point.

     Oh, sure, you can BUY them all year round from the majority of supermarket chains; but you can't enjoy them, or at least I can't.

     Because strawberries are sweet fruits; grown slowly in a damp country – like Britain, for instance – over a period of months that start off quite chilly and gradually progress to nicely warm (though still pretty damp). They are not designed to be grown in any other way, and that’s what the people in charge of such things aren’t grasping. Because the base fact of the matter is that no matter how careful you are, you cannot force a sweet fruit to grow quickly - particularly in the wrong kind of soil and in the wrong kind of climate - and stay sweet; it simply can't be done.

     So you are left with packets of mass produced red things with labels proclaiming things like "cultured in Brazil", and while they may look like strawberries and are called strawberries, they most decidedly are not; not anything like. 

     Strawberries are a seasonal fruit here in Britain. The time to harvest them is from mid June (at the earliest) to late august (at the latest), and that, ladies and gentlemen, is when they will be at their best. No need to pour sugar or cream (or both. Or at least, not unless you really want to) over strawberries ripened in the manner they are most suited to; they are perfectly delicious and more importantly beautifully sweet enough all on their own.

So there.

    Rant over.

Alice x 

Proof Positive That I Am Not Made Of Stone:

If a random child singing a solo in a random concert that we attended on a whim to make the numbers up can reduce me to tears, then comprised of good ol' fashioned solid igneous material I am definitely not.

Seriously. I sat down expecting to endure slightly off-key caterwauling for the best part of two hours for the modest reward of a happy mother (who is terribly fond of children) and a small bowl of - in season - strawberries; but thirty seconds into a rendition (indeed slightly off-key) of Walking In The Air from The Snowman and I found myself blubbing uncontrollably and filled with the kind of sentimentality that I had assumed reserved for proud parents. Thankfully everybody else (most of them, of course, proud parents) was blubbing too, so nobody minded.

I think, however, that it is now a certainty that my hard earned reputation as a cold feeling bitch where sproglets are concerned is shattered.
     I blame Squidgum.
     I never had this problem before she came along.
     She has ruined me.

Alice x

Once More, Life Comes A'Tappin Me On The Shoulder -

- and makes a difficult decision easy.
     No Netbook for me (or at least not right now).

Why, I hear you ask?
     Simple, I reply. Mother's old metronome has finally broken.
     It will cost at least £40 to replace it; £5 under the amount the Netbook I found would have cost after factoring in the price of postage and packing.
     The next concert she is playing in is in less than two weeks. A - working - metronome is essential.
     Her need is greater than mine.

So, no Netbook.
      =sigh=
     Ah well. N'er mind. I was in two minds anyway.

...But it DID look spiffy, didn't it? It really did.

=sighs again=

Alice x

I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT (etc).

I know it is unnecessary. I know that it is unneeded. I know that it is (currently) unthinkable. But still.
     I want one of these:

Cool, or what?

This particular Netbook has been created by Samsung and is labelled as the "NC10": a 10.2 inch electronic beauty. It comes with the Microsoft XP as standard (I know everybody I've ever met complains about that as a system, but it's what I'm used to. I don't know anything else. I'm comfortable with it). It has been enthusiastically reviewed on www.amazon.co.uk - God Bless Amazon. The Aladdin's Cave of Purchases - as being utterly fantastic in 112 cases out of 114 (one of the 2 only negative reviews being solely regarding the colour). It is lightweight yet strong. It has the capability of doing the majority of computer based things that a normal sized computer can do. Etc. Etc.
     But the big thing it can do that interests me, dear Blog; the big selling point of the Samsung NC10 from my own personal point of view that it has to capability to download (and allow the efficient use of) Microsoft Home Office, in particular Microsoft Word.
     I write. Probably crappy stuff and definitely rarely finished stuff, but I write nonetheless. And (my trusty pad an pencil apart) I use Microsoft Word to do it. Specifically the 1993 version. Yeah. I know. Over a decade out of date. Don't care. I like it better than any of the so-called 'better' versions out there. So there.
    Anyway. That is what I use. And as if I ever do finally splash out on a Netbook - any Netbook. Though that one up there is pretty spiffy - writing is the sole thing I would be using it for, access to MS Word is an absolute essential.

I say, "if" because I am still thinking about it. I have been thinking about it for some time. And I will probably go on thinking about it for some time more. And even then, I may not actually buy one.
     I want one. Don't get me wrong. I want one. In a childish foot stamping pointing kind of way. WANT with a capital "W". The problem is that I don't technically NEED one. I have a working laptop - my darling Niles; what would I do without you? There madness lies! - and I when using my laptop isn't an option, I have pencil and paper. I am equipped to write (as well as indulging in the marvelous time wasting luxury that is the Internet) until steam comes out of my ears and various bits of me drop off. I do not need a Netbook. It is an expense - even the seemingly too-good-to-be-true mere £45 fee for the Spiffy Samsung NC10 - that I cannot justify.

...But I want one.

I have this wish, sometimes, you see; the wish to be alone in my room and undisturbed, tip-tapping away on a Netbook. I could take my laptop up with me, but despite the machines' overall maneuverability under normal circumstances, my personal circumstances have rendered mine less easily transportable. It isn't impossible, but it is far from convenient. There is also thanks to said inconvenience no way of relocating it unobtrusively and without ceremony.
     Bottom line, if I wish to relocate myself, particularly if I wish to do so discretely, it has to be sans laptop. So if I wish to write, I return to my trusty pad and pen. And that should be fine, really it should, but actually it really isn't; not for me. Out and about, sat in a cafe or on a bench somewhere; that is when my brain likes to utilize the pad and pen. At home, my brain likes to type (preferably accompanied by some good, rousing instrumental music)...

...I am torn. A Netbook (or second laptop. But Netbooks are cheaper) is unessential on a fundamental level but at the same time essential on a practical one. I don't actually need one but at the same time actually I do.
     I have no clue which side is right.
     Perhaps they both are.
     But that doesn't really help.

Does anyone else have internal battles like this?

Alice x

PS: did I mention I want one? Because I do. That one =points at Samsung=.
     Because it is spiffy.

#...Watchin' The Weeks Go By...#

Yet again, another two weeks have passed with no posts. And the last couple I did post were yet another long winded - two parted - whine. And after I promised I wouldn't, too.
     Oy Vey.
     Can you be fired from a free and voluntary Blog? Because if you can I think I deserve to be. What's the point, after all, of having an online diary that nobody ever bothers to read (well, almost nobody. Hi, Best Friend 2!) designed to allow you to ramble and muse and rant and laugh and cry and generally get-it-all-off-your-chest, if you don't use it? No point, that's what; no point at all.
     =shakes head=
     Must try harder.

...Anyhoo. Things have indeed been crappy of late. Not really crappy, you understand; not crappy with a capital 'C' - I reserve that for Super Duperly Crappy events such as Dad dying, or the Previous Neighbours trying to kill us, or Mother having a nervous breakdown, or MJ being sectioned, or me being made redundant. Things like that - but pretty crappy nonetheless.

First off, my health took a mini dive due to allergies rearing their ugly head, making friends with my asthma and then ganging up on me with That Special Time Of The Month leading the way.
     ...Which is really, unfair, isn't it? 3 against 1. I think that's really unfair...

Then of course there was Father's Day.
     Blog, that bloody event was everywhere. No matter where I was or where I looked it was rammed in my face and embedded into my brain and I wasn't allowed to forget it.
     Of course, it's almost certainly always been that way. I know that, really, and I told myself over and over again, but still I couldn't shake the bitter feeling that I was being deliberately taunted by someone (fate, possibly?), and that only got worse when as well as all the posters and flyers and newspaper articles and television and radio adverts B&Q decided to chime in as well and remind everyone in the store (every hour, on the hour) exactly how many shopping days all the "sons and daughters of this green and pleasant land" had left to "honour that special man in your life".
     ...Yeah. You can imagine how I felt the first time that was aired over the speaker system...

And then the mobile-phone contract I convinced Mother to get and we were then forced to cancel due to it not working on the company being shits (LONG story) popped up to say hello in the form of a letter threatening visitation from bailiffs; leading to another pleasant hour in the -E-E- shop (our third, I believe. Or possibly fourth) and ending with a £70 "severance charge", me in tears and suffering from a splitting headache, my mother furious and defeated and also sporting a headache, and my brother incandescent with rage and barred from the building on bane of arrest.
     ...Fun times...

And then last but not least, there's the heat.
     I mean, Spring was bad enough with its close, muggy atmosphere and repeated groggily uncomfortable build-ups to thunder storms (a lot less storms, I might add, than we had build-ups), but this! Seriously, people; since when does Britain actually have a Summer to speak of?! For years and years we have managed quite happily without one (well, I have) and then two years ago, whoomph: there it was and here it is again.
     It's ridiculous and unbearably uncomfortable and it's apparently going to get worse! And to make it all extra annoying everybody seems to be oh-so-bloody-well happy about it!
     "How lovely," they are all cooing; "hot weather at last and nice and sunny". No, no, no! It is NOT "lovely" and "nice": it is gut wrenchingly awful! Do all you Sun Lovers have any idea how hideous I am feeling right now? I barely cope with the (usually) mild warmth of Springtime. This is torture!
     Roll on Autumn, that's what I say. I like Autumn.
     ...Yes. I am aware that considering how short the season is and how many people enjoy it, that is an incredibly selfish and uncharirtable view to have...
     ...And no. I don't care...

So! That's been my past couple of weeks; condensed(ish) for your enjoyment and bared for my sanity.

Was it as good for you to read as it was for me to write?
     ...Yeah. I didn't think so.
     Ah well. Such is life. I feel much better now anyway, and that's the important thing.

Goodnight, y'all.

Alice x

PS: I should like to point out (in case my sole reader is curious), that my Best Friends are not ordered by way of importance, but listed alphabetically. Hence, Best Friend 1, Best Friend 2 and Best Friend 3.
     That way, you see, I don't get confused and everybody (well, OK, me) knows where they are.

Shattered But Unscathed.

Well, last night came to nothing. Mother came home - alone - and sat down and we sat together on the sofa and hugged and cried (I cried more than she did) and let all the fear and negativity drain away leaving a numb sort of calm.
     We had both been terribly, terribly afraid. And all for nothing. Nothing had happened. MJ had gotten upset and simply needed someone to talk to, to listen to him and comfort him and help him calm down; that was all.

My reaction, as I wrote it, probably seemed disproportionate. And now it is over it feels that way to me, too, but it wasn't something I can help.
     To explain; a while ago I had fortnightly sessions with a therapist (NHS funded), and one of the things she helped me to mentally plow my way through were the mass of jumbled feelings regarding MJ. What had past. What we had gone through. What he had done to us.
     What he had done to us was to subject us over the course of a little over a decade to varying degrees of psychological abuse; from mild to violently extreme. It sounds ridiculously dramatic, but it isn't. He couldn't help it - or at least up to a point he couldn't - but it it doesn't make what happened any less unpleasant and damaging for us.
     And the end result was that we have been what the therapist referred to as "conditioned". Trained, for want of a better term, by MJ - whether he intended to or not - over all those years to react to him in a certain way. To keep him calm, to keep him happy. To be fearful of him being angry, whether with us or with anything else (which always led to him being angry with us, anyway). We have been freed from the grip of his control, or at least the majority of it, for some time now. Years. But enough of that influence remains that any hint of anger causes our hearts to race and our breath to constrict within us and or minds to be clouded by the same fear that he has always made us feel.
     Add that to the possibility - however remote - of our lives reverting completely to what they had been and you have a recipe for unadulterated panic. Which was exactly what I, both of us, were suffering from last night.
     I wish I could say that it won't happen again, but it will. Sooner or later. No matter how hard I try I'm not able to react in any other way. The therapist was gentle but discouraging in response to my question of whether or not it would ever go away. Probably not, she said. Perhaps with the passing of time it would ease, but such emotional trauma was unlikely to ever fully fade enough to be considered "gone".

...So, yeah. That's it. That's how things are. And that's why I acted as I did, and why mother and I are so shattered today, and will be for a while yet (while he, as experience has proven, will now be perfectly content and happy). Because that is the way that he has the ability to make us feel. And because the aftermath of it is - and always has been - mental exhaustion.
     It sucks.

It is what it is, I suppose. I can't change it, and there are people far worse off than we are, etc. etc.
     ...But it still sucks.

Alice x

I Am A Terrible Person.

About half an hour ago Mother burst in through the front door, having abandoned all thoughts of attending the orchestra rehearsal she had been heading to, with the news that MJ had gotten into a terrible row with a bunch of people in the hostel he lives in and was going to leave. Better to live on the streets than there, was the basic gist.

Want to know what my first, my very very first thought was?
     .....It sure as hell wasn't sisterly concern. Oh, no.
     It was; 'oh God, he's going to want to come here. He can't come here, he can't...'

Yep.

Want to know what my next course of action was, as Mother prepared to race back out the door again to answer the plaintive call for help and guidance from her only son?
     .....I'll give you a hint. It was not to give her a hug full of daughterly love. Oh no.
    What I did was to tell her, flat out, that she needed to keep the promise she made just before we moved in here; that MJ would never, ever again spend even the smallest possible amount of time living with us. Never. Ever. And to warn her that if he did, I wouldn't be sticking around to see how it panned out; I would be gone. I loved him, and I loved her, but I was never going back to how life was before, not for anything or anyone. It was him, or me. That simple.

She agreed with me. Distraught as she was, she agreed, immediately, no arguments.
     Then as she opened the front door, she said that he "hadn't even mentioned it as a suggestion".
     And I lost it.

"He will!" I told her. My voice was loud. My voice was cold. I didn't care. All I cared about was making the situation crystal clear; "he will. Sooner or later. If not now, then some other time, he will, and it can't happen; d'you understand? Ever. We cannot live with him. Not 'just for one night', not even for half a night; d'you hear me? He can never live here. NEVER."

She said that she did. And she left.
     That was a while ago now. And I can't get the image of the expression on her face as we stared one another down that endless second before she walked away and closed the door behind her. It said so many things, but the main thing that stands out is that she was in pain. A pain that I had caused.

So that's where things stand now.
     And this is where I am; sat at my computer typing this and split between feelings of guilt and regret at having let my Mother down and intense fear and worry at the thought of MJ walking through the door bags in hand with the intention of staying and buoyed by Mother's own fear driven blessing.

God, I feel wretched.

Alice x

High And Low.

HIGH:
I've had various lovely walks with Bingo. I saw various types of wildlife, from damsel flies to circling buzzards to squirrels gorging themselves on picnic tables. It was wonderful. And wonderful, too, to see Bingo so happy. I hadn't realized - and he had never complained, the darling, to alert me - how much discomfort he was in; not until he wasn't any longer. The painkillers are doing their job to a degree I hadn't even dared hope for, and though he isn't storming around as he did in his puppy days - like a racehorse on speed - his movements are much easier and he appears to be enjoying life immensely.
     Right now as I type he is lying on his bed utterly exhausted after his walk, which included a few good rolls in the long grass and flowers - daisies and dandelions - and several rounds of "HUNT THE STICK: AND WHEN YOU FIND IT, DESTROY!"

LOW:
Father's Day is approaching.
     That is all (for now).

Alice x