Wi Ma Ain Folks

London was amazing. It ended up an extended visit but boy did it rock.  I'm not going to go through the whole shebang here - just pop up the odd picture or two, until I get back into the swing of things.  My breast cancer ultimate results showed the tumours were benign.  I don't think I've ever held on to my daughter so tightly in all her life.  I can look forward to Christmas now, celebrating in the usual unashamed and immature nature.  Anyhow - some post-London pics, where the sun shone for ten glorious days and I didn't complain too much at that!

On our first day just chilling.  

  Back Row :
  Me, me twin, me son-in-law, James, and niece Layla.
  
  Front:
  Me daughter, Kerri, and her brother, Ross.

A Harrods visit:
Kerri finding the department that REALLY mattered! What a store - you could spend a whole day there just browsing (no choice in that matter). We mostly took pictures of price tags and had a game of find the most expensive fish!

A magical traipse round London. God, did our feet hurt after the tour!  Still marvelled over the simple statue of Eros.








 

 Here's me in South Hill Park in Bracknell. My son-in-law James and his landscape company turned this place from shit to a hit!  He guided Prince Edward round the whole park and gardens on it's re-opening!  And the manor house is renowned for it's ghost stories!




 

 This picture is soooo endearing!  Gorgeous Freya is my daughter's friend's little girl and she absolutely loves the bones of James!  She's force-feeding him her crisps here.  I pray that one day the IVF treatment will work and he and my own little girl are blessed with a kiddy of their own!





This is the church Kerri and James married in.  The organ pipes in here and celestial paintings are the most beautiful I've ever seen.  I visit it every time I'm in Marlow to relive the event. It was my proudest moment watching her float down that aisle!  The Vicar was the funniest little guy, ever.  He kept stopping and asking James if he was sure he didn't want to know where the quick exit was!













On my last day there James' parents held a cracking barbeque - what a menu!  It was my first taste of Pimms as well.  I adored their apple tree - just ripe for the picking and eating!
Left to right:
Margaret, my twin, Layla again, Vicky, James' sister and moi!

This is the mat that sits proudly at my daughter's door!  Taken from the Scottish hit comedy, Still Game, (a Barra's buy!) these mats are often commissioned for Xmas and New Year gifts. Some companies need convincing that you actually WANT it misspelt!

Okay, guys!  This snap is the piesta resistance!  I just had to have a piddle in a Harrods bog!  My nutty twin sister took this snap before the toilette-clerk caught us!  And what a lavatory it is!  Towels like cherub clouds! There was even this little circular trolly with a selection of designer parfums if you fancied a free scoot (sample) on your way out!  Honest!

We were tempted to re-inact a situation that occurred when we were nine, involving twin distraction and a packet of Polo mints in McCluckey's  food store,  but we opted for more finger-linger time on the aerosol instead! 

ps..........you can't tell it's me - can you? I think they've got security cameras in that place!
  **********************************
So there endeth the few pictures and precious memories that'll last forever.  I'll make a little slideshow of each album of snaps taken for my sorely neglected sidebar soon!  It's nice to be back.  And even nicer to know that I can share this and future posts with a bit more ease.  I plan to raise funds for those women and families who are affected by breast cancer.  I just spent the last couple of weeks experiencing the time of my life.  It doesn't bear thinking about how the last two weeks could have gone.
*************************

Tick Off!

                             * input from bookworms themselves

Oi! You pesky little mite, how dare you contemplate...!
Chomping through my case and books, as tasty as it maybe looks.
Prepare ye for insecticidey fate!
                                                       * ('you've no chance, mate!')

You see, my vast collection, is treasured by my mob.
Alphabetically tended, leather jackets stitched and mended.
Ready there to do their leafy job.
                                                       * ('our taste buds throb!')
 
Books older than my grampa, smell a little of him, too.
Tobacco prints on certain pages, lingers on war pics for ages.
Knows the glory, story through and through.
                                                       * ('we still must slew..')

Hardbacks full of nonsense, for my mum - the bored housewife.
Jackie Collins, effing , blinding, toyboys, tans and bareback riding.
So Mrs.Mop can lead a double life.
                                                        * ('how ghastly rife..')

My worshiped read - Vlad Nabokov, so intricate, offending.
Turns the subjects of taboo, so you accept, not misconstrue.
And come to yearn his sad, unhappy endings.
                                                         * (' ah, Russian rending..?')
                    
Huge knowledge books on bottom shelves -  for weight, than read at will.
They've never heard of 'world wide web', or know that Princess Di is dead.
But act as a support to keep things still.
                                                         * ('oh, what a thrill..')

Grandma loves her cook books, and reads hymns that turn to song.
Revelations in the Bible, Old Nick 'v' his biggest rival
Though she'll curse him when the dish she made goes wrong!
                                                          *('we'll sing along..')

There's even ones with pictures, bordering on pornographic.
Hoofs and wings on manic creatures, bodies wrangled, viscious features.
Told in words, so rich and calligraphic.
                                                          * ('man - that's tragic!')

One sits so high and mighty, bearer of the golden hue.
There is no match, no competition, for this rare, unique edition.
Welcomes each of us to Xanadu.
                                                         * ('we'll chew and chew..')

Every home should have one, bookcase filled with word cuisine.
Fiction, facts in combination, liter-a-lise the whole damn nation.
While inner monologue's setting the scene.
                                                         * ('we'll wipe it clean..!)
 
So, hop it, death watch beetle, never, ever lose the plot.
Grandeur is a cheap illusion, your own death a forgone conclusion.
The taste of printed paper's for MY lot!!
                                                          * (gulp!...that's what you got.......!)

Mite To Mound

(I've veered from the sad truth to an unrelated positive of this prompt)

Gathered steps from grand to mite
becomes your future overnight.
Borne to have, to cultivate,
sweet plantations there await.

We wave to father's trail that weaves,
among the pungent, drying leaves
Skin relations, tying links,
respect for what a woman thinks.

A whole with no hypocrisy,
a blip, a blood democracy
As evident as blazing star,
we track our loved ones from afar.

The smokey trails, the hissing streams,
the catcher feathering our dreams
Grandma's trembling hands may stealth,
to sell our goods and keep our health

Wonder Star, Returning Moon,
your day is over, none too soon.
Babes back in arms of their creator,
stars will call a little later.

Gathered round until again,
they venture on their many plains.
Alas we'll waive and watch the skies,
fill from which our lives derive.

To say goodbye in sacred mounds
Sweet Plantations, sacred grounds.

Mauritius and Kisses

I can't blame the season. I love the bloody winter. But I've been feeling a little low since I was here last. Something that comes and goes in spells but not that often. I think it's just the run up to Christmas knowing that my usual rushed efforts won't be including a card and pressie for my mum-in-law who passed away in March. It just struck me that my kids don't have any grandparents at all now and that my crossed fingers don't seem to be doing much via my daughter and her attempts to make me one! She's on fertility treatment as she has polycystic ovaries, making the natural job a bit harder. Mind you, I can just picture the little 'un in a few years with his/her Prodigy tee-shirt on giving it laldy with mum in the sitting room to her CD's and him/her being fascinated by the tongue stud she'll keep popping in and out her mouth...(doesn't beat when grampa used to take out his false teeth out in front of you, Kek. You tried so hard to do the same!). So, I'm picking myself up and shaking off the blues. I'm so impatient. That's my real problem.

I know when the kids notice I'm down. Especially Ross. It's the only time he ever makes me a cup of tea with an added kiss. But he bucked me up. Even had me laughing when he told me he was about to woo his latest date with a Pot Noodle and Saw V. She giggled all the while she was in.

But my best ever pick-me-up is going through old photographs - and trust me I have thousands. It was when I came across this one that gave me the biggest smile. I can remember the first time Ross met his auntie Maryse he was amazed at how little she was. Only 4ft 10 inches in height.

  His first question to her was: "Why are you too wee...?"

  And her answer back was: "Why are you too handsome...?"

 He shrugged. She shrugged. And that was that. But Ross said he'd try and just grow to her height (he was only about six inches away from that back then!) which I suppose was his way of accepting life.

Unfortunately, he didn't manage that. This pic from after my mum-in-law's funeral really tells the story. It was only the second time the boys had met their auntie and they adored her sweet Mauritian accent and her wacky stories. So I guess I've not really got a lot to feel down about. Not with a family as rich (in unity) as mine when times need.

My Precious Baby...and Hers.

The rotten year I'm having has worsened. Last night my darling daughter called to say that she had received some bad news. It has been confirmed that she has polycystic ovaries which reduces her chances of falling pregnant naturally. She's already been trying for a year. I didn't know how to react when she told me. I was stunned. I felt awful and useless. Didn't know whether to cry or not. But I'm the mum, I'm the one who should have reassured her but I felt useless. Kerri lives 500 miles away from me in Buckinghamshire which makes it all the worse. But she has been having problems for a while now and she hasn't said.

Kerri has always been there for everyone. She never told me as she didn't want to 'worry' me. Even as long as a year ago she suspected she could maybe have this condition but doctors dismissed it. It wasn't until she stresses to them that I needed a rushed hysterectomy at 29, that they referred her for a scan. In all that time her cysts were growing. How awful. I always worried that she would suffer from endometriosis and pre-cancerous cells as I did. The pain from that was excruciating and I guess I sighed with relief that she wouldn't suffer from that type of pain that I was glad that it was only cysts! But I underestimated the psychological side of this. By the end of her phone call, although clearly shaken, she sounded more positive. There is treatment to help fertility along the way and we've no other option but to put our faith into what ever medics have to offer. So after saying our farewells on the phone, I was pleased that she sounded a little happier, but I felt awful that there was nothing more that I could do or say there and then. I had the weekly shop to do and I tried to focus on that to help keep the tears at bay.

I actually thought I was coping okay until a mum lifted a little might from it's baby carrier to comfort it from crying and the thought that my precious baby, my only daughter, my first born, might not ever get the chance to kiss her own little one tenderly on the cheek, simply gutted me. I had to end my shopping trip there and then. I stood sobbing in the supermarket car park while my husband paid for the goods. I prayed she gets the chance to snuggle up to her own little one.

I can still picture her own little peachy face with it's podgy cheeks, and eyes 'like a Chinaman'. I can still feel those long long fingers with the tiniest of nails at the ends and her insistence for a breastfeed every two hours. But she's from determined stock. I conceived naturally with her brothers with only one ovary and endometriosis despite the doctors' warnings that I might never do so. Fertility treatment has more chances than ever at happy endings. But I've a feeling that Mother Nature will be around more than usual and keeping to her job title - with love.