09 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in Birthdays, Flora and Fauna
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You know what it is like, you buy or are given, in this case for my birthday I was given, roses and they fail to come out. Their heads droop and they stay bud or maybe they do open slightly only for the outside petals to go brown and slimy. Well this time that most definitely wasn’t the case they are simply glorious.
07 Tuesday Feb 2012
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Today marks the 200th anniversary of Charles Dickens birth. For many people his work doesn’t go beyond Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol and even at that it is it probably mainly due to Lionel Bart and Alistair Sim respectively, but Dickens has a lot more to offer than four ghosts and some more gruel.
Dickens started out as a political journalist, which may be were his interest in social reform and removing the stigma from the poor and marginalised in Victorian society came from. His writing often has the poor, the orphan, the outcast as the hero; while the gentry and rich are frequently less than the moral and upstanding members of justice and morality that the Victorians liked to believe they were. Several of his novels highlight the exploitation of the disadvantaged and the appalling conditions that people lived in due to poor sanitation and the animals were treated better than people in workhouses and prisons. It has been claimed that he was instrumental in having the notorious Fleet Prison in London closed down.
With the finance of Angela Burdett Coutts behind him Dickens set up a refuge for women who had been caught up in prostitution, there they learnt to read and write which along with other skills set them up to find a way out of the life that had previously trapped them. He also helped in both the setting up and continually running of the fledgling Great Ormond Street Hospital.
People of his time and since have often said that his stories were unrealistic, yet the echos of his own life which can be seen in his stories testify to that isn’t the case. Mr Micawber in David Copperfield is said to be based on Dicken’s own father; while Nancy from Oliver on one of the women in the refuge he set up; and it has even been said that Pip from Great Expectations is based on his own life. A young lonely child starting out without any future, working in a dirty occupation (Dickens himself worked in Warren’s blacking factory), until he learnt to read and a new future came into view (while Dickens himself was finally allowed to return to school).
From the Cricket on the Hearth to Bleak House, from A Tale of Two Cities to Little Dorrit, from The Pickwick Papers to Our Mutual Friend Dickens has something for everyone. What is more in using his pen to powerful effect he was part of the beginning of a shift in Victorian society which in time would see the end of the workhouses, the introduction of a welfare state and child labour no longer being acceptable. The sad thing about today is while lots has been accomplished that Dickens would rejoice at and b e glad in, I am sure he would still also be scribbling furiously away at the injustice that still finds its home in today’s society. So maybe if you take this anniversary year to pick up and read a Dickens book you will do it with new eyes and let Dickens inspire you to try and right some injustices that still remain 200 years on.
25 Wednesday Mar 2009
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
20 years ago daughter celebrated her 1st birthday.
Even aged 1 she was a party girl and I never did manage to stop her standing on chairs and dancing when music came on!
Happy Birthday 21st!
19 Friday Sep 2008
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
Next week son moves out for the third time, only this time we know he will be back, or at least this time he is saying he will be, maybe that means that this time he wont be. He is off down to Brighton to do a post grad and it will mean for the first time in his nearly 23 years on this earth he will be away from home for his birthday so today, almost two months early, is his un-birthday birthday. Daughter has said he shouldn’t be getting any presents until his real birthday otherwise he will just be looking for another one when his real birthday comes along in November, she probably has a point!
Which raises this question. The Queen gets two birthdays each year does she get presents for both of them?
02 Tuesday Sep 2008
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
Today sees the birthday of the actor Keanu Reeves, the tennis player Jimmy Conners, the boxer Lennox Lewis and Liliuokalani – who? I hear you cry – Liliuokalani the last Queen of Hawaii but they are no-body’s compared to another person who celebrates their birthday today.
All their achievements and hard work are nothing compared to the achievements of the person whose birthday I am celebrating, even Liliuokalani’s royal blood pales into insignificance besides the yet far more important person whose birthday which they happen to share.
A person whose influence, compassion, joy of living, presence and love has shaped my life.
A person who shares my tears and my joys and whose constant love I can never repay.
Happy Birthday Mum!
04 Friday Apr 2008
Sorry Doris forgot about your birthday yesterday.
25 Tuesday Mar 2008
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
20 years ago there was a bright sun in the sky – just like today.
20 years ago there was a light dusting of snow on the ground – just like today.
20 years ago I woke up with a back ache – just like today.
20 years ago I could blame my daughter for that, although I didn’t know for another hour and a half that I was about to give birth to a daughter.
20 years ago as she took her first breath of the air of this world she was small and helpless, a bit bruised and squashed in her rush to get out.
Today she is a beautiful, intelligent, resourceful woman who has a wonderful future out there for her and of whom I am very proud.
Happy Birthday Pazza.
19 Wednesday Dec 2007
Posted in Birthdays
Like me my brother enjoys to cook, in fact it has been known for him to enter and win jam making competitions, much to the annoyance of those who have won them for years. He also often tottles up to pay a visit to Nick Nairns Cooking School. So when I stumbled across this picture the other day I knew it would end up getting posted today.
This photograph was taken in 1969 one Lilias Day. BB is the one in the chefs hat on the right, our sister is in the middle (who some 30+ years later final became a nurse) and yes that is me on the left as the Queen of Hearts, must have been my Alice in Wonderland phase!
Happy Birthday BB, have a wonderful day.
14 Wednesday Nov 2007
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
Son has always enjoyed listening to music, and no doubt tonight he will be listening to plenty as he celebrates his birthday.
Happy 22nd Birthday!
10 Wednesday Oct 2007
Posted in Birthdays, Family Life
Unless of course you are the Queen who gets two, or *L* a member of the congregation who being born on the 29th February only gets one every 4 years. Most of us only get a birthday once a year, and for Hubby his is today.
45 seems more than a year older than 44 and I am not sure why, maybe it has something to do with why the shop keepers like to keep prices at £4.99 or £9.99, or maybe it is that pricing policy that has now crept into my sub-conscious and effecting birthdays. Either way 45 is still young, it didn’t seem like it when I was a child, but with the over 100′s now being one of the fastest growing age groups in the country, it could be said that it isn’t even middle-aged.
So to Hubby and all those other youngsters out there whose birthday is today:
Happy Birthday!
12 Thursday Jul 2007
Posted in Birthdays
Last night friends who both have birthday in this octave came round for dinner (the menu for the evening, for those who may be intrested can be found here). They are also both priests, and another of the guests had made an altar birthday cake for them, complete with jewelled chalice and paten, and lacy linen made out of icing!
Here they are blowing out the high six candles on the altar/cake. Of course neither of them are six, but they acted like it when they wanted to set off loud fireworks at past midnight and I said they couldn’t!
11 Wednesday Jul 2007
Posted in Birthdays, Rectory Kitchen
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Tonight friends are coming round, two of whom are celebrating birthday’s hence the dinner – the menu.
Scallops wrapped in pancetta then cooked on a griddle served with pea puree.
Mango Sorbet
Rack of lamb, simply roasted, served with roasted butternut squash, and cous cous with courgette, shallots, peppers, apricots, pine nuts and plenty of fresh parsley. I may or may not also do a port and redcurrant sauce haven’t decided for certain on that one.
For dessert pear and almond shortcake with vanilla cream.
Cheese and biscuits for those still hungry, if anyone is!
Pea Puree
Pear and Almond Shortcake
