Big Ted and Floppy

My psychologist's treatment is based around teaching me to be kind to myself. The irony is that I do consider myself to be a kind person, but somehow I am so hard on myself that if I'd said or thought anything so harsh to anyone else, I'd have died of shame and humiliation for being so horrid.

Among a range of other things all designed to make me nicer to me, she suggested that I should hug myself if I'm feeling low or frightened. To be honest, I found that such an alien concept that I could not imagine ever doing it so I decided to fish Big Ted out of the cupboard and hug him instead.

In case you've not guessed, Big Ted is my teddy bear, he's forty-seven years old, having been a first birthday present from my folks. He's covered in so many "love marks" that it's hard to imagine what he once looked like as a pristine teddy straight out of the box. I took him to bed with me every night until I was well into my twenties.

In the late 1970s, my Mum carefully unpicked several of his seams, took out the crumbly foam that he'd originally been stuffed with that had deteriorated badly over his first twenty years or so of life and replaced the filling with a modern one that is still nice and squishy today. The final part of this operation was to resew the seams and wash him in the washing machine before giving him back to me as a "good as new" Big Ted.

I continued to love him virtually to the point of extinction - he's now so tatty that he's almost completely threadbare across his front, leaving nothing between the stuffing and the outside world but some very old, very frayed fabric that's looking very fragile these days. So, when my Mum realised I was using Big Ted for my hugs again, she was worried about his well-being. She suggested clothing him but I found that suggestion not just weird but somehow rather unpleasant - he's always loved me in no more than his bearskin and that's how it should be!

When we went to see my folks over the weekend (yes, we had to go to London for DMs folks 50th wedding anniversary so we popped in on my Mum's birthday to say "Happy Birthday" to her), she called me into her hall and presented me with Floppy.

He's a "Bear Factory" rabbit, all soft, new and lusciously huggable. Not only that but he was "made" by my family (Mum, Dad and my two nephews) so he's made with love.......and he's got a heart. You give him a squeeze and his heart beats. I find it difficult to articulate how comforting it is to squeeze him then press your ear to his tummy and hear his heart beating. Whenever I'm feeling a bit blue, I just give him a hug and feel his response. It's wonderful.

The only trouble is - I now feel disloyal to Big Ted who isn't getting hugged any more. I can't make up my mind if I'd be more upset to keep on hugging Big Ted until he dies completely or if I can live with the disloyalty to protect his life for the future. I think the latter will win over the former but it's still a toughie.

Linda The Destroyer

I've got a confession to make that puts me in the gruesome, gristly world of BAD PEOPLE. I've become a mass-murderer on a scale rarely seen. I'm murdering slugs by the hundred each evening. Oh yes, I am. Not just that but I'm actually coming back into the house covered in slime, drenched through to the skin because it's not stopped raining here for months and SMILING because I'm so pleased with myself.

What has turned me into this monster? Well, I dug up a few potatoes from the veggie garden for supper a few days ago only to discover that there were papery potato skins that contained nothing more or less than a few fat and obviously contented slugs, with no potato flesh left at all. Well, I'm sorry but those potatoes were meant for my tummy, not theirs. In a world where the chips are down and my food, that I've worked hard to cultivate is being taken by others, I'm not about to take that lightly.

So, I think about my options - the slug pubs that have been in situ all summer don't work well because the beer is getting watered down and washed out by rain so they've not done the job they did for me last year. I don't want to use metaldehyde based pellets or powders - no toxic chemicals in my veggie patch thank you very much. I've been asking in coffee bars for coffee grounds and have managed to protect my leeks using this method but it doesn't work for plants that touch the ground in more than one place, such as the chards, spinach or even the potatoes underground.

My solution is a tub that has had an organic fertiliser in it that I put the slugs that I pick off my plants and soil in then I pour salt over the top of them before I put the lid on. Yes, I am wicked and evil. Do I care? Like I said - it's them or me - if they eat my crops I can't so I'm not going to let that happen. I reckon it takes me an hour at dusk to clear 3 of my 6 veggie beds - to try to do more would be back-breaking and take another hour. In have to be a little pragmatic about the time spent on it.

history coming to visit

I've ranted/rambled/wailed on about the state of the house we bought two and a half years ago on my old blog at www.pbase.com/lindarocks. In fact, at one point, I wrote this piece about how at some point in the past, SOMEONE had once cared enough to decorate with a bit of love....http://www.pbase.com/lindarocks/image/69434544 . Well, imagine my surprise when I was introduced to a young woman on Saturday who was a guest of my next-door-neighbour, who was the person who actually did that stencilling!

DM and I kidnapped her and took her round the house, asking what was there in her day. I'm now sitting typing this in a room that had Thomas the Tank Engines all over the walls when we moved in. They've now gone and this room is my office, painted in a delicious "Barbie" pink. The TTTE pictures have turned out to be her little brother's decor - he was three at the time.

She remarked that she refused point-blank to use the toilet on the ground floor because it was so dark and scary. I refer to that room as a cave these days - it is truly nasty. It's now exactly the same as it was then!

As she left, she remarked that she had loads of photos of the house and garden from her time here. I asked her if she would mind scanning some and sending them to me, which she did so we can now see for ourselves some of the history of this place. It was really exciting to see what we recognised and what was done after their time.

One of the "best bits" was seeing her pot-bellied pig sleeping in front of the fire in the sitting room - now that was a strange but rather lovely sight!

public health warnings

I've been thinking about the way in which our nanny state warns us of the evils of everything we do. You know the sort of thing "this programme contains bad language and themes of a sexual nature, if you are easily offended, please select a different channel" and "smoking kills" and "this film contains scenes of mild violence, some nudity and swearing, only suitable for viewers of 15 and over", "this peanut butter may contain nuts" ......etc etc.

Yet remarkably they don't give warnings for things that are just as damaging - personally, I'd have warnings in front of those brown, sticky soft drink ads (yes, you know, THOSE ones) that say "these products contain nothing of any nutritional value and indeed could harm your health by consuming them - watch the ad then remember this warning before you choose a drink", the ads for burgers and chicken in buckets would be much better if aired after a warning saying "these products contain things that if you had any concerns about the long term health of your kids you'd avoid" and best of all, warnings saying "this programme contains poor people who have been duped into airing their dirty laundry in public for the cheap thrills of the daytime TV audience and is only suitable for ghoulish voyeurs whose own pleasure is more important to them than the sad lives of the programme's guests" - again, I think you know the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Of course I don't really think that every programme and ad should be prefaced by a warning, I suppose what I'm really worried about is that there is someone who decides what should be subject to a warning and what should not.

Perhaps if our viewing is to be moderated by do-gooders in this way, it'd be also appropriate to give warnings that say things like "this programme has been made from the money that viewers spend in premium rate phone calls to become contestants" or "this programme has been made and bought by TV companies who only care about making as much money as possible and producing the lowest cost shows imaginable, that's why the evening schedules are full of celebrities doing "stuff", the members of the public making idiots of themselves and let's get the star-struck public to fund the finding of a new star that we can make loads of money out of so if you watch it be aware that you're supporting the continuation of this trend".

Or town planning departments should insist that superstores put up signs saying "all we care about is getting richer and making more money than our competitors even though we already have more money than we know what to do with, so if you set foot onto this site you share responsibility for killing off shops in your town centre, reduction in biodiversity, pollution and the monopolistic bullying of suppliers - enter at your own risk".

Yeah, I like the sound of that one!

I am now convinced, having read this again before posting it that I've truly become a mad old goat.

Meaningful dreams?

I have always been plagued by bad dreams, going back as far as I can remember. They mostly consist of scary things in the dark, sometimes identified and sometimes just hints of bad things and danger. Often there is blood.....sometimes it's mine but often it's unidentified.

So, I thought I might be having a major breakthrough when I had a good dream last week. It was fabulous. I was swimming in an azure sea with dolphins and seals. They were playful and I was catching a ride on the dorsal fins of the dolphins, being pulled along fast. I was laughing, warm and happy. I love the sea yet it's a long, long time since I last swam in the sea. It's just too cold here in the UK most of the time for a wimp like me. The last time I got to partake of this pleasure was in Malta about a dozen or more years ago. In this country, I swim in heated pools and to be completely frank, I've not been in a pool of any description (other than my own bath) since before I moved to Cornwall three years ago. I've even got a brand-new, unused swimming cozzie that I've had for about three or four years that I've never even christened.

So, to have such a "real" dream, not just visually but touch, taste and sounds too was a great joy. My swim with seals and dolphins felt like a real experience even though it was fake in the most absolute of senses. I experienced pleasure in a completely pure form. It was fab.

I took this dream to mean my mind is starting to come through its blackness and out into the light again. Today I have looked up the meaning of swimming in a warm and wonderful sea with seals and dolphins in my guide to dreams (yes, I AM the sort of sucker who buys such drivel) and the news all looks good - the ocean - good, especially swimming in it in good weather, a sign of enlarging my sphere of activity and or influence. Seals = prosperity and dolphins = advancement through own mental vigour.......all good so far!

Then the next day, back to strange dreams of death and destruction - this time, finding the carcasses of dead animals in the garden, just lying in the grass. A cat, a sheep, a goat, a rabbit, a rat - all dead but looking like they were just sleeping. This one is trickier because it seems it's quite unusual but carcasses are supposed to be good if they are not decayed, dead cats in dreams are good omens (so says the book, not my words), likewise sheep are generally positive.

So, now I'm not so sure - is my mind telling me that some of the things that plague me are no longer a problem for me? Is my mind telling me something I've not actually worked out? Is it all just hocus-pocus anyway and not to have anything read into?

Stephen John Alstead - the boy that never was

It was my birthday yesterday - I was 48. It's a bit of a scary thought to be honest. DM says I should think of it as having a 24 year old left half and a 24 year old right half and when you put the two together you get to 48. He's such a sweetie isn't he?

I am a woman. This is a fact of which I'm completely certain.

Anyway, my folks decided that they wanted to be with their broken daughter on her birthday, the first time they've been with me since my 40th, when I had a humdinger of a party but more of that another day. So, here they are. We went to Truro for the day on the train and had a lovely peaceful time wandering around the "fake" Gothic Cathedral there - it's fake because it's Victorian Gothic, not real Gothic. Mind you, its young age is no barrier to its beauty. It is quite deliciously lovely in a way that many churches are. It shares its age (in broad terms at least) with another of the most lovely churches I've ever seen - the Sacre Coeur in Paris, which is also a late 19th/early 20th century building. (Not a lot of people know that!)

Anyway, we got to telling DM that my "real" name is Stephen John Alstead and that I came into the world at 8.50pm several thousand miles away from home. My Mum went into labour at the tender age of 18 and my Dad rushed her to the military hospital where I was born a few hours later. As was the way in those seemingly unenlightened times, the strict military nurses sent my Dad home to await news of his first born.

When I arrived, the message was communicated to my Dad that he was the proud father of a baby boy. Since my folks had already decided on a name should they have a son, my Dad sent telegrams home to the family in England proclaiming the birth of their son, Stephen John Alstead.......me!

When my Dad got to the hospital to see his new-born son, he found my Mum in deep distress, crying her eyes out. The problem? She had to tell my Dad he'd been misinformed and had got a little girl not a little boy. Ooops. She was distraught thinking my Dad would be disappointed with his little bundle of joy. Not so, fortunately for me, he was petrified that Mum was so distressed because I was seriously ill, rather than simply with two xs instead of an x and a y.

So, he was introduced to his baby daughter and fell in love with her at once. So, Stephen John Alstead, the boy that never was became me..........

Seeing Jeff and Gary again....

I'm so thrilled because I'm going to see my pal Jeff again this afternoon, for the first time in three months. He doesn't know he's my pal but I regard him among my friends. (Sadly these days many of my friends are "not real" in as much as I think of them as friends but they don't have a clue who I am......I think I'm turning into a stalker.)

He's the presenter of Sky Sport's Soccer Saturday and he's fab. He's got an encyclopaedic knowledge of the glorious game, he's a "real fan", supporting I think Hartlepool rather than a glory club. He referees a bunch of pundits who are watching Premiership games and commenting on other scores, incidents and results. It's a truly wonderful show from a company who I normally consider myself reluctantly a customer of. Sky TV is expensive, very ad-laden and frankly the programming/scheduling is often so "lowest common denominator" as to be scary. I hate being a customer but they have a monopoly in this country unless you live in a city and can get cable.

Then there's the lovely Gary. Lineker of course. He'll (hopefully) be back tonight with Match of the Day. Gary is perfect. I'd marry him in a flash (of course that's a bit of a stalker thing to say too), though I doubt he'd even give me a second glance. He's also perfect in as much as he once wore the great white shirt of the Lilywhites and what I'm leading up to of course is that today we see our boys take the field for the start of the new Premiership season.

We've got Middlesborough away - a good, strong side, especially at home and we don't have a great track record there. The pundits think we'll lose. I've had my first cup of tea out of my new Spurs Mug (it proudly proclaims Spurs 5 Arsenal 1), I am wearing my Spurs shirt - these days you'd have to describe it as a vintage one - it's a Holsten one, a Spurs sweatshirt and lucky pants. I'm all set for the kick off and looking forward to reacquainting myself with the lovely Jeff and Gary. Bring it on.......COYS or Come On You Spurs to the unenlightened.

I may be an armchair supporter these days, but I have "earned my Spurs" the hard way at games week-in, week-out for donkey's years. COYS!