Boxes of boys

For the last three years we've had the lovely army boys from somewhere in Wiltshire come to our building and serve us Christmas dinner. This year, has to be the most fun I've had. The other two years were great, but this year the boys were brilliantly good fun. Up for a laugh.

Now you see I'm one of these people that love a bit of change, a break from routine. So when the lady who organises it all asked me if I'd like to do the trolleys again, I said 'of course'. She's a lovely woman, who makes me macaroni and cheese every Friday. Even if it had been trolleys with the Chelsea Pensioners, I would have jumped at it. It's away from my desk, it's helping her and it's for a fantastic charity: Help for Heroes. Okay, so we didn't get retired old men but quite lovely looking boys, but there were girls too and they were pretty cool.

And I'm going to smile with the soldiers, I'm going to have a laugh with them. For one, it raises more money if you're all jokey and stuff and two, why on earth would I want to walk around with a scowl on my face? It doesn't mean that I plan to 'cop' off with every single one of them. I BET none of the other ladies got the grief I did - purely because they are the wrong side of 60. But yes, I got huge amounts of snide comments and people assuming I was 'pullling' a soldier. With all due respect, would I advertise it?

So yes, I didn't go all girly and shrieky and refuse to talk with them. No, I laughed, I joked, I smiled and made friends. What is life if you don't sieze the moment to make new friends? I love finding people, and getting to know them.
And I got a box of boys or three. And I think they loved it!

Friendships

Now, I have to confess, I like being a happy and smiley person. I like being the girl who is a cheerful soul. But lets face it, it's unrealistic, everyone has bad days and becomes a bit of a grump. This, my friends, is my whinge and whine and grump blog. It'll probably be one of a very few, because I don't like the world to see a bad mood.  Only the very unlucky (i.e my son) get to see them.
And it's nothing short of sad when you think a friendship has run it's course.
Things about me, I take shit and I take it and then eventually I just don't. But I'd rather just shut up and let the moment pass, than say something in anger and rock the boat. Add a volatile mother when you're growing up, and you kind of learn, it's easier to nod, smile and then do your own thing. If you are a close friend of mine, you'll know this about me. I also am aware I DO have a temper (from that volatile mother) and that's why I'd rather walk, than risk losing a friend, who in the cold light of sanity, you realise you don't want to lose.
There you have it, if you know me, you'll know this blah blah blah.
So then, if I do have a moment, in which I give you my very honest and humble opinion, in a clear and concise way, if I tell you that I'm concerned about your actions and that I don't like them: you must surely know that I've thought about it long and hard, about how to approach the topic and that it is from my heart. That I mean it with the best intentions and no ill.

I did all that this week, I spent a good 24 hours considering my response to a scenario - I wrote a measured, totally unemotional reply raising my concerns. What I got back was just sarcastic and rude, and not really a good reflection of the many years of friendship I thought we had behind us. Bearing in mind, it takes me a while to work myself up into an anger, it's fair to say I'm like a raging bull now. I've had to save my response for a day when I have a clearer head, because if I say what I really feel like saying, I'll be minus a friend, and they are quite hard to come by when you're my age. With all that said, I'm not sure I want to be friends with someone who does not value my input (after asking for it!) and who has changed into someone I'm not sure I want to be around. I'm all for an easy life, with minimal drama, and this is not turning into a friendship that is in any way, shape or form, easy. Just to clarify, all relationships do need work and I'm fully up for that. By easy, I mean as a friendship should be: helping through the seriously crappy times, rejoicing and dancing in the streets for the delirious ones.

What I ask for in a friend is honesty. I want you to be honest with me - because if your friends can't tell you that your behaviour is sucky, or bloody brilliant, that you look like a moose in that red dress, or a million dollars in the black one, who else are you meant to believe?

Aaaaah and now I feel better. Sad, because clearly I wasn't half as valued as I thought I was. Sad, because I abhor rudeness and bad behaviour and I thought I was a better judge than that. But also a little relieved, that I won't have to deal with dramas that aren't really dramas. Looking for attention and drama is best left to the playground. Drama is losing your toe to a lawnmower maybe, not misplacing your lip gloss.

Also, there's really only room for one Drama Queen in a relationship. *where's that sticky out tongue smilie?*

Music

What is it about a song that makes you go 'aaaah'? And about a tune that takes you back to a memory. Recently, a friend and I tried to compile our top 15 albums of all time. I struggled. And even now, a good month later, I'm constantly adding to it. It's the same with songs. My criteria is such: if I can listen to it over and over again without being sick of it, then it's a favourite. Mostly, they are songs that have given me awesome times. I'm hardly likely to chuck a song on the list that reminds me of puking my guts up...although strangely "She sells Sanctuary" is up there in the Top50 (along with the promise that I'll never drink Fanta Grape and beer and tequila together again). I thought if I took a song from every 2 years of my age, then I could build a nice collection. But one song, leads you to another and then another. Anyway, again I go off the point I wanted to make. Is it a solely female (read: Ali here) trait to pour over the lyrics and make them fit to your life experience?*

So then I start thinking, what would play in the montage of my life (should my life ever be a movie)? And "Where is my mind" by the Pixies just comes popping into my head. If ever there was a song that makes me want to shake my funky stuff all over a dancefloor, there's that song. And that, ladies and gentlefolk is my number 1 top song ever! Along with about 50 others of course.



 *(Recently, country and western is filling that role quite nicely..... and that's only half a joke)

It's December and I have a rose in my garden. I'm becoming quite obsessed with this rose. Well, it shouldn't be blooming at this time of year but it is. Its been there since I arrived back from Thailand and I'm thinking it's blowing to cheer me up. Every morning I check on its progress and take a picture. It makes me hopeful that winter won't be so bad. And I think if a rose can thrive and bloom and be all pretty in this crappy season, then there is a little bit of hope for me this winter. Xx

Fears

Ah we all have them. Fears of things. I have a few that strike me cold. I can rationalise where two of them come from. I have this fear of pneumonia - it comes from Mom and her stroke. In fact when I heard George Michael had pneumonia last week, I was most concerned. Was at the doctor yesterday and thankfully, I go to a practice that realises I'm slightly neurotic over that particular bug - so gave me a full check up. I guess, it's because Mom's wasn't diagnosed and then she ended up having a stroke which has changed our lives beyond comparison to what life was. Anyway, there's a fear that can be explained away.

My other fear is snakes. Seeing them on the tv, gives me shivers, makes me break out into a cold sweat and I'm frozen to the sofa (never a bad thing - I do love my sofa). But this is a new fear. I never used to be so scared of snakes. I was fascinated by them, have held more than a couple (in a controlled environment of course) but since I've had my son some 13 years ago, I'm absolutely petrified of them. I've had precisely two encounters with snakes where they have crept up on me and made me run screaming into the horizon, so it's not like they are a part of my life and wait outside for a chance to jump out at me. So what's the deal? I had to choose not to see Harry Potter in 3d because I was petrified of that huge snake lunging into my face....and that was a Hollywood snake - obviously more in love with Brazillians and fake tans than eating me.

Totally irrational. I check my toilet every night before I go to bed and have considered putting the child lock back on to it - I mean you hear stories of snakes finding their way through the pipes into houses that way...sneaky snakes slithering. I hope the older my son gets, the less I will fear snakes but it's not happening. It must be hormones? I know my mom was all of a sudden scared of heights after I was born. Could this be a contraceptive device? I could have another child and be scared of cupcakes!!

Barbie sucks!

I'd like to say I'm done, but I doubt I ever will be. There are steps I can take to be 'done', but I took them once and now look, I'm back where I began. And I don't want to take the steps again.
What I want is to lose that bit of my heart which thinks too much, that wants too much. That bit that aspires to heights that quite frankly, are never going to be reached. You can dress up a mannequin in as many pretty outfits and fancy wigs as you like, to make her look real and fabulous. But it's only ever going to be a plastic doll. I feel like that Barbie.

Hmm think I'm having a huge come down off the meds that were meant to make me sleepy, but have kept me awake for the last 4 days. Still, I've been very amusing in the run up to the come down.

Swings, roundabouts... it's how I roll.

MissJ

I met MissJ nearly a month ago. A chance meeting, on a canoe in the sea, in a country neither of us live in. And although I haven't known her for long - golly gosh, I love that chick.
I cannot imagine a time when I did not know this woman. Anyway, today we had this whatsapp chat (not just us but that's another blog for another time - nothing like keeping your readers on their toes to come back!) and it was just so gigglicious and funny and made me snort out loud on more than one occasion. It was also rather educational but I digress. I came away from that little group session with the most enormous smile on my face and a sense that MissJ is going to be a friend for life.
She's the gal you really wish you were, all curls (Is this a requirement if you want to be my friend? Is there a friends required site for Ali and only curly-locked people need apply?) and smiles and chat. She's the one in a crowded room who will make sure all the shy folk are up and dancing on the tables! I love that in a person.
She's also a straight talker (clearly another one requirement on the CV of my friends). I know that if we lived nearer, we'd be bouncing out of each others pockets.

So what made us 'click'? It wasn't just the holiday vibe or the ease in which facebook lets you keep connected. Because in truth I facebook friended two others from that holiday and have no real intentions of seeing them (in fact the one got my girl hackles in a spin... that 6th sense feeling). I do think it was fate. I do think there was a hand in the remarkable coincidences that kept us meeting up with her and her uber-lovely M. And that we gelled so well. I'll never be able to hear YMCA without wanting to break out into shapes that, in no way, resemble the letter 'Y', 'M', 'C' & 'A'.

People come in and out of your life all the time. The people you keep in it, are to enrich your own life and to help you grow. MissJ has joined the group of people that enrich me.

And wow! this sounds like a major love-fest and suck up. But sometimes you just need to tell people who they are in your life.

Also MissJ reminds me of my N - not just the curly hair (because that's obviously the No1 thing I look for in a friend) but the zest for living and life.