Right, I'm now a year older!!! Wiser I'm not so sure about; grumpier I'm positive about and definitely older! So what has been going through my head this week?
Well, to start with cars!!!! Now let me first inform you that I do not drive and I couldn't tell the difference between a Volvo and a Golf if you paid me. My normal description of a car is that it has 4 wheels, is big/small, is 3 door/5 door (yes I can tell that difference) and it's blue/green/white/black........you get the picture!! So why this week have I been thinking about cars? It may have something to do with Jeremy Clarkson, but then again it may not! I'm a little obsessed with Jeremy at the moment. It's my mate's fault; you know who you are (hehe)! She bought Phil two of his books for his birthday and one day, while bored and wanting something light to read, I picked one of them up and started reading. We are big fans of Top Gear in this house and I have to admit that Jezza makes me laugh and his books are even funnier! He is probably the most un PC person on the planet, but I find myself nodding in agreement to a lot of what he says even though I feel guilty for doing so and the way he writes is just genius! Anyway, after devouring both books in a matter of a week, I spotting in a local charity shop one of his others; this time about cars! I started to read with a little bit of trepidation as, remember I don't know anything about cars, I wasn't sure if I would enjoy it, but I did!!!! I loved it! It was still humourous and still full of his little rants and views on the world he inhabits, so I asked for another one for my birthday! I got 2!!!! Another World According To and a car one Driven to Distraction. I've already finished the World According To one and am about 1/4 way through the other. So my head is a little more car orientated than normal, but it still has not increased my understanding of cars at all. Which brings me onto the other reason I've been thinking about cars.
A friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, has just bought herself a 2 seater sports car! What's the problem with that I hear you ask? Well, there are 3 of them in the household: herself, her partner and her son plus they have her partner's son every other weekend. Now, my uncarlike brain says why on earth would you buy a 2 seater car when you clearly need a minimum of 4 seats!? Her answer was that they rarely spent any time with all 4 of them in the car at the same time and that they could always use her partner's car if they needed to. Plus she wanted to be able to have a posh sporty car before she entered the world of senile dementia that she was so obviously heading for, now that she was nearing her 50s, and be unable to drive one! Good and fair point, but this got me thinking! Do woman now have the classic, if cliched, mid life crisis that men are supposed to have? You know the story; man hits middle age, goes out and buys the fastest, flashiest car he can find and runs off with his secretary who is half his age and has large breasts! It is terribly cliched, but not uncommon and you do see them driving around. Or do you? This was the problem; I don't! I've only ever seen them in television dramas or in glossy magazines where they end up looking, well, a bit of a prat!! So I've made a conscious effort this week to look out for flashy cars and to see who is driving them. I might have to re point out here that I know nothing about cars, so a flashy car to me could actually be a complete dumpster to a petrolhead, but on the look out I was. What were my findings? As I don't live in the most upmarket of places in the first place I only saw about 3 cars that I would possibly class as flashy and one of them was a pick up, so that one probably wouldn't even count! And who was driving these cars? All men; one woman, two men; no, all women! Yes, all 3 were driven by women! But that's not all, all 3 were driven by woman who were also blonde. All had enamelled fingernails that had sparkly trimmings. All looked pretty anorexic and only one, the one in the pick up, looked under 30 with a child in the back; the other 2 looking pretty much my age. I could be completely typecasting here but I swear that if I could have seen what they were wearing it would have been designer jeans and each would have had a designer (or at least of copy of a designer) handbag! Now, I'm not disrespecting my mate or, in fact, these other woman; at least I'm trying not to. How they live their lives is up to them and I dye my hair blonde now that it has turned salt&pepper grey and my original brown hair makes my face look washed out as my skin has gone paler as I've got older. Fair play to them if that is what they want to do and they can afford to do it. But, just as middle aged men in fast, flash cars with 'trinket' girlfriends look complete prats to me, these woman basically look like wannabe WAGs to me too! I just hope that they are not trying to relive their youth or, worse still, have a fear of getting old. Remember the phrase "mutton dressed as lamb", well now it seems it isn't just clothes, it's the car you drive as well but, I hate to say it, it still looks bad!! Sorry girls, my opinion only!! And I still love my friend dearly!
The other thing I've been thinking about is respect, or lack of it! My mum may not have wanted me or been the most loving or protective mother in the world, but she did teach me respect and I'm hoping that I've taught my kids the same (on reflection of what I've written above, I'm not being very respectful this week, but I did warn you that you might not always like what I'm thinking). However, this week I've noticed that there really isn't a great deal of it about nowadays. It all starts with dogs barking and ends in noise from neighbours!
I'm a dog owner/lover, in fact I love most animals, and even if a dog is launching itself at my fence with what can only been seen as a view to getting into my garden and ripping apart my child and dog (this has happened recently, but has now been resolved), I know it isn't the dog's fault, it's the owners. Although, saying that, I wouldn't think twice about grabbing the nearest item and beating the shite out of the animal should it have succeeded in it's mission. But back to the barking. I have several houses around me that own dogs and there is definitely 3 of them that consistently allow their dogs to continuously bark. If my dog barks, and obviously he does otherwise he wouldn't be a dog, I tell him to stop or I bring him indoors. I'd be mortified if I thought that anyone was sitting in their house/garden thinking "I wish they'd shut that bloody dog up!", but these owners obviously don't think like this at all. If fact, I don't think that they think much of their dogs either to be honest! A dog normally barks for 3 reasons: intruders, boredom or fear! Now if it is an intruder, surely you should be going to check it out; if it's boredom, then you aren't looking after your dog properly and if it's fear, you should again be checking it out. But these owners don't, so personally I'd like to go round and remove their dogs and rehome them in better homes, but I'm not allowed to do that so I have to put up with the barking.
The other is neighbour's noise and in particular DIY noise. The house next door to me has been sold and they are totally gutting and renovating it. I don't have a problem with this as it's something we need to do ourselves, but is it really necessary to start banging at 10.30pm? Yes, I said pm, not am! It has been known to be as late as 11pm before they start! Ok, I'll own up and say that it is rare and only once has it been 11pm and it normally is finished by 11pm, but even so. Are there not enough hours in the day already to get this sort of thing done? And the fact that they know that there is a child living next door really pisses me off (sorry)! It just comes back to respect; they haven't any! My worry is that, at the moment, they are not truely living at the house as it's pretty uninhabitable so what will it be like when they finally do move in permanently? Will I then have neighbours like my last lot that played European disco music (they were Polish as are these) really loud until God knows when! I truely hope not as I don't want to have to start another mini war. And that's another thing, why is it always crap music that's played really loudly. My next door neighbour but one was playing some excellent music the other week while out working in his garden, but I could only really hear it when the wind blew in the right direction; I was almost tempted to yell at him to turn it UP!!
Oh well, my rant is now over, my brain has been downloaded and possibly half the population has been ostracized, but I don't care as I'm off for one last cup of tea before going to bed! See you next week.
Apart from your totally unwarranted adoration of Jeremy Clarkson, I agree with pretty much all you've said. We went to Medway Maritime Hospital today - slightly scary, Mary had a recall following a mammogram - and decided to take the bus as we both have Old Gits' passes and it saves all the hassle of trying to find somewhere to park in the Hospital. Good decision as it later turned out. We had only gone one stop when the bus was suddenly over-run with kids from the Howard and Rainham School for girls. The lad that came to sit immediately behind me opened a bottle of cream soda whcih exploded all over him, and me as well. "Watch what you're doing!" I said. "It's not my fault" he replied, in a very defiant tone. "Did the bottle open itself then?" I asked. "I got soaked as well", he said. "Good!" I replied. Now, I may be old-fashioned (in fact, I know I am) but a "Sorry" wouldn't have come amiss instead of the blame-avoidance. I settled back in my seat, having sponged off the worst of the cream soda from my collar, only to hear one of the bottle-opener's friends call one of the other boys a "F***ing Pr**k". Mary and I both turned, and almost in unison, said "Mind your language." I added "You're not at home now." For the remainder of the journey my fists were itching as we had to put up with continual comments from the back such as "Careful what you say, you're not allowed to swear on this bus now." Again, not a "Sorry" to be heard.
ReplyDeleteI can't help thinking that the constraints under which I now find myself having to operate on a daily basis, and which would have been unthinkable to my parents and grandparents, have left us with a poorer and less respectful society, in which youngsters have been given a very clear mandate to do and say what they please without fear of censure or punishment. If I had behaved in that fashion at that age (12-13 at a guess), I would not have dared to argue or to make saracastic comments having been reprimanded - the sanctions would have been (a) the traditional and statutory clip round the ear and (b) ejection from the bus at the behest of the adult passengers and the conductor (you may remember bus conductors?). No other adults made any gesture of support or joined in with their own words of admonition, and the bus driver (poor sod, if he has to put up with that every day!) didn't seem to care, although he had a very good view of what was happening.
Anyway, until they adopt my idea of giving pensioners guns (and, after the events of last week that's not going to happen anytime soon) I don;t think there's much I can do about it, except make sure I don't get into situations where I have to sit and fume while tolerating what is basically unacceptable behaviour.
The good news at the end of the day is that Mary is fine, the shadow that was spotted on the first mammogram is only calcification and nothing more serious. So that's something to be grateful for.