The Gallery - A photo I'm proud of. 'Touchy feely Wood'

This photo is for The gallery at Sticky Fingers. Make sure you go over and check out all the other brilliant entries, there are some stunning photos!


The prompt this week is 'A photo I am proud of'                        

 

 


It's of a piece of wood from our fish tank! It was left out in the garden to dry out after being scrubbed and cleaned of all that lovely fish gunk. But before it went back in to the tank I took a few shots of it.

I think it's a thing of  beauty, a stunning piece of wood, with all its gnarly whorls and knots, and stripey, grainy texture. The fact that it's soft and smooth, I assume because it's been in the water for so long, adds to it's interest. It makes me want to touch and stroke it!

Please use the click to enlarge as the detail is amazing...

I'm really, really pleased I managed to capture all that in the photo.

One year on...and I nearly bloody missed it!

Yes, I've been blogging for a whole year! How the hell did that happen? Where did it go? 

When I started this blog, I just thought it would be interesting to try and record some of the things that happen in my and my Teenagers lives. I had hoped a few people might read it, maybe even enjoy it. But I just jumped in anyway, with not a lot of thought, only  'Oh I'll give this a go, it looks like fun'

What have I learnt? 

That there are some amazing, friendly, lovely, helpful, encouraging people in the blogging community, and although I've NEVER met any of them personally (well aside from Emily of Maternal Tales, who everyone should now blame for me starting this blog in the first place!) through this Blog and Twitter I've come to think of them as friends.

Also that I have either been very lucky or just very, very naive (stupid? blind?) as I've discovered, just recently, that for some bloggers, in particular this lovely blogger Jay, it's not all 'lovely' and 'sweet smelling' and obviously on some occasions appears to have been needlessly hurtful and cruel. Why? I thought and hoped I'd seen the last of this type of behaviour at the school gates, go figure! And I apologise in advance for my Potty Mouth in the comments if you click on Jay's link..You have been warned!

That it opened up a whole new world of reading to me. Who knew you were all out there? doing your thang! If you knew me personally you would know I'm an avid reader, a bit of a speed reader too, so blogs for me are the perfect way to get a complete fix of various styles of reading, quickly and easily and I love it! Jumping from funny, to crazy, to sad, all in a few clicks. My idea of heaven.

That even though I don't blog very often at the moment, I am still enjoying it. 

It's more than just putting words out there that others read,  writing it often helps me make some sense of the often rambling, thoughts in my head.

So really, I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone who reads my blog. Thank you for all your comments, advice, support and giggles. 

And also a HUGE thank you for the pleasure of reading all YOUR wonderful, funny, sometimes sad, informative, thought provoking, short and long blog posts, but always 'great' reading in so many different ways.

xXx

Are your Teens waiting?...Results day.

If you have teens of a certain age then you'll already know that tomorrow, Thursday 19th Aug is the day they all get their AS and A Level results. So at the moment there will be thousands of 17 and 18 year olds now wondering if they did enough.

I've already seen status updates on FB and Twitter, of friends of friends, teens, all worrying about picking up their little bits of paper with those magic letters on. I've resisted the urge to comment about how the time for worrying is long gone. It's done & dusted.

TD gets her AS Photography result tomorrow. 

Then she gets her 2 GCSE resit results next Thursday.

I really hope she gets the result she wants. But do you know what?

At the moment I honestly don't mind what result she gets. I hope she's done well, if not, does the world end? No. But of course, being a dramatic teenager, it probably does!!

TD is in the enviable position of already having a secured place in September, at a different college, on a completely different course, which is not reliant on her grades this year. So I suppose it would be fair to say that's why I can say that I don't mind, too much, what her results are.  But that wouldn't be the complete truth. As I've been writing this, I've thought long and hard about if the situation were different, would I feel differently?

We all want our children to achieve their best, we want them to succeed in whatever they choose and reach their full potential. And if they fail to gain the 'right' result in an exam it may well be devastating for some of them. Of course we don't want to see them disappointed and upset, as a mum when our children hurt we feel their pain, but things can be learned from all of our experiences. 

So, the answer is yes, in all honesty, I would feel differently. I would be upset for her, and I would hug her, commiserate with her and console her as best I could, as I have done the whole of her 17 years.
I also know, that after letting her lick her wounds, that I'd be able to help her understand that we can always take things from and learn from everything we do, including any of our failures...


If you're a parent awaiting tomorrows results along with your teens, I do wish them every success....and I would baton down the hatches, I've no doubt it will be a couple of bumpy days! 
Just saying....

Gay Pride in Brighton...And a happy Cat

If you're gay you already know about this. If you happen to live in Brighton this is not news. But if you're neither of these then I'll let you know that Brighton hosted Gay Pride last weekend. It's held every year in the summer and stretches back as far as 1992 when it was just a small afternoon event. Since then, it's evolved into the biggest free Pride festival in the UK. 
And boy has it got big. According to reports in my local paper The Argus, an estimated 160,000 attended the Parade through the streets and joined in the party at Preston Park. 
That's a hell of a lot of very happy people. And I say happy because that's exactly what they were, and are every year. Yes they drink, dance, hug people and sing in the streets. But there's never very much trouble, certainly not in relation to the numbers of people involved. It always has such a wonderful celebratory feeling about it. I love it. People really do walk around with silly, smiley faces. 

All my children, as teenagers, have joined in the fun of Pride over the years, walking through the streets of Brighton with friends (you don't really have a choice but to walk if you live here, as they close off all the roads!) and heading to the Park for all the festivities.

And just like last year, I arranged with my TD to pick her up on the seafront at 11.30pm. 

This was not as simple as it sounds.


I managed to not kill, maim or run over roughly 25 extremely happy people who, due to the sheer mass of bodies on the pavements outside all the clubs, decided that the roads would be a much more viable alternative to a dancefloor. But this just made me smile even more, rather than roll out the road rage. I was laughing out loud as I managed to manoeuvre my car  round various 7ft tall gorgeous Ladies and people in all manner of amazing costumes, and rather fit looking men with very little clothing *ahem* on, dancing in the middle of the 'main' roads. 
TD had left the house at 10am wearing various leopard print clothing, with a cute little 'Cat' face drawn on. By the time I picked her up she resembled a slightly bedraggled, but very happy 'Cat'.

Sometimes I just love living in a place where everyone comes to party! 


Wouldn't you?