Help wanted.

I am struggling to buy a bra.  You would think at my age I would be well experienced at this.  Well things, and boobs, change.

This is how you measure.  From this you do all sorts of mathematical calculations and decide whether you are a 36 B, C, D. Or whatever.

My boobs have been quite a lot of different measurements over the years.  Breast feeding for about six years (four children) you wonder how the human body can go out and in so many times without packing in.

Now why you measure above the bosoms remains a mystery.  Should I have taken that into my calculations?

As I got older and thinner, I wont say slimmer as that indicates muscle tone and I am not sure I have any of that.  I decided I would have a 'professional' measuring at a local emporium.  

Hordes of Women milling about, I think there was some special offer on at the time.  I was eventually ushered into a changing room, for privacy.  Only so far as my boobs not being seen by others, what went on in there was shouted out to the rest of the gathered females,  waiting to be measured,

"34 D Brenda!"

 34?  Even pre puberty I was never 34.  I swam a lot and developed quite a broad back.  But no, 34 .  Into the changing room came a selection of 34Ds.  

"Lean forward and drop them in."  "There! Isnt that an improvement?"  

Well they were certainly higher, but I couldnt breathe .  But assured I would feel better as I 'got used to it', I handed over more money than I had ever yet paid for a bra and essayed out.  After some weeks of feeling I had something or someone gripped on to my upper body I returned to the saggy things I had wanted to replace.  I breathed.

One major part of the new bras I could not get used to was the underwiring.  It was like some vice clamped onto my body, occasionally the soft flesh got trapped and I was for ever hoiking parts of me I had forgotten about for some years, back into this clamp.

Remember the Triumph Bras?  Where we all went to a point?  

And now we have the Balcony Bras.  Balcony Bras?  Most real women would be spilling over the balcony.

Why oh why can we not have something without underwire, that lifts and separates ( I seem to remember the dim and distant past of Cross Your Heart ? ) Comfortable. Yes.  No instruments of torture aka underwires ( and yes I did try and remove the bloody things, the bra then held nothing in.)  Looked more like a sandwich.

At my age - and size - I could probably forget about wearing a bra altogether, and yes, I was around in the burning your bra age, never did understand that particular campaign.  Point of yes, but not actually discarding the thing.

But there are occasions when I am not smothered by a hoodie or ten layers and want to feel feminine, without the PAIN.  

Help?

May the Fourth

The Dawn Patroller informed me it was Star Wars Day.  Geddit?  Neither did I.

Due to the strange weather we have had the farmers are busting a gut to catch up.  Ploughing.  This is in the field behind us.
And sowing in the field at the front of us.

So its all a bit noisy at the moment.


If they are not following the plough or any tractor, on the off chance, they are where they really belong over and by the sea.  Herring Gulls

An Oyster Catcher.

The sort of picture where you get a prize for the best caption?

And a wee coo.  Where it belongs.

Back at the homestead yet another problem for the DP who is fairly good at DIY, blames a lot on the fact he is left handed.  We have to remove the electric fire.  Easy peasy.  And the t.v. and sky box and aerials and electrics, not so easy.  As they are all inside the wall.  All the time just hoping the previous occupants of this house did nothing awful like blocking the chimney.  

In our last house we found a beautiful granite fireplace in the kitchen, which had had a Raeburn in front, removed, but they had then gone on to fill the chimney with concrete.  Why?  So we had to just plaster over the fireplace again.  How sad is that.

Any advice, sympathy, prayers much appreciated.

May the Force be with you.

(May the Fourth be with you)>

What a week....

Let us pause for a moment and contemplate some calming images provided by nature.

Morning sky.

Primroses.

A new born calf.  (And Mum, thinking, just as I did, "Why doesn't she look like me?")


Whoo.  Backwards and forwards to the vet with Puzzle cat, who remained a Puzzle.  But all solved today, well, fingers crossed.  The Dawn Patroller had to negotiate Aberdeen rush hour including the infamous Haudegain roundabout.  (My spelling of this will be rectified shortly by Christine.)  Puzzle was duly delivered to be aneasthetised and have a camera put down.  Posh and expensive vets.


What did they find?  A lump of GRASS and a bit of fur.  Stuck on his soft palate.  This lump of grass and bit of fur has cost me a lot of  money.  However they did give us this lump, neatly packaged in an evidence bag.  So could I frame it and do a Damien Hirst and make some money back?  
Please be grateful dear friends I have not posted a picture of it on the blog.  
Sorely tempted.
Still dont understand why its taken weeks and a lot of money to find this.  Next time its a crochet hook.


I also had yet another birthday.  When your cards say this

Which is true.

But this one is even more true!


Oh we also had a visitation from daughter number two.  The one who landed me with Puzzle cat in the first place.  So presumably its not me she came to visit but the cat.  He was her cat, but rented accommodation did not allow furry four paws.  


She and the Dawn Patroller took him and whilst waiting for him to be examined went to Aberdeen Beach Boulevard and saw....

Dolphins!


My week however, took an even more downward turn when I had my hair done.

No longer blonde I am a boring brown and it hasnt settled down after a couple of washes. In between ministering to sick cats, having the odd glass of wine, I have been in the shower.  And seriously considering contacting a sheep shearer.

Saturday Silliness.

Here is my new mate Roger Rhinocerous.

He is a footstool.

 As my birthday is coming up he is my present, also wedding anniversary present and Christmas present.  for the next five years. But I just could not resist.


So morning dawned without the Dawn Patroller.  So I had to do his chores as well as mine own.  Fourteen bird feeders.  FOURTEEN.  It costs more to feed the birds than it does me and the cats together.

Roger doesnt eat anything.

Solitude.

I am on my own this weekend.

or artist, ditto.


The Dawn Patroller has gorn orf to Patrol on the West Coast.  Taking in a Bird Conference and Boat trip the following day and then back here Monday.  

Meanwhile I have been taking the Puzzle cat to the vets.  He's been given an antibiotic shot which last for two weeks.  Now why cant I have one of those when I get a chest infection?  Instead of working out times and usually having to wake myself up at 4a.m. so as to keep the damn things spaced properly.
And they want to know when he has a poo.  At least I dont have to phone the doctor when I have had one.  

Meanwhile after jab and painkillers and eating mush supplied by vets but still no poo he is bouncing off the walls and wanting TO GO OUT.  Well he cant till he's been.


So not really total solitude.  But you do have a far better standard of conversation.  And furthermore no one speaks when I am interrupting.  Nor do I have to share my wine with anyone.

The Fillums.

These are the two latest films the DP and I have watched on our in house cinema.  Dvd to the rest of you.

To say I was disappointed is putting it mildly.


Tinker, Tailor and whoever was not a patch on the earlier version.


And The Brothers Grimm just left me totally bemused.


Into my mind came, "The Good Old Days."  Yep a sign of old age.  But by gum it were better then.

Saturday morning matinee.  Although I lived in a Yorkshire pit village it had a cinema.  

Lassie.  Thats him on the left.  Elizabeth Taylor on the right.

 And the Mark of Zorro.

Roy Rogers and Trigger.  The poster was in colour but the film was black and white.

And Tarzan.  Cheetah has only recently died.  At a guess the humans are long gone.


Totally enthralled from beginning to end.  We kids hung onto the edge of our seats.  Once back out into the real world as I walked home I could hear, "Ahahahaaa, ha aaaaa" from miles around.


Now you dont get that any more do you.


What films are in your memory bank?

Vanity.

Before we start - this carpet of snowdrops is just across the road.

We have birds pairing up now, blackbirds defending their territory.  If they have not returned to their breeding homeland, did you know blackbirds migrate?  No neither did I but the Dawn Patroller tells me so.

Yesterday I went to Peterhead to have my hair done.  My last session was with a picture of Lulu and my hairdresser did me proud.  I was thrilled. 

Not a lot Ange could do with the face, but she came through with the hair.


Unfortunately this visit she went mad with the scissors.  I look more like Barbara Windsor. or even worse Myra Hindley.


Bouffant - I thought that went out with the dinosaurs.


At least I wasnt offered a blue rinse.


"Do you need a help with your bag packing?"   Well now you come to mention it........

Hitting the ground running.

First a bit of calm before the storm.  These daffodils are blooming, today, wild, in the North East of Scotland, just down the lane.

These birds are warming up as day breaks.

And this is what Fraserburgh's new swimming pool will look like.  Opening January 2013.

One of the local head teachers has drawn up a plan to involve all the school children in the area for them to design - oh anything, from art work to park benches.....and she thought it would be a good idea (and cheaper) to involve all the wonderful artists and craft persons in the area.  So who did she land on?  Yep, the Knitting Nancies.
We had an hour and a half's presentation yesterday and I came out reeling.
The Knitting Nancies I should point out just dont do knitting.  We do embroidery, painting, collage, mosaics, whatever we fancy really.  So - wouldnt it be wonderful if we all got involved with the 11 schools in the area and facilitated the kids to do design.  Somewhere along the way I got volunteered to do a blog about the whole exercise.  Well, that just felled me.  Surely a facebook page would be better for kids?  Not sure whether I am on my knitting needles or my paint brush.  Perhaps I could get the kids to do the blog?  


Then !  Dreadful news.  Our art class teacher rushed off to hospital with chest pains.  Like a fool I go down to where we have the class in case anyone turns up who didnt know.  And they did.  Chatted to the janitor and he agreed we could use the room, this week, next week, I now find I am in charge of an art class.


Going to have a lie down now with a glass of wine.  Remember I've been ill......