Suncat

Because I still can’t justify “Cunday” and the animals didn’t really do anything more worthy of a photo yesterday.

Mrs N

Caturday

I know, it’s not Saturday, but cunday doesn’t quite bear the same ring...
N.

Sunday Breakfast train of thought derailment.

        

Sat in my usual haunt for Sunday breakfast, there are only a few other diners this morning, two of which are female and sat on the table in front of me. At first they didn’t seem like the sort of people who would provide any writing material, I was actually procrastinating and listening to the conversation on the table off to the side, where a couple are having breakfast with a teenage girl, whom I presumed was their daughter, but when I heard the older woman telling the girl that “she’s not letting you grow, and she’ll never change” I wondered if perhaps they were an aunt and uncle and referring to the girl’s mother….who could know…..

              The two women are discussing their lives and what they do, one has a friend visiting, I am reminded of all the times I have bought visiting friends here, I do love this little place. One of them has complained about the breakfast, apparently her husband is a chef, so she has spotted the shortcuts the restaurant has taken and has pointed them out to the serving girl, and advised that she is angry because she has bought her friend here, and she comes here all the time and there’s never normally a problem.

              Listening to them talk it is apparent they are seemingly quite privileged, one of them has just hired some home help – which makes her life easier, and has just told the other that if she needs things doing like, the dogs out….sorry what? Why would you buy a dog if you don’t intend to walk it? Still, not my place to judge, though it has got me thinking, what IS being privileged? Being like these two? Having people to do your tasks for you, having husbands that take care of everything financially and leave you to organise family tasks, so that they don’t have to contribute on a personal level? Having a rather large house perhaps, is that privileged?

              I think to my own life, I have half the material things these people are saying they have, I have a small apartment, two cats and a partner who lives in another country. Yet here I am, feeling like the luckiest person on the planet, I am happy, for the first time in my life I am truly happy, I feel like I’m at home, by that I mean that I’ve never really settled anywhere since I left the Mother’s and moved out, and for the first time since I did that I feel like I’ve grown roots. I love my little life, quaint as it may be, I love the simple pleasures I can afford, being here on a Sunday morning for example, procrastinating from my other writing to write this – incidentally the two women are now in full flow about all the difficulties they have, there is little to no positivity coming from the conversation. Now there’s an awkward silence while they eye-stalk the serving girl, waiting for her to come across….she arrives, they tell her the breakfast wasn’t great so “they don’t know if that will affect the bill at all” (they may as well have just said, “I want money off my bill”…..) The supervisor comes to replace the young lass that’s just skittered away to offer them a discount of sorts, to which they have responded to with somewhat “fake surprise”, then as soon as she has left the table, they have both concluded that the restaurant have handled this well, and one of them has actually used one of my own little mantras I like to follow, its not the mistake you make, it’s how you fix it, not something I expected her to say I will admit, but it has softened me towards her somewhat, as I was beginning to feel that inner hostility that I tend to have building while listening to them talk, while mentally chastising myself, I do not know these people, they could be wonderful souls, and I cannot judge them based on one conversation.

              They leave, leaving me to the question that’s now running what feels like it’s second marathon around my head. All hopes of actual writing have gone by this point. This has now become my task for this morning, “what is being privileged”?? I think back to when I was little and unassuming, I thought “privileged” meant “someone who has money, things, big house, cars etc. I don’t think that now of course, I know that all those things generally come with hard graft, and now thinking back, I remember, it was my grandad who taught me that being privileged isn’t just about having lots of things that people can see, its about having things that you enjoy, being able to wake up free every morning, unlike people in certain countries, that have been ripped apart by war and poverty, where having any water is a privilege, and fresh water is a miracle, being able to walk, talk and (although I’m not too fond of it) interact with other people. I thought about all this for a lot longer than I am actually writing, if anyone is reading this they have probably fallen asleep by now or are sticking with it to the end to see if there’s some climactic “moral of the story” words of wisdom – I can tell you now, there isn’t. In fact, I intend to leave this as open ended as the question itself, because I have come to the conclusion that I do not know the universal answer to my question, because it’s too subjective and everyone will think differently. However, I will say that I for one feel privileged. Privileged and thankful for the things I have, and the things I can do, breathing unaided, walking unaided, being able to be here, typing, right now, is a privilege.

              So I leave the question as open to interpretation as it’s meant to be. Do you wake up feeling privileged? If not, why? This isn’t something I’m expecting replies to, just something to ask yourself – but – I wouldn’t recommend asking yourself this if you don’t have time to think about it…..but then I guess not everyone’s trains of thought can be as badly derailed as mine, so you might think about it less than I did!

Mrs N.

Caturday.

Mrs N.

The Tea Party - Chat Show Host.

        I was sat, this morning, in the resteraunt I like to get my breakfast in, it's really nice, overlooks the sea, and plays some fabulous music. I was sat, as per usual, writing some nonsense on the laptop, drinking my tea, when I overheard a conversation that led my train of though off down a track that seemed to go for miles. I swear I thought about this for a good ten minutes.
      The conversation I caught the snippet of was not that noteworthy, just someone talking about something they had seen on a televised chat show. Chat shows, to me at least, are not all that enteraining, I do like a few, but there isn't one I sit and watch religiously, to be honest, most of my chat show watching nowadays is limited to picking up snippets of Graham Norton's show online, where some kind soul has linked the most amusing part, which saves me the labour of actually sitting down to watch it the whole way though. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against talk shows, I just find them incredibly boring for the most part, but then I'm sure the plethora of cooking shows I watch would be boring to others, so I guess it's one of those, horses for courses situations, whatever floats your boat and all that.
      So this got me onto thinking about the host of the show, and how much of an endurance job it really is, sitting down in the same seat week in week out, asking the same sort of questions to everyone who comes on, and I'm pretty sure some of the guests can be pretty boring or difficult (thinking back to watching poor Parky trying to interview Meg Ryan - possibly one of the most awkward interviews ever), and I tried to imagine myselfdoing the job. Know what? I couldn't. I'd get bored far too easily, I'm sure for people who enjoy socialising and chatting to different people it would be great, however as I am some sort of socially awkward creature, I just dont think I would even know where to begin. From here I began to think up numerous ways I could make it more interesting or bearable, and I came ot the conclusion that I would need tea. Or Food. Then I thought it would be fine to have food and tea, so i'm now imagining myself hosing a tea party, where the guests who come on sit around a lavish table covered with high tea type paraphanellia.
       Once I brought myself back down to the present, and feeling slightly guilty for neglecting my writing, I took another sip of rea and continued my work. I finished my food, drank some more tea, wrote some more nonsense then packed up my things and went to pay the bill. It was very windy today, so I decided to snap a few photos of the sea, to keep as a reminder of how incredibly ffortunate I am to live near such an amazing view, and started to walk home.

      Once home, I greeted the cats, made a cup of tea and retired to the sofa to write some more. While there I reflected on how once agian my train of though had run away with me, and finally came to the conclusion it's a good job I am not a chat show - tea party host, with my random thoughts and eccentricity, it would probably end up like something out of alice in wonderland.....

Mrs N.

Caturday

Sleeping beauties.
Mrs N.

The Bookworm.

                      

Lizzie likes to read. She reads all the time. She likes books where she can get lost in a world of make believe, because she thinks it's better than her real life. Lizzie reads in school, she doesn't like to go and play with the other chidren. She prefers to sit in the library, where it's quiet, she reads and reads until the teacher who runs the library wonders if she might run out of books to give her. She reads until the bell rings, sending her back to the other children, harshly reminding her that her life does not exist on the pages of a book.

Sometimes there is a class in the library at lunchtime, so Lizzie has to read outside. The other children make fun of her, they throw her books in bushes, or sometimes in the stream. When she fishes them out, the pages are wet, and the words are blurry, just like her eyes, from unshed tears. She cannot let the other children see her cry.

One day at break, Lizzie is worried about what the other children might do to her, so she walks out of school and back to her home. She takes the path that runs along side the river, so that no one will see her out of school. She hides behind the chimney of her house, and reads her book, no one can take her books now, but the words are still blurry as she tries to read through more tears.

Lizzie stays at home in secret, no one even notices that she's not in school, and no one even cares, the other children dont care for the bookworm that is not there to pick on, for they will find someone else to belittle in her place. Lizzie is safe from them here, behind the chimney, safe in her world of make believe, where she never gets tired of reading the words in the books she treasures so much.

One day Lizze gets caught, though her parents aren't angry, they send her back to school. She doesn't want to go back to that place, she wants to stay safe in the pages of her books. Where no one laughs at her or tells her she's a teachers pet, no one pushes her over or makes fun of her glasses. Where no one writes her horrible letters, telling her what an awful person she is.

Lizzie goes back to school with a heavy heart, for a while everything is calm, but after a few weeks things are back to the way they were before. The children can make fun of the bookworm once more, they can push her over and tell her she's terrible. She feels like a nobody, useless and alone. She wonders if there's another way to end her suffering, perhaps if she didn't exist in this life she could go and live forever in a book.

She begins to write her story, she writes to her parents, and tells them she is very sorry, for not being a better daughter, for not being able to find the strength to stand up to the people who were mean to her, for not being as courageous as a hobbit, even though she felt as small as one. She writes how she wished she had been a different girl, who had friends and a happy life.

One day a girl called Dawn see's her alone, the girl who is always alone, the girl she knew once as a small child, whom she'd not spoken to in years. Dawn asks Lizzie how she is doing, she asks how she has been all this time and says she would like it if they could spend some time together. Dawn has no idea that in that moment, she changed the bookworkm's life and was about to save her from herself.

This small act of kindness, this simple gesture of humanity, melted Lizzies broken heart, she saw a glimmer of hope for the first time in forever, that she too, could have a friend. Someone to share things with, to talk to, and maybe someone to give her the strength to carry on when hers had left her behind.

Dawn and Lizzie became friends once again, just like when they were little girls,and used to share pencils in school. Over the years they laughed together, cried together, shared in eachother's endeavours and made many happy memories together, and even when Lizzie moved away to make her own way in life, and they would sometimes go months without even speaking, their friendship remained.

A friendship just like an old book, where the words may grow old and fade a little, but they still hold the same meaning they were given when they were written.

Mrs Nezbit - 2017