Why did I rememebr that...

Have you ever wondered why it is that we remember some things and not other?  I don’t mean events that impact on our lives like  the death of a loved one or something amazing. I mean the ordinary everyday things that we remember for no apparent reason

My earliest one comes from when I was about two or three. My sister and I are sitting on the floor; legs spayed pushing a large red wooden truck backwards and forwards to each other. Now the interesting thing, well I think it is interesting, is that apart from that snippet of memory there was no other sign of that red truck. 

Then there is the memory of walking to the Saturday movies with my big sister. And for some silly reason I distinctly remember saying to her ‘let’s pretend we are sisters’ how silly was that.

I remember very clearly giving a ‘morning talk’ about a library book about cats and their behaviours’ I came across the very same book on a visit to the children’s library when my kids were small.

I loved books, still do.

As a very small child I would climb up onto my grandfather’s knee and demand of him ‘read to me’ it didn’t matter what it was, I just liked to be read to. And I still love to listen to a story.  I was never fond of the books about the little girl who lived in a French orphanage with a nun called Miss Lavelle, or something like that, but I did love the ones about a large marmalade cat called Orlando. 

And I didn’t much like little Noddy, I did like Little Black Sambo and the tigers that raced around and around the tree until they turned into butter. Not very PC these days. 

My all-time favourite story was The Elephants Child, , read by Miss Lawson, headmistress of the primary school. Oddly enough when I bought the an audio of the Just So Stories, that story is quite a bit different to the one I remember.

The Elephants child lived on the banks of the great green greasy Limpopo river all set about with fever trees. That bit is the same, but where was the part about the Elephant’s Child being spanked by his uncles and aunts and cousins until he was very warm. And he used his new trunk to return the favour. I wonder if Miss Lawson used a bit of artistic licence in her recitation.

Slow, but very interesting delivey

Tomorrow would have been my father’s 91^st birthday. So it is quite serendipitous that in the mail today I received a copy of his military record that I ordered more than twelve months ago. 

It looks like the record is made up of several different documents and I guess it will take me some time to decipher all the details on his service record, and the abbreviations on them, and understand what they mean. Thankfully it does come with a list of the meaning of common abbreviations.

The basic details are that the enlisted 19 June 1941, he would have been nineteen. The documents give me his address, where he would have been living with my grandparents.

When he was on ten days embarkation leave he and my mother married on February twenty-first 1942. They married by special licence. This was, I think, because here was no time for the banns to be read in the local church.  

He was sent to India 16 March 1942, and returned to England 23 April 1944.  As to where he was during the remainder of the war until he was discharged that I have yet to fully interpret. 

Some of it looks as though he may have been in hospital as there are several entries with what looks like the word hospital alongside them.

I think he requested to be released from the regular army in February 1944 and became part of the Army reserve, and was finally completely discharged in December 1950. 

I’ll keep you posted, but don’t hold your breath as it might take a visit to the Army Museum to fully get to the bottom of it all

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I was going to write about something else entirely, but Dad’s record is much more interesting 

 Now, where did I put that magnifying glass…

Can I do it?...Yes I can

The longer I blog, the harder it is to find things to write about that isn’t just drivel. 

It was nice to hear the words New Zealand today, and to see a glimpse of a beautiful wellington day on the news about the new Peter Jackson movie. 

But I am less than six weeks away from completing a whole twelve months of daily blogging, and I am determined to complete the year without missing a day. 

I was talking to a chap today, yes I’m good at that, and he asked me about our family back home in New Zealand.  Yes of course we miss them I told him. But in some ways we see and hear more of them via email, instant messaging, Skype, Viber, and Facebook than if we were living in the same country. That made him feel a bit better because his brother and family are moving to Australia. Technology certainly makes communicating anywhere in the world so much easier. When my parents emigrated to New Zealand the only way to communicate was by letter and before airmail that could take about six weeks by sea. Compared to today’s instant communication six weeks would feel like a lifetime. But then I guess they wouldn’t have known any different. 

Imagine not finding out about family happenings bad or good until six weeks after the event. Yes there would have been telephones around back then, but the cost of a call to the other side of the world would have been astronomical. Now, courtesy of my iPhone and Viber some of my calls back to NZ are free. 

Then of course there came airmail letters on their flimsy blue paper, limiting the amount of writing you could do, or making you writ ore to fill u the space. I remember Mum getting mail form ‘home’ in just four days. Huh, sometimes these days it can take that long for mail in country mail to reach its destination.

Talking about mail, did you know that the UK is the only country that does not have its name on the stamp? And the British postal service is very clever having first and second class stamp. These have no denomination amount on it, very clever that so when the price of postage goes up you can still use the same ones without having to print mere or reprint over. Smart thinking there by someone.

An excerpt from my PNG diary

The Man and I lived in Papua New Guinea for three years. 

I tell people that I learned to drink gin and play cards, which was true.  As a CWA ( Country Womens Institute) member I also used to help with the weekly purchase of vegetables for the children's ward of the local hospital, and  at Christmas time we would help play Santa

This is an entry from my diary, Dated December 20 2009. Andrew, Anna and Paul were Nationals who worked at the CWA.

Today I went with the other expat wives to distribute toys and gifts bought by CWA to the local hospital. Andrew, Anna and Paul, the national workers at C.W.A came with us.

Andrew was beamed delightedly as he pushed the trolley with our boxes. He announced our arrival in each ward with obvious relish and thoroughly enjoyed helping to distribute the gifts and tee shirts.

We visited the children’s ward first. What an eye opener. The beds were just slatted wooden platforms about 18’ above the floor and the little patients lay directly on them. Small babies were lying partly on pillows. Parents were very much in evidence and with pillows alongside the beds were obviously sleeping on the floor alongside. 

On one side, of the ward near the door a premmie baby who looked about 32 weeks lay naked in a small wooden cot. Ordinary fluorescent tubes were balanced across the top, obviously a primitive version of phototherapy for jaundice. Taped over the baby’s eyes were cut down adult eye-pads.  At the other end of the ward an emaciated skeletal girl lay very still on the thin mattress, hardly covered by the not very clean looking sheet,. There were a couple of babies with quite severe sounding wheezy coughs who sounded as though they should have been on oxygen, or at least a nebuliser. Several of the  children had obviously infected wounds, and saddest of all a tiny baby   who had been born at the hospital only the week before who had been discharged home with its mum, then readmitted that day because its moth had died

We went next to the maternity ward; the only difference in the beds was their size and height from the floor. The women were cheery and the babies beautiful, one or two had been born earlier that day. On a bed behind a curtain the still form of a thin woman lay, covered with a sheet, a drip was up and I could see a very full catheter bag lying on the floor. A very pregnant girl paced up and down slowly, between the two rows of beds. She paused regularly; face creased with the effort of her contractions, and leaned into the older woman who was walking silently beside her. 

Teamwork...

My first client this morning was a young woman asking for a blood test. Turns out she, like a lot of Mum’s with small children, is just plain tired.  

Blood taken, I asked her about things at home. Her husband is no help at all. Why?

I’ll tell you why. Because his Mum mollycoddled him, allowed him to just sit around and not lift a finger.  In the big scheme of things it might appear insignificant, but it’s not.

This Mum works full time in a stressful job, she keeps house for the four of them, cooks cleans and tends to their welfare and what does her man do to help? 

Oh, he does do something; I forgot to say that he takes out he rubbish.

And now that their oldest, who is only five years old,  has stated at an expensive and private school my client who was intending to reduce her working hours now sees no relief.

Unfortunately I had no answer for her, apart from suggesting to her that her and her husband sit down together to negotiate how things might improve for all of them.

I consider myself very fortunate indeed that The Man and I are partners in everything we do. He’s as conversant with the vacuum cleaner as I am, probably more so. If he cleans, I don’t see it as a criticism as some might. By the same token if I were to clean up in the garage, when we had one, he didn’t see that as a criticism either. 

We are a team him and me, in all things. And I love him to bits