DRIVING MISS CRAZY

The traffic has slowed to a deathly crawl, should we doff our hats as a mark of respect?

Wait a minute though, no it’s not a funeral procession at all, it’s just this columnist on a driving lesson holding you up and stopping you getting to the place you need to go.

But before you start tutting and making rude gestures at me in the rear view mirror, please just bear in mind I do have my uses too.

For while I may be delaying you when I stall at the traffic lights for the umpteenth time and possess driving skills so questionable that they made someone watching fall off their mobility scooter in disbelief, remember that there is nothing quite like me to ruin the day of those nuisance boy racers on their mopeds racing round your estates by making them trundle down the highway at regulation speed.

And that alone should be worth your waiting in pure comedy gold.

GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN -  MEDWAY MESSENGER

THE SCHOOL RUN ......

Ladies and gentlemen of the school run, I know Louis Armstrong once sang we have all the time in the world.

So why are you so intent on wasting yours on getting that perfect parking space?

 School doesn’t start till 8.45 but come 8.15 every weekday morning there they all are. Those hallowed vehicle bays nearest the school occupied already before the cleaners have even finished putting their Hoovers away.

Parents are stood in the bus shelter by the school gates chuffing on fags like fifth formers behind the bike sheds. Gossiping and moaning as their bored kids fiddle with the car till they get annoyed and bellow at the troublesome youngster to get out and stand with them for the next half hour.

You’d think there would be a reason for this early arrival at school to bag that first class parking slot, a quick getaway to work or another sibling’s school drop off maybe. However quite often the clique marking this prime territory in a cloud of smoke are still there  for at least half an hour after I’ve passed them on my return from doing the morning shop.

This reluctance to go home in the morning is then completely juxtaposed in the afternoon by the same crowd for whom now the need to be the first away when school finishes is so great that come 2pm there they’ll all be again. Sitting in their motors , idly flicking through newspapers , magazines or playing with their mobiles a full hour and twenty minutes before the pips go just  so junior doesn’t have to trudge too far at the end of his/her tiring day.

Have these people really got nothing better to do, I may not have the most whirlwind social life in the world but I’d rather be elsewhere getting something done in that expanse of time than sitting in an automobile updating my social media for the sake of parking a little further away.

 Those hour and 20 minutes if you add them up over a week comes to 6 hours 40minutes by the way.

So yes please be smug about your quick getaway but remember it’s completely pointless when you realise that the time you wasted sitting in your motor comes in at just over a school day!

 GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN - MEDWAY MESSENGER

 

POPPY PERILS

It’s that time of year again when we wear our poppies in remembrance of those who have fought to give us the freedom of speech and protected us when we were under attack.

My partner was proud to hand over his donation for that small paper flower that means so much to so many. He picked it out of the box from which they were being sold in his office and asked the gent selling them for a pin.

Sorry we’re not allowed to give them out anymore because of health and safety regulations came the reply.

So he had to make do with wearing it in his buttonhole, or else the sticker option that has no staying power and litters your workplace in a fine tribute to Flanders.

The poppy, a symbol that represents those who have battled against bayonets bombs and bullets and we can’t have a pin to fasten one to our lapel because we might prick our fingers on it.

Those old soldiers must be rolling in their graves.

GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN - MEDWAY MESSENGER

KIDS NEED BODY CONFIDENCE NOT BODY CON DRESSES

Tottering on vertiginous heels like a newborn giraffe. Skirts short and skin tight restricting any attempt at normal movement.

Fake tan in several shades ranging from lightly sun kissed to Satsuma and acrylic nails that sparkle with glittering jewels.

Top this off with a crowning glory of luxurious tresses that clip out at the end of the night and enough make up to make a pantomime dame jealous and what do you have a perfect recipe for ?

A  Friday night out on the Medway towns?

A hen night perhaps, or just a group of ladies celebrating the weekend with drunken fun and japes.

No, this wild night out is much closer to home and these glamour queens are barely into their double digits.

Now I’m no Mary Whitehouse but even I can’t hide my sharp intake of breath as I see some of the outfits that pass for preteen wear these days and it’s none so more apparent than on junior school disco night.

 When I was a youngster back in the 80s this was the night where you got hyper on as much fizzy pop and confectionary as the money in your pocket could buy whilst bodypopping and jumping “ legs akimbo “  from the wall mounted P.E apparatus to “Fame” .

Now it seems to involve girls who haven’t reached puberty yet wearing clothes my father would have had 40 fits about in my late teens let alone my tweenage years, twerking for boys who let’s be frank ,are more interested in the x box than anything x rated.

There’s body con dresses on bodies that don’t have any curves to be conscious about, hot pants with  bum cheeks hanging out and racy sloganned t-shirts that project messages that I’m pretty sure they probably don’t understand.

My generation was lucky, the role models we girls grew up with in the 90s were feisty Britpop or rock girls, ladies in t shirts and jeans who would kick your butt if you so much as trod on her addidas shell toes. However somewhere towards the end of the 90s we lost those fantastic females to the pre packaged manufactured pop pinup and they and their “ basically just a vest and drawers “ outfits have been leading our kids further down the  slowly bordering on soft porn pop path ever since .

Parents it’s our duty to educate our kids, girls as well as boys that this is a fantasy and the real world is where they should exist.

Let your children know they need natural beauty not layers of make up

Body confidence not body con dresses.

Fun not fake tan.

 And that acting your age sure beats acres of airbrushing.

And if still they don’t believe you point out that if Miley is so keen to be thought of as an adult artiste why did she appear on the m.t.v awards dancing with  teddies wearing something that was little more than a baby gro !
GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN - MEDWAY MESSENGER

STARS OF THE SMALL SILVER SCREEN

Being  lucky enough to live with my own harshest critic when his latest review hinted that sometimes my column makes me sound “a bit dictatorial....like Hitler “ I’ve got to be honest it stung . So I decided for a change I’d let you all see that the girl from the neck down is not just the hardnosed harridan she is possibly perceived to be.

Contrary to what my column and blog persona might lead people to think, I’m not a moaning Minnie ice queen but a sentimental squishy old sort and none more so than when I’m presented with anything that makes me reminisce about my childhood.

And so it was that this weekend after a clear out of the last few things at my grandparents former home, my brother dropped off a bag of stuff that had been destined for the tip had I not intervened.

This bag sat for years in a storage cupboard unopened and forgotten but what was inside is like treasure to me.

For like Bagpuss’ shop this bag contains memories that were once lost and with the aid of technology can now be found. The bounty that has been hidden away for so long, my granddad Sid’s cine films of our family.

There we all are in jerky Technicolor silent film glory, christenings, weddings and holidays from days gone by documented in time on reels of 8mm film.

Day trips to the seaside, Whitstable to visit Uncle Dan and Auntie Doris, the highlight of the day being to roll down their massive sloping garden . Herne bay to go roller-skating at the Pavilion and Margate for the amusement arcades and beach.

Excursions to Knole and Mote Park in the wine coloured Austin Maxi. My brother Glenn’s special day as a Gills mascot, a silver jubilee party at the house where i was born and best of all the annual family caravan holiday to Swalecliffe. Two weeks of the summer holidays spent whiling the time away learning to swim at the beach and ‘sailing’ in a brown and yellow blow up dinghy.

And in amongst this cornucopia of memories, a film of all four grandparents before old age and other ailments made you realise they weren’t quite as invincible as you always thought they would be.

Granddad Jim, the war hero who would do anything for you , Nanna Lan and her no nonsense attitude to what life threw at her , Nanna Joyce from whom i inherited my love of a bargain and who was recycling her rubbish long before the council gave you a special bin to do it in.

And Granddad Sid, the great big bear hug of a man who’s unwavering belief in me inspired me to change my life once he lost his.

 Gone now, these stars of the small silver projector screen but they’ll always live on in moving pictures and my heart.

 

GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN - MEDWAY MESSENGER

NURSING FOR A NEW OUTFIT

Nurse for a new outfit, put baby to your breast to bag a bargain so sounds the scheme to incentivise more women to feed their kids the way nature intended by offering them £200of shopping vouchers.

Maybe I was just lazy but in the first stages of my twin’s life it was a major achievement for us all to be dressed by lunch time let alone find the time to plan the major expedition that was a shopping trip.

One can only surmise that whoever came up with this idea has never seen the vastly empty social diary of a tired new mother for whom the height of excitement is a full night’s sleep.

They need new outfits about as much as they need to be bullied into thinking that they are not doing the best for their baby.

So how about instead of bribing them to do something we give them the chance to make a decision that is right for them.

GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN -MEDWAY MESSENGER

WE CAN BE ALL BE HEROES JUST FOR ONE DAY -

MY FIRST COLUMN FOR THE MEDWAY MESSENGER !

HOW did this happen?

I don’t do running it’s a well known fact.

With short stumpy legs and a figure that says I like runny sauces rather than running races I was never going to be a vehicle built for speed.

So how did I come to be here, standing on the starting line outside Rochester Castle Gardens preparing to take part in this year’s Medway Mile?

The answer stands either side of me in their blue commemorative t shirts.

After missing out on 2012’s Olympic special due to miss clumsy clogs here having an altercation with someone’s outstretched leg and a hard laminated floor this year we swore we’d be back with a vengeance.

So here we are. The clocks ticking down and we’re raring to go , like I say running is not my thing but for one day of the year I’m more than happy to forgo that rule to spend an afternoon with my sons .

Due to work and school commitments ,we don’t always get to spend a lot of time together and I daresay in the next couple of  years the last person they’ll want to spend time with is their mum so I’m willing to suffer the annual ritual humiliation for the memory of a blooming good laugh.

And it’s not just us; all around there are generations of families and friends willing one another on and encouraging them towards the finishing line. It’s not about physical ability, it’s about taking part. There really is something quite heart-warming about a complete stranger congratulating you on how well you’re doing as you plod along Rochester high street in the wake of two energetic 10 year olds.

Medway doesn’t always get the best press with its reputation but it just goes to show that with a lovely friendly atmosphere we can all be heroes just for one day....

(Especially you, the lady who managed to prise my “scared of heights “son from the top of the massive bouncy slide!)