She ain't heavy ...well not as much as she was anyway

Be happy with yourself just as you are.

The sort of statement you’ll often hear me shouting from the rooftops, so I can understand that maybe some might question my own devotion to that declaration when confronted with my weight loss journey.

So as I reached my 1 and a half stone loss this week I felt I should reassure you that it’s still a motto I believe in its just that certain things have benefited greatly from letting some of the extra weight I was carrying go .

Gone is the heel pain that I had to wear a support arch insole to resolve, the ache in my back where certain items of underwear were holding up a heavy load, walking up steep inclines doesn’t feel like it requires the help of the emergency services and I have plenty of stamina to play Just Dance with the kids now instead of feeling like I’ve got those “moves like Jabba”

I have always been happy with myself just as I am; it’s just that my body is now also happy with itself just as it is.

 

 

Inspiration's what you need

Kate Bush , Margot Fonteyn , Audrey Hepburn , Debbie Harry , Frida Kahlo , Tracey Emin , Sylvia Plath , Tavi Gevinson ,Nina Simone , Caitlin Moran , Helena Bonham Carter , Kris Hallenga , PJ Harvey ,Josephine Baker , Mary Seacole , Harriet Tubman , Astrid Kircherr , Dusty Springfield , Ronnie Spector , Drew Barrymore, Etta James, Molly Parkin, Malala Yousafzai, Poly Styrene , Viv Albertine , Louise Brooks , Mia Farrow , Amelia Earhart , Grace Jones, Elizabeth Taylor , Ruby Wax and my mum.

A simple flick through the line up above reveals that had you asked me “which female most inspires you most “on international women’s day (8^th March) I would’ve been hard pressed to name you just one alone.

Why, that’s just a small portion of a gargantuan sized list so it would take weeks of work to condense it down to a singular person if needed.

Each has their own special reason for why they inspire me but the overwhelming similarity most of them possess is that they’ve had the gumption to stick two fingers up to those who believe there is a certain way to behave and be and go out and do their own thing and succeed.

They hear the word can’t and endeavour to release themselves from the restraints of that apostrophised T, they hear negative and turn the power of it back on itself to make it positive, they use the thing that takes them down as a stepping stone to lift them back up where they belong and when they are told that’s not right they set out to prove you wrong.

And it’s not just the girls there are plenty of men who fall into my inspirational people category as well.

Wilko Johnson and his amazing lust for life when he was faced with his own death, David Bowie for doing his own thing always regardless of what other people thought of him and one I discovered most recently in a BBC documentary, Brett Nielsen, a man who never let what thalidomide robbed him of having stop him from doing anything he wanted to achieve.

 Seriously, if you ever get a chance to catch “the boy with no arms “on Iplayer please watch it because if anyone is the epitome of there’s no such thing as can’t then Brett is surely it, having learnt to drive, play the piano and built his own recording studio as well as toting quite an impressive C.V including earthmoving contractor, music producer and engineer, recording artist, composer and motivational speaker amongst other things.

So who to name as the most inspirational person on my list is a tough call as you can see and there’s only one way I can resolve it I reckon and there’s a chance it might come across as sounding slightly conceited however hear me out as I think it’s something maybe we could all do with making ourselves believe.

For that reason it is then that I’m proud to announce that the most inspirational person award in my life goes to.....me, because if we could all convince ourselves that the most amazing and influential person in our lives is not the one who has the most hits on YouTube , likes on their latest selfie or four yes’s from a panel of talent show judges but the one who’s reflection they are staring at in the mirror , well that would be absolutely brilliant ,don’t you agree ?

 

Spring , that's my bag , baby

While it might be hard to believe at the moment as you step outside and are either drenched before you reach the end of your drive or swept off your feet by the high winds, spring is just round the corner and so are all the lovely colours that come with it.

Blues , pinks, yellows ,all shades of the pastel spectrum line the lanes and pathways , poking out through bushes , punctuating the grassy fields where animals and children frolic and play and giving the spindly branches of bare naked trees a shot of colour that’s much needed .

It’s just a shame that this rainbow symphony is not the beautiful work of dear old Mother Nature really, rather more down to dog owners who upon having good intentions to start off with fail to see their job through to the end, leaving their gift wrapped deposit discarded on the ground for someone else to deal with.

Come along now you lot finish your job off properly, you’ve bagged it, now bin it and maybe our streets will start looking a little more bright and beautiful.

MEDWAY COUNCIL - THE SEQUEL

I bet you thought it was just pure fluke didn’t you?

That it was a once in a lifetime moment and couldn’t be repeated or sustained to that high level of service in a million years without some slip up being made or someone thinking “ alright ,she’s had her allotted amount of our time let’s forget about her and sweep that problem back under the carpet where it belongs now ” .

I refer of course to the subject of my column a fortnight ago and how Medway council had exceeded my expectations in getting a repair job completed within 24 hours of me reporting it to them.

 Not only that but they had kept me posted all along the way with what actions had been taken and if you remember I ended that particular piece by writing jokingly the threat “don’t think this is the last you’ve heard from me yet” after noticing that unfortunately all their hard work had already started to be undone by those who care not a jot for things looking nice and tidy.

However, come the start of the week the paper containing that particular column went on sale and preoccupied by a son whose new school shoes were according to him akin to slipping his foot inside a bacon slicer, I have to admit that broken bits of fencing and being an eco warrior were the last things on my mind.

So when a call from an unknown number flashed up on my mobile the following day I chose to ignore it assuming that if it was important they would leave a message and if not it could intercept yet another annoying PPI compensation cold call.

“Oh, here we go “I thought as the answer phone icon pinged up on the corner of my phone screen “press 9 to find out about how I am supposedly due compensation for PPI I was miss-sold despite the fact I’ve never taken a loan or owned a credit card “but as I listened to the message I was pleasantly surprised.

For instead of a minutes worth of silence or an automated voice telling me to press a certain number to find out how to stake my claim, what I actually heard was Medway council calling to say that after reading Monday’s column they had sent someone out to have a look at the fence again, that it had been repaired once more and they would keep a close eye on it to make sure that it was being maintained.

Now the cynical among you and I can’t say I blame you, would probably argue that maybe if I wasn’t a columnist for the local newspaper they might not have been quite so keen to get the job done so quickly and efficiently.

However as they didn’t know that was who I was the first time round it just goes to show sometimes  a lot can be achieved if you swap the ranting and raving for a little politeness , patience and praise.

School of thought

Thomas Waghorn and his joy of cone shaped headgear, the fact that the gap across the top of “Chatham Bogs” has been boarded up so that the pigeons can no longer fly in there to shelter and the house that has what the occupiers obviously think is a beautiful decorative vase in their front window but which unbeknownst to them from the outside looks like Cartman from South Park perched upon their window sill.

I notice a whole host of different things as I walk into town instead of catching a bus on a Monday morning but one thing in particular stood out to me this week as I passed a couple of buildings beset with heavy metal gates and fencing and walls lined with barbed and razor wire .

I get that all this stuff is there for our children’s safety and security, but is it just me or are a lot of our schools starting to look like prisons from the outside?

Medway council

Medway council, they’re not always on the receiving end of the best compliments are they?

Like Marmite, Eastenders and Simon Cowell we either love them or hate them and there never seems to be anything in between.

So I would imagine at this point in proceedings and influenced by the fact I’m your local newspaper columnist you’d think this was going to be yet another rant by someone on something they’ve done wrong or made a right pigs ear out of , but that would be where you were sorely mistaken.

For stand back in amazement I am in fact on this occasion going to sing the praises of our borough council.

It all begins in the alleyway just off Bradfields Avenue in Walderslade that my kids have to walk along on their way to and fro from school.

On either side of the public footpath wire mesh fencing has been erected to separate the alleyway from the gardens and houses of residents.

However over time bits of the fence have been broken and deliberately pulled out at dangerous angles which means that getting along there without catching yourself or items of clothing on it is a major achievement especially when it seems to be the latest popular meeting place for the students of the surrounding schools to congregate in before morning registration.

To start off with I was quite happy with just telling them to be careful and watch where they were going with regards to it but when one of them ripped a massive hole in the arm in his old school coat on one of the sharp points and another had a near miss with his new coat which being slightly less padded  also left him with a surface scratch to his arm through the material I knew it was time someone did something about it before it wasn’t just clothing getting ripped but someone’s skin or a child’s face.

Logging onto the council website I sent off an email telling them exactly where the problem was and resigned myself to the fact it would probably take months for them to deal with it.

However I was to be proved wrong when just 24 hours later I received a telephone message on my mobile saying that work had been completed and the offending bit of fence was now secured out of harm’s way with cable ties.

So it’s a well done and thank you to the workers of Medway council this time, however I’m gutted to report that by the time I finally got round to inspecting  all your hard work someone has already made  a start on ruining it all again so don’t be surprised if this isn’t the last you hear from me yet !

CLOSE TO THE EDGE

Even the drabbest days seem better with a soundtrack I’m often heard to say.

Sitting in front of my keyboard on a rather wet and windy Wednesday my spirits are far from being dampened with the likes of Carmen Miranda, The Beach Boys and Harry Belafonte pumping from my stereo reminding me of warmer weather.

And when I’m on the move it’s no different, I can often be seen with a pair of headphones attached to an ancient CD walkman, bopping along to my favourite tunes as I wend my merry way around the Medway towns.

Yet however much lost in music I might be, I do make sure that no matter what when it comes to having to cross any kind of road I disconnect from the wall of sound going on in my head but it’s definitely something I see plenty of people guilty of not doing .

As Grandmaster Flash once said “don’t step out when you’re close to the edge “because if you’re not giving traffic your full attention there’s a chance might lose more than just your head.

MEDWAY MESSENGER - GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN 01 /02/16

I have since realised that I may have confused the lyrics of grandmaster flash's the message with this 80's road safety campaign spoof of it so apologies for that Mr Grandmaster Flash

 https://youtu.be/PK_MLA01YrU