Minnie’s Musings

Random ramblings of a middle aged, middle class, middle income woman

recent posts

about

  • All Things Bright and Beautiful

    Winter sunshine is a beautiful thing. It is, however, accompanied by freezing temperatures.

    So, instead of taking myself off on a healthy walk, I am sitting at my computer catching up on posts.

    This has been a busy Christmas with a week of preparation and celebration, culminating in a lot of mess that has taken almost as much time to tidy away as creating it took in the first place.

    I love Christmas for many reasons.

    I like to shop, spending time thinking about what I really want to give to people I love. And I really enjoy the purchase of random garlands and baubles to add to my vast collection. We got rid of the mantle in the dining room, which caused a brief panic as I have a selection of silver decorations which normally adorn it.

    I quite like to wrap cuboids in coloured paper and ribbon. I quite like wrapping bottles, creating a plume of ribbon tied with a bow. I am less keen on encasing mugs and other fiddly objects in paper that decides to tear. And I heartily recommend purchasing a Sellotape dispenser.

    I like to cook – though I am not repeating the addition of breadcrumbs to my pork stuffing as it did not work. My turkey, however, was a resounding success as I poured a pint of water into the pan on the hour, which kept it moist (you’re welcome. I also have tips on souring cream and the application of streaky bacon if you want them).

    This year’s repast was enhanced by some very good wine courtesy of my brother in law. I flambeed the Christmas pudding with enough brandy to keep the flames alight well past the point where the cooing and ah-ing had abated. I missed the cheese as I was flopped on the sofa snoring when it appeared, but I am told it was delicious.

  • Restoration of Faith

    On a brighter note, my faith in humankind was restored in the Kidlington Sainsbury’s shortly after, as His Nibs and I went off in pursuit of last minute bits and pieces.

    It was crowded and a bit frenetic with lots of people who do not normally traipse the aisles diligently hunting for assorted items on a list prepared by someone muttering “B^%%*r I forgot the….” at 6am this morning.

    But everyone was polite and cheerful, quipping about clashing trolleys and sprouts.

    There is a lot wrong with the World at the moment but I will always admire our little island and its populace who say sorry when you bump into them with your trolley in hot pursuit of a punnet of cranberries.

  • Adding Context to Previous Post

    I was pootling down to Oxford this morning to fetch His Nibs – chatting to Best Beloved on hands free about what we thought we have bought the children for Christmas – when the following happened. Some bloke drove right up to my bumper on the A40. I was forced to pull in so I gave him a two fingered salute.

    He then whisked back in front of me and applied the breaks. Presumably to teach me a lesson. So, following the guidance in my speed awareness course, I slowed up to create a sensible distance.

    He then swerved into a right hand turn lane from where he rolled down his window and flipped the bird at me. I flipped back. A reflex response. So far so tit for tat.

    But then he reversed out of the slip road into traffic – which he held up at a busy roundabout – to pull up alongside me and give me an earful. I checked that I was locked in and looked the other way so his volley of invective was ineffective, courtesy of the passenger door window.

    When he kept this up as we all pulled onto the roundabout I got very worried and started plotting how long it would take me to get to the Police station in Kidlington. I was quite discombobulated, giving a running commentary to Best Beloved on the phone who was helpless.

    At some point he gave up and I continued to my destination in wary watchfulness. Upset and a little teary.

    As Best Beloved observed, this driver wouldn’t have been quite so keen on his pursuit had I been a 6’4” bloke or even if I had said 6’4” bloke sitting next to me.

    Something similar happened to our youngest the other day. And to another friend of a similar age to me. After posting the above on FB, several people commented that they had experienced something similar too.

    My daughter drove into a petrol station and confronted the perpetrator, asking him if he was stalking her and getting out her phone to call the police. He backed off. I am proud that she dealt with it so well, but also furious that she had to deal with it in the first place.

  • Written but not Published: Flapping Away

    I have had a thought. Don’t fall off your seat.

    Unusually (because I don’t normally) I have been watching the Strictly Final. And they have just done the cast dance.

    Observing the jumping about and frenetic gyrating of this smorgasbord of sequins and face paint, it occurred to me that the continuing success of this show is symptomatic of our times.

    As the somewhat sinister sense that we are repeating the descent into world war that happened a century ago becomes stronger, the flapping of arms and kicking of legs brought to mind the 1920s.

    With economic collapse and cost of living crises floating about in the ether, not to mention the rise of autocrats who are bent on lining their pockets at the expense of the very people they purport to represent, one’s feeling of disquiet becomes ever more profound.

    However, I think Strictly epitomises a particularly human quality (I would like to say British, but I am not convinced it is purely restricted to the residents of Blighty). That is the desire to leap up and dance. To don sequinned gowns and spandex trousers. To gyrate around with or without rhythm. To imagine one is Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, while looking like a decrepit silverback.

    Mostly to shake off the cares of the world and have a thoroughly good time. This is what gets us through. That, and deeply understated jokes, laced with irony that meet horror with wit.

    Therefore I will sing the praises of the BBC for creating this show. It is a tonic on a Winter night and we all need one of those.

  • Written but not Posted: Informing and Educating

    Yesterday the government launched its long awaited strategy on combating violence against women. Hurrah! Finally.

    Schools have been trying to address this for years. We had our first assemblies on the vile Mr Tate yonks ago. The key element that is new is additional funding aimed at the 20% of young men for whom misogyny is hardwired into their psyche.

    And with hideous inevitability some bright spark (of the male variety) pipes up with “What about the other 80%?”. Thereby indicating loudly and clearly that he wasn’t getting the point as those prone to squeaking “Not all men” are want to wail.

    Enough – please stop and listen before you absolve yourself of responsibility. We the sisterhood are asking you to think about every time you have walked on by. And enough. We have indeed had enough. Most of us, several decades ago.

    20% is not a small proportion. And that proportion is on the increase. Therefore the other 80% is vulnerable to influence. That other 80% may also give tacit and or unintended support through keeping quiet.

    Given that women and girls have been kicking up a fuss about misogyny for decades, we need the male of the species to stand up and call it out as well. That means recognising it. Which requires being educated about it.

    Both girls and boys are being taught about consent in school, because both need to know what it looks like. Ask your child, your niece, your nephew what they are taught and also what they are witnessing both in the classroom and outside it. That is a valuable dinner table discussion.

    Recent experiences of male road rage have reinforced my perception that physical and verbal violence against women is on the rise. Because for many men the response to having to acknowledge the problem is to double down and go on the attack.

  • Annoyed

    Have decided that if another person goes in before me I shall protest. Previous queue jumper has just emerged. Shortly followed by consultant who has uttered my name.

  • That Didn’t Work

    No sign of consultant. Trying again.

    I decided that this year I would purchase a blanket of fairy lights for the tree in the hope that it would stop me obsessing about symmetry and balance for twelve days. Or more , as I have been forced into early purchase of tree by offspring pointing out that you only get the dregs if you shop in Christmas week.

    Best Beloved and I only swore at each other once, trying to wrap it round our rather pretty tree. I was initially very pleased with the results as I threaded my random assortment of baubles and such like through the plethora of wires.

    I moved the sofas around and settled down to watch the box before realising that it didn’t look nearly so balanced at a marginally different angle. Hmmmm…

    Am now contemplating moving the telly to the other side of the room and shifting the sofas again.
    I think a bloke who arrived after me has just gone in.

    Bloody queue jumpers. Bah humbug.

  • Dum di dum di dum…

    If I start typing a new post the consultant will miraculously appear to peer at my knee.

    I have just had it x-rayed. This is a bit odd as he should have access to the scan I had done in September.

    I am hideously over excited at prospect of getting a new knee. I think I might cry if he says I need to wait for further deterioration. I am not sure how much more it can deteriorate before I can’t walk at all.

    Best Beloved is sitting in the car park, giving remote moral support, having had the flu all week. As the news has been littered with dire warnings about the NHS having its annual bout of the vapours, he is mindful of spreading germs.

    One is trying to be supportive as he really is ill. There is no ‘man’ in this flu. However I am also getting a sore back from leaning away every time he splutters through a coughing fit, determined as I am not to catch his lurgy.

    I haven’t had my jabs as I am fed up with getting the flu straight after. Like clockwork. Honestly, I can set my cover work by it (teacher joke). Get stuck with a needle. Receive germs into my anatomy so they can a fandango with my immune system. Go down with a lurgy.

  • Appalling Behaviour

    Twice this week (actually last week as for hot to post) I have been reminded of just how appalling the previous government was. Once while watching Prisoner 9**51 as Boris Johnson made an ill-informed and counterproductive statement to Parliament, giving the Iranian government yet more reason to stall. And then the BBC investigation into the costs of the COVID inquiry.

    Public money has disappeared down the drain of legal fees (presumably with the rest of the sewage) as the previous government attempted to avoid, prevaricate and hide its mistakes rather than fess up to poor decisions made in a high pressure crisis not seen since the early 20th Century. Holding your hands up and admitting such mistakes ends the accusations and wafts away some of the stench.

    There are many epithets that can be applied to elements within the Conservative Party. Self-serving,, scandal-ridden and stupid is an alliterative selection. And our otherwise beleaguered chancellor Rachel Reeves gave us a timely reminder of quite how nasty they could be when focusing on the “rape” clause applied to the Two Child Benefit Cap.

    So great was the desire to punish women who do not reside in a three bedroom semi in the suburbs, to punish their offspring, to turn families who have the temerity to want more than a population shrinking duo of sproglets into social pariahs, that they inserted a vicious clause into legislation where a woman who has been raped, and therefore had conception inflicted upon her, had to prove it if she chose not to abort a child which she could not afford to feed. That is just plain nasty.

    Child benefit is means tested. Fine. Not every family needs it. Child benefit is paid to mothers by default so they have direct access to monies that might otherwise be p*^%#d up against the wall on a Friday night. Child benefit amounts to £43.30 a week for two children, roughly what you might spend on a meal out with a glass of wine.

    Is it enough to put food in the mouths of children? Given the frequent reports of parents going hungry so their children can eat plus the plethora of food banks… perhaps not. But it is something. And such benefits are how we avoid the extremes of poverty visible elsewhere in the world.

    Harrumph.

  • Modern Dating

    Best Beloved and I are making like the youth of today and visiting the gym together. Not so much a date night. More of a date afternoon squished in before the place is overrun by teenagers and small people soggy from swimming lessons.

    I am peddling away in glorious silence as my ear buds haven’t charged. I am annoyed as I have had them plugged into my in car charger for several days. Modern technology? Pay!

    Actually it isn’t glorious silence. They have some annoying beat box (or whatever) music going on and several groups of older teenagers are flirting over the weight machine thingies.

    Whatever happened to getting into the pub with a cute smile at the doorman and sipping lager laced with lime for an hour or two while trying to catch the eye of some boy who is way more interested in she of the more artfully ripped jeans t’other side of the bar??

    Best Beloved is doing some energetic jogging on the machine directly behind me. I don’t do energetic jogging. I do lackadaisical peddling in a sitting position because I keep slipping off the upright bicycle seat.

    I have had a busy morning attempting to make a jelly set. I overdid the gelatine last night and created a lumpy mess. I think I have underdone it today as it was still swishing around in the pyramids rectangle thing I have carefully lined with cling film. A last minute dash to the shop to purchase another’s looks imminent.