Monthly Archives: November 2018

Snippets

Loving the bones of him

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My home is full of males.

They are an odd species, highly competitive, exercise/sport mad, messy, smelly, charming, loving and demanding of my time.

 

From the dog to the boy to the husband they all love strokes; back strokes, head strokes, arm strokes. If they see me sitting still the expectation is it’s their turn for strokes. I never make it through a family movie night with my hands quiet and to myself. Each gets jealous when they see the other enjoying the strokes they believe are theirs by right. Craig frequently tells Roscoe to find his own woman. Roscoe will physically sit on me to prevent me stroking his Dad, (cue “cross Dad”) and the dog, who wins out the most, uses his muzzle to move my hand, or if he sees me stroking Roscoe, uses his 86lbs to jump up on the boy, breaking the connection. I’m only now  realising the dog and the boy use the same physical action to get me to focus on them instead.

Most of the time I don’t mind the stroke demands. I find it amusing that the jealous, competitive streak in each of them manifests itself when they see others are getting strokes.

Naturally I would love to receive similar. Craig delivers them grudgingly if we are wearing clothes and Roscoe looks at me as if I’ve grown another head when I ask for a foot or head rub. The dog, well he focuses on looking helplessly beautiful with his deep, chocolate, puppy eyes.

It’s obvious that if I want strokes, I need to pay a professional. But trying to explain I don’t want a massage, I just want strokes makes me seem like a needy child.

Which is, of course, what I’m living with at home.

Snippets

When is a dog not a dog

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Montgomery Fulton aka Monty, Monty dog, beautiful boy, @Montydog101 on Instagram, is our much adored, pure-bred, Golden Retriever.

Most of the day he lives in air-conditioned comfort while recounting his morning walks or dreaming of yet to have adventures during his evening rambles.

He is a sweet-natured, gentle but huge boy dog. He’s a rubbish retriever and looks at balls and sticks with barely disguised disdain when they are thrown over his head. He also hates water and loathes the sea and the shower in equal measure. Washing this dog is a battle of strength, will and persistence. It’s interesting that the other males in the house melt away when this is a task which needs to be completed. I emerge from the dog shower, wetter than the darned dog every time.

I’m really not sure how it happened but in every other respect, bar his water repulsion, we seem to have acquired the canine version of the Roscoe boy.

Neither contribute much to the running of the household but both demand huge amounts of time and attention. They both need regular grooming and are smelly and stinky in equal measure. They sulk and pout and manage to look cute, tragic and demonic all at the same time. They are unbelievably fussy eaters ( this morning the dog turned his nose up at sweet potato and fish and only ate half of his scrambled egg, bacon and kibble alternative) Although I’ve tried starving Monty into submission he’s more stubborn than me. Talking of which they are both incredibly b-minded. I often battle with 86lbs of dog determined to sniff and pee a particular tree or bush while I’m set on walking in a straight line. With the result, my arm muscles are toning up nicely. Meanwhile, the human version seems equally incapable of walking straight and in addition finds it necessary to lean on me when I drag him out as my dog walking companion. They both run off chasing skirt and would rather ‘hang’ with friends than have anything to do with me; until they want something.

But this week, there has been a shift. After parent/teacher/ child morning, Roscoe and I took Monty to be neutered. At some expense I purchase a ‘comfy cone of shame’ for this occasion as somehow (?) I know the dog is going to be fixated on his bits. Or what is left of his bits. Apart from being groggy from the anesthetic, he is deeply unhappy at the infamy of having this soft, plastic, Velcro contraption strapped around his neck. He follows me around bumping into various walls and furniture using his now tunnel vision and sense of smell to find me. Eventually I give  in and take it off, keeping him close to make sure his nose is not stuck where it isn’t supposed to be. Later, so I can get to bed, I try to re-fix it around his neck. He is so disgusted he turns and looks at the wall while sweating profusely. The perceived psychological battle is won, the cone comes off and I stay up until the wee small hours, checking on him. The following day he looks at me through huge sorrowful eyes. He’s in a lot of pain and can barely move. Once more, I sit  up during the night.

I’m in a Zombie-like catatonic state by Wednesday so woefully under-prepared by Craig announcing he is off to Antigua. In all my written and electronic diaries, this is a day early and it really messes up my schedule. I am too tired to shout. I am too tired to cry. I focus on moving my engagements to accommodate the boy and his canine companion. I try to stay out of any arguments about school work and delivery. There’s no energy left for a war.

Thursday comes and the dog is now looking a bit more sparky. Thank goodness one of us is, I feel as if I’ve been hit by a 10tonne truck. By now I’m force feeding the canine paracetamol every 4 to 6 hours and this is making a huge difference to his demeanor and pain levels. It’s just paying havoc with my sleep pattern.

Friday arrives and finally the dog seems a bit more like himself apart from he needs to sit down on cool tile most of the time as his bits are obviously still paining him. After drugging him once more I drag myself off to boxing class and have to really concentrate that I dive and drive in the right combination. For the third consecutive evening, I drive into downtown Bridgetown as I’ve committed to attend the Kickstart football AGM. I sit there looking all studious, making notes and looking interested. Truth is I’m shattered and writing is the only thing keeping me awake.

Today I sleep in and wake to the dog being sick on one of the only 2 carpets we have downstairs. Why? There is veritably copious amounts of pale tile floor, why is the carpet the place to be sick? Naturally there are no other males around. As I scrub and dab and scrub once more it occurs to me Roscoe would do similar for attention.

After barking aggressively at some workmen next door, Monty appears at the breakfast table obviously and visibly “excited”. I’m dumbfounded, I haven’t endured nearly a week of virtually no sleep, devising ever-increasing creative ways to force feed him paracetamol and putting my life on hold, for this dog to still look like he could have a good time.

It’s fair to say that after vociferously quizzing Craig on how this can still be possible, and yelling at Roscoe to get downstairs to get ready for football, the hormonal levels in the Fulton household remain high…

Snippets

Go Your Own Way

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This week Roscoe and I went to school together to attend parent/teacher/child day. Putting a positive spin on it, this is where you have pre-booked slots to see each teacher with your child to discuss perspectives and opportunities.

Feedback on Roscoe, as always, is consistent. “Laid back”, “Popular”, “Funny”, Creative”, Outgoing”, “Could achieve so much more”, “More than capable”, “Does the minimum to stay average when he could be great”, ” Needs to read more”.  Actually he needs to read full stop – I write these blogs knowing he’s highly unlikely to ever read a word on the page.

One of the things that makes Codrington  school stand out is it’s focus on giving back, taking part in the wider community. Each student in Roscoe’s year is tasked with a year long project of how they are improving the community in Barbados or the wider Caribbean region. They have to write up each month how they are progressing, what they are doing and where they need support and at the end of the year they stand in front of the entire school and give a 10 minute presentation on the difference they have made.

Applying his usual laconic, big-picture, visionary style, Roscoe wants to send sports equipment to the hurricane ravaged island of Dominica. Due to the potential complexity and time required to achieve this project, the school dissuades him of continuing with this. He then decides he is going to help the homeless of Barbados by giving them “stuff”. When its pointed out that homelessness is not a particularly big issue here as both the church and familial ties are so strong, and that finding homeless people and working out what stuff they need is a more tricky proposition that he envisages, he accuses me of being negative and non-supportive.

So we sit with the community project tutor to discuss how he can be more practically focused so he achieves a tangible outcome and a sense of satisfaction. We are now a month behind what with all the chopping and changing and she applies some pressure to have us commit that his proposal presentation will be completed 2 days hence.

Stuck in a car with me on our 45 minute journey home, there is no escape as I attempt to discuss what his project could be. He is angry, defensive and cornered and I endure a full- force hormonal blast of teenage angst. Later, once he’s fed and had some time on his beloved electronics, we have another go at a conversation.

Ultimately we agree that he’s going to go to the local orphanage, find out what they need and he can then go and fund-raise to help them achieve some of their wish list. Over the course of the next two days we run through it but he refuses to write anything down. Because I feel my neck is as much on the line as his, I’m not prepared to let it go and right up to I drop him at the school bus at 7am on Wednesday morning I am trying to get him to describe the first steps of the project and what he’s going to say to Miss Nicola.

That evening as I drive him to football practice, I ask how his conversation has gone regarding his community project. “Fine” he mutters. I ask when he wants to go to the orphanage. He replies with a tone of defiant satisfaction, “I’m not going, I’m teaching diabetic children about the importance of exercise”.  I take a breath, remain calm and ask “where are you going to find these diabetic children”? His response? “It’s no problem I’m going to make a YouTube video” I keep my mouth shut.

Much as though we are raising him to be his own person, sometimes I wish he would just conform.

And do as I tell him…

Snippets

Starts. And Stops.

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I have a confession.  Something that many of my old teams and bosses would agree on; I’m not a great ‘completer finisher’.  I’m the one with the best intentions;  the memory reminders of birthdays and the corresponding cards that don’t get sent; the business ideas which are researched, modified, written and then never put to fruition; the one who  starts a project, gets bored and is distracted by the next shiny thing.  I’m the person who is awarded certificates but rarely diplomas because there is always  something else new to study, who half-reads books and then their final pages because there is always a new book waiting to be cannibalised.

There are lots of us out there.  Most of us know we have this problem so we put strategies in place to try to stay on track to see our initially exciting  task through to the end.  By then we are probably crying with boredom tears and dragging our feet out of bed in the morning.  It  gets done but it can be a bit slapdash and made merry towards its conclusion (unless you have OCD,  but that’s another story).  Our reward for sticking with it is our system being flooded by intense feelings of satisfaction and relief.

Folks like me are  best suited to working in change as the change within the change is what keeps us motivated.

I know all this so when I gamely announce I’m cutting all sugar on October 1 for a month, I have bought the journal, downloaded the app, cleaned out the fridge reorganising its now healthy contents and hidden all the temptations.  During  week 1 I am evangelical;  studiously reading labels in the supermarkets and taking 3 times as long to do the weekly shop.  Craig eats more green stuff in a week than he’s done for the past 3 months.  Week 2, I’m batch cooking on Sunday and feeling very virtuous.  This is the week where I join a health studio and start going to classes back to back, working through the associated aches and pains of a body that somewhere in its muscle memory knows it’s just a fad so to go with it until another distraction comes along.

Week 3 and the 19th of October is designated international Day at school.  The day where you bring in the taste of home for other parents, teachers and pupils to sample.  Generally the preceding day is intense as you connect with your memories of comfort and home as you stir and shake, smell, touch and taste your offerings.

Scotland, like Barbados, is rooted in sugar.  We’re not known for our salads and vegetables.  We like our sweets, stews and starch.

Correspondingly, I make Tattie scones, Macaroon Bars, Tablet and Fairy cakes.  The latter being my concession to belonging to the UK as I have brought pre-prepared iced Union Jack flags back to the island.

I boil the potatoes for the scones and the Macaroon bars.  I am not tempted by the kilo of icing sugar mixed with potato that makes the fondant.  I am stoic when melting my favourite dark chocolate and oven roasting the desiccated coconut.  But when you put it all together and they come out of the freezer looking so tasty, one tiny piece in the mouth doesn’t count.  Surely?

By now I am boiling the sugar, condensed milk and vanilla essence for my Tablet.  I’m using a new recipe which guarantees success;  after all why use the recipe handed down from generation to generation when there is something new to try?

I follow these new steps to the letter, measuring each ingredient carefully, completing each step as instructed (this is not normal behaviour given my more ‘instinctive’ approach to cooking).  It doesn’t look the same but I gamely pour it into the baking pan to set.  But it doesn’t.  I have to taste it.  This doesn’t count either as it’s a necessity and not a need.  Least that’s what I tell myself.  Of course it takes several tastes before I finally accept that its gritty and I have to start all over again.  This time I use the family recipe and it all goes to plan.  Apart from I obviously have to taste test it to make sure.  One square is not enough to convince me.  It takes several squares before confirming it’s a good enough offering.

My system is now flooded with sugar as I move onto making the Fairy Cakes.  Now as a wee girl, the reward for helping my Nana do her twice weekly baking, is to get to lick the spoon or clean the bowl.  Every time I bake, which is not often as my boys are not big into cakes, I connect with Nana as I swipe my finger round the uncooked mix, popping it into my mouth and thinking of her soft, large, floury, welcoming arms.   An entire bowl of uncooked fairy cake mix is now shouting at me; “Love me. Enjoy me. Eat me”.

I have no willpower.  I go to bed wired from my sugar cacophony, convincing myself that it’s just been a blip day.

My blips and slips continue over the next couple of weeks.  Yesterday I ate a Mars bar, drank a rum sour and enjoyed a piece of rum cake.  To my mind once you’ve sinned once, you might as well make it a day of sinning rather than a mouthful.

I also know it doesn’t matter.  For I am lucky enough to wake up today.  And it’s November 1.

Salad anyone?

Snippets

Practice

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I subscribe to Seth Godin’s blog and his musings and jottings arrive in my email box with impressive regularity. I like the way he views the world. He is concise and thought provoking- a real change catalyser.

Today, to prove my point, he sends this;

The first 1,000 are the most difficult 

For years, I’ve been explaining to people that daily blogging is an extraordinarily useful habit. Even if no one reads your blog, the act of writing it is clarifying, motivating and (eventually) fun.

A collection of daily bloggers I follow have passed 1,000 posts (it only takes three years or so…). Fortunately, there are thousands of generous folks who have been posting their non-commercial blogs regularly, and it’s a habit that produces magic.

Sasha,Gabe, Fred,Bernadette and Rohan add value to their readers every day, and I’m lucky to be able to read them. (I’m leaving many out, sorry!) You’ll probably get something out of reading the work of these generous folks, which is a fabulous side effect, one that pays huge dividends to masses of strangers, which is part of the magic of digital connection.

What I’ve found is this–after people get to posting #200 or beyond, they uniformly report that they’re glad they did it. Give it a try for three or four months and see what happens…

So guess what? Inspired by Seth who has an unerring ability to tap into my thinking, I’m setting myself a challenge to get back into the habit of writing.

I’m not aiming to be profound. I’m not even aiming, at this stage, to be consistent in my messaging or style. However, the aim is to make it happen, every day for 30 days minimum. And to not get stressed about searching for appropriate visuals or correcting poor grammar. If visuals are there and grammar is correct, consider this as a bonus.

To help I’ve created a new category called “Snippets and stories” and my 30 day practice blogs will sit in there; festering for attention.

So if  any of my wee stories, poor grammar or stylistic literary phrasing catches your imagination or attention, please give me feedback. It’s all good and it’s all appreciated.

Thank-you