The future is bright, the future is....blue!

Last weekend I watched a film that had won the Cannes Film Festival it is called Blue is the Warmest Colour...it was quite a long film at almost 3 hours but it was a pretty accurate portrayal of a lesbian relationship. There were a few very explicit sex scenes too with no holds barred as it were.  I don't know if anyone feels the same but have you noticed the amount of gay stuff is going on openly in a major push to get us recognised and allow us more freedom in being able to carry on a 'normal' life.

With it being in the middle of Pride Season I have seen comments from straight people saying why should we hold Prides, why shouldn't there be Straight Pride
but I have to say that for straight people there is no need for them to try and get accepted as they already are accepted.  You see straight couples making out, kissing, cuddling etc all the time, wherever you go, no one is disgusted, no one is complaining it is blatant and open in front of anyone and everyone, it's 'in your face' all the time.

Now, I ask you dear Reader, what if you were to see a gay couple male or female kissing and cuddling in the street, in a bar, in the park - would you feel offended? If you would please contact me as I would genuinely like to try to understand what it is about the whole situation that would cause offence and also would you likewise be equally offended if it were a mixed race couple, by that I mean a couple who were not of the same nationality, or indeed of different religions? What to you is acceptable in diversity and what is not and what is it that makes it so reprehensible that you would feel uncomfortable in the extreme??? Is it lack of education? Lack of tolerance? Lack of empathy? Lack of compassion for a fellow being? Or what???

I look forward to hearing from anyone who could teach me about emotions I feel are so alien to me, but I am always open to new learning.

Night all, sweet dreams xx

Elena Undone....

Good evening

I have found some time in which I can write my blog (a rarity I know) but I just had to share this news as it has caused such an effect in me - we saw a film a few days ago called Elena Undone and as I watched the film something resonated deep within my soul as it is so close to the way my partner and I got together and is uncanny in its accuracy.  The only difference is that both my partner and I considered ourselves heterosexual and were married to men and had children before we fell in love, whereas in the film one of the main character's knows she is a lesbian. The rest though is quite incredibly similar. I have ordered this DVD as from now on when anyone asks me how it happened I shall just lend them the DVD and they can see for themselves.  I would challenge anyone to watch the film and not be moved to the core by the emotion therein.

Six years ago we got together and began a new intense level of our relationship and I am happy to say that we are still very much in love and still go through all the wonderful 'loved up' feelings that we always had. We were 'meant' for each other though there are 23 years difference in our ages we seem to bridge the gap comfortably with each other. 

Next year my lovely lady will be 40 and for this I am going to arrange tickets for us to go to Glastonbury - she said that it is something she would like to do just once and so that's what we shall do. Probably take the van to stay in rather than doing it under canvas, we do enjoy a little comfort nowadays and who can blame us? We do things in our own way regardless of what others' think, we obviously do otherwise we would not be together at all if we were that bothered by outside opinions.

Looking forward....

The subject of this post came about when I was away last week.  We had a rare 4 whole days without an intrusion from anyone else, we made the most of it too. We began by travelling up to Manchester where we had a meal in a little Turkish restaurant we frequent when there (usually during the Manchester Pride at the time of the late Summer Bank Holiday). It was raining and we didn't go out in the evening as it was just so nice to relax, luxuriating in each other's company. Next morning, Tuesday we set off and headed for the famous Lake District. Now, we have never been there before and have always heard of how wonderful the scenery is etc and so as we normally head to the South West and the beauty of the New Forest, Devon and Cornwall we thought we would try somewhere different so that we could at least say we have seen it for ourselves.

Our first impressions were that there were not as many Lakes as we felt there ought to have been and the populated areas just brought the words ' the depressed North' to mind.  I was not just under impressed, I have to say I was quite dismayed :( I felt we were almost wasting our precious time off on scenery that was not worth our consideration.  The hotel was lovely and I have to say we had a sumptuous meal that we thoroughly enjoyed.  Our room was really lovely and we felt at home in the Hotel that had been advertised in Diva magazine and was run by a female couple so we felt right at home.  We had a really nice double ended bath which was a joy to share to too.
After spending 2 days there we started on our journey back down country to the Peak District - what a contrast!!! How beautiful it was there, and there were just as many Lakes in the Peak District as there were in the so called Lake District. It left us wondering what on earth is the fuss about the LD when the PD is every bit  as special and the built up areas looked clean and welcoming rather than depressed and deprived.  The added bonus here was also that the PD is not that far away and we would certainly go back to visit another time.

Of course dear Reader our hearts definitely lie in the South West, for us there is absolutely no contest I'm afraid.  The thing that I am very happy about is that I have made a decision which has got me looking forward to my retirement as I am going to travel around the country probably between April and October.  I shall either travel from Monday to Friday and return or as my lovely lady suggested she could come and meet me wherever I am on Friday night and return home on Sunday.  Sounds good?? Sounds bloody great :D to me. First things first I need to change my van as I want a more up to date model so that I can have full confidence in the mechanics of it and have the reliability and practicality of the more modern style.  To this end my van has gone on sale and we think we have a buyer.  Once I get the money for Fleur I shall have to look for a replacement quick smart as Bug Jam is approaching quite quickly and I want us to be comfortable when we are there.  T5 is the way to go :)) watch this space...

iphone crash...

Good morning dear Reader

So, here I am sat up in bed and it is 02.54, I have been awake for an hour or so and I am trying to reboot my iphone....Yes, I have tried to do an update to the 7.1.1 but it has caused my iphone to crash and so I have had to resort to a complete factory reset :( this is really bad as I think it will make me lose all of my data on there, my photos, my contacts, everything :(....This is one of those times that make me think how pathetic it is to be so dependent on a device for all of my important information in life.  Strangely though, whilst it is understandably annoying that I have now lost all the important stuff I don't actually feel all that bad??? and I have to wonder is that due to the time or is it because I am just generally more chilled out nowadays?

Anyway, I guess this gives me a chance to catch up with my blog that I would normally not have been able to do as I would have been fast asleep at this time, so there must have been a nagging worry there somewhere in the braincell for me to be so awake at this time eh? 

Just an update here - iphone update complete and fully restored from the iCloud thankfully so all okay. Although I have to say that it took the best part of 3 days to download all my stuff properly again.  At least it is all there again at my fingertips :)) xxx

Twitter....

Hello, long time no post!!

I have entitled this post Twitter as I have spent quite a bit of my spare time posting on there and reading the posts and retweeting etc... It becomes quite addictive, but I have to say I have been totally shocked by the content of some of the tweets from the people/organisations I follow on there.  I am very much into animal rights and very much against animal abuse etc and I have read so many dreadful accounts and seen too many awful photos of animals being tortured so terribly stuff that I could never have imagined happening :( it makes me ashamed to be part of the human race if that is what other members can do.  It beats me how anyone would ever be able to sleep again after allowing another living creature to suffer in such ways.  I just do not understand how they can carry on living with the screams of their victims in their ears. I have been disgusted and dismayed to find out that in places like Norway and Denmark, Germany and Holland there are animal brothels!!! These are places where they keep animals captive for the sole purpose of men paying to have sex with them - Jeeze, how can they do this??? What sick and twisted minds they have that they actually get off on the rape of an animal, my view is that there should be mandatory castration for any man who could commit an act of savagery like this.

The thoughts of this being allowed to happen together with all the sights of the poor dogs who are tortured and skinned alive often being boiled alive in the far east because people eat them. I wonder if I am just too good to live in this world? But then if people like me didn't live in this world it would be given over to more cruel people and there would be no one left to teach the children how to love and respect our fellow creatures on this earth.  We are all entitled to live a free life here not one of us having any greater right over another.  When will this be understood properly?

I have to say that sadly I was just as guilty as the next person having taken my children to Sea World to see the Orcas and dolphin shows and I never thought how these poor beautiful creatures were captured and I never gave a thought to the fact that they were forcefully separated from their families in much the same way as the slaves were back in the day :( Honestly I could cry for my ignorance in these matters, there is no way that I would ever support these places now.  Having understood that mothers and babies are torn away from each other and little ones witnessing their mothers being slaughtered next to them, they are so traumatised by this and all because they have no voice to protest or complain or stick up for themselves - now I know more about it I can be their voice and I can help to stick up for them.

I want to be able to volunteer my services to helping animals once I retire so I hope that I can find a worthy cause to devote myself to. 

Back to normal

Afternoon all....

I have to report that yesterday I had to change the course of my diet.  Reason being that on Thursday night I suffered badly from leg cramps which were threatening and I knew I wouldn't be able to jump out of bed to sort it out easily so before that sets in (like it did last time I was on the low carb diet) I decided to change tack to a calorie controlled diet.  I worked out that to lose weight slowly and steadily I need to consume less than 1470 calories per day and so me being me I am aiming for a daily amount of approx. 1200 :D.

So far so good and I have lost in total since Monday (it's Saturday today) 4 and a half lbs.  My other half has done better than that and has lost 6 lbs now :)) I am very pleased for her although she expected to lose more apparently.

I saw my eldest son this morning and he was at my mum's visiting with my grand daughter, my grandson was by all accounts at his senior school of choice taking entrance tests.  I shall ring him this afternoon to see how he got on.

I gave my lady's son a lift to work this morning and had a good chat with him about openness and honesty with his mum or/and me I think it was well received and I hope it will help him to talk to us more.  17 year old boys are notoriously difficult to engage in conversation I believe although thankfully I had no such problems with my own.  For some reason my boys have always been very open with me, sometimes, embarrassingly a little too open ;) hopefully it will start a new level of communication with him. 

After finishing my visit with my mum I went to pick my lady's daughter up as she had been playing football in the morning and brought her home and we are not sat watching TV - guess what is on?? Yep you guessed it dear Reader, it is indeed football!! Still we came to an amicable arrangement whereby she will watch this match and then I can have something on.  She is quite happy, in fact she has been full of smiles etc and as happy as Larry.  Now this is something odd that I have noticed that when my lovely lady is present her daughter tends to present with a miserable face and mope around the place a lot especially if she is being told that my lady is working late or extra like this morning being a Saturday which meant that she was unable to watch her play the game and in fact missed her scoring.  This behaviour has the desired effect on my dear lady making her feel guilt ridden as though somehow she is letting her down in some way which of course is utter nonsense.  But the daughter seems to pile it on and yet as soon as she is out of her mum's range she is completely normal and happy #grossmanipulationfor maximumeffect

Back in the swing....

Good Evening to you

Well, it's all over and done with for another year....I sometimes think of the frantic build-up and wonder why people get so uptight about it all....I mean yes, I can understand that we all want to spend time with our loved ones and 'break bread' together sharing the festive feast which everyone partakes of to excess.  Nearly all of us are guilty of this I know that personally I look on it as a time that food wise 'anything goes' I will generally eat items that normally I would consider unhealthy and fattening but over the Xmas holiday season it seems that all the taboo items like extra thick cream, sweets, puddings, and excess of roast pots, pigs in blankets etc then after rolling away from the table to sit and doze in front of the TV just for a short time we begin again, preparing fruit, nuts, crisps, popcorn and other picky bits until everyone is most uncomfortable whilst engaging in game playing or more TV watching.

But, my point is this dear Reader, why do we use the Xmas holiday as an excuse to get the family round the dining table, why don't we do this with our loved ones on a more regular basis? Admitted it's not Christmas but that doesn't mean we cant enjoy each others company and share our news good and bad and discuss and yep, even play a few games in the evening too...why not??

I think I shall try to get them all together more often to do this so that Christmas becomes just a time of being off work and exchanging a few gifts but the practice of sharing totally as a family should be a normal occurrence and I'm aiming to make that so.

Well, it's day 3 of the diet (new Atkins) and I have suffered from a really awful headache today and feeling sick but on the positive side since I began it on Monday my stomach actually feels so much better, not bloated, no horrendous noises, no gas, just calm - this is the upside of dieting, I feel at peace within my body and that makes me very happy.  I am on the journey of getting a slimmer figure and once my foot is better I shall begin exercising so that the weight will drop off faster.  I also need to start doing some weight training again to burn off the excess flab on my arms and tone up the muscles so that I can wear sleeveless vests when the weather gets warmer.

The storms keep coming....we have never known a year like it - as far as WInter is concerned we have experienced a very mild one so not too bad however, many people have been so terribly affected by flooding that they are still under water now, I feel for them and am so thankful for both my partner and myself have houses that are warm and dry and thankfully not in a flood plane.

I think I have written enough today boring you silly so will end it now....until next time....