Anything that doesn’t fit in anywhere particular
Loads has happened since I last posted here – I retired for one thing! Since then I’ve been busy creating a new life full of things I like doing, which includes writing of course.
I am also a life coach so I have a new blog where I document experiences that I hope will help people who are seeking change or self development.
Please do follow me there – I will continue to blog here too but for the moment my new blog is my focus of attention – follow the link below:
It’s over six years since I stopped smoking. I was always a light smoker and had times where I didn’t smoke at all but I finally completely quit the habit when I met someone who didn’t smoke. I must confess that for a good while after that, if I was out and had been drinking, I did sometimes beg a friend for a drag on their fag and I may even have had the occasional one all to myself but those times were few and far between and I eventually stopped even that. So, I count myself as stopping from the point I decided to stop, with a few little blips after that time. It’s been years since I had a drag on a cigarette and I have no desire at all to do so now.
Very rarely I get a weird fleeting memory of Player’s No.6 cigarettes. The smell and the taste come back to me and I think it was because these were the first cigarettes I smoked, way back, as a schoolgirl on the train on the way to school. Because then, you could smoke just about anywhere.
Thinking tonight about my lack of desire to smoke I wondered if the fact that it is less ‘in your face’ now has helped me. Well, I am sure it has, the cues and triggers aren’t there now. The temptation has gone. Which led me on to thinking about how going to the pub or a club is so much easier now there are no smokers puffing seductively on their fags and wafting their delicious scent around. You have to actively seek the ‘pushers’ out now. It’s much, much easier not to smoke.
This train of thought took me further. It is acknowledged that there is a big problem in the UK with alcohol consumption. We have a very high rate of liver disease in young adults and we know about all the other harmful effects of problem drinking.
So, I thought, what about if we made pubs ALCOHOL FREE, in much the same way as we have banned smoking? Drinkers would have to go outside to a designated area for a pint or a voddie and coke. They could stand with the smokers. It would certainly make me think twice about drinking.
Do you think I’m on to something?
Hurrah! I am back!! This is my first post in a long time but I’m determined to get back into my blogging! I’m conducting a social networking experiment at the moment, which I hope will allow me to blog more and I will post about that at the end of January but for now it’s just….
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
God, it’s been so long I’ve even forgotten how to change the font and colour!!!
nb. Facebook friends. This posts to my PAGE on Facebook so it doesn’t count!!! 😉
Last week I went to see my consultant for a discussion about what is happening with my boob. To give those of you the background to this post – I had breast cancer 14 years ago. I had a lumpectomy (some of the tissue removed but not all) and radiotherapy. Five years later I had the other breast reduced to try and match the two up (BIG mistake in my opinion, looking back, but I was guided by the surgeon obviously). This was still not successful due to the tissue on my right breast being taken from above the nipple, thus inducing a ‘dent’. Making the other smaller didn’t really make much difference.
I then had an implant put in, which failed to ‘drop’ into position and had to walk around with a most peculiar shaped breast, which I fondly referred to as my ‘third tit’ or ‘the tit on my shoulder’. It took me two years to get this rectified, and a complaint to my local trust who had led me to believe I would get some new treatment which wasn’t actually available to them. Eventually I was referred elsewhere to a proper plastic surgeon who promised he would be able to give me back a matching pair. This involved a big operation, taking tissue from the stomach and transplanting it into the breast, along with micro surgery to establish a whole new blood supply to this tissue. The bonus was that I got a tummy tuck so, it all sounded like the perfect solution. The dodgy implant was removed and I had that surgery. Still, the stubborn scar on that breast refused to allow anything to lift it. I now had an elipse shaped skin graft which had been taken from my tummy and didn’t match my breast skin tone, and completely scarred up and unmatching breasts. They said they could fix it. They inserted another implant. This helped a little but they still couldn’t fill the gap, as it were. More surgery, they said. This time, just a little fat injection from my thigh tissue into the breast, day surgery, so nothing major. I was put on the waiting list.
I’m still on that list, ten months later. I started reconstructive surgery in 2005.
So I went to see the consultant to see what he had to say, since I had been seen only by his team since the big surgery. He is one of the top ten in his field apparently, so I knew he’d be able to help.
What he told me was not what I wanted to hear. He said that there is nothing else they can do. Radiotherapy has altered the cells and each time I am operated on I run the risk of infection, more so than normal. He said that all the surgery I can have I have had. He said they can still do the minor op but it isn’t realistically going to make my right boob look like my left one.
And then he said something that hurt a lot. He told me I have become fixated on this boob and that I need to accept it for how it looks and get on with my life.
Tears pricked me as he said that. I felt like I was being told off. I felt like a time waster, a malingerer and someone who was just being vain.
Driving away from the hospital, his words sank in.
I HAVE become fixated. I AM obsessed with getting it to look right. And I AM running my life around surgery dates.
So I reframed what he had said. I thought about it. My breasts aren’t the same. They look different to each other. But so do a lot of other women’s who haven’t even had surgery. They are healthy. They are a nice handful. They look fine when I have clothes on. I have two. They are mine. I will love them. Both of them. I might love the left one a little bit more, a favourite, so to speak. But I will LIKE the right one and treat it with respect.
Earlier this year, I performed on stage on my own, dancing burlesque to a crowd of people, some I knew, a lot I didn’t. This was my challenge to myself, not to stand on stage, but to SHOW my breasts. I wanted to LIKE them but I thought I was still able to have more cosmetic surgery at that point.
However, it was very therapeutic to do this
.
Yes, I stripped to my tassels and I twirled.
Now, who needs a matching pair when you can do THAT?!!
One day, in 1999, my then 14 year old son came home from school and told me his friend’s dog had had puppies and I simply HAD to see them…..they were too cute.
My daughter, 16 at the time, had been pestering us to get a dog for as long as I could remember. We had tried to placate her with numerous hamsters, rats and even cats but she still wanted a dog with all her heart.
At that time, I was off work recovering from breast cancer and I was expected to be off for several months. My husband and I discussed it and decided that, between us all, we could be there for a puppy more or less every minute of the day, even when I returned to work. He worked odd hours, often not starting until afternoon and then working evenings, I worked part time, so I was home early and both children came home from school in the afternoon so we figured we could work it out.
We decided not to tell my daughter so, when the puppies were ready to go, my son and I went to pick up Oscar, a strange looking little terrier, a mix of pure white Staffie and a cross Jack Russell/Yorkshire terrier. A little hairy staffie with big ears….
We put Oscar in a box and I asked my daughter to hold the box when I got in, saying I had something in my shoe. She seemed confused but took the box. At that point, Oscar popped out. Her face was a picture. A mixture of puzzlement, surprise and pure disbelief. She didn’t believe me when I said he was ours……there were tears of joy when she realised he was!
Oscar initially became my dog, since I was the one at home all the time and I house-trained him and generally taught him the rules. He was to become everyone’s dog of course but I was his mummy at that time and he was a very good little boy. All the while I was recovering from breast surgery and the subsequent radiotherapy, my little puppy was there, wagging his tail and being adorable.
Oscar grew, my children grew, we all got on with our lives……he was a funny little dog, full of character and everyone loved him. He had a feisty streak too and a particular ‘attitude’ towards big dogs! My husband called him an ‘Essex Terrier’ as Oscar thought he was as tough as all the big dogs.
Oscar was there whenever one of us was upset, wagging his tail or simply lying down with us. He comforted me when I lost my beloved dad and saw us all through many family ups and downs.
In 2004 my husband passed away after a short battle with cancer. Yet again, Oscar was our little tower of strength, comforting us all and staying with his dad through his illness. He knew there was something very wrong but he carried on being Oscar and making us smile, even when there didn’t seem as if there was anything to smile about.
Since then, I’m happy to say, life has been a little less stressful and Oscar found a new dad when KD came to live with me five years ago. As Oscar grew older, KD looked after him, taking him for walks, talking to him and generally being a wonderful dad to my beloved dog. He became KD’s dog too and the two of them were inseperable.
Oscar started to become ill earlier this year and we had to go back and forth to the vet’s with him. Everyone in the vet knew him well and always loved it when he had an overnight stay. They all said what a darling little dog he was, such a character. We knew he was not getting any younger.
Oscar started to have problems breathing. We knew things had got much worse but we had a holiday booked and didn’t know what we would do. He needed a lot of care by now. My son changed his work rota around and stayed with him so we could still go. He barely left the house and made sure Oscar had his tablets, as well as feeding him fillet steak and sausages because, by now, Oscar wasn’t eating properly. He was not a well dog but he enjoyed the week with my son. His little tail wagged and he tried to follow him around the house, although his breathing didn’t always let him.
The day after we returned from Italy we made the very difficult decision to put Oscar out of his pain. We knew he would only get worse and he was struggling more and more each day. It was the most difficult decision I have ever made. He was still wagging his tail and making an effort to follow us around but, in his eyes, he was saying, ‘please help me mummy’.
On Friday 14th June, we took Oscar to the vet and we said goodbye to him. We stayed with him while they put him to sleep and I cuddled him as he left this world.
We brought him home the next morning and buried him in our garden, with some beautiful rose bushes to mark the spot. It is Oscar’s memorial garden.
The pain of losing your dog is indescribable. If you are not a dog lover/owner you probably wouldn’t understand but anyone who is will know exactly how we feel. There is a huge empty space in our lives now. No more ‘tap tap’ of his claws on the stone floor, no snoring in the night, no waggy tail, no little friend.
But the pain of losing Oscar was worth going through for the 14 years of absolute joy we had with him.
RIP Oscar la Boska
It was my birthday on Wednesday. Not a particularly special birthday, although I believe all birthdays are special. I took the day off work as I was told we were going for dinner somewhere in London. Since we were going into town, I decided to make a day of it and booked two tickets to the first day of the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition at the Tate.
The exhibition was breath-taking. So many beautiful paintings, all in one place. Some I knew well and some I had never seen before. Some artists totally unknown to me too. We spent a couple of hours there, entranced and transported by the ethereal quality of the colours and the beauty of the compositions.
I did know by now where dinner was to be – we were dining at The Ritz!
Wow!
And WOW it was! Stepping through the doors was like stepping back in time. There is an elegance, a serenity, an atmosphere that cannot be described in words. The lighting, the mirrors, the high ceilings – it felt as if we had walked straight back into the 1920s.
Dinner was fabulous. Seated in the most beautiful room, with a quartet playing gently in the corner, we were served by waiters in lovely waistcoats who made us feel as if we were the only guests. The meal was delicious, I had salmon, and it was mouth-wateringly beautiful, both to eat and to look at. A sommelier served us the wine of his choice to compliment the food and that was the icing on the cake for me. Everything just felt so ‘right’.
I imagined my great-aunt and uncle visiting the Ritz in the thirties, socialites that they were, and I saw a room full of ladies in beautiful long dresses and men in tuxedos with live music playing gently in the background. On Wednesday, there was no such splendour but, in it’s hey day, the Ritz must have been dazzling.
We finished with a glass of Calvados and walked back through the building to the reception area and then back out onto the busy street again, back to reality and 2012.
The whole day was like a time travel experience to me. I won’t forget this birthday.
Like I said, all birthdays are special but this one was just that little bit more special to me. Thank you, KD x
Tonight at our burlesque class we had someone videoing us to promote the classes. Everyone made a big effort to dress up and I thought we all looked fabulous! It was also a lot of fun, as usual, with long black gloves being flung around and general silliness, amongst the serious business of learning the dance. Pretty much how it is every week!
It is getting pretty exciting at class too – in just under six weeks we will be performing in our first ever ‘student showcase’ night. I love the classes so much I now attend two a week – so I’m learning two routines! Some of the ladies have also been on a residential weekend and they have another dance to perform and we have the strip club performing as well! Now, when I say ‘strip club’ please don’t jump to conclusions. I don’t go to these classes but they are all about feeling good about yourself, not getting your kit off (although that is obviously involved!). I asked some of the ladies to explain to me just what it is that goes on in these classes:
First of all, it’s about the tease. Apparently the clothes stay on for most of the time – the emphasis is on ‘hinting’ that they might come off. However, much more than this, it is about becoming confident in your own skin. One woman told me it is about facing your demons. The women explore the thoughts and feelings that hold them back and it is a journey of self discovery as much as anything.
Like I said, I don’t attend these classes but I can see how amazing they must be for the women who do.
So, anyway, we have our cabaret coming up…..imagine dancing on stage in your frillies?? No, neither could I before I joined the classes!!! I am not, and never have been a dancer. But, I’ll be up there, strutting my stuff, with a whole bunch of other women who probably feel exactly the same. And, we will be amazing because we have found our inner divas!
It just goes to prove how bloody wonderful Burlesque is……
(that’s not ME in the gloves, I hasten to add!!!!)
Last night I went to the flat of one of the ladies who goes to the same class as me. As there was no class this week a few of us decided to get together for a practise. Along with myself, there was my daughter and one other lady. Age range, 29-50+.
Our practise session went well, it helps to go over some of the more difficult moves with others and we all felt quite pleased with ourselves.
In between practising, we chatted.
We all agreed that we have to be ‘selective’ with whom we share our burlesque. All of us know people who are a little bit ‘surprised’ that we do this dancing. Why is this?
Burlesque is associated with something rather seedy, it seems. Nice girls don’t do burlesque! However, our classes are full of lovely ladies! They are certainly not seedy or hookers!
Burlesque in its true form is art. Yes, the dances can be seductive and a bit naughty but there is nothing distasteful about Burlesque. It is glamorous and it is sexy. It isn’t degrading or shameful.
Our classes are fun, they are uplifting and they help women to feel good about themselves, in all sorts of ways. Many of the women who join the class have had terrible experiences and have low self-esteem or lack self-confidence. Burlesque empowers these women by helping them to make positive life changes through their new-found confidence. I, for one, have seen women blossom as the classes have progressed.
How is this seedy? Or something to hide?
Those people who find it distasteful either don’t know what burlesque is or they have very narrow views.
I, for one, am proud to be part of it and I know my class mates are too. We aren’t call girls, or strippers and we aren’t degrading women.
We are a group of women who love to dance.
In frillies.
Got a problem with that?
I’m just stopping by to let the lovely blogging peeps here know that I have not dropped off the face of the earth – things have been busy, lots has been happening and I have just not had the inspiration to blog amongst all that, not that it’s been awful stuff, just busy!
I have also had the feeling that I have more serious stuff to write about and I am just in the process of developing that idea.
Watch this space!!!
The Flossie Country Files 