My own take on Christmas.

Christmas. It’s a wonderful time of year. Everyone’s in good spirits, there are parties a go go, the kids are excited, the Christmas trees smell fabulous and all the twinkly lights are oh so pretty!  For the purposes of this post I’m going to minimise my ranting about manic shopping and Christmas spice (two of my pet hates!).

But, given that I don’t believe in God or Jesus (or follow a religion of any denomination), does my celebration of Christmas make me a hypocrite?

Yes, I know that the timing of Christmas itself is a rip off of the Pagan holiday celebrating the Winter Solstice, and it’s generally believed that Jesus was born in the Autumn. But the church adopted December as the celebration of his birth sometime in the 4^th century. It seems there are various reasons for this, Wikipedia states that “The date of Christmas may have initially been chosen to correspond with the day exactly nine months after early Christians believed Jesus to have been conceived as well as the date of the southern solstice (i.e., the Roman winter solstice), with a sun connection being possible because Christians consider Jesus to be the "Sun of righteousness" prophesied in Malachi 4:2” 
But, I digress; I’m done with the ‘history’ bit!

It does seem that Christmas and the festive season is more of a universal holiday now, rather than a religious one, which I’m sure the church are just thrilled about! Oh, I know many will still hold Christmas as a celebration of Jesus’ birth rather than the sometimes sickly sweet celebration the rest of us follow, but it does seem that the meaning of Christmas in its fundamental sense, has been lost somewhat.

It feels slightly odd making the statement above, because I do not believe in a higher power of any kind. Having said that, I’ve been christened (into the Church of England I think….), and I’m a godmother to 3 children. I enjoy a bit of carolling, when the mood takes me, and I have been known to go to midnight mass (although it was about 20 years ago!). My family was never religious when I was growing up. Sure, we studied Religious Education in school and I know a bit about the different faiths of the world, I just don’t have one myself. I like to think I fully respect the beliefs of others, whilst making my own views clear. It’s a two way street no? Mutual respect and all that.

Not too long ago, I encountered someone who appeared to hate the Church and all it stood for. This took me aback slightly, but it was a post this person had written on the role of godmother that angered me. She was adamant that soon enough one of her friends would ask her to be godmother to one of their children (which was laughable in itself, talk about expectations!). Her whole post was about how she’d turn it down but wouldn’t want to offend the person asking. Fair enough, had she not then gone on to rip into the faith of the church. I found myself reading it thinking “You turning down the role of godmother won’t offend a friend if you explain you’d rather not given that you don’t believe, but what will offend them is reading this post that you’ve posted publicly in which you rip to shreds the beliefs of others”

I mentioned above that I have 3 godchildren, and each time I’ve been offered the great honour of this role I’ve readily accepted. The parents of the children involved are well aware of my beliefs, and rather than asking me to fulfil this role in its traditional religious capacity, I’d like to think they’ve chosen me as someone who would have a positive influence on their child and care for them no matter what. I’ll strive to do the former and the latter is a given.

It was only recently that I experienced a church community and although it didn’t make me want to convert to Christianity or one of its variations, it did make me appreciate something.  

I went to church this year with a very good friend of mine on a few occasions before she was married there. And although at first I did feel slightly out of place and a bit awkward, I soon came to realise that it didn’t matter to the congregation, or the Canon, that I wasn’t a regular member. They welcomed me with open arms, as they had my friend a few months before. There was a real sense of community in the church and it was rather heart-warming. And it was with genuine, heart felt emotion that the Canon called my friend, her husband and their daughter ‘part of the family’ on their wedding day, and his words were incredibly moving.

I may not believe in God, or Christ, but I do believe in communities. I’d never looked at the Church in that way before, but I do now. I’ve seen first hand how welcoming and accepting a congregation can be, and it’s lovely. I suppose, coming back to my original point, that’s what Christmas stands for for me, the community of my family.

I live away from my family and although I see them throughout the year, it’s rare I see them all together. But it happens at Christmas, and it's lovely. For those of you that may know me through Twitter or Facebook I do give out about my family, well, mainly my parents. I know I do, but I still love and cherish them dearly. And as slightly stressful as it can be, I enjoy seeing them at Christmas. I’m spending Christmas day this year with my sisters; no parents, just us 3 sisters and their families. I’m massively looking forward to it. My sisters and I go a bit mad when we get together. We often end up giggling about something no one else finds funny, or that we can’t explain to anyone else, but it’s freaking hilarious to us.  

Post Christmas day there’ll be a get together of us all (parents, daughters, grandkids etc), along with (hopefully) my step brother, who is a rather recent but very welcome addition to the family. This get together can be stressful, and I have dreaded it in the past, but this year I’m going to remain positive and remember that it’ll be times like this that I’ll look back on with fond memories when I’m older, and my parents have gone.

Although I may not celebrate Christmas in its fundamental sense of the birth of Christ, I’d like to think I honour it with the family bits I do do.

So, to all of you out there, I wish you a wonderful Christmas, however you may celebrate it, or hold it in your heart.

Much love and many festive greetings.

Sandra.

xxx

Halloween? Erm, no thanks.

So, it’s October. It’s nearly Halloween. Ghouls , ghosts and goblins, wooooooo. A fun time of the year for everyone. Unless you’re a total scaredy cat like I am. I'm really bad. I'm an absolute wuss.  

I’ve got worse in some respects as I’ve gotten older, but in some ways I’m more resilient. I can watch scary films now, I tend to watch them in the daylight and not on my own. But I can cope with them. Although, I did watch Paranormal activity in the cinema in Bermuda kind of huddled behind my coat. This was very necessary to muffle the screams that I emitted, much to the amusement of my best friend (who features in another of these stories!)

Both of my sisters are fans of horror authors; Dean Kootz, Stephen King, James Herbert etc. I remember these books being around when I was a child. A few times as a teen I picked up one or two of them up with the full intention of reading them, but got so far, got too scared and had to give it up as a bad job. The main ones I remember are Stephen Kings IT and The Amityville horror. Just the images they conjured were enough to give me nightmares, and I only read about 3 chapters of each! It took me a good while to watch the TV/film versions of these too, because of the childhood associations I had with them.

There’s also been talk by my darling sisters of a weekend in a haunted castle or house. If hell freezes over and I ever agree to this, I  know full well my sisters would make it worse for me. They take great delight in monopolising on my ability to potentially soil myself at the slightest hint of anything scary. Sophie made me freak out a good few times in York Dungeons a couple of years ago… but, I love them all the more for this. I’d do it back to them given the chance!

There is one main story that really chronicles my reactions to certain situations and it takes place in Madame Tussaud’s in Amsterdam in 2007, featuring my best friend Jo and her sister Kim. (I don’t normally name specific people in my blogs but this is warranted!)

We’d been wandering round Amsterdam for a few hours so Kim, Jo and I decided we’d do Madame Tussaud’s.  

95% of the museum was fine. I’d never been to a wax museum before and thought it’d be freakier than it was but it was grand. About half way round, there was a Pirates of the Caribbean exhibit. It was in a sectioned off bit so you had to go through a curtain/door to get in. I was well up for this, as I thought it looked fun and would have some good bits in it.

Now, Jo and Kim swear BLIND that as we went in the woman told us that there were real people, dressed up and moving around inside, but I don’t remember this. I also didn’t clock that the French family behind us with a girl of about 6 weren’t allowed in as it was too scary.

We walked through the door and into almost pitch blackness with various sound effects going on. I don’t like the dark and I hate surprises in the dark. Weird sound effects, almost complete darkness and various figures that I could make out resulted in me going into absolute meltdown.

I grabbed Kim and Jo and formed a shield around me with them, I shoved Jo in front of me and dragged Kim along behind me. And I literally dragged them through the exhibit. Any time they tried to slow down to look at something I dragged them off shouting “DON’T STOP, KEEP MOVING!!!!”

Right at the end of the exhibit there was a cell and as we approached it the dude who was stood at the back dressed as a pirate, ran forward as if to grab us through the bars. That finished me off. I let out a blood curdling scream and catapulted all three of us through the curtain at the end of the exhibit.

The French family who weren’t allowed in were stood outside looking rather bewildered. Jo and Kim literally collapsed with laughter, whilst I couldn’t breathe for sheer terror.

I’ve never lived this down. To the point that on Kim’s hens do in June this year the subject of Madame Tussaud’s came up and someone exclaimed said “YOU’RE the girl from Madame Tussaud’s” Cue me shooting a look at Jo who was grinning like a mad thing.

My memory of this actual event is a bit hazy, I think I’ve blocked it out. I do remember freaking out with your man at the end and going very quickly through the exhibit. The main chunk of the story comes from Jo & Kim. Jo takes great delight in recounting this story to anyone who will listen, and never fails to collapse in fits of laughter during her recollections. She’s also said that she’d have loved to see the CCTV from that day…and I have to agree, I’d say it provided someone with much amusement!

My sisters are going to ‘Farmageddon’ this weekend (http://www.farmaggedon.co.uk/farm_wp/). They invited me ages ago when they booked it, knowing full well that the response would be “A world of no”.  I can’t even watch the trailer, I get about 5 seconds in and shit my pants. The prospect of being in a wide open space, at night, with people dressed up and various unknown factors fills me with sheer terror.  But I’ll be interested to hear how they get on, and will love hearing the stories that come back from it. My 12 year old nephew is massively excited about it….I’m 30 for crying out loud, he’s putting me to shame!

So you can keep your scary situations, your zombie walks, vampiric re-enactments and horror farms. But, in the event of my presence at any of these, I’ll be the one screaming like a banshee and running the hell away.

Much love!

S

x

A minefield of Irish Traditions and sayings

I’m a Yorkshire girl and proud of it, but I’ve lived in Dublin for almost 6 years. I love it here, it’s my home now and I don’t envisage moving anytime soon. And although I’m fairly well acclimatised to various ‘Irishisms” I do still encounter things that just baffle me.

This morning was a prime example. A friend sent a link through from ‘eDiplomat’, a website showing cultural etiquette for various countries. She shared the list for Dublin, much to amusement of us all. One point baffled me though; “The small plate next to a dinner plate is for peelings removed from boiled potatoes.”

It made me smile at the time but then it sparked a whole conversation between myself and 3 friends. One from the country and 2 with country relatives.

The country friend stated that “’spuds’ are not the lovely prewashed clean version that we normally eat here in Dublin but rather a very muddy, fresh out of the ground kind of thing which are boiled to within an inch of their  lives and must be peeled before eating unless you require a significant quantity of roughage in your diet”

My response to this was “Well why not just wash them before cooking them?”. A logical enough question no?!

After much going round the houses and me just not getting the point, I learned that the potatoes in question didn’t really have edible skins and needed to be peeled before eating. But cooking them in the skins significantly added to the flavour, and there was no real point in washing them as you weren’t going to eat the skins anyway.

Having never a)encountered a potato with a skin that wasn’t really edible and b)been at a dinner where there were “actual lumps of mud (or very possibly sh*te)on the spuds” this entire concept was alien to me! But, I know now, and should I ever have cause to eat dinner in the Irish country and I’m presented with a side plate, I’ll know what it’s for!

This led me to think of all the little things that really baffled me when I first moved over here, but are now a part of my life, and still cause confusion with my UK dwelling friends and family.

“How are you/how you doing/how’s things?”:

Used as a greeting. Meant as a rhetorical question. It’s perfectly acceptable to answer this with “How you doing” back, without responding to the question asked. Or alternatively say “Grand, how you getting on”. But don’t expect much more of a response other than “Grand”.  I still struggle with this sometimes and go into detail as to how I am and the person’s just carried on walking”

Your man/Your one:

This really took me aback the first time I heard it. “Your man said that we had to go this way”. Who said what now? He’s not ‘my’ man, he’s just a dude we asked for directions. ‘Your one’ is the female equivalent. Fundamentally, it means “That man” or “That woman” in any of the following scenarios a)you don’t know them at all and are speaking in a derogatory term about someone you’ve encountered e.g “Your one on the checkout in Dunnes this morning had a right face on her” or b)it’s someone you know, but don’t like, or who has cause to capture your attention “Your one proper gave out to me in the meeting this morning” (see next paragraph for ‘give out’)

I use these terms frequently now, but I have to be careful when saying it to my UK family and friends as I’m generally met with blank looks.

Auld one/Auld man:

Your parents basically. “My auld one makes a cracking roast dinner”

Give out:

I use this a lot and it’s one of my stock phrases. It refers to having a go at someone, e.g “Alright alright, I didn’t mean any offence, no need to give out to me”

Lads:

It doesn’t matter whether the group of people you’re addressing contains any females, it’s fine to address the group as “Lads”.  Not too dissimilar to saying “Guys” to address a group of people I suppose. But it sounds more masculine so confused me the first few times it was used.

Giving it socks:

Right then, you could hazard any number of guesses as to what this means. But in essence, it’s “Giving it some welly” “Really going for it”.

e.g.“She was giving it socks on the dancefloor”

Glass of Heineken:

A glass just refers to a half. So you wouldn’t order a half of Guinness really, you’d order a glass.

Press:

I still fall foul of this occasionally. Press is a cupboard/closet. A ‘Hot Press’ is an airing cupboard. “The teatowels are in the hot press”

Delph:

I can’t quite get my head round this one. Delph is crockery basically. This came out in a conversation with some old work colleagues about 2 years ago and one mentioned the “Delph press”. Having never encountered either of these words before, I just looked at her blankly.

Will I put you in the pot?:

Although this has never been said to me, I came across it a few months back and didn’t have a clue what was going on. This would be used to mean “Will I make enough dinner for you?” and is in no way as cannibalistic as it sounds.

Take her handy:

A variation of ‘take it easy’. Again, the first time this was used, in a text to me actually, I replied asking what the hell he’d just said, much to his amusement.

Culchie:

A rather derogatory term for someone who’s from the country. Which, for people living in Dublin, is pretty much anyone outside Dublin!

Rashers:

Is as simple as it sounds. Refers to bacon. But rather than a bacon sandwich it’d be a “rasher sandwich”

Sambo:

I thought this was quite self explanatory but when I used it in a sentence with a UK friend he didn’t have a clue what I meant! A sambo is a sandwich.

Scallion:

A spring onion! (or a salad onion as the more politically correct version is)

I’m sure there are many more of these, and I’ll come across many more as my time here progresses, but these are the main ones that sprung to mind. I’m also fairly sure I confuse some people with the stuff I come out with, some real Yorkshire sayings, that mean nothing to your everyday Irish person!

Hope you’ve enjoyed your Irish cultural lesson, and for Irish out there reading this, hopefully this may highlight some of the stuff you do that is alien to other nationalities!

Take her handy!

S.

xx

My not so nice school experiences

My morning bus is full of school children. This used to annoy me no end, and still does on particular days, mainly when I’m grumpy, but in the main they’re not a bad bunch…they thank the driver and they don’t cause hassle. We all went through that stage in life so I try and leave them be!

What I have found interesting is seeing how much they change over the months, it’s more apparent when they have the summer hols of course. The lads who were short and shy in June can be close to 6 ft and getting a bit more confidence in the September.
There’s been on particular girl who’s caught my eye. Mainly because she’s on her own, but mainly because she stands out as an easy target. Not for me, but for those mean spirited kids who feel the need to pick on anyone who’s a bit different.

I’d say she’s about 12. She’s a bit plumper than the other girls, but she’s not exactly huge either. She seems a bit shy, she’s always on her own, and, well, the main thing I spotted was that she had a head band on with her name emblazoned across it. I was bullied from about age 7 to 16 (with the exception of a blissful year between ages 11 and 12), and I know that kids will pick the smallest thing possible if they decide they don’t like you…..and I know that headband would be wonderful ammunition. Earlier this week she was on the bus with her grandma (I think it was her grandma anyway!), which when surrounded by your peers is one of the most uncool things that can be done!

Looking at this kid got me thinking about my own experiences in school and the various people that picked on me, the reasons behind it, and the way it affected me. I didn’t come from the best background and although I had loving parents, my mother was an alcoholic, and still is to this day. As much as she loved my sisters and I, there wasn’t always the best care given to us. I was the luckiest of the three of us, being the youngest I had my sisters to look out for me which I realise was a huge thing. Looking back at pictures of me up to the age of about 8, I wasn’t the best dressed kid (but then again these were the 80’s…who was well dressed?!), but I don’t think I was the worst one in the school. We lived in an ok area…although our house was full of crap and wasn’t the best kept house in the world. It may have been a combination of these things that caused the other kids in school to start saying I ‘had the lurgy’ and running away from me whenever possible, but I’ll probably never know the full reason. I remember laughing it off at the time, and continued to do so for the remainder of my time at that school, but it did hurt. I was only young, and being the brunt of a lot of peoples jokes isn’t the nicest thing in the world. I had mates at the school, some better than others. I distinctly remember 2 girls called Gemma who lived near my nan & granddad. I used to play with them a bit out of school when I was at my nans, but they were horrible to me in school. I got into a fight with one of them at school, although I can’t remember what about. I think I may have just had enough of her being horrible to me so I lashed out.

When I was 8, my stepmum became part of my life and my appearance changed somewhat. Let’s just say she always made sure I had new clothes and was presentable. Sometimes overly so but that’s for later on!

I left my first primary school at 10 as we moved away to Rochdale. I don’t remember being nervous about moving schools, I think my dad & stepmum were more nervous than I was. I rocked up to the new school and came home that night having made some lovely friends. As it was the last year of my primary education, I only spent a year at this school before moving to secondary school. I remember this year with very fond memories. I don’t remember being picked on, I laughed a lot, I made some lovely friends and I liked my teacher a lot. It was all good from what I recall….apart from having a very nasty accident with a glue gun, but that’s another story!

Most of the kids in my class in that last primary school were going to Whitworth High, and because of where we lived, there was a chance I wouldn’t be able to go to that school. So I remember being very pleased when I was told I’d got in. It meant that I’d know some people in my year, which when making the transition to big school is a huge thing!
I can’t really remember when the ‘lesbian’ rumour started. Well, I remember the exact incident that caused it to start, but I don’t remember whether it was in the first or second year. I’d been sat in English with my friend Hayley waiting for the teacher to arrive, and she had sheer and shiny tights on. She was very impressed with these tights and was telling me about them, she said they were dead soft too, so I reached down and touched her on the calf. A few days later someone made a comment about me and Hayley being lesbians….and it spiralled from there. I’d love to know who started it initially, as it was obviously someone in that class, but the main perpetrator of it was a girl called Louise Bradley. I remember her vividly and I still feel a surge of anger when I think about her. People used to shout ‘LESBO’ at me in the playground, snigger behind their hands, and at the bus stop I could never stand with the rest of the people waiting because they just used to hound me and generally make my life hell. I wasn’t the only one in this either, poor Hayley got it too. I can’t remember exactly how long it went on for before I told my parents. But in the end I did, and they visited the school to see Mr Kite (who was lovely about the whole thing). I’m fairly sure Hayley’s parents came in too. Louise was spoken to and it eventually subsided, although she made sure to make me know she wasn’t happy about it and got her minions to give occasional veiled threats.

I left that school not long after this incident because we moved again, and it’s a shame to say that I have very few good memories of that school because of the bullying. It did make me realise that telling someone about it was ok and would solve the problem. There were times during that time when I was genuinely scared to go to school because of the taunting and threats from Louise and her pals. It never got physical but the name calling was enough to scare me witless. I’d be interested to know what other peoples memories of that rumour were, as it was probably a very minor thing in the whole grand scheme of things to everyone else, but to me (and I’m sure Hayley) it was huge.

The final school I went to wasn’t too bad, I think I was picked on there because I was the new girl, I was a bit geeky and wasn’t the most confident. The teasing at Brooksbank though was nothing compared to Whitworth, and I pretty much took it in my stride. The girls used to tease me because I was still in woolly tights when all the other girls had proper 40 denier tights. My stepmum wouldn’t buy me these though so I took matters into my own hands and used to change into them at my mates house on the way to school. I wasn’t the coolest kid and didn’t have the latest labels which never went unnoticed but it didn’t bother me too much. I was slightly hardened to it at this point!

The big turning point for me was when I was 16 and came when I moved into 6th form and did drama. In my drama class were 2 of the most popular lads in my year, along with another who although was a mate, was very talented dramatically. In our first class we had to do an improvisation and I was terrified to have to do this improvisation in front of these people who were SO much cooler than me! But I did it, and afterwards I had a bit of an epiphany…These kids were no better than me, we were all in the same class, we were equals. Sod this whole making me feel small malarkey, I was just as good as these guys! And that was it from then on, My confidence soared, and I learnt to stand up for myself, although I didn’t need to, because most of the horrible kids from the previous years hadn’t gone onto 6th form. But just the knowledge that I was prepared to was enough for me.

I look at this young girl on the bus, and I hope to the stars that she has this realisation sooner than I did. I’d love to say to her “Whatever’s going on now, don’t sweat it, life gets SO much better!”
But, having said that, I’m glad I had the experiences I did. They shaped me as a person and made me realise the important things in life. Facebook allowed me a lovely little insight into the present day lives of some of those people who weren’t the nicest to me at school (including the 2 Gemmas) and I took great delight in accepting their requests, reading about what they were up to now, feeling slightly smug in some cases that they hadn’t amounted to much, and then deleting them from my page.
Facebook has also meant I’m now back in contact with Hayley as we lost touc when I moved. She’s now blissfully happy with a wonderful husband and 3 beautiful girls. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside to know that we both turned out ok.

It breaks my heart when I hear about kids who’ve taken their own lives because of issues at school. It’s easy for me to look back and realise that it wasn’t the end of the world, but when you’re in the thick of it, it can become all consuming. I was luckily enough to get the courage to tell someone and for things to be sorted out, but this doesn’t always happen. I’d love for bullying to be a thing of the past, but I’m not sure it ever will be. Kids are kids, and they can be vicious, even if they don’t realise they’re being so hurtful to someone else. The best thing we can do as adults and parents is teach kids the importance of feelings and realising when something they say or do can be hurtful. But that’s not a black and white area in itself, something Alice finds funny, Sarah may find hurtful.

Unfortunately there’s no simple solution to this problem, but the more schools can bring the taboo of bullying to the fore, the better for us all in the longer term.

Apologies for rambling on for some time, I got a bit carried away!
Much love.
S
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