New Blinds

You may remember the saga of my faulty kitchen blinds? Or perhaps you can't remember that far into the past since my exhausting fight for justice started 18 months ago and has involved the Citizens Advice Bureau, solicitor's letters and the Small Claims Court...
Today I'm happy to unveil my replacement kitchen blinds.
And please God, don't let them fade horribly for I simply can't face another row...

Eyes

Last week I had temporary blindness. This week blood vessels have been bursting in my eye. Today I went to the eye doctor. To examine the retina drops are inserted, to make the pupil dilate. The eye doctor found a hole in my retina (!) but assures me the bleeding is most likely caused by dehydrated corneas. My nose is always stuck in a book and we blink less when we read (blinking keeps your eye moist).
He says I must read less and blink more. And if anything else bursts in my eye, he will have my head examined.
Here endth the biology lesson.

Adrian Mole - The Prostrate Years

ADRIAN MOLE: THE PROSTRATE YEARS
Sue Townsend
There can’t be many people who have not heard of Adrian Mole even if they’ve never read his diaries. Bespectacled, intellectual, pompous and out of touch with reality; he’s a venerable British Institution, as famous as Pepys and Pooter.
It’s now twenty five years since Adrian Mole’s first volume of diaries was published. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾ brilliantly recorded the minutiae of his life: the trials of pimples and promiscuous parents; falling in love with Pandora. Also major political and social events: Prince Charles’s engagement to Lady Di; Mrs Thatcher and the Falklands. (At the outbreak of the Falkland’s Conflict, Adrian gets out a map and tries to find the islands but they’re concealed under biscuit crumbs…)
Over the years he has successfully published more volumes of diaries and meticulously shared with us failed marriages, single parenthood, the raising of two sons on a sink estate, an addiction to Opal Fruits, his career as a celebrity offal chef, and always his love for Pandora.
In this latest volume – the Prostrate Years – Adrian is thirty-nine and a quarter. Always unworldly about money, he has been declared bankrupt and is forced to return to rural Leicestershire to share a converted piggery with his parents - a couple of such Hogarthian sensibilities it’s difficult not to like them.
Adrian’s current marriage is falling apart when he presents with symptoms of prostate cancer. After the first DRE (digital rectal examination) his doctor remarks on how tense he is:
“If you don’t relax Mr Mole you could trap my finger up your bum forever.”
With dignity Adrian informs him: “Yes I have been described as being an anal retentive before.”
As Adrian begins radiotherapy his discontented wife gets a job; soon she’s having an extramarital affair. So Adrian’s colourful mother steps up to support him through his treatment.
He writes: She told me she had decided to empty the old fashioned sweet jar of the mixed coins she has been collecting for the past three years and take them to the bank. She said: ‘As long as I’ve got enough to bury you...”
His father says: “Do they do prostrate transplants? Cos if they do, you can have mine, kid.”
In spite of the amusing asides, Adrian’s experiences of cancer are not treated lightly. He writes, heartbreakingly, after visit to his specialist:
I told her about my latest symptoms and she nodded and said, ‘Yes, that’s normal,’ and began to go through the various ‘roads we can go down’. I thought, ‘No, it’s not a road we can go down, Dr Rubik, it’s a lonely road that I will be going down alone. You are merely waving to me from the safety of the pavement.’
Sue Townsend, the creator of Adrian Mole, was born in Leicester in 1946. Her father was a postman and she’s the eldest of five sisters. She failed her 11 plus and left school at 15. By the time she was 22 she had three children under the age five. Her early Adrian Mole dairies are reputedly based on her children’s experiences at comprehensive school. This latest volume reflects her struggles with chronic and acute ill health - she suffers from diabetes, is registered blind, and has recently had a kidney transplant. Her son, Sean, donated his kidney for the transplant and the book is dedicated to him and to the Renal team at Leicester General Hospital.
*
VERDICT: Don’t dismiss Adrian Mole as a comic story played for laughs. This is one of the most unpretentious and heart warming novels I’ve ever read about serious illness.

The Rules of Parenting

THE RULES OF PARENTING
Richard Templar
When I first received this book I thought: Oh no! I can’t bear self help books, particularly self help books in a series and The Rules of Parenting is just one of Richard Templar’s exhaustive list of publications; he has made a career out of ‘helping us to help ourselves’; there are books of rules by Richard about life, love, wealth, work, management; etc ad nauseam.
I threw The Rules of Parenting under the bed, and it stayed there, covered in dust, until after this morning’s school run.
School starts at 7.40am. We live 20 minutes from school. Always we leave the house at least half an hour before bell time because this is the Middle East and the roads are unpredictable. It’s not just the colourful driving; last week there was dense fog on the highway. Today the problem was more commonplace, the traffic was brutal; we sat bumper to bumper, and as the minutes ticked away my children became increasingly restive. “How late are you now, Mummy?” “Has the first bell gone yet, Mummy?” “Do you think they’ll have lined up, Mummy?”
By the time we reached school they were five minutes late. They dashed into their classrooms while I parked the car then followed Bea for she’d forgotten her lunchbox. When I got to her classroom her teacher was scolding her for being late.
Well, I don’t mind saying I was furious with Bea's teacher for scolding my darling Bea. I snapped at her: “Bea is late because I don’t have a helicopter.”
“Don’t you think you were rather aggressive?” said Nick.
I was defiant. I said: “Do you think it’s OK for your daughter to be scolded for something she wasn’t in control of? She wasn’t driving the car. I was.”
“You’re far too over protective,” said Nick
Blast off! A parenting row was starting to simmer; we have these rows on a regular basis. I yell and Nick sulks and always we end up having to agree to disagree. So before it happened again I retrieved The Rules of Parenting from under the bed, to find out how Richard would have handled the situation.
The Rules of Parenting has 100 rules, they’re divided into ten sections; there are sections devoted to attitude, personality, discipline; school. For school Richard advises: it comes as a package and if you attend the school you must accept the package. Fair enough. Then Richard says: Always fight your child’s corner. Your child needs to know you’re there for them if things get beyond their control. That’s what parents are for.
Thanks Richard! I immediately wrote to the school, kindly requesting Bea's teacher refrain from scolding her for lateness. I emphasised I am always available to discuss any problem any member of staff might have with my children’s time-keeping.
Then I read the rest of the rules.
And they’re really very useful. (There’s even one for me which states: Yelling isn’t the answer.) But more than useful they’re right. It might have taken Richard 100 headings to say it but the message is simple and true. That both parents and children are human beings and all human beings need love and respect. So, children: love your parents. Parents: respect your children.
And the rest will sort itself out
*
VERDICT: For a sense of perspective allow me to quote Richard’s Rule 1: Really good parents expect their children to be noisy, messy, bouncy, squabbly, whinging and covered in mud.

So Proud

Those of you who are parents - do remember your first foetal photograph after the 12 week scan? A blurred jumble of black and white, yet you couldn't stop looking at it and proudly showing it to everybody? This video is the 'My daughter's first show' version of that first foetal photo...

Maud's First Show

Tomorrow Maud and Lady Tess are jumping in Green Horse - Green Rider at the Show Grounds here in Bahrain. This is the class for an inexperienced rider on a schoolmaster, or a pro on an inexperienced horse. Maud is 10 and Tess is 10 so I'm sure you can guess who has the experience!
Wish her luck.

Amigo

I am suffering from grief and shock. Amigo, who I ride at the stables, has died. He had a heart attack. I burst into tears when they told me for Amigo was my friend and I rode him three or four times a week. He was old and stiff in the mornings; grumpy till he did his first poo. We warmed up together, trotting without stirrups until he could bounce into a canter with the littlest bit of an aid. Then it was just like riding an armchair - he never pulled or bolted or bucked, he even occasionally jumped over poles without a swerve and a protest. In our last lesson together we almost mastered a half pass - I was hoping to get it right today....
After our rides, when I was washing him, he didn't like the hose on his face so I sponged round his eyes and his ears. He loved to have his forehead rubbed and he always walked nicely beside me, his head at my shoulder and I'd chat and he'd listen...
Nick said, "Can't you find another horse to ride? Isn't the country full of horses?"