My years in the field of learning disabilities were emotional, daunting, rewarding, frustrating ... and most significantly ... entertaining! So many mistakes to learn from ... and most of them seemed to be mine!
Bobby, was a very lovely little man. He stood at a full 4ft 10 in his cuban heels, he had no teeth and gurned like a true west country Farmer. Butter wouldnt melt in his mouth. He was, without doubt, a cuddly steriotypical innocently contented man with downs syndrome....
That is ... until food was served. Part of bobbys condition was his inability to identify when he was full up. When i first was told this, i have to admit that I didnt think much of it; after all I am pretty confident I have the same condition when it comes to cadbury's Fruit and Nut Chocolate! I am not sure i have ever located my "stop" button ... there has never been enough chocolate available for me to know if i have a maximun consumption limit.
So, as much as knew that the golden rule was never to offer Bobby seconds or he would think that there was a never ending supply of food and become agitated, i didn't really comprehend quite how significant this golden rule was until the fateful day that i broke the rule...
Anyone old enough to remember the film Gremlins will fully sympathise with the error of my lackadaisical ways .... When you are in the company of a cute cuddly gremlin you cannot comprehend how important it is that they don't eat after midnight!
Well, as a special treat, i decided to take Bobby and 3 other residents from the care home i worked in, to an 'All you can eat Buffet lunch' at a well known Pizza chain. I had a first year student nurse with me .... Apparently i was a skilled professional she could acquire new skills and knowledge from! Well BOY did she get an education!
Hindsight is a fabulous thing ... If only i had piled Bobby's plate high on the first visit to the buffet, he would have relished the experience and wolfed down the plateful and accepted that the meal was over. But no, i gave hime just two slices and then the Gremlin changing phrase left my lips
"Bobby, would you like some more?"
I don't think that particular food chain had any comprehension of quite how financially crippling the term 'all you can eat' can be...
Bobby took on the identity of that famous football legend and between each mouthful he shouted "BOBBY MORE??"
I have to confess that for the first 13 platefuls i was winging it, acting casual in front of the student nurse and praying that Bobby would locate his FULL button.... Nope. All other diners had finished and departed ... The staff clearly wanted to close up...
Knowing it was all going to go horribly wrong, i then disbanded the student nurse with the other 3 residents back to the house to send reinforcements.
By the time by lovely assistant arrived the whole of the interior of the Pizza place looked as though it had been through a food blender! On the suggestion that the meal was over Bobby had made a slow -mo -action -movie dive for the buffet bar. As i attempted in vain to restrict his access to all the Margaritas and meat feast the carnage ensued - Pizzas were hurled like missiles at anyone attempting to restrict him as he repeatedly shouted BOBBY MOORE like some kind of demented sports fan.
Finally exhaustion got the better of him and in the absence of anything identifiable as food remaining, he lethargically took my hand and we both left dripping in tomato paste and pepperoni.
"So sorry" didn't really cover it as the staff resurfaced (they had all made a run for the kitchen at the height of Bobbys outburst) but at the tender age of 21 that was as much of a recompense they got from me ... But i did leave a decent tip!!!
Another life lesson learnt .... If you are given guideline ... Always best to not think you know better. Learning from those that have been there before you is always a good starting point.
Luckily with Elsie i have had lots of lovely ice cream knowledable folk who have helped me learn from their mistakes . Since having Elsie the ice cream van i have developed a network of us eccentric vintage ice cream folk who all help each other out now. So wherever you are in the country - if its too far for Elsie, she has plenty of friends we can recommend.
Thursday 14 February 2013
From entrepreneur to carer - the poorly paid epiphany
My next career move was somewhat lacking in any entrepreneurial qualities as it decidedly lacked any earning capacity. But what it lacked in wages it certainly made up for life's rich experience.
I decided to do voluntary work at a summer play-scheme for children with learning disabilities.
This was one thunder buster of a speedy education into how different life could be AND how beautifully positive some individuals are when they have not been dealt the easiest hand.
Fourteen year old children are innately walking ego's. The whole world is against them, especially their parents. Everyone hates them, leaves them out, forces them to do stuff, treats them unfairly, doesn't understand them.... Life is cruel and everyone else's parents are SOOOO much cooler...
Well I am pretty confident that I was no exception to this teen hell zone and embraced this delightful phase with the sulky sullen face it warranted. That was until I walked into that play-scheme. This should almost be made a compulsory activity for all hard done by, self absorbed teenagers. There is nothing more grounding than facing a room full of children of a similar age to yourself, who really do have a right to feel that life hasn't treated them fairly.
Obviously lots of the kids were blissfully oblivious to their limitations, but equally so there were plenty who could look at me, with my life, and identify that they would never have the same opportunities that I would. Did they complain? Did they moan and sulk about it? Did they blame their parents? Did they heck!!! I know I am making sweeping generalisations but my life changing epiphany came from the view, through my 14 year old eyes, of a room full of happy kids who were ready to make the most of what they had got rather than moan about what they hadn't.
My mind was made up by about 11am on day one ... I would be skipping the entrepreneurial money making future I had mapped out and would be following a career working with people with learning disabilities.
As usual I hit the ground running... Later that same day I over heard the leaders saying that there was a lad with cerebral palsy who could not attend the play scheme because he was epileptic and the bus assistant couldn't administer rectal medication if he had a seizure in transit. By 4 pm on day one I had volunteered to visit the family, be taught how to give the rectal med and take over as the bus assistant because I couldn't bear the thought of this lad missing out over something so simple to fix...
Using my own initiative and enthusiasm may not have been a winner with the gardening career but seeing how thrilled that mum was when I visited; and seeing that lads face light up each day at the play scheme was a bigger buzz than earning a billion in business...
My entrepreneurial days were over and my learning disability nursing days begun.
So looking forward to attending PACE family day in Elsie this summer... Elsie and I love nothing more than being able to attend any events to raise money for charities and services for people with disabilities and their carers and families.
I decided to do voluntary work at a summer play-scheme for children with learning disabilities.
This was one thunder buster of a speedy education into how different life could be AND how beautifully positive some individuals are when they have not been dealt the easiest hand.
Fourteen year old children are innately walking ego's. The whole world is against them, especially their parents. Everyone hates them, leaves them out, forces them to do stuff, treats them unfairly, doesn't understand them.... Life is cruel and everyone else's parents are SOOOO much cooler...
Well I am pretty confident that I was no exception to this teen hell zone and embraced this delightful phase with the sulky sullen face it warranted. That was until I walked into that play-scheme. This should almost be made a compulsory activity for all hard done by, self absorbed teenagers. There is nothing more grounding than facing a room full of children of a similar age to yourself, who really do have a right to feel that life hasn't treated them fairly.
Obviously lots of the kids were blissfully oblivious to their limitations, but equally so there were plenty who could look at me, with my life, and identify that they would never have the same opportunities that I would. Did they complain? Did they moan and sulk about it? Did they blame their parents? Did they heck!!! I know I am making sweeping generalisations but my life changing epiphany came from the view, through my 14 year old eyes, of a room full of happy kids who were ready to make the most of what they had got rather than moan about what they hadn't.
My mind was made up by about 11am on day one ... I would be skipping the entrepreneurial money making future I had mapped out and would be following a career working with people with learning disabilities.
As usual I hit the ground running... Later that same day I over heard the leaders saying that there was a lad with cerebral palsy who could not attend the play scheme because he was epileptic and the bus assistant couldn't administer rectal medication if he had a seizure in transit. By 4 pm on day one I had volunteered to visit the family, be taught how to give the rectal med and take over as the bus assistant because I couldn't bear the thought of this lad missing out over something so simple to fix...
Using my own initiative and enthusiasm may not have been a winner with the gardening career but seeing how thrilled that mum was when I visited; and seeing that lads face light up each day at the play scheme was a bigger buzz than earning a billion in business...
My entrepreneurial days were over and my learning disability nursing days begun.
So looking forward to attending PACE family day in Elsie this summer... Elsie and I love nothing more than being able to attend any events to raise money for charities and services for people with disabilities and their carers and families.
Monday 4 February 2013
Business 2 - one day we'll be miwyunairs!!!
After the demise of the pony rides business and a lifetime ban from the National Trust, my next business, I felt sure,was hazard free... And this time I took a partner on board...
Business 2 - MacKenzie and Green's Gardening services - age 13
The name wasn't as catchy admittedly. I wanted to just use my surname and have a play on words with Green and Gardening (if I had know at the time that I would marry someone with the surname Gardener at a later date, I would have really gone to town on the business name) However, my friend and business partner Elaine, quite justifiably, felt that her surname should also be in the title and lets face it, the surname MacKenzie does not give much scope for puns or alliteration!
We placed a well scrawled advert in the village shop window which cost us the mighty sum of 20p per week... But as all entrepreneurs know - you have to speculate to accumulate, and so we agreed to take the gamble of 2 weeks advertising, costing us 20p each. At the time that amount could have bought us a return bus fair to 'hang out' in Tring ... So it was quite a commitment to our business venture!
When the advert yielded no customers we decided, in true gypsy with spare Tarmac style, to go door to door cold calling to offer our gardening expertise (expertise = Elaine had helped her dad weed his veggie bed the week before and I had once used a mower)
Our tenacity paid off and one desperate / stupid lady agreed for us to weed her flower boarders and trim the edges. Her garden, rather Unimaginatively,had 2 long straight flower boarders, one going up each side of the garden, and the centre was laid to lawn. She agreed to pay us £5 ( between us) if we did the job well and then she made 2 catastrophic mistakes:
1. She gave us a lawn edger spade
2. She went out.
I appreciate that most teenagers have a 'money for as little as possible' mentality and I am certain she anticipated returning to a game of 'spot the difference' and some harsh negotiations over pay reductions.... How wrong she was.
Clearly she hadn't accounted for the fact that she had employed some over enthusiastic, under skilled entrepreneurs. Once we had discovered just how sharp and effective the blade was on the edging spade we got to work on those flower bed boarders. Ground Force eat your heart out... MacKenzie and Green required no architectural drawings and a team talk by Alan Titchmarsh... We had vision in our souls and this garden needed our help. In no time at all we had turned those dull straight boarders into wonderful wavey edged full sized flower beds and as our piste de resistance we had made a substantial 'circular' flower bed right in the centre of the garden .... Well - just slightly off centre as we didn't have a tape measure and when I say circular I mean as near to round as is possible with a straight edged blade and no marking out.
All in all we reduced the lawn by about 30% in total and rearranged all her plants into the new flower beds (although we didn't have a decent spade to get their root balls out so they may not have survived the move)
I can still vividly remember how proud we both were of all our hard work and had an air of certainty that we would have our wages doubled at the very least!
Luckily we weren't present for the 'ground force' unveiling ... But judging by her reaction when we later went to get our pay, I fear our efforts did not trigger the usual tears of joy and total elation that we get to witness on TV. Had Charlie Dimmock leapt out from behind a tree I think she would have had her bra-less chest stabbed with the offending edging spade.
Bless her, she looked somewhat defeated and numb when we knocked for our pay later that evening. clearly she had realised that she only had her self to blame for making that fateful error of employing teenagers with ample enthusiasm and zero experience or knowledge. she could see from our smiling, proud faces that there was no point in even attempting to highlight where we had gone wrong.... It would be the equivalent to kicking a puppy for wagging its tail!
She displayed all the signs of a traumatised victim, numbed by the shock of her pain and loss. she opened her door, handed over the £5, making no eye contacted, saying no words and quietly closed the door behind her.
We may not have been the sharpest chicks ... But we did manage to work out that all the signs would indicate that she had possibly not embraced our garden make-over with the enthusiasm we had hoped for.
It turned out that her shocked silence was short lived and within a week she had managed to share with the whole village a detailed account of her traumatic encounter with the business 'MacKenzie and Green Gardeneing Services'
And so another business met an early end and another lesson was learnt in the development of an entrepreneur - word of mouth is the best form of advertising when you are good. But It is a guaranteed cause of the demise of your business if you are not so good....
Thankfully Elsie is so beautiful she is her very own advertising campaign and all our lovely customers last year have spread the word so well we are already destined for a FAB fun filled summer 2013 .... Lets just hope it's a sunny one for all those weddings we are going to.
Business 2 - MacKenzie and Green's Gardening services - age 13
The name wasn't as catchy admittedly. I wanted to just use my surname and have a play on words with Green and Gardening (if I had know at the time that I would marry someone with the surname Gardener at a later date, I would have really gone to town on the business name) However, my friend and business partner Elaine, quite justifiably, felt that her surname should also be in the title and lets face it, the surname MacKenzie does not give much scope for puns or alliteration!
We placed a well scrawled advert in the village shop window which cost us the mighty sum of 20p per week... But as all entrepreneurs know - you have to speculate to accumulate, and so we agreed to take the gamble of 2 weeks advertising, costing us 20p each. At the time that amount could have bought us a return bus fair to 'hang out' in Tring ... So it was quite a commitment to our business venture!
When the advert yielded no customers we decided, in true gypsy with spare Tarmac style, to go door to door cold calling to offer our gardening expertise (expertise = Elaine had helped her dad weed his veggie bed the week before and I had once used a mower)
Our tenacity paid off and one desperate / stupid lady agreed for us to weed her flower boarders and trim the edges. Her garden, rather Unimaginatively,had 2 long straight flower boarders, one going up each side of the garden, and the centre was laid to lawn. She agreed to pay us £5 ( between us) if we did the job well and then she made 2 catastrophic mistakes:
1. She gave us a lawn edger spade
2. She went out.
I appreciate that most teenagers have a 'money for as little as possible' mentality and I am certain she anticipated returning to a game of 'spot the difference' and some harsh negotiations over pay reductions.... How wrong she was.
Clearly she hadn't accounted for the fact that she had employed some over enthusiastic, under skilled entrepreneurs. Once we had discovered just how sharp and effective the blade was on the edging spade we got to work on those flower bed boarders. Ground Force eat your heart out... MacKenzie and Green required no architectural drawings and a team talk by Alan Titchmarsh... We had vision in our souls and this garden needed our help. In no time at all we had turned those dull straight boarders into wonderful wavey edged full sized flower beds and as our piste de resistance we had made a substantial 'circular' flower bed right in the centre of the garden .... Well - just slightly off centre as we didn't have a tape measure and when I say circular I mean as near to round as is possible with a straight edged blade and no marking out.
All in all we reduced the lawn by about 30% in total and rearranged all her plants into the new flower beds (although we didn't have a decent spade to get their root balls out so they may not have survived the move)
I can still vividly remember how proud we both were of all our hard work and had an air of certainty that we would have our wages doubled at the very least!
Luckily we weren't present for the 'ground force' unveiling ... But judging by her reaction when we later went to get our pay, I fear our efforts did not trigger the usual tears of joy and total elation that we get to witness on TV. Had Charlie Dimmock leapt out from behind a tree I think she would have had her bra-less chest stabbed with the offending edging spade.
Bless her, she looked somewhat defeated and numb when we knocked for our pay later that evening. clearly she had realised that she only had her self to blame for making that fateful error of employing teenagers with ample enthusiasm and zero experience or knowledge. she could see from our smiling, proud faces that there was no point in even attempting to highlight where we had gone wrong.... It would be the equivalent to kicking a puppy for wagging its tail!
She displayed all the signs of a traumatised victim, numbed by the shock of her pain and loss. she opened her door, handed over the £5, making no eye contacted, saying no words and quietly closed the door behind her.
We may not have been the sharpest chicks ... But we did manage to work out that all the signs would indicate that she had possibly not embraced our garden make-over with the enthusiasm we had hoped for.
It turned out that her shocked silence was short lived and within a week she had managed to share with the whole village a detailed account of her traumatic encounter with the business 'MacKenzie and Green Gardeneing Services'
And so another business met an early end and another lesson was learnt in the development of an entrepreneur - word of mouth is the best form of advertising when you are good. But It is a guaranteed cause of the demise of your business if you are not so good....
Thankfully Elsie is so beautiful she is her very own advertising campaign and all our lovely customers last year have spread the word so well we are already destined for a FAB fun filled summer 2013 .... Lets just hope it's a sunny one for all those weddings we are going to.
Monday 28 January 2013
Richard Branson or Del Boy ... Who am I?
To be perfectly frank ... It isn't a long debate whether I am more a Bransaon or Del Boy; my bank account supplies concrete evidence that I am the latter!
Some people are born entrepreneurs, which I always think sounds like a compliment, but the reality is that not all entrepreneurs make a penny, but most of us have a lovely time trying to get there!
I shall share some of my past enthusiasms which haven't made me rich in cash but have provided a wealth of entertainment and fun. Starting from the beginning ... Here goes with my first money spinning experience ...
Business 1 - Penny's for Pickles Pony rides - age 10 . I was lucky enough to have a shaggy Dartmoor pony when I was a child. And also lucky enough to live within riding distance of Ashridge Monument. As anyone local knows ... Ashridge Monument, on a sunny day, is a business opportunity waiting to happen. And so, my first business was born...
With a hastily knocked up, hand painted sign tucked under my arm, I rode Pickles through Ashridge and set up base right next to the monument. Within minutes I had a queue of small people (some were not so small as I was pretty small myself) all desperate to do their circuit of the site on the back of Pickles. Within an hour I was cash rich to the tune of £3, which at 10p a ride I was pretty chuffed with.
Sadly the business met its demise shortly after that when Pickles was spooked by a rat on a lead ( i think it was a chiwawa) The rat took a dislike to Pickles receiving more attention than it from its young owner and decided to nip Pickles tail while its owner, a pretty little 6 year old girl called Crystal, was beaming a toothless smile on his back. Crystals doting father, somewhat oblivious to the rats antics, called Crystals name constantly and took enough photos to wall paper an entire lounge during her short experience on Pickles back.
Pickles finally lost his cool with the rat, the camera and the over enthusiastic father and decided to dispose of the rat and abandon the rest of the party. With one mighty buck of the back legs, Pickles successfully sent the rat into a double back flip that even Beth Tweedle would have been proud of and took off down monument drive with Crystal doing a cracking job of assuming the jockey position.
Being just 10 at the time, I could only look at the positives when we finally caught up with Pickles who stopped at the sight of a particularly juice clump of fern. Looking back now, through the eyes of a parent, I can see that my positivity was somewhat misplaced when doting dad had feared for his daughters life.
Top tip for any entrepreneurs embarking on a business with horses... If your horse bolts with a young child attached, it is not a good thing to site any of the following to the parents:
1. It's a good job he spotted that fern or he could have run for miles.
2. Wow - she's going to be a good rider - I would never have been able to hold on for that long.
3. Your dog needs shooting, upsetting my pony like that.... Is its still alive?
4. Can I have my 10 p now
So Doting dad decided to share the tale with the lovely people from the National Trust and hence my first business closed down as quickly as it started and Pickles and I were banned from the area.
Elsie is a breeze compared to Penny's for Pickles Pony Rides ... I still may be working with children, but at least Elsie doesn't start her own engine and do a runner if a dog decides to use her tyres as a toilet.
Some people are born entrepreneurs, which I always think sounds like a compliment, but the reality is that not all entrepreneurs make a penny, but most of us have a lovely time trying to get there!
I shall share some of my past enthusiasms which haven't made me rich in cash but have provided a wealth of entertainment and fun. Starting from the beginning ... Here goes with my first money spinning experience ...
Business 1 - Penny's for Pickles Pony rides - age 10 . I was lucky enough to have a shaggy Dartmoor pony when I was a child. And also lucky enough to live within riding distance of Ashridge Monument. As anyone local knows ... Ashridge Monument, on a sunny day, is a business opportunity waiting to happen. And so, my first business was born...
With a hastily knocked up, hand painted sign tucked under my arm, I rode Pickles through Ashridge and set up base right next to the monument. Within minutes I had a queue of small people (some were not so small as I was pretty small myself) all desperate to do their circuit of the site on the back of Pickles. Within an hour I was cash rich to the tune of £3, which at 10p a ride I was pretty chuffed with.
Sadly the business met its demise shortly after that when Pickles was spooked by a rat on a lead ( i think it was a chiwawa) The rat took a dislike to Pickles receiving more attention than it from its young owner and decided to nip Pickles tail while its owner, a pretty little 6 year old girl called Crystal, was beaming a toothless smile on his back. Crystals doting father, somewhat oblivious to the rats antics, called Crystals name constantly and took enough photos to wall paper an entire lounge during her short experience on Pickles back.
Pickles finally lost his cool with the rat, the camera and the over enthusiastic father and decided to dispose of the rat and abandon the rest of the party. With one mighty buck of the back legs, Pickles successfully sent the rat into a double back flip that even Beth Tweedle would have been proud of and took off down monument drive with Crystal doing a cracking job of assuming the jockey position.
Being just 10 at the time, I could only look at the positives when we finally caught up with Pickles who stopped at the sight of a particularly juice clump of fern. Looking back now, through the eyes of a parent, I can see that my positivity was somewhat misplaced when doting dad had feared for his daughters life.
Top tip for any entrepreneurs embarking on a business with horses... If your horse bolts with a young child attached, it is not a good thing to site any of the following to the parents:
1. It's a good job he spotted that fern or he could have run for miles.
2. Wow - she's going to be a good rider - I would never have been able to hold on for that long.
3. Your dog needs shooting, upsetting my pony like that.... Is its still alive?
4. Can I have my 10 p now
So Doting dad decided to share the tale with the lovely people from the National Trust and hence my first business closed down as quickly as it started and Pickles and I were banned from the area.
Elsie is a breeze compared to Penny's for Pickles Pony Rides ... I still may be working with children, but at least Elsie doesn't start her own engine and do a runner if a dog decides to use her tyres as a toilet.
Wednesday 23 January 2013
whilst on the 40 something subject ...
Following my last blog - I feel the need to continue on the subject of the blatant disparities between men and women facing the aging process. Why is it that - when men diet, they lose weight! Need i say more! I am sure I don't need to say more, but its not much of a blog if I don't.
I had a decadent festive period.... infact I think glutinous festive period would probably be a better description.... shamefully embarrassing overeating. I made that fateful mistake of acknowledging that I needed to diet and therefore approaching Christmas like an occupant on death row who had been given his execution date.
This of course resulted in my new years diet starting point being 7 llbs further from the fnish line than I had anticipated. I know .... all my own doing.... can blame nobody else except Mr Cadbury and Mr Merlot.
I am not a diet moaner... I embraced the fact that it would do my body no harm to partake in Dry-uuary and added chocolate to the list as well as alcohol. I then cut down bread, cut out pastry, cut right down red meat and deleted all unnecessary biscuits and treats .... I reckon this is a reduction of 1500 calories and a small walrus load of fat a day. Yet here I am on day 23 and I have lost the sum total of 4 poxy pounds .... Excuse my crudeness but surely that is not much more than one trip to the toilet!! All the healthy eating sites pride themselves on advising that cutting out just one biscuit a day will make a difference ... yeah - if you are going to live to the grand age of 250 you might see that lone biscuits difference on the scales, but for us mortals; we like results within our lifetime!
And yet - why is it that a man just has to have 3 less sips of beer a night and all your friends are admiring his new sylph like figure within the week!
But being someone who likes to find the positives ... at least when Mr Merlot is allowed back into my life in FABruary he has proved he isnt the cause of my weight gain... if it doesn't come off when i am not drinking, then surely it wont go on when I am.... YAY!
I fear Mr Cadbury will have to stay away a little longer though or I will be struggling to fit in Elsie this summer. My Ice Cream Pinny may have extendable straps but there really is only so much room to maneuver around Elsie's freezers. A rotund Ice cream lady maybe a good advert for her stocks taste, but doesn't do much for promoting SCOOPS Gelato Ice cream as the healthier delicious version of ice cream that it is!
I had a decadent festive period.... infact I think glutinous festive period would probably be a better description.... shamefully embarrassing overeating. I made that fateful mistake of acknowledging that I needed to diet and therefore approaching Christmas like an occupant on death row who had been given his execution date.
This of course resulted in my new years diet starting point being 7 llbs further from the fnish line than I had anticipated. I know .... all my own doing.... can blame nobody else except Mr Cadbury and Mr Merlot.
I am not a diet moaner... I embraced the fact that it would do my body no harm to partake in Dry-uuary and added chocolate to the list as well as alcohol. I then cut down bread, cut out pastry, cut right down red meat and deleted all unnecessary biscuits and treats .... I reckon this is a reduction of 1500 calories and a small walrus load of fat a day. Yet here I am on day 23 and I have lost the sum total of 4 poxy pounds .... Excuse my crudeness but surely that is not much more than one trip to the toilet!! All the healthy eating sites pride themselves on advising that cutting out just one biscuit a day will make a difference ... yeah - if you are going to live to the grand age of 250 you might see that lone biscuits difference on the scales, but for us mortals; we like results within our lifetime!
And yet - why is it that a man just has to have 3 less sips of beer a night and all your friends are admiring his new sylph like figure within the week!
But being someone who likes to find the positives ... at least when Mr Merlot is allowed back into my life in FABruary he has proved he isnt the cause of my weight gain... if it doesn't come off when i am not drinking, then surely it wont go on when I am.... YAY!
I fear Mr Cadbury will have to stay away a little longer though or I will be struggling to fit in Elsie this summer. My Ice Cream Pinny may have extendable straps but there really is only so much room to maneuver around Elsie's freezers. A rotund Ice cream lady maybe a good advert for her stocks taste, but doesn't do much for promoting SCOOPS Gelato Ice cream as the healthier delicious version of ice cream that it is!
Monday 21 January 2013
Where shall I start???
Well.... I have always been partial to putting pen to paper and so what better reason to write than a midlife crises career change to being a Vintage Ice cream lady! I would like to quickly add that it is Elsie the ice cream van who is vintage .... not me! I am positively youthful at 40 something!!
Why is it that men become rugged, dashing and debonair as they cross that age ZONE.... Ice cream vans become cute, quaint and quirky and women become ...... old.
If we go the "self improvement" route and embrace the modern technology of face-lifts and botox then we are saddo Cougars and quickly get the Ab Fab nick name of Patsy. Yet, if we just allow the passage of time to occur then we are deemed to be letting ourselves go! And lets face it ladies - we all are quietly pleased, or at best relieved when we spot a wrinkle on a mates face, so we bring this midlife stress upon ourselves!
Even the midlife dress code is tricky to get right for us ladies. The last thing you want to do is look like you have delved in your teenage daughters wardrobe for your outfit on that girlie night out. Yet equally you don't want people to think that you have stalked your mother for a frock either! so what does that leave ..... jeans.
So that is the first perk to owning Elsie - not only did I see it socially acceptable to hang my head out of an ice cream van window as a midlife career move - I do so with a 1950's frilly pinny and hat on. That sorts the dress code anxieties out for my weekends from March to Septemmber. Although I am not sure I would recommend it as a look for those girls nights out!
Why is it that men become rugged, dashing and debonair as they cross that age ZONE.... Ice cream vans become cute, quaint and quirky and women become ...... old.
If we go the "self improvement" route and embrace the modern technology of face-lifts and botox then we are saddo Cougars and quickly get the Ab Fab nick name of Patsy. Yet, if we just allow the passage of time to occur then we are deemed to be letting ourselves go! And lets face it ladies - we all are quietly pleased, or at best relieved when we spot a wrinkle on a mates face, so we bring this midlife stress upon ourselves!
Even the midlife dress code is tricky to get right for us ladies. The last thing you want to do is look like you have delved in your teenage daughters wardrobe for your outfit on that girlie night out. Yet equally you don't want people to think that you have stalked your mother for a frock either! so what does that leave ..... jeans.
So that is the first perk to owning Elsie - not only did I see it socially acceptable to hang my head out of an ice cream van window as a midlife career move - I do so with a 1950's frilly pinny and hat on. That sorts the dress code anxieties out for my weekends from March to Septemmber. Although I am not sure I would recommend it as a look for those girls nights out!
Sunday 6 May 2012
All the words used to describe the female anatomy have an air of vulgarity yet all the words used to describe the male genitals are positively endearing?
When our daughter was little, the discussion about what
terminology we were going to use to refer to her girlie bits was nearly as
lengthy as the discussions we had to pick her actual name! The word Vagina was
far too anatomical and medical for my liking. The thought of my cute little
toddler announcing that she had “washed her vagina” as she splashed in the bath
just didn’t work for me. Years before I became a mum I had worked in a
residential care home for children with learning disabilities. Here the general
consenus amongst us carers was to refer to “that zone” as their “Daisy.” This
had worked quite well; telling a child to wash their face, armpits, legs and
daisy didn’t seem at all vulgar. And so this terminology had stuck with me
throughout my early adult life.
Then, a close friend told me how devastated she was that her
husband refused to accept her first choice of name for her newborn baby.
Apparently she had always dreamed of having a little girl called Daisy and so
when their baby girl arrived, she thought her long awaited dreams were
answered. Then her husband announced that under no circumstance was he having
his child named after the contents of MY pants and my friends dreams were
quashed. I felt so guilty that I immediately deleted the definition of the word
Daisy from my personal dictionary. Fortunately 2 years later, when her second
daughter was born, her husbands memory had faded and she finally got her Daisy.
It has to be said though, that all the other commonly used
words for that zone simply turn my stomach. Fanny, Gina [short for Vagina]
front bottom, and even girlie bits are all either harsh, derogatory or
blatantly inaccurate.
So why oh why is it that, when it comes to boys, the options
are endless and most of these euphemisms have an endearing undertone. There is
nothing vulgar about the word willy, although with the popularity of the name
William over recent years this may not be the most favoured option. But then, the
anatomically correct word, Penis does not need to even hit the radar of options
when there is already such an extensive range of words already in common use.
You have Tackle, Dingle Dangle, Chap, Little man, little friend, gun, todge and
winkle to name just a few. You would never be embarrassed to use any of this in
public; depending of course on what your son is doing with his “winkle” for you
to have to mention it in public!
It is hard to believe that it is such an array of cute
endearing words that we have adopted for the very part of the male anatomy
which is the driving force behind most things he is likely to get into trouble
with in life. The potential weapon of mass destruction, this testosterone pump
of trouble is referred to by his mummy as though it is his little life
companion, his security blanket, his sole mate.
So, with two girls, a decision needed to be made and so a
new word n our family dictionary was devised. It may not be ideal, but it works
for us and at least no potential parents are left quaking in their boots at the
prospect of naming their offspring after my vagina. Having opted for the word
“toush” instead of bum or bottom, we simply extended this in a particularly
effeminate way to deal with the frontal region. And so, my daughters and I are
now the proud owners of “Toush-di-lala’s”
Admittedly, it does still have a slightly over floral sound
to it, but at least I can live safe in the knowledge that the only people I am
likely to offend with this terminology is yellow teletubbies and thankfully
they appear to be a species of the past now anyway!
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