Something that has now been quite popular over the last decade has been the fad of burning candles.  I use the word fad although more accurately I should label them as a fashion accessory as they still have not gone out of fashion.  Personally, I cannot understand why anyone would want to wilfully paste soot all over the walls and ceilings of their homes, but then that is what makes me a distinctly unfashionable person.  While you can walk into many houses and be astounded by the sheer number and designs of candles, in my own house you will find candles under the sink next to a box of matches in case of a blackout.

They come in all shapes and sizes and, this is what gets to me, all types of smell.  Maybe my nose is hypersensitive to the perfumes or maybe that I need to get out more, but scented candles are probably at the bottom of my list of potential turn-ons.  There is nothing alluring about candles surrounding a bathtub.  Actually, at over six-foot tall, the average British bath tub is nothing but a pain.  However, I digress.  Candles and bathrooms, nope.  Candles around the bed, well I would just be thinking about the fire hazard rather than the sensuality of the moment.  Candles at the dinner table, what’s the point, as I cannot exactly see what I am eating properly.  Candles as a gift, why what a lazy and unthoughtful person you are, you really just popped into Superdrug on the way.  However, so many people love these delightful burning bits, that they do make an easy present to anyone I am not particularly fond of.

So could anyone actually explain to me the delights of these multiple burning bits and why this fad has continued and endured despite that fact that I am not a big fan of them?

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Watching TV shows such as the House of Tiny Terrors I’ve realized something.  I’m not the only mother who has made mistakes in raising my babies, and the mistakes I’ve made that are mirrored in these shows are made by mothers who, like me, made them out of fear.  They gave birth to a baby who for one reason or another was taken straight into a special care baby unit, and for a number of weeks (or even months) they watched anxiously as doctors, nurses and machines helped their baby to thrive.  For many of them, the first few days were a time of uncertainty of whether or not their baby was going to live.  Once the baby does start to thrive however, and has reached what the hospital decrees is a reasonable weight to go home, then mother and baby are sent out of the hospital without any more emotional support than a “good luck” from any nurses who happen to be standing around. 

I don’t think this is good enough.  I didn’t think it was enough in my own case, but I’ve now discovered thanks to these programmes that I’m not alone – and that in itself is helpful to know.  There’s more to the emotional side of mothering these special babies than just mothering a newborn.  This is a newborn that for one reason or another was thought may not survive.  This is a newborn who is usually tiny.  This is a newborn that the books don’t tell you how to take care of.  This is a newborn that you are terrified may still have problems the doctor’s haven’t seen yet and you are paranoid to let it out of your sight, and so you stay awake all night watching it breathe, then the baby’s awake all day because it can’t get used to the silence of a home after the activity in the hospital, and pretty soon you’re exhausted but you still can’t let go of the fear that something will happen to your precious baby, and so the exhaustive routine goes on – until you end up in a situation like these parents of some of the children in the TV shows where your now toddling child has problems with eating and/or sleeping. 

It’s just my opinion based on watching the shows, and also knowing my own feelings dealing with a premature baby, that if mothers were helped emotionally during the time their baby was in the hospital, when they had time to sit and talk to someone – whether a professional counsellor or a mother who’s raised a child from a premature birth – about what they feel, and fear, and get it all out, then maybe they won’t make the mistakes that are born from paranoia and a terror of losing that baby.  Maybe they’ll get a chance to relax enough to enjoy their newborn’s first days at home after all the time they’ve spent in the hospital – instead of looking back on them as a time of worry and dread.

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The NHS is Europe’s largest employer and for the UK, one of the success stories of the Twentieth Century.  The principle of free healthcare at the point of delivery from the cradle to the grave has been a cornerstone of British life for over fifty years and it plays a vital role in the wellbeing of the nation.  The fact is that no matter how poor you maybe, you can still have access to some of the best healthcare in the world is something that we all of us should be proud of.

The NHS is an institution in which care not money should be its primary responsibility.  Unfortunately, most of the managers employed have very little training in healthcare, with more being recruited from background akin to workers in The City.  

For NHS to thrive and survive, there needs to be a better approach in how to run it.  As an organisation that is involved in delivering healthcare, it’s leaders from the Health Secretary right down to the ward manager should be chosen from medical backgrounds.  This would hopefully allow the focus of the service to remained trained on its primary function.  Also, managers from medical background would be able to better tailor the service in response to crises (such as the recent MRSA scares) as well as garner greater corporation from their staff.  Sadly however, something tells me that the managers already in place may not approve to such common sense thinking. Protect the NHS allow them to look after the nations health and the people looking boob jobs can pay for it.

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So how much does someone have to drink before you consider them to have a drink problem? In this country drinking to excess is considered normal not just in times of celebration or during religious periods, but also while out with the lads on a Saturday night! None of us are saints, most people I know have a tickle or two now and then. So where does having a drink every day after work become a dependency on alcohol?

A friend of mine has just started dating this guy who she really likes, but last night she was put off quite a lot. It was the last night she was going to see him for a while, and he went out and got really Really pissed with his mates. When she got bored in the bar because he was speaking to one of his mates in French which she couldn’t understand she decided to go home. Now he didn’t walk her home, which is a bit of an ungentlemanly thing in my opinion, and she was a little surprised he didn’t offer to. Then later he came into her room and passed out on her bed. Apparently he was quite smelly!

The thing is he had told her he hardly ever drank, but the next day he started drinking hair of the dog >I guess it doesn’t matter where everyone else draws the line, it’s about where you choose to draw your line. For her, that was enough of a incident to give her concerns that she will have to mull over, perhaps it is enough to mean that she doesn’t want him in her life, and that is her choice. I think the important thing though is to have a line, because without one, I think perhaps many more people would be dying of liver failure.

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I love story songs! I really do, though I hardly ever hear them anymore! What I’m talking about are songs that actually follow a storyline, so examples of this are Bob Dylans “Rosmary and the Jack of Hearts”, Rolf Haris’s “Two Little Boys”, and weirdly “Could well be in” by The Streets. They actually follow some kind of action based plot. It doesn’t have to be complicated, it doesn’t have to be long and involved, but I really appretiate it. There’s nothing wrong with not having one, so many of my favourite songs are really just pure expression with no tangibility. I think I work in images better than thought though – do you know what I mean? I remember a story much better than a random line.

So there you go, if you ever need to compare Bob Dylan to The Streets and say they are similar, thats how… they are both story tellers!

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Went into a school today as a visitor. I was there all day, and you know it made me feel really old! Being 11-16 seems like so long ago, and I feel so far removed now for where I was then. It really makes me question who I am. Wait a minute! Before you think I’m getting all hippy-fied I’m NOT going to go off and hug a tree or anything, honestly! I’m not planning on running to India to find myself, nor do I plan to go sit in a cave in the mountains and meditate till I become one with the cosmos. I just mean that I associate who I am – the ‘me’ – with the exact shape, size, weight, intelligence, and knowledge levels that I currently hold. When I was sixteen years old I did the same, yet my knowledge levels, intelligence and certainly weight and size were very different (!). In the future as I change, I will change my understanding of ‘me’ to whatever physical state I am in at that point. So through all this constant change – and change is constant – where is the ‘me’? I am physically a different being now than I was when I began typing this post. Atoms have moved, food has been digested, millions of my cells have died and been processed and millions more have come into creation. So the ‘me’ that I was so sure I was 10 seconds ago no longer exists… so who am I? What is there that is consistent through this that will still be there when I’m 90 years old? This is all a but too much, I think I might have pushed things a little far! Sorry, maybe I’ll go down the pub, that’ll answer all my questions!

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