Being Me

To celebrate the New Year, I thought I'd select a post from each month of 2013 for you to browse through while you drink port and contemplate your fifteenth turkey sandwich of the season. And this might be a good time to ask regular followers to say, in a comment, which kinds of posts you like the best.  I've been writing this blog for six years now and, very rudely, have never asked ..... In January, I was given a 'snow day' off school. http://ilurveenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/reasons-for-going-la-la-la-la-in-school.html In February, I made a bread and butter pudding. http://ilurveenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/evidence-that-bread-and-butter-pudding.html In March, I had moved on from thinking about puddings to pies http://ilurveenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/evidence-that-pie-is-integral-part-of.html In April, Cinderella met the Three Little Pigs http://ilurveenglish.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/evidence-that-fairy-tale-characters.html In May, I met the mo...

I just looked up a 'calorie burning activity' chart to see how to burn off the nine zillion trillion calories I have consumed over the Christmas holidays. According to the chart, which tells you how many calories you would burn off in an hour, I don't have to do any of those boringly traditional activities like running or playing tennis.  There are so many other exciting options listed that hadn't even crossed my mind.   Bagging grass burns off 327 calories.  It just seems an unusual activity.  You can't just say, 'Oh, I think I'll go and bag some grass' like you can say 'Oh, I think I'll go out for a quick run.'  Presumably, one has to mow a lawn first, and if I've mown a lawn, I want a packet of Bourbons and a nap, not an hour grass-bagging. Bakery (light effort) burns off 204, but the figure for 'heavy effort baking' is not supplied.  I'm not sure of the difference either.  Is light effort baking making small, delica...

I've updated this Christmas version of 'The Three Little Pigs' which I wrote years ago. A family of pigs, brothers three, were leaping around, Christmas Eve. The wolf had been caught (or so they had thought). From his huff and his puff, they were free. Relieved at the end of their scare they danced round the fire, unaware that in that hotpot was a wolf who was not fully cooked, but just medium rare. As they went off to bed, closed the door, from the pot there protruded a paw.... Though more warm than he’d like, he’d not give up the fight. A poor sign for the porcine, for sure. He’d wait until midnight , then soon, he planned by the light of the moon to exit that pot, give those piggies a shock and be gorging on trotters by noon . But all of a sudden, his light sas blocked out by a terrible sight. A HUGE man with a beard down the chimney appeared. Wolfie peed in the gravy with fright.  ‘Ho ho ho,’ said the man, with such...

I've got a great book by Ruth Padel called, '52 ways to read a poem'.   I love teaching poetry.  It's one of my Favourite Things.  But the students don't always feel the same. And I've discovered that they, too, can think of lots of ways in which to read a poem.  Here are 25 of them.   with head on desk with head nodding involuntarily until nudged by classmate with head shaking from side to side in disbelief that anyone could find poems exciting with head in hands with hands on head while leaning as far back on a school chair as humanly possible without crashing to floor with head inside blazer, hiding from cruel fact that current poem is only one of 36 to be studied with fingers in ears with hands over face with hand round own neck, mocking self-strangling with hand over open mouth in 'no, no, don't tell me I have to write about this' gesture while writing note to classmate which says, 'do y...

After yet another embarrassing incident today, I said to my youngest sister, 'I am losing all my faculties, one by one, I swear.' She said, 'Oh, dear, poor you.  What can I do to help?' She said, 'Oh, don't - you'll make me cry.' She said, 'Here, come and give me a hug.' She said, 'We might as well put you in a sack and throw you in the river right now, then.' That's what you need, isn't it, when you're becoming older, and vulnerable?  A sister who stays faithful. My last blog post was about the fact that I needed new spectacles.  Today, I found that I can no longer express myself clearly and perhaps need speech therapy before I lose total control of my lips. I was in a gift shop in Warwick.  Downstairs, it's all pretty candles and soaps and teddies and linens and ceramics.  Upstairs, there's a section for clothes. I was standing by the bottom of the stairs and a woman peered up them and said to me, ...

I definitely need to book an appointment at the optician for new glasses.  Here are the signs. 1. I was reading a book today about new words which have been invented in the last ten years.  I came across one in the 'A' section that said, 'A580'?  A 5 8 0?  I'd not heard of it.  What was it?  A strange computer code?  A new paper size?  The name of a new character in Doctor Who?  Why does no one tell me these things? Then the type swam into proper focus and I realised it said ASBO, as in 'anti-social behaviour order.' 2. When I began typing this post, the screen had that kind of 'your words have immediately gone under water as soon as you've typed them' look and I've had to turn the make-the-font-bigger-thing (not sure of its technical name) up to maximum. That's better, but there's only room for one paragraph on the screen. 3. When I'm reading anything aloud at school, I'm doing that 'hold the book at a distan...

I didn't really like my Games teacher at school and I think I can safely say the feeling was mutual. When she saw my name on her register at the beginning of the 5th year, she blanched a little.  I never had my kit.  I messed around, whacking girls around the ankles with the hockey stick rather than playing the game.  And I claimed, week by week, that I needed to be excused from Games, because I had some minor injury, or a blister, or a headache, or was on my period.  Rightly, she challenged me on this last one, saying, 'Not many girls have periods that start in September and are still going by the following March.  You are either a freak of nature or a liar.' If we did genuinely have a period, we were desperate to get off doing 'cross-country' in particular, because of the nature of sanitary protection in the 1970s.  It was embarrassing to run around in public wearing only gym knickers.  If you don't understand what I mean, try jogging round your lo...

Dearest Followers If you've read my book 'Being Miss' on Amazon Kindle and liked it, would you mind giving it a vote on the People's Book Awards for me to see if I can get pushed up the ratings?  You are very kind. Go here to vote     http://thebookawards.com/awards/being-miss/ I'm writing the sequel to 'Being Miss'.  Watch this space.  You may have to watch for a little while, so bring your knitting, but keep watching anyhow.

I wrote this post in Autumn 2011, and when I looked out of the bedroom window this morning at next door's tree, I realised it was time to post it again .... I get really excited in Autumn.  Is this because I am a lover of nature?  Is it because I find that observing creation enriches my inner soul?  Is it because I see, in the flaming red and orange trees, beauty which inspires my heart to leap with joy? Regular readers will know the answer.  This is because they know that Fran is to love of nature what a vegetarian is to love of steak tartare, a rack of ribs and garlic prawns on the side. No.  The reason I get really excited is that, when next door's tree is in full autumn colour, it matches my duvet cover. Here is a picture of the type of tree in next door's garden: By 'type of tree', Fran meant 'orangey red'.  She categorises trees in the same way she does cars.  And here is a picture of some bedding which is very like mine. ...

We were talking today in the department office at school about the suffix 'ish' and how some are beginning to use it on the end of any word, or even as a word in itself, as in ... 'How was your day?  Good?' [Pause.]  'Ish.' Then we started talking about the word 'meh' and how popular that is now as a way of saying, 'Well, so-so.   Not good.  Not bad.' This kind of linguistic exploration is what English teachers do at the end of the day.  It's either that, or the apostrophe debate.  We know how to party. You might have seen this going around.  It's my favourite cartoon \at the moment. Anyway, then my colleagues and I moved on to musing on songs which use 'meh'.  And I want to suggest a few, perhaps to sing when you're feeling a bit oh-you-know-how-it-is or not-too-bad or things-can-only-get-better ... Nina Simone - Feeling Meh Stevie Wonder - I Just Called to Say 'Meh' The Beach Boys - Meh Vibrations ...

Things which happened today.  (An opening line to die for, I think you'll agree.) 1. We had an Epic Fail of an outing with Elijah, our grandchild.  We drove optimistically to a local 'attraction' because we knew there was a children's park and a mini-farm where you could see small animals.  Then we looked at the prices.  What we didn't realise was that, even to get a sniff of a kiddies' slide or a furry rabbit, you had to ring your bank manager, plead that you'd never defaulted on a loan yet, and borrow a million pounds.  We decided against it. The only comfort is that Elijah didn't know it was an Epic Fail.  He splashed delightedly in puddles and fell over in long grass a hundred times while we stood and debated how to turn an Epic Fail Day around.  Also, he enjoyed the trip round the garden centre which was also there (free ...) and the chance to point at chickens. 'I'll have that one, please, with chips.' Did we manage to tu...

I've found myself talking about drugs twice in the last couple of days. Only one of the incidents was intentional, and that wasn't the one that happened yesterday, when I innocently informed a class of sixth formers that 'I once won a typing competition on speed .'  They dissolved into laughter, leaving me as red as Karl Marx. If you're a friend of mine on Facebook, you'll already have heard that story.  If you follow me on Twitter too you'll have heard it twice.  If you follow me down the street, you'll perhaps do what an old lady did in my Granny's care home the other day and comment loudly on the size of my bottom.  As Miranda Hart would say .... (Fran was pleased to find this picture at last, especially as googling 'Rude' had resulted in some images she hadn't expected.) Anyway, back to my sixth form class, which has a slightly more supportive atmosphere than the care home, but not much.  I tried to turn the mega-gaffe i...

I am just a little teeny-weeny bit addicted to Downton Abbey and have been thinking about what it would be like to swap my life for theirs .... I want to be a toff I want to be a toff in Downton Abbey. I want to taste life in the upper class. I want to dress for dinner and eat eight course meals.  One gets so fed up with printing vouchers off for Pizza Hut and Prezzo. I’d wear silken knickers if in the upper class though I’d need a mile of silk to stretch around my ... nether regions.  I want to go to balls in golden slippers. I want to sweep across a polished floor. I want to wear white gloves. I want to waltz, and drink champagne instead of watching Strictly with some hotted up chow mein. I'd dance ‘till dawn just sweeping across that polished floor and with Deep Heat on my knees, I’d manage it, I’m sure. I want a chauffeur to say ‘Ma’am’ and take me to Harrods in a newly-polished Rolls. He’d wait outside the store and sneer at e...

I am writing this post to distract myself from fear.  Tonight, I'm appearing at a charity gig and have to make people laugh for half an hour or more.  When these things go well, it's brilliant.  When, after the first couple of minutes, people have only tittered, or, much, much worse, yawned like a canyon, there's a loud voice in my ear going, 'Get off the stage, you eejit.  Whatever made you think you could get up there in the first place?  Either admit defeat and leave, or take your clothes off and secure the laughs that way.'  I'm always telling the kids at school that confidence is about pretending.  Most adults, I say, who look supremely confident, in whatever field, are having to battle doubts.  Anyone in the public eye, on a large or small scale, has to find out for themselves how to appear calm even when the bowels are grinding like the innards of Vesuvius and the mouth is as dry as a drunk's on a Sunday morning. If only I would take my...

My first published story was in ‘Your Cat’ magazine.  (Don’t laugh … we all have to start somewhere.)  I sent the editor a 1500-word story.  She said she liked it (great!) and would publish it (fantastic!) but that I should cut it by a third and tighten up my style.  Ah.  Not so good. I loved every word of that story.  I gave birth to each one in pain and suffering, so there was NO WAY, absolutely NO WAY I was going to cut or change them.  I was determined.  I would stick to my guns.  She could forget it.  My mind was made up. Then she said she’d pay me £200 if I did the alterations.  I wavered for a whole nano-second.  U-turn Queen, that’s me, when it comes to hard cash. The editing of that heart-warming story about a couple who rediscover their love when their cat has a crisis (it was a real sick-bucket saga) taught me loads.  I hated making the changes.  I felt like a murderer, slashing and s...