Being Me

My take on the Merkel beer story on Poetry 24

The truth behind the story

My e-book 'Being Miss' has a new cover.  My son put it together for me.  I think he's a very clever boy, and obviously destined for great things, especially as he's only just had his second birthday.......













Kidding you.  He's nearly 26.  And just about to become a father ....  Which will make me Granny Franny, as my sister delights in telling me.

We bought about six boxes of Matchmakers at Christmas, right, thinking we would give them away to people we visited.

Shame we never got invited anywhere.  (I guess answering phone calls, emails and texts would have helped.)  Anyway, in the end, we had to eat them all ourselves.

For the unitiated, Matchmakers are chocolate sticks which look like this ....





... and it's a very clever marketing ploy, to have chocolate in such a thin form.  In fact, the advertising even claims that Matchmakers are a healthy diet food ....



It's all a Big Lie, of course, because no one, no one, says, after one Matchmaker, 'Hey, guys, I'm STUFFED.  Let's put these away and have more tomorrow.'

Still, you can nibble away at a Matchmaker while watching Downton Abbey and pretend you are being elegant like them.  It makes a change from usual practice ...





... which leads to your sofa looking like this ...






Well, friends, I didn't come here to talk about food.

No.... get up OFF the floor…

Overheard at a bus stop.....



I lie.  I overheard nothing.  It was my own conversation.  But, for a moment there, you thought you might hear something interesting.  I hope you enjoyed your nano-second of tension.  It's all down hill from here.

Me: 'So, your father and I are coming up to Sheffield to see you at half-term, then.'

Daughter: 'Yeah, that'll be nice.'


Me: 'Dad says you'll be wanting to visit some remote place called Castleton.'

Daughter: 'Oh, fine.  Okay, then. Yeah.  Let' s go there.'


Me: 'Dad says you took him there before, and you love it there because of the beautiful scenery and the bus ride through the countryside.'

Daughter: 'Well ....'


Me: 'He says you love the whole nature thing, the walking, the views.'


[Pause.]


'Mum, I like it because of the fudge.'


It's at moments like these that my little mummy heart bursts with pride.  There's nothing more rewarding than knowing you have passed …

Just letting you know that, should you feel inclined, you can now read my first book called 'Being Miss' if you have a Kindle or something else you can download it to - and it seems to indicate that you can download it to your PC, too, if you don't.  It will cost you less than the price of 10 chocolate frogs.  It is about one day in a teacher's life precarious existence.  And it should make you laugh.  At least, that's the idea.

Here's the link below ...

Ooh, I must go and download that now

And if you do download, and you like it, please write me a review on Amazon.  I'd give you a big virtual hug.

At this very moment, I have no idea what I am about to write.  I just thought, as it's been so long, I had better put fingers to keyboard and say something.

I think this process is called 'free writing'.  It may also be called 'How to Lose Lots of Followers at Once'.




Snap decision.  I am going to tell you about my meals.  For breakfast, I had some Mini Shredded Wheat.  These are essentially like little parcels of thin string, fashioned into what looks like a cushion.  You pour milk on them, and you eat them.  Habits like this, which we Brits have, are presumably what make foreigners think we are weird.  While they are buttering croissants and drinking posh coffee, or spreading maple syrup on a fresh waffle, we are eating parcels of string, and still calling ourselves civilised.

At breaktime, at school, all I had time for was to eat a chocolate frog.  One of my colleagues keeps a box of chocolate frogs (called Freddos)  .. (the chocolate frogs, not the colleague) ..…