My posts now start with a ‘Sunset Over Swindon’ (formerly SunRISE Over Swindon’!), and here’s a great one from one day last week (I forget which day; one of seven, that’s all I can remember!).
My neighbours in the two houses to the left put artificial/illuminated Christmas trees up yesterday. It was very exciting to see them when I got home last night (yes, my life IS that dull!) and I’ll be taking a photo when it gets dark later, for inclusion next week.
I know; it’s SO exciting, isn’t it? (!)
My two brothers, their partners and I went to a memorial carol service at the Hospice yesterday afternoon to remember our father who’d died in March. It was just getting dark when they switched the lights on and lit lanterns around the enormous tree.
There wasn’t much singing from the 400-or-so people there as I guess they were all feeling as choked as I was so it was left to the band and the choir to sing for us. It WOULD have been a really moving and memorable moment, but was completely ruined by one solitary angry, screaming child whose mother didn’t have the respect for the rest of us to simply stick it (I call it ‘it’ simply because I couldn’t tell whether it was a boy or a girl) in its pushchair and walk up the road and away from the service.
Maybe it’s just my generation (and the generation older than myself who were there and clearly upset by it too), but I really struggle to understand HOW that woman had the brass neck to stand there for the half hour or so that it was wailing. I’d have cringed with embarrassment the second it opened its mouth and would have left immediately.
Never mind. We went for a meal afterwards and had a nice evening together, but none of us are looking forward to Christmas this year. Next year will be better, but he got very sick at this time last year and there’s going to be a lot of sad recollections over the next few months. It’s nothing that every single person alive doesn’t have to cope with at some point though, so we’ve just got to get on with it. Pffft. Life, aye?
Anyway; less of all that maudlin stuff. I’m having a meeting re the site upgrade on Thursday morning and hope it’ll be done by Christmas. What WON’T be done is my tax return.
Oh, dear. I even had an email from my accountant last week, ‘reminding’ me. As if I didn’t already think about it a hundred times a day! I’ve GOT to get it done, and know for certain that I won’t be in this position at this time NEXT year.
There just aren’t enough hours in the day, and as I look at the clock I see that it’s now way past the time when I need to be getting ready to go out, so I’d better say toodlepip for today.
Where you can read/hear me:
I’m very pleased to be writing for Yahoo!TV, and here’s my latest posts with them: ‘What we learned from the Soaps this week‘ and ‘The best of the week’s one-liners’. ‘What we learned from the Soaps’ is original content and is unrelated to my Soapy Corners, so if you’d like to learn a few (completely UN) important (and humorous) handy hints and tips, go and take a look!
My live, lighthearted internet Soap review will be on Tellyspy (Twitter: @Tellyspy) between 6.00 and 6.30 pm on Thursday and I’ll also be doing my usual half hour Soapy chat on The Big Mid-Morning Show on Thursday morning on Swindon 105.5 FM.
PS There’s a competition in Corrie Corner to win the Special Edition Gary Barlow/Meerkat CD.
Wow you’re a miserable woman aren’t you? Of course you were never a child? Why do you have so little compassion for a young child? How do you know he/she was angry? The very fact you call the child “it” reeks of how sad and pathetic you are. It’s called new life. Not everyone plays by your rules. Get a life, you are ridiculous.
Dear John,
Thank you for your comment. I called the child ‘it’ simply because I wasn’t able to tell whether it was a boy or a girl from its screams. I’m guessing you probably haven’t lost your father to cancer this year? It was a service of remembrance at a Hospice for people who had lost family; a sad and solemn occasion. If you were there you would have seen that many people were also turning round and shaking their heads. Does that make them all ‘ridiculous’ too?
I love children. I was a nanny for 10 years for three lively boys so have seen it from both sides – having often been in crowded spaces with one or other of them ‘having a paddy’.
It’s given me a MUCH more empathetic attitude towards the poor parents of a child having a tantrum than many people might have. However: in ANY situation, it is up to the parent/carer to consider others. In THIS situation, one child spoiled a moving and personal moment for a lot of grieving people.
If you feel that the mother acted responsibly and considerately by not just taking the child a few hundred yards away from the service out of respect for those people then you’re clearly a nicer person than me, John@grumpybitch.co.uk and I wish I had your level of tolerance.