Jane Alexander's Blog, page 18

Don't laugh but...I'm running.

I’ve always wanted to run. I have this image of myself as some kind of Artemis, virgin huntress, sprinting lightly and lithely through the woods, the SP bounding gracefully at my heels, at one with the wind.
And I desperately need a new string to my fitness bow now I’ve lost the gym, yoga and my Wednesday Pilates and Zumba.  Don't ask - I'm in mourning.
Running is the ultimate low-maintenance sport – just stick on a pair of shoes (or stay barefoot?) and go for it.  No kit, no classes...

Smash, bang, wallop...

What does it mean when things keep crashing into you?
Just before Christmas some guy staggered out of the pub, drunk as a skunk, weaved down the centre of the road to his 4x4, got in and promptly ploughed into our RAV4, reversed and pissed off.  The door was staved in. ‘Shame he didn’t write it off for good and proper while he was at it,’ I said.
Oh, be careful what you wish for – the bloody insurers did write it off which would have been fine and dandy if a)     We h...

Google Chromebook - my Precious!

So James and I were sitting watching TV before Christmas and an ad came on for the Samsung/Google Chromebook.‘That looks neat,’ said James.  ‘Cheap too.’He’s been angling for a new laptop for ages and I’ve said tough shit, because, really there is absolutely nothing wrong with his except for the fact that it isn’t brand spanking new and, umm, the fact he has pretty much buggered it up by downloading all kinds of rubbish from the web. Because, no matter how many times you warn them about...

Why I hated The Hobbit movie

So, we went to see The Hobbit – ostensibly as my birthday ‘treat’. I stocked up on drinks, popcorn and sweets and stuffed them in my bag (cos, seriously, who can afford to pay the prices they charge at cinemas?)  And James and I got stuck in pretty much as soon as we sat down (oh, okay, before we even got to our seats) and Adrian got cross with all the rustling.  But, hey, you gotta rustle in the cinema, right?
I confess I was doubtful, even before it started.  As I said in my e...

Special K turn me into a billboard

New Year means diets, right?  Well, not for me (I don’t really believe in diets and I really don’t think that this is the best time of year to be launching into starvation mode anyhow) but I know a lot of you are doing the diet thing.  So, get this, apparently if you want to lose weight, you need to cut out the negative ‘fat talk.’
My old friends at Special K have found that women (in particular) are starting off with a mindset destined for failure, slating themselves as ‘fat’, ‘chub...

In which the teens shrink my skull and give me instant Botox and...a ridge?

I’ve had two makeovers in almost as many days.  I’m beginning to forget what I look like normally. Oh yes...a bit like this...
First up, Rachel and the teens took me in hand.  They stuffed my hair in a streaking cap and yanked bits of it out with a crochet hook.  ‘Is that okay?’ said Rachel.  ‘Does it hurt?’‘Course not,’ I said. ‘It’s absolutely fine. I have a very high pain threshold. ‘And it was fine – for the first five minutes.  Then the cap started pressing i...

All good things are wild and free

So, I sat by the fire and read The Snow Child.  It had been nudging me for quite some time, unsurprising really, given the cabin in the woods and the snow thing that’s been going on for the last few months.
It’s rather lovely - a deceptively simple tale of a couple trying to forge a life in the harsh Alaskan wilderness. Their one child was stillborn and now they are too old to have children of their own.  One day they build a child out of snow and give it mittens and a scarf. ...

The cabin in the woods

Carol Oberg Riley
Sometimes the soul speaks in images or music or metaphors.  There is no rhyme or reason, there is no logic.  The picture or the sound just tugs and pulls and whistles, and you trip trap after it into the forest, or away and up the track, apart from everything known. You follow its footsteps in the snow, stumbling blind.
Snow.  How strange, how very strange that I, who feel the cold so fiercely, am so entranced by snow.
Not tame snow. Not back garden snow. Not sn...

Hibernation and teenage makeovers

The SP and I have hibernated.  We have been going to bed earlier and earlier each night and getting up later and later.  We lie, side by side, like medieval effigies, under two duvets, and occasionally an extra blanket.  Outside the rain falls steadily and inside, well, the rain falls steadily too.  What do we do, the SP and I?  Well, I can’t speak for the SP but I just lie there, not exactly thinking.  Not exactly meditating. Sort of freeform musing really. ...

If Christmas suddenly blindsides you...

Funny how one thing can set up a chain reaction of emotions, eh?  This afternoon I was looking through old photos, trying to find the worst of the worst for the post before.  And I kept stumbling over the past, tripping over memories, falling headlong into old emotions and thoughts.  Christmasses past.  People no longer here. 
And then I was talking to someone who is spending Christmas in hospital, with his mother who is dying.  And it got me thinking back to fou...