Ailsa Abraham's Blog: Ailsa Abraham, page 59
August 7, 2014
August 6, 2014
Living Life in Tickle Belly Alley: Interview With….Ailsa Abraham
Living Life in Tickle Belly Alley: Interview With….Ailsa Abraham.
We just had a ball
Thanks so much Lisa – Part Two tomorrow and guess who will be coming to visit here soon?
August 5, 2014
Just once a year …
Dear Diary
Today was good fun. It was Take your Daughter to Work Day but my mummy doesn’t work and my daddy is dead, so I was very sad. So Mummy talked to Granny lady wot live next door and she “persuaded” her son, Uncle Chris, (wot isn’t my uncle but is allowed to talk to me cos not a “strange man like wot I am not sposed to talk to) …to take me to work with him.
(I know she “persuaded him cos I hearded her for hours the night before!) I was very cited but he seemed a bit sad so I sang him songs in the car all the way to work to cheer him up.
After that is was great fun cos Uncle Chris work in a office and I found out he is IMPOTENT. So I marched about telling everyone “Hello, Uncle Chris is not my Daddy but he is impotent!” He went funny colour and ran after me explaining I was only six. His work is very secret so I can’t say anything about it and it wasn’t very interesting.
It stopped being interesting when he had a meeting. I crawled under desk and unplugged all the phones and made Brazilian bracelets out of the pretty leads. That were fun until phones were ringing and nobody knew which phone on whose desk so I just crawled away and hid.
Under Uncle Chris’ desk were lots of laptops so I thought I be helpful little (instead of lucking fittle devil, like wot Mummy call me) and I got my small size Swiss Army knife wot I swapped with Bobby for his sister’s Barbie wot I held hostage. I unscrewded all the backs and piled the bits up in nice piles, all the same bits in the same piles then Uncle Chris looked under the desk and made a funny noise.
After that he took me to canteen and I met lots of other littles and we made a gang and spent the afternoon playing ninja littles in the lifts. That was fun until we got it stuck between two floors and one silly gurl wet herself and cried. I wanted to climb out of ventilashun shaft like in Die Hard but they got Uncle Chris on the microphone to say “I will talk to your Mummy if you do that, you are NOT a Ninja Little, you are a very bad girl.”
ninja little (just one of)
I don’t know.
Tried to join in. Tried to help. On the way home I asked if we could do it every day and Uncle Chris said a rude word. But maybe next year. Next year they will have forgotten that I kept picking up his phone when it rang and saying “This is Uncle Chris phone and I am his Sexy Terri and he is impotent and busy. Go away”
Hello? Hello?
Maybe… think they will?
August 2, 2014
Out of spoons
Many of you will already be aware of the “Spoons Theory” but if you aren’t, please DO pop over and read it here
Anything can be exhausting if a person is already coping with a disability. Even very pleasant, exciting and fun stuff like best friends, birthdays and especially best friends’ birthdays.
There is a price to pay. For every day we have been having fun and using up tomorrow’s spoons, I have to rest up sometime and restore my spoons stock. I’ve got gastro and a stinking cold. This does not surprise me. My body is telling me to rest while it goes on strike
Not seeking sympathy, just explaining why I won’t be around for a couple of days. When the medics tell a disabled person to “avoid stress” they don’t underline that stress included nice happy jolly stuff – wot is pain in bum!
July 31, 2014
A peep inside
I’m prompted to write this blog piece by the phrase “opposites attract”. I don’t know what you think of me but my own preferred adjective would be “tolerant”.
I don’t judge other people by their sexual preference, race, religious beliefs, or any other distinction. My only question is – do we get on? Can we be friends? Simple enough, innit?
My other half, Badger, on the other hand, at first meeting is every kind of …ist you could wish for. Racist, sexist, just keep adding to the list but the one that gets me very badly is homophobe. I’m not entirely sure about my own sexuality and I don’t give a damn about anyone else’s. Most of my best friends are gay men and some lesbians have, when not being lovers, snuggled into my life as well. So I go several shades of purple when my other half says I shouldn’t kiss a gay guy on the lips in case I catch AIDS. No – you did read that right, not SNOG but just a chaste kiss on the lips.
Hello? Which century? I am a vet nurse. I know about infection. I know that AIDS is only transferred by bodily fluids and if you are now retching, you are not my friend. I speak the truth as I see it.
My dear friend Karen asked me how it was possible that two such diametrically opposed people could be married. I have to say that , if you dig deep enough, if you have the time and patience, under all that 75 year old bluster, he’s a very kind and caring chap. I can bring my black, gay, Muslim friends home and he will welcome them (no, I know – I’m exaggerating) You have to keep digging for a long time, you have to be willing to find the best in people (big time) but it’s there.
Maybe that is why I call him Badger. He’s gruff, rough, growly and bites before thinking, but he’s actually a cuddly creature when you get to know him. Beware though – Badgers are not known for their tolerance!
Charity begins..
I don’t have much money. No, compared to some people I am very comfortable. I don’t do charity donations. I will not give money to companies that pay their executives huge salaries. That’s my decision.
What I will do is donate time, effort and skills to anyone who needs it. Is there a family around here that is short of funds? Fine – I’ll pole up with a bag full of groceries.
I knit – I will make anything for anyone who needs it.
Now we get down to the nitty gritty – do you commit £2 a month to the donkey sanctuary (or whatever) or do you throw your door open to someone who needs shelter? No prizes for guessing what we do … come on over, it may only be a bed in our caravan for as long as you need it. If that is your only hope of getting out of a rotten situation, we’re here.
Don’t think we’re a soft touch, we’re not, we’ll expect you to live as family, pitch in and help. But the bed is there if you need it.
Challenging Traditional Views
Challenging Traditional Views
One of the major turning-points in my life was a conversation I had, more than twenty years ago, with an extremely wise Anglican nun. She made a comment which astounded me because it displayed what a strong overlap she had with the real world. Until that moment, I’d always imagined “monastic” types to be as I’d read about them in books or seen them portrayed in films – stern, unsmiling, unsympathetic, and with little or no grasp of life outside the cloister.
“That’s a very worldly thing to say,” I said to her, “for a—“
“Monastic?” she finished the sentence for me. “Yes, Sue, I know. You aren’t the first person to say that, and you certainly won’t be the last. Every time someone says that to me, my answer is always the same: I did not come out of the womb wearing this habit. I lived in the real world for more than thirty years before I became a nun.”
Years later, I began thinking about writing the story which I’d always wanted to read: the version of Romeo & Juliet which had a happy ending. Very early in the process I realised who was going to be my main protagonist: Fra’ Lorenzo – the person known in the play as Friar Lawrence. I’ve always been fascinated by this character, and have wondered in particular why he behaves as he does – and I quickly came to the conclusion that, just like my real-life nun friend, he too must have lived in the real world before taking holy orders. So by giving him what I hope is an interesting and thought-provoking backstory, I’ve tried to offer some possible explanations. It’s difficult to talk about these here without revealing spoilers, but suffice it to say that as this extract illustrates, Lorenzo’s experiences before he entered the friary have stood him in good stead for what is to follow. And Romeo, too, finds that his own views about monastics are severely challenged:
“Does [Rosaline] return your affection?” [I asked]
“Alas, she has sworn to remain chaste. And I–“
“Then why do you persist in doting on her?”
“Doting? I am not doting. I love her to distraction…”
“If she does not love you in return, then your devotion is wasted.”
Romeo turned angrily to face me. “What do you know of love?”
I drew a deep breath, and answered quietly, “Much more than you might realise.”
“What? But you are a monk…”
“I was not always a monk.”
Romeo was startled. This possibility had clearly never entered his mind.
“Father,” he asked cautiously, “have you ever been in love?”
“Yes, son, I have.”
“What became of her?”
I hung my head, unable to meet his eyes. “She married another.”
I looked up to find Romeo studying me intently, almost as though he were seeing me for the very first time.
(Edited extract from The Ghostly Father)
My second novel, Nice Girls Don’t (released earlier this month), sets about challenging a different set of traditional views. The book, which is set in 1982, began life a couple of years ago as a project in an online workshop on the subject of writing romantic fiction. But whilst there is a romance running through the story, the narrative also has a grittier, darker side – one which will, I hope, make the reader stop and think. Again, it is difficult to talk about this in detail here without giving too much away. But in general terms, there are some long-established issues where, on a personal as well as a global level, traditional attitudes and expectations have failed to be fair to both sides.
In Nice Girls Don’t I have tried, at least in part, to redress that balance. And by holding up a mirror to the circumstances, views and attitudes of the 1980s and the years leading up to them, I also hope to demonstrate to those of my readers who are too young to remember that particular era just how much things have changed – hopefully for the better – over the course of a generation.
Sue’s two novels The Ghostly Father (which was nominated for the 2014 Guardian First Book Award and the Guardian 2014 Not The Booker Prize) and Nice Girls Don’t are both are published by Crooked Cat Publishing and are available in paperback and e-book form.
Sue is also a member of Crooked Cat’s editorial team. You can read her blog here.
Please vote for The Ghostly Father with the Guardian here
Serious monkey business
I’m a vet nurse and animal activist and I am totally appalled that two chimpanzees who were saved from a circus and almost ready to go back into their NATURAL state, living in the wild are facing death because of the action of a moronic photographer who was warned three, yes, THREE times, not to go into their enclosure to get a close-up.
A wolf is not a dog. Would you go up to a wild wolf and try to stroke it? No, of course you wouldn’t. A tiger is a member of the cat family but would you realistically expect a tiger to curl up on your lap and purr? No.
These chimpanzees had been saved from a miserable life by the Jane Goodall Foundation and were being rehabilitated to join group of others in a natural state. Does this seem reasonable? They would not be kept in cages, forced to wear tutus and dance for a fee-paying audience. They would be living with their own kind in an environment as close as possible to their wild life.
I’m fortunate. I was made aware of the ghastly conditions under which some apes are kept and the threat to their lives by my friend Brenda May Williams who works closely as a volunteer with The Wales Ape and Monkey Sanctuary. I now make donations and am delighted to be involved with their work.
Yesterday Brenda alerted me to the fact that two chimpanzees were threatened with euthanasia because Mr. Andrew Oberle had been “savaged”. Well if you jump wet and naked onto an electric fence, or wander down a railway line, it doesn’t surprise me if you get hurt. This man was told not to go close to the chimps who were being returned to their natural, savage state. Come into my house uninvited and you might get the same treatment. I’m a savage beast too when my privacy is invaded!
I’m delighted to find that experts in the field are lending their weight to Brenda’s campaign. Obviously I have signed the petition to the South African government but I urge all of you to do the same.
Good Morning Brenda May,
Thank you for your email. We at the sanctuary are aware of the plight of these two Chimpanzees and are in fact on board and working very closely with The Jane Goodall Institute of Canada in trying to get a reprieve. In answer to your request as to adding my name to your petition, yes that is fine and I wish you all the best as for Doctor Alison she is not in the country at present but I will speak to her when she returns next week, I am sure she would say yes but I do have to remain professional in all I do so wouldn’t be able to give permission on her behalf.
Good luck.
Jeremy Keeling.
I’m very sorry that this young man is injured but…to be brutally honest, he was asking for it and the chimpanzees were only doing what they were being rehabilitated to do – behave naturally, which includes defending your home.
Please sign Brenda’s petition (just click like) and help us to save the lives of these poor animals. I have been bitten, scratched, clawed and generally mangled when trying to help sick creatures, but in no case was I being an idiot and in no case did I think they should pay with their lives. Neither should these two.
Thank you so much for reading and helping. Yes, this was an all-out rant but I feel very strongly that animals should not be made to pay for the tom-foolery of humans.
Ailsa Abraham
- Ailsa Abraham's profile
- 38 followers
