The Toy's Last Milestone

They took my Toy car away on Tuesday. I'd spent what-felt-like days caught up in the insurance-company-telephone-death-spiral. Net result: he was written-off and taken for scrap. When the drove him onto the transporter, I seriously wondered if I was doing the right thing - it felt like a betrayal.

This is his last ever milestone.

Goodbye Toy and thank you for all the great times.

The Toy is No More

My Toy car just got written off!  He was parked up on the street opposite our house and one of the teachers from the neighbouring school just drove straight into him.  Head on collision. 


Smashed headlight.  Smashed grill.  Punctured radiator.  Damaged bumper-bar.  Too old and too many miles for it to be an economic repair (264,500 miles on the clock and 12 years of service).   The insurance company have told me to remove all my personal belongings and they'll arrange for a salvage company to take him away to the big scrapyard in the sky.

I'd spent today home sick and was lying on the couch under a duvet when I heard the sound of glass smashing followed by car crash noises.  Looked out the window and saw a car with its hazards flashing.  Looked for the Toy and realised he was 15 feet or so down the road from where I'd parked him on Monday night and not looking healthy.

Damn, damn, damn!!!!

I know he was old and had high mileage - after all, I am responsible for over 99% of them.  But this isn't the way I thought he'd go.  I thought we'd get to 300,000 miles and then, possibly, trade him in.  Or aim for 350k and see what happened.  It's not dignified and it's not fair!

Now I'm going to have to spend the next few days finding and buying a new car.  Not what I'd planned to do but commuting to work by train is not a long term option either economically or time-wise.  As it is, I'm going to take the rest of the week off sick because I'm certainly not well enough to face that train journey.  And I may work from home for a few days next week.

- Pam



PS:  The driver of the other vehicle is OK.  A bit shaken but not hurt.

PipneyJane's Wartime Experiment - Fashion on the Ration

As mentioned in my New Year's Day post, I've been toying with the idea of implementing some type of WW2 wartime experiment.  (I first mentioned the idea in this post back in October.)  So far, what I've decided to do is Fashion on the Ration.   Anyone willing to join me?

The 1941 clothing ration was 66 coupons, which had to cover everything:  underwear, stockings, socks, hats, shoes, skirts, jackets, shirts, trousers, coats, knitting yarn, etc.  The idea behind the ration was that it would enable everyone to buy one new complete outfit per year, nothing more, nothing less. Second hand items were exempt.

 Government announcement in the Times, June 3, 1941

In larger print:

Item Of Clothing	Women	Girls
Lined mackintosh or coat over 28"	14	11
Under 28" short coat or jacket	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of wool	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of other fabric	7	5
Bodice with girls skirt or gym tunic	8	6
Pyjamas	8	6
Divided skirt or skirt	7	5
Nightdress	6	5
Dungarees or overalls	6	4
Blouse, shirt, sports top, cardigan or jumper	5	3
Pair of slippers, boots or shoes	5	3
Other under garments including corsets	3	2
Petticoat or slip, cami knickers or combinations	4	3
Apron or pinafore	3	2
Scarf, gloves, mittens or muff	2	2
Stockings per pair	2	1
Ankle socks per pair	1	1
1 yard wool cloth 36"wide	3	3
2 ounces of wool knitting yarn	1	1

Assumptions for the challenge:-

• 1 metre of fabric equals 1 yard.  No penalty for width.
• 2 ounces of wool knitting yarn equals 50g of any knitting yarn.
• Based on the quantity of fabic and work involved, a "corset" is the equivalent of two bras.
• Ditto one pair of Cami-knickers would equal two pairs of modern bikini-style knickers or thongs.
• Bodice with skirt = shirt/blouse/t-shirt purchased at the same time as a matching or co-ordinating skirt or trousers = 8 coupons.
• Dungarees = jeans = 6 coupons.
• Divided skirt = trousers = 7 coupons.

Examining my wardrobe-crystal-ball for 2013, I know that I'll need to acquire at least the following:-

1. Underwear.  At 4 coupons a pair of cami-knickers, new underwear will be very expensive.  However, I will argue that one pair of 1940's cami-knickers uses the same fabric as two pairs of modern bikini-style knickers, giving the equivalency of 2 coupons per pair of knickers.  So, lets say I'll buy 5 new pairs at a cost of 10 coupons.
2. A navy blue suit.  Currently, this is the one thing my work-wardrobe is missing.  The question is: do I make or do I buy?  I reckon I could make an entire suit:  jacket, trousers and skirt with 5 metres of woollen cloth and 3 metres of lining fabric, if I line it. Purchased is 25 coupons while home-made is 24 coupons.  Of course, if I find one in a charity shop, that will be coupons saved.
3. New loafers.  I get through a pair a year so that's 5 coupons gone.
4. Ditto another pair of trainers.  Another 5 coupons spent.

So that's 44 or 45 coupons spent before I consider t-shirts, blouses, jeans, knitting yarn, etc.  Hmmm......

- Pam

PS: I agree with Dilbert

2013 (and a quick review of 2012)

My first lie-in of 2013 ended at 7.52am when, after 6 hours sleep, I gave up trying to go back to sleep, got up and went and had a shower.  If the start-the-New-Year-as-you-mean-to-go-on brigade are to be believed, my 2013 will consist of a lot of early starts and not much sleep.

Still, it's given me some time to consider how 2012 went and what I'll do differently in 2013.  In 2012, I had multiple goals.  Here's how they went:-

1. The nebulous fitness goal: to strengthen my body by working out/lifting weights three times a week.  Big fail.  Didn't work out once.  I am weaker now than I was a year ago.
2. The not-so-nebulous fitness goal: to be able to run 5k/3 miles without stopping, and to achieve this before my birthday in August. Another big fail.  I just couldn't get out of bed to start running.
3. To be more organised.  Nebulous, but successful. 
4. To be tidy.  My desk at work has stopped breeding paper.  'Nuff said.
5. To buy less than 12 items of clothing in 2012 (underwear, socks and stockings exempted).  SUCCESS!!!  My purchases for 2012:  3 pairs of jeans, 2 t-shirts, 1 blouse, 2 hats, 1 suit;  so 9 items in total.
6. To knit 1 pair of socks every 2 months. SUCCESS.  By October, I'd finished 7 pairs of socks and am now 70% through an 8th.
7. To knit 6 sweaters.  Partial success.  I finished 5 sweaters, including Pretty In Pink (still needs to be photographed).
8. To lose 14lb in weight.  Partial success.  By June, I'd lost 7lb but put most of it back on by the end of the year.
9. To only buy yarn from a) charity shops or b) if it is less than £3/ball. Oh, and the yarn budget for 2012 will be £60 for the year, no more.  This was successful until I went to the Knit & Stitch Show at Ally Pally back in October. I nearly didn't go until a friend persuaded me.  Then I went mad.  I refuse to tell you how much I spent.
10. To really work at having a decent veggie garden this year. I'd like to be able to feed us from it for days/weeks at a time.  Big fail.  The garden yielded garlic, onions and potatoes.  That's all.  The onions weren't particularly big, either.  If anyone tells you that gardening is easy, they're lying.
11. To use things up. I have a stockpile of "stuff": make-up, fabric, cross stitch stuff, yarn, etc, and it's time to make a dent in it.  SUCCESS.  I cleared out the stockpile of hotel shampoo, made a big dent in the collection of hotel body-wash (we still have tons), and the body lotion stockpile has decreased dramatically.  The make-up stockpile is down by three make-up bases, one blusher and two mascaras.  However, I think it'll take me a decade to use up my lipstick collection.

On the whole, I think I didn't do too badly.  How did you do with your New Year's Resolutions from 2012?

Highlights of 2012 were the trip to Oman, my sister's visit, the various concerts I performed in, the Last Night of the Proms, the Queen's Jubilee and the Olympics/Paralympics. DH is working at a job that stimulates his mind instead of just paying the bills (and enjoying every minute, as far as I can tell).  On Ravelry, I participated in the Ankh-Morpork Knitters Guild Guild Wars 2012, competing in every round. Workwise, I have a new job title at work ("Finance Manager") and a new reporting structure, but my job hasn't really changed.  It's just got more complicated.

Goals for 2013.

I am not proposing to set many goals for 2013.  I know, earlier this year, I toyed with setting a Wartime Experiment challenge for myself, but I'm not sure I'm up to it.  Anyway, this is my list so far:-

1. 2013 is my year of vintage knitting.  For sweaters, I will only knit from vintage or vintage-style patterns.
2. To only buy British/locally manufactured yarns.
3. To work out 5 days a week, either weight training or running.
4. To lose 20lb in weight.
5. To work on my voice and my musicality.  I'm a very lazy singer and need to work much harder.
6. To build a cash cushion.  I'm aware that Toy won't last forever (he's done 264,000 miles) and want to pay cash for the next car.
7. To finish the downstairs of the house.  It's time we had a real kitchen.
8. To get a dog.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Get a Life

Some people (usually women) would consider it a sad fact of my life, that gossip magazines bore me to tears. I've just flipped through someone's copy of OK magazine and neither know nor care about 99% of the people covered. The remaining 1% tempts me to protest: "Leave them alone!", as blatant speculation about members of the Royal Family's private lives kick off another round of unfounded rumours.

Why do gossip magazines sell? What drives our celeb-mad culture? It can't all be down to teenage girls searching for their identity, finding someone to idolise and emulate. My theory is that it is similar to the appeal of soap operas: women living life vicariously instead of going out and seizing it in both hands. To me, an obsession with the soaps/gossip mags speaks volumes about living in a fantasy world, waiting for Prince Charming to sweep them away from their dull, boring existence. When will they grow up?

I reckon I'd grown out of all that before my 21st birthday. I was a nurse and a singer in a semi-professional choir. Life was full and busy. There were days when it felt as if we were living in a soap opera; so much drama was occurring. Dealing with the ill and their families during the day, then living the university chorister life by night. Going to parties after finishing a late shift, getting 3 hours sleep and working the early shift the next day (even then, I wasn't much of a drinker so I was inevitably sober). Singing with major orchestras, well known conductors and soloists.

It was intense. It was fun. It was living life to the full. And it taught me that living life second hand, through a tv soap or reality tv program is not living life at all. Live life first hand, in the now, experiencing every minute. Seize it with both hands and chase your dreams. Live your adventures don't just watch them.

Cheers!

Cheers.  Such a simple word to say but one with so many meanings.  The British use it as a toast when they clink their wine glasses together, presumably derived from the old toast "be of good cheer".  They use it to say thank you, ("Cheers!" I said to the man who held the door open for me in Glasgow today).  They use it to informally sign off emails when "Kind regards" is too formal to convey the level of friendship involved.

Today, at lunch, we used "Cheers" to say "Thank God that's over and didn't it go well?" when we clinked our wine glasses together.  We'd survived our first quarterly forecast review with our new Bigger Boss and it was far less traumatic than we'd expected.  Seriously, at 10.30am, we were expecting the worst:  some unexpected, unprepared-for question that knocks you sideways and results in a Sir-Alex-Ferguson-hairdryer blasting from the Bigger Boss. 

It didn't happen.  No difficult question.  No hairdryer moment.  Instead the meeting was relatively convivial and reasonably relaxed. I doubt all these meetings will go that way, but it was a good start.

Cheers!

All change, please. All change...

Work-wise, the last month has been a bit of a whirlwind.   At the end of October, I had an email from my Commercial Director, "In view of the recent announcement....[blah, blah, blah]...".

"What announcement?" I replied, ignoring the rest of the email.  (Curiosity should really be my middle name.)

He phoned me.  One of the PTB's* was about to announce that our Business was moving from one of the non-geographic UK regions to the other.  Since Finance sits outside the businesses we look after, that could have all sorts of consequences, ranging from business-as-usual to redundancy for me and the members of my team.  While he certainly didn't want the latter to occur, not belonging to the business means that our fate was completely out of his hands and he couldn't control it.

Hanging up, I turned around to see if my boss was at his desk then went over and dragged him into a meeting room, demanding if he knew what was going on. "I'd heard a rumour this was going to happen..." he told me but, as far as he knew, nothing had been finalised.  He'd take it up with his boss (who's responsible for the finance teams of both regions).  Big Boss was due in our office tomorrow.

The next day, I stalked Big Boss's usual desk.  When he hadn't arrived by 10am, I asked Boss whether he was actually coming in.

Errr.... No.... Boss had got his days mixed up. 

However, this wasn't something I could leave alone. It wasn't just about my job or future - I have four people reporting to me who needed to know whether or not they had jobs, preferably before any official announcement was made or any gossip had reached their ears.  Had Boss and Big Boss discussed it? 

Yes.

Big Boss's response could be summarised as "if it ain't broke, don't change it".  So business-as-usual, then. We'd be moving to the other finance team and I'd have to report to another financial controller.  We broke the news to my team. Two days later, I spoke to my new boss on the phone.  Definitely business as usual.  I'd keep my team, keep the projects that I look after, and keep my management accounting responsibilities.  (Actually, I'm not sure even now that New Boss knows about my projects.)  On top of that, I get a shiny new job title:  Finance Manager.

I broke the news to my (relieved) Commercial Director, "Sorry - you're stuck with me", and we set about determining how life would work in our new world.  Tuesday's business trip was about that:  meeting the new management; working out who are the influencers; going over the budget and other numbers with my new boss and trying to figure out whether we're providing all the information they want from us in the format they need.

Our next big hurdle is Friday.  Friday morning, we'll be back in Glasgow and up before the new region's management for our rolling forecast review.  Keep your fingers crossed for us, please.

- Pam   (Oh, yes.  And that announcement?  It was finally made this week, over a month after the whole process started.)










* Powers that Be

Another Opening, Another Show

Or, in my case, "Another suitcase, another hotel".

I'm in Glasgow tonight, staying in a new-to-me hotel around the corner from the office. It's a nice place. My most pressing desire, right now, is to figure out how to switch off the air-conditioning. Yea gods! Is it noisy!

I have two more weeks of flights and hotels. It isn't like the "old days", when I'd turn the Toy right at the end of our street, then head west or north for a hundred miles or so. Air travel has certain constraints: the two items of cabin luggage rule (which means packing my handbag in my case); the 100ml liquids rule (which leaves me hoping the hotel has decent shampoo, since I left mine at home); and the take-your-laptop-out-of-your-bag-at-security rule (which inevitably means juggling multiple belongings like an apprentice octopus).

This definitely isn't the glamorous side of business travel. Certainly, it's more fun when you aren't travelling alone (this trip, I'm travelling with my commercial director), but glamorous it isn't. Nothing is glamorous about being up at 4am to get to the airport before 6. Nothing glamorous about never seeing the city outside the office you are visiting. (Although you know when you've done a flight too regularly when the cabin crew know you by name. (Ahem. Boss.)) Still, I had a friendly greeting from several colleagues and that is worth it's weight in gold. It is nice to know you're liked by people you only see a couple of times a year.

Now, if I can only figure out how to switch off that damn fan....

- Pam

Writing as therapy

A girl sat opposite me on the Tube. She's unremarkable - thin, long dark hair, pale skin. Cold. From her bag, she produced an A5 notebook and started to write. Glancing furtively at the lefthand page, I see she's writing a list. I can read the first item: "my apparently awful ability to remember experiences".  From my distance of 4 feet away, I can tell that the rest of her list is consists of additional "faults" and/or a written rebutal to them.  Someone has been snarkily chipping away at her and now she was quietly fighting back.

Writing as therapy. 

Memories flowed:  I remember doing it too, back in the dim-and-distant past, when Dumbo was playing his mind-games:  start a list, leave some space,  change pens and write a rebuttal in the space you left.  Counter the negative with something positive. List the nastiness, the petty cruelties, the times (s)he hurt you and didn't notice or care. On a different page, or at the other end of the notebook, write a list of positive things about yourself.  Doesn't matter if it is something simple like "I've got good teeth" - anything to strengthen your sense of self and ensure that someone-else's perverted view of you doesn't engulf your entire life. Make a list of goals and plans: how you'll escape; who you want to be in 6 months, a year, two years time.  Hide the notebook where it can't be found and your rebellion exposed - in your bag, probably.

I watched the girl furtively over my knitting.  I wanted to tell her that she isn't alone; that others have been there too and survived.  And that she is far more worthy than the person who hurt her.  To do that, though, would have been to admit to invading her privacy and to possibly hurt/embarrass her further.  It would also have meant popping the bubble that is travelling on the London Underground, where everyone is in a privacy bubble, travelling in a world of their own.  I could not do that to her.  All I could do was sit and silently wish her well, when she got off the train.

I hope she is OK and that her writing gives her the strength she needs to stand her ground and protect herself.

- Pam

In which the Toy gets a new "pacemaker"

The Toy has had starter motor problems since the summer. When I got him serviced in September, I told the mechanic that he was getting slow to start and was advised to wait until it got really bad, once winter started, and then get a new starter motor fitted: "No point doing it now. Might not get worse for months. Might as well save your money until then." (This is a local garage not a dealership.) Last Monday morning, I switched on the engine and all Toy could manage was a single, asthmatic wheeze. Waited a few seconds and tried again: the coil light for the glow plugs came on followed by a bit more wheezing. On the third attempt, he started. (Toy is a diesel. Once the fuel is warm enough to ignite, he'll run forever. I bought him new, 12 years and 263,000 miles ago.)

I drove into work, phoned the garage and booked him in for his new starter motor, which was done on Wednesday. He also got two new tyres (they needed replacing) and a set of new wipers (the old ones squeaked even in the past week's heavy downpours). The last time he had his starter motor replaced, 6 years ago, was back when I regularly him to a dealership for servicing and repairs so I was expecting a bill for at least £600 plus the cost of the tyres (say £750 in total). I was pleasantly surprised when I got the bill - £287.17 for everything, including VAT.   My bank balance was much relieved.

Oh, and guess who now eager to get going on these dark wintery mornings and starts first pop?   Makes me wonder exactly how long the starter motor had been going.  

- Pam

Knitting to the foreground

For a knitting blog, I haven't talked much about knitting at all this year, let alone added to the list of finished objects over there ----> on the right.  Time to remedy that a little.  So how am I going towards my goal of knitting six sweaters this year?

Sweater 1 - Norwegian Sweater

Firstly, the Norwegian Sweater that's been lurking in the "What's On My Needles" box is well and truly finished.  I finished the knitting in April eventually wove in the ends in August and gave it to my mother-in-law for her birthday present.  The lavender suits her colouring far better than it suits mine. The only photos I have of it completed do not do the colours justice so here's three, one of it complete, one of a partial jumper and a close up of the yoke, which is the one photo that does show the colours correctly.

Pattern:  Norwegian Sweater
Source:  Knitting In Vogue 2, by Christine Probert, published October 1983 (pattern dates from the 1960's)
Yarn:  Sublime Organic Merino DK in Tuile (main colour) and Felt (contrast)
Mods:  Knitted in the round.  Also, since the yarn is discontinued, I knitted the sleeves first, then the yoke (casting on using the crochet provisional cast on), before knitting the body downwards.  I ran out of yarn at the waist but managed to find some more from McAree Brothers in Scotland. Finally, I did the collar in the contrast colour, back when I was still hopeful it would "lift" the lavender enough to enable me to wear the sweater.

Sweaters 2 and 3 - 2012 the Year of the Four Babies

And four babies means four Five Hour Baby Sweaters.  After the first one took two weeks, I decided that two baby sweaters would equal one adult sweater.  I use Courtney Filner's version for a 6-12 month old (the link will take you to it), but in a fit of stash busting I modified it a little to make stripy sweaters when I knew whether the baby would be a boy or a girl.

Each one takes about 125g of yarn.

Sweater 4 - A Frogged Garden Sweater

One of the forums I participate in on Ravelry is the Ankh Morpork Knitters Guild.  We have a Guild Wars competition and, as part of the third round, I whipped out Veera Välimäki's Modern Garden Sweater.  It's lovely; it's quick; it ate up some left-over chunky yarn from my stash....

But it didn't fit me.  And it didn't fit my sister-in-law.  So I've frogged the body to knit it again.  I'd picked the size to knit on the basis that I only had 450g of the yarn (Zettl Alina, bought from Lidl on the rare occasion they sell yarn).  I was lucky enough to have about 75g yarn left over so will knit two sizes up this time and see where that gets me.  Should take a week or two to do the body (I did stay it was fast).

Sweater 5 - Pretty in Pink

The final sweater I've knitted so far is another vintage Vogue pattern.  This time it's the Cotton Sweater with a Ribbed Yoke from Kntting in Vogue by Christine Probert published in December 1982.  The pattern dates from 1936.

I only have photos of the body, but it is virtually finished.  All that's left to do is to attach the sleeves, weave in the ends and give it a damn good wash.  (Somehow, I've managed to get sweet-n-sour sauce on it from a Chinese takeaway.)

Again, I modified this by knitting it in the round and doing the sleeves 2 at a time using magic loop.  The other thing I always do is finish the shoulder seams using a three needle bind off.

Sweater 6

No idea what I'm going to do for sweater 6.  I have a few patterns lined up in my queue, but they'll all take longer than 6 weeks.  Might finish the Moth Wing Shrug I started in March.  Yes, I know it's crochet, but that counts too.

- Pam

First casualty

I have been knitting socks since 2006 and, in all that time, I have never holed my socks. Until a moment ago. These were knitted in 2007 or 2008, using left over Opal silk-blend sock yarn for the legs, heels and toes, with the feet in Lisa Souza's Sock!. As you can see, it is the Opal that failed - put my toenail straight through it, getting out of the car.

Ramblings

Lurgy

 I'm so tired.  I'm carrying some sort of cold bug that just won't go beyond the first few, throaty symptoms.  I'll feel rough for a few hours and then it eases back for a while.   This has been going on for over a week.

Last Monday, my throat was so swollen, I skipped rehearsal and went to bed early.  Gradually felt better on Tuesday, rough on Wednesday and OK by Friday.  This Monday, I spent most of the day with a splitting headache, partially masked by painkillers.  Couldn't miss another rehearsal, but felt more and more knackered as the evening wore on.  I yawned my way home, went to bed fairly quickly and promptly woke up at 4am.  Couldn't get back to sleep.   Felt like a zombie for a large part of yesterday then, at 3pm, my Commercial Director bought me a cappacino.  The caffeine kicked in around 5 and didn't wear off until  midnight.  Today, I was woken by the rain but felt human until just before I left work.

Right now, I'm peering at the computer, feeling slightly feverish with a sore throat.  I haven't had an on-off, dragged-out illness-in-stages like this since the winter before I got diagnosed with hypothyroidism.  I just wish the damn thing would either develop or go.  I'm sick of it.

==========================
Channel 4

Last night, I watched 27 Dresses on E4 (one of the TV stations controlled by Channel 4).  Good film.  Very funny. Cute leading man, James Marsden.  Almost totally ruined by Channel 4's insistence that they insert 5 advertisements every 10 minutes, cutting scenes in the middle, without sensitivity to the story line.  They do it by the clock.  You can set your watch by it.

I hate Channel 4 for this!  I remember the night they totally ruined The Elephant Man.   They don't care about the film or their audience, just about their advertising revenue.  I rarely watch programs on Channel 4 - wonder why?

==========================
Eye Candy

 Talking about James Marsden, I spent a considerable part of the film thinking he looks a lot like the poster-boy of English cricket, Alistair Cook.

 Alistair, when you cricket career finishes, I hope Hollywood comes calling.

========================

Toying with an idea - PipneyJane's Wartime Experiment


World War 2 is back on our screens in the form of the Wartime Farm on the BBC.  The thread discussing it on MSE got me thinking.  Five years ago, Thriftlady did a ration book challenge - feeding her family for (I think) 2 weeks on the same quantity of rations they'd have got in 1942.  Could we do something similar?  Who would be willing to pretend it's September 1939 again? War has just been declared and rationing is imminent.

These are the ration quantities per person, per week:-
Meat –this was rationed in money not by weight but it was roughly equivalent to 12 oz mince/stewing steak. Chicken was scarce. Offal and sausages were not rationed but hard to get. Wild game such as rabbit was not rationed.
Milk - 3 pints
Sugar ½ lb
Butter – 2 oz
Margarine – 4 oz (for this challenge can up the butter ration to 6 oz instead of using margarine)
Cooking fat (dripping/lard) – 3 oz (for this challenge can substitute up to 3 fl oz oil)
Cheese (English hard cheese) – 3 oz
Bacon and ham - 4 oz (or have an extra 4oz of meat instead)
Eggs - 1 Dried egg -¼ packet (equivalent to 3 eggs so use 3 eggs)
Sweets and chocolate - 2 oz
Jam- 3 oz Tea - 2 oz (18 teabags) (need an equivalent for coffee)
There was a points system - 16 per person per month – which allowed you to buy tinned goods, orange juice, cereals, rice and pulses. Off ration were: bread (finally rationed in 1947), potatoes, oats, fresh fish, and homegrown fruit and veg.

As to the rules for the game, so far, I've come up with these:-

• All mod-cons are allowed if you already own them (freezers, food processors, microwaves, etc). 
• You don't have to buy a whole week's ration every week.  If you routinely only shop once a month, then buy a month's worth then.
• You can eat out of the freezer or the pantry but limit your weekly quantities to those of the ration.
• You can stockpile a week's ration, but you can't spend one in advance, i.e. you can save up your chocolate ration for several weeks in order to purchase the chocolate needed to make coconut rough for Easter.
• You don't have to eat wartime recipes, just adapt what you normally eat to fit the restrictions of the rations.  (However, the various recipe collections such as Marguerite Patten's Victory Cookbook are a very good resource if you need ideas.)
• Petrol/gasoline rations.  Since I'm dependent on a car for work, I was thinking 1 tank of fuel per car per week.
• Clothing rations.  How about throwing in a Fashion on the Ration challenge as well?  The 1941 clothing ration was 66 coupons. (Yarn and fabric already owned doesn't count towards your ration.) This is what your coupons could buy according to Fashion Era:-

Item Of Clothing	Women	Girls
Lined mackintosh or coat over 28"	14	11
Under 28" short coat or jacket	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of wool	11	8
Frock, gown or dress of other fabric	7	5
Bodice with girls skirt or gym tunic	8	6
Pyjamas	8	6
Divided skirt or skirt	7	5
Nightdress	6	5
Dungarees or overalls	6	4
Blouse, shirt, sports top, cardigan or jumper	5	3
Pair of slippers, boots or shoes	5	3
Other garments including corsets	5	2
Petticoat or slip, cami knickers or combinations	4	3
Apron or pinafore	3	2
Scarf, gloves, mittens or muff	2	2
Stockings per pair	2	1
Ankle socks per pair	1	1
1 yard wool cloth 36"wide	3	3
2 ounces of wool knitting yarn	1	1

I'm still not sure I'll go through with this.

- Pam

Mean Girls

(I have been stewing over this for the best part of 10 months.  I think sufficient time has elapsed, now, to tell you all about it.)

Just before Christmas, I met up with a group of girlfriends for our annual Christmas Night Out. We are a group of five successful women in our forties. I was late and flustered (got held up in traffic) but within five minutes of my arriving, it turned into the female equivalent of a pissing contest. One woman (I'll call her TopDog) had to be better/a bigger martyre/a saint/more successful/bigger-spender than the rest of us. Whatever it was about TopDog had to win the comparison contest. My favourite episode from that evening was not long after I arrived, when the others were commisserating with me about my journey: TopDog announced that she'd had the furthest to travel to get to the restaurant, which was blatently untrue. "No you haven't", I responded, "I've just driven in from Reading, which is 40 miles away. You've only come 20 miles". If looks could kill, I'd be pushing up daisies.


The evening deteriorated from that point onwards, with TopDog demanding admiration and to be the centre of attention at every turn, making more and more outlandish comments just to get a rise out of people. (Seriously? Why else declare that your latest, uncircumcised partner was so much more sexually stimulating than your previous circumcised one simply because he has a foreskin? Who cares?) At one point, late in the evening, she even started a sentence irrelevantly with "Well, speaking as the only mother here....", which was designed to be a dig at me (several rounds of infertility treatment) and at another friend (I'll call her Placator) who is also not childless by choice. I demanded to know "And that means what exactly? What are you really saying?" and got no answer.

The worst part of the evening, though, was the half an hour TopDog laid into Placator bullying her, criticising her for her lack of love-life and for not wanting to date anything in sight. The rest of us sat there speachless. It was a horrible, nasty thing to do. We tried to change the subject and it kept coming back, time and again. I couldn't think of a thing to say to stop her. Eventually, one of the others said, "Friends don't try to "fix" friends," to which we all agreed and that finally changed the subject. (Honestly, I nearly accosted a total stranger in the Ladies Toilet to ask her what to do. I was at my wits end.)

I drove home that night fuming with anger. Still feel it now. In the morning, I sent Placator a text message apologising that I hadn't stood up to TopDog on her behalf. When TopDog sent out an email saying "That was fun! Must do it again!", I replied that I hadn't enjoyed the evening and that I though she owed Placator an apology for laying into her for half an hour. My exact words were:

Personally, I didn't have a good night. I didn't enjoy what I witnessed. You obviously have no idea how hurtful you were being last night. You laid into xxxx for nearly half an hour. In that entire time, I'm surprised she only came back at you with one snarky remark. And she immediately apologised for it. Sorry, but I think you owe her an apology. You need to learn when to stop.

The response can be summarised as: "F.... Off. And don't bother to contact me again.". At which point I congratulated myself for saving myself a Christmas card. When I talked to the others, the response I got was largely positive. It needed to be said. And I'm glad I won't have her in my life any longer. You know when someone is a good person and a good friend when go to their wedding/birthday/family celebrations and see how many of the people there have known them for years - looking back at the time I've known TopDog, she has virtually no long term friends other than the girls who were at that meal. Says a lot really.
 
My only regret is that I didn't tell TopDog to stop. I was brought up to believe that I should stand up for the defenceless and shouldn't stand by when someone-else is in trouble. And that includes standing up to bullies like TopDog.


Life is too short to worry about the TopDogs unless one is unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of their attentions. I hope you have managed to escape such nastiness.

- Pam