Choo choos

One place I visited in my childhood was in North Derbyshire near the Cheshire border which you have to climb up steep hills along the Pennines in our car.

Pop you see was something of a Railway Enthusiast, insisting on dragging us everywhere  in pursuit of his interests when all I wanted to do was sit out in the sun having a picnic with teddy, which if you ever been there you'll understand as the scenery is lovely. This period of my life wasn't so nice as he'd get mad if he didn't get his ways although I have now started to be to separate an understanding of the engines and appreciation of the engineering from all that.

This was a famous train that at the time run at the rail centre which I think was covered on the BBC TV children's program  Blue Peter in 1971.

Candyfloss

As it was my birthday recently, I had this new in paperback book that originally came out a year ago.

Floss's parents are divorced, and she divides up her week, spending five days with her mum, her new stepdad and her baby half-brother. The other two days Floss spends with her dad, helping him to run his greasy spoon cafe. But their simple arrangement is thrown into disarray when Floss's mum decides to move to Australia.

Making the difficult decision to stay at home, Floss moves in permanently with her dad and they muddle along happily together, surviving on chip butties and enjoying visits to the local funfair. But disaster strikes - Dad's money troubles catch up with him and they have to move out of the cafe. They're homeless - but can their new fairground friends help out?
This is what the story explores.

Team games II

In the World of Joanne there was only one thing that mattered in school:

Run, Run, Run to get the round all the posts!

 

Wait until the ball is bowled, then stick, followed by run for your life. With my co-ordination it wasn't easy but i put everything into it because I was a good girl.

An overview of the rounders pitch properly marked out.

Out with the old

 

That moment as you survey the scene having to stand attentively seeing what is before you.

 You and it are so acquainted you just bend over the desk as he pulls your skirt over you back and pulls your knickers right down ready to set your bottom on fire with a junior cane

Totality of indentity (a kind of essay)

After last week's entry which seemed to flow better than I anticipated, I sat down thinking a bit about about the follow up.

Some people write research papers, lecture and even publish lengthy books about things like Identity in all it's different forms and I purposely say forms because we're all different and from my point of view you can see it  as a Venn diagram  with it's overlapping elements.

For some people what can lead to an exploration of their own persona  can be a person they have a close nurturing relationship with in childhood or for some even into adulthood although for me it was more that I had that already but without the space to be me.

No doubt if I had the  space I'd been more like her as whenever I draw myself that was it and 'drawing in class' brought some of this stuff back to me recently and the crazy but true happening that upon seeing the  white frilly socks, Mommy bought me a pair and  a lolipop I could suck in her presence no less!

We cannot ignore something that a few people feel uncomfortable about which is I'm less "girl in a boys body" but in reality a sissy who has been like this from childhood and who wanted very much to dress in a uber feminine way with no wish to be actual girl.

 Part of identity for me certainly includes an interest in ideas, people and what one could call the arts being brought up where we belonged to a book club, went to the theatre and thanks to the record club had from an early age records of favourite ballet and other classical music.

I still have a number of the books in a bookshelf.

That was one and funny enough I could say the minute I saw the cover that I had it when I was younger as the smaller ones were a special offer you got and many were 'gifted' my way.
Another one I bought used when I was around 13 from a Country Fair was this

That rather formal portrait is of the late conductor Herbert von Karajan and this record was from 1954 in a performance I'd never really forgotten being played on my stereo phonograph even though the record was mono and I was able to get a cd with this on it a short while back.

For reasons best known to themselves my folks got me war toys but in time learned to buy me more girls stuffies and let me have artificial flowers in my bedroom.

Personally I wanted dollies to dress up and play with - ideally with girls - as I felt better that way but there you go 

One of the great things about this life is the extent to which you can rediscover play, feeling free to play more on the notion of what it is you'd rather be doing rather than any gender based restrictions by parents, play groups or schools that for some of us were issues at the time.

For me it helps deal with certain more specific to me issues such as my learning disabilities that can and does make deal with adult responsibilities very frustrating when you struggle with the means because I can focus more around things I can do, enjoying them. 

And so being disabled too for me is also a big part of my identity (I'm not with one, I has one in my whole being) too having had it from birth.

So this identity thing is pretty important for us personally although I don't feel people should put up rigid barriers between themselves  based purely upon that, focusing more on what we have in common.

Comics of my youth

We read these comics whenever it rained in our junior school and we were unable to play as they were kept in a big cardboard box and shared at recess.

Here's another long gone we read:

That one's more of a boys comic but it didn't matter that much when you couldn't play out back then.

Up and ready

It is definitely the case with me I am not the earliest of people when it comes to getting up in morning having been asleep overnight.

Sometimes it can be issues around my ability to get to sleep and not read or use a computer in bed that's the problem - something I share with today's children - and sometimes it is because I tire easily and so wake up lacking much of the energy.

Additional things with me include waking up with powerful migraines and vertigo so I may feel sick.

Caring for me includes helping me with all of this.

With your help I may be ready to go in the dorm.