Back to St Clares!

Apologies for the brevity of this weeks edition but I'm unwell with seems to be a bad cold but never fear Joanne always comes up with something.You can thank her boarding school for that!
Picking up with the themes of returning to school where I've been trying last week to get to grips with times tables, the little adventure dayout and so on, I decided to take stock of my small book collection.
Actually it came to me last night, there were two reasons why some of the first books I bought at the end of my formal education were more like textbooks, first first being my problems in reading meant something more simplified like a study aid was easier to follow and the other was - wait for it - an early indication that really I wanted my childhood back by having some of the books I had or read at the time with me.
Anyway, I found a few books that I never read much because as good as they are (some won literary awards), they're too far above my reading age meaning I struggle to really follow them so I'm replacing them.
Why replace them rather than just give them away? Simply I realize that reading is something I need to do to improve within my own learning disabilities restrictions, my ability to read, follow and understand stories.
What I decided to do was to get the older two book collections of the original 6 story edition of St Clare's by Enid Blyton because it's a  bit more wordy than some of her other stuff so it gives me a bit of a word workout (I can look up the words in my new Dictionary and learn their meanings) and a school, based adventure story is the kind of thing I love to read (which helps keeping the interest up).
They were issued several years back with new computerized art covers however I feel they just don't look right and also Pamela Cox ghost wrote three new stories for that series that aren't really essential.
These are my 'new to me' editions:

This edition has the first three books in a single  volume namely The Twins at St Clare's, The O'Sullivan Twins and Summer term at St Clare's, written between 1941 through 1943 although many more memorable characters such as Claudine, a mischievious French girl and feather-headed Alison also feature in a world of tricks and jokes, midnight feasts, sports matches, thrilling rescues, fun and friendship as well as hard work, exams and snobbery!

The final volume has Second term at St Clare's, Claudine at St Clare's plus Fifth formers at St Clare's written between 1944 and 1945. I remember the fifth form vividly!
It's a bit odd for missing out completely the third form  but perhaps everyone leapfrogged it?
The school predates Malory Towers and is seen by parents as being  a "very sensible sort of school one  not to pander to children who feel their above everyone else.
The school Headmistress Miss Theobald is a believer  in the idea people get out of life what they put into it, telling her pupils: "Do your best for us and St. Clare's will be able to do its best for you!  Oddly enough that was what my Head teacher said too!
These editions came out in 1993 but with the artwork still looking a bit more in keeping with the period they written and the stories themselves still hold up. Indeed many 9 through 11 year readers today have written glowing reviews as have parents whose children having gone though today's supernatural based stories were given these only to find their offspring can't get enough of them.

It's not all bad, actually

I'm pretty open to people having genuine differences of points of view however one area I find I have big issues with is the almost blanket "you must never spank a child" and it's following "we must make it illegal" and even "must remove all references to it in literature" approach.
Society is less than settled on this issue with many parents taking exception to such approaches although although we'd all agree no child must be permanently harmed through abuse.
I was of the generation whose adults were at cross purposes over this.
For instance my infant and junior schools did smack you and I was smacked in class for refusing to do my math something that I'd say hasn't made me a bad person, most say I'm one of the kindest they've met. My secondary school left it very much up to individual staff and heads of form and some of the verbal rollockings I got affected me much more emotionally in a bad way than the the odd spanking, although those who did the former thought they were more humane.
Some just said they were disappointed in me and then kept reminding me and every class they taught about what I'd done year after year. Frankly I'd rather had gotten it all over and done with with a good spanking with nothing ever said about afterward which ironically what the equivalent of Form Prefect at the school did with me anyway as I could do that or get reported to the staff.
I just feel it ought to be an option.

Joanne takes a break

Well I did promise you a new entry a few days ago and being the kinda of "that girls so contentious" person I am, here it is.
Yesterday I went to the seaside on a coach not being a car driver.
Most of the people on the coach were groan ups who looked very groan up but me being a little said "Naw, I'm a little"  so went in my red school sweatshirt, grey shorts, the most cutest cat socks you could imagine with a pretty pink bow and regular unisex brogue style children's shoes. In addition I had my Hello Kitty childrens' flight and tote bag!!!
We set off travelling south through Jennifer's beloved Staffordshire Black Country (Btw it's more green than you'd think) that,being subject to long delays around Walsall and Bescot we had good views of. There were further delays on the M5 just south of Birmingham as far as Worcester North but the run through Bristol passing the bridge with good views across to South Wales was much easier.
When we arrived in Weston Super Mare, although I had been snacking on Barley sugars and chocolate finger biscuits - too bad they didn't have any animal shaped ones in - I was hungry so I called in at the Dragon Inn, a Weatherspoons public house that does food.
The food was nice , I had a Steak and Kidney pie and the manager was really funny!

Having eaten I felt like going on a bit of a walk around as I've never been here before and I'd have to say everywhere was super clean with litter pickers active during the day.

Some people don't realize the danger encouraging Seagulls with food can cause especially if you're a child having a picnic with your family.

The beach was cleaner than a good number in North Wales I could think of with finely grained sand.
There is one automatic response when I see a beach and it involves a bucket and spade so guesses for what happened next! Also the next response is something like getting a Pirates flag and waving it around while jumping up and down. Nobody I was with said anything!

Seaside towns often have amusement arcades, something the bigger side of me isn't too keen on but who couldn't resist the chance to win your very own Hello Kitty plushie? Well I sure couldn't.

The Pier was burnt down a few years ago but a great job was done of rebuilding it with associated facilities for that whole strolling along the pier experience. For an out of season weekday, it sure was busy.

Finally I had to be super careful not to get in the way of this the Great Western Land Train  that runs to the Harbour and back along the sidewalk. I think the Great Western was train company that operated in the South West of England before nationalization (and privatization in the 1990's).
The return back was much smoother stooping at Frankley services south Birmingham to freshen up

Disney bedroom?

All right The television is a bit past it's sell buy date having a old style picture tube rather than a flat screen lcd one but this is a middles girls bedroom needs to be, restful with plenty of space to spread out across the bed or floor when playing or watching say a dvd with cushions, plushies and nothing really Big in there so it aids your being in little/middle headspace at night.
That's the thing as an adult middle or little can be hard to achieve, avoiding the techno stuff that takes over the space or maybe running some groan up thing from within it.

Joanne returns to school

Well I did leave a bit of a hint a few weeks back but I will be undertaking a bit of learning this term brushing up on my numeracy, penwomanship and English as for one thing I'm a litle rusty part from my dyslexia, dyspraxia and other learning disabilities I'm not too good at this stuff.Really I'm not.
I'll be doing some UK KS1/2 worksheets as appropriate to my needs each week sat at a desk suitably dressed which no doubt Jennifer would wholeheartedly approve off although sadly I won't have a Games Mistress. The rotters!!!   Playtime will happen though.
But that means I need some new tools as my tools well, there a bit old really dating from the last time I set foot in a classroom.

That's right Jennie, a circa 1977 Commodore 796M LED calculator that if you knew how you could spell words on it! I'll be getting a newer one with pink keys but in the mean time this laptop has one although I'll be only using that to check the answers with cos I really need to bring my mental arithmetic aka Math up to scratch.
Spelling as well as picking the best words for something in English isn't my strong point and you see, if your dyslexic like me, a spellchecker only gets you so far plus it often suggests world you weren't thinking of so I'm going to have to learn new words by rote and learn to use a dictionary from now on.

Well that's my old very battered one the girl immediately under the Head Girl at my boarding school gave me back in the day but apart from the seams going, English has gained quite a few new words over the years as well as some old words having newer, more current meanings that I don't understand.

Well Hello Kitty can help me learn as she's made this new version that's easier to follow and as well as having some tips on how to use words better which I'll be using.
Dyspraxia means in simple terms I have difficult making and co-ordinating small movements such as those you use to draw and critically write. It's a pain!
My handwriting  has never been good and for a period stopped completely following the industrial injury that further messed my life up (in some ways at least, in others it bought the inner kid to the fore).

I'll be following the exercises Hello Kitty uses to practise my letter drawing together with forming the shapes that make the top and bottom of letters which is something I'm really really bad at.
Sometimes even in this electronic age we need to write things and many people appreciate a hand written letter, postcard or birthday greetings card so being able to make a good job of it will be a help to me.

Fun outfits

This is just the sort of girlish attire I like outside of uniform, contemporary, stylish  but wouth being too fussy with just enough pink in it without coming over too saccharine.

Bodnant Gardens

I like flowers and gardens a lot having visited a good many in my childhood although getting around them with my disabilities isn't easy as I'm not good on my feet and I tire easy.
One of the places I like to visit is Bodnant Gardens in North Wales, UK.
Here's a couple of pictures I took originated on film shot on HD mode using APS

As you can see the flowers in full bloom and I was rewarded with a bright sunny day which made taking a decent picture using a relatively simple camera easier. Had I of realized it, I'd of shoot them on 35mm film on my Olympus slr going wide and cropping to HD or Panorama style using the computer.