Old Fashioned

 

Hello all. I hope that you are well. I have just finished packing. Well, I say packing, HOH does all the clothes. I do everything else. I would just like to say that he gets the better deal because I have to sort all the toiletries, make-up, skincare, lady care stuff and hairdressing accoutrements. Well, yes those things are for me but that doesn't mean it isn't hard work to put it all together. Some people love packing for time away. I was reading this week about someone who starts to build up her clothes at least three weeks before she goes on holiday. She begins to put outfits on to a chair in the corner of the bedroom and spends what is for her a pleasant chunk of time mixing and matching until she gets the takeaway wardrobe she desires. Oh, I wish. I think I must have zero imagination. Packing for me means sitting on the bed, staring into my wardrobe wrestling with feelings of inadequacy for an hour before throwing two pairs of jeans and three stripey T-shirts into the suitcase. Done. All this is done to a background of HOH muttering "They have shops in Wales you know" as I am trying to plan for all eventualities. Anyway, enough of this compelling content. 

I have now retired to the bedroom as HOH is watching Sherwood which is sort of the Coal Miners Strike if it had crossbows and drug barons and family matriarchs threatening everyone with horrible deaths. That's my understanding anyway. If you know me at all you will know that I haven't spent much time on it so I can't be sure. 

Most of my telly watching this week has been around the Paralympics which means I have been sobbing like a baby a lot of the time. This is obviously very patronising as anyone who has watched wheelchair rugby (or murderball as it is also known) understands that the athletes may have physical impaiments but they work and train as much as anyone else to get to this point and are actually as hard as nails. 

However, I have noticed that often  - especially with athletes with learning difficulties - their emotions seem to be much nearer to the surface. So, when they fail to win, they have no problem letting everyone know how fed up they are and are not in the mood for any kind of straight face. This also also happens when they win. They are happy and they know it and so should everyone else. It's lovely to watch such honesty but this week I watched France play China in some kind of Tai Kwando thing. I can't be sure what the actual sport was but I am learning as I go along with this kind of thing. The winner was the French Tai Kwanderer and she was very pleased, her trainer ran into the arena and they ran around jumping and screaming, obviously buoyed up by the French crowd. This was all very well but she hadn't actually won anything as yet  - this was only a semi-final but when you looked across the Chinese athlete was completely broken. She was on her knees sobbing and it was just awful. Yet still the French athlete continued to overdo it. Now, this may have been down to a learning impairment or it may have just been poor behaviour by the French - again. Either way, it made me very uncomfortable. 

I don't think it is just Paralympians though. If you watch a football match these days, every goal is followed by three backflips, a celebration involving firing a pretend arrow into the sky, making a heart shape with your fingers to assure your girlfriend that you love her and then celebrating wildly with your teammates and the random assorted people from your club who have run onto the field for no reason really. In my day, when people scored a goal, a few people would run up, shake their hand in a manly way, and then say "Well done Nobby". Then they would run back to the centre circle and we would all get on with our lives. 

When I went to Sunday School, I was always taught that Jesus was "winsome". I was never sure if that was based in Scripture but the idea, I think, was that, although Jesus could have called down mighty armies etc. he chose not to. He chose to be modest and unassuming - unless people were turning the church into a cattle market, or his disciples were fighting over who got to be top of the tree or if church leaders turned out to be nasty pieces of work. (I am aware that I may be killing my own point here). In the main though, he was modest and would choose not to cartwheel down the street because he was so taken with himself. 

I suppose it is about being confident enough about who you are to not have to rub everyone else's noses in it. I'm really loving watching all this winning and loveliness. I'd just like everyone to take into account how hard it is to fail so publicly and treat the whole thing with a bit of dignity. Call me old fashioned.

Speaking of old fashioned. I spent a pleasant hour on Saturday night watching the Disco Prom. (I think I read once that one of the ideas of these light hearted proms was to encourage people to investigate classical music. I haven't done that. Sorry). Anyway. Lots of pleasant memories of being fifteen at Prestolee Social Club doing the actions to Rock The Boat at the Christmas Disco or being on a sponsored walk from school on a Saturday Morning with a group of girls singing "Rock your Baby" to a transistor radio that one of us had been struggling to tune in all the way round the course. Happy days. 

Have a good week.