New blog take 2...

Lot's of change warrants a new start and of course a new blog :-), find it here: Anecdotes of the Atypical

A new blog....

I've got a new blog...it's more arts and crafts focused...I was reading some of my old posts the other day and I can't believe how long ago it seems !!

Anyway new blog is Here hope to see you there :)

Won't be updating this one anymore but I'm still going to keep it up for nostalgia's sake!

Those little folk again...

...no not the Borrowers..

So there i was "helping" a girl with her space collage and i overhear a snippet from the little folk over in the home corner. I had been following them for some time ( cutting out stars and planets gets boring after... lets say...erm...half an hour!), from what i gathered there was a mum, an older sister, a small boy, a police man and a firewoman who came home from a hard days work. The mum seemed to have set the table out with her top of the range plastic tea set and was now cooking what seemed to be several plastic eggs on her range cooker...then all of a sudden, a typically northern voice shatters the domestic bliss (it was either the small child or the policeman, i'm not sure which, they were brothers you see...) "WHERES MY BREW, I'VE BEEN WAITING TEN THOUSAND HOURS FOR IT!!

A conversation...

Small girl of around 5/6 years old: where are you from?
Me: Rochdale...
Small girl: I'm from England
Me (looking at her in a curious way): Oh...Rochdale is in England, it's not very far from here, it's really close actually (we were, at that very moment standing in Heywood)
Small Girl: ohhhh issit in Scotland?
Me: (giving her an even more curious look) No...
Small Girl: (Thankfully she had a very short attention span and had totally lost interest in our "conversation" and was by know squirming for room on the brown sofa...)

Fate...

I had just turned off my laptop, my lethargy overcame me and i just could not be bothered writing a blog post. I had a few already started but they were long winded stories which required a large amount of brain power which i didn't really have . I had just formed the intention of writing one tomorrow morning when my mum entered the house. My mum, grandma and aunt had been visiting an old family friend (they lived in the same village in Pakistan...). The husband has had terminal bowel cancer for 3-4 years now and they were going to visit him, my mum was picking my grandma up when she got a phone call from my uncle...The man in question had been released from hospital at 4.oo...he passed away at 7.00, as my mum reached my grandma's house. About five minutes before setting off my mum was telling us where she was going, she said they wanted to see him before it was too late...

Fate is a funny thing...

Sometimes bad things happen for a reason...

Here’s two examples why:

One: My dad had to make an impromptu trip to Pakistan because my grandma is really ill. My other grandma (mums mum) wanted to give my dad a few things to pass on. As both my parents were scrambling around the house in a last minute rush, the job of picking my grandma up was given to me. Now when you go to my grandma’s house it’s not a simple matter of waiting in the car and honking the horn and waiting. You see, the true proprietor of the house is my 2 year old cousin, who to be frank, is a huge mass of hyperactive energy compacted and compressed until it resembles an extremely cute child. So one cannot possibly just wait outside but is actually met at the door with shrieks of excitement and indistinguishable yet highly amusing chatter emitted from the said mass of energy. Coupled with the fact that I could see my grandma speaking furtively on the phone to someone I thought it best I go in. So in I went to the delight of my cousin, it turned out my grandma was on the phone to her nephew in Pakistan giving him stern instructions on the money she was going to send via my dad. This was going to take a while. So I made my self comfortable and began an attempt to translate what my cousin was saying (he was telling me his mum was in the conservatory but he couldn’t pronounce it properly). Half an hour later my grandma was off the phone and ready to go. A couple of minutes later we entered the oddly eerie hush that was our house, my mum was praying and I presumed everyone else was upstairs probably doing the same. My mum had just finished her prayer and turned to me with a look of anger in her face,
“why were you not answering your phone!” she shouted, it was then I remembered I had left my phone in my car before I went in to my grandmas…I hadn’t planned on staying half an hour…
”I left it in the car”…I muttered.
“You weren’t answering your phone, their house phone was engaged, they waited for fifteen minutes and you didn’t come so they’ve gone!!”, “they” of course referred to my dad and his friend who was going to drop him off at the airport…
“They’ve gone!” I echoed stupidly in disbelief
“Yes!” my mum snapped back. I couldn’t believe it, I’d missed my dad. I wasn’t expecting him to leave so early, I mean we had been checking the flight details online at irregular intervals since the night before and the plane was delayed by a good few hours, due to the heavy fog in Lahore. I couldn’t get over it, I felt tears welling up in my eyes, all sorts of horrible ideas filled my head, what if something happens, what if I never see my dad again. I didn’t get to say goodbye, I began to text him but I really didn’t know what to say, it took me about 15 minutes to word it and then send it. A couple of minutes later he rang back and he had a go at me for staying there for so long, but he calmed down and I bade him a safe trip. I still couldn’t get over it I prayed that he got there and back safely, every ounce of energy in my body willed him to get back home safe and sound. I prayed like I’ve never prayed before, until I knew there was nothing else I could do…

A couple of hours later my mum went to one of her friends house who was ill, and there was a phone call, my brother who was in the other room answered it. About 15 minutes later he came in and said my dad is coming home because his plane was delayed even more. A wave of relief spread over me, and I think a big cheesy grin actually spread over my face. An hour or so later my dad came and stayed for a good few hours and I got to say good bye properly. Yet I couldn’t help thinking that if I hadn’t missed my dad the first time would I have prayed with so much determination?!

Lesson learnt: Bad things bring you closer to God

Two: Me and Mishy went to watch Yesman a week or so ago, ok so this isn’t a personal example but it’s a good example all the same. The main character agrees to give a homeless person a lift in an attempt to “yes” more often. Then whilst on the journey the homeless individual asks to use his phone, of course our protagonist agrees, after all he is a good natured version of his old self. Yet he didn’t realise how prolonged his conversation would be , you see, contrary to appearances our homeless person is actually very popular. So our homeless person arrives at his destination (which by the way is in the middle of some sort if park/reserve in the dead of night). By know he is kinda taking the mick as he asks for some money, on seeing that the driver has rather more than he is giving out he asks for all of it, once again our good intentioned driver acquiesces. The result of his kind actions? He is stranded in the middle of nowhere with a dead phone, no petrol and no money. Thus he treks all the way back to civilisation to fill a gallon up with petrol…and who does he meet there?? The love of his life….

Lesson learnt: Some good does come from bad things…

Real muslims...

I love this video and the accompanying sound track