Starting a new blog

[firechild]

If anyone is interested I’m starting an ADD dedicated blog. Can’t promise anything but if you want, drop by and check it out

http://addont.wordpress.com/

REPORT ABUSE

[Scattybird]

Hi firechild – thanks for this. What you say about your medication is interesting.  I have had a medication break too but found my fidgeting got worse. Maybe your Mom is right, but I know what you mean about not wanting to change something that you feel works. Most types seem to have some side effect so I guess it’s just finding one that has acceptible side effects  but sleeps you focused.

Why do you want to come to UK?  Just curious – my nephew has moved to Canada and he misses his family like crazy but his standard of living seems better there than it was in the UK. I guess it depends on the job etc. and on where.

Good luck with your blog.

 

 

REPORT ABUSE

[trashman]

sounds like a great idea. I will be waiting  to read more.

Thanks for now!!

REPORT ABUSE

[Patte Rosebank]

@Scattybird, I’ve wanted to move to England, ever since I first visited it, in Silver Jubilee year.  I was very little, and a cabbie said I looked like Princess Anne when she was my age.  I was delighted with this compliment.  I couldn’t figure out why my mother wasn’t.

One day, there was a big crowd near Westminster, and a bobby grabbed me & my little brother, and rushed us to the front of the crowd.  My parents (well, my paranoid mother) thought it was because there was an IRA attack.  Turns out, the Queen was on her way to open Parliament, and her car was just passing, about 3 feet in front of us.  She looked right at me, and smiled & waved.

During that trip, we discovered the joys of Hamley’s, “Are You Being Served?”, Fortnum & Mason (which had a small carousel in its toy department at the time), scampi & chips, M&S dolly mixture, scones & clotted cream in Clovelly, TyPhoo tea…

My favourite comedy (radio & TV) comes from England, and I especially appreciate that, unlike here in North America, you don’t need to be impossibly young, slender, and beautiful, to be successful in the entertainment industry.  People here find it quite amusing that I use English slang & swearing (in the appropriate accent), and I have a collection of regional accents that I can slip into at the slightest provocation.  I also have a stash of Rhubarb & Custards, and several Battenburg Cakes tucked away in the freezer.

When I was in university, I spent a summer living in Golders Green (just off the Finchley Road), and working at Drury Lane (and I can truthfully say that I have performed onstage at Drury Lane—not quite legitimately, but *truthfully*). Every night, after my shift, I’d ride home on the Finchley Road bus, from the Strand…enjoying the view from the front seat on the top deck, as I sipped from my tetra-pak of Ribena.

The last time I visited (18 years after my previous visit), it was Diamond Jubilee year, and I met Marjorie Reynolds (the top impersonator of Queen Elizabeth II), at an atelier that makes the best replicas of royal tiaras & Crown Jewels in the world.  She was collecting a replica George IV Diadem, and I was ordering a replica Oriental Circlet.

Truly, my heart has been in England for most of my life…though my body is stuck here in Toronto…for now.

REPORT ABUSE

[Scattybird]

Larynxa – thank you for your post. I read it and thought “yes, if I moved away I’d miss all the things you mentioned” and yet I hadn’t really considered any of them before.  You make England sound rather nice. Next time I think the grass is greener I’ll re-read it.

Do you still look like Princess Anne or did you ‘grow out of it’? I must say I rather like Princess A – she’s very ‘down to earth’. She came to my college in the mid/late 80s to open a building and the weather was dreadful – a howling gale – it was Scotland! All the dignitaries waited outside for her – the women all dressed in ridiculous flimsy dresses and my lasting memory is of those women holding down their flapping dresses, holding onto their hats and looking very cold whilst ‘Annie’ turned up in a warm coat and sensible shoes – she dressed for the weather and I warmed to her.

But don’t you have the CN tower and warmth in the summer!?

REPORT ABUSE

[ashockley55]

Scattybird – “but sleeps you focus”

Wow.  Somebody else.  I wondered if I was the only one who does that.

REPORT ABUSE

[Patte Rosebank]

@Scattybird, I did grow out of it.  My blonde hair darkened to dishwater, and my nose got much prettier than Anne’s.  I got braces on my teeth, and later, had all my front teeth capped. I also went from stick insect to plumptious.  However, I still have a great fondness for tiaras, and I currently own more than even the Queen herself.  Hers are somewhat more valuable than mine, though…

I visited Edinburgh during my UK trip, this past May.  It was cold, rainy, blustery, and miserable, and my penpal (whom I’d finally met, after 15 years) and I nearly got blown over the walls of Edinburgh Castle when we went there. He said it was a typical spring day in Edinburgh.  I said it was typical for spring in Newfoundland, too, which explains why Scottish comedy and Newfoundland comedy are so similar.

 

Ah, yes, the CN Tower…an enormous willy, thrusting skyward, next to the enormous diaphragm that is the Rogers Centre (formerly the SkyDome) with its retractable roof…

There was a sketch (“Architecture Today”) on the Frantics’ self-titled record album.  In it, the CN Tower was graphically described as a huge phallic symbol, complete with a reference to the revolving restaurant.  To this day, I want to giggle whenever I look at it.

We also have a subway (Underground) system, but it’s pathetically small and new, compared to the one in London.  It also hadn’t been expanded at all, for several decades, and now, Toronto is in one hell of a mess in terms of transit and gridlock.  I read the news on the BBC website, every day, and I’ve been very envious of all the transit expansion that’s being done in London, and that, thanks to the congestion charges (which our buffoon of a mayor refuses to even consider), traffic moves so much better there, than it does here in Toronto.

REPORT ABUSE

[Scattybird]

Larynxa – as much as I think ‘our Annie’ is OK, I am pleased for you that you ‘outgrew’ any facial similarity. 🙂 (Hope I don’t end up in the Tower of London now!)

I went up the lift in the CN Tower some years ago and had reoccurring dreams for ages afterwards about the lift not stopping at the top and me splatting out.  I view that dream in an entirely different light now having read your comments!!  Eew.

I realised how ‘safe’ Canada appeared in those days compared to the UK. When at the top of the Tower, I noticed an unattended bag that had been ‘on its own’ for some time, so I went over to a desk and reported it. The lady behind the desk asked me to go and get it and bring it over. My response was one of horror – I wasn’t going to touch it – and her response to my response was of equal horror. It made me realise that at the height of the IRA issues, we had to be so vigilant in the UK and that was unheard of in Canada at the time – at least behind the desk in the CN Tower anyway.

We also went up to Algonquin National Park – absolutely lovely.

REPORT ABUSE

[Author]

Posts