Who saw 'Birdsong' then ?? The newspapers gave mixed reviews but I must admit that I thought that the adaptation was very fine. I have read the book twice but still forgot the end. I remember very vividly the war scenes, the grim reality of the trenches and the tunnelling.

I think the story was made more poignant for me knowing that my grandfather, who was 20 when WW1 broke out, spent 4 years in the trenches in France and was 'commisioned in the field' because of his knowledge and experience. Understandably, he never talked about his war experiences or wore medals on Armistice Day. He did talk about the horses and the terrible smell as they lay decomposing in no man's land, that was when I was nine and we were on a family holiday on the 'Continent'. We never went to France; his 19 year old brother was blown up there and his body never found.

I sat in the back of the car with him driving through Germany, Italy, Switzerland and so on and seeing still the results of the bombing around us. One sunny day with his sleeves rolled up I saw these scars on his arms and touched them and on asking what they were he just replied mildly, 'oh just bullet wounds!' I never forgot that. I wasn't shocked though. When I taught War Poetry, along with the history of the  Great War years later the impact of that war hit hard and the further we move away from it the worse it seems to get. I was shocked then. I am shocked now.

What struck me was the phenomenal courage of ordinary blokes facing such massive challenges and doing it. It doesn't take much imagination does it to contemplate our own menfolk facing the horrors their ancestors had to confront, And they would do it wouldn't they, sometimes against their will and against their beliefs? Well they did, with the outbreak of the Second World War, it was the sons and daughters of those who fought the first time round picking up the baton. And not only the blokes with the courage, how about those left behind waiting; can you imagine being that twenty something sweetheart having to see your loved one suddenly taken from his ordinary, maybe mundane, life looking forward, in many cases, to the challenges ahead and then when he returned going through it all over again with him, if he was young enough still, as my grandfather was, and watch your own son sign up to fight in another war, as my father did, and yours too probably ?? I cannot for the life of me imagine the courage of those wives and mothers to part again with those they loved. But yes I lie, I can imagine it and my goodness do I count myself lucky not to have had to face it - but I really, really hope that I would have had the courage to do so. We have seen the survivors and do you know what - we have heard them laugh and enjoy life again - what an amazing thing this is the resilience of the human heart. Remember it.

Well, life in Lancashire is as sweet as ever but must report that spide has been lying low for a few days. BLB has been taking to the streets again worrying the neighbours. However, a big dose of ballroom dancing today has spent his energy, yes BLB can trip the light fantastic along with the rest of the mediocre, which is what we are - but Blackpool Tower Ballroom will not shut the doors on even such as us. Yes, we can cha, rumba, tango, foxtrot,waltz and quickstep along with the rest. Just about. Fun and good for relationships, like therapy. Today we were encouraged to get a bit closer. Imagine, our teacher said, that you have a vinyl 78 between you and you mustn't let it fall to the ground !! BLB finds this level of intimacy a bit worrying, he is a  reserved sort of chap as his offspring will testify. The wife holds her own counsel.

Tomorrow I am off on a vest hunt - the ones without sleeves. Friends, they aren't sexy but just think a clean one every day!! I have noticed that the same one goes on each day - I was taking a little more notice after my reflections on our early married 'vest encounters'. 

The pyjamas are something else. BLB inherited some lately, pristine in their St Michael sellophane packets. Large. Well BLB is not a LARGE chap. What a fine spectacle he made with the pale blue PJs edged in navy, wide baggy legs, dainty collar and buttoned nearly to the neck - was there a vest on as well ? Cary Grant is some steamy bedroom scene came to mind. Well, I thought if you're coming to bed in those decorum demands that you sleep with one foot on the ground don't you agree ? BlB has always been keen on being warm in bed; not altogether unreasonable I suppose but there are many among you, I know, whose chaps fling themselves into the matrimonial pit with barely a pair of boxers on. But, on reflection maybe not a brilliant idea. It is a bit embarrassing putting out the, can't spell this next word and too lazy to look at the dictionary, wynceyette (??) stripey PJs on the line as well. I shall have to move the rotary down the garden under the trees, but then the birds will poo, ah well ...................Next stop, The Underpants, well father and  son used to share the same economical approach to UPs. One a week. The things that can be passed down genetically are astonishing. Anyway, before we get even more smutty let's say fairly quickly that the boys have been beaten into submission and now have healthier undie habits.

Pressures friends, what are you trying to do to me. Anyway, it's been fun to chat. I really don't believe that there is a real world out there !! Ciao for now x

Crikey - am I embarrassed now; just been on fb and seen your comments. No pressure then ?? Well Tight (black) Lycra Boy has not been out frightening the gentle promenaders of the Resort today - a recovery day, for them! Well, it has been one of those grey days with cold horizontal hard bouncy stuff falling out of the sky and disturbing me by being noisy on the window sill - stage right. Feel sorry for all of you who have been forced out there. Actually, I was forced out there as well as Lycra Boy is also a health freak and can't sit still and slump around ( you know that by the bike riding) so 'let's have a walk around the block' to me meant about 100 yards at the most - aha not the case my friends it was up Spook hill, though the woods, toowit towoo and home a different way. We went at about 5 ish, nice time, dark and very cold. However, it did mean that I had worked up a decent appetite and so didn't have to feel guilty eating an amazingly big plate of brown rice, tuna, toms, anchovies, spinach, onions and lotsa spices from my newly stocked cupboard, or have that bag of crisps and glass of red wine and then pretend that I didn't have a slice of marzipan, which I have just found and am addicted to, and a sliver of Xmas cake and the last of G's orange and sultana cakes and a cup of milky coffee. It's all his fault.

Enjoying the Caitlin Moran very much BUT am I too late for feminism ?? I was there the first time remember. During my early life and times I was regularly dragged out at parties to send unsuspecting men cowering into corners with my VIEWS on equality and whatever else was popular at the time.

I was lucky because TLB had a mother who smoked cigars, worked full time and slumped in the chair in front of the telly as soon as she was back from school, she hated being a schoolteacher. Thus small boys and equally, maybe not, hard working father had to lurk about in desultory fashion to find something to eat not daring to disturb the matriarch. TLB was cooking a full Sunday lunch at 12. He was brilliant when he went to uni ( I use that word loosely ) as he was the only one who knew one end of a saucepan from the other. He was popular.

When I first ironed a shirt for him he stared in disbelief and wonder because he had never had an ironed shirt before. Good old mother in law, no competition there. She always did comment though that her boy was looking thinner - the cheek. He was in CCF at his rather posh school, well we may have heard of knife edged trouser creases but these imitations of drain pipes did not do the boy's nascent military career any good. He left.

We danced this afternoon - after the scathing comments on Monday morningfrom our 25 year old teacher we dared not practice - so we were busy Telemark turning, V6ing and tangoing when the granddaughter arrived - she was suitably impressed. I was not so impressed as I was stuck under the arm pit of sweaty TLB and getting mildly asphyxiated. SOMEONE had given him some snug warm vests and yes....aroma. Mind you at least he'll take it off tonight. There was a time in our early married life when I watched with horror as the vest stayed on all day and night all week, biking across London for an hour each way to work, home, bed and back to work. Some vest that. It took great will power to wrench it from his nerveless form - maybe he misread the signs and that's why .......no I shan't go there, there are children out there!!!

Well, I feel dead daft writing this but you are all invisible which is good. 100 pages of Caitlin to go and book club tomorrow. It's very saucy in parts and C is a contemporary of 2 of my daughters, do I really want to hear true life confessions or the part Hitler (me ) played in their downfall. Yipes - I do live dangerously. Hey, no spide names yet ??? Ciao for now, love you all x

I'm back and all in one go - technological world I have arrived, or maybe arriving on  a very slow train. Isn't it the nicest thing when the most perplexing thing on one's mind is what to call the spider that inhabits the downstairs loo. He/she lives just inside the door in what I would like to call the wainscotting as I like that word and it resonates with the Borrowers and little worlds that we can't reach. So when discussing it with G and Ims last night - how come both of them were on one chat line ??? - they said to put it out on the blog. So, here it is folk.

Small, black, slightly timid spider nips out occasionally but scuttles when the light goes on or the door knocks his hidey hole. Actually, when I go in there I leave the door open and have to kick it back open every 30 seconds or so to keep the place lit. It would be easier to go in shut the door and put light on, but I digress. Actually, sometimes the door does stay open and I can't reach it when mid wee there's a knock on the door and someone walks in and I have to be VERY QUIET on my throne!!  So, when you're settled on the loo, this has got to be  a girl thing really what with chaps standing up and facing the other way - except, but we won't explore that avenue - he'll pop out again and potter about his web which to be honest is growing quite large but of course I can't brush it away. So we have become quite good friends except that he probably doesn't  know that. Ian hears me chatting away with him - he says nothing, Ian that is and I suppose the spider too isn't terribly reciprocative either. So, friends - a name ? I wonder how long he'll live and whether there is a spouse and little ones on the way - you'll have to watch this space. I'll see if I can get a photo of him for you.

Well himself, the husband, has sniffed the air and seen the sunsine, donned his tight lycra and funny hat and thrown himself onto the unsuspecting Blackpoolians, having a gentle, minding their own minds sort of meander along the prom. He gets entwitched (!!) if he doesn't get out on that bike regularly. He was PLOTTING with his nephew Robert on Sunday some sort of 'jolly' which involved Bucharest ( Budapest?) and cycling along the Rhine to Vienna. It's his dream. Don't let Jono see this. Apparently you can take bikes on planes, well I suppose if you can take racehorses, elephants and pandas, bikes are nothing.

I suppose I wish we did things like other old people do which is to take a ride out in the car, stop at some tea room or antique fair and potter about. He's certainly got the driving style. But then I am nervous around cakes as they shout EAT ME and I do; dead easy it is. We're both not keen on shops and that's because he's indocrinated me with retail loathing by going a funny colour and coming over all unnecesssary in shops. He accuses me of making him have frontal lobe surgery when we married so that he had no mind of his own - what a con trick, never does what he likes etc, you've heard it folks, so you know what I reckon it was the other way around. So, instead of me being out and about doing normal geriatric things I have instead to write a blog - which to be fair is quite good fun; for me that is, not for you haha, it's not exercise though is it. I think a rumaba, cha cha cha and tango will be on the cards when the exhausted one returns !!

Mind you, I'm reading the Caitlin Moran HTBAW book and the chap beside me in bed is getting some pretty nasty looks. I've only reached the 'breasts' chapter but feel incensed already about the wimping out of feminism. I agree, let's do it with humour. Bit worrying all the porn stuff and children getting their misguided sex education from the i/net. Interesting to read that you daughters of mine remember my disapproval of Grease on moral grounds. God, the things you remember. I'm scared. Come on it was really wasn't all that bad - she lies to herself. It was. Public apology. Yipes !!

It's gorgeous out there and I have to wait in for the locksmith - I wanna go out and hunt down a haggis or do you think we'll forget about adopting Scotttish traditions now because they are being so unfriendly and don't want to play with us anymore ??

Well, you've probably heard enough from Mrs Banal of PLF. I'll sign off and go read some more CM and get a good seethe going for when himself returns!! Ciao for now.

Have I found the page ?? Ah well maybe. Folk, you know that you are going to be reading the ravings of a pensioner with a little bit of unsound mind getting unsounder as the days motor on ?? Are you up for it?

Sad day today and joyful too, oxmoron ish. Went to the funeral of a dear old friend way over in Yorkshire whom I actually haven't seen for years and years. In fact I wish indeed that he had been there in the flesh and blood to hug and greet. Instead his wonderful sons, grown men now to hug instead. It was very moving - they were children last time we met. Happy/sad eh.

This year we thought we'd make a 'Round Britain Tour' and call on all those people whom we promise in the annual Xmas card that we'll see and never do. The next thing is they are enboxed and the moment has passed - as have they. We are old Father William .......

Again, me being here is G's fault, the pressure to write this blog which I am not taking that seriously but am aware now that I must use aliases to protect identities and my own neck he he he. I shall enalias everbody and hide the code - do you like my economical use of language ??

So 4 hours on the M'way in thick fog and severe dreich conditions have rendered the brain slightly woeful so I shall spare you good people any more mind wanderings and drift off and return refreshed. I like the style of the Caitlin Moran book I shall go read some more and learn a bit about appealing style and how to be  WOMAN maybe it's a bit late for me.

Ciao bambini x

22nd January 2012- Sunday lunch

OK, so chatting around the lunch table, only 17 souls today including a pile of BOY children and now a completely upside down sitting room. WHY ?? And because I am noted for my excessive interest in talking to people the DAUGHTERS, Susannah and Gabriella, decided to open a blog for me so I can talk away to my heart's content to the WORLD! Hello everybody out there. Prepare to be affronted and abused and I will try and keep out of the libel courts. Gabriella was mostly at the forefront of this action and has forced me to sit here and say something. Well, cousin Robert Wills and wife Sarah plus 3 boys, Hamish Lachlan and Magnus ( yes, you guessed it Scots - but living in Skipton ) came over for lunch to meet Aunt Elspeth ( yes another Scot from Edinburgh) who actually couldn't make it as she was struck down with flu - but everyone else came along anyway, that is Susannah, Archie, Matilda, Gaby Mike, Iris and Erik. Well we are a BIG family so you'll have to get to know the names and relationships so might as well start early.

The daughters have all scooted off now and are downing more wine in the kitchen, the husband is clearing up the debris and granndchildren Amelia and Rory have been summoned home by their mother who is actually on  a train returning from London. I am hearing snippets of very intersting converstaion so I will go and lend an ear in that direction and come back to you later. Iris is demanding another round of 'head shoulders knees and toes', 'row, row, row your boat' and 'When all the stars are shining and the sun has gone to bed' !!

Actually, I think this is a cunning ruse to get me out of the way and occupied and not contributing to the gory converstaion I can overhear which includes cutting up bodies !!

Ciao for now folks