At the chalk face

I've written a few bits around my education here before now  and thought I'd write about an important feature of every classroom in those pre IT days.
The chalkboard played a very important part of the education I had (the term "Blackboard" was effectively banned in my schools) being the main point where teachers would write parts of the lesson that was to be taught such as math going through worked examples, setting a written task or teaching handwriting and bugbare of a good number of us, cursive handwriting.
Later on at high school, we had rolling chalkboards  where the notes for a whole lesson were put on for you to copy down or not given I had difficulties in reading, writing and spelling so usually someone else wrote stuff down for me.
When as inevitable someone got in trouble it wasn't unknown for the chalk board to feature in part of the punishment you got by having to write out lines .

That one wasn't uncommon as talking in class when the lesson was in progress at least  was frowned on as was passing notes between desks.

Failure to heed that usually lead to rather strict punishment  as I found out a  few times!

Dedicated to all the Misses and would be Misses, That one one that often came up even though every school I went to had a homework diary where you wrote down the task and when it had to be in and in my last school you even were expected if you were a day late handing any in to find the teacher at recess and hand it in, owning up to being late with it.
"The dog ate it" wasn't considered a good enough reason not to.
As I found out there was a big price to pay for not attempting it at all.

This week I'll get my Homework done (shh)!

Enid

What happens to unwanted or lost pushies?
That's a very good question to ask as it's really sad to think something that still has that ability to played with, loved and hugged is going wanting or even just binned.

Well, one answer to that arrived on Wednesday, when Mommy brought me Enid back from the Cheshire show, just up the road in Tatton as a thank you gift for being good and looking after everything while she was out.

Cleaned up, they are put up for adoption where you can be new proud owner and you get a certificate to prove it.
That way the plushie gets a new life and you get a new one to have fun with saving it from a sad end.

Summer and Middledom

Oyez, Oyez,Oyez!
Miss Joanne has her Summer school dress in dark blue with pocket on the right!

It's nice soft and very comfortable and is very much a part of me really and while in the UK you'd associate it more with rising 5 through 11+ schoolgirls in some countries such as Australia you'll see similar dresses wear in high school no doubt with an eye to those hot humid conditions so I could wear this around my 'presenting age'.
I was having some interesting interactions at one site this week around a topic that has cropped up before connected with that last sentence.
You know, you can slice this broad adult littles thing up many ways and lots of individuals do of which the two most common are by those who do wear diapers or by presenting ages although it's possible to have both as in real life I knew teens in diapers cos for them it was a medical, disability related thing.
Although every one of us has our own unique feel for it, there are three main age related categories whose majority accepted definitions I'll go through.
Adult Baby, this is fairly self explanatory and quite simply means the person while an adult is in the headspace of a baby with  related interests and would be up to three years of age.
Although many do, this need not include diapers or the intended usage of and wearing diapers of itself doesn't make you one.
The widest group you'll hear of is that of Adult Littles which can get a bit confusing  as that's also the generic term for all of us, but strictly speaking adult littles are those who identify  as between 3 and 12 years when in regressed headspace, in otherwords the age range that in England goes from Pre-school through last year at Primary School.
In terms of interests and activities we're looking very much at cartoons, stickers, colouring, toys including blocks.
The group to whom this interaction was more interesting in was that of Middles which is a term spoken much of less of  but generally refers to those who identify more with teen interests and  the question was put politely to me a few times to which do I identify?
That is a very good question because my upper limit is around 12-13 which puts me midpoint although I can regress down a few years too.
Having thought about it, I think I'd say Middle first, because a good number of the things that interest me come from there such as more teen centred animes although there is a quite a carry over from the more Littles side when it comes to play and colouring for instance with me which reflects how my disabilities impact who I can do and enjoy.
The other area being some of needs I have cross from that sense of feeling powerful at ten and 11 to the boundary pushing mid teens requiring copious amounts of patience and understanding as well as undivided attention.
Allied to these changes can be issues such as brattiness and challenging authority requiring love, guidance and discipline of which (cough) I'm getting a good deal of as you navigate the World increasingly more by yourself and to which is really helping with the behavioural and attitude issues I've had on my 'adult' side.
The perfect summary was provided by one person I encountered who described themselves as Middle with a little ones side and that's how I see me although I don't feel any of us need keep ourselves to activities and events to just any one group so long as we're able to get a lot from them.
In other words, while defining  yourself is fine, don't be exclusive with it in your littles life.

 

Meadowland IIII

I knows, I knows, its a bit late but in groan up land things sometimes take longer than they really should and this was one of them.

 One thing I like about me Olympus camera is I can easily control how much either side of the what I make my main subject is in sharp focus and here is a good example of what people call differential focusing.
I like the local Meadowland areas heaps, finding it a great place to relax and find 'inner space' which can help when you're needing to switch off a bit from the stresses and strains and I took this a few days before the Picnic.
I used my 135mm fixed length lens as I find it really separates out the subject at a wide aperature on the OM20 using Fuji's Superior 200 colour print film which was then scanned from the negatives to digital.

Wild flowers have always intrigued me so this cluster just caught my eye, taking ful advantage of the close focusing properties of this lens to fill the frame

 I thought this corner to corner picture of wild meadowland came out rather well, bring out the peacefulness as insects go about their business.
Taken using Tamron 28-70 close focusing zoom in early June and again on Fuji Superia 200 film

Jo'ville upon Mersey Pt.II

On Saturday I went to this famous city and seaport in the North-west of England for the day by coach from our town along the motorway network with Daddy, to which I don't enjoy the best of relationships with although today did prove to be pretty good on that front.

When we set out from our town in the North-west Midlands, it has raining quite hard continuing in a rainbelt from West Bromwich  in the south of Staffordshire to the outskirts of Newton Le Willows, Lancashire.
I won two prizes on the coach raffle!
Strangle enough as we got toward the turnings for Prescot and Liverpool it got suddenly very sunny as it was also on the North wales coast.
That picture is of the Three Graces , taken from the Albert Dock on the banks of the river Mersey which means I was in.....Liverpool! Yay!!!

 Above are a couple of pictures of the vessel Glaciere built in 1899

 I noticed today was a really good day for observing reflections  and this picture summed up just how much they really help make a picture.

I spend most of the day inside the Merseyside Maritime  Museum seeing the exhibits on the RMS Lusitania that was sunk during the First World War and RMS Titanic than sunk memorably on April 12, 1912 which is something Daddy is interested in heaps.
I was more interested in the exhibits that looked at Slavery, which as port, Liverpool like Bristol was involved in heavily until its abolition and using an interactive display I discovered how many of Liverpool's famous streets and building were built very much on the profits from that trade.
As well, there was a series of exhibits looking at racism and racist attitudes over the centuries  both in the UK and across the Americas. I shuddered when I encountered a  KKK robe and conical hat.
There also was a moving set of exhibits about migration to Canada as well as Australia of British school-age children from the cities and the appalling treatment some received and how immigration has changed the UK over the centuries.

I visited the HMV store in L1, the newish shopping precinct and bought two lps as I had some pre-payed cards for the store and coming back saw several of these Swan vessels some rowed, with children making traversing the Mersey.
I had a good time and for once I felt comfortable, safe even being around Daddy.

Hayley Mills

I'll be off tomorrow so I'm busy getting myself ready because it's both my responsibility and my priority activity today so here's a short post.

I've always like Hayley Mills  as an actress and own some of her films on dvd.

 That one's from The Parent Trap, a favourite of mine from 1961 where she played both Sharon and Susan trying to reunited her parents.

 Apart from her undoubted abilities and good looks, these pictures to me sum up what I love about the pinafore dress look -simple elegance - and the girlish.
It's hardly surprising then I just love pinafore dresses myself!

Canvas soul

One advantage of being me is being small enough to get regular children's stuff off the peg really easily and indeed I've never had any adult shoes in my life simply because they were too big for my feet!

Not completely unconnected with the last entry for some of us Physical Education (aka P.E) has strong memories one of which for me was the plimsolls we wore while doing it and to which I was never able to fasten by myself.
This meant apart from getting some negative attention for requiring help getting changed in time I had slip on ones that stood out at the time.
Actually I have a new pair with velcro fastening which are ideal for quickly dashing off to places like the mailbox.
They should of came last Thursday  in time for the picnic but they kinda got delayed which is just typical,eh?
They also make me feel a bit young too strangely enough as I remember having them in a drawstring bag with the rest of my P.E. kit like the t shirt and socks not that I always remembered to have it with me  which annoyed some of my teachers some of which had other uses for them.
I never let anything that bother me as I missed for most of one term P.E to gossip with my best friend while we were meant to be doing extra prep as punishment when the supervising teachers were busy with their own classes..

More on the past

Not a bad start to the week with some sunny weather so the layers have been able to come off but I've been thinking a bit about the past as that's so tied to my present in many ways.

 

We had a uniform to wear to school which I loved wearing so much that unto several years back  I actually still had my original school tie and school was a place I felt very secure in with its rules and routines, more secure than at home.

I did have some very bratty times however of this this is worrying close to how it was as I did throw stuff about, write on the chalkboard  and so on. As was the way at the time, I did end up over a few laps at the time for it which worked well with me.

 When I was at school you were often swung by girls and looking back on it, you learned to trust your friends through that play.

Games were often played in the yard as we only had a tiny field marked out with chalk. You always wiped yourself down with soap and paper towels as our facilities were poor.

Hopscotch was quite popular as was kiss-chase and we'd mark out the playground for it as was skipping which I loved playing up to my mid teens.

Fun at the Picnic!

As mentioned on Friday's blog we went to a well known nature spot in Buckinghamshire for the Ikklespace Littles/furries picnic organized by Sammy on Saturday.
For me as ever this involved a bit of a trip as it's over 200 miles each way so having gotten my things sorted and packed a few days before the first thing was to get to Jennifer's on the south side of the County immediately below me.
Because the weekend buses are run by different people who aren't so reliable I got a taxi to take me to the local rail hub at Crewe which was booked entirely by me. A first in my life too!
Seeing I'd have to off early, I got up about 6 AM Saturday, sorted out Marmalade before getting on with fixing breakfast and dealing with early morning chores and quickly checking for any changes of plan.
To travel down in I decided to stick with unisex shorts red sweater, blouse (and tie on!), hello kitty socks and my girlish shoes which also fitted in well with being in a public open space dress means we don't wear stuff that would cause heaps of negative attention.
My Taxi arrived at eight so the two Hello Kitty  tote bags which my overnight attire and next  as mornings clothes plus a bag of goodies were in and a dark green folding seat and child's HK hand luggage pack went with me arriving at the station in good time.
I sorted out which platform I was meant to be on only to find 12 minutes from departure the platform had changed unannounced and I had to run up the stairs to platform 6 before it was due in. Grrr!
The train arrived at the allocated time and by time I arrived  at GHS Central station, Staffs I was starting to feel a bit anxious which I'm prone to when I encounter the Head Girl emerging from behind a column  when I got out.
Pet moan Dept: It would be nice if people let you out before trying to board a train especially if you're physically disabled!
We drive back to GHS for a quick rest - I had a sausage roll as it was a while since I'd eaten - before setting off the picnic venue near London.

It was a really bright fairly warm day which something that was a relief given the wet conditions we had experienced for a few days and the ground was quite dry as we found Sammy, Mr Paul and a good number of others in a field where there was huge food pile people helped themselves to as provided ourselves.
I dutifully placed my bananas in the pile ("Yes we have no bananas") and Jennifer added her contribution and then proceeded to erect the windbreaks with my assistance as Junior Prefect and First former helping her out which is the least I can do for a Head Girl.
Going on was a great game of Rounders, my first love of school  team sports played with simple plastic games set with ball just for the fun of it, with much roaring from me cheering the  runs on.
I had loads of fun with a tube of soapy bubble mixture and a shaped wand putting in the direction of the wind as loads of bubble of different sizes came flying in the wind from the wand with people chasing after them. Such simple fun,eh?
Later on several people flew kites some of which really did take off and others sadly didn't not but it was all taken in spirit of just having fun together and having fun together was what I'm sure Sammy likes to see and I don't blame her.
I did see a few unfamiliar faces  although the screen names were quite familiar like those of DeeDee ,Abigail, Jessica, Neko and Zed (aka "Zee Zee") and  group of four younger youngsters who I just loved spending some time with although I hopeless remembering their names.
I suppose with about thirty of us there it was likely to happen knowing me and names!
Just before we were off to Sammy and Paul's house a few of us stayed back for ice cream and Jennifer kindly bought me one.
After a short ride and a few delays with traffic lights we got to Sammy's, meeting her cat with the most amazing name you could give one and I changed my shorts for a plain green pleated skirt and grey long socks with bows.
TB note: This is with the sweater and blouse is a common UK girls Junior school uniform that being small I can just buy from regular suppliers, off the peg.
We stayed and chatted, with Jennifer going to see some bits connected with the London Victoria line subway and a post office Master Clock you used to set slave clocks in a facility to keep the exact same time by.
We left around 8PM after saying our goodbyes to Sammy, Mr Paul and our other friends returning back to deepest Staffordshire, by which time I was shattered as I'm prone to getting low on energy due to my disabilities and soon went to bed, sleeping soundly.
When I woke up Sunday I got dressed into my uniform, fastening my White and Grey tie, chatting about various things while Jennifer cooked some lovely back bacon on toast and helping out a bit afterward.
We set off to GHS central arriving in plenty of time for me to catch the London Midland  train at 10:00 AM and I got a taxi form the Taxi rank to come back via our Town only to find Mommy had locked me out!
I'd like to thank in order Sammy and Mr. Paul for making this super event happen and opening up their home to us plus everyone who attended for being good sports, playing nicely and the opportunity to put a name to a face.
I'd  also like to thank Jennifer for taking me to the picnic, putting me up overnight and in fullest sense looking after me during this lovely weekend without which I would not of been able to attended.
Also I'd like to thank my mentor for his help that helped me get organized to the point of making some necessary arrangements all by myself for the first time.