January lessons

As I tend to say on Tumblr, I do live the life as it were so for me this middle/little thing isn't just me and a  caregiver pretty much surrounded by  four walls with a computer running, it does involve actually being with  people face to face who are part of 'real' communities.
This last weekend, I was unexpectedly away with friends and for me this began with making travel arrangements by myself involving booking a taxi to our rail station as the local bus services are poor at the weekend and ordering train tickets for that part of the journey, made easier for London Midland's acceptance of PayPal as payment.
I left in good time for my train which was running from a small local platform whose overhead signs weren't working and arrived to meet the person who would be looking after me oblivious to not checking messages which was dealt with on arrival (*cough*).
I was in my recently acquired maroon V neck sweatshirt, wine coloured pleated skirt and white socks, sporting a red and white tie for the entire visit. 
A classroom had been set up for me to study in one anyone familiar with education in the 1970's and 80's would be familiar with whatever side of the Atlantic you were on complete with interactive chalkboard and chalk as everything was going to be taught 'talk and chalk style' the way it used to before workbooks and ICT moved in.
After a warm drink, it was time for some formal studying starting with Math where we looked at expressing numbers as words, multiplication, imperial and decimal fractions, algebra which to be honest isn't my strong point but I didn't do too badly on them although not paying proper attention to one question was corrected.
Afterward, I had English were we looked at Alliterations where I got 11/12 correct although this term isn't one we used at my schools and then had to filling the missing alliterations in a series of sentences to which I got 3/5 on although it was agreed one question didn't really seem to have a alliteration that would make sense . As well I got 9/10 for a sentence that used a lot alliterations.
We looked at words that have the same sound and adjectives which I was a little unstuck on mistaking an adjective for a word used to describe an action rather than a property or quality of the subject.
I had to write a few sentences based on a picture of  a little girl helping in the kitchen as if I were her and what I would be saying so I wrote this:
"Hello Miss Green", "May I help out in the kitchen today please?"
"I'd like to make an apple and raspberry pie today because Miss Andi is coming for tea. "I am not really at kneading flour and things but I like to be a good girl and help out".
I pause, awaiting Miss Green's response because I know she is busy but likes me to help out.  Maybe she will let me today?
I got 11/12 for it.
I did some colouring too before going on to eat a steak pie.

 I was trying to avoid the more stereotypical Disney princess colours here and I think I succeeded. It's also was very neatly coloured by pencil with my name and school form on the bottom right.
After a pause we went on to do some cookery which was what were were to eat for that evening's two course meal as everything was to be prepared from scratch although a few ingredients were ready prepared.
The first course was a Roast Beef Dinner which needed an hour and a half at 180 degrees C (aka 350F).
I peeled the potatoes  in bowl with water, cutting them into small pieces placing afterwards in a saucepan with water before washing topping and tailing the carrots ready to be diced to join the potatoes in the saucepan.
This was because they were to be put on a ring to boil before I them mashed them with some margarine making sure they were all done.
We did slithers of Parsnip, slicing them to go on tray with a bit of fat, put some Yorkshire Puddings in the oven and just before serving, make the gravy.
The other thing was we were going to have a desert so I was going to be involved in making this which also included making the pastry from flour and Stork Margarine in a 2 to 1 ratio so we needed 4oz of flour that was weighed  and 2oz of margarine which was kneaded together (I used a spoon) in a bowl adding water before taking out and putting on board to be rolled to make the bottom and top of the pie case.
Meanwhile fresh apples grown in the garden were cored, peeled and chopped up to go into  saucepan with water to be boiled before adding the drained tinned raspberries which were put on the pie bottom then covered with the top, putting two slits on top ready to go in the oven while we were eating the first cause ready to tuck into.
The pie would be served with single cream.
Miss Green put the things in the oven as my paws aren't much good as is my balance but I did  rather a lot and fairly well even if I'm a bit slow.
While all of this was going on, Auntie Andi arrived so we talked in the front room around various things before eating.
The food turned out rather well with everything cooked properly and much appreciated before we retired to the front room to talk and listen to music before going to bed.
We had a quiet day on Monday before I had to be back home for his gingerness, the oh so fussy Marmalade so we got up a bit later than I'm used to (anyone who's been with me knows I'm an early to bed, early to rise sort) before fixing breakfast and for me carefully packing my stuff ready and as ever putting my ticket in the Hello Kitty flight bag ready for the train conductor to inspect.
Auntie Andi kindly offered me a lift to the rail station as I sped through Staffordshire to the biggest rail station in the North-west Midlands, taking a cab home as the weather was very iffy.

What I think I have learned from this set of experiences is although I have great difficulties, there are somethings I fairly good at such as written english when I do put my mind more to it, dodgy spelling aside and although there remains some significant weakness in my math abilities which let me down, I am doing better at this than I did  in childhood.
I did better than I honestly expected when it came to cookery even if I do need some help with essential tasks in it and so could not be fully independent which supports the targeting more of my attitude toward looking at abilities and potential that people are helping me with rather than seeing things more from the side of my disabilities which came from my upbringing and has held me back.

Friday media round up

There's a few things I'd like to talk about before my next entry sometime next week and I think the first thing is I enjoy light hearted social interaction, it may be a laugh and a joke on a Status update, a journal or say in a chat room.
This week I've been enjoying writing and taking turns in a role play story exploring an imaginary world we're based on  with friends having an adventure we make up as we go along letting our inner child talk and play in much the way in real life as children we would of done which is more my idea of fun than anything more grown up and what this age regression thing is about in all honesty.
I sometimes like to write short stories or extracts  of a fictional regressed persons life or a few others sharing time together pretty much for the same reason, exploring what  it means, finding it it very calming.
I saw something earlier this week on Tumblr that caught my attention that can be paraphrased as why do you make a point of looking at another possibly an ex communities site when it irritates you and there is nothing you can do about it?
It's a fair question given how things with one community got with me. You may think maybe they'll change almost miraculously with a message saying everything is back to where it  was before or what it was that irritated you but in reality that isn't going to  happen.
I'm stopping obsessing over that communities  home page as it just isn't healthy for me and instead focus on going forward with the community I'm a part of instead, a community that has given me a second chance and hope when I so badly needed some.
I have what I need at hand, I just need to engage more with it  and learn to leave the past behind.

What Katy Did and disabilities

I'm working on blog entries today as I'll be away for a couple of days so the the time I'd normally use will be taken up making arrangements and all that.
A favourite novel of mine is What Katy Did by the American authoress Susan Coolidge which was written in 1872 that I've had my current hardback copy from 1989 if I remember correctly although I sure had and read it during my childhood.

Lots of editions have been produced but I love the simple unaffected illustration on the front of this one because it's inviting but clearly is of the era showing Katy Carr outside the picket fence with the traditional timber framed house in the background.
I have been re-reading this because this is book that spoke very directly to me as a disabled child where generally speaking we were not inked in the world that children saw so it was this book and the English (they'd never say British) satirists Flanders And Swann that showed we had place people could accept.
Chunks of Katy, the twelve year old, struggling at 'self-improvement', having grandiose aims and rather dashing them badly not really a bad girl girl but carried away at times was and indeed is me all over.Mischievous, getting into trouble but remorseless upon being found out, it's just so familiar because it's not that you don't have a conscience, you do, but it kicks in too late!
The other thing is really from the second half of the novel, something truly awful happens to Katy very much by accident as she goes in the Swing that she was told not to go on by her Aunt Izzie  who just expected a child to just follow the instruction rather than saying it was unsafe.
The line comes out from the staple that was designed to secure it as she soars, so she falls at speed to the ground striking her spine. It leaves her unable to walk and more or less confined to her upstairs bedroom  for a long period whereupon she is visited by her family.
Re-reading that moved me because it's similar to what happened to me just a couple years older than Katy where something went wrong with a swing and I hit the asphalt beneath with speed and at force. It didn't paralyze me although I was bruised but it left me drifting in and out of consciousness for about ten hours living permanently with significant brain damage where head struck the surface.
Part of the novel talks about how that experience affected her being in pain, feeling bitter and about how she adapts to becoming disabled when her beloved cousin Helen who also is disabled comes over explaining to her she needs to adapt, making the most of the situation she is in or risk losing the love and affection of her family though her own attitude.
Some have criticized the emphasis around her learning patience, learning to be cheerful, having hope, trying to keep things neat and getting on life as it as part of the "sainthood" attached to disabled people as if that's their only value.
To me it's to miss the point entirely which is life as a disabled person is harder, comes with disappointment, doesn't exempt you from general expectations and in my experience and a few others you just have to adapt to what is. It's a brutal truth.
It is certainly the case in the novel the idea Katy could of been looked after downstairs wasn't explored at nor is any kind of physical therapy (UK: physiotherapy) looked at which today we sure would because that was too new in the late nineteeth century.
We learn later on, Katy after Aunt Izzie dies, does begin to learn to walk again, taking on the running of the house which to me then was a sign at least you *could* have a life where you did contribute.
To me although criticized for what is seen by some as late nineteeth century (UK:Victorian) moral instruction, it's a enjoyable inspirational story whose values do align more with the 'real world' when it comes to offering the disabled reader some comfort and life lessons.
That's why I always loved it.

Presenting me

I have been a bit busy working on a few things connected with the next littles meet up this weekend which Papa Bear is pleased with apart from a bit of post Christmas tidying up.
The last few days have seen me thinking a bit  about a number of interrelated things and it's really those I wish to talk about today.
Take avatars for instance. We generally see them on forums, social media, chat rooms and so on sometimes as I can well remember when I first got online, you be given limited amount of preset ones by the owners and increasing more allowed you to host one of your own subject to size restrictions then some site had image hosting that integrated that with you with resizing and a choice of 'cut outs' so things didn't have to be square shaped.
What was the point of them?
I'm very much a visual kind of person in that if I'm online I look for a familiar 'face' in a thread or forum that I associate that individual with to the point as some people in a music forum know I don't like it if you change them rather like you change your underwear cos it gets very confusing.
One problem I have is different sites have different image size and shape restrictions and small square shaped one need a fairly simple image to be easily recognized while others allow for long and more subtle ones. I like to standardize an avatar across a group of related sites.
For me an avatar is a personal thing: It's an online reflection of an aspect of me I wish to communicate to people as my 10 seconds of introduction and acceptance to you tailored to where we are meeting up so on one site it's very much my nekomimi side you'll first see while others will be tailored very specifically to it (SN followers will no doubt be smiling at this point!).
Here and on related sites it is different: It is very much about "the little girl within", my very child-like but adult regressed self which just is me because in part of what happened to me apart from those disabilities I was born with, how I see me and my life as lived with nothing sexual in it.
I did touch a bit on it on Friday, but while I don't feel significantly older than I did , that side of me in real life as even in online life too has with a lot of help has moved on being a bit more mature, moving more toward what an actual child of my developmental age would do and think even as the gap between that and a fully mature adult is painfully obvious.

That is one reason why I decided to alter my avatar here: to communicate that change even if  it lacks my beloved Junior Prefects badge.
There were others, some in squared form may of worked better but there was something else, a smiling contentedness in this that is in how I feel that was missing from them while still having something of the era I'm from.
As ever I'll add the last avatar to my list of them on the about page where I talk about their histories and have synchronized a square version with my accounts at GT and IK.

Snowed in Friday musings

Wasn't planning on writing something actually but actually thought I'd type a few words although I may not make quite as many twice weekly editions as I did last year even though I think it'll be a few weeks until I have a 'proper' cycle mapped out.

 There are a few things I am going to be talking about, one is how comments and entries not just on my blog, although as ever so long as they're fit to be printed I'm always happy for people comment on it.
I think there's a difference between talking about something, it might be drawing , an article or a story and what you feel about it and where it is about some technical aspect of it such as missing a small matching bit off a picture or perhaps not the ideal shade of a colour  in picture or a spelling or punctuation mistake in a written piece.
I think we're familiar enough  being set a task at school or college, handing it in  and being graded on it perhaps to the point of a written comment being made the sorts of things I can think of would be "Needs new paragraph", "Should be in red" or even as I had in school "See me" when I didn't really feel like putting much effort into things and things came out of draws *cough*.
Anyway that's fine and dandy for formal learning and yes even I increasing recognize the value of that and being expected to put more thought into things so we go improve in what we're doing but when we do things just for ourselves as shared "For fun" thing is that the right way to go about it?
Rather than leaving a string of comments about technical errors we can easily correct forever marring it, shouldn't we message or email any  points or suggestions that that person can put aright so while they do learn as we need to from our mistakes, our masterpiece isn't left  cluttered up by them?
Second thing is eventually I did get the second Valerie Hastings piece of classic G.O (Girls Only)  fiction in a 1968 hard back edition

 You know all about me and G.O fiction, the stuff I read at school, especially boarding school so I was super pleased about that.
It's really about the strange goings on at Hazelmere, Jill's boarding school where it transpires an arts competition is being used to smuggle out two stolen works of art from a local art collector and the perils for Penny Maxwell of having her Mom on the school's governing body interfering  in the Fourth Forms lessons like the music lessons topics and the Horse Riding plus wanting to fix things for Penny where this will only undermine the sense of fairness seen by the remainder of the form.
I don't think I mentioned for a good while I do have a number of Angela Brazil's masterpieces of the genre in Armada paperbacks, the copies I had living as a child (well we can't truthfully say growing up!)

 I wrote about this several years back , a gripping tale of intrigue, inheritance and the lives of schoolgirls and recently re-read it.
F-f-finally as it's rather cold and snowy up here in the North-west Midlands of England, I am toying with making some slightly older avatars to test out as I do feel I'm maturing just a little more than I did a few years back which is ironic given so  much of it comes from this regressed little/middles life.

Fur footed edition

I've been a bit busy with the tumblr this week and as  I type, I'm still very much at it so I thought I'd pull away from that and get around to this weeks entry.

I did mention about having some things at Christmas  and these were the fleecy booty slippers I had from Mom which are a snug fit being UK size three through five  and I'm a five having relatively small feet and small paws too!
They're not to be honest big in support like a traditional plimsoll type usually is which is what I was brought up with but they are as warm as toast once on you.
On the Tumbling front I've been working with my BFF on why I couldn't see the "Archive" button so you can all your posts and edit them where it turned out nor could she and I couldn't see the about page which as far as I was aware was set up correctly.
It turns out something was wrong with the themes so resetting it to default and reloading the details seems to have cured that as it was  starting to do my head in.
The changes around early December on it will be staying for the foreseeable feature as I don't see things returning to how they were and subsequent events have shown I have no desire having moved on to even act upon it.

Riding Freedom

Seeing we've just started into the New Year I thought I'd kick off the first entry of 2017 with something that goes back to December where two friends and I read a book together, sharing our thoughts on it.

 Written in 1998 by Pam Munoz Ryan, Riding Freedom is a fictionalized story about a mid 1800's pioneering woman, Charlotte Parkhurst who was raised in a orphanage for boys  that tells the tale of her life from escaping the orphanage, becoming a legendary stagecoach driver as "Charley", getting a ranch of her own in California and being the first American woman to vote.
While the book has received a number of positive reviews from people such as the School Library Journal and I loved the gritty female emancipation theme it contains, I wasn't to taken with the way it was written.
To me it feels more a straight on fictionalized retelling of a life being more an account of  "Charley's" life from the orphanage , escaping life limited to domestic  chores  to owning a smallholding than a actual story, fascinating for the historical detail but lacking in character development in areas like examining in detail how she felt and how whole incidents really played out.
This was especially noticeable in the secondary characters such as Ebeneezer as we seldom really got to know them, having more a cursory description  that lift them more into your minds eye although there was so much that could of been made of it.
A disappointment.