Top Gear

Gabriel went to Brands Hatch.


"Negatori on the cost of this mochine there Red Rider"
Thanks to auntie shirleys beloved Mark, whose shiny mochine this is.

No idea about cars myself so I can't throw words like throttle, thrust, torque and turbo around with ease. Not a clue.
As Mr Clarkson says
"A turbo. Exhaust gasses go into the turbocharger and spin it, with a supercharger, air goes in,witchcraft happens and you go faster."

Boys like this kind of thing apparently.

I am devoted to Johnny Cash however, and a car post is as good an excuse as any for this:

Feast of the Archangels

Saints Michael, Gabriel and Raphael pray for us!


Dear Gabriel
Next year, please God, we will celebrate your feast day more fittingly.
This year however, I thank you for bearing with your mothers weariness.
She feels like a champion when she manages to get supper on the table and keep the laundry situation under some control. These days, the mere basics of daily life are about all she can acheive without becoming truly overwhelmed and frazzled. And as you are aware, frazzled mother is no fun at all.

I hope you enjoyed your chocolate cake as some small nod in recognition of this day.

Your name, as you know, means 'God is my strength'. My prayer for you, is that you always know the wonderful truth of these words.

How very appropriate, at this time of waiting to welcome our newest little soul, that your angel is, among other things, the patron saint of childbirth.
His salutation to the Blessed Virgin, Hail full of grace... has become our familiar prayer.
How strange that must have seemed when those words were first uttered.
Our Ladys 'Yes' was an act of trust in God that truly ensured that ALL generations would call her Blessed.
Lets pray for the courage to not be afraid of the plans God has for us, and for the security of knowing that He is our strength.

Perhaps, in honour of your patron, we could try to pray the Angelus?



And lets not forget the other two archangels who share this feast day.


Here is the prayer to Saint Michael:

St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle! Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, O Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who roam about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
And here is some information about where that prayer came from.

And you can read the story about the Angel Raphael and Tobias in the book of Tobit.
Take a look here.


Lastly, here are some beautiful images by artists ancient and modern who have been inspired by the story of the Annunciation.

By Henry Ossawa Tanner ( 1898)


By John Collier

By Sandro Botticelli


By Fra Angelico


Next year, we'll try to do this, and perhaps this, and maybe some of this.
Until then, thank you for your sweet, good natured patience.
With love and squeezes
Mummy x

7 Quick Takes

1

Having a multi generational family is the coolest thing ever. I hadn't anticipated this back when I started out having babies. I couldn't imagine having teenagers and babies. Well, I probably just couldn't imagine having teenagers!
Now I think the combination of teenagers and babies is utterly perfect. For parents, for the babies and for the teenagers. It's win win win.
Why?


Here's why:


2

It was Honors birthday on the 18th September.
Goodness me, time flies. How she has grown.



It was a bittersweet day however. I'm hoping that future birthdays won't be so laden with complex emotions as this one was.

I do think that being almost exactly as pregnant as I was when she was born, and Olivia died, has brought those memories into much sharper focus.
I Cried alot remembering the mixed emotions of this day:
And this:



And then I woke up at 3am with a cracking headache and a paralysing attack of night terrors that something would go wrong this time too.

There were very lovely moments too though. We are so grateful to have Honor, and I don't want her birthday to be overshadowed with loss. In reality, nothing is lost. There was no mistake.
With God, death is not a disaster. Olivia is gloriously alive.
But I miss her and sometimes I sigh and wonder, if she was here...
Most of the time though, I am busy enough living in the present moment.
And there is so much sweetness in that.





3

In my slightly crocked condition ( both emotionally and physically) it was probably very optimistic to imagine that I could turn out a fabulous blogworthy cake.
This was Honors birthday cakewreck:


It collapsed when I opened the oven too early and, well, it all went down hill from there.
My friend said that the collapse was so perfect that it made the cake look like a nest, so I threw some blueberries in there, and then squeezed some lurid pink icing around haphazardly, and then...actually then I started crying again.
Pregnancy hormones are potent and not to be trifled with.

4

Changing tempo...

A childrens 'hymn' to the President. Is this sweet, or is it creepy?



I have seen this on a few blogs lately ( Mama Says and MommyLife) and wanted to air it here. I found the almost verbatim lifting of some of the lyrics of that old childrens hymn 'Jesus Loves The Little Children' rather, um, 'icky'.

Compare:

"Jesus loves the little children

All the children of the world

Red and yellow

Black and white

They are precious in His sight."

With:
"He said red, yellow, black or white All are equal in his sight"

Depending on your perspective, I suppose this will either make you go "ahh" or "ew".

Come to think of it, I've never liked that old childrens hymn either.

But the slightly 'Obama Messiah' flavour of the lyrics reminded me of this:

Who buys this stuff?

5

And just to show how much more sage and deep our political take here in the UK is, here is Hip Hopper Dizzy Rascals thoughts on the election of TFBPOTUSA*.



(*The First Black President Of The USA)

6

Since I'm on a bit of a political roll , here's a video I saw on MommyLife that I wanted to show my children. It's a commentary on the 'branding' of the American President.



I found the observation about the ubiquitous 'O' really interesting. That 'O' is everywhere. Still. And it is, to me at least, somewhat redolent of those regimes whose objective is to imprint the lordship of the Dear Leader deep in the psyche of an acquiescent populace.

Personally, I was very enthusiastic about Obama when he first came to international attention as a contender for the US top slot.

That waned pretty quickly when I realised how manipulative the whole business of image making is. And the extent to which it seemed Obama had become a brand.


7


I feel we have been here before, to a lesser extent, with Tony Blairs administration which also sang the 'Hope and change' theme, but to the the of 'Things Can Only Get Better''.


Back then, it lifted my heart. These days, I'm a little more jaded.

( "Quick Takes" LOL! If you want actual Quick takes visit Conversion Diary)

7 Quick Takes Friday

1.
On my way to the shops with the children yesterday, to look for a dolls house for Honors 2nd birthday, I had a little car trouble.
Coming on to a very busy 'A' road from a small slip road I had the nose of my van poking just into the lane of fast moving oncoming traffic while I waited for my chance to move in.
Seeing a juggernaut bearing down at great speed, I decided to pull back a bit. I hit reverse and...horror of horrors, the van moved FORWARD! Eek! Thinking I hadn't engaged the gear change properly, I tried again. The same thing happened now leaving me even further out into the path of said oncoming juggernaut.
When I shouted "Jesus!" I wasn't blaspheming. My mouth was so dry it was the only prayer I could make.
The juggernaut swerved into the middle lane parping it's big bully foghorn long and loud and angry as it went past me. My van rocked with the wind as it flew past.
Then there were the cars. All of them were forced to take evasive action and swerve away to avoid hitting me while I sat helplessly wincing with my useless hazards flashing away.
In 20 years of driving I don't think I've ever been so scared.

When I got going again I noticed that the van was labouring heavily in 1st and 2nd gear, and I thought I could smell burning.
I pulled in to an IKEA car park and called my husband, who, in true shining knight fashion left the office and was with me within 10 minutes.
My hero.
He is THE single most welcome sight in a crisis. I almost swooned in his arms.
He phoned the AA, gave Colmcille, who was crying, some money for an ice cream, gave us all a kiss and a hug, and suggested I go into IKEA for something to drink and a sit down and said he'd meet me back in the car park with the AA man in 1 hour.
Then he went off to get his ducks in a row.
I heart my husband.
Because I was in IKEA I thought I might as well nip in and get those magnetic notice boards I'd been after. Might as well make the most of the oppo when it presents itself I thought.
Two magnet boards, a storage basket and a playmat later, I found myself tottering through the lighting department feeling very strange, and then awful.
And then I got sick. Yes. In the lighting department of IKEA.

It was a day that will live in infamy.

2.
Back in July I had an appointment with the Prof regarding my ante natal care in which several issues came up and several new tests were ordered and in which I cried a bit and then my blood pressure was elevated which gave rise to more tests.
I used to work at this maternity hospital myself, but it has since moved site to the grounds of a much larger general hospital where car parking enforcement has been contracted out to a private company.
At my last appointment I had been ticketed and I had no intention of letting that happen again.
My appointment over ran and over ran and over ran some more. I had already left the department once to put a new ticket on my car. But when that was about to expire, and I was still nowhere near being let go, the prof said that I really needed to stay in the department. They were phoning up for blood results, and arranging scans both of baby and my liver, and taking more blood, and getting me to drink more water so that I could wee in a pot for them again, and simultaneously trying to be sooooothing so that my BP would come down and they could rule out blood pressure weirdness at least.
So the Prof said I really needed to just sit down and not worry about my car and she would write me a note to say that I was remaining in the hospital under medical instructions.
So of course I did.
And when I got the inevitable ticket I confidently appealed, presenting my trusty professorial letter.
And then was flabbergasted when they turned down my appeal, on the grounds that my reason wasn't good enough and I could have returned to my car.
So...THEN I upped the ante, formally complaining to the hospital for the behaviour of their hired goons and copied my rant to a whole host of other notables collectively known as 'Big Wigs'.
So...today I get another letter from the 'Car Parking Partnership' demanding an increased fine of £100 with the threat of County Court action if I don't stump up.
So...In high dudgeon I fired off this missive at lunchtime:

Please see my previous reasons for appeal.
This is now the subject of a formal complaint to H******* Hospital for harrassment from your company.
I have the full support of Professor W***** in pursuing this complaint and if a letter from her is deemed as inadequate support for appeal then you may take me to court with pleasure.
It is beyond belief that my care has been blighted by the frankly lunatic application of your arbitrary decisions.
I have no intention of paying you a single penny. On the contrary, you should be paying me compensation for the distress this has caused me.
And now you threaten me with county court action and debt collection.

I find it hard to believe that H********** Hospital have contracted out their car parking enforcement to such a gang of unscrupulous, money grubbing thieves.

I felt a bit better after that. Let them meet me in court.
Have these people never heard of the Fighting Irish?

3.
I'm rubbish at doing quick takes. I realise these are long takes but there's not a dang thing I can do about it. I can't ruthlessly edit to save my life.

4.
My friend Edith came back from Zurich again last week for a brief visit, and to sort out her visa ( she used to live in London and she has a house here and a house in Germany and she's lives most of the time in Zurich at the moment, but she also nips back to Florida from time to time to visit her mother. It's complicated. She's a citizen of the world, like Madonna, or Gwynneth Paltrow, only with more impact)
Anyway, after paying £1200 for a Home Office approved agent to handle her application ( it's called a 'Premium Service') the Home Office arbitrarily decide to take a longer look at her application and they have kept her passport.
This happened 2 years ago and she was stranded in Zurich where she knew no one. She eventually lost her job in London and was left in penury while waiting 6 months to get her passport back.. The upside was that eventually she got a great job in Zurich and is now speaking Deutsch and generally bringing Edithness to that rather staid and correct corner of Europe.
So, in a bit of a flap, she phones the agent, figuring that after pocketing £1200 they might be a tad interested in delivering some sort of aftercare to the traumatised client. But they didn't want to annoy the Home Office and anyway, aftercare wasn't what they meant by 'Premium Service'.

And thus came Edith to be marooned once again. Only this time in London, without benefit of lake or mountain view.
So, along with the Car Parking Partnership, the Home Office is now on my little list of Complete and Utter Morons.

5.
I think that straining for brevity is making me sound a bit 'ranty'.
I'm better when I'm rambling and loquacious IMO.

6.
Following my 15 year old sons confirmation a few months ago, Gabriel, my 11 year old, has been expressing a keen desire to be confirmed ASAP.
I'm thinking that it may be a good idea to go for it while he is as keen as mustard, so we are considering the possibilty of a November confirmation for Gabes.
Dominic took the name Peter. Gabriel is still undecided.
When he was half way through the book we read on Saint Maximilian Kolbe he said "I was pretty sure I was going to go for St Francis, and then I thought about St Jose Maria. But now St Maximilian Kolbe is giving them both a run for their money".
I could imagine the three saints looking on urging "Pick me! Pick me!"

Here's a picture of Dom, with his friend Conor and their sponsor Andrew.
I was very pleased that they were confirmed in the school chapel in their uniforms, which avoided all the awfulness of gelled hair and kipper ties ( I am a sartorial snob)
I meant to post it back then, but well, better late than never.

7.
It's the 11th September.
I still can't watch this without crying.
The evil and inhumanity on the one hand, the heroism and true humanity on the other. The suffering, the loss, the sheer tragedy of the human condition is all summed up and represented somehow in a single day. It's still too much to comprehend.
Lord Have Mercy on them.
Lord Have Mercy on us all.

(For Quick Takes done properly, visit Conversion Diary )