Nitty Nora………..Hair Explorer!

So my daughter came home yesterday with a note, THERE IS A HEADLICE OUTBREAK AT SCHOOL, and how things have changed….

When I was young there was a Nit Nurse, affectionately referred to as Nitty Nora, Hair Explorer. She visited all the schools on a regular basis, lining up the kids and examining each head In turn, sending you to the right if you were ‘clean’ and to the left if you were ‘infested’. Those on the right went back to class those on the left were sent home with a note, or kept at school, quarantined until hometime.

Now all is ‘anti-shame’, no one must be embarrassed or singled out. So there is no ‘Nitty Nora, and when a girl in my daughters class was noticed to have lice crawling in her hair – noticed by the children may I add not by her mum or the teachers! – she was not singled out, not spoken to and not sent home, she spent the rest of the day chasing the other kids around, laughing and trying to give them lice!

So is one better than the other? Did either eradicate headlice, not really I guess, and maybe it’s just me, a middle aged woman nostalgic for the past, but I miss the Nit Nurse and all the shame that went with it, the fear in the pit of your stomach as you drew near the front of the line, would you be sent left, or right, the exploring fingers, the tension, the horror of being sent home! (or the joy of being pronounced ‘clean’) I somehow miss it all……

Oh and the best bit – the comment from my daughter of course!

“you should have seen them mum, they were as big as WOODLICE!!”

Things kids say - more

she's at it again, only 9 but asking the world's best questions and coming out with the most hilarious sayings.

Yesterday's classic was as follows (in response to seeing me wearing blue pants/knickers)

DD "I like those pants"
Me "Thanks"
DD " because they are not PINK!" (she hates girly things)
Me "Oh! well you know how it is, people seem to think if you are a girl you love pink, most packs of ladies knickers have a pink pair"
DD "Well you could buy men's pants" (pause, she thinks then says)
"Oh no, you can't wear mens pants - they have a WINKY SOCKET!"

cue gales of laughter from us both

our favourite insult this week is now "You Winky Socket!" try saying it next time you are annoyed at someone - it's very liberating.

Youch! I just made a terrible mistake

I bought some fruit this morning on the way to work, hoping to improve my diet (of which the main food group consumed is beer) and as I'm lazy I bought one of those little pots of ready prepared yummy fruits - melon, pineapple, etc all the good stuff you never buy because you can't eat a whole one before it goes off (or that may be just me, keen to return to the beer) and it was reduced to 99p so all is good - it's expensive but not that bad I feel ridiculous all day over it (in M&S they are £3.99 how crazy is that? I could buy a pineapple, a melon and some grapes and only eat a 1/4 of each and throw the rest in the compost and STILL save money!) any how the youch bit is........I stored it in the work fridge, didn't let it warm to room temp before lunch and now have to chomp on ICE COLD pieces of pineapple - note to self - buy some Sensodyne toothpaste

even stopping to type all this has not given it the warmth it needs, healthy diet and agonising teeth, here I come

OK Just a quickie

not sure how this strange thing happened but a weird conversation about food that I had with my daughter at the weekend ended with a bizarre question that made us both laugh so hard we couldn't breathe. So now I'll ask you (and I expect answers!)

What is your favourite dead animal?

(see now I'm giggling again)

My grandmother bought me the worst Christmas present I’ve ever had.

I don’t still have it and there are no photos of it but I will attempt to tell you about it. It was clothing.

We shall pause here to explain that I was about 13 and keen on clothes, like most teenage girls I wanted to be sexy and cool. This gift was neither. It was so far from sexy and cool that I doubt there is a name for how unsexy or how uncool it was.

I was excited on Christmas morning to feel a largish squishy parcel that must surely be a jacket or some other substantial item. Would it be denim? Maybe it would be themed with the Bay City Rollers (oh the bliss) after lunch we had to sit around and open our gifts while the Queen gave her speech to a roomful of children (and possibly adults too) that were not listening. The large parcel sat and waited for me.

As I tore the paper I saw……it wasn’t denim and it didn’t appear to be the Bay City Rollers, oh it was knitted, well maybe that’s not so bad, it could be a trendy baggy jumper, maybe mohair. No. Not mohair. And wait, it was green! Not a jade or any kind of nice green it was squashed caterpillar green. And it was acrylic.

But I loved my grandma so my face betrayed nothing but eager joy at a new jumper, after all, a new jumper was a new jumper and……….. Hold on a tick, there was something on the front….now seriously someone somewhere thought that this design was a great seller (and to be fair to them it did sell to my grandma!) but really? AN OLD MAN? In a flat cap? Where the waistcoat he wore was sewn cunningly so that it could be undone to show off his (knitted) shirt?? What fiend in hell thought of this thing? Who designed it? And why? One thing I can tell you – who wore it. I did. A lot. Often when my grandma was visiting or we visited her. She must have thought I loved it. Just lucky she didn’t buy me another for next year….

And you know what? I’d give a great deal to be back there now on that Christmas morning opening that awful present because if I was there then my grandma would still be here too, and she is not. She died 10 years ago when I was 3 months pregnant with her longed for great grandchild. But her last words were a great gift, she sat martini in hand and said, “I’ve had a great day today, really felt well, haven’t had such a good day in ages”

Then she fell unconscious and died, surrounded by her family, including me and my unborn daughter.

I miss her a great deal, and often think of her when her great grandchild does something amazing (or amazingly funny!) I miss her so much I even think that I’d like the jumper if she could give it to me now.