the only way is cowgirl?

CD and i are in mourning.

Game of Thrones is over. Well, for this season at least. We survived the massacre but are now pining for Richard Haddon (CD – i told her he is dating Dr Who’s new assistant but whatever) and i will miss my weekly fix of Peter Dinklage.

But we have the new Superman to drawl over (although in my fantasy he is still Charles Brandon from The Tudors, complete with tidy beard, doublet and hose…sigh) so all is not lost.

i started watching Game of Thrones when it first came on TV. Even though CD loves fantasy films, i think she considered this to be ‘my thing’ so wasn’t interested and i soon dissuaded her from watching, mainly due to all the sex. Then i discovered one of her best friends was also a fan. i was about to screech at him that there was too much sex in it for a boy of his tender years. Then i remembered he is gay – why should i think it was ok for him to watch and not the girls? Probably because i was relieved that anything he ‘learnt’ from the show he wouldn’t be practising with my daughter. Slightly twisted logic  but anyway we soon developed an odd relationship where the two of us would sneak off, away from the girls, to discuss the latest episode – plot only of course.

CD and her girlfriends have now caught up and had overtaken me on episodes. They are now all reading the books. It has become their latest passion. i am allowed to comment about the plot and the characters but nothing else.

Which is fine with me. i’m hardly likely to start a conversation about how does Jaime Lannister managed to wank now he is missing his right hand or the fact that Joffrey, the king, is the by product of the incestuous relationship between Jaime and his sister or how many sex positions are shown throughout the series.

And yes girls, in case it had passed you by, that is how two men have sex (SD asked me a couple of years ago – i consider my response to be one of the finest moments in my mothering career).

From my experience of watching the show, there is no need for me to ever do the ‘sex’ talk. CD and her friends now know (if they didn’t before, they are 17 but appear to be quite naive in some ways) many sexual positions as well as how gays have sex.

My one concern is that they will assume that, given the popularity of the cowgirl position on GofT, the girl always goes on top. In fact i can’t remember when they were shown doing it missionary style. It always seems to be cowgirl with occasional doggy style thrown in for variety.

i only hope this part of their education results in happy sexual relationships in the future, that they will not be shouting at their lovers:

No, I have to go on top, that’s how you do it!

i wonder what delights season 4 will bring…

i miss his words

Once upon a time…

there was a young lady who was living with her beau. He was not her knight-in-shining armour and she realised that but stayed from a misguided sense of loyalty.

After a year or so of living with her beau in a tiny apartment-high-up-in-the-sky, she changed career. Her beau was not happy about this, she would be working with younger men than her previous old fuddy-duddy boss. He felt threatened.

The first day of her new occupation she was nervous and arrived early at the imposing office building to find no one there. She waited and waited, unsure what to do when suddenly a gentleman appeared and took care of her. By the time he had shown her to her new work area he had arrange to take her to the nearby dining facilities.. He was charming and witty and all the things her current beau lacked.

The new gentleman was smitten with the young lady and determined to woo her. After six long months she eventually plucked up the courage to terminate her relationship with her beau, leaving herself free to be courted. Many gentlemen demonstrated their interest in the young lady but the new gentleman was a wordsmith who bombarded her with secret messages, poems, and billet doux. Slowly she began to fall under his spell.

The new gentleman continued his romantic notes and gestures throughout their courtship, even when they lived together in a bigger better apartment-in-the-sky.

One day he took her to a magical place, an old palace and there, under the moonlight he asked her to marry him. She agreed and the new gentleman and the lady lived happily together. She bore him several children and every year he continued to send her love messages and cards to show her how much she meant to him.

But this is not a fairy tale with a happy ending and the messages became fewer and fewer, the sentiments less profound and the wording perfunctory. The lady, no longer as young, sighed and wished for her wordsmith to return, the gentleman who had courted her. But the gentleman was now consumed by his daily toil and a demon had taken hold of his soul.

The lady wished she could find her gentleman again but he had vanished, perhaps for ever. So she silently mourned the loss of his words and hoped one day to put her faith in another. A gentleman whose words would not fail or grow stale, who would continue to express his own version of those magical words she had heard so many years before.

sharing the love award

Dear writingthebody has very generously given me another award:

the variation on a Liebster Sharing the Love award

http://writingthebody.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/awarded-by-brigid-sharing-the-love-as-she-does

Some more questions to answer and he’s requested links – panic, i appear unable to get links to work via my beautiful-iconic-but-ultimately-unhelpful-and-obstructive iPad. (Feel like i’m back at school and about to take an exam!) (Can anyone tell me how to do this using WP on an iPad? i would ask a teenager but i really don’t think AS wants to know about my private blog.

1. Name an enduring sorrow, something that has lasted over a year

the state of my marriage

2. Best song that encaptures an enduring sorrow

‘Yesterday’ by Lennon and McCartney

Suddenly, I’m not half the (wo)man I used to be

There’s a shadow hanging over me

no link here, go look it up on YouTube

3. Band with the best lyrics

The Beautiful South

Wonderful, poetry set to music

their ‘Song For Whoever’ is about trying to write a no 1 song

I love you from the bottom of my pencil case…

And I love you till my fountain pen runs dry

4. Band with the best music

such a hard question but if i go on the songs i listen to most on my iPod it would probably have to be P!nk or The Beautiful South or Mozart’s Requiem

5. How do you relate to nature? I mean do you need it, trees, lakes, seas, mountains etc?

i like my nature big and dramatic – mountains, canyons, volcanoes – but i have to travel abroad to find any, although we do have some dramatic coastline

6. Appliance you cannot do without

my Je Joue rabbit

7. Have you ever been bullied?

no, well, yes, sort of, now

8. Did you ever sleep with someone because that would be easier than telling that person no? Describe that.

once, many years ago, a work colleague ‘kidnapped’ me after we’d been out for a few drinks. Instead of taking me back home as promised he abducted  me to his flat and ‘seduced’ me. i would’ve resisted if only to avoid the following morning at work…

9. Is there a painter you like? link please

(panic, panic, deep breath, you can do this, it can’t be that difficult…)

Kitigawa Utamaro 1753-1806

Three Beauties

Utamaro carved his images onto cherry wood, one block for each colour then printed them. His famous prints are usually of courtesans, especially his series of ‘Beauties’. He also completed many prints in the shunga style (the porn of its day)

Gosh, what…tiny legs she has

10. Favourite YouTube clip – link please (you are torturing me here Jonny!)

Chris Hadfield singing ‘Space Oddity’ whilst in the International Space Station

http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=nygNRHpLD10&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DnygNRHpLD10

11. Most masochistic thing about you

nipple clamps?

i am only going to nominate one person for this award and that is

About

She may not thank me for this but i feel for her and admire her courage.

invisible tears

She moves into the shower
relishing the warm water
as it cascades over her naked body.

Gently she massages the
sweet smelling shampoo
into her chestnut locks.

The water is soothing.

She raises her face to
the heavens, feeling
cleansed and refreshed yet
a lump forms in her throat.

Her breath hitches as
slowly a hot tear mingles
with the warm water.

Others follow and soon
she finds it hard to catch her breath
as the tears course unchecked
down her neck and onto her heaving chest.

Her face falls to rest in the
shelter of her hands.
Her body shakes,
dispelling the cool water
as sobs rack her body.

Huge heartrending howls
emit from her labouring chest
as she cries more tears for
everything that is broken.

The water is now cooler.

She knows she has to leave her sanctuary
to face another day.

Slowly she regains controls
She calms her shaking body,
stills her beating heart
and regulates her breathing.

She dresses and prepares
for the coming day.
She checks in the mirror.
All looks fine.
The illusion is complete.

But unseen the invisible tears
are still pouring from her broken heart.

is it wrong to fancy lifeguards?

Oh dear. i feel this post may get me into trouble, or labelled as…not sure what, but it probably won’t be complimentary.

As part of recuperating  from my shoulder operation last year, i started swimming again once a week. ‘Again’ makes it sounds like something i used to a) do a lot and b) be quite good at. Despite growing up by the sea neither of these facts is true. And to my credit, regardless of the mind-blowing tediousness of doing length after length i have persevered. I has been worth it because i can now handle huge lumps of clay again.

In my attempt to get fitter i have tried to swim the same number of lengths each week but faster. It’s not happening but at least i’m not getting slower. My biggest handicap, apart from my screw kick when trying to do breaststroke, is my asthma. Slow, wheezy and unco-ordinated would best describe my style. But i look ok in a swimming costume so at least i’m not slow, wheezy, unco-ordinated and about to harpooned by a whaler.

Since AS returned from uni he has joined me in my weekly swims. Can you believe i can lure an 18 year old out of bed and into a public swimming pool by 8:45 am? No, neither can i and i commend him for his enthusiasm. So whilst i struggle to complete my meagre 30 lengths i am constantly aware of AS in the lane next to me, ploughing up and down with style doing his 60+ lengths. Ah so what, he should be able to trounce his mother at swimming (or any other sport).

i have to confess i find swimming lengths incredibly tedious. To relieve some of the boredom i sometimes resort to counting lengths in French (up to 30 doesn’t tax the brain too much – i did try German one week and got in a complete tizz over how many i’d done), i watch the clock like a hawk to make sure i’m not getting behind on my self-imposed time limit and i check out the lifeguards, well, only the male lifeguards.

Unfortunately i am not in an episode of Baywatch. The sun isn’t shining, i am in a public pool in England at 9am when any man with a half-decent body is probably at work or in the gym. So my fellow pool occupants tend to be a mix of slow grannies, slightly faster older men, the very fit Chinese gentleman who seems to come every day of the week, the odd mother with her toddler who hasn’t realised there is another beautiful pool with toys specially for them and the, believe it or not, even slower women than me who swim with their heads completely out of the water to ensure their hair doesn’t get wet – for goodness sake, are they off to some posh lunch later or tea with the Queen perhaps?

And the lifeguards are not the fit, tanned, bare chested, running-in-slow-motion men (no running on the pool side anyway, whistle blowing offence) that feature on Californian beaches. They are young men roughly the same age as AS. In fact, had his lifeguarding qualification not just expired he would be one of them.

Which means me checking out the lifeguards is wrong on so many accounts. And to my shameless disappointment their torsos are covered in yellow polo shirts so i can’t even judge how fit they are!