A chance to blog

Last night Steve, Dan and I went to see Iron Maiden in Nottingham at the arena. Steve and Dan are avid fans and I like most  of the music and rather fancy Bruce Dickinson! Win, win and win situation! :) Dan has been waiting 8 months since we got the tickets and the only other gig he has been to was Status Quo. We got to Nottingham, wondered around a bit, had coffee and then something to eat and headed to find the nearest pub to the arena. We couldn't miss it, it had been taken over by the Iron Maiden fan club and there were rockers of all shapes sizes and abilities in Maiden t-shirts everywhere! The atmosphere was great and Dan said he felt really comfortable in that crowded environment with masses of rockers of all descriptions. Hmm... an autistic person comfortable in a crowd!! Then we headed for the venue and he had every imaginable sensory experience thrown at him. Crowds, LOUD noise, extremely bright flashing lights all of which would have caused a complete on the floor, ey...

What did you want to be when you grew up? Looking at what I now want to do career wise it made me remember what I said I wanted to be when I was a kid. From my first flight on a plane at the age of three I want to be an Air Hostess, as it was back then. It then changed to Stewardess and then Flight Attendant. I used to line my teddies and dolls up in overturned stools and practise wiggling up and down the "aisle" with a tea tray in my hands and my red rose patterned plastic coffee and tea sets, forcing pretend beverages on the unsuspecting cuddlies! I continued with that idea all the way through school having decided being a vet wasn't an option since putting animals down was beyond my emotional realm. I tried hard at French in school knowing that I would need a second language, and worked on other subjects knowing I would need a few "O" levels. I left school having decided that "A" levels weren't for me and returned to Malawi where after being ho...

Well, having just had my 49th birthday it suddenly occurred that the next one is the big 5-0!  I am way too young be be turning 50 so have decided on a definite makeover. I have a stone to lose in weight so have already started with that. The other biggy over the next year will be a new job/career. I like my job but after almost three years in it I am ready for a change. I would like something that I can put my 49 years of experience into and those experiences have been really varied! I have lived in four countries, umpteen houses, lived in a caravan,  had loads of different jobs. Have had two children, one I haven't seen in 7 years and miss like crazy so a plan has to be made there. The other is doing pretty well despite his autism but its ongoing. A definite learning curve there! Am sick of having not enough money to do what we want so need to earn more. There are charities I want to be more active in supporting as well. I have already started getting more opinionated as...

After watching the interview on Daybreak a while ago  with Christine Mosler, Tracey Cheetham and Lindsay Atkin, in which they discussed the importance of all countries contributing to the funding of vaccines for the underprivileged in overseas countries, I was reminded of why I have the utmost respect for the Save the Children's organization. My first job was working for a Travel Agency in Malawi and the Save the Children representatives used to come in regularly to reconfirm or alter their flights around Africa and back to the UK. One day, a gentleman from Save the Children came in who had a problem getting flights to Lesotho and needed to be there for an emergency situation. Someone else had quoted him an enormous amount of money to alter his ticket and had not been able to even confirm flights for him. With the help of local and international airlines, I was able to get his flights rerouted, and actual seats on planes to Lesotho and back to the UK without costing him ...