It All Has An Answer In The End.

I'm writing early this week. It was my aim to write every Saturday but tomorrow we are having a party and I will be too busy.

In May my husband was 60, we should have had a celebration then but he works for the BBC........ NO, I will correct that, he used to work for the BBC but they retire their staff at 60. Mike didn't want to be retired but they showed him the door, even though he was the most popular presenter on his radio station. So in May he didn't want to celebrate.  I have to admit the idea of being married to a sexagenarian (can that be the right word?) didn't appeal, so I didn't feel too much like partying.

Now he's got over it and we thought we'd have a party. It's just family and people he's worked with over the twenty odd years he's been in radio but that still comes to over 50 people. There's quite a mix in age and type and we're even expecting an MP, which is a bit intimidating. I suppose I will have to do some low down dusting, I don't want to be talked of as a slattern in high places. I'd better watch the drink as my sister is coming and we don't want a repeat of the impromptu underwear fashion show, 'The Mother' would not be amused.

I haven't really done much this week other than get ready for the invasion of the house tomorrow and go to school. Oh! I nearly forgot, I went to the dentist on Thursday to have a badly broken molar repaired. I'm lucky, I still have an NHS dentist and he is very good. He's only been at our practice for about a year and this was the first work he'd done on my teeth. He rebuilt the tooth with a white filling, which is a perfect match and tooks like a perfect, whole tooth. Much better than the mecury laden, 40 year old thing that he replaced. He took an x ray as well and my appointment was nearly 40 minutes. The cost? £70, which I thought wasn't too bad.

I was very amused at the end though, when he came out with a mirror, hairdresser style, so I could have a look at what he'd done. Does anyone ever have the nerve to say, I don't like it?

I think it's my age but I find I'm asking endless questions lately and I want to tie in all loose ends. Today I  was pleased to have found the meaning to an expression 'The Mother' likes to use which I never quite got.

"It's the same difference" What on earth did that mean? I knew what it implied, that the two things were the same, like six of one and half a dozen of the other. But what did it MEAN I just didn't get the same difference. It was either the same, or it was different, surely.

All became clear in Maths today. We were finding the number mid way between two numbers. Eg 26 and 42. First of all you find the difference between the numbers, which is 16. Then you halve it, which is 8. Then add the 8 to 26 and the mid way number is 34. The children were told they could find the difference by either taking the 26 from 42, or, counting on from 26 to 42, either way it would be the SAME DIFFERENCE.

I can't tell you what it meant to me to finally understand what the expression meant. For at least 4 decades it has mystified me. It would be 'The Mother's' retort if you pointed out something she had said was incorrect, you'd either get, 'Same difference,' or 'San Fairy Ann.'  She could never bear to be proved wrong on something.

Now San Fairy Ann is another one. I never understood that either but it was a bit ruder than, the same difference. San Fairy Ann would be accompanied by a saucy, I know better expression and often followed by a poking out of the tongue. Is it any wonder I grew up with a bad attitude?

Quite recently I realised the meaning of San Fairy Ann, it wasn't as rude as I'd thought. I imagined it had something to do with the FA part of it but it is actually an expression brought back from the first world war, Sans faire rien, roughly meaning nothing or doing nothing. I found this out in a discussion on a Black Country website.

You just never know when the answers to lifes mysteries will pop up. Some of the questions I'm still awaiting answers on are:-

Where does that teaspoon come from when you're emptying the washing up bowl?

Who dideat all the pies?

Why does the room only start spinning when you close your eyes?

Who was Sweet Fanny Adams?

And if every fourth child born in the world is Chinese, why isn't Prince Edward?

Better get to bed now, I have to stuff mango chutney into dates in the morning, for my Devils on Horseback.