Maz's Ramblings

Well here I am 56 today! Considering I was born prematurely and weighing in at only 2lbs - all those years ago - and not expected to live I haven't done too badly :-)

Do I feel any different? No. A little wiser, a bit more stubborn, but still the same girl inside.

We did pop out briefly yesterday to go to town and buy a few Christmas presents. We lasted about an hour and a half. It was just so crowded. I do believe the UK is running out of room!

So I came back home and did the rest of my Christmas shopping online. Thank goodness for the internet.

I guess each generation views their own 'time of life' as being the best era to be brought up in. I'm a bit in the middle there. I do believe my era was one of the best to grow up in but I do appreciate and embrace modern technology. However I'm beginning to believe that as you grow older and hark back about how it was so much better when you were younger that it is a natural part of growing old.

I know for sure that both my Dad and Dora had both had enough of this world as the changes within it had proved just too much for them to cope with. So perhaps it is mother nature's way of easing you forward and into the next life.

Oops maybe that's all a bit too heavy for today - especially on my birthday!

But today the sun is shining. The temperature has dropped over night and it is showing 1.7 degrees at the moment - the coldest yet this year. But to see a bit of sunshine just makes you feel so much better.

The forecast for the next few days is getting colder and windier. Winter is well and truly on its way with snow coming into Scotland and the North.

Time to get outside and top up the bird feeders I think.

Bye for now.

While sitting watching X Factor and I'm a Celebrity last night I have to admit to playing a little on my laptop.

Now this is purely a female thing. I found the above website where you can upload a photo and do a 'makeover' online. So there I was playing around with different hairstyles; colours & make up. It was quite hilarious.

Isn't funny how you take for granted your youth. When I was younger I used to be forever changing my hairstyle and colour. One moment I'd have very long hair and the next I'd get bored and have it cut really short. Shortest I can remember was what they called then the pixie cut. Of course after a while I'd get bored with that and start to grow it long again.

Colours well I've been very dark brown, very pale blonde, chestnut, auburn, burgundy, golden blonde, ash blond, red and anything else inbetween. It got to the stage that I forgot what my natural colour was!

But playing around on that website last night has shown me that your skin tone must change with age because colours that used to look fine on me I found now made me look washed out. Also whereas it didn't matter what style I tried in my youth I could now see that they would now make me look bl**dy awful!!! Guess that's gravity for you.

So what is my hair now? Well it's a 'natural blonde' (to hide the grey) and it is still long. The bob I had cut a couple of years ago has grown out and after looking at the photos last night I can see why my hubbie didn't like it. I occasionally have it loose but most of the time I have it in a casual up style or tied back.

In England they used to say that you shouldn't have your hair long after the age of 40 (it might even have been younger than that) but I tend to find that over the age of 40/50 the short hairstyles all tend to make everyone look the same! Once you reach 60/70 well then you get to what they used to call the 'blue rinse brigade'. Although it's changed a lot here now there are still plenty of hair salons that naturally assume that you want the same hairstyle as all the other over 50/60/70's.

So what's my point? Well nothing really except that I am an individual. I want to wear my hair the way I want to. I want it to be whatever colour I want it to be.

Oh and I guess I don't want to conform.

Hey, hell I was a child of the 60's :-)

Well it's 9 o'clock on Monday morning and it's raining still. It doesn't seem to have stopped raining for ages...

The only good thing today is that I woke up and heard the rain at 6 o'clock and smiled to myself and turned over and went back to sleep. Because today and tomorrow I've got my last two days holiday for the year. I've got to work over Christmas and as my birthday is tomorrow I thought I would make it a long weekend. Bliss, I'm sitting here in my pyjamas and I didn't have to stand at the bus stop in the rain.

Now some people may say it's a waste of two days holiday. Aren't you doing anything? they say. No I'm not. I'm just enjoying being at home; enjoying not having to get up at 5.30 in the morning and I can do just whatever I feel like doing.

Mick, as usual, is asleep still. (He's taken the time off too) Because Mick can sleep for Britain and when he's at home he doesn't normally emerge from bed until very late in the morning. But I love to just make the most of my free time.

I've been promising myself that I'd get my paints out and do some painting as I haven't had time just recently to do it. If I'm not at work I'm optimising my webstore which is a very time consuming thing to do. But today I think it's time to just relax and paint.

I have to pop out later to post one of my sales but with Paypal printing online postage labels all it takes is a trip to the nearest post box so that won't take long.

So rain, rain go away as I want to enjoy my last two days holiday.

Roll on summer.