Category Archives: Other Writing

I was going to write a review of Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes, by Rob Wilkins, but I’m still crying slightly from the ending, and it’s too hot, and I had to go to Lidl for food and now I’m overwhelmed and tired, so no review today. I am even more convinced than ever that STP was neurodivergent even before his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

There was a lady struggling with her shopping trolley trying to get home from Lidl, the wheels fell off. Loads of people passed her and didn’t stop to help. I helped her carry the loaded trolley to the river and waited while she phoned someone to come and help. It didn’t seem right to let her struggle. Her English wasn’t great, but then, this is Grimsby, most people here only speak passable English at the best of times, speaking it as a second language is quite impressive, to me at least. We managed to communicate enough to do what needed to be done.

The cat is shedding everywhere and I think I’m allergic. Well, I’m allergic to quite a lot of things, and the last lot of blood tests I had ruled out pet dander, but it could be pet hair, I suppose? I’m not giving up animals, so I’ll just stick with prescription strength antihistamines.

I’m going to read a book about Girl Guides and Girl Scouts this afternoon. I was in the Brownies and Guides, and a Young Leader. My Dad and Uncle we Scouts, my Grandad was a Scout leader. I’m still in touch with my Brownie Leader, who was also my Leader as a Young Leader. I have some stories to tell, and I’m sure if you asked, my Brownie and Guide Leaders probably have some embarrassing photos of me they’d share. My Guides were attached to our local Anglican Church, even when I stopped going to church I continued going to Guides, until the summer of 1999, when I left because I was doing my GCSEs and I slapped another Guide for calling me a ‘retard’ because I couldn’t find something.

She was a nasty little bitch.

We’d just got a new Guide leader and I hadn’t bonded well with her, so I left. A year later I was doing a historic churches fundraising walk and my former Brownie leader mentioned they’d been short staffed for a camp that summer. I asked her why she hadn’t rung me. After that I joined her Guides as a Young Leader. It was a different Guides group.

At the time, Immingham had 3 Guides groups, two attached to churches and one secular. My group was held in the church hall, and you could go from Rainbows to Guides there. I’d gone from the CofE group to the secular group. It served the less well-off girls who wanted to be Guides. You see, the local Anglicans and Methodists could be a bit up themselves and very hypocritical. Poor girls from the council estate weren’t really welcome there, and it was a trek for them to get to the church halls where those groups were held.

I’m told there’s only one Guide group left in Immingham now, and the Scouts long since shut up shop. The old church hall got sold off, as well, to the local private dentist, because the church couldn’t afford to keep it up. The old vicarage has also been sold as a private house too. We used to do a lot of outdoors stuff in the vicarage grounds, and if you believe my old Brownie leader, I was 3 when I saw a Brownies group at the summer fete and demanded to join. I had to wait until I was seven though. And I got one of the new uniforms. Which were made from incredibly uncomfortable fabric, but were much more practical that the brown dresses the other girls had to wear. I preferred trouser even then.

I’m going now, enjoy the weather.