Introductions and Procrastinations...

Allow me to introduce myself, gentle reader.  Welcome, and Namaste.

I opened this Blogger account in 2005, yet this is my first post of any real substance, or at least of any size.
I am both delighted and relieved, therefore, to have made a start - after all, 5 years is not bad for a procrastinator of my calibre!

To get things straight from the off, and to avoid disappointing anybody, I should explain, my nom de plume, "Teasy Maid" is not any kind of burlesque-esque reference to teasing in an "Ooh-er" sense. Rather it is a (or an) homage to my West Cornwall roots, and in fact  how my mum used to describe me when I annoyed her by being moody.

"Teasy"  to my mind, and the minds of those raised in West Cornwall, means "irritable" and "maid" means "young woman".  Despite the fact I am neither particularly teasy, or indeed a maid nowadays,  nor am I in Cornwall, but in North London, it is a name I like.

Next shall we establish the correct title for a reader of a Blog? 

The writer, I believe, is a "Blogger," so I will assume the reader is a  "Bloggee" or even a "Bloggée",  - yes, I rather like that. Is it a little exotic, and the acute accent somewhat diffuses the clumsiness of the word "Blog", which is rather like "slog" or even "bog".

Alors (!), welcome, mes Bloggoises, to the ramblings herein. My intentions for these pages are unclear at the moment, but perhaps something will form over time, I will become inspired, or perhaps I will simply give up.

At the moment there seem to be crumbs beneath my space bar, making its function rather random. If I don't remember to give it a good thump many of my words will roll together like the ramblings of a lush yummy mummy at the school gates. I must deal with that.

I love to write, and to muse on paper, text message, Facebook updates, scraps of chopped-up cereal boxes - anything as along as I have a sharp pencil or a digital device.  

I realise as I write this that I am intimidated already by the potential criticism of some Bloggée with the eyes and heart of a 1970's "O" level English marker. Straining to find reason to ignore the guts of the content, in order to mark me down on hyphen-abuse, or incorrect usage of the apostrophe. Whose red pen fills my margins with large  "wordy!" or "where are you going with this?" Well I'll tell you where I'm going with this, matey - anywhere I flippin'-well like, so if you find that so objectionable I think we both know what you can do with your red pen.

There. I feel better now. However, I suspect my content may be tempered by my compulsion to please. Exhausting.

Well. Here I am on my Macbook Pro, full of the crumbs of illicit biscuits and buttered toast ( - it, not me - I had a ham sandwich from a plate). I am in my bedroom, sitting in an old, comfy chair in the bay window. I can't see out of it very well, as I have recently reached a stage in my life where my vision is irritating, and neither here nor there. 

I have always been myopic, and wore specs since I was about 9. I wore contact lenses (hard, not cissy gas permeables, and certainly not those flimsy, breaky squeeze-your-own-eyeball soft ones) until I had my children, after which, and indeed, since then, nearly 18 years ago, I am always on the lookout for the rare opportunity to steal a nap, so, to save faffing, I'm back to specs again.
At the moment my specs are on my head, like a peri-menopausal Alice Band, which means I can see the screen and the keys of the laptop, but, alas, sod-all out of the window. I tried varifocals, but they seemed to add insult to injury, making me a la fois nauseous and irritated.

Seeing (sic) the Glass Half Full as I sometimes do, there is an up-side to this  recent inability to peer at my neighbours from my vantage point. 

It seems to me that, when my teenagers were little, we mums (or, indeed, Dads) would walk home from dropping our kids off at the infants' school around the corner, some of us pushing buggies, wheeling discarded scooters, but usually a leisurely pace, unless we had to rush off to work in which case one would adopt a more energetic gait. 

I had a rather lengthy gap before producing my third child,  but in the  intervening years there has been a remarkable change in the pace of the pedestrian traffic from school. They all bloody run. It's horrible. They hare down the road, lycra-clad, some pushing terrified newborn babies in racing buggies resembling a cross between a wheel barrow and a canvas Landrover.
These days I look out my window (having scuttled home feverishly to avoid being flattened on the pavement) and I thank the Goddess Presbyopia that I cannot see their whippet-like backsides disappearing towards the organic cafe.

Is it the pace of the world that changed, while I was here making biscuits and watching Pokemon with my kids? Or is it that the house prices in my area shot up through the roof since they built the school, and people who can afford to live in this catchment now  are speedy young successes who live the kind of fast-paced life where whippet-like backsides are de rigeur?

Perhaps I might consider lifting my derriere from the crumb-covered window seat and hobbling after them, if only I could see where they went.