(no subject)
I went to a 100th birthday party today. :D Aunty Tilly (actually my great aunty - she was my nana's oldest sister) is this tiny little frail scrap of tissue paper (thirty years ago she had to turn sideways to go through doors), semi-blind and semi-deaf but still in full possession of all her marbles. She's known as 'Aunty Til' (her full name is Hannah Matilda, which I think is entirely charming) to the entire village, so that many conversations with people who know her begin with '...so, are we related?', made more complicated by the fact that many family members have different names for her. (The answer is usually yes, in any case, which is what happens when the lady in question was one of thirteen children - my nan being the twelfth, by which stage they'd run out of names so she never got a middle one.)
Tilly is awesome. When she was born she wasn't expected to live; she raised literally half of her twelve siblings herself after her mother died when the youngest was two; she's been a widow since 1947 and has never remarried; she was midwife at the birth of more or less literally the entire village; her memory is near perfect (today she looked at a photo of herself at seven standing with her siblings and immediately told my father that the reason Will has such awful hair there is because Bob tried to cut it); raised two of her own children on her own and helped with half the village's; has for her daily medication one pill for the heart murmur she's had since birth and one paracetamol; she takes no nonsense from anyone even now and spent quite a bit of time at the party mock-playing footsie with my dad. Frail as she evidently is, she doesn't look 100, and by the looks of things might well add a few more years to her current total. I suspect she's going to outlive her only remaining sibling, Betty, out of sheer stubbornness - she thinks (correctly) that Betty is, and I quote, 'a whingeing old tart'.
She received well over one hundred and fifty birthday cards, and that's not counting the ones since her daughter Pat (also awesome - win is genetic) lost count at about 4pm.
Reaction to the obligatory card sent from the Queen: "What do I want with a card from that silly cow? She's never bothered before..."
Reaction to the obligatory card sent from Rhodri Morgan, head of the Welsh Assembly and therefore in theory the most important man in Wales: "Who the hell is he, anyway?"
She also gleefully and deliberately caused a storm at the hairdresser's last week by informing the girl doing her hair that she'd been midwife at her mother's birth - oh, and by the way, your grandparents never married, you know. Had five kids but never bothered...
My Aunty Til, lady and gents. Here's to the next hundred years. <333
~~~
In other news: who wants to vote on what I'm doing my coursework on? Doing transcripts tonight has given me a second idea (we set our own questions) and now I'm not sure which I like best. The idea of using a French-language news station has already been cleared as good with my tutor, incidentally, so don't choose on that score.
Poll English Language coursework - fun for all the family! -_-
Yeah, fascinating stuff, I know. If I'm scarce this week, guys (and I probably will be), the above essay is why.
Tilly is awesome. When she was born she wasn't expected to live; she raised literally half of her twelve siblings herself after her mother died when the youngest was two; she's been a widow since 1947 and has never remarried; she was midwife at the birth of more or less literally the entire village; her memory is near perfect (today she looked at a photo of herself at seven standing with her siblings and immediately told my father that the reason Will has such awful hair there is because Bob tried to cut it); raised two of her own children on her own and helped with half the village's; has for her daily medication one pill for the heart murmur she's had since birth and one paracetamol; she takes no nonsense from anyone even now and spent quite a bit of time at the party mock-playing footsie with my dad. Frail as she evidently is, she doesn't look 100, and by the looks of things might well add a few more years to her current total. I suspect she's going to outlive her only remaining sibling, Betty, out of sheer stubbornness - she thinks (correctly) that Betty is, and I quote, 'a whingeing old tart'.
She received well over one hundred and fifty birthday cards, and that's not counting the ones since her daughter Pat (also awesome - win is genetic) lost count at about 4pm.
Reaction to the obligatory card sent from the Queen: "What do I want with a card from that silly cow? She's never bothered before..."
Reaction to the obligatory card sent from Rhodri Morgan, head of the Welsh Assembly and therefore in theory the most important man in Wales: "Who the hell is he, anyway?"
She also gleefully and deliberately caused a storm at the hairdresser's last week by informing the girl doing her hair that she'd been midwife at her mother's birth - oh, and by the way, your grandparents never married, you know. Had five kids but never bothered...
My Aunty Til, lady and gents. Here's to the next hundred years. <333
~~~
In other news: who wants to vote on what I'm doing my coursework on? Doing transcripts tonight has given me a second idea (we set our own questions) and now I'm not sure which I like best. The idea of using a French-language news station has already been cleared as good with my tutor, incidentally, so don't choose on that score.
Poll English Language coursework - fun for all the family! -_-
Yeah, fascinating stuff, I know. If I'm scarce this week, guys (and I probably will be), the above essay is why.