Well, May 15th has arrived, it's 6 weeks after my operation, and my surgical stockings are coming off this afternoon - finally !
Lois and I will certainly be in celebratory mood when that happens, but for now I'll just say that suddenly everything seems to be going right for us.
Plus there's a lot of partying going on in this area at the moment, isn't there. Did you see the "lead story" on today's local Onion News? Area man David Coughlin has proposed combining all his co-workers' birthdays into one single "big bash". What a great idea!
Kudos, David !!!!!
Lois and I are going to have our own "bash" this afternoon, that's for sure! Because yes, as of today, it's been exactly 6 weeks since my hip replacement operation in the Alexandra Hospital, Redditch, and, if you've had a hip replacement yourself you'll know that the NHS tells patients basically, for the first 6 weeks, don't do anything that puts a strain on your hips.
And that's a ruling that Lois and I agree may be sensible, but it's also one which rules out a lot of fun activities, to put it mildly! How long has it been since I last went up- or downstairs faster than one step at a time, to give the most obvious example.
flashback to last month: me recovering in my hospital bed
after my hip replacement surgery
Yes, the NHS strongly advises so-called "recovering hip-o-holics" not to try anything too hip-heavy, physically, in those 6 weeks, to ensure that their shiny new NHS hips don't suddenly "pop out of their sockets" at an embarrassing moment, and/or, in worst case scenario, go flying across the room, potentially embedding themselves in the plasterwork.
And if the worst comes to the worst, and that hip does suddenly go flying across the room, just how many "recovering hip-o-holics" have trained their pet dog to bring it back for them?
I wonder.....!
this owner's dog has been specially trained to "go fetch" any of
its owner's bones if they suddenly go flying out of their sockets
- but has yours?
14:00 Yes, all the omens are looking good, so we start off the celebrations officially now, with a celebratory nap in bed, before donning some summer clothing and planning more of the daring antics that are now rapidly starting to seem possible.
after our nap, we change into summer clothes and start planning
some of the daring, madcap antics we're going to get into
- you would not BELIEVE !!!!!
[I'd like to see some documentary evidence if you two noggins do finally decide to do anything daring, by the way, with or without surgical stockings! - Ed]
And the celebrations just keep on coming today....
My younger sister Jill is celebrating her 66th birthday today, and is planning to move into a new flat in Ipswich next month. It's in the same apartment block as one of her 3 daughters, and has great views over the town's harbour. What could be better than that, eh?
flashback to 1960 : me, aged 14, in my Bristol Grammar School uniform,
on the beach at Weston-super-mare, with my little sister Jill (2)
October 2023: Jill on a visit to Lois and me here in Malvern -
we stop for a warming cup of coffee outside the town museum
Yes, incredibly, both Jill and I are still around, after all these years, which is a bit of a surprise, in my case at least haha!
21:00 Lois and I wind down for bed with the first part of an interesting new 2-part series on the PBS America channel, all about the history of flight attendants, this first programme in the series covering the period up until the 1960's.
It comes as a bit of a surprise to Lois and me to learn that, if you travelled by plane in the early days of both US and UK commercial flights, in the 1920's and 1930's, they tended to be men-only affairs, with male "cabin boys" the ones in attendance. The flights used to take for ever, were very uncomfortable, and were widely regarded as harrowing, and dangerous, even.
It was a time when you couldn't even get travel insurance if you went by air.
Yikes !!!!!
flashback to the 1920's: male "cabin boys" in attendance
And if a man had his wife or family travelling with him, they would tend to go by sea on board some luxurious liner.
And who knew that it was specifically because many men were still scared of travelling by air, that the airlines initially decided on employing young women to work as air stewardesses or flight attendants. It was originally planned as a "sweetener", to tempt more men to take their courage in both hands and just do it, despite all the imagined (and actual) risks of flying.
"The presence of young women will calm the men's nerves", was the thinking, not just by means of the women's smiles and seductive attention, but also through the implication that if these young women aren't scared, isn't the man a bit of a "wuss" if he isn't prepared to "go up in one of those things" himself.
See? Makes sense now, doesn't it!
And moving forward to the late 1940's and the 1950's, being an air stewardess was one of the few jobs that a woman was still allowed to do that was at all exciting or glamorous.
Oh dear! Because everybody knows that when the men all came back from the war, they needed jobs to go back to, so the post-war women, who had held down all sorts of jobs in wartime, were now suddenly only allowed to be low-paid nurses, secretaries, clerks, teachers, librarians, etc - although, ideally, just for a couple of years, till a man was willing to marry you and give you children to bring up.
Poor post-war women !!!!!
If you were lucky enough to be an air-stewardess, however, at least until you were compulsorily "let go" at thirty-something, life was good, and exciting, and a whole different world from that of most working women, while offering work that was still essentially feminine.
One airline's "Air-stewardess wanted" adverts even tempted women with the headline "Would you like a boyfriend in every city in the world?"
Flights were shorter and more comfortable by then, too, with bigger planes and more passengers on board, and lots of tempting cocktails to be had, after the introduction of the DC6 with its pressurised cabins.
A potential stewardess, however, was, needless to say, closely scrutinised for her looks - and her height, weight and hip size had to fit the airline's matrix of approved "specifications". She would also have to speak a bit of French or Spanish, do as she was told without question, know how to work the onboard ovens, make coffee and mix cocktails, calm passengers down if they started screaming, and, if necessary, evacuate a planeload of passengers in less than 90 seconds.
At the same time she had to look "wholesome" but, for the benefit of the airlines' still male-dominated customer base, at the same time also to look "potentially available sexually" - although in theory only, needless to say.
Each airline's stewardesses had to have the regulation hair-style, lipstick in a mandatory shade of red, white gloves, and three inch heels.
One ex-stewardess interviewed for tonight's programme says that when she looks back at the old group photos she can't even tell which of the women is her - what madness !!!
What a crazy world they lived in back in those far-off decades !!!!
Fascinating stuff, isn't it. [If you say so! - Ed]
22:00 We go to bed - zzzzzzzz!!!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment