I've been busy these last few months with various projects but I have missed blogging and shall make time, from now on, to jot down the whirligig of thoughts that enter my brain. 

 A college prospectus says the ability to keep to a topic is the sign of an educated mind.  I understand the point but for me, one idea sparks a myriad others, creating numerous possibilities and a state of complete indecision.

As a writer, I do a lot of churning;  I'm not sure if I could be hanged for my thoughts, but I would prefer to keep them private. Many employees who take part in those hideous staff-training days which involve  'bombing ideas', would, too.

This is where employees  'share' their ideas (sorry, their jargon, not mine), thus enabling the group leader to trash most of them, (I don't mean the staff, thankfully).  In the gritty remains at the bottom of the pot, they will pan for gold (fools gold).

This exercise has gone on for years but was declared completely pointless by a psychologist last week. Can't say I'm surprised, but here's an interesting point:

President Obama has a female employee whose task it is to think about possibilities and difficulties that might arise in any given situation.  Before you act, think of what might go wrong. Good thinking.

Ideas do not exist in a vacuum, though. They usually come from somewhere, like films, people we know, or books.

 President Hollande does not read books, according to Thomas Picketty, author  of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. I expect the President is too busy with matters of State but, like Paul Valery, the French poet who admitted to not having read Proust, he might save time by leafing through a critique. 

I have spent (squandered?) a lifetime squirrelling my way through books and will reveal more in my next blog. Happy reading!

I couldn't get a signal on the telly on Sunday night. After I twisted the setabout for a while I saw the aerial lead had come out so Istuck it back (into the wrong socket), so still no signal. I called Peter who saw immediately I'd put it in the wrong place.

Well, I've always known we have differentsorts of brain.Ifind it hard to be objective, leave alone technical.

Telling my younger daughter about this she came up with an explanation: women who are exposed to high levels of the female hormone oestrogen when in the womb think in a feminine way. If they have a high dose of testosterone (the male hormone) they have masculine brains.

It figures. I've never wanted to join the army, wear uniform (I hate prickly fabric next to me) or bark orders at anyone (my voice is quite quiet so I'dneed a loud hailer). I've never wanted to be a man.

TheTimes this week has been full ofwomen who struggled back to their jobs after having babies. (They didn't need the money, so I'm not pitying them.) Don't know their levels oftestosterone butthey think they're smashing through the so-called 'glass ceiling', but I'll not go into that now. Instead, I'll talk about a trait I've noticed in 'successful' women. They like blackor navy blue.

I won't go near black or navy blue if I can help it. I was sitting in the sunshine inCarmarthen recently and noticeda celandinehad pushed through a crack in a nearby wall. A young woman passed meand the first thing I noticed was the black suit and shoes. It was two o'clock and I guessed she'd had a mid-day break and was going back to wherever she worked.

I do not want to be reminded of the colour of working uniforms, though I realise they are useful, corporateand necessary. Careerwomen are dressing in a similar way to men because they want the identification with work that these colours give.

In Indian medicine, if you suffer from gallstones (I have) you should look at the colour orange, drink from an orange glass, sit on an orange cushion and eat orange food. (I'm fine now).

Now, back to masculine women again. Pink is a healing colour, the inside shade of a baby's ear, the blush of a rose petal:what I'm wondering is, how does the colour pink affect people's perceptions?

If career women had a good dose of pink would it cure them of wanting to fight their way to the top and make them more contenttolook after their own children? Honestly, I'm not being sexist.

If I lived in days of yore I'd be making my will, packing my bags and preparing to go ona long and hazardous pilgrimage to Rome any day now.

Instead, the snow and odd burst of sunshine have affected me in another way and, instead of indulging in the fever of spring cleaning, I am refurbishing.

Ignoring Peter's 'It's fine as it is -I don't know why you're bothering,' I've had the cloak roomtiled in mosaic mirror tiles; I've not got the disco ball but an Art Deco glass lampshade. (If I could put pics on I'd post a photo.)

I've also had a new bath panel tiled with grey glass mosaic tiles and one wall of the bathroom mirrored, so now every time someone calls I pull theminto thedownstairs loo before rushing them up to the bathroom.

That's not all: heavy new curtains in the bedroom resulted in the curtain rail crashing down, thus requiring athick new curtain pole. Then I hada large painting fixed on the wall behind the bed. Pleased as punch with myself, I am, andI do like having a handyman with various drills and screw drivers about the place, (not Peter; he hates DIY).

There was a time when UK television was fill of make-over programmes. I particualrly liked this American 'House Doctor' lady who told dirty Brits it was 'chavvy' not to clean theirhouses. She wrought near miracles by telling people tochuck out their junk and scrub, scrub, scrub,as though their lives swung on it.

WhereI disagreed with her was over the 'pot-pourri' she was so fond of (the sort of stinkystuff available in 1 shops). Some fresh flowers would have looked a whole lot better, but I suppose cut flowers die and thewater smells if it is not changed each day and you can't expect a whotoo muchfrom people who, like Quentin Crisp, don't notice the dust after a few years.

I was ruminating about this programme with afriend andshe said she and her partner used to watch 'House Doctor' when they'd just got together andwere doing up their house.

When theseries endedtheylost the intimacy they had developed, flopping onto the settee with curried prawns and lager each week. No other programme cut the mustard for them like that one. Who ever would have thought that you could spritz up your relationship by watching others cleaning?

At the risk of being deeply unfashionable, I'll say it: Ithink, ideally,mothers with young children should not have to work. (Where the bread winner islow paid or forsole-parent families, this isa different matter; so are motherssuffering from depression who have to get out of the house).

I've believed thismost of my adult life but have hesitated to say so, fearing I'd look like afossil, so why do I say it now?

During the seventiesmore and more women with school-age children startedtaking jobsoutside the home and itbecamethe norm butwomen, now,are admitting that it is all a strain. Using jargon, they say they are 'juggling' , meaning they arestruggling. Rushing young children to school beforehurryingto their own jobs is exhausting, without all the other things like buying groceries, cooking and so on.

Historically, and I won't lumber us with the past, the rich saw little of their children (perhapsthat's one reasons why they had so many) or maybe they lacked the nurturing gene.A poor woman who had lost a child of her own was employed to suckle an aristocratic babe.Later, the boys became 'squires' in the homes of the upper classes where theymet future brides-to-be.

Women are their own worse enemies. I hate the phrase 'heavily pregnant' but women often workuntil late in their pregnancies,saving maternity leave to take it after the baby is born. Whilst pregnancy is not an illness sometimes parts of it can feel like it is and there's nothing nicer than to take an afternoon rest.

Women argue that if they take too much maternity leave they lose seniority and money. I think we need to get our priorities right. Ifwomen are so avid about working, whyhave children? (Highly paid women often have six or more children. Are they trying to compensate forsomething?)

I have asuggestion forwomen whose jobs come before everything else:don't bother to have children.

There is a flaw running through throughwhat I have written, though. Ibelieve that a woman should not rely financially on a man. Never,ever, so maybe we'llhave to leave it to thesuper rich topopulate the world.

PS:

Shirley Conran famously said that life is 'too short to stuff a mushroom'. My maxim is: early childhood is too short to miss so let your childrenenjoy your company.

Yesterday was the commercialised day known as 'Mothers Day.' Justanother selling experience for shops, like St Valentine's Day (expensive evening meals, bouquets of flowers, chocolates, diamond rings, whatever trifles take your fancy), Easter or Father's Day, (more of the same).

Bank Holidays,Halloween, harvest suppers, Christmas, Hogmanay, New Year. If the date is right you can eat it or wrap it in gift paper, whatever it is.

I'm not against spending;I rather like buying fripperies and Peter long ago learnt not to ask 'Do we need it?' whenI unpack my booty.

To spend is to affirm a grip on life, a confirmation ofone's optimism, however sorely it may have been tested up to this point.There is something life enhancing about spending. It changes the energy of everything but I am coming to dislike Mothering Sunday.

My mother loves going out: she even studied a Valentine's supper menu witha view to booking a meal for thetwo of us(!) We did go out yesterday, hada lovely meal andwere given a pot of flowers each as a present. (Yes, I know, the price of the meal covered the flowers, but we liked the idea.) Then wehad tea with my daughters and granchildren andit was a lovely day.

What I don't like about Mothering Sunday is the hurt it causes to many people.Not just new mothers whose husbands haven't got a card or flowers but widows whose families send presents but live too far away to visit.

In an agricultural community, Mothering Sunday was the day whe farm maids were allowed to visit thier mothers and take flowers from thehedgerows as a gift. I'm not wanting to turn the clock back and there are those tough enough to not give a fig about whether their children remember them or not, but this is one occasion we could do without.

The government wants to encourage more building to increase the housing stock and help the building industry, which is feeling the pinch from the economic recession.

I've been watching a series on BBC Two, Wales,screened at eight o'clock on Thursdays. It'smain focus isthe decisions of Chester Council's Planning Department.

One episode showed how the Planning Committee decidedto grant permission for a development of new houses onfields that nearbyresidents wanted to protect,because they did not want to lose the views.Government guidelines were adhered to and there was no reason to refuse the developer going ahead.

By co-incidence, the following day,I came acrossa judgement of 1610 concerning ahouseholder who had built a pigsty (twlc) at the side of his house.Neighbours held that the pigsty took awaytheir view but the judge declared that, while views are a delight, they cannot be regarded as a right.

Chester is a town which has interesting old houses, lovely tiledroofs, unusual chimney pots and I was amazed when two retired doctors were granted permission to install solar panels into the roof of their old house. From the city walls it's possible to take a walk and look down on the tops ofhouses and these panels could be seen clearly, like a bloton theold building. (I'm not inferring that a newer house should not have panels, but a historic building is different - for me, if not the Planners.) I couldn't accept the argument of the doctors, who saidthis was the twenty first century, requiring residents to'move with the times.' People are lucky to live in an old house; if they don't respect it's agetheyshouldmove to a newer house.

Haverfordwesthasvery few old buildings thathave been preserved.Some of the 'modern' buildings in the town are little more than an eye-sore. I'm thinking particularly of the former tax office, a box-like constructioncomposed of blue,plastic lookingpanels with so many windows thatstaff found the rooms uncomfortably bright.

So many modern buildings look like a child's construction made of cardboard boxes.What I mourn arethe old stone cottages that used to be dotted around the Welsh country side, with earth floors and corrugated lean-to's at the side. Of course, they had no running water, electricity or any modern conveniences and St Fagan's has preserved many of them, but I know that many places brought 'up to date' in the fifties, just became ugly boxes rendered in pebble dash, possessing no charm.

I'm not advocating that we do nothing innovative architecturally but manynew buildings look tatty within a few years, whereas Georgian houses retain their elegance. And as forPlanning Committees? It is difficult to second guess them.

Yesterday I was clipping a laurel bush that has grown massively large when a neighbour stopped to chat. He told me about an altercation he had with someone the day before.

It was a complicated story and Iwas unable to follow it all but, in essence, theother driver signalled incorrectly, confusing the teller of the tale.All we need remember is the aggrieved driver is seventy eight and the other driver was a soldier.

This did not deter the seventy eight year old from following the soldier to his house and making his complaint. Some verbal sparring followed before the soldier told him to learn to drive andwas met with the riposte that he could drive, he'd learnt in the Army.

Using some emotional intelligence, the soldier asked 'Shall we just leave it?'. Then they both shook hands and the day did not end badly after all.

InThe Times todaythe case of the Carmarthen blogger is reported. Briefly, Carmarthen Council has taken offence to the blogger's predilection for filming sessions of the planning committee, using her mobile 'phone.

This is another of those sagas that run and run. Along the way, she has been arrested andreleased.She and the council are embroiled in a wordy battle that looks as though it's going to be costly.

The Times and Derbyshire County Council case established that the State should not sue its citizens and should not pay for its employees to do so. In effect, the blogger, as a taxpayer,is funding the claim against her and is paying for her own defence.

The case concludes today.Judgement will be reserved. I'll watch out for it?

I was married in 1959. Peter was in his second year of teaching and earnedthirty five pounds a month, which could not be called a 'princely sum' by any stretch of the imagination. I did not have a job, having only just arrived in a small town in West Wales.

Our first 'married' task was to sortthe budget.We worked out that in a five week month there was seven pounds a week to juggle. Ashorter month gave useight poundsto splash.

Our rent was two pounds a week andcoal was ten shillings a bag. We had coin metres for the gas and electricityso we could pay-as-we-went. We also paid weeklyfor a rediffusion radio at first, but I forget what that cost.

I decided that three pounds a week would probably buy enough groceries for the two of us and in practise, it did.

I jotted down everythingI had spent when I came home from shopping, to see where the money had gone. (When supermarkets arrived in thesixties it was a relief, because prices could be compared and I knew what things cost before deciding to buy.)

The Sunday jointpresented a difficulty for me. I would ask fora small joint but always ended up with one that lasted us for four meals.My culinary imaginationwas tested to the limit. On a Sunday wehad a roast, Monday we ate the meat cold, with boiled potatoes, peas and a bottled sauce. Tuesday waspie day and on Wednesday I threw the remainsinto the cawl pot and breathed a sigh of relief.

(My daughters thinkI was lucky it lasted so longbecause meat disappears quickly in their houses.)

The topic for this blog was inspired by some recent research that says two people can save at least a hundred pounds a month by living together, sharing the bills.

Co-incidentallyIreada 1935 magazine earlier today and saw anarticle on household economy. I should have guessed thatthe main culprits for wasting money were the maids, who were lavishwith thecleaning materials, expecially scouring powder. Elbow grease would have done just as well and saved a lot of money!