"Oh, say can you see...?" Er, no!

Replete with last week's bout of TCOB ('Taking Care Of Business', one of 'the King's' favourite sayings, (although I'm not sure what the Queen Mother would have had to say about it), I decided it was time to stop avoiding the inevitable and I took myself off to the optician's yesterday...

My optician has recently moved his business from a very bijou (and no doubt hideously expensive, rates-wise) part of town, to an area not five minutes' drive from the town centre (a twenty minute walk), but in a low-down, depressed and deprived city suburb where I stand out like a sore thumb because I'm not clad in rags and look far from undernourished...

His high standards have not changed.   I was offered a lovely cup of frothy coffee with cream from a brand-spanking-new machine by an exhuberant member of his staff, while I perused the bling-encrusted racks of attractive Chanel, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior and Bvlugari geps. (CLICK FOR NORTHUMBRIAN LANGUAGE TRANSLATION) 

I rested my hefty haunches on his black and chrome leather sofas, picking up a copy of Vanity Fair with an article about Johnny Depp to squint at, given that I was only able to wear my old Prada geps (Prescription Vintage 2008) in readiness for the full plethora of sight tests.  

...Normally, I go nowhere without my daily contact lenses held in to my tenderly glistening mince-pies with the vice-like grip of me eye-lids!

I passed the gruelling tests.   Which is amazing as I'm usually to be found ruminating on something like a previously undetected detached retina or a painful dose of glaucoma which my late Mutti suffered with...


'Go home and celebrate your healthy eyes!', began my bespectacled optometrist.  

What with, gin?!   Fireworks?  


He continued, 'Your contact lens prescription hasn't altered at all, which is good but you will need to change the prescription in your geps glasses...,' if you want to use them to see through and not as a fashion statement, he failed to add.
'And, if you need any extra help for reading small print, just borrow your husband's reading glasses.   They'll do fine.   Or just push your glasses further down your nose.   It's all very normal...  At your age!'

Great, I thought, I am turning into Miss Marple.

Afterwards, I sat before the bright, bespectacled receptionist (WHY DOES NO-ONE WHO WORKS IN AN OPTICIAN'S WEAR CONTACT LENSES??!).  

She beamed as she withdrew a tiny calculator from within her voluminous black cape - just on trend for Hallowe'en!   She calculated away, her fingers tippy-tappying across the keys...

"You are entitled to a reduction as the Government does pay for a percentage of your lenses, given that you are as blind as a bat a complex prescription...   That'll reduce the cost by, ooooohhhhhh, don't get excited, £15.00".

Wow, I thought.   A whole £15.   Approx. $30.   Period.  For being practically partially sighted?

But, never look a gift horse in the mouth, as my Grandmother would say...

And, as the pretty receptionist's black manicured fingers glided over the keys of the calculator, the damage emerged for the cost of fitting new lenses into my old, but good, glasses.   I had decided to be parsimonious, given my circumstances, and eschewed the shiny and new.

"That'll be £185.51p, please!    How would you like to pay?"

"Er, not at all," I said, somewhat unhelpfully...

Pitmatic 2

Where was I??!

Oh, yes... Yakking.

It's what I do best, n'est-ce pas?

Pitmatic, formerly 'pitmatical', referring to the very peculiar words and language used by my forebears, my ancestors. First mentioned in a Victorian journal of the time, when industry leaders came to the region to lay down the law, but couldn't understand a word of what the miners were saying; They termed it, 'pitmatical'.

From BBC Radio 4: "Until the closure of the last pit in 1981, Ashington was one of Britain's most concentrated mining communities. At its peak in the 1930s the town boasted 6,000 men underground. Closely-knit is the cliché used of pit-communities, but it is undeniable that these villages were self sufficient and self-supporting: the village was the pit and measured itself and its people in relation to it".

So, a language drawn from old German, Dutch, old English, Norse and some just simply made up on the spot by the miners themselves...

It's said to be one of the purest forms of English that remains in our Realm.

I've heard my son using the term 'bari'. I'd never heard it before, but it's an old word coming back into the dialect, and means fab, lovely, beautiful...

When I say I am down on my honkers, I mean I am crouched low to the ground... It takes me yonks to get up again, it's me age, doctor!

I might threaten to 'yark' someone, if they're being cheeky. What I mean is that I might hit, or clip, them one with my back-hand!

I got puzzled glances at work the other week, when I offered a colleague a pair of tweezers to take the spelk out of his finger. He had a splinter of wood trapped under the skin, a 'spelk'.

A baby, or small children are 'bairns'.

Our toilet (usually outside!) at the rear of the house, is a 'netty'.

If I'm talking about someone bounding over, a cat jumping up on my lap, I say 'lowp'... "Aye, he fair lowped!"

If the cat was overly covered in mud, or clarts, we'd say "Mind, he's reet hacky!"

If I'm busy with something, like in a warehouse full of boxes, or standing more than waist deep in water, "I'm up to me oxters!" (My armpits).

You may have heard that we use the term, 'canny', to mean something or someone is nice, or we had a good time... "Aye, it wor (were) canny like".

If I'm 'clamming for me bait,' I'm telling you I'm pretty hungry.

Sometimes a Geordie may appear to be using words incorrectly , but this may not always be the case. For example a Geordie may say 'Aaal larn yer (meaning I'll teach you) as in the Anglo Saxon Laeran which meant teach. Other Geordie words of Anglo Saxon origin include Axe (ask) from the Anglo-Saxon Acsian, Burn meaning stream, Hoppings meaning fayre and Gan which is the Geordie and Anglo Saxon word meaning to go.

The unique way in which Geordies and Northumbrians pronounce certain words is also often Anglo-Saxon in origin. Thus Geordie words like Dede, Coo, Cloot, Hoos, Wrang, Strang and Lang are in fact the original Anglo-Saxon pronounciations for Dead, Cow, Clout, House, Wrong, Strong and Long.

These old words have survived in the North East for a number of reasons primarily associated with the region's historical remoteness and isolation from southern England. The turbulent border history of this region was also a major factor in discouraging outside influence although some Viking words have crept into the local dialect from the neighbouring Viking settled areas of Yorkshire, South Durham and Cumbria. CLICKIE FOR MORE

Painting, 'Progging the Mat', by a Pitman Painter.

10 Things I Can't Live Without

10 Things I Can't Live Without

1. Colour in my life - I often dream in colour, and they say that we don't...



2. Paris - Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, views, being In Seine (groannn!)... you get it



3. Magic - Spells, incantations, chanting, hoping, wishing, do-gooding... all that and wishing on stars! Oh, and luck... "If it wasn't for bad luck, I wouldn't have no luck at all...!"








4. Laughter in my life......



5. Greenery and Scenery - I cannot exist in a grey world far from greenery, even if it is just the verdant leaves of a plant...



6. I cannot live without my wild heart...



7. Strong, funny, witty, crazy, beautiful women...



8. Music



9. Words and Language



10. And, last but by no means least...