Early morning grumpy old woman

So enough loveliness already, time to get in touch with the other side.... The grumpy old woman side! Here in the UK we have two wonderful TV programmes called weirdly, Grumpy Old Women and Grumpy Old Men. They are incredibly funny observations on life.

I think we reach a certain age when we will no longer put up with stupidity and can become quite intolerant of what we perceive to be others foibles. Which of course is true of everyone, but I think we reach a certain age that have no problem being outspoken about these perceptions.

Recently some have been annoying the hell out of me. And because I'm only a while away from being beyond traditional middle age, in that I'll be 56 soon I decided it was time to let off some steam!

So where shall I start..... As you know I recently took knitting back up, which has helped my intolerance amazingly in that I knit as I watch the box, but I've run out of wool. Which has meant that I've actually being forced to watch the adverts recently, as there are only so many hot drinks I can make in the breaks, without risking incontinence later in the night!

Currently in the UK we have a lot of adverts for face creams, hair stuff, anything to make us all more beautiful.... And when you watch these batch of ads, written in faint writing on the bottom of the screen is the percentage of women who think this is a miracle product. As in, 80% of women tested thought, blah blah out of 156. The numbers tested are infinitesimally small, but obviously if these 80% thought it was a wondrous shampoo, then it follows that we all will to.

This is annoying enough, but right now there is one advert I want to throw one of the many hot drinks at. Apparently 77% of women tested feel sexier if their underarms were more beautiful...... What the .... Underarms sexy. Bloody hell what is the world coming to, another place to make young women neurotic about not being perfect.

How are we going to know if we have sexy pits. What makes something sexy? And is it the right place to start trying to make it sexy? Are women going to be going around asking do my pits look sexy? What will constitute sexy, shaved/ hairy/ deodorised/ not. Oh please give me a break. We do not need another admans subversive message to sell whatever the product is, by making us all feel inadequate about another bit of our bodies. I shave my armpits cause I prefer it that way, I use deodorant because I prefer it that way. I do not think about that part of my body the rest of the day.

Am I missing something here, maybe it's because I'm an old crone that of course I wouldn't have sexy pits, or because I'm not in a relationship and this is all sour grapes on my part..... If that's so then I'm really happy to be where I am.

And don't even get me started on the mascara adverts, that all say lash extensions have been used. They are not selling what the product will look like then are they if all the models are wearing fake lashes....

Bah Humbug!

So moving onto a completely different grumpieness..... blogging!

I've been blogging for three years now and I understood that there was an unspoken code of behaviour. In that, if you left a comment on a new/different blog that the person would get back to you at least once to check you out. This is how blogging relationships start taking that risk in potential new connections. So why isn't it happening? I have recently being leaving comments in all sorts of places and the majority of people haven't done me the courtesy of bothering to come by and leave me a comment.

Now okay I could be on an unknown hit list of people that you shouldn't bother with! But I don't really think that's true as the recent blog friends I've made haven't put up closd signs to me on their blog windows, so I sneak home without contacting them and vice versa.

I don't know whether this is to do with the ubiquitous Followers system that means once someone has signed up for that they don't have to bother with you again.Or that it stops people being interested in meeting new people.

I know that a great many people only pass through our lives for a short time here.There are also those who stay the course and become real friends. There are the people who used to blog as often as me, who now only do it a couple of times a month. All these are fine I don't have a problem with any of these. Although I do sometimes wonder why someone who has commented a lot suddenly falls of the radar. No what I'm talking about are the people who have never met me before and somehow I've ended up on their blog, where I read a post leave a comment and then am deafened by the silence that follows.

If people don't do that initial reaching out then blogging will stultify. There are millions of us out there, we blog for a reason. Usually because we want to reach out to others. Or are people becoming more insular here and only wanting a select group to react to to keep safe.

Now obviously I'm just ranting here. And I know it's going to be read by people who already have a blog relationship with me, so it is not directed at anyone. I just wanted to get it off my chest and wonder if you have had similar experience recently if you've tried to expand your blog roll/readership?

OK I've just looked up from this keyboard and the sun is shinning, so I've got to go back to enjoying life again and eat my breakfast in that sunshine and find my equilibrium again, as being grumpy is only ever short lived in my life nowadays.