Sunday scribblings "Mentor"

G'Day,
This weeks prompt is the word "Mentor". Wow, I could think of quite few people who have been mentors for me at different times in my life. I also would like to be a mentor, but I don't know if others would consider me that.
I guess my first and foremost mentor is my Mother. She can be such a silly annoying person at times but I guess that she, above all others in my life, has been the person from whom I have learned the most. She is the person who moulded me and taught me my moral base, for better or worse, who taught me to mother, to clean, to cook, to drive, all that stuff. Yes she is annoying but I guess, like me, she always tries to do he right thing as she sees it.
The next name that came to mind was my old next door neighbour when I was living in Urana. My adopted nanny Fox. She is gone now, but she was a good woman. I leaned on her quite a bit in those days. She supported me with my boys when they were toddlers. She and I used to have cooking sessions. She was a great old fashioned cook and one of my favorite memories of her was one day when I was trying to cook a sponge cake and they kept sinking for me. We decided that the oven wasn't sealing properly and we sat side by side with our feet resting on the oven door to keep the heat in while the cake was cooking. Funny. Other times... I was such a wimp.... haha, she would come in if I called her, to catch a spider and kill it for me, she was into her 80's then. I was terrified of the big huntsmen spiders that lived in our house at the time, they can get real big, with a leg span of 6 or so inches across and they drop off the ceiling and run fast. Brrrrr...... Then I decided that my boys were watching me and I had to be brave or pass my fear on to them, so from then on I learned to kill them myself. Now it does not bother me at all, I squish them as soon as I see them. My altruism does not extend itself to saving spiders, hehehe. We would also talk gardens and plants and I used to take her in to Corowa when I went to my pottery lessons to see her daughter Kate while she was living there. I had two other older women out at Urana who were my friends and my children's adopted Nannies, small country towns are great like that. I was a very young Mum when I moved to that town , in my early 20's and was away from my own Mum for the first time.
Hmmm. Other women keep coming to mind. Women need women the same as men need men don't they. Older women have life experience that is vital knowledge to younger women don't they. Be it for child rearing, house keeping, relationships or just for friendship. Mums, Aunties, sisters, cousins, sisters in law, neighbours, workmates, friends, acquaintances. We are all so important to each other. People need people. We all mentor each other in ways that we do not recognize at the time but we do appreciate. Thank you all so much.
Nowadays we find some of these people inside our computers, even if they live on the other side of the world to us. Unheard of and unimagined just a decade ago. People are great aren't they.
Granted....we all make mistakes, and sift through a lot of people that pass through our lives. We have the choice whom we let into our heart and those whom we choose to exclude. Exclude for many reasons and "boy" can I think of one toxic person who is a thorn in my side at the moment but there are lots of good people out there. Count your blessings.
There is a saying going around
"People come into our lives for a reason, a season or a lifetime......"

I get these as email type thingies passed around from friends quite often, I am pretty sure you have all received them too and you know the sort of thing I am talking about. It is nice to know someone is thinking of you, just a little reminder that there are people out there. Nice.
As far as myself being a mentor. Well I dunno. Maybe, I would like to think so. But..... I would also like to think that I encourage others to think for and work things out for themselves rather than influence them to think the same as me. It is a strange world we live in isn't it? We are all different and we are all the same. Those differences are to be embraced not discouraged.

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Tomorrow is Easter Monday. I am excited and looking forward to seeing a concert by Carol King and James Taylor tomorrow night in Sydney. Sydney is the big smoke. About 2 and a half hours drive from here. I am going down there in the morning and will hang about in the city until tomorrow night for the concert. Fantastic. A blast from our musical past. These guy are legends. I will be staying overnight in Darling Harbor, which is just a short walk from the entertainment centre where the concert is being held. Ooooh can't wait.
Bye.
Love Linda.