Busy Week

Reading back through my blog it seems I had a very busy couple of weeks!  This week by contrast nada, not a thing, nothin' doing.

The sun is shining, Spring is here and I can even feel a touch of Summer in the air.

The chidren are on holiday so why arent we doing anything???

Hmmm, I resolved last night that we WOULD do something on Tuesday (tomorrow).  I dont drive which is a pain  but also just as well as Mr Mac, although being happy enough to leave the children and his dog behind DID take the car.

Another thing that I resolved many months ago was to never sink into a public rant about Mr Mac. The noise you may hear in the background from time to time is the sound of me chewing through my tongue!

No BBQ today though

I am however eternally grateful to my friend C who, due to a text typo once rechristened him Lack, a name has afforded me much (private) amusement.

So, tomorrow!!  We are off to Weston-Super-Mare on the train ..............



a chance to dip our toes and frolick



Well, it's today now, Im up and enjoying a cuppa in the garden before waking the hoards.  Serious second thought on the wiseness of taking  four, eleven to thirteen year olds out for the day without a couple of bouncers and a long rope to tie them together.

Also seriously hacked off that the midnight raid they did on my cupboards now means the picnic Id planned is severely depleted!  No doubt it's in the hope that I'll be buying chips, burgers and the like later. 

They can HOPE!! I plan on taking the empty Jaffa Cake box with me to wave (silently with one eyebrow slightly raised) in their faces everytime they say they're hungry.  The Jaffa Cakes never were for the picnic but they were MINE!!!

Ok, time to get the water pistol out and make lots of noise (I love payback.God knows WHAT time they went to sleep!).

To be continued ............................

THINGS don't just happen to ME!!!

See, I TOLD you they didn't!

I've spent the afternoon in the garden, weeding the borders ect ready for planting. I was just thinking a little music wouldn't go amiss when joy of joys my neighbour had the same idea (the nice ones, not the cat haters).

We've all been having a sing along to the Beach Boys, Wouldn't It Be Nice, I Get Around ect. I DO like something I can either sing along to or dance to preferably both, and the Beach Boys fit the bill perfectly.

Anyway, my neighbour decided to try out his outside lights in preparation for the BBQ season. Into the house, flick the switch and BANG, everything went off. Out to the hall, flip …....bang ….. well, you know the drill but strangely, he couldn't pin point it to any one things. Every thing works individually but combinations of anything with the outside lights and bang! Obviously I offered my services and told them of my experiences (and experience with electrics) but for some reason they declined my 'help' and are going for 'the man who can' option.

At this time of year my garden doesn't get the sun in the late afternoon, another month or two and it will from first thing in the morning until late in the evening.

I think my favourite time is about half past 6 on Summers morning, everything's still and cool and the dew hasn't yet evaporated from the flowers, I tend to take lots of photos in the early hours.

My garden is also a bit of a magnet for frogs in the Summer, probably because I obsessively water it. One morning I was having a peaceful cup of tea on the top decking (my bottom drawing water out of the wood osmosis style!) when I noticed the cat showing an interest in something by the wall.

She was shortly joined by the dog who started sniffing around when suddenly

ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!!

Loud screaming,dog barking, cat hissing and a bright ORANGE frog ( like a satsuma) came flying right at me!!!!

 

Not wanting to be the only one to remain calm in a crisis I threw my cup of tea half way across the garden and started screaming too. Me, the dog, the cat and the frog all trying to out do each other (I think I may have won;) until the whole neighbourhood was wide awake! The frog eventually came to its senses and disappeared leaving us to explain to the extremely disbelieving neighbours. (Oh yes, 'cause we just fancied a bit of a scream fest this morning!!! )  YES, disbelievers, orange frogs DO exist, just go google them!

Random Ramblings

Rewinding at the Fibro

If I should ever write a book I think that might just be the perfect title.

I used to confine my rambles to FB where the people know me and are mostly kind.

I suspect that some of them think of me as some kind of 'pet'. I wonder if they would be so tolerant if they had to feed me and pay the vets bills?

 I LIKE my FB friends, today M joined the library, T made sausages and K's phone came out of the closet. I didn't do a status update today but if I had I wonder what it would have been?

The leading status update?  First person to call me Granny WILL be removed from my friends list without further warning!!! (This obviously was a reference to Tilly having kittens and was shortly followed by an explanatory photo, I don't tend to do these and then leave the ubiqutous two hour anticipation gap)


The statement update? I have cheesecake in my eye. (Well, I DID!)

The quotation update? "My second favourite household chore is ironing. My first being hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint." Erna Bombeck

The random update?  fish making nests and recycled moon, these things make me smile. .( This was a reference to a thread on another friends wall.)

I'm not sure what today's would have been, I didn't bet on the National, join the library, make sausages or have a problem with my phones sexuality.

I DID have a random friends request from a friend of a friend but as he has nearly 2000 'friends' as opposed to my 70, I suspect he is just a collector of people so I wont respond.

Blogging has opened up whole new world for me.  Now I no longer do I have to wait for a response in order to reveal the full story.  I don't go off at a tangent loosing  the original thread but there is still the interaction of comments, I can still make new friends.,

I DO like to make new friends and funnily enough, my garden isn't a bad place to do it!

Last summer for instance. There I was dozing in the sun, minding my own business when a voice said 'hello'. I opened my eyes to find a man up a ladder a few doors down fixing the guttering.

 We had quite a nice chat culminating in him asking me if I fancied going for a drink some time. Now, this presented me with a bit of a problem, could I possibly be go out with someone who appeared to be called Gnat (I did ask him to repeat it enough times for it to become embarrassing!).

Of course he WASNT called Gnat after all, it turns out it was Matt. Still, I decided to give it a miss, it was obvious that either he had a speech impediment or I had a hearing one!

I don't tend to really endear myself to my neighbours, particularly the ones on one side of me. They have an aversion to cats and I have an aversion to people who have an aversion to cats!

 Now I am (to an extent) sympathetic, cat 'waste' shall I say, is not pleasant (I should know, I now have 5!!!)

But I did buy them some cat repellent to spray in the garden even though I'm far from being the only cat owner in the area.

This didn't seem to be enough to satisfy them though and one afternoon as my FB update testifies, the neighbourhood loveometer hit the top of the scale.

 I cant be held responsible for my cats actions it's true but possibly saying, 'feel free to come and shit in MY garden' wasnt really the way to diffuse the situation.

The same neighbour puts her house on the market every Spring. She has no intention of selling you understand, she just like to tell me how much more her house is worth than mine.


Anyway, this obviously results in a few viewings and, to make sure I don't miss the opportunity to feel inferior she likes to take them for a stroll around the garden when I'm in mine, popping her head over the fence to introduce my possible 'new neighbours'.

Well, my garden is my castle (or keep, or moat, whatever) and if I choose to garden in my tee shirt and knickers surely that's MY business??

Shame really, we'd been getting on soooo much better since the chainsaw incident too!

A Dolphin and a Unicorn

I was caught red handed by my daughter adding a diary entry on the dating website a week or so ago.

Caught out!

Now I'm pretty careful about what my children see and also what they hear so, up until now my attempts to integrating myself back into the dating scene had been 'my little secret'. But she's not stupid and she's not afraid to ask questions so, I 'fessed up.

'How would you feel about me dating' I asked her. 'Hmmm' she replied, 'I suppose it would be ok …..... but, there are one or two things he would need to have'.

'Okaaay, what would those be' I asked with some trepidation (she is MY daughter after all).

'Well, he'd have to like animals' (fair enough).

'He has to have dark hair '(I don't have particularly strong feelings about that one).

'He has to have a car' (useful, but not essential).

hmmm, maybe it is .......

'So, if he had all that then you wouldn't mind?'

'No, I think that would be fine' she replied.

I gave her a big hug heaving a sigh of relief, THAT was easier than I expected!!!

Then, as she walked towards the door, she turned, and with a thoughtful (knowing) look in her eye she said, 'Oh, there is one last thing …...... he HAS to have a Dolphin AND a Unicorn and that is NON negotiable!'

 Rewinding at the fibro

One Day I Shot An Elephant In My Pyjamas

Only to find that the pyjamas were in fact the Elephants after all and he was just trying to claim back what was rightfully his! And YES, I am talking about my foot and ankle again. They fascinate but at the same time repel me. I don't think its any bigger than it was but its certainly not smaller!!

Anyway, A week or so a go I had a perfectly wonderful day (and yes, that was it). A slight disagreement with my sister who had (in her own mind) re-homed the kittens with one of her friends. I know it would be madness to keep them but I'm not ready to let them go just yet, they don't even have their eyes open!

Florence

Well, it ended badly with me eventually saying, 'the kittens don't have Lisa stamped on their arses!', a shocked silence followed and eventually she said in a very disapproving voice, 'Well, I really don't know WHAT to say' …....... Hallelujah!!! I can assure you that never in my lifetime has THAT happened before :-)

gratuitous photo (because I can)

Being the youngest of 4 girls does have it's disadvantages. No matter that I really am a grown up (in years). Have successfully raised a family and failed a marriage (a pre requisite in my family), I am still the baby who needs 'guidance' (Hmmm, no, they are just BOSSY).

Anyway, my day improved no end.

I met up with two of my favourite people and went to my favourite tea shop (yes, another, went up town, met me bezzie for tea story) except, this wasn't just an ordinary tea date, this was the Mr Miles experience! Savoury cream tea (cheese scones, cream cheese and fig chutney) followed by passion fruit, orange and almond cake with proper leaf tea complete with silver strainers. I thought Id died and gone to heaven all in a beautiful teashop decorated in the 1920 style, that's MY kind of tea date!

pure elegance

Lots of lovely things to buy!

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. (But this wasn't it)

Linking up with Multiple Mum at the Weekend Rewind

A couple of weeks ago I wrote in my dating diary:


"Watching my cat give birth was a very moving experience only slightly marred by the realisation that my daughter (having been asked to buy several newspapers in preparation for the birthing from the local shop) had picked up 7 copies of the Daily Star. To my horror I realised that my beautiful kitty was bringing young innocents into the world on a page of newsprint advertising 'Filthy Granny Sex Live' and 'Dominatrix Live Sex Chat'!!!

Fortunately Tilly seemed to feel it as inappropriate as I did and (kitten half out) got up and took up residence under the dining room table. Note to Claire, I know where TILLYS placentas are!!
Anyway, the birth went smoothly after that and she is now the proud mother of 3 beatiful kittens.

So, I thought, a relaxing evening is in order but then I remembered, with all the fuss Id fogotten to do a whites wash, the children had no clean school shirts for the morning.

Calculating that if I put them on a quick wash and stuck them over a radiator they would be dry by morning I duely loaded up the machine.


Time for a coffee and a bit of a sit down. Kettle on I went to check once again on Mum and babies and BANG, the trip blew and everything was plunged into darkness.


Out to the hall way where the fusebox is located and reaching up on my tiptoes (why do they put them so high?) I fipped the switch back up, half way down the hall, BANG, it went again. This time I decided something might be wrong so I unplugged the kettle, back to the hall ect, flip, BANG and back to the kitchen. One by one I unplugged things ... hall........flip..BANG UNTIL, I unplugged the washing machine! Hall ..flip ..... no bang Hmm, I apparently now have a knackered washing machime to add to my list of knackered appliances and whats worse, a washing machine half full of water and ALL the childrens school shirts.

 Im tempted to send them to school with notes saying the dog ate them, it somehow seems more believeable than the truth. And so while its true, I have had a perfectly wonderful evening this certainly WASNT it!

Other Peoples Children

I like children, mine, my friends, my children's friends, random ones in the park or walking down the street and I'm lucky because generally, they like me too. I'm not just a baby person, or toddler person or any age really, I like them all.

 I'm not a perfect Mum by any means, just ask MY children. I have failed to provide my daughter with a Unicorn so far and I have no idea what my son is talking about when he tries to discuss the complexities of the latest xbox 360 game.

I'm also an embarrassment, I wear short dresses to PTA meetings, eat all the fruit out of the Pimms and then leave because I'm bored.

Mmmm Pimms!

I forget sometimes that they are almost teenagers and try to hold their hands when crossing roads.

I run down the road after them in the morning barefoot and clad only in a funky monkey dressing gown designed for a 12 year old when they forget their PE kit.

But generally, they think I'm ok and their friends think I'm ok too as I'm the Mum who lets them have sleepovers and trash my house.

Mostly when I see a badly behaved child in a shop or in the street I don't judge, no one has perfect children and no one is a perfect parent.

But SOMETMES a child is just vile!!

Once, in Sainsburys I TOLD SOMEONE ELSES CHILD TO SHUT UP!!!

I didn't mean to really, I was repeating it over and over in my head as we stood at the checkout (no self service for me today) but I didn't actually mean it to come out of my mouth! The child in question was about 8 years old, whinging and whining and generally being a real pain, on and on and on ….... I tried ignoring it. I then tried visualising grinding her head into the shopping trolley or accidentally running her over with my trolley and in the end settled for the shut up mantra.

The funny thing is SHE DID!!! The mother seemed grateful rather than outraged as you might have expected and the child? Well, remember that wind tunnel look?

I probably wouldn't advocate trying it yourself but boy, it felt GOOOOD!