And how lovely that I should be launching this on my 200th post - makes it kind of extra special!

The 1st of December.......

Remember to come back tomorrow!

I had better make this quick because I don't have much time. I don't mean I am ill or anything. I just have oodles and oodles to do. BTW does anyone know what an oodle is?

I was walking to work this morning and passed a shop. Not unusual as I work in town and towns have shops. It was a gifty type shop though, this one, with kind of ornaments of a ceramic nature and also quite possibly some, euuh plastic. Anyway in the window was a model of R2D2, about two foot high, and the price tag said - wait for it - £545. Who the fudge bar wants to spend £545 on a model of R2D2. There was one of C3P0 as well but I didn't catch the price of that one (if anyone really wants to know I am prepared to pop in and ask). Now I like Star Wars - as you can see from my top ten films - but no way would I spend that much on an oversized paperweight. I might be prepared to pay for a life size Han Solo so long as it comes with moving parts. Just re-read that and it sounds well dodgy! Blame it on Christmas - it only comes once a year (it should be so lucky!).

What is it with some people. There's a guy at work who has been quite sweet over the last year and listens to me whinging on and then suddenly the shutters come down and avoidance tactics. Ach, I can't be doing with it, I guess I should be a little less self absorbed and stop thinking everyone hates me!

I've got me 24 prezzies for the girlies advent calendar though - another achievement - if I make small goals there's a far greater chance of success!

Time for a brew, methinks. No not witches brew, we're way past Halloween.

See you soon blog-buddies

Does anyone have webbed toes?

I have a few frantic days ahead while I help my parents move house so I won't be spending much time on-line but I am preparing, as promised, my 'advent calendar' so do look out for that on Thursday. Some good stuff coming.............................

Fragment 1

Held in a heart beat
Then sundered apart
As time flies by on
Broken butterfly wings
And scatters the moments
Like thistle fairies
Cart-wheeling across the grass

...........amongst my household chores.

Actually that sounds like I have been working hard and perhaps I shouldn't disillusion..........

Most of the last hour or so I have been creating an electronic advent calendar for my girlie. A weblink for every day! Some serious and some not so serious and some are downright rude like this one which was irresistable....

http://www.fanarchive.net/Artists/Noelani-Manawolf/Rudolph.jpg

I thought I would do the same with my blog, starting Thursday, so make sure to take a look each day

Ah well, time to flick a duster I suppose.........

Sorry about the legs but I tend more towards the Ernie Wise than the Heidi Klum!

“Hallo, my name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die…” – aah The Princess Bride…….I just had this overwhelming urge to watch it – so I did.

I have been sooooooo cold the last two days. In fact I think my veins are full of slush puppy – blood coloured, naturally. Last night was the Morris dancing debut. Ok so we didn’t have the actual snow, the white flaky stuff, but we had freezing temperatures and a very stiff north wind. I piled on several under layers but taking my coat off in the street to reveal my very white outfit was a moment of supreme bravery. Once we had done a few dances we kept warm-ish but extremities went blue. I was worried that I would need an ice scraper to remove my fingers from my stick but as the tops of my fingers had apparently fallen off anyway I made do with de-icer. Ok so the de-icer part may not be entirely true – but only because I didn’t have any in my kit bag. The trouble with dancing with bells on your legs is that you can’t possibly pass unnoticed! Thankfully my attention-seeking inner-jojo came to the fore and enjoyed walking along the road jingling. The smile was frozen on my face anyway so I no choice but to look happy. The mulled wine and mince pie was very nice and warming but not ideal on an empty-because-of-nerves stomach.

So to today, why when I got so chilled yesterday evening did I join an archaeological study group for a walk across the barrows of the South Downs – because I’m MAD. That and the fact that I said I’d keep my sister company on the walk. It was actually very interesting and I am glad I went from the point of view of what we learnt. But there were times when I really thought I was going to die of hypothermia and at one point I started to feel sick and dizzy with the cold wind and I thought ‘this is it’. The young chap leading us round was so enthusiastic about his subject though, it was positively enchanting and once we got out of the wind I perked up. My sister said that her toes had come off and were floating around in the ends of her shoes, decomposing. I don’t think that was entirely true but as I didn’t see her take her shoes off I can’t be sure.

So now that my three big doodahs for the year are in the bag I can relax and look forward to Christmas - aaaaaaaaaarrgh

You know how it is. Good old ordinary November. I had three requests from people today. Only three so not too arduous.

1 - Mother rang and asked me to produce a couple of dozen brochures - easy, piece of cake.
2 - Son rang to ask me to order half a dozen yellow roses to be delivered tomorrow to his g/friend's workplace - er, yeah, no problem.
3 - Boss asked me for a Roman toga as he has to dress as Julius Caesar - ??????????

Pretty standard.

Spent far too long today in a meeting listening to a voice so monotonously dull that I was really struggling to stay awake. I really needed a fork so I could keep digging it in my thighs but it was a sandwich lunch, with fruit. Not quite the same effect to keep jabbing ones thighs with a bunch of grapes.

Meetings are a trial really, they take up so much of my time and I only do 20 hours a week. So with endless meetings, in addition to Fanny-Ann keep asking me to help with this, Erbert nagging me to do that and the boss after me for the other (only kidding!) it's hard to fit in time to do my own job!

I am enjoying a few sarcasm free moments with the computer as hubby is off to work. I don't have very long though because I have to feed the girlie and myself before we head off to her Awards ceremony (it's only GCSE's!). My mother is accompanying me this time, last year it was my father. I think when it was the boy hubby was there so he has at least been to one. It's a shame he wasn't able to manage this one as she is our baby baby but the safety of the nation - well Bexhill anyway - is in his hands (well kind of!!)LOL. And it'll be nice for the OT. (Old Trout - long standing joke - Miles Kington/Punch - too long to explain!)

I'll pop in to see you all later - so keep a bottle chilled for me Rick, some nice warm socks ready for me Scoffle and some Crunchies on standby Helly and some sparkling conversation ALL of you!

Aaargh - it is nearly Christmas and I haven't done any much Christmas shopping. Every year it seems to get harder and harder to get motivated. Perhaps that's because the babes are older and there's less magic in it for them and therefore me too.

I am starting to get nervous about the big event on Friday (the Morris dancing debut!) and it's making me tetchy, and a bit sweary - although that might be due to something else. But it means I am finding it hard to be bouncy and fluffy at moment. There again I'm rarely bouncy and fluffy.

I think dark blue is an appropriate colour right now. The walls in here are dark blue.

Do you remember in the old days when you had conversations with people and you could see their eyes. I had one of those modern day conversations with my babes, i.e. MSN, yesterday. Don't get me wrong it was nice to have that moment of togetherness with my two offspring especially with them being so far away and all. Well the boy was far away - ish, he's in Plymouth. The girlie was just in her bedroom. Mind you that can feel like a long way away sometimes.

Me - Dinner
Silence
Me - Dinner
Uh?
Me - I SAID DINNER

Just as well I can throw my voice!

Eye contact is a funny thing isn't. When I was a young girl (many moons ago) I went stay in France with my French (surprise surprise) penfriend. Her father used to jabber away at me in French and look at me with his eye, one of them, the other was glass and looked somewhere else. But it always took a few minutes to ascertain which was the glass eye and which was the good one. Eye contact was a nightmare!
Now why can I manage eye contact with my boss but not my husband? And no they neither of them have glass eyes. I'm just drifting from one train of thought (poop poop) to another.

Well time to read a few blogs........be with you shortly!

£11.00 raised for Children in Need!

When I was in Borders the other day I saw the 2006 calendar for 365 uses for Duct Tape. I hadn’t any idea how big this was………..

http://www.octanecreative.com/ducttape/jimntim/index.html

Wonderful stuff, she says, trying to sculpt duct tape into a woolly mammoth shape.

I am having a little quiet time in my nice warm house – yes warm! I am embarrassed to say that the heating problem was a simple case of the valves being closed so the jolly old hot water couldn’t flow to the jolly cold old radiators. It was fixed in the twink of an eye. Embarrassed to have to drag someone round here for that! And we had been fecking freezing for a week! There are downsides to having a non-practically minded hubby.

I sometimes chat to one of my bosses about the vagaries and peculiarities of maleness and he sits there in his chair and nods wisely to me and says, ‘it’s a MAN thing’.

Now that I can move from room to room without having to haul on three jumpers, some thermal undies and a snowsuit I shall pop off to the freezer to locate supper……

Experientia Docet

I looked into your eyes
And failed to see
The lies
I didn’t realise

Now I can fully see
You simply played
With me
Then set me free

I cannot understand why people grumble about train travel. You simply don't get the same level of entertainment on a car journey. My sister and I went to Brighton on the train yesterday and we had entertainment all the way in one form or another. A young pair in front of us were so engrossed in eating each other we did wonder whether we should pay a supplement on our tickets for the free show but we made do with trying to prod them through the gap in between the seats. The best bit for us really was when a 'gentleman', who did have a look of dishevelment about him, started a convo on his MOBILE PHONE.
"I WAS COMPLETELY MASHED........I EVEN WET MY PANTS AND I HAVEN'T DONE THAT IN A WHILE"..........

On the journey back we had to change at Eastbourne which is a crummy place to hang around late at night. There was a man got off the train at Eastbourne who was walking oddly. No not drunk or anything like that - he had lost the sole of his shoe. On the platform as he limped past was a poster which read 'What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but lose his soul'. No word of a lie!

The League of Gents panto was a good laff and the theatre was marginally warmer than most places I have been in this week. But the comfortably warmest place yesterday was probably Borders where my sister and I hung out for quite a while. I always like shops where you can sit on the floor and read a book.

Ok here you go – I know you all love these.

http://quizilla.com/users/anonymousnowhere/quizzes/Which%20Peanuts%20Character%20are%20You%3F/

I was the little piano playing Shroeder BTW – which is a laugh as I can’t play the piano, or even the piano accordion. Reminds me, I must get on with that. Mind you I have been looking on Ebay for a bodhran – obviously in need of something to bang.

I do apologise, that may have sounded a little saucy but I didn’t mean it that way!

I am off out shortly for the rest of the day in search of warmth. It is *rude word* cold here!! Off to Brighton to watch the League of Gentlemen panto extravaganza and I’ll report back on it later. My sister and I are going to tackle a bit Chrissie shopping beforehand. The shops are nice and warm, I hope.

A deeply disturbing event occurred in our house just now. A chocolate éclair suffered an untimely death. Hubby was trying to be funny with it and it fell with sticky plop to floor. Yep – you guessed it, sticky chocolate side down. And then to add insult to injury he tried to scoop the chocolate bit up with the creamy bun. Result = a smeary chocolate and cream mess all over the place. One thing about this incident though is that it vindicates my hotly contested decision years ago not to have carpet downstairs – who doesn’t look quite so stooopid now!

Anyhow things to do, things to do, so I shall get on. Don’t forget I am putting 10p into the Children in Need fund for every comment this weekend and for everyone who takes the quiz it will be 20p. Have a good Saturday everyone!

Buy One Get One Free post so ........

Hm - hahahaha I'm...free My stats are slipping down and ratings are . I will have to give out readers in chocolate bars soon to pull down. more Hahahahahahahahaha.

This snap My fingers orf very soon. I are going to write with the cold left so have only a little time to .....

I hope supporting you are Children in Need - and comment. for every anything I get this weekend I will donate 10p. And no I am not shaving all off!

a

Hm - I'm slipping. My stats are down and ratings are down. I will have to give out free chocolate bars soon to pull in more readers. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

My fingers are very soon going to snap orf with the cold so I have only a little time left to write.......

I hope you are all supporting Children in Need - and for every comment I get this weekend I will donate 10p. And no I am not shaving anything off!

This a Buy One Get One Free post so........

I am soooooooooooo cold. It is frosticle city here and wait for it...not only is our own heating on the blink, the heating at work is on the blink and the theatre I retreated to this evening in the hope of keeping warm, guess what, their heating is on the blink. It's blinking cold! My little fingers are blue!

And so will my language be if this continues.

Added to which I am now enfeebled. Why? Because I have had my hair savaged with scissors. Like Samson my strength lies in my hair and now what I need to have is a nice lie down. My hair hates being cut which is why I don't go too often - it gets confused and doesn't know which way to lie.

A joke for you..........

A woman was in bed with her lover when she heard her husband opening the front door.

"Here," he said to the statue, "eat something, I stood like an idiot at the Smiths for three days and nobody offered me as much as a glass of water."

I have poorly on my hand today - the nurse at work had to mop up and plaster it. It's only a wee graze and not worth a fuss at all. The only reason for mentioning it is that I did it when my hand went smack into an ice cream freezer in the local sweety shop. How dumb is that - to hit your hand on a freezer cabinet on the coldest day so far this winter. Pah!

I worked today. I do work on other days but not ususally Wednesdays, I swapped my day off. Consequently I am completely disorientated and think it's Friday. I just had to have snack size crunchie to reassure myself that it is Friday - no it isn't Friday - oh well - never mind!

I am so glad we caught the BA last night as Sky officially ceased for us today. I for one won't miss it particularly - except for the company during times of depression (no not my depression!). Well there's always Freeview I suppose. Mind you I was asked the other day if I wanted to join another morris group as well as the one I'm in - it's worth considering as that would be another evening's busy-ness.

Who remembers the series Monkey - chinese, with very bad (or at least bizarre) dubbing. A cult classic surely! I just discovered that it's out on DVD - soooooooooooooooooooooo cool. I have actually read the book (wu cheng en) which is raunchy in places, surprisingly so!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000066CSH/qid=1132174348/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/203-9537359-9848741

I am in the process of printing 50 brochures so I have to go and get the stapler ready - an accident waiting to happen?

Back from jingling, it's quite exciting now but scary also!

We have Sky but not for much longer as the cost is outrageous, so tonight the girlie and I are enjoying a spree in UK Gold which includes two episodes of Blackadder - (you know the ones Rick, socks, robber buttons and Dr Johnson!). And for this reason I am just popping in for a brief visit!

While I was jingling the cats took pity on the girlie and brought her a mouse. It made her cry though and she doesn't know where they left it. So one day someone will put their shoe and .............squelch, euuugh

Any way I shall leave you to your pericombobulations and will return interfrastically.............

I

Monday
Weekend over
And the world
Puts on a fresh shirt
And serious face
To step into
Another week.

II

Mondays can be gloomy
They can also be quite nice
But whatever Monday has in store
You never get one twice
...........in a row except if (like Michael Palin did in the 80 days thing) you cross the time zone and have the day all over again

I am so pleased that research has found that a popular myth has a nugget of truth behind it. That chilling the body can make you more susceptible to a common cold. And with this bit of succesful research into one Old Wives Tale, I am anxiously awaiting the outcomes of the following two (hopefully upcoming) trials.

1 - Research into whether the unusual or excessive mobilisation of facial muscles during high wind weather conditions can permanently alter the physiognomy of the face.

2 - Research into whether stepping onto the edges of or crevices between paving slabs makes the stepper more susceptible to predation by lion or bear species

What I want to know is, should I be knitting a woolly cardy for the computer to ward off virus?

Wrap up warm blog friends!

When I bought my little Acer, it was little, well little for an Acer tree. About as high as my bum is off the ground. That was about 8 years ago. It is now about 8 foot high and absolutely glorious. Acers are, in my humble opinion, the most graceful and aesthetically pleasing trees. This is just a leaf. I cannot show you the whole tree because you would simply pine fir it (hehehehehehehe! - blinking water!!) and never know contentment again once you gazed upon it's beauty..............

“Do you know what irony is? Yes it’s a bit like bronzey and goldy only it’s made of iron……….”

Tongue in cheek http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongue-in-cheek

I said to someone earlier on today that I was a Morris dancer. He said ‘wait, are you being serious – or can I laugh’. I said ‘I am being serious and you can laugh if you like’ – so he did.

My point is….don’t take me too seriously, I don’t!

When I was a little girl (and that was a while ago!) my mother likes to remind me that I would go out dressed in a short dress and flip flops with a band round my head with a feather in, and an umbrella.

"I tell you everything that is really nothing, and nothing of what is everything, do not be fooled by what I am saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I am not saying." ~Charles C. Finn

I heard it - was it on TV somehwere - that Russian space launches have no set procedure, official countdowns and such and that they just set off more or less when they feel like it - and was it Russian or some other country non US. Anyway it just conjured up such a lovely picture really. A bunch of astro-chappies drifting off to rev up their rocket.

You ready?

Shouldn't we just wait for Fyodor, he's just popped back for his balalaika.......

Oooh I am very excited – I sold a book! Well actually it was in part-exchange for a CD. I did some photos for a friend who was making his own CD and he brought round the finished article to show me my artwork. I wanted a copy of the CD so I part-exchanged it for one of my books. I’ll never make a million – that’s for sure! He also gave me a box of maltesers which I am ashamed to say is now empty – but I did have help with that!

This is quite a month – compared to the shitty November I had last year this is turning out quite fabidoo. All sorts of stuff going on. Busy, busy, busy. But then of course…

‘What is this life if full of care
We have no time to sniff the air!’

……have to make time to just take in that heady scent of……….damp, decaying leaf mould! Oh well, never mind!

I just had to perform another bourbon biscuit mercy dash mission. The girlie is snowed under with her college work and needed a supply of the bourbon biscuit variety. In difficult times you can’t beat a supply of bourbons. I bring comfort to the inflicted in the shape of a packet of chocolate biscuits – I have found my purpose in life!!

Tell me an interesting fact – it has to be real and not something you just made up – and if it’s the one about peanuts being an ingredient of dynamite……….oooh go on surprise me!

Come on in and have a little drinkie with me and we'll pass round the choccy biscuits and have a natter....

I am supppppppppposed to be getting some work done on here but hey this is my leisure time!

I have exercised - a modest amount but enough to produce a 'glow' which ladies do in place of sweating I believe. And along to some cracking tunes which as the house was empty I could belt out at full volume.

You know when you are just about to say something and it goes right out of your head...........lalalala lalalala lalala...waiting, nope.

What else - my special guy at work was very, very depressed so I bought him a whole pack of bourbons to cheer him up but he's so stressed out lately I think he probably needs more than bourbons - but bourbons is all I got! It's difficult with guys because of the macho thing, with girls you can just give them a hug. Or am I being a little too cliche here!

I have a couple of important-ish jobs with the society at the moment. a. I am the offical photographer and b. I am the now taking on the job of printer/publisher of documents (i.e. programmes and flyers and such like). Don't get all excited now, this is a small society and I may have made that sound grander than it is. But even so it is quite interesting. The printing side of things might give me the chance to try a few things out that I couldn't do before with a