I just returned from my wander to deliver someone’s pay – bringing financial joy to a colleague I hope. It was one of those brief snatches of serenity. The sky was a beautiful spring blue and scattered along the grass verges were clumps of nodding violets. One patch of violets was so vast I had to stop and admire. I nearly sat down on the pavement but it was a touch chilly, and of course that would have been embarrassing.

It’s kind of a mellow day. ‘Don’t worry be happy’ on the iPod. It’s hard not to smile with that, and also hard not to dance along the pavement.

Last night we did our fifth of six performances and it was my personal best, earning me a smile, at last, from the musical director. There is something quite moving about the Passion plays we do, I am in such awe of the response we get. Last night, and not for the first time this week, an elderly lady clasped my hand with tears in her eyes and said how much she had enjoyed it, how much it had moved her – and it was her second outing of the week! – she had liked it so much she wanted to see it again. It is a well over a thousand year old story that still moves people to tears – there is something incredibly humbling about that.

For a while at least I shall strive to be a nicer person.

And I’m starting off by giving my hubby some spending money for his holiday. I’ll regret that - later in the month when I want shoes! But by then it will be warm enough to go barefoot maybe – hahahahahahahahahahaha.

Here is a quote I found that I like…..

“All men are not slimy warthogs. Some men are silly giraffes, some woebegone puppies, some insecure frogs. But if one is not careful, those slimy warthogs can ruin it for all the others.” ~Cynthia Heimel

I am a husk, a shell, a shadow of myself. All my creative energies have been used to the max this week and it leaves me empty. And makes for dull reading!

It’s as though I need to concentrate so much for the performances I have nothing left for anything else. Housework is an especially neglected area – like that bothers me! But I also miss the news, current affairs. Who is currently having affairs? And I am assuming Maggie Thatch is still PM…..

Back to what passes for normal next week but in the meantime, until normal service resumes, I shall play a little music……. lala la la lalala……ti tum tiddley tum…….whoops twiddley dee.

There isn’t that nice.

Talking about music I have been hunting about for, and found, some nostalgic tunes. Some real oddities amongst them. So this is where I embarrass myself completely.

1 Ca plane pour moi – Plastic Bernard – ok not soooo bad
2 Sealed with a kiss – Brian Hyland – mega-soppy but hey
3 Four strong winds – Neil Young – it’s a personal thing
4 When we walked to Merthyr Tydfil – Max Boyce – yep it’s official, barking bonkers.

Plus a bunch of the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. Mind you I could attempt to put that down to the fact that hubby is off to Ireland for a few days, next week. But it won’t work will it.

Oh dear, oh deary me. Not sure I can live this one down!

The tune that is going round and round in my head at the moment though is I touch myself (the Divinyls) and the picture accompanying it is Austin Powers in Union Jack underpanties. Sexy – not!

Lordy, lordy how long does the MLC last.

Oh and ps N, B will be fine......

There are days aren’t there where you get up and have certain expectations of the day but somehow everything moves a little to one side and the day is altered and rearranged and unexpected. I quite like it when days are like that. I like the idea of expecting the unexpected. Yesterday was bit like that.

I went to work fully expecting to spend the morning doing a normal set of things. But when I got there I was doing something completely different because I filled in for a sickie. And it was Monday – not my best day as I think we have established. It’s ironic really that I’m not much of a Monday person since I was in fact born on a Monday. Perhaps that’s the problem. The first Monday of my life was a very stressful time so…………

Anyway I also wasn’t expecting to have to perform in the evening but the other ‘Mary’ couldn’t make it so I had to stand in. I am one of 2 ‘Mary’s’ with 3 performances each but it looks very much like it’s going to be a 4/2 split or even a 5/1 and it is not impossible I will have to do them all. The uncertainty each day is so very exhilarating!

However doing the performance this evening has meant I missed Morris dancing and the way things are shaping up I may miss it Thursday as well. I should probably get my sticks out and give them a bit of a rub. I have noticed how warm the shaft gets when I am dancing so my hands must get hotted up. Makes a change as they are usually blue with cold.

Tomorrow I may be able to introduce you all to Bernard.

Prince George: "Ah, Blackadder. It has been a wild afternoon full of strange omens. I dreamt that a large eagle circled the room three times and then got into bed with me and took all the blankets. And then I saw that it wasn't an eagle at all but a large black snake. Also Duncan's horses did turn and eat each other. As usual. Good portents for your duel, do you think?"

No I didn’t have an afternoon like that. Yesterday had similarities……..

- It was a wild afternoon with persistent rain. In the church a large pigeon flew around several times and then tried to join our company to steal the limelight……….. Good portents for the play today? Hm, not sure!

Well it’s one down anyway. I didn’t feel the usual high after the first one is in the bag but that’s partly because of the huge crisis of confidence in the singing part of the business. Just write it down to experience I think, and move on.

Anyhow when I got home this evening a toad was trying enter the house so I had to scoop him up and take him round the back. He was unusually reluctant to leave the discomfort of my warm hand but I persuaded him he would be so much happier on the patio with all the other pond life I had to pick my way through. Toadily ridiculous.

The boy did put in a brief appearance but I think he must have read somewhere that is NOT a good idea to spend much time with Mother on Mother’s Day. Ah well boys will be boys. I count myself lucky to have an audience with him at all these as he’s so busy. I spent time with my mother though so that was nice.

The girlie and I curled up in duvets this evening to watch Poirot. We had to curl up in duvets because the boiler has gone bye-byes and we have no heat or hot water. In fact the whole problem developed half way through my shower. Instead of getting warmer the water gradually got colder and colder - and it wasn’t like I was feeling warm in the first place.

So all in all it has been a damp squib of a day. With occasional less damp moments!

I had a dream.

Well actually I had a few, including my usual anxiety dream about not getting packed up after a holiday. But I also had a really, really nice one. You know you can have a dream that is so nice you just don’t want it to end and when you wake up you want to go to sleep again so it can go on a bit longer well it was one of those. Warm and lovely and yummy, yummy, yummy.

It’s Mother’s day today.

I have been gifted. I have taught the girlie well and she is a thoughtful present buyer and wrapper. Of course the boy was always destined to turn into a man (in spite of my attempts to fudge the issue by dressing him in pink and keeping his hair a little fluffy) so present-ing is quite a minefield. He has found the best way is to ask a woman to do his present shopping and wrapping and that way he is assured of getting it right. A sensible approach of course, if something of a cop out. However the woman he usually asks is me so on Mother’s Day I get a reprieve!

I only have my own mother to attend to. And to be honest she is not too difficult to buy for because she likes all sorts of things. Either that or she’s been terribly polite for 42 years.

The scanner won’t work – it’s rather aggravating to say the least. I am working on a new ‘thing’ but until I get the scanner on the go I’m stumped. It’s all so pooey - but I suppose I can advertise it in advance……..

Les aventures de Bernard - coming soon to a blog near you.

I am at the stage now before a performance when I am ‘paralysed with nerves’ and can do very little but prostrate myself and sup a little alcoholic beverage now and then while hoping to blot out the impending torture – and this is something I do for FUN. I have a faintly masochistic attitude to relaxation. Although faint isn’t in it really.

Talking of fainting I did do that on stage once - in front of hundreds of people…….well……hundred-ish. I was very graceful apparently and to this day I do not know how I got off the stage but I came round some time later in a dressing room. As soon as I did come round I was pushed on stage again to finish the play. Great FUN!

But the adrenalin rush kicks in and we ride the wave so to speak. It’s such a terrific high and compulsively addictive which is why after 25 years I still can’t ‘rest’ for more than 6 months. I get twitchy, and restless. The need becomes overpowering and the craving for long stressful evenings, tattered scripts, musty costumes, sticky make-up, the smell of the sweat and the roar of the crowd, and the lights, but most of all for the applause at the end, can no longer be denied.

There’s no business like……….etc.

‘Why do we bother, Fawlty’
‘I didn’t know you did, Major’

As I walked into M & S today with the girlie I read out the advertising slogan ‘Aw….. “Mother’s Day, love grows”’………..girlie replies, ‘so does bacteria’. Oh the cynicism!

We were there in fact to buy a quickie meal, but not just any quickie meal, an M & S, delicious, plastic-trayed meal prepared with only the finest plastic film and cardboard sleeve. And why is it that the tiniest things are so appealing? I treated myself to a wee bottle of wine but none of your usual half size bottles; I had to have the one that was even smaller than that. Mind you with my very low alco threshold it’s probably plenty. And the little wee cakes they do, only an inch across, so sweet I just had to get one. I like little. In the garden I love the teenies whereas hubby doesn’t think there is any point buying anything less than the size of a dustbin. I’m going to stick my neck out and risk a whole hurling of male abuse and say it’s more of a man thing to like big stuff, cars, plants, packets of crisps, breasts…….

Breasts are a very contentious issue though. Women with not much want more and women who have much feel they could manage quite well with a lot less. Personally I think they get in the way so much of the time.

Some drawbacks to boobs

a) If you sleep on your front they have to be ‘accommodated’.
b) They serve as an irritating crumb tray when eating toast
c) Running for a bus can be uncomfortable (and Morris dancing, painful PM)
d) As you get older if you leave them out of the container they get round your ankles and trip you up

Mind you later in life it is a marvellous place to slip a couple of pencils. I mean, if you are using several pencils while drawing in the nude……..

Obviously paintbrushes are a different ball game because of the wide variation in size…..some paintbrushes would require a heck of a substantial chest arrangement……..I think it’s time to move away from the subject really, I don’t know how we got onto that.

While we were out shopping the girlie treated me to a vest, she doesn’t earn much so it was a lovely gesture. When I saw the boy later I said ‘She’s just taken me shopping and bought me clothes’ so he said ‘hm, be much easier for me to just give you the money’. (Sometimes you have to abandon subtlety in favour of a sledgehammer hint.) I think he must have forgotten though.

Nicked from......and............and..........

1.Have you ever wondered if cows like apples?
As friends or on the menu?

2.Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?
Yes – but only one.
In fact I don’t buy Rolo as they are made by Nestle.

3.Do you see shapes in the clouds?
Yes cloud shapes, sometimes sheep or candyfloss or cotton wool……….

4.Do you suddenly blurt out totally random things?
Yes of course, I’m known for it – mind my electric toad

5.Whats the weirdest gift you've ever received/given?
I simply can’t answer that but I have to say the most boring present I had to buy was slippers – for hubby, because he asked for them. It took some doing to get me into the shop and go through with it I can tell you. I mean slippers, honestly, who asks for slippers. I wouldn’t mind but he asked again a few years later.

6.Do you get withdrawal symptoms if you're not on the internet for a long time?
I do – I admit it’s a problem

7.Have you played Truth Or Dare?
Not in a long time – too many secrets these days

8.Do you have more friends on the internet than in real life?
Hm, quite possibly, but a friend is friend. Another person with whom we make contact and that rocks. Contrary to the S&G lyrics I am not a rock, I am not an island.

9.What was your fave cartoon(s) as a child?
I don’t really know but when I was small I loved Andy Pandy

10.Do you think E.T (the extraterrestrial) is cute?
I watched a pirate copy when it first came out and I couldn’t see what the hype was about – and I still can’t

11.Can you make cocktails?
Do they really need tails?

12.Tap water or bottled water?
Either so long as it’s cold - and Pellegrino makes me happy

13.Did you enjoy filling this in?
Far more than a passport application form

You know in Serendipity where she has the constellation of Cassiopeia marked out in perma-freckles on her arm, well if I moved one of my perma-freckles I would have the Plough.........

Say g'night to folks Gracie

A bunch of fives

Five things I could have done with my day off
1 Gone shopping with a grand I don’t have and replaced all the tat in my wardrobe
2 Had a long overdue visit to the optician. It’s a strange world that we live where the more short-sighted you are the more you get penalised for your handicap. I’ve been putting this off for such a long time while I try to save up. Somehow there’s always something higher on the list of priorities.
3 Put a hat on and actually spent some time in the garden getting some fresh air and exercise
4 Called a friend and gone out lunch. I am usually out to lunch though so……
5 Spent the day in bed with my lover

Five things I DID do with my day off
1 Spent way too much time try to get the printer to work properly, get rid of the light strips, correct the errors etc. F***ing machine.
2 Went to town and bought mother a present for Sunday. Wonder if I should remind the boy about Mother’s Day – like he would forget!
3 Went for a walk to the place we rehearse and spent a little while singing to myself in an empty barn. When I came out of the barn all the horses in the field opposite looked at me with what I hope was admiration but could equally have been horror.
4 Finally got round to sorting out the photo orders for the last play – a weight off my mind – I really like Photobox
5 Took a picture of my cutey kitty – see, no Mrs Slocum pussy jokes, I’m getting better

Five things I maybe should have refrained from eating
1 Snack size flake
2 Second snack size flake
3 Slice of shortbread
4 Piece of bread and syrup
5 The next bit of rubbish I eat

Five things I could have eaten that would have been a better choice
1 Mango
2 A large bowl of salad leaves
3 Half as many snack size flakes as I ate
4 Bran flakes
5 A chocolate éclair – don’t know how that got there

Five reasons to be cheerful today, or at least not be sad
1 I have achieved some things; they may be small but never mind.
2 Even though it is b****y cold it isn’t November
3 I haven’t had a seagull poo on my head
4 I have yet another evening out to look forward to - avoiding TV
5 It’s still my day off

Right well I have left M-un-day behind and moved into Bluesday, oops sorry, Tuesday.

No really I am not feeling low; my chin likes to rest on the carpet. And I like black…black………..bLacK…..no Johnny……like the deepest pits of hell…

I don’t know if my job description has an end - it must run to pages and pages by now – but somewhere writ large is dogsbody. Now that may sound like I mind but I don’t, I feel it is my purpose in life to make myself useful here, and there, but preferably everywhere. One of the easiest tasks of the day though had to be making a task bar at the bottom of the screen single depth again after it ‘accidentally’ expanded - the work of a moment but so appreciated.

My grabber came – how cool is that – I only bought it yesterday and it came today – wow – I am mega impressed. It is a worthy contender for oddest item bought on Ebay; I mean personally of course, other people purchase far odder things.

I went to sing in an empty church today – as you do. I thought if I go into largish places and sing my song it might help me. My confidence is rock bottom at the moment because I know my voice is a bit soft and quiet to compete with a keyboard and a guitar. It was a rather strange experience and I don’t know if the pigeons thought much of it but then practising at home makes Katie meow – a lot. As for tomorrow…………

I am feeling a bit un.

Un-cheerful, un-interested, un-inspired, un-loved, un-fulfilled and any other un words you can think of.

And they are big uns not little uns.

But it won’t last long, this is just a bit of down time. Actually Monday’s are a bit like that anyway. M-un-day, M-un-day.

There has been a slight atmosphere at work over the last week. It has caused some people to feel a little sick and others have quite frankly felt a bit choked. An interloper in the office. Eventually she was relegated to an unused room but still managed to make her presence felt. Many mentioned the smell and more than a few thought it was the toilet or the drains. Hyacinth was today taken home put out to grass by the friend that introduced her in the first place. It’s amazing what one little bowl of bulbs can do.
But she had to go, as a working companion she was a too powerful presence. Mind you I could say that about some of the people as well!

I treated myself today. A splurge at the garden centre. Seeds galore. We also bought some marshmallows. I refrained from taking offence at being asked if I needed help with my compost just because I hadn’t got a token man in attendance. When he’s there of course they don’t ask but in fact it is me that humps the stuff around anyway. When my babes were wee I was the one who had to piggyback them as hubby’s back was, and is, delicate, so I am well used to being the donkey thanks. When I was away on holiday last year I bought a bottle of water and couldn’t get the lid off. I made my hands raw before I succumbed to asking a nearby gentleman for help. It’s what frightens me most about getting old, having to have help with things.

I bought a grabber today. Off Ebay. Oh glorious, glorious Ebay. It’s not in preparation for old age though, it is what I need to collect the scattered plastic baggery from the brambles outside my office. The view is lovely but is spoilt by rubbish.

I was going to post a pic of my Oxford break but I only took one pic. Of a duck’s arse. Ah well, I’ll post it anyway.

I found the whole business of The Body Shop climbing into bed with L'Oreal has left a nasty taste in my mouth.

http://www.naturewatch.org/shoppingguide/News_loreal_bodyshop.asp

Come to the Body Shop and swap your ethical concerns for multi millions - you know it makes sense.

And you come out smelling of shit.

What is it with this cold weather, people? I mean it’s supposed to be the beginning of Spring next week. A time of daffodils and soft woolly lambs and starting to look into buying t-shirts etc. But today I walked home from work with veins so full of pink squishy that I would have given a vampire with sensitive teeth a bad day. Mind you I wasn’t just cold walking back from work; I was cold on the way there as well.

I made two purchases today which demonstrate the confusion of the seasonal weather. Flip flops and wool to knit another scarf. Jeez when do I have enough time to knit a fricking scarf anyway?

As I walked home I saw a sad sight. A loveheart on the pavement. Oh that little piece of love and sweetness. And it had fallen writing-side down. It probably said ‘hug me’.

Morris news: I had missed three weeks of Thursday Morris so last night I was absolute carp. I was waving my stick in the wrong place and even in the wrong face. I was going the wrong way and my fancy footwork was a very long way from fancy, in fact it was plain and even inelegant. In fact the best bit of my performance during the evening was supping a Strongbow afterwards. And still I put myself through this ritual humiliation each week, because it’s FUN. Ha. Pull the other one it’s got bells on.

I have to be in two places at once again tonight. It’s second time in a week dammit. I must get me some clones.

How did you get the idea for your profile name?
Well………it’s my name, short for Josephine. When I stayed in France as a teenager the local youths hooted at my name and yelled Josephine Baker, Josephine Baker. It meant nothing to me then but I later discovered her to be an exotic dancer who liked to get her tits out. Say no more.

What song are you playing now, or wish you were playing?
The girlie has Donovan, Catch the Wind playing. Ah Donovan.

Has the death of a celebrity ever made you cry?
I don’t think so but when someone corpses on stage it’s funny

What colour underwear are you wearing?
Multi-coloured dotty

Do you want a baby?
A baby cat maybe

What is/are your your pet's name(s)?
Sylvester and Katharina, my pussies

What color are your bed sheets?
Cream

What are the last 3 digits of your phone number?
Which one!

What was the last film you watched?
Brokeback Mountain, and that was ages ago, well, last week

Who What do you dislike most at this moment?
COLD weather

What food do you crave right now?
I am sated thank you

Did you dream last night?
Probably but don’t remember. I still remember the little tortoise I dreamed about a couple of years ago, and the way he nibbled my fingers…

What was the last TV show you watched?
Watched the first episode of Monkey on DVD last night – so mad!

What is your fav piece of jewellery?
A plain silver chain. I wear it all the time along with a Make Poverty History Band (which also helps me remember left from right in Morris dancing)

What is to the left of you?
A pencil, chewed.

What was the last thing you ate?
Marmite on toast with a glass of milk and a custard tart.

Who is your best friend of the opposite sex?
Fluffy

Who last MSN'd you?
Could have been the boy but not recently.

Where is your significant other right now?
Er, somewhere around the house?

Do you have a crush?
As ever

What is his/her name?
Their names…………………

When was the last time you had your hair cut?
October or November

Are you on any meds?
Nope. I’m rubbish at taking tablets. It’s ok the first day then I forget.

Do you have a mental disease?
Need you ask!

What shirt are you wearing?
One of my favourite top shop tops. I have five but it just isn’t enough.

Are you sexy?
Well what do you think

What's your favourite store?
Monsoon

Are you thirsty?
Nope

Can you imagine yourself ever getting married?
Been there done that – twice. That’s plenty

Who's someone you haven't seen in a while and miss?
My boy, I saw him Sunday but I never have enough time with him. I miss his company so much it aches

Where do you work?
Where don’t I work

I have been busy and so far I think I may have crossed everything off my to-do list. Well almost. My pater and I collected the mater from the hospital this morning and we took her out for coffee and toffee cake in Battle. Well that’s not strictly correct. She had coffee and walnut cake and pater and I had toffee cake and I had coffee but they had tea. Details! We perambulated around the pavements of Battle looking for shopping ops but all I ended up buying was a packet of tissues. I like to carry a portable packet of tissues and I don’t like to offer a plain white tissue to anyone so I like to spend a little extra and buy Caspari. Ok I think my other self is trying to get a foot in the door here, the one that does genteel things and buys posh snotrags. She will not succeed, can’t pull it off you see, only takes some coarse humour to have her laughing like a drain and poor genteel Josephine curls up again in acute shame.

What a load of blox.

Anyway I have updated all my blogs today – how glorious.

http://sillytoe.blog.co.uk/

http://titaniasdream.blog.co.uk/

http://lavendershed.blog.co.uk/

http://jojospoems.blog.co.uk/

I am printing 115 newsletters even as I write and that is to be followed by a bunch of A5 posters so then my printing orders will be up to date as well. Oooh it feels good to get ticks on my chart. No, not insex.

And then I must go row.

Go row
Jojo

See, pome! Cool.

What was Halley’s comet called before it was called that. I mean did it have it’s own name, does it still think of itself as Gunglaa the Magnificent Lightness even though we think of it as Halley’s comet……………………..

Oh brother - a couple of my many lives were overlapping tonight and I had to be in different parts of the town at the one time. I had to be Morris dancing at one end and singing at the other end. Well……I like a challenge. ……………….Challenge Anneka – who remembers that? My boy loved it. Come to think of it I dare say a great many ‘boys’ did – a fit blonde in a jumpsuit! There were a lot of teeth though weren’t there………………..Anyway Morris went well and singing went well too so I’m hyped up again after my brief bout of anti-climactic doodah following my mini-break.

Plus I have a day off tomorrow. Day off – I meeeeeean! It’s probably more crowded than my days on. I know it is going to involve collecting my mother from hospital and lunch out but it also has a cornucopia of other little knick knacks.

We (the girlie and I) have discovered yet another foodstuff that Katie (pussy, very cute) is more than willing to munch on. Party Rings. There is little she won’t try in fact. Some of her favourite try-it-outs are rice pudding, cake, marmite-y crackers and marshmallows. And now Party Rings.

At this point I must just wave to the lady with the pretty blue Smart car who saves me from over-exposing myself pod-walking by picking me up at the roadside. Hello lady

The girlie is preparing for her play this week. She has provided the costume, including pyjamas (partly mine!). She has provided bedding for the bed. She has even provided the bed. When she gets organised, she really does get organised. I came home today to find a gap where our bed settee used to be. I really do hope that she gets put in charge of something someday – otherwise I think I shall be organised. And that is just sooooo wrong!

It’s one of those days today when there are bits of the day I just want to rub out and undo - and unsay………stuff. But life is written in pen not pencil and when it’s out there on the page it can’t be erased and that forces us to confront our weakness and inadequacy and pettiness. I would also like to have not just wolfed down five Thornton’s choccies because I wanted solace. The solace is fleeting but the pounds adhering to my already ample backside will remain a lot longer.

I have not blogged for a while because I have been away. I had a mini-break in and around Oxford and covered so much territory that I feel like I have been away for over a week – now that’s what I call a break!

Highlights of my break must include

1. An evening of live music and beer
2. Getting off the bus at the right middle of nowhere – believe me it was a huge relief to be in the right place at dusk with only a small suitcase and no battery left on my mobile
3. Sniffing the Bodleian
4. A cosmopolitan

And we can just gloss over the story of Willy the Sperm and also the tale of the car salesmen in the middle of the night.

The only downer was the weather which was jolly cold and that always just takes the edge off the pleasure. It’s much harder to smile when your cheeks are frozen solid…………and your face as well.

The cold is also going to play havoc with the frolicking frogs in the pond but it hasn’t stopped them producing a hug mound of spawn while I have been away. A reassuring sign that something somewhere is having a good time.

I was obliged to choose my checkout carefully yesterday. I was holding 3 pairs of black knicks and some extra strong mints. I thought to myself as I looked at the selection in my hands ‘this does not look good’……….

Oh boy I am having a sooo busy week. I’m currently printing off a batch of flyers for the wee Passion Play. Then I’m off to audition for another play, (on in May) and then I have a committee meeting to go to. And I really need to get my case packed for my weekend away. When I was younger I had a much more Virgoan attitude to the whole packing thing, I made lists weeks in advance, I washed and pressed everything during the week, I fussed and bothered. These days I travel as light as possible and leave it all as late as I dare, throwing in whatever is clean. Although on this occasion I bought a new toothbrush a couple of weeks ago that I could have on standby because the one thing that stresses me about packing is my toothbrush. I mean why! It’s not like you can’t buy them all over the country, and even other countries have toothbrushes. But then I worry excessively and obsessively about oral hygiene. Oh look, I have to get anxious about something and it might as well be the state of the inside of my mouth. It could be worse!

And mouth-talk brings me to another bugbear. Eating with one’s mouth open. I know a lot is made of talking with one’s mouth full but not enough, in my opinion, is said about eating with it open. They are not cement mixers; we don’t need to see the food being broken down into digestible mush, it is something most of us can happily take for granted is being done in the privacy of the personal palate. I come from a family of fastidious feeders, we keep our masticating private.

And on the subject of feeding, I really must go eat…………daintily!

This blog is……..

1. A pithy mix of whimsy and drollery.

2. A witty mix of plimsolls and troll-ery.

3. A ditsy mix of tinsels and wallabies.

Or make up another!

I have been to workies today and I have come home again. Nuff said. I was not given a huge pay rise to cover my enormous appetite for shoes. I was not given a pat on the back for being a truly wonderful, exceptional employee (that would take a heck of a lot of effort on my part – way beyond anything I can give!) but I was able to lie down on the floor for a few minutes to look at the ceiling. Which was nice.

Anyway, I have learnt some interesting new facts today about Uruguay .............don't ask, it's a long story!

As is the story of the hen.

I suddenly remembered this poem the other day.

Tonight at Noon
Adrian Henri

Girls in bikinis are moonbathing
Folksongs are being sung by real folk
Art galleries are closed to people over 21
Poets get their poems in the Top 20
There's jobs for everybody and nobody wants them
In back alleys everywhere teenage lovers are kissing in broad daylight
In forgotten graveyards everywhere the dead will quietly bury the living
and
You will tell me you love me
Tonight at noon

It was one I really liked as a teenager. A little bit sad.

Sad brings me to……..A bit like the ending of Brokeback Mountain which I went to see last night with a girlfriend. No,no, not that sort of girlfiend, a friend who is a girl! The film is a reminder if one were needed not to let opportunities slip away when they present themselves.

Sad. Like the weather.

Oh dear this is getting glum and doomy. Or dumb and gloomy.

So now for something completely different and something fluffy and cute like me

Oh dear I have already Ebayed this morning and before 10 o’clock. I managed to get a nice ipod skin though, and a boob tube for the girlie. These were essential items obviously and could not wait a moment longer. I know a boob tube doesn’t sound essential but it is in fact necessary as the girlie has to be in a play and needs it for costume.

Talking of costume, I have to go to a rehearsal all afternoon. It should be good though as we will have all the musicians. So far we have only practiced with the keyboard so the addition of the guitar should be interesting. When me and some other gals had a little singing group we didn’t have musicians we just sang a capella which was nice but it’s also quite fun to sing along to a bit of strumming. In fact, sis and I have been invited to do a few numbers at a folk night later in the year so that is also summat to look forward to.

Oh gosh, what a busy girl. Hm, I keep trying to plug the gap, but there’s still a gnawing chasm there. I wonder if some people are destined to spend their whole lives chasing something and eventually realise it’s their tail.

Time for coffee, I think!

New poem.......

Grass verges.

Yes I knew there was something lodged in the back of my mind and I finally remembered what it was. It was grass verges. We have grass verges in our road. At the side of the pavement that is not along the middle. We aren’t rural! Usually one finds mostly grass in grass verges and yep we have mostly grass, along with daisies, buttercups, dandelions and even some vetches. One year there were masses and masses of violets along the verges – which was sooo pretty. But never have I noticed chives growing in them before. Clumps and clumps, all the way down the road. I had to pick a spear to be sure and yep, that familiar chivey scent told me correct. I mean chives – why?

We hit the shops today, the girlie and I. Buying much needed clothes. Yes we DO need them. We DO! Well she says we do. Unfortunately it has just re-affirmed for me how fat I am – well not fat fat but fatter than heretofore. My weight has been a constant source of image problems all my adult life. My grandmother told me I was stout when I was the girlie’s age and I was only a size 10 for goodness sake but those little things lie there in the back of your mind for like forever. Hehehehehehehe, I just remembered that sketch from Not the Nine O’Clock News……’I have a friend who thinks he may be stout…’ It doesn’t help to have two skinny sisters either so I end looking like the dumpling between two sticks of celery. ‘My advice to you, sorry, my advice to your friend ……….he should squeeze out of the closet’ Classic comedy.

I suppose I won’t get carried off by a gust of wind quite so quick. See, there’s an upside to everything.

Well I’d better go heat up my weight watchers pasta. It would be so much better of course if the girlie didn’t put popcorn on the agenda for this evening……..aaaargh