I have been absent for a few days – sorry.

I don’t mean vacant or anything although that’s always a possibility.

More eye pain. It got so bad I was almost tempted to gouge them out with my own fingernails but fortunately decided on a visit to a doctor instead. Four days of eye medicine and four days of computer and television avoidance and they are all ok again – I think.

So. Bank holiday – eh! I really must get another water butt as everything I have in the garden is now full to overflowing with rain water but it has been a quiet-ish weekend which was nice.

I am not a sitter. I am not a chiller. Give me a deck chair and I am not quite sure how to use it but lately I have been forcing myself to confront these problems. A couple of weeks ago when I had a whole weekend to myself I spent a lot of the time trying to do as little as possible. Sitting. Reading perhaps but little else. And boy did I get a lot of housework done. Every now and then I would catch myself being busy and put a stop to it. It was an interesting experiment.

Today with a little sunshine and a couple of hours before supper time I thought I would try out something a friend at work was telling me about. Sitting in a deck chair, reading a book, with a glass of wine. I decided against the wine though – alcohol is a bit drying on the eyes!

I found the chair. I positioned it in a patch of late afternoon sun. I sat in it. I got up again to go and get my book. I sat down again with my book. The sun was in my eyes so I re-positioned the chair the other way round. The sun was shining on the book so I re-positioned the chair in a shadier spot. I started reading but the bar of the chair dug into my legs so I folded my legs up into the chair. I read a chapter – squintily. It was chilly round my shoulders. I went indoors and found a cushion and a sleeping bag. I took them outside and got inside the sleeping bag, sat in the chair, put the cushion behind my head. I put my feet up on another chair. I was lovely and warm. It was even lovelier and heaps warmer with the sleeping bag pulled up over my head entirely. I slept. I think I’ve got it nailed now.

Hubby said I looked like I was waiting to be taken away in an ambulance.

Hm, white coats maybe.

I have made the big blind for the big window and I just need to make the two smaller blinds for the two small side windows. The one I’ve done is groovy and actually looks ok so I’m pretty pleased with it. I had to break off from working on it to have my supper and it was a mistake to leave Katie in the same room as when I returned it had been ‘attended to’.

Earlier, I was reminded of the line from Blackadder – I don’t know what reminded me, I never do – when EB says ‘Baldrick may look like a monkey who has been put in a suit and strategically shaved…..’ etc., which I relayed to a friend at lunch and she said it perfectly described her former employer. Art imitating real life?

It was a very pleasant lunch but something that really amazed me was the complete absence of wasps. Usually at this time of year they are forever trying to get inside bits of me and do unmentionable nastiness. A few years ago one stung me on my head and both my eyes closed up. It was a weird sensation to wake up in the morning and open my eyes, only to find I was looking at the inside of my eyelids.

Ah.

Perhaps I have come up with an idea for getting another couple of days off – just off to look for a wasp…..

Having a bit of a Griff-fest at the moment. As well as a fair bit of viewing this evening I am reading his book To the Baltic with Bob. After leaving behind the refreshingly lightweight attractions of BB7 I have spent an entire evening with BBC2. You can’t say I don’t diversify.

To accompany my sedate TV entertainment I have had a little sewing to do. Making a Roman Blind for the girlie’s new look bedroom. So how do you make a Roman Blind? Poke his eyes out.

A little light needlework – yeah right. It is mega-stress trying to get things straight and neat and wrinkle free. I can’t do it with my face it’s unlikely to be that easy with fabric. And Katie was no bleeping help at all.

I might just be a tiny bit on the cranky side as last night was largely spent in wakefulness because I had a pain in my eye that was worse when they were shut. By 5am I lost consciousness in merciful sleep but it has left me fragile. And it is really necessary for us to have rain on every single day of my holiday because it is hampering my path-construction activity. Only another couple of days though and then I shall be back in the fold – at work – oh yippee. That is a well sarcastic Oh Yippee of course.

Why is it that when the girlie has to do a bit of redecorating the rest of the house looks like a bomb has hit it. She has now decided her single bed is too restrictive – flailing arms or something – so big moving about of furniture has been taking place and also big clearing out of things. Not clearing out of big things necessarily – except the bed of course.

I had a little trip to the garden centre today and bought a bush and a Buddha. Oh and some chocolate got in there by mistake I think but it was an accident. I have this fantasy that one day I will go to a garden centre and fill an entire trolley with loads of lovely plants but it never seems to work out quite like that because my bank balance is never really as keen on it as I am.

I have one of those moods on at the moment where I need to get on and do something but I don’t know what it is. It’ll come to me of course – when I am actually too busy doing something else!

It is a lovely thought that it is Monday tomorrow and I don’t have to get up to go to work. In fact I guess it will be the same next Sunday but for a whole lot more people.

Hey ho.

me holiday snaps

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jojopixie/sets/72157594240841629/

Big Brother comes to an end. And what a surprise that Pete won, gosh I never saw that one coming.

What am I going to do now?

Ok so it’s trash but I can’t resist a bit of trash TV. After all it is quite a strain to be a culture vulture……..all the time.

I am also currently following the adventures of Tim…. http://tim-i.blogspot.com/ but so far not the remotest hint of a Nikki-style hissy fit.

Since I came back from the Trojan Horse, sorry, Frozen North I have been like sooo busy – not! I’ve done a bit of gardening and a bit of shopping and a bit of writing and a bit of photography.

I found this humungous caterpillar yesterday. Well technically Katie found it and she was none too pleased when I took it away from her. It was an elephant hawk moth caterpillar and looked like something off Star Trek. Seriously – it did.

Wednesday morning was a better looking creature weather-wise so we decided to risk a visit to Chatsworth. We have only been once before and it was very rainy. I always wanted to return with a better weather.

By the time we arrived at the car park it was beginning to rain. Why is that? Grrrrr. We were without ample rain protection gear also. But we made an executive decision to proceed in spite of the inclemency. Facing it out like that worked because as soon as we paid for our tickets the rain stopped altogether and the sun edged its way round the clouds. No-one messes with me!

The garden at Chatsworth is fabulous. I still didn’t get to see it all but I would need a full days pottering to completely enjoy. When I pop out into my garden to do a bit of this and that (usually gardening but hey!) I can usually guarantee that I can make it back to the house in five minutes; even one minute would be fairly easy but with these big rolling parks you would need to consider taking a tent if you were thinking of weeding on the outer perimeter.

We nearly had a tart in Bakewell but missed the turning – another time perhaps.

So basically that was my August holiday. Short and sweet. I have had this list in my head for years of places I wanted/want to see and I managed to cross off a few.

My September holiday involves Dartmouth with an additional side salad of Oxford.

Groovy.

It was persisting down on Tuesday morning so we decided to avoid long rambles in the countryside in favour of bargain hunting in Manchester. At this suggestion the girlie’s perkiness threatened to be overwhelming. She’s a real townie.

I would like to say that we shopped in some quality stores but it was mostly Primark I’m afraid as you can get more for your clothes dollar there. I wanted a trip on a tram but we didn’t get around to that so that is something to put in the book for next time I suppose. And in spite of visiting two major cities I did so without incorporating a viewing of either Anfield or Old Trafford.

We headed out of the city when the weather improved and headed off to Lyme Park or ‘Pemberley' as it is more popularly thought of. Big disappointment in store, absolutely no hint of a gent in a wet shirt and that glorious view of ‘Pemberley’ as approached by Elizabeth in a carriage with her aunt and uncle was covered in scaffold. Hubby did offer to jump in the lake – we were tempted to push him in anyway for terrorising a charming Irish family with his sledgehammer Yorkshire wit.

We were probably a bit high by then on Jelly Belly beans.

Inside Lyme Park is very unexpected because it is so much older than you think it will be. With it having to be so gloomy inside because of the light levels deteriorating fabrics etc, it requires a whole bunch of concentration just to stay upright. There was a whole lot of tapestry going on which the girlie said was because they just couldn’t decide what wallpaper to use but I said to be fair it would be a heck of an expensive trip to B&Q to load up enough wallpaper for that place.

The Edge (Alderley Edge) was another place on my list of places to visit before decrepitude hits. I have read and re-read The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath many times and always wanted to see the area and I can now tick that off my list as well. It is splendidly atmospheric, especially so when it is rain-threateningly overcast, and I could well imagine wizards and wild things going on in there. Definitely a place of high magic and low cunning.

So.

From Another Place to another place. The wind gave me a very, very, very bad hair day as I could see when I looked in the mirror in the leisure centre toilets. I don’t know if the Crosby Leisure Centre minded us parking in a disabled bay and popping in just to use the Water Closet but I was very much disabled by my need for a wee and emerged afterwards feeling much more at leisure – and surely that’s what it’s there for! No?

By this time it was late afternoon and hubby wanted to find the accommodation. He had gone to the trouble of making a game of it by not bringing the address or telephone number of the place with him and only having a vague notion of which part of Liverpool it was in. After trailing around for a long while we tracked down a police station. When in doubt ask a policeman, especially if the one with you has forgotten the address. They kindly gave us an A4 sheet of paper with some lines and squiggles in pen on. The wrong turn into the Mersey Tunnel was one of those moments where you look at inevitability and in our case laugh your heads off, but it cost us £2.60 to do a U-turn. Jeez that was soooo funny. In fact it was the first time all day that the girlie laughed so it was well worth the money.

Down in our part of the country we don’t have rows and rows of off-licenses with plastic barricading all round the booze and bouncers on the door but this was a fascinating insight into the difference between city and small-town existence and we felt somewhat bumpkiny.

I have been away for a couple of days. I am back now.

I have been quite lucky this year in my little trips because there have been several and all have so far been full of interest.

This little break was a couple of days that felt like a whole week. I like these little breaks because it means I feel like I’m getting loads of holidays and with my short concentration span it’s perfect.

So.

I left the south coast on Monday morning. Too fricking early – blimey 7.30am – ouch! I printed out my journey plan off the internet as well as my tube planner journey and the whole lot was absolutely perfectly to schedule. I am still excited by getting across London on my own; I may never grow out of that! Departure Bexhill 7.31am - arrival Liverpool Lime St 12.47pm. Wow, from Edge Hill it’s all huge high walls and arches covered in glistening moss and sooty blackness – spectacular if you like that sort of thing (I’m a bit funny that way).

Hubby and girlie were waiting for me, they had driven up from Wrexham in the morning.

The reason for visiting Liverpool was to see Another Place on Crosby beach. Years ago when I was in St Ives I visited the Tate St Ives and there was an exhibition of Antony Gormley there at the time and since then I have come across his work here and there so I wanted to catch Another Place before it goes back the US.

Wind is an inadequate term for the blasting we got on the beach. I think there are still sand grains stuck in my wrinkles.

More to follow but tiredness is catching up with me.

I have at last finished reading Arthur and George. I think I have been reading it forever but it was well worth it because it is written well and that makes it a pleasure to read.

It isn’t like I am short of reading material though so a trip to Ottakers was quite unnecessary. And I succumbed to the three for two offer – which of course makes it perfectly acceptable to buy three books. There is so much I want to read but my eyes get so tired and sore I wish I could have someone read to me. My mother used to read to us when were younger though not Enid Blyton of course, she went more for Kafka and Orwell.

I’m off next To the Baltic with Bob. I don’t know why it is that such a paltry traveller should get so engrossed by travel writing but perhaps it is my way of seeing the world – from an armchair, in comfort, with a glass of something warm in hand.

I am still solitary today. I was forced however to use the telephone equipment a few times. And then I went shopping and bumped into someone I knew etc, etc. But this evening is quite free of social contact.

As I have no idea how to just chill without doing something I have done lots of little things. I bought some new cushion covers and a wardrobe curtain for my bedroom which prompted me to pretty up my bedroom and tidy my shoes. I really know how to have a good time don’t I!

The trouble is I spend a whole lot of time going out and doing the whole social bit, with the dancing and the singing and the acting, so a couple of days of just pottering around on my own doing boring stuff has become a treat. I even curled up on the settee for something like a whole quarter hour without trying to do anything else at the same time. Ok so I had my arms wrapped round my teddy……and he was bare….or bear………or……..

I’m playing solitaire.

No, no, not the game. I mean I am all by my own.

Why is it that when I want a Greta moment, I vant to be alone, etc. I can’t completely disconnect from the world. The phone goes at regular intervals and when I leave the phones at home and go for a solitary ramble I run into chatty gentlemen draped across stiles.

No more I tell you; I don’t want no more of it!

I have all the ingredients to make a Cosmopolitan, a box of Guylian seashells, the telly and my big squashy teddy to curl up with.

I had been booked up to go out this evening and indeed should be away dancing this weekend. All cancelled - which leaves me three blissful days of nothing, and nobody to fuss about. The girlie is in Wales and the hubby is in Leeds so I just have my pussies and they are being very quiet at the moment. No-one to organise me and badger me, I’m billy-no-mates for a few days.

I have this tendency to reclusivity at times and I am allowing a little wallow in it.

Don’t ring the doorbell, I won’t be answering it!

An odd sort of day.

Several people at work didn’t appear to want me to be there today so I kind of felt like just starting my hols early. They had better miss me or I’ll chuck all the paperclips about.

We have/had a live mouse in the lounge. And also one inside the cat’s mouth. I still can’t be totally sure whether we are talking of two different mice or one and the same. They looked different shapes and colours but as neither would offer a name I can’t be 100% certain.

We received the news that my uncle died. Two days ago I woke up in the morning having just dreamed precisely that. Bit spooky when that happens.

I feel sad now.

Lately I have been toying with the idea of weighing anchor. Ten years is a long time in one job, in one house, in one relationship but perhaps instead of moving on I should try and move the stuff in my head around. Instead of getting a new room, get new furniture or better still move the old stuff round.

My lengthy period of half-hearted stock-taking makes me restless. The trouble is that there are things I like as well as things I don’t.

So I shall consider these dos and don’ts

I DO like being able to kick off my shoes and dance barefoot at work

I DON’T like constant interruptions

I DO like being able to change my day off on a whim

I DON’T like running out of cash mid-month

I DO like long walks by myself

I DON’T like feeling lonely when I am with somebody

I DO like keeping busy

I DON’T like other people ordering my life

I DO like time spent with my family

I DON’T like feeling guilty for wanting other social contact

I DO like my garden

I DON’T like the state my house is in

I DO like eating and enjoying eating

I DON’T like life-long weight-image anxiety

The ponderables continue….

I am home. It feels just fab to have an evening in -to just chill. And after my damp start to the day even more fab.

It came on to rain this morning. Not long after I left the house on my fifty minute walk to work. About half way it came on to rain quite hard and it was the morning I couldn’t find my plastic coat and rushed out with just a flimsy little umbrella.

By the time I was within sight of the goal it was chucking it down so hard there were little rivers running here, there and everywhere on the roads, and cars had their windscreen wipers on full speed and were still ineffective. By then my sandals were so wet I couldn’t walk in them and had to take them off and that was when I finally started to enjoy the walk. I splashed along through the little rain rivers and it was lovely. By then I was so wet I couldn’t get much wetter.

Because I had to lower the umbrella just as I had to tap in the code on the keypad on the door an extra hard torrent feel out of the bucket of sky onto my head.

I made myself a very stylish skirt from a bin bag but it was rather noisy.

This evening I have finally caught up with a bit of housework, a bit of washing, a lot of washing up and plenty of exercise. I won’t be able to maintain the enthusiasm for the cleaning up thing but the novelty value wins at the moment. There won’t be many days that I will happily spend an hour washing up. Oh to have a dishwasher again!

I love being busy because it makes ordinary evenings like this a pleasure. By the end of the week I shall be craving an evening out again though.

It’s no good; I simply can’t tolerate that kind of behaviour.

I came upstairs to find Katie rolling a dead mouse inside my Morris trousers – it is just completely unacceptable.

Over this weekend I have been forced to confront some unpleasant truths. I am fat, I look old and I make meals that make people queasy. Just as well I’m not going get all precious about it and curl up in a ball and hide in a corner until someone’s nice to me again. Sniff, sniff.

On the other hand it has been a bustly sort of weekend so I don’t really have time to mope about. I have been (Morris) dancing out in public both days, I have been in a play and I have hosted a big old party so that’s not bad for a couple of days.

But boy, now that it’s all over am I cranky or what!

Tomorrow will be a day to reacquaint myself with lettuce and say a reluctant farewell to chocolate. A day to restore my relationship with the rowing machine and part company for a while with sloth. A day to take positive steps and lay negative behaviours in a box. It is already starting to sound very tiring and if I didn’t such a fricking headache (Stella, hot afternoon, etc.) I’d have a Baileys.

I know what I haven’t done in ages – posted a pic. I’ll just go and hunt for something jolly……………

Ah here we are - some benches

I was walking back home yesterday with the girlie. Essential shopping had to be done; the Next sale doesn’t last forever you know. Anyway we had been chatting about this and that and I suddenly turned to her and said ‘you know what I haven’t seen in absolutely ages – a cement mixer truck’. I used to point them out such a lot when the boy was wee but how quickly these little things pass in the depths of history, if I pointed one out to him nowadays he would just add it to my CV for the Funny Farm (which, by the way, is starting to look impressive – the CV I mean, not the Funny Farm although….). Cut to the chase. Shortly after I had said that about the cement mixer one actually passed us – it was one of those open mouthed spooky moments. And before you say I probably saw it out of the corner of my eye or something it came from behind so that’s a no-no.

Ok I guess the fact that I was talking about cement mixer trucks anyway was just a further demonstration of my strangeness.

On a different note altogether. Some chickens have moved in next door to us and to start with they were a little clucky and that but they settled very quickly into never-think-they-were-there noise level. Until this afternoon that is when one of them is operating some kind of strimmer type machine, or it could be a demented hoover I can’t be certain.

Half way through the weeks performances now and looking forward to big party on Saturday and after that………………nothing for a bit………..well about a week or so. Apart from dancing………and some more singing……….and committee meetings…………and printing…………and………….