I had this grand idea that today I would get up bright and early and drag the girlie off to Brighton and we could shop until we dropped.

First hold-up - the whole getting out of bed difficulty.

At nine of the clock I was still hand in hand with the sandman and we were having a merry old time in a dream about something or other. I don’t remember now.

Best laid plans ganging aft a-glay - as is their wont.

Second hold-up – the rail network.

A line-side fire somewhere near Hampden Park disrupted all the trains, delaying our journey by about 20 mins. This may not sound much but by then we were running very close to lunch time and my baby has to be fed regularly. A fretful and hungry 17 year old doesn’t make for a happy travelling companion. And she has very little patience with some of the imbeciles who should be restrained from using public transport during the busy hours of daylight, and basically any day ending with a y.

But we arrived. There were simply hundreds of other people who like me had just been paid and were in complete despair at having money in the bank so felt the need to rush out and spend it recklessly. So we shopped and now I am knackered.

I am spent – in more ways than one.

I am glad I bought some new pj’s because I’m about to climb back into nod with the sandman who, incidentally, looks very like Johnny Depp.

Appliances are a boon.

They can also be a bane.

And a bone of contention.

We have a spot of appliance non-compliance.

The dishwasher, a slim-line chappie in what was once brilliant white, died a couple of months ago. It remains in the kitchen, festering. We couldn’t afford to replace it straight away but didn’t want to take it out and leave an ugly hole. I suppose we could have used the space to display art works but quite frankly who would see it? So the dishwasher sits like a great white elephant, well a slim and small just-about-white great elephant, taunting us with its complete refusal to wash dishes. Or indeed elephants.

And as for the washing machine, we had to slap an ASBO on it. I thought I was attention-seeking but I could learn so much from this blasted machine. It makes a noise. Yes all washing machines make a noise. But this is noise on a completely different scale. Decibel heavy. With the doors shut to the utility room it still manages to drown the TV. Conversations have to be put on hold until its spin programme is over. Telephone callers are politely requested to call back at a time we are not laundering. As for anyone foolish enough to ring the doorbell during a white wash they are seen to judder down the driveway in subdued fearfulness. The howling of the appliance in our back room destined to haunt and stalk their dreams for weeks to come. Its ability to wash is not in question, it does that very well. Its just the social aspect that is a problem.

And you think I’m kidding?

New appliances are on order!

I’ve been feeling a little lardy lately. I seem to be cushionier. So an entire evening spent jigging about must surely have done some good. I have certainly lost copious amounts of ‘lady glow’.

Me? A lady? Do me a giraffe! That’ll be the day.

The other day I was telling someone about my time as a Sunday School teacher and I had expected there to be surprise but she just said ‘Oh yes I can see you as a Sunday School teacher’. Has the world gone mad! I didn’t believe it myself, when I was doing it, but obviously I come over as very prim and virtuous.

At the moment I am a bit excited.

The reason for the excitement?

Well….. next week I change my hours at work. I have been asking for extra hours for several years and finally I have them. And although I shall have more hours I will do less days so at the moment I am like a very excited person who has something extra specially exciting to be excited about. I am a simple creature and very easily excited.

I shall get wholesale. As my grandmother would say.

There was a bit of a lull over the summer when everything seemed a bit dull and sloppy. After the open air Shakespeare was over and before the normality of term time resumed I was in a bit of a slough of despond in some ways. Now there is lots of new. Tonight we were learning new dances from new traditions. Well not new but new to me.

Feels way good.

Aaaaaand......Christmas is coming….

Another bad hair day.

To be honest it would be more novel to report a good hair day. On Monday evening I left work and was greet by a torrent of heckling. From a group of ten-year-olds.

In fact I can’t really say whether they were ten or not because the carbon-dating facilities down that end of town are ludicrously limited but that was my guesstimate. I have had two ten-year-olds myself so it’s not a bad guess.

Anyway back to the taunting – not Taunton, which is a place in Somerset – I was followed by such comments as ‘Haven’t you heard of hair-styling gel’ and ‘Are you a mad woman’ and ‘You got an afro’. You get the picture? I was having a big hair day. In all honesty I probably don’t have big hair as much a small head.

Thirty years ago I would have curled up and climbed into a dark hole and hidden away for six months………or at least rushed out and bought some ‘hair-styling gel’.
As a teenager it was a fate worse than death to stand out from the crowd, to be different, but hey, now I’m forty-three and I don’t mind at all if I can turn a few heads. Even if they are just ten years old, or nine, or eleven.

I didn’t respond to their childish banter of course. It was as much as I could do not to laugh out loud. And then what would I get….Laughing Hyena Woman.

I think it’s time to brush my hair now.

Some light reading.. http://www.gigablogs.net/blog/the_jar_of_olives

Oops.

I popped out for a bit.

To be honest I’m not feeling at all inspired.

I seem to stand and not quite know what I want to do next.

I want to write but I don’t have much to say and there is the whole thing about empty vessels and all that.

I will just tell you a funny story though. I woke up the other day with a bloody nose. It wasn’t a huge surprise since I had been woken in the night by being hit in the face. Hubby says he was asleep when he did it……

However, he has received his punishment, he now has a cold, and is keeping me awake with that instead.

I have a whole of good stuff going down right now – well, kinda.

On Saturday I am off to the West with my momma and poppa for a few days holiday. It’s always a bit of an adventure – with the parents.

I went last year and it was just such a lovely relaxing time, in a lovely relaxing place.

So I have high hopes.

Also, I finally got round to going to the optician. I kept putting it off and putting it off because I know how much the darn things cost. I really resent being penalised for my handicap. The more short-sighted, i.e. blind, that you are the more the lenses cost. The more short-sighted you are the more you actually need them to survive. It’s so unfair. And I hate having to choose frames because I don’t know what to get and when I get them home I won’t like them. But I desperately need to get the lenses changed so I can see properly again so I am just glad it’s done and dusted.

This week I had my appraisal at work and after years of trying to up my hours (partly to stop me being so skint) I might finally be in with a shot at the apple. In any case I may be able to change them around so I do longer days but less of them and that in itself would give me a boost.

So, some good stuff about.

I feel like singing – erm…..

I know..

"Don't stop me now I'm having such a good time
I'm having a ball don't stop me now
If you wanna have a good time
Just give me a call
Don't stop me now ('Cause I'm having a good time)
Don't stop me now (Yes I'm having a good time)
I don't wanna stop at all"

Toodley pipski for now

I know it’s a bit sad but I have a(n) N64. It was a mother’s day present from my boy several years ago – I did actually ask for it – and I played with it loads to start with. Only Super Mario which is after all the ultimate game – unsurpassed as far as I’m concerned. The girlie and self were a little bored during the hols and we dug it out from under the telly and found it was without lead. The house was searched high, low and anywhere in the middle but no coconut. So I turned to my tried and trusted friend (for all things weird, wonderful, and completely mundane), Ebay, and found with very little difficulty a lead for the box. So we have been very merry with Mario for a week. Co-ordination is not something that comes naturally or easily to me and I have problems with the controls at times – at least that is my excuse for a lot of the dying. In spite of that I have all but got to the end. Ok, if you must know, I am 9 stars short of 120 but I got very excited today when I finally managed to get that fecker, Bowser in the Sky, thus ending the game a little prematurely. It’s a silly thing to get excited about but then I am a silly thing. You can keep your posh new fancy games machines; I like my N64 and my wee Mario. Now he is a real man!

Elsewhere, I have made another stick.

Oh poo.

It’s rainy and dreary and feels like winter already. Dark evenings, cold chilly bits and pieces, too much clothing, etc.

It has made me feel gloomy today and I feel like hibernating. I want to climb into a velvety box and curl up and go to sleep for a few months. I feel the nights closing in and a great urge upon me to hoard some nuts.

Not that I can eat too many nuts.

In fact I really should be eating a lot less of everything but I am comfort eating. I really should try and snap out of it!

I have been sewing this week. I have re-discovered my love of sewing. It won’t last. Like so many of my little fads it will burn out in a week or two when I move onto something else but in the meantime I am trying to make the most of this spell. The other day the girlie and I were watching Blackadder. A common enough occurrence. I happened to notice Queenie’s little pomander stick that she has on a girdle and thought ‘I want one like that’. So I made me one. And another. And another one for a friend. And another one – in black - which I have called Black Rod. Mind you, ‘Black Rod’ conjures up ……..no I won’t go there. I will post a pic later and you can see what you think.