Podward

You know how it is when you get a song stuck in a groove in your head and I have ‘Promises’, Eric Clapton, going round on permanent loop at the moment.

On the subject of tunes, I downloaded – I don’t know how I can publicly admit to this but it’s too late to worry about what people think now – Dragostea Din Tei. For those who don’t know the title, it’s the numa numa song. I am such a music slut; I bop to any old rubbish! But it is great on the iPod at 7.30 am on the long walk to work – so there.

I am out on parole at the moment. A day off – for good behaviour. I have spent the whole day – more or less – in the kitchen making soup and bread and mince pies. I have had a lovely play with all my pots and pans and it has been very productive.

We tried to sit down and work out who exactly we have invited round for our ‘at home’ but we lost track a bit, so if anyone’s passing we have soup and bread and mince pies (including a rather yummy fruit soup with toasted marshmallows). And crumpets are good fun too so long as there is plenty of butter dripping through the fingers.

I am not at all pleased with Tesco and their complete failure to provide me with sufficient quantities of carrots today. Carrot stocks were zilch, not even a baton. There were acres of chocolate and tons of mincemeat so obviously everyone has gone overboard on the carrots instead. Very healthy, and they clearly were not buying them for dipping purposes as there were so many dip packs on sale it was starting to feel a bit creepy. Turn another corner and there they were again – the dips. Yards of them.

I guess it is time to look into New Year thoughts, aspirations, and aims. So with that in mind I shall cast a look back at what I had in mind at the beginning of this year…..

Seven things I’d have more chance of achieving in 2006…..

1 – Learn something new…….anything – I learned new dances, I think that must count
2 – Improve life drawing and get someone to pose nude…preferably……. - He wouldn’t!
3 – Sell one my books, or 10, or at least half…. – None but I sold some Betty Sticks, and some boxes
4 – Get away from it all…..even if only for a day – I did get away a couple of times but not quite as away from it all as I expected
5 – Motor independence….I will do it…….one day – I got the number plate now, I’m getting there
6 – Do one thing I never did before…..ever – danced in a night-club, danced on stage at Jack-in-the-Green, danced out in public on Boxing Day
7 – Grow bigger melons – I didn’t grow any at all

I think I might have to be a bit more realistic next time; the whole melons thing was just never going to happen.

Although now I come to think of it I have done stuff this year that has been quite exciting in its own way. All I can really hope for is that next year is at least equally interesting.

I wish I knew what had happened to my Christmas appetite. All this chocolate and I can’t get remotely excited. I have forced a few pieces in – well you have to don’t you – but I am not relishing it with my usual gusto. I haven’t had much appetite for almost a week and it is starting to worry me!

I think it was worrying Katie as well because she just brought in a mouse to try and tempt me with a dainty morsel.

The mother-in-law returns to Trojan Horse tomorrow and not a moment too soon. There are not so many ways to entertain a guest down on the Sussex Riviera in the middle of winter once Christmas is shredded into a few bin bags and packed into the dusty bin that won’t get emptied until the bin boys have got through their cases of ale. In the summer she can be tumbled into a deck chair in the sunshine but indoors she is getting perilously close to the end of our gin supply and the sherry situation was dicey from the start.

But it’s all good larks and that, and this side of the bank holiday I am a mellower creature. There have been some interesting distractions over the last week. Finding out that the mad lady GP over the road has been slapped with an ASBO was a rib-tickler. Not very funny really for the unfortunate neighbour who has been subjected to her unbelievable repertoire of gutter vocab but certainly a fine bit of gossip to dangle over the sweet sherry and mince pies.

Dancing out in Hastings was another high spot for me. Bells akimbo. Followed by an afternoon defrosting in a fine haze of alcohol in one of the merry hostelries of the town. Beats watching the telly at the same time as bulging the belt buckle with yet another wad of unnecessary calories.

And finally managing to get a vegetable rack that fits into the wee gap between the fridge and cupboard – and for only £5.00 in Woolworths.

I have 44p left in the bank, and just a few coppers left in my purse. Until payday I am poorer than the proverbial church mouse but oddly satisfied by that. And I am a lot more alive than the poor wee thing that Katie brought me.

So…..cheers………here’s to………it all!

Happy Christmas to one and all!

Gin!

I was standing in the queue at Tesco last night – at about twenty minutes before it turned into today. It was not a short queue and it was taking about half-hour to reach the checkout and be processed and not a single mince pie was on offer, no mulled wine either, in fact the only Christmassy aspect was that half the customers were crackers. Crackers for being there in the first place – which is obviously why I was there as well. It was a family outing in fact, my parents and my sister were going to go carol singing but thought we could have a jolly Crimbo outing to Tesco instead. I think they could have been a tiny bit more festive there – would it really have hurt their Christmas profits to offer us a sausage roll.

I was on my last legs by then and I could have eaten a small horse, or even a donkey but I had to make do with sitting on the floor and drinking some of my shopping.

In a while I have to go out and help a bunch of hyper-Christmassed childer put together some gingerbread persons. How on earth I got into that I shall never know. Perhaps it was an absence moment! Then we have a tea party involving elderly aunts and salmon sandwiches.

Between us the girlie and I have probably made about a couple of hundred biscuits/cakes/sweetie treats etc. over the past few days for friends and family and the last batch (ginger biscuits) is still perfuming the air with the most enticing spicy aroma. It smells so deliciously Christmassy I think I should write to Tesco and suggest it as something they could try next year for when I am queuing up in the middle of the night with a stuffed trolley doing my bit for their profit margins.

Work is over for a few days, thank Christmas. The share-out has turned into the usual round of snipes. In the last ten years – have just achieved my ten year anniversary at the hallowed place – there has been the inevitable bun fight of the Christmas share-out to look forward to. No-one who has ever master-minded the wretched business has ever managed to do it in a way that pleases everyone and this year the long knives are out big-time.

I must explain a little for those who have no idea of what I speak – so that would be the majority of readers I guess. I work in a surgery and at Christmas time the sweeter and more charming amongst the older patients bring in tins of sweets and biscuits and all manner of fine things. I don’t quite know why but then I don’t see a lot of my own doctor from one years end to the next so buying the fellow a present has never occurred to me, let alone buying the reception staff a whole tin of fattening biscuits. But although the tradition is beginning to run drier over the years as these lovely people die away and leave all the mean bastards who don’t bring prezzies there is still enough stuff coming in for each member of staff to have at least three items. Or at least there would be if fair shares for all came into the equation. Unfortunately it never seems to work out fair to everyone’s way of thinking. What is sauce for the goose is sometimes piss and water for the gander etc.

I had the honour of organising the share-out for a couple of years when the previous organiser decided she couldn’t take the criticism anymore and watched me with gleeful anticipation hoping I would be crucified as she had been before me. If I was I didn’t know about it but I was scrupulously fair and nobody really likes that, it’s just too… too…democratic. And when a pecking order is involved you can’t treat everyone the same – apparently. Someone who has served a longer sentence could be deemed more worthy of the more expensive and select morsels than the Johnny-come-lately who has only just been banged up. I just did my bit and happily handed over the messy affair to another equally egalitarian soul who also ignored the snipes but she too has been relegated to the bench and this year the curtain came up on a whole new arena of conflict. Our satellite surgery became the main building and the original site has become the smaller branch. The smaller one gets more presents and fair shares for all went out the window as the skeleton crew up that end decided to keep all the top goodies for themselves.

Oh it’s all so delightfully petty and divisive. Christmas is just great for good-will amongst men – it’s the bloody women that are the problem. I am not complaining about my allotted items as I think I did rather well to come out of it with some nice biscuits but not all are happy.

These biscuits will torment me as it is with their multiple calories. Hey ho it’s Christmas again.

I’ve popped in here for a rest.

It is mayhem downstairs and I have slunk upstairs to collect my thoughts and generally let all my bits and pieces and sag and slump.

I have tried to force a few morsels past my lips but unfortunately I snacked while preparing the profiteroles – on profiteroles, on chocolate sauce that got on my fingers, on cream that dripped, etc, etc, you get the picture. Consequently I can’t really find room for the chicken and broccoli pasta that would be so much better for my curves which are already in Christmas Crisis. One more mince pie and we could be looking at pretty tents in the New Year.

My girlie is entertaining her friends with some after dinner games. She asked me for dice and cards and there is a lot of noise going on, but it is happy noise so I’m not complaining. Her dinner party – where I do the cooking for ten and then clutter off to my room – seems to have gone ok. To be honest I have really enjoyed making a meal that I then don’t have to push round my plate and pretend to want to eat. I never want to eat a meal once I have spent all day preparing it so this has been a chance to enjoy the cooking part with none of that messy eating it afterwards. If my career involved a lot of preparing food I would be a couple of dress sizes smaller but probably malnourished as well.

Tomorrow, and most of the tomorrows after that for several weeks, are packed to the gills with stuff. Busy stuff. I think I need some Red Bull…………..

Friday night I found myself in a very close fitting sailor suit playing a lad called Percy in a short Victorian melodrama. One of my co-‘stars’ kept getting out his pork luncheon meat to show me and there was generally a lot of merriment. It’s one way of whiling away a Friday evening without having to consume too much in the way of alcohol or spend too much cash on having a laff. But then it is easy to have a good time if you can let your hair down easily.

What it did make me aware of though is that it is getting very close to Christmas. People kept saying Happy Christmas and handing out cards. I am so far behind. I thought watching the however-many-it-was greatest Christmas moments last night would help me feel inspired but I think that it’s more likely a few more frosts like the one on the outhouse roof today might make me feel more Christmassy. It is so pretty and all the moss bumps are like miniature snow covered hills.

The Pogues should help as well.

Whenever I get a little too hung up on something I decide it must be time for a new hobby. This has meant I have ended up with thousands (slight exaggeration but only slight) of hobbies and pastimes and not enough fecking time to do it all. I think a new approach might be needed. A mind enema perhaps would be the way to go.

I sat at work today for a few hours in just my underwear (black), a see-through top and long black boots. It sounds way more interesting than it was. I was fortunate enough to be working alone on the first floor and could keep the door closed while I dried my rain-soaked clothes on the radiators. It wasn’t raining when I left the house and it wasn’t raining when I arrived at work but somewhere along the half-hour walk it chucked it down. It happens. To me too often.

I think perhaps I should look into some waterproof trousers for those less clement looking days but the trouble is the whole sorry business is forgotten by the time I’ve dried out and it seems such a mundane thing to spend money on. Ebay maybe.

I’m still disabled by extreme lethargy. Although to be fair I did work for a long portion of the day and without a great deal in the way of sustenance so that may well be accounting for the slight feeling of tiredness. But I always feel an evening in should be an opportunity to get on with all the little things I want to do. Sewing, drawing, writing, washing up, rowing. Evenings in are so rare that I store all these little want-to’s up and then can’t manage it all and feel disappointed. I could of course just try and learn to relax and chill…..

The girlie’s current favourite advert was just on, the one for the National Lottery where the house lights up to a merry tune. The ‘light’ houses are springing up all over the place now that we are actually embroiled in December although I did see the first one just about the end of November. Even though I find it disturbing that so much energy is wasted on a few Christmas lights it still manages to be a draw and a fascination.

I was telling a colleague about the ‘good old days’ when our favourite department store had a sleigh ride to Santa’s grotto. A proper moving up and down contraption and they made it feel like we left the store and really went to a magic place. Now that was worth paying for. These plastic gingerbread houses with a hot sweaty Santa and a sack full of plastic tat are so not worth a coin but I guess I’m not a child now and I know it’s not real.

I am still enough of a child at heart though to be enchanted – a little too easily at times admittedly but I think I prefer being a bit short on cynicism at times, it wouldn’t hurt more people to stand and gaze at the beauty of the sky on an winter’s afternoon.

Flat, or dull. The thesaurus cites the following synonyms

banal, blah, bland, blind, bombed, boring, colourless, dead, dim, drab, draggy, flavourless, ho hum, inane, innocuous, insipid, jejune, lacklustre, lead balloon, lifeless, mat, monotonous, muted, pointless, prosaic, prosy, sapless, spiritless, stale, tasteless, tedious, uninteresting, unpalatable, unsavoury, unseasoned, vanilla, vapid, watery, weak.

Basically I feel a bit vanilla at the moment.

Having said that we had our Christmas ‘do’ the other day and that was also distinctly vanilla. No added spice. It was a bland-o affair. And it wasn’t just me that thought it. Perhaps it’s a bit of a vanilla time of year.

But it shouldn’t be, it should be the jolly run-up-to-Christmas season with merry moments and sparkly sprinkles of seasonal sweetness.

I was never terribly keen on vanilla as a flavour for ice cream. Mind you that is probably something to do with the old chocoholism which set in at an early age.

I don’t really know why everything is so vanilla. It just is.

Hey ho.