Damp soggy Sunday, nearly November and its dark by five. But let’s not be downhearted – it’ll soon be Christmas

We had an ‘in’ day today, partly because my night was disturbed by the lingering cough that developed from the non-cold, so it was an excellent chance to sort stuff.
It was starting to get a bit depressing with books piling up higgledy piggledy all over the house so I created some more shelf space. There was a shelf of soft toys left over from the girlie’s girlie bedroom days which was somewhat out of reach. A great place to shove all those books that we aren’t likely to be re-reading anytime soon. This includes some of the books I would much rather visitors to the house don’t see. Like ‘The House of Windsor’ – I married a royalist but I am definitely not one myself. I wouldn’t say I’m a round-head either of course – the clothes just don’t do it for me. And even though I don’t put it about a lot I like a drink or two and I’m not averse to having a good time.

Another title that got relegated is ‘Success with House Plants’ – my success with house plants is totally dependent on whether the plants are tough enough to endure my relaxed level of care. Although that said I have managed to keep a couple of African Violets going for several years now and they are at present sending up the most exquisite flower heads following a few parched, near-death months.

And the ‘Buses Annual’ isn’t likely to be perused too often as none of us is inclined to bus anorak.

Some books even made it out of the bookcases altogether, ‘Flower Arranging’ for example – OMG how out of date is that! I never really did it anyway – arrange flowers that is – I am too freestyle for that sort of nonsense. It’s like painting by numbers. ‘Picture it in Needlepoint’ is also in the out pile. I am not entirely sure how I came to purchase that one unless it was a book club buy. I have not managed in twenty years to find a window in my life to start needlepoint and it is not likely to change in the next twenty. In fact the book is needlepointless to me.

It has been very cathartic sorting out messy places today.

BTW I always liked the song Words by F R David and it haunted me for many years. It is nice to see that he is still singing and making music.

A friend of mine was supposed to be coming for a cup of tea this afternoon but even though I baked a lovely chocolate cake and got some home-made scones out of the freezer, scraped the skin off the extra thick cream, etc. etc. it was a no-show. Still, it got the house nice and tidy. And the cake wasn’t wasted either as we had guest for dinner. Guest, not guests. The boy invited himself round for a feed – which was nice. We (the girlie and meself) helped out a bit with his decorating in the morning - it wasn’t a huge contribution in fact but we did what we could. We made a massive cloud of dust from sanding the walls and then splashed some paint around - and then walked away. Well to be fair we can’t stay longer than it takes for a bladder to fill because there is a limited toilet facility

It was inevitably going to be a day of mixed blessings, on our way out this morning we saw a tree with a whole herd of magpies in it. Sorry that should have been tidings of magpies. Thereafter for the rest of the day I kept seeing single, one-for-sorrow magpies. I don’t quite know what the significance of a huge tidings of magpies would be but it’s got to be interesting hasn’t it. And how long does it last anyway! Does the one-for-sorrow sorrow last until the next magpie, for the day, or for an indefinite period? Information is not too clear on this point.

The girlie was watching a snatchling of Sally Jesse Raphael this afternoon. There were ‘angry kids’ on it. One’s heart goes out to the parents of these children because it is clear to all and sundry that these unpleasant progeny should be terminated. They should be put down; they should be put out of our misery. A dog that is so violent that it mauls a child to death would be given a lethal injection so does not the same apply to a child that squeezes the life out of a pet with his bare hands. Ah no that is different - of course. It did seem a little ridiculous when SJR asked the angelic looking rabbit murderer why he would want to do that to a loved pet. Jeez he’s an eight year old boy – der! Let’s face it; the majority of eight year old boys have a fascination for taking things apart. My boy was eight at one time and he liked to take things apart – mostly with a screwdriver – but admittedly that didn’t run to animals.

We did a lot of Wheatley this evening. A whole bunch of Wheatley dances but by the end of the evening they were all starting to merge into one long complicated mass of trunkles and hankles, sorry hankies. It hasn’t helped that my non-event cold has been trying to go for a higher profile. It’s my own fault to making such disparaging remarks; I spent the night tossing and turning with an explosion of congestion and then spent today trying to stem the nose dripping. Several people have now said I have a cold and I still refuse to accept it but it did affect my stamina this evening, making me feel quite feverish and light headed after the first hour of dancing. And Wheatley isn’t a sedate tradition, it’s energetic.

It’s just as well I have a few days off then. I don’t have much planned particularly which is probably the best way to be….

The weekend is my oyster so to speak and it starts here.

I have been spending a bit of time trying to get to grips with facebook. I only know a few random people on it and it takes me a while to pick up how things work so it’s taxing me at the moment. Trouble is I don’t have very long concentration span……….

I have had a wee cold. It started when I got up yesterday and it has now all but gone. I’ve had this kind of hardly-cold before – just that thick feeling at the back of the nose, throat a little bit stiff, a few sneezes and the odd tickly cough. As colds go it’s absolute rubbish. It isn’t bad enough for a sickie, it doesn’t make my voice sexy and it doesn’t make me want to curl up in bed with hot citrusy drinks. It is no use whatsoever and this afternoon I was so irritated by the whole non-event that I decided to get out into the very fresh air and get all my bulb pots sorted.

There is usually just enough mind-your-own-business growing around the cracks in the patio paving to completely cover my bulb pots. It looks quite pretty really for the two days that the mind-your-own-business retains its green hue. After that it looks a little sad but it does keep the bulbs nice and warm and it discourages the animals from taking them all out and trying to grow them elsewhere. They don’t always agree with my planting. It’s probably badgers; they have strong ideas about garden arrangements. It is absolutely no use erecting a fence without seeking permission from resident badgers as they will just take them down again.

I’m not having as bad a day, week or even couple of weeks as the courier who arrived at work today to pick up a parcel that was not there to collect. He was at the end of his tether with life’s little curves. His cousin had been murdered the week before, his father had been rushed into hospital the night before with kidney failure, and now there was no parcel to pick up. I personally felt that the parcel problem wasn’t on the same sort of scale as the other two events but maybe it was straw that broke the doodah. He collapsed in a heap of dejection and rang his colleague who said that ‘X’ had called this morning to make the arrangement. I said, ‘Well he can’t have, he’s in the Ukraine’. The wee fellow then said could he have a flu jab while he was there. As he left I wished him well for the rest of the day, what else can you do, but I think it wasn’t very likely to improve.

There are lots of firsts in life.

There are significant firsts. Like the first time you fly in an aeroplane or the first time you visit a foreign country. There are less significant firsts. Like the first time you wear a new pair of new shoes or the first time you use an extra large padded envelope to send something. And then of course there are the firsts that aren’t really. Like when you sit down to read a new book and realise you’ve already read it.

This year my firsts have included going to Italy and dancing a Morris jig in front of an audience – pretty memorable firsts as it happens.

But last night saw another first – a first for me that is.

I have never been a great watcher of sport. My parents were very avid watchers of all kind of sporting events. Tennis, cricket, darts, golf, etc. Mind you I will confess to having willingly watched a lot of show jumping as a young teenager because I was mad about horses. For quite a time I never walked anywhere unless I was astride my imaginary horse - a huge embarrassment to my parents I should think. Anyway back to the plot I always found watching sport rather tedious - and to be fair I’m not a player either – so it has never been a viewing choice as an adult.

Last night I chose differently. I watched the rugby world cup final. Not only would that be the first time I have watched an entire rugby match, it is certainly the first time I went off to a pub to do so. I have never been to a pub to watch anything in fact.

I have no idea how rugby works so I couldn’t really be sure whether the players were being good or rubbish but I was quite gripped as there seems to be lots going on the whole time. It does make a big difference though to watch something like that with a lot of people who will make noises at the appropriate times – it’s so much easier to work out what’s good and not so good.

It was a good choice, I had a great time.

I have been trying in the last two days to fill a submission form for an FWA (a USA requirement for research studies) - which is unnecessarily complicated and tortuous. Well actually the form itself is straightforward enough it’s the instructions on how to fill it in that require a degree in Advanced Complication. Anyway having eventually mastered the F***ing Waste of Ages I looked up on the www to see what else the acronym represented – as a kind of light relief you know. And one of the things that FWA stands for is Furry Weekend Atlanta. OMG. Only in America.

http://www.furryweekend.com/

I apologise to any of the blogging fraternity here who happen to be fursuiters but quite frankly the idea of spending several days at a convention dressing in a furry suit and doing lots of activities dressed in a furry suit and meeting hundreds of other people dressed in furry suits sounds more than a little bit crazy. There are loads of vids on youtube too but I haven’t embedded any in here because………well……….because.

Bit of a Billy-no-mates tonight. My usual lift people weren’t available via the telecommunication equipment this evening so I didn’t get out dancing – and added to that the rest of the house members are all out (yep that’s both of them).

I wasn’t feeling gloomy about it earlier on but after an hour or two I find my own company a lot less stimulating.

However, I have sorted out some of the things on my to-do list - the kind of little jobs that get left to another day for months. I printed out a whole bunch of compliments slips and headed paper for the society which they have been requesting for a while now. Cleared a stack of paperwork that was threatening to fall over and crush somebody. That sort of thing.

But now I’m drifting a bit! The last resort will be TV.

I was reading an article yesterday – I think it was in Doctor. It was about this whole five fruit and vegetable a day thing - that this is all hype and has no evidence to back up the claims that it is doing us good. Quite frankly it comes as a bit of a relief to hear things like that as I find five-a-day unbelievably hard work. Three to four is manageable – just. There’s always hype about something or other though. I am still waiting for someone to big up the health benefits of pigging out on chocolate and butter sandwiches. White bread of course! When I stayed in France as a teenager my pen-pal Laurence made us up some chocolate sandwiches to take on the dreary school outings to fabulous places that teenagers never remember unless a really drool-worthy pin-up is involved. The recipe for the sandwiches is dead easy.

1 Rip off a chunk of baguette (fresh from the baker that morning – where at least one of the village hotties worked).
2 Cut some slabs of butter and wedge in the middle of the baguette.
3 Break up some lumps of plain cooking chocolate and wedge them in on top of the butter.

After which there was usually a dash for the door in case her mother tried to make us take something more sensible. Laurence would inevitably buy (or shop-lift) some tubes of sweetened condensed milk to accompany the sandwiches but that always made her sick so I couldn’t quite see the point. But the sandwiches were pretty cool.

I am just resting my arms for a minute or two. I feel like I have lifted my own weight in compost this morning but I probably haven’t. One good thing about these new garden waste wheelie bins is that I can dispense with at least one of my compost sites around the garden so I am overhauling them all while the sun shines. Make compost while the sun shines – or something like that. It is a proving to be a mellow and stress-less weekend but then hubby is away. There's no male tension in the house and the girlie and I co-exist in perfect harmony. I dare say it would be a different story if I had more than one daughter but I don’t and these male-free weekends are too pleasant.

Yesterday I spent some time making tidy in my mothers flat and sorting out some of the hot spots before she arrived back from her holiday. I know how much she hates returning from any kind of holiday so I thought a nice tidy room and a wee box of her favourite chocs might help. It won’t of course; she’ll be hankering for the unreality of a different life in a beautiful holiday location until reality eventually regains its heavy grip. Holidays are just that, holidays, you can’t actually live in them because reality gets in the way and the mundanities of everyday life will find you wherever you are.

I finally got round to spending some birthday money this weekend. Having saved it for something I would be able to remember buying – I always feel birthday money should be spent on something specific and not too dull – I managed to blow it on some jeans. Not just any jeans though, these are the first pair of jeans I have bought for myself since I was a teenager which are size 10. For the majority of my adult life I have been mostly a size 14/16 so going down one size was pretty good, going down more than that is pretty splendid. And it all started with the Kellogg’s Two Week Challenge, so don’t knock it!

Recently I had to borrow some trousers from the girlie for dancing practice because my other jeans keep falling down and I was spending half the dance hitching myself. This does detract from the dance and with ones trouser crotch sliding steadily towards the knees it isn’t a good look either - as one of my fellow dancers kindly pointed out one evening.

There was only the two of us yesterday setting off to watch Hastings Bonfire procession. It seemed quite strange because there are usually at least four or five and then meeting up with other hangers on. So with our small numbers we decided to just watch the procession and come home before the bonfire bit because neither of us felt like hanging around in the cold waiting and we left our desserts to come home to. Boy did that procession seem to go on forever – and I kept thinking about my panna cotta waiting for me. The bonfire and fireworks are always the same anyway, utterly fabulous of course but once you’ve seen it you’ve seen it. And the drunks and the jerks are always the same and that is something you don’t need to see a second time let alone an umpteenth.

And the panna cotta was superb.

Who writes these ridiculous scripts and do they not try them out on other people before they hand them over to the ‘actors’ and shoot.

“This woman owns a dog………what do you see or rather what don’t you see?”

“No sign of a dog period”

At which point the girlie and I turned to each other and in unison went “Eeeuuuuugh”. No sticky red pile on the carpet then!

Admittedly one’s expectations are not very high with Doctor’s Diagnosis - or Diagnosis Murder to call it by its official title. The plots are a bit loose and woolly at the best of times but the dialogue sometimes borders on the plain daft. As the above is evidence of. It is strange that Dr Sloane is always so much cleverer than everyone else, I know doctor’s who need pointing in the direction of their own elbows.

I just have a wee bit of time to kill while I’m bidding on a top on ebay. I haven’t bought anything on there for ages and I felt like a moment’s frivolity – you know how it is. It’s only a few coins.

On the subject of coins, I picked up a couple of coins off the pavement last night as I was walking back from dancing. They looked so pretty and shiny next to the tiny puddles and my inner magpie wanted them. Just like the compulsion to pick up conkers and believe me there are quite a few of those collected around the house now. When my boy bought his latest flat there were conkers in all the cupboards because the lady who had lived there considered them lucky. As they have stripped the flat entirely, even down to the brick in places, all the conkers got thrown out. So being concerned for their luck status I soon found them a nice new shiny one to go in the nice new flat – I bet they chucked it as soon as I left but it’s the thought that counts and I thought of them. But back to the coins – I thought they were two five pence pieces but when I picked them up they were a 2 cent (euro) piece and some other foreign coin whose provenance I still haven’t been able to ascertain. An odd little group – if two can be called a group – to find on the late evening pavement.

And while on the subject of pavements - here the connection is a little loose I’m afraid – I was watching a poor woman walking along trying to balance on her stilettos. Why do woman think it makes them look attractive - tottering along with a dislocated-hip-walk. I’m not averse to high heels, I have several pairs – I’m short(ish) and sometimes it’s necessary to elevate – but there is a time and a place and a terrain. Her partner had to push the pushchair so that she could take the steep slopes carefully and her hips were all over the place. I’d say she’ll need new ones by the time she gets to my age and she won’t be so keen on heels then.

I’ve won my top now and paid for it. It’s quite an exotic scoop neck and back top that would look rather well with tight jeans and high heels.

Jeez, they weren’t joking about it raining hard this affie. It is - it’s raining hard. A good day for turning out some cupboards but the dust has got up my nose now so the impetus has gone.

I should really get a plastic rake for the leaves – I think the same thing every year at this time. Can’t keep putting these things off. Oh but I can…..and do. I would like to think I concentrate on the priorities in life but I don’t, I just fret about the frivolous stuff. I’m not saying that leaves are a frivolous concern, no, quite the contrary, this is one of the priorities of life that keeps getting brushed under the carpet in life.

Not that I have been putting leaves under the carpet – that would be silly.

I was having a conversation with my cousin the other day. She has turned the big four O this year and it is a major life-reviewing point in life. She decided she would study Theology in order to ultimately pursue a career in teaching. Teaching RE presumably. One thing she said though was that she wants to go to Narnia. She keeps looking in the back of her wardrobe but can’t find a way through. I know the feeling of course as I just turned out my wardrobe and apart form a huge load of shoes and a stack of books (I told you we have enough for a small library) there was absolutely no doorway into an alternative reality. She said ‘You ‘get’ me, if I say that to anyone else they look at me as if I’m odd’. Oooh, not me, I understand the apparently odd, join with the bizarre and belong to the surreal.

On a different tack altogether now - I could understand someone disliking me if I had done something to warrant it. I have always accepted that you can’t win ‘em all and I have never tried. I’ve certainly never expected everyone to like me, to be honest if anyone does I’m pleased - and surprised. It’s not that I’m nasty or anything, I am just an incredibly bland and ordinary jo…jo – and because of that I don’t expect to inspire deep regard (even love) but I certainly don’t expect to inspire such animosity that I am maligned and bad-mouthed behind my back. Hey ho – I think I prefer the people who look for Narnia in the wardrobe.

Aw – how appropriate – ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You’ has just come up on iTunes. At least Stevie Wonder cares!

Fabulous weather this weekend – thank goodness. I can’t be doing with a lot of hanging around in the wind and rain, especially at this time of year when wind and rain equals extremely dreary and dismal. In fact I caught the sun a little yesterday and had a pink nose – well it was either the sun or the red wine.

We did Tenterden Folk Festival this weekend. ‘We’ meaning the Morris side. We were keeping ourselves low profile this weekend as our numbers are low and that includes some newer and inexperienced dancers - so for the sake of our future good name we didn’t want to draw too much attention. We were however well received where we did perform. I managed to ‘call’ the dances (i.e. lead and call out the moves!) reasonably ok – at least everyone seemed to be going the right way, in the right way, and at the right time. From that point of view I am glad the weekend is over – I can’t cope with the pressure! My own high point was dancing a jig (on me tod) at the station at Tenterden and although it wasn’t a personal best as far as the dancing was concerned it was pretty good considering the music was in part provided by a melodeon player who had just spent the journey back from Bodiam learning the tune from scratch – and it isn’t that long a journey! All in all it was a good weekend, we danced here and there, we made ourselves known and we didn’t manage to injure anyone in the process.

As we were leaving the town yesterday I pointed out the big, big-bearded guy walking down the road towards us dressed in a pink floral dress – I also pointed out that if there wasn’t a folk festival going on this weekend that would look somewhat unusual but I’d probably passed dozens of similar figures over the last couple of days without even noticing.

Yesterday I was out all day dancing but trying at the same time to run a craft stall back in the home town, and today I was out all day dancing and at the same time trying to prepare a family meal. I could have done with time-turner this weekend really as I find it terribly difficult being in two places at the same time – especially some distance apart – but thank goodness for extended families. My cousin quite happily provided the physical presence at the craft stall but as business didn’t do too well (it never does in that venue) I don’t know whether she will offer again. Time was when I would have minded not taking much money but nowadays it all seems to wash over me. I just shrug and say la vie.

I am a mellow fellow atm – long may it continue!

The gas man cometh – wasn’t that a title of a song. Well anyway that will be the title of today. In fact it wasn’t gas man it was gas men, there were two of them. I had to be at my boy’s new flat for 8am to await the arrival of the men who were coming to lay in gas from the street. A simple enough task for my day off. But let us take into account the fact that this is a flat without the benefit of any furniture, i.e. chairs, where the water has to be turned on at the stop cock downstairs and the electricity has to be turned on up in the attic, the toilet though working has no door and there are no refreshment facilities. To pass the time I spent some of the morning white-washing the newly plastered walls and then a spot of tool-tidying followed by some scraping lumps off the floor. Great stuff! In truth it was infinitely preferable to hanging around in someone else’s home without anything to do and one of the few times in life when I will be welcome in another woman’s house to do as much cleaning and tidying as I like. There was another unexpected bonus of course in that the fitter of the two men was exactly that, fit. I familiarised myself - visually you understand rather than physically - with the contours of his torso, nearly all of which was on display. I didn’t really need to keep standing by the window but I was drawn in that direction quite frequently. My interest was purely artistic of course – he would make a superb artist’s model – my only regret is that I didn’t suggest it.

I had to have a shower when I got home – no not a cold one, I’m not that sad – but because the dust is so…well, so too much.

I should really be getting on with something more useful but I am re-acquainting myself with ‘sitting’.

The weekend is looming, well it’s looming as far as I’m concerned. We are dancing out and I have to do something I really don’t like doing, I have to lead the other dancers and call all the moves. I have always been content to be a follower rather than a leader and this taking charge goes against the grain – especially when I am still not completely confident in my own ability. It took me at least 20 years to feel comfortable being in a lead role on stage and it may seem like a similar kind of ‘performing’ scenario but I am not a natural dancer. Just another thing to make me feel anxious and there are plenty of those at the moment.

So many people around and about my life are having angsty or stressful stuff going on and I don’t quite know who to feel for more. I know you can’t solve the world’s problems but ‘every man’s death diminishes me for I am involved in mankind’ and I take that to also mean that every person’s stress affects me.

However, I bought a goat this morning, and that made me feel a little better.