A room by the lake

I just switched off the little fan heater and asked myself, 'Why is the music still playing? I've just switched ... the little fan heater off.' That's why the music is still playing. Hey ho.

I'm dancing to Reelin' in the Years by Steely Dan. Sitting in my chair-type dancing, you understand.

On Sunday afternoon Husband fell asleep in the bath. He only woke up when he got cold because the plug wasn't in properly and the water had run out. Now that's old!

I'm not that old. Although I did something on Sunday afternoon that I haven't done for a long time: I watched a film on television. I thought I was watching Hotel du Lac but it was Room with a View. It's an easy mistake to make as it's written by the same ... different authors. But the actors in them are the sa ... different. It was that woman with the long thin face in Hotel du Lac. Not Helen Mirren. I don't think I'd like Helen Mirren but I can't remember what makes me think that.

I've just been out to the shops. Betty doesn't like winter; she has started stopping again. I have to speak severely to her. And, at the weekend, I bought her a smart new seat cover. It is black with pink flowers. I shall take a photo tomorrow.

Now I am going to make butternut squash soup to Daughter's recipe.
xx

More this'n'that

I just hung out the washing, came in, said, 'oh, Harvey,' and scritched him. It was almost satisfying.


Should I have done that? Told you, that is, not scritched him. I mean, I could see him. Well, not really obviously. Okay, it's probably time I changed the subject.


* * * * * * * * *


Apparently Manny Shinwell, MP, tried to get whisky made available on the National Health. He failed in that so then, when he was in the House of Lords, tried to have it declared a justifiable expense. I don't think he succeeded in that either but he did live to be over 100 on his glass or several of whisky a day.


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I was reading posts on the Blogpower site this morning. I didn't understand half of it about feeds and stats,but I have now put that little thing at the side that shows me lovely piccies of my visitors (or their dogs or logos).


I noticed I was listed as one of the people who visits: that's not strictly true. I only visit those I like. And let's face it: my posts are fairly inane and of little interest to the political bloggers so I wouldn't expect them to visit me. I appreciate it when cbi and Lord Nazh call in; I don't consider James to be a political blogger or Jock, for that matter, although both of them do cover politics amongst a wider remit.


Anyway, I will make a point of visiting others - and trying to comment if I have the slightest idea what is being spoken about. Having a left-bent in a right-tilted blogroll doesn't help.



xx

This'n'that

Yesterday I had determined that I would catch up with some of my writing tasks, then Husband asked if I wanted to go for a ride in Brian (our open-top Beetle). I said yes without a blink.

That is why I am spectacularly unsuccessful at anything in life ... except enjoying it.

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This weekend Younger Son has been to the Bulldog Bash, a music and motorbike festival, apparently run by Hell's Angels. On Thursday night The Wurzels were headlining; on Friday it was Status Quo. He wasn't impressed with the Quo: all their music sounds the same he said. D'uh, yes.

* * * * * * * * * * *

After nearly four months of working in Swansea, and mostly from home, from tomorrow, Husband starts working away all week again. We'll get used to it; we always do. It doesn't mean we enjoy it.

It's been lovely having him around.
xx

Bulls

For the sake of loyal readers I felt compelled to sample a number of cream teas while on holiday just so I could report back to you. And the winner is: Crabtree & Evelyn's teashop in Stratford. Followed very closely by Sylvia's tea-shop in Ambleside.

Both provided home-made scones and a choice of home-made jam along with a proper pot of tea. What edged C&E into the lead was the dollop of extra thick cream (not clotted but next best thing).

The other thing I forgot to mention was that I had my first Indian head massage in one of the hotel spas. It was good - relaxing and enjoyable - if over too quickly, but not as phwoaring as my orgasmatron.

And now something completely different.

While cleaning the toilet floor, I started singing to myself, 'Little White Bull,' and for the life of me I can't think how the little white bull came 'trotting right behind them,', when 'only black bulls fight'. A case for Google I think.
xx

Bit of this and that

Oh, I wish you could smell these!

Someone told me recently how to find out where site visitors have come from. Because I'm a cheapskate, I only have a free counter so it doesn't give me loads of information but I have looked at it a couple of times recently.

Someone came to my blog after googling for Brian O'Driscoll's training regime. I'll bet they were mightily disappointed.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I called into a charity shop today and asked the assistant if I could have the glasses case on display. She said, 'You can have it but it's a mobile phone case.'

Well, it's better than a plastic bag.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I've been to circuits since beginning this post. And now I've had boiled eggs for dinner. Just boiled eggs: I had my bread ration at lunchtime. But they were very nice boiled eggs. If not very filling.

These are in the kitchen.

They smell pretty good too.

I am not going to eat one.

xxxxx

I also forgot to say

My outfit fits very well, very close-fitting. It could be called snug-fitting. So snug I can't eat for the next three weeks and I'll still need magic pants.

Bit of a shame then that it is Younger Son's birthday tomorrow. I asked him what sort of birthday cake he would like and he said date flapjacks. I will NOT eat any. None at all. Just because they are one of my favourite things in the world ...

I have a bunch of narcissi on my desk. I wish Blogger would let me put on smells. The scent they're giving out as they open is terrific.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The dog-lady is serious but nice. She asked if 'that's his normal bark?' Yes, it is: he's always croaky but especially first thing in the morning when he sounds like a habitual smoker. And yes, he pants all the time and he limps; he can't see much or hear much. But apart from that he's fine. Oh, yes, and he needs help in and out of the house and he's lost control of his back end.

She asked if we'd want to be informed in the event of anything happening to Harvey while we were away. How do you answer a question like that? I said we'd definitely want to know if there was a decision to be made; but we're only going from Friday to Sunday. I shall have to talk seriously to Harvey and tell him not to die while we're away.

Spring has sprung

I have an electric toothbrush. (Electric? Well, you know what I mean.) I use it morning and evening but if I clean my teeth at any other time of the day, I use an ordinary one. I don't want to wear out my teeth by over-brushing, you see.

So yesterday evening, getting ready for Zac's, I went to clean my teeth and ... I couldn't remember which toothbrush was mine. There were three in the cupboard and I stood and stared at them. Oooh.

Usually I reach in, grab and it's fine.

It's the same if I'm getting money out of the hole in the wall. If I walk up to it, carelessly, I can simply enter all my details, no problem; if I try and think of my PIN number as I'm approaching the machine, I might as well accept there and then that I'm not going to be able to get any money out until the next day.

And now I'm off to the big city of Cardiff. I think. Unless I change my mind on the way. I feel I should start looking for an outfit as the wedding's a month away. Oh, looking at the calendar I see that Spring begins today. Goody.

Oh, yes, and on Nourishing Obscurity, James says he thinks he'll start up the Mindless Bloggers Club. Now that's the one for me! I can do mindless par excellence.

The last will

Two identical letters arrived this morning. One was addressed to Husband; the other to the man who lived here before us, twenty years ago, who incidentally is now dead.

It was an invitation to an inheritance tax seminar. Huh! Like there's going to be anything left for the children to inherit. We've already told them we plan on spending it. (It being all £256 or thereabouts that we're likely to have by the time we pop off.)

However the seminar is in a posh hotel on Gower - no-one we know, not even my uncle who eats out all the time, goes there it's so expensive - and a free lunch is included. Hmm, the deceased ex-occupier of our house was a doctor; no reason why I couldn't be Dr Jones is there? Then Husband and I could have a nice lunch together. Which could be rudely interrupted if someone was taken ill and the cry went up, 'Is there a doctor in the house?' And my tendency to faint at the sight of blood could be a bit of a giveaway.

Ah well, into the recycling bag with it.

A bit of a blur

As well as being a blogging addict, I am becoming a digital-photo-taking addict (I wouldn't classify what I do as photography).

Hanging the washing on the line just now - it is a wonderful drying day - I was accompanied by a sweet little robin who was singing his heart out. I rushed inside to find the camera, got back out but fiddled around for so long trying to find him in the viewer that he gave up and flew away.

I am convinced the camera doesn't point at the thing it is photographing. For example, if I want to take a photo centred and focused on A, then I have to point the camera slightly to the left of A. Is this normal? The way cameras work? Or do we just have a dodgy camera?

Things aren't helped by my age-corrupted eyesight. Not being able to see clearly what I'm focusing on is a bit of a bummer; as is not being able to tell if the automatic focus is working properly. It isn't usually. Not when I'm trying to do close-ups. Husband has explained to me what setting I have to use but my memory is age-corrupted as well.

Talking about a bit of a bummer, i don't know what I did in circuits last night but my right buttock aches.

But all that was really just to explain why this photo isn't very clear.

It's my little fan heater. I have it on in the study when I'm working. The idea is that it is more efficient to warm this room than the whole of the house. It's my idea anyway. Could be right.

Anyway, if you can see, you'll see there are two dials. The top one controls how hot I want it to be; the bottom one has different settings. The settings include one called ECO.

I am under the belief that this stands for Economy, but how can that be? If the temperature is controlled by the top dial, then if I set the bottom dial on Economy, will it make me as warm more cheaply i.e. send a message to the Electricity shop and tell them I'm using the Economy setting so please don't charge me so much? Or will it use less energy - but take longer so it has to be on for longer - to reach the same temperature? Or is it just a magic button that was invented by a genius who worked out how to create energy from nothing? Thus disproving every law of energy there is, I expect.

That's it. And he was employed by the Electricity people who obviously don't want people knowing how to make energy from nothing or they'll be out of business, so they a) bribed him to keep quiet; b) said they'd use it as they have in my fan heater just to keep him happy; c) kidnapped him and even now he is a prisoner in a castle somewhere in deepest Cumbria.

Now for anyone who reads this who thinks I should be working i.e. Husband and Daughter, I'm on my lunch break.

Sorry, I'm dead

A Swansea woman has been caught trying to avoid a speeding fine by writing to the authorities and telling them she was dead.

We breed 'em smart in Swansea.

* * * * * * * * * *

I fear my hair is beginning to look like Peggy Mitchell's. Admittedly hers is blonde and perfectly coiffed while mine ... isn't, but it does seem to have its heart set on adopting a bouffant look.

I might have the bosom for it, but I'm not ready to take over from Barbara yet.

You make my world go round

The absolute best bit of circuit training is the optional five-minute relaxation session at the end of the class.

The trouble is that, since Sunday evening, I've had what I assume is a middle ear infection. This means I get dizzy but only when lying down. Which scuppers relaxation for me. I can do everything else: the cycling, treadmill, weights, boxing. It's just the lying down I can't do.

Husband had the same thing a week or so ago. He reckoned it lasted about seven days. It had better be gone by next Monday: I can't miss another opportunity to relax.

I stopped at the shop on the way home as we're nearly out of bread and milk. People must be laying in for a snow-siege: there was no semi-skimmed milk and only two cartons of whole milk. What they did have though, that I haven't seen for ages is - I think it's sterilised - milk in bottles that go narrow at the top and have a metal lid.

When I was little my gran used to have a pint of it delivered at the weekend to make her milk puddings. Mm, I loved my gran's rice pudding (but hated sago or tapioca). One of my great-grans lived with us; the other was on the other side of Swansea. When we visited her she would give me rice pudding too, but made in her fire stove - I don't know what they're called. A fire you cooked on. The pudding would go in the oven next to the fire and cook very slowly becoming yummy and creamy in the process. I still love rice pudding.

But I'm going off the point. When I went back to the car after buying my milk, a man who was getting out of the car next to me grinned at me. A great big familiar grin. I don't think I knew him. Maybe it was something to do with the fact that I was wearing shorts on what is probably the coldest night of the year so far.

freezing frisbee

Brrr, it's cold this morning. There's a thin veneer of ice on our pond. I know because I've been outside to hang out washing and play frisbee. It's sunny but still, so hanging out the washing is more for the sake of my housewifely spirit than in any hope of it drying.

Holly and I will go walk soon, all wrapped up and Michelin-man-like. Holly won't be wrapped up of course; she doesn't keep still long enough to feel the cold. My hat will serve a dual purpose: keeping my head warm and hiding my hair.

As I was working at home today I decided to let my freshly-washed hair dry naturally. Not one of my better ideas. Hedge and backwards are words that spring to mind.

Have you noticed how often the phrase, 'not one of my better ideas,' crops up on my blog? I wonder if I have ever had a 'better idea'.

... I have been thinking for 5 minutes and cannot remember one.

P.S. I had mistyped working as wortking; Spellchecker asked if I meant to say, 'wort king'. I'm sorry to disappoint Spellchecker but we don't get a lot of wort kings around here.

P.P.S. Do you remember the new dog bed we bought for Harvey for Christmas? The one he couldn't get on? Well, Charlie likes it. I found her stretched out on it, the sun shining in on her, next to the radiator. She was one happy pussycat. Which is unusual for her, little grumpyguts.

Tuesday round-up

On the news the other night an American was speaking about their involvement in Iraq. In the course of the discussion, he mentioned the 'bad guys'. The bad guys? Does he think he's in a John Wayne war film?

It was on the PM news programme and the presenter picked up on it - in a very BBC way - by using the term himself but inserting "quotes" in his voice.

Another commentator on the same report mentioned that the Americans lost 4,500 helicopters in Vietnam (quite careless of them - are they still hiding in the jungle, I wonder) and that, currently the number of lost helicopters in Iraq is only in double figures. So they have a long way to go.

* * * * * * * * * *

Husband finished fitting the new light in our bedroom yesterday. After he'd done the switching on and off bit to make sure it worked, he tapped the metal arm of the fitting. I looked at him. 'Got to check it's not live,' he said.

Can't help feeling there's a fault somewhere in that reasoning.

* * * * * * * * * *

Alun has joined my Fantasy Rugby Team as Tactical Support Consultant. We have worked out a winning team formula for next weekend. It can't fail.

* * * * * * * * * *

On Sunday I was part of the team doing a presentation in the prison. That means that we take the service three times (for different wings).

As well as reading a monologue where I took the part of a drunken Welsh Peter (the disciple), I was doing the intro and link bits. In the third service, after we'd sung the song, Be still, and I'd said something about it, I called Clare up to pray. As she was coming up, I glanced at my order of service, and said, 'Oh, no, we're supposed to sing Be still first.'
She stared at me. 'We've just sung it.'
'Oh, yes. Okay, I'll just sit down now and you can ignore me.'

It was the third time and it was only 11.15 in the morning.

Christmas Holly

Daughter and Son-in-law have gone to Venice for a few days leaving Holly Dog and Charlie Cat in our care. I am puzzled. How is it that they are the ones who have gone and left Holly and I am the one feeling guilty because she's sad?

* * * * * * * * * * *

We had a Christmas card this morning. From my crazy writing buddy. I wondered why he'd asked for my postcode.

* * * * * * * * * *

I have my little fan heater on in the study. Holly is lying in front of it with her ears blowing in the breeze, Titanic-like.

* * * * * * * * * *

POSTSCRIPT
They have amended the score for my Fantasy rugby team; I am now in position 22,796.

Ah well, it's still not going to spoil my fantasies ...

Navel gazing

It's strange how some people can seem to be doing the right thing but can really irritate you and then you realise it's because it's for the wrong reasons. They take on a strut, an arrogance, a listen to me I'm doing all this, aren't I wonderful, so much better than them, stance, that they don't see themselves. Don't see that in so doing, they are becoming exactly like them.

But maybe we're all like that. It's so much easier to see the grit in someone else's eye than the boulder in your own.

One thing in my favour is that I am scrupulously honest with myself. I know exactly what I am doing and, more importantly, why I am doing it. And more often than not I know I'm doing things for the wrong reason. It doesn't stop me; just makes me like myself less.

It's too late for all this befuddled meditation. Sorry.

* * * * * * * * * * *

At Zac's tonight Jenny and I were trying to remember the missing line:

Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
................. pie.
He stuck in his thumb
And pulled out a plum
And said, 'What a good boy am I.'

I had to search the web when I got home. 'Eating his Christmas pie.'

Sexy skin

I'm waiting for a cake to bake.

I might have mentioned Dave, who works with us, and it's his 21st birthday tomorrow. I thought I'd make him a cake. I bought the ingredients and had it all planned and then forgot until 10 o'clock tonight. Which is why I'm sitting here blogging instead of being in bed sleeping.

Having already mentioned, or implied at least, the state of my wardrobe shelf, I wonder if I should tell you about the cupboard above my eye-level oven. Ah well, you probably already have an idea of what sort of woman I am. So, do any of you have the sort of cupboard that necessitates you having to put your hand over your head before opening it ... just in case?

The thing is that I keep all my baking tins above the oven so it's not nice if they fall out. On my head. Or clatter noisily to the floor.

It's not entirely my fault (I am not quite of the faultless generation). Baking tins come in all sorts of shapes and sizes; it's very difficult to stack them neatly.

And I still haven't decided what to do with this chafing dish.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Talking to someone today I discovered that we have a mutual acquaintance in Nigel Jenkins. He is poet with a deep, resonant, Welsh, musical voice.

He was one of the tutors on my writing course and I had occasion to read aloud a short story I had written. It included the phrase 'the skin on the rice pudding', about which Nigel made some comment. Later, talking with other women on the course, we all agreed that we had never realised it was possible for skin on rice pudding to sound sexy.

Who you calling a MUT?

Fiddle. I've been shouting at Harvey because he kept barking for no reason but now he's gone quiet and that means I am going to have get up and go in the kitchen and make sure he is still alive.

He is.

It has been the afternoon for snazzy sports cars to drive past. Our house is on a little sort-of lane just off the main road. there is no reason to drive along it unless you are coming to one of the five or so houses or you are lost. But two cars, both with personal number plates have driven along. The first one was dark blue and had the numberplate G10 GAV: the other one was M11 MUT.

The first one must have been Gavin Henson's car! He plays number 10 (sometimes). but I don't know about the second.

My theory (for them both being along our lane) is that the rugby club are running a treasure hunt that has led them to our house. I can even imagine a clue: what name does Luxembourg's house have?

You see, our house has a name, Lonisa, and a number, 208, which is also the wavelength that Radio Luxembourg used to be - and possibly still is - on.

It works for me.

But I still haven't worked out who MUT is.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I should have stayed out of the kitchen. I disturbed Harvs who is now standing next to me barking.

Before going out this morning, while rummaging in the top shelf of my wardrobe looking for a scarf, I came across a cardigan and a skirt and I am convinced I have never seen either of them before.

The skirt is brand new and still has its shop tag on it. If it wasn't for the fact that it was in a shop carrier bag I would think I had taken up shoplifting in my sleep. I do hope I haven't. Would they accept the fact that I was asleep as a good excuse? I doubt it: they like to 'make examples' of people.

It's not even a nice skirt.

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I was wondering how to label this post.