Lives By The Woods

Flaked out

2012-01-30T18:59:00.000Z

Hello hello hello, no, not dead yet.

I've just not really been in the blogging mindset, I suppose. It's strange, I feel as though nothing interesting enough to share with all you lovely readers is happening in my life, but I don't feel bored or miserable about it.

I have been doing some business-style organising, both for the Big Long Term Business Plan and my interim ongoing dressmaking thing. I had some dressmakers business cards printed by Moo.com - heartily recommended for fast service and nice-looking products - and some fabric sew-in labels for the stuff I make, and I am very pleased with both.

Almost professional, even.

Today, I woke up to snow falling. Outside, I mean. Well, we had the roof fixed in the summer. The weather forecast said that it would have turned to "white cloud" by 10am but it was still falling at 2pm. Perhaps Winter has decided to get its arse into gear, finally.

I prefer to think of it as the weather deities acknowledging that today is my birthday with a splendid, totally organic biodegradable ticker-tape parade for the whole area. Yay, and indeed wahoo.

I had a fine cup of tea in bed, made by the equally fine Mr WithaY, exclaimed delightedly over my lovely presents, then we had bacon sandwiches (in the kitchen, not in bed, that would be far too decadent) while watching the snow falling outside.

After that, Mr WithaY went out to the garage to do stuff with deer*, and I cleaned the kitchen in a slightly frantic and anal pre-Mother-in-law-visit kind of a way.

Yes, Mother-in-law WithaY is coming to visit later in the week, having left the delightfully sunny South of France to visit the damp, cold and now snowy UK for a while. She must be loving it today. We spent a Christmas over there with her one year, and I recall sitting out on a terrace in the warm sunshine, sipping chilled white wine and eating delicious French snacks. On Boxing Day. December the 26th. I think I wore a sleeveless dress and a light cardigan, if memory serves.

It's not like that today. We're going out for tea later, I plan to wear at least five layers for the walk across the village.

Maybe it'll snow some more. If it does, I don't mind. I have a toasty new hot water bottle, thanks to my lovely Mum.

*Nothing dodgy, honest. He's got a proper game dealer license and everything.

Too much information

2012-01-20T13:59:00.000Z

Once again, my car has been a complete and utter pain in the arse.

I went to visit my lovely Mum earlier this week. Just for a day, more or less on a whim, off out for lunch somewhere nice and a chance to chat and catch up. We were both looking forward to it very much.

She has a camellia in full flower in her front garden, incredibly early. Look:

I left home bright and early, driving carefully through a thick frost and threatened (but not actual) snow flurries, and hit the motorway in fine time. The radio was on, the weather was improving with every mile, and all was well with the world.

Until I got to the outskirts of Southampton. The Salisbury side, not the Portsmouth side. That's approximately the halfway point on the the journey, in terms of time, if not mileage.

At that point, me chugging along in the middle lane of the motorway, the needle on my car's speedometer started acting oddly. First it bounced up and down, as if in time to the music. I watched it with cold foreboding, wondering if I was perhaps kangarooing along without noticing. Nope, still cruising along at about 75.

The it dropped to 0. No miles per hour. I knew this was wrong, as I was overtaking a slower-moving lorry at the time, and he was doing at least 45.

My heart rate compensated though, and climbed steadily as I continued to drive along the motorway, now without the benefit of speed indication.

Every now and again the needle flickered, bouncing up to 10 or 20mph, then gave up and sank back to 0. The remainder of the drive was stressful.

Unfortunately, I was so stressed by this that I ended up cutting my visit shorter than I had planned so as to drive home in daylight, which I felt would be safer. A few miles into the return trip I had to brake sharply at a roundabout (thanks, insensate old man in the silver Audi, you know who you are) at which point the needle jerked back into life for the remainder of the journey home.

Rather than travel all the way back to the Toyota garage which recently replaced the turbo - £1500 thank you very much indeed - I took it to the local 4x4 garage in town. They diagnosed and repaired the problem within an hour, all for less than £50. Apparently there was "dirt on the speedo sensor" and once they'd taken it apart and cleaned it, everything was fine.

It made a refreshing change from "Aaaaah yes, we know about this. It's a known fault...Toyota did offer a free repair for this but you missed it by a month/100 miles/a roll of the random Dice of Fate. Sorry about that. That'll be four billion pounds please."

I have had speedo issues before, but that time they were much less straightforward to fix.

All's well that ends well. I have a car that tells me how fast it's going, and I am still able to afford the thin gruel and dry bread that Mr WithaY and I are subsisting on now that we're both unemployed.

Actually, I was wondering about this. Am I technically "unemployed" when I am not registered as such, or actively seeking work, or claiming unemployment money?

I did apply for a job recently. It didn't go well.

I mentioned it a while ago - a local, part-time job. Only a couple of days a week,and not even full days. Low money, but really easy to fit in around other stuff, and the opportunity to meet people on a regular basis. It sounded quite handy, so I filled in an online application form and waited to hear from them. The next day I had a phone call from their HR department, inviting me for an interview.

Readers, the next time I am at an interview for what is basically a part-time cleaning job, I won't mention developing and delivering secondary legislation to a tight timescale when asked "Can you give me an example of when you were under pressure at work?" Or managing a billion pound contract replacement project, when asked to give an example of working in a team. Or talk about briefing hostile high-profile stakeholders when asked to give an example of dealing with people I didn't get on with.

Ah well.

I was told that I would hear from them within seven to ten days. I think they'd sent the rejection email before I actually left the premises.

Ear slugs

2012-01-16T14:32:00.001Z

It seems as though winter has remembered what it's supposed to be doing, and we have had a much colder couple of days over the weekend. Heavy frost, even. Alright for me, I was snug at home with an abundant supply of tea, cake and duvets. Mr WithaY, on the other hand, was living in the woods for a week, sleeping in a hand-made bender for at least one night.

Not, as I hoped, a wooden facsimile of the wise-cracking Futurama star, but a rude shelter crafted from sticks and tarpaulins. Apparently it was "bloody cold" and a slug fell in his ear. He said he removed it "immediately" which was a relief.

Ah, life in the wild. I'm glad I'm only BY the woods, and not actually attempting to live in them.

Ah, slugs.

Years ago, when I was living in my teeny little student house in Winchester, Mr WithaY used to come and visit at weekends. One night, one chilly damp night, I asked him to fetch me a glass of water from the kitchen. The kitchen was downstairs, and it got visited by slugs. I had stuffed all the cracks and ingress holes I could find with paper to try and keep them out. I had put salt on the floor to stop them coming in. I had even, on the advice of a probably mental friend, put garlic on the floor to offend the slimy bastards.

Nothing worked, and most mornings I came downstairs to find slug trails all over the place...on the floor, up the walls, on the windows...it was revolting.

This particular night, Mr WithaY scampered downstairs to fetch the glass of water (he was young and in love, so was eager to please) and I heard an anguished cry of "Oh God NOOOOOOOO!"

I knew exactly what he'd trodden on with his bare feet.

I've been busy while he's been away, which has been very pleasant. I hadn't realised quite how easy it could be to become isolated when you don't go out to work, and a few days of bad weather can make it very miserable. Luckily for me, there are some fab people living in the village who don't mind me popping in to drink their tea and eat their biscuits every now and again.

Apart from socialising, I have been sewing. And knitting. And baking. I made a chocolate cake as I had a mate coming over for tea one day, and it worked rather excellently, though I say so myself. It's a cake with no flour in it, so it is potentially very mousse-y if you undercook it, but even if you do that, it's lovely. It's made with dark chocolate and butter melted together, and sugar, eggs and vanilla, whisked up till it's huge and fluffy, all mixed together, then baked in the oven. Nom nom nom.

I might make some more this week.

I've also been pruning things in the garden. Roses, the crabapple tree and the flowering trees at the side of house have all been chopped up tidily to within an inch of their lives. Hopefully they'll all revive in time for the Spring. We've already got a crocus in flower in the lawn, which is ridiculously early, and the snowdrops in sheltered corners are in flower.

Business developments are creeping along, but I'd rather we get everything sorted out now than discover in 3 months time that we didn't make the right decision, and have to start again.

...Written on the back of my hand

2012-01-10T14:19:00.002Z

Ah, the cold harsh light of the new year shines into the cobwebby filth of my brain, much like the sunshine streaming through the windows and highlighting the cobwebs festooned across the ceilings.

Mr WithaY and I have recovered from the horrible snotfest that began immediately after Christmas, and are getting on with New Year stuff. In his case, this has been attending an interview (successful, yay) and making more excellent bushcraft stuff.

Look, he made these:

Moccasins, made to an authentic pattern, hand-stitched out of elk skin*.

They're a lot better than my dire iPhone photography would indicate. Plus he looks like Will Ferrell in Elf when he wears them.

I've been sorting out my burgeoning dressmaking business, although I think calling it a "business" is optimistic. But regardless, I've ordered some business cards and fabric labels to sew into stuff I make, which is a start. Oh, and I've registered myself as "self employed" with the fine people at Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, so I have to pay my own National Insurance for the first time in my working life. I have no idea how to do that, perhaps a plain brown envelope full of cash through their letterbox once a week?

The other BIG ongoing long-term business plan is still in early stages, but I am quietly optimistic about it.

As part of the whole "enjoying the new way of life" mindset we are actively cultivating, last week we had a big day out in Salisbury. It's a rare treat these days, and it was fab.

We had lunch at Wagamamas, nom nom nom, picked up some bargains in the sales, and went to the pictures to see the new Sherlock Holmes film.

When I say "bargains" I mean "things we intended to buy anyway but found at a vastly reduced price", not "random things we bought because they were cheap." In my book, buying something you didn't already know you needed is not bargain shopping, it's wild and crazy impulse buying, a very different animal.

One of the bargains I found was a new pair of trainers/outdoor shoes, which were reduced by £50. Result. But even better than that, the young man who sold them to me had a Story To Tell. I noticed he sported the remains of what had clearly been a spectacular black eye.

Me: That must have been a spectacular black eye.

Nice Young Man: Yes! Yes, it really was. *laughs* I got it on New Year's Eve.

Me: Oh no!

NYM: Yes, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yeah....Bristol...

He stared off into space for a moment like a war veteran remembering the day they lost the company commander and the flag and all their rations.

Me: Oh dear. What happened?

NYM: Well, we were in a pub in the wrong part of town, it turned out. There were blokes betting in the pub, big stacks of £20 notes all over the table. (Note - this is illegal in the UK, so clearly a dodgy pub if it was going on in full public view.) Anyway, one of the blokes must have thought he was being cheated because a huge full-scale bar-room brawl broke out! One minute we were having a quiet drink, the next minute there's pool balls flying across the room!

Me: Wow! What did you do?

NYM: Legged it.

I took my new shoes and left, greatly cheered by his tale of drunken Bristolian idiots walloping each other.

Other news: Mr WithaY has traded up and got himself an iPhone. Yesterday afternoon, I was fortunate enough to be party to the long and infinitely complex "Transferring of the Phone Number" ritual.

When I did it, there was one step - ring O2 and say "please will you transfer my phone number to the new SIM card that is going into my iPhone?" and it took about 6 minutes in total.

When Mr WithaY did it, it was like watching an ancient and venerated ceremony, the kind invented by monks living in a remote mountain monastary, where time passes slowly and they like to fill their days keeping busy.

Step 1: Ring O2 on the landline. (Important Note: We have no mobile reception in our house.) Ask them to transfer the old number to the new SIM card. Explain why you have called them on the landline, not the mobile.

Step 2: Provide O2 with the old phone number.

Step 3: Provide O2 with some verification that the number is actually yours. They generally ask for the amount of credit you have on your account, which you can obtain from your phone by pressing a combination of keys, including the STAR key. (Important Note: The STAR key on Mr WithaY's phone doesn't work. )

Step 4: Take landline phone and mobile phone into front garden to try and get a signal on the mobile, while trying to make the broken STAR key work to get the outstanding credit balance.

Step 5: Inform the O2 helpdesk that there is barely any battery left in the mobile now. (Important Note: Mr WithaY lost the phone charger several weeks ago, which was one of the reasons he decided to trade up to an iPhone. That and the broken STAR key.)

Step 6: Have long, increasingly stressful discussion with the helpful O2 person to explain that you can't get your outstanding balance figure from your phone because the STAR key doesn't work and you have no signal anyway. And the battery is about to run out.

Step 7: O2 person tries a different verification question and asks which numbers you dial the most often on your mobile. Try to remember, before finally giving them a number. They then tell you that that number has not been called recently enough to be used as verification.

Step 8: The O2 supervisor is called in to the conversation.

Step 9: Send a text to the "frequently called" number to validate your claim that you use it often. This entails another trip into the front garden to try and pick up a mobile signal, clutching two phones, trying to text before the battery dies completely.

Step 10: Success! Your number has been transferred. And it only took an hour and a half.

Step 11: Have a nice cup of tea and a sit-down.

Step 12: Spend the rest of the afternoon dicking about with your shiny new iPhone. Marvellous.

Other, other news: I am drafting some patterns for Medieval clothing which I have been asked to make. A jacket and a sleeveless waistcoat-y type jacket (pourpoint?), to be exact. Anyone with any advice or practical experience on this matter, please feel free to share.

*He didn't shoot the elk. Turns out you can buy elk hides online. Who knew?

Working for the Man (possibly)

2012-01-04T17:34:00.001Z

Happy New Year to everyone. 2012 looks to be a big year - the Olympics, the Golden Jubilee, me starting a new business, Mr WithaY starting a new business - it'll be hectic.

Although I think my personal input into the Olympics will be minimal. And the Golden Jubilee, now I think of it. Hopefully the businesses will take up a lot of my time.

It's still a tad too early to talk about in detail, but I am really hoping we get stuff signed this month and then I can start boring the collective arses off everyone with dull details.

There is little news of note from this neck of the woods. Mr WithaY went down with a heavy cold on Boxing Day and is still making alarming snot-based noises on a regular basis. I have a much less revolting version of the cold, but am still having to sneeze loudly about once every 20 minutes, and live in fear of Being Without A Tissue. Our elegant home is currently festooned with boxes of tissues, placed on every flat surface, within easy grabbing reach.

We use Kleenex Balsam, which are very good, and stop your nose getting sore.

Also, if Kleenex want to send me some free boxes of tissues* in return for my charming and entirely unsolicited testimonial, I am happy to accept. Email me, Kleenex PR team, I await your offers.

The weather here has been appalling for the last few days. Lashing rain, howling gales, dark and gloomy and stormy. Yesterday morning we had planned to go to Salisbury for a bit of mooching round looking for bargains in the sales, possibly with a brunch trip to Patisserie Valerie thrown in, but when we got up it was so truly terrifying out there that we decided to stay home instead. Seriously. You couldn't see across the road, the rain was so heavy. And it was coming in sideways. Some of the garden furniture was blown over by the gale force winds. A first, in my experience.

I decided to make a cake instead. Cunningly using up leftover bananas that were too black and squidgy to eat by hand, I made a banana and walnut loaf. And some sausage rolls, as I had some sausage-meat left over from before Christmas. Don't panic, it had been in the freezer, and was defrosted properly.

I used the last little bit of pastry** to make a cheese and pine-nut tart, a recipe I invented out of my head. I have no idea what it tastes like. Mr WithaY and I are having a sort of Mexican standoff about it, neither wanting to be the first to crack and try it.

Oh, and this morning I had a job interview. It's for a very small part time job a couple of minutes drive away for a few hours a week, but will:

a) Earn me a pittance

b) Get me out of the house and interacting with other people on a regular basis again

c) Give me something to think about other than "Gahhhhhhh I have no money why is everything taking so long to set up with the business recession recession recession insurance electrician advertising I need to sort out tax and National Insurance with an accountant..." and so on, which is what endlessly flickers through my brain just at the moment.

I fancy doing a job that doesn't give me a blinding headache whenever I think about it, and that I can stop thinking about as I leave, rather than taking it with me wheresoe'er I travel, like a millstone of unfocussed anxiety around my neck.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Oh, also, Mr WithaY bought me Skyrim for Christmas. Anyone got any helpful top tips for not being killed every 5 minutes? Thank you.

*Or money

**There's always a bit left over, and I can't bear to throw it away when I've made it myself.

Godzilla service pack

2011-12-31T19:41:00.001Z

I've got several blog posts sitting in the Drafts folder, started, then abandoned, like a too-big sandwich that you thought you could manage, but it turned out you couldn't.

There are several reasons for this, including the old favourites "utter laziness", "lack of enthusiasm for the subject matter that is my life" and of course "distracted by watching a film on TV and forgetting all about the blog."

Additional reasons which are slightly less dull and objectionable include:

Christmas. I know it happens at the same time every year, but even so. Things were busy, what with going out a fair bit, and enjoying spending time at home with Mr WithaY and various friends who have been calling in to visit. A couple of Mr WithaY's former colleagues called in the week before Christmas for tea and mince pies, and it was very nice to hear about how shite things are in the office. Mr WithaY was able to enjoy the gossip and then sigh happily to think that he is well out of all that madness now.

We had a party. It was successful, in that all the food was eaten (and I think enjoyed), nobody left in a high dudgeon (as far as I know) and nothing got smashed. Well, only a few of the guests. In fact, that felt like the start of Christmas, and things have been mostly very nice ever since.

However.

The night of our party, ten minutes before the guests started to arrive, we had a phone call from a very dear friend. His wife, another very dear friend, had been gravely ill following a heart attack. Horrible. We'd been informed of this by her brother a few days earlier, so were already anxious. Anyway, her husband rang us to let us know that there had been more tests run, including an MRI scan, and that the results were devastatingly bad. In fact, he all but said that they were now just waiting for the end. Well, fuck. We (me, Mr WithaY and our recently-married mate who was staying with us for the party) had a stiff drink, I had a bit of a cry, and then we had to put on our best smiley faces and greet our guests.

All things considered, it was a very good party, but it was a bit weird. At one point I went and sat outside on the bench in the front garden and looked at the stars, and had a surreptitious little weep (I had been drinking a fair bit, if that's any mitigation) but other than that, it all went well.

Recent news of our friend's progress is fractionally encouraging, but not much. We're waiting to see what happens.

The traditional Christmas Cold has made its annual appearance too. Mr WithaY succumbed to it on Boxing Day, and since then has spent his time wrapped in many, many layers of fleece and wool, taking Beechams and accruing a huge mound of balsam tissues on the floor beside him, which then get ritualistically thrown on the fire, in a sort of Viking burial for germs. I thought I'd got away with it until today.

I have not got away with it, however, and today I am developing my very own germ Valhalla mound.

Also, I got my car back this week. It had a broken turbo, it turned out, and as a result I had to spend £1500 to get it fixed. Fucking Toyota parts.

For that kind of money, I want my new turbo personally delivered by Godzilla. On a bed of carefully-sliced fugu fish. With a band of high-ranking Samurai warriors as escort.

They should do that. Call it the "Godzilla Service Pack." I'd buy it.

Anyhoo, the car is running well again, and if I felt less shite I dare say I'd go out in it.

So, Happy New Year to you all. Thank you for taking the time to read and sometimes comment on my blog, I appreciate it very much.

I'd still write it, but it's more fun knowing there's an audience out there.

Decorated

2011-12-20T09:33:00.003Z

Christmas is almost here! I'm excited, which is nice. The last couple of years have been slightly odd. Two years ago we barely celebrated at all, what with all the SSFH* crap that we had to deal with, and last year we both had heavy colds and chest infections, but this year (so far) we are both hale and hearty, and looking forward to the festive season.

I've been very busy Making Things, which has been both productive and enjoyable. I have made (in no particular order):

1) About a gallon of Christmas spiced cranberry and port preserve, containing cranberries, oranges, apples, sugar and port. And spices. Nom nom nom.

2) A beautiful rose out of wired parcel ribbon, which I just made up as I went along, and was very pleased with. In a gesture of largesse, I gave it to one of Mr WithaY's mates who had popped in quickly for something one evening. He took it graciously, if bemusedly, and said he'll put it in his Landrover. So that was nice.

3) A huge and delicious fruit salad, containing cherries, pineapple, grapes, blueberries, mandarins, peaches, lychees and figs. It was splendid, though I say so myself.

The fruit salad was to take to my lovely Mum's house, as we had the tradtional pre-Christmas family gathering last weekend.

London Niece's birthday is around this time of year, so we all met up to celebrate that, and to exchange Christmas presents and cards, and to see each other before the holidays really got under way. It was lovely, if noisy, everyone was looking well** and looking forward to Christmas. We ate and drank and pulled crackers and popped party poppers, and had birthday cake.

The cake was interesting.

As we didn't have the required number of small candles (16), there was a blinding display of ingenuity, and this was the result:

Thirteen, plus two, plus one. A maths lesson AND a cake.

Previous birthday cake entertainment involving candles can be found here.

4) The manga-stylee frock, which was London Niece's birthday present. Readers, though I say so myself, it turned out rather well.

I had suggested that the best way to create it was if a top of the correct size was bought, sent to me, and I would make the skirt to match. Which is what I did. In the picture I was sent, the character has more decoration on the front of the top, but I left that off, as the top already had sequins all over the front, and adding anything else might have looked a bit weird.

Anyhoo, London Niece was very pleased.

The amount of swearing involved in making those ruffles though....gah. It would have made a sailor blush.

Other news: My car is broken again. It's the same problem it had a few weeks ago - when you put your foot down there's a dramatic loss of acceleration, and the Engine Warning light comes on.

I took it to a local garage who ran a diagnostic check (£58 thank you very much) and returned it to me with the diagnosis "There's something wrong with the turbo. Or maybe the electrics. You should take it back to the Toyota garage"

Thanks.

I took it back to the Toyota garage last Friday morning. I rang the Toyota garage yesterday (Monday) morning to ask if they had any idea when I could have my car back.

They said they'd have a chat with the chaps in the workshop and ring me later. At ten to five that night they rang.

They hadn't found the problem, but it's something to do with the turbo. Probably. Did I want to come and collect my car?

I declined, on the grounds that if it was still broken there wasn't much point me driving all the way back here, then taking it all the way back there again in a day or two.

Gah.

In other, more cheerful, news, we have put our Christmas tree up and it looks lovely. This is the top half.

Our decorations include the Christmas Lobster. He has a teeny sprig of holly in one claw.

There's also the Christmas Hunter, complete with hound and dead deer.

And the Christmas Lobster Pots.

And the more traditional glass reindeer.

Awww.

*Shit Storm From Hades, now thankfully very much behind us.

**Except poor Youngest Sis - hope your back is feeling better!

Flouncing about

2011-12-10T09:08:00.000Z

It's a bracing 11 degrees in my study this morning. Mmmmm. Fresh.

Yesterday afternoon, around 2pm, I was sitting in here, pleating ruffles for a funky dress I am making. London Niece asked me to make her a costume to wear to some Manga convention, and helpfully emailed me pictures of the relevant character to work from:

I'm not making the umbrella, hat, boots or creepy ghost thingy. Just the frock.

Anyhoo.

Radio 4 Extra was on; I think I was listening to a Sherlock Holmes dramatisation. Well, that's what always seems to be on Radio 4 Extra. That and endless dull dramatisations of twentieth-century political novels I've never read. Oh, and Elvenquest. I like Elvenquest.

So, as I said, I was sitting in here, pleating miles and miles of black satin, and I thought "Hmm, it's getting a bit chilly now. I'll put the heating on a couple of hours early."

Normally our heating only comes on for an hour or so in the morning, just before getting-up time, and then again at teatime until bedtime*.

So, I scampered downstairs, pressed the Advance switch on the boiler, made a cup of tea and scampered back up here. Another half-hour, and more Sherlock Holmes, passed. I realised I was still chilly - the tea masked that for a while - and felt the radiator. Stone cold.

Hmm.

Did I press the wrong button on the boiler? Not the first time I'd have done so, if I had. Back down to the kitchen, and a proper look at the boiler control panel.

All the correct lights were on. I ran the hot tap and ensured that there was hot water. Yep. Checked the oil tank sensor thingy. Yep, still loads of oil there. I pressed the heating button uselessly a few more times, then dug out the "Welcome to your new boiler" booklet that lives in among the cobwebby filth at the bottom of the boiler cupboard.

I read all the "Troubleshooting" advice, then tried everything they suggested. The options were limited, to be fair. I had to turn the hot water and heating temperature dials up to MAXIMUM POWER and listen for the burners igniting.

It was like the launch of the space shuttle.

The burners ignited with a satisfying THUMPFWOOOOOOSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH but there was nothing going on with the radiators.

Fuck.

I rang the boiler people and after a 20 minute wait on hold, interrupted by repeated attempts to make me go to the Internet, I got through to a helpful lady.

She listened to my babbling account of the problem - I suspect the only thing she was really interested in was my address and credit card details - but she made sympathetic noises and assured me that a repair man would be here on Saturday. I asked when. Oh, any time between 0800 and 1600.

Fantastic.

After that, I went out to the impossibly awkwardly-placed log pile in the shed and managed to scavenge a basket of firewood. We have far too many sheds. You'd think at least one of them would be easy to use, wouldn't you? The log shed (formerly the dog shed) has our supply of firewood in it. I discovered yesterday that it has a leaky roof, and that Mr WithaY has rigged up a complex system of boards and tarpaulins inside the shed to keep the wood dry.

Unfortunately it makes it almost impossible to reach the log pile. I perched atop flimsy boards and slippery tarpaulin, grabbing at logs randomly, feeling the whole heap move each time I removed something. It was like playing Extreme Jenga.

It added an element of excitement to a routine chore, I suppose.

So. I lit the fire in the sitting room at about 4pm, as it was getting dark and cold, and then sat there like a Victorian miser, doling additional firewood out according to a complex calculation involving the amount of heat required, estimated duration of log burn, critical mass of fire needed to retain structural integrity and number of logs left in the basket to last me the evening.

I went to bed at 9pm, cheered by the thought that I have a hot water bottle in the back of a cupboard. I was going to fill it from the hot tap in the bathroom, wrap it in a small towel and a pillowcase, then snuggle in bed under a duvet and a heap of blankets, watching TV till I was sleepy.

I may even have hummed a happy tune as I filled my hot water bottle, after running the hot tap for ages to ensure maximum warmth. I screwed the lid on and turned it upside down over the sink to shake out the water in the neck of the bottle. Water poured from a myriad of tiny holes all over the bloody thing.

It's old. It's rubber. It's perished.

Fuck.

I went to bed in a bit of a sulk and contented myself with posting grumpy and petulant messages on Facebook, watching TV and finding extra blankets.

Mr WithaY is away on his bushcraft course this week. Every time he goes away in the winter the boiler plays up. Every bloody time.

Anyway, the boiler man rang me at 0730 to tell me he was on his way, and he is currently up to his ears in the boiler cupboard, fixing it.

In fact, update, he has finished, and the heating is back on.

So ignore the above.

Sorry about that.

*You should see our clocks. No numbers involved.

Extra long honkers

2011-12-02T17:33:00.001Z

I've been looking at some of the search terms people have used to get to my blog. Many of them are as you might expect - "home made cake," "lives in the woods," "extraordinarily talented unpublished authors of the twenty-first century" - but some are just utterly pure genius bonkers.

For example:

Elven tea. As far as I know I have never offered recipes for any elven food or beverages, certainly not tea. Perhaps I ought to start a cookery suggestions section for all the non-human races. Elven tea. Gnome quiche. Orc battenburg. Troll eclairs. Fairy cakes. Heh. I do remember ranting about the bastard elves in Iceland who threaten to break your legs if you upset them. Maybe that's what they were looking for.

god for harry. Marvellous. I am attracting semi-literate people who are keen on Shakespeare. Or Kenneth Branagh. Or who are frantically researching Henry V for their homework, up against a deadline. Either way, hello, non-capitalising culture fans. Bet this wasn't what you were looking for, eh?

have a proper cold. I like that this sounds like an order. For goodness sake, stop sniffling and whining and just have a proper cold, can't you? Sheesh. No, blood pouring from your ears doesn't count. Nor does the broken bone poking through your shin. Come back when you have a temperature, blocked sinuses and a red shiny nose, not before. Timewaster.

Yellow circles malta bird intrigues me. I can't imagine what that person is looking for. If it was you, please drop a comment and tell me. I bet you were mighty pissed off when all you found were photos of my terrible tie-dyed sheets and some holiday snaps of Malta. Fool.

Dalek blown up toilet seat is another mystery. Dalek, yes. Toilet seat, yes. Both of those subjects have made at least one appearance on here. Both together? Unlikely. Mental.

Extra long honkers. This one made me laugh out loud, and I Googled it myself. All I found out was that it refers to one of the magazines read by Scruffy the Janitor in Futurama, along with "Zero G Juggs." Don't say you never learn anything here. It could also possibly be referring to the many and varied duck/goose decoy honkers which I have commented on in the past. However, I prefer to imagine disappointed cartoon porn magazine seekers finding this blog, and becoming interested in cake and car problems despite themselves.

Look, the hilarious picture of honkers that I took waaaaaay back when we were in Maine last summer, remember? Yeah you do.

In other news: Business plans are gathering pace, to the extent that I am going to be in touch with an accountant next week. More news once stuff is signed. But it's all very exciting.

Dressing up

2011-11-28T11:13:00.001Z

This morning I woke up to the first proper frost of the winter. We were out for dinner last night with friends* and walking home, the stars were beautiful. One of the many benefits of living out here is that (assuming the pub and petrol station turn off their exterior lights when they close) we have dark skies, and can enjoy the stars.

I always wish I knew more about the stars, without actually wanting to do anything so pedestrian as study them, so I point out the constellations I know (Orion, the Plough, Cassiopeia....um.....possibly the Dragon, the Pleiadies) and then have to content myself with sighing in an affected manner and saying trite things like "Gosh, there are so many of them. Aren't they lovely?"

According to Wikipedia (and when is the Internet ever wrong, eh?) there are 88 modern constellations. I can recognise 4, possibly 5. That's not a good average, even allowing for the fact that I can't see the ones in the Southern Hemisphere.

I note with interest that the stars that make up the Dragon are located within The Black Tortoise Of The North in Chinese skies. I like that name. It sounds like it ought to belong to a really crap pirate, renowned for his lassitude and inability to catch anyone he chases across the high seas. With a wrinkly neck, and an inordinate fondness for grapes and lettuce.

This week is an exciting one, as it is likely to be when we find out if the planned new business venture can go ahead as we want, or whether we will have to go to Plan B, or even Plan C. I don't even know if we have a Plan C, to be honest.

I'm trying hard not to get too excited about things, at least until we have stuff on paper in a legal manner, but it's really tempting to start planning things and deciding what would be best to do when we get the go-ahead.

This week is also the start of a new sewing project. My London Niece has asked me to make her an outfit based on a Manga comic character, so this weekend we chose the fabric and made the necessary measurements. It will involve a shitload of frills. It's years since I made anything that wasn't "ordinary" so this will be good practice.

Mr WithaY wants me to make him a set of Elizabethan clothing, and possibly some Regency and Medieval stuff too, so I need to get my eye back in. I like a challenge, me.

At the weekend, whilst Middle Sis and London Niece were visiting, we all went out for a curry. The curry house we go to is a way away, on the main road between here and Salisbury.It used to be a Little Chef restaurant, so it's huge, and never feels crowded, which I like. I also like the fact that the old elephant-shaped slide out the front has now been decorated to look like an Indian ceremonial elephant, complete with gold paint and eye-liner.

We ate a fine meal, paid the bill and were walking out to the car. There was a shout behind us, and the restaurant owner burst out through the doors, scampering after us. We all stopped, wondering if we'd forgotten a coat, or perhaps under-tipped, and were about to get the business end of a curry ladle.

No. He was mortified that he hadn't been by the front door to wish us a goodnight, and thank us for coming. Apparently he'd been in the kitchen, supervising a "complicated dish" and had missed us leaving. He shook our hands, said a fulsome goodnight, and we went on our way. What a nice chap.

Other news: I made ginger cake from a recipe in my Great British Baking book. Readers, it was excellent. On a not entirely unrelated note, I weighed myself this morning and was mortified to discover that I have got heavier. It may be partly due to my gym visits, muscle weighs more than fat, blah blah blah, but I have a nasty feeling it has more to do with my fondness for cramming cake into my fat face.

*Hello Sarah!

Spendthrift

2011-11-24T12:27:00.001Z

I have my PC back. Hurrah.

It is much faster, the graphics are excellent and the box it's now in looks like something that would be capable of commanding a primitive civilisation on a distant planet if the fancy took it.

When I took the old computer in to the shop, the nice man talked me through the various things he would so to it. He was very keen to let me know how expensive a new graphics card could be, and went over the options several times.

He asked me how much I was "wanting to spend" on the upgrade. My honest answer would of course be "Nothing, you buffoon," but I had to lie.

He ran through the list of what needed doing, adding the approximate cost of each element. It came to - worst case scenario - about £500.

Are you ok if it goes up to about 500 pounds? he asked me. I agreed. Well, having just had all the component parts and associated costs explained thoroughly, it seemed unlikely that he would suddenly offer to do all the work for a lot less.

Cut to a few days later, and a telephone call from the computer shop.

Nice computer shop man: Hello! Your PC is ready for collection.

Me: Oh excellent. I'll pop into town and pick it up in a little while. How much will it be?

NCSM: £500.

Me: Really. £500 exactly?

NCSM: Yep, although I'll do £475 for cash.

Me: Hmm. Well, I'll be there shortly.

I didn't have cash, so it was a convenient, non-itemised £500 in total. What a strange coincidence, it costing the exact same amount as the maximum I'd said I was prepared to pay. Good job I hadn't said "Oh, no limit..."

I'd probably have had to sell the house, all my guitars and a kidney. Actually, I would have left my PC there and gone to buy a new one. Just for spite.

In other absurdly-expensive news, my car needed some work doing to it this week. Mr WithaY and I were on our way home from running a few errands in town on Saturday, Mr WithaY was driving my car. As we went up the little hill out of town, the car lurched and struggled, then lost all acceleration. The "engine warning " light came on.

"Fuck!" we both said in unison, as Mr WithaY pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

We sat there for a moment or two, then Mr WithaY started the engine again. The warning light stayed off, this time. We continued home, where I rang the Toyota garage.

Remember them? Remember when my flywheel was playing up and I had to spend over TWO THOUSAND POUNDS getting it fixed? And Toyota declined to contribute towards the cost, even though it was a known fault, because I missed the extended warranty deadline by a matter of days?

I bloody do.

Anyway, the garage said they'd look at my car on Monday. We dropped it off, and a few hours later the garage rang. They said they'd found the problem with the fuel - a stuck *tech* valve - which was making it lose power. They'd also given the car a "visual safety check" and discovered that one of the rear wheel bearings was "alarmingly worn." Arse.

So, the optimistic "bit of dirt in the fuel line that will cost about 20 quid to sort out" scenario which I had been developing in my head turned into the "costly and unexpected yet vital repairs that cost over 500 quid" scenario which nobody ever wants.

On the plus side, I have my car back and it doesn't seem to be about to expire in a gasping haze of smoke, or have a wheel drop off as I go round corners. Which is nice.

Other news: Business plans are developing, and as soon as I have something in writing I will start to explain in more detail. Until then, it feels like tempting fate to talk about it.

Problem in Engineering

2011-11-17T15:38:00.001Z

I'm writing today's instalment of quasi-realism on my old laptop. Blimey it's slow.

The keyboard is all bouncy. And the screen's quite small. And it's noisy.

Other than that, though, it's great.

The reason for this trip to my technological past? My PC is in the shop for refurbishment, having its innards tweaked, upgraded, be-jiggered and finally put back into a funky new case, large enough to contain the enormous new graphics card that it apparently now needs.

I wanted to get my system upgraded, as I had started to get error messages - you know the sort - that helpfully informed me 10 seconds before my PC froze solid that all was not well. Sometimes, for a nice change, I'd get the error message when I rebooted the machine, shortly after it had frozen solid, leaving me swearing at a black screen and a dead keyboard.

Gah. Technology.

Once again, as I plod wearily through the 21st Century, I ask an uncaring universe why life is not more like Star Trek. I was promised a glorious, robot-filled future. Where is it? Where's my personal replicator? Where's my teleport system? Where's my inter-galactic space vehicle? Eh?

Nowhere, that's where.

In Star Trek, when something technical goes wrong, the Captain calls for an update from Engineering. Engineering reply immediately, shouting through clouds of steam, sparks flying, people being buffeted across the room by wildly flailing cables in the background. It's mayhem down there.

The Captain will demand to know what the problem is. Engineering always know, or at the very least have a working theorem which turns out to be correct. The Captain will ask how long it will take to fix whatever the problem is. Engineering always have an oddly specific estimate to give the Captain, usually a few hours. In a crisis situation they might tell him something like "It'll take us at least seventeen and a half minutes, Sir...."

And sure enough, the problem is fixed within the timeframe, disaster is averted and they carry on about their business.

To summarise: Problem is identified. Solution is identified. Solution is implemented. Problem is resolved. Tea and medals all round.

It's not like that in real life.

I put my PC on the counter in the computer shop, and the nice man looked at it speculatively. It's four years old, which in computer terms makes it not quite a vintage classic, but certainly past its best.

Computer shop man: Soooo....what do you want doing with this?

Me: It needs a graphics upgrade, and possibly some more RAM? I don't know, it's got really slow and laggy, and I keep getting graphics-related error messages.

CSM: Hmm. Let's have a look inside.

He removed the case and revealed a hellish filth-pit full of precariously-slotted-in computer parts and dust bunnies. It was disgusting in there.

Me: Oh no, look how dirty it is! I'm sorry about that.

CSM: Nah, I've seen a lot worse. Hmm, you've got a *tech* operating system in here so if I add more *tech* it won't make much difference. How about if I *tech* *tech* tech* and then it will do *tech* and *tech*?

Me: Um. Sure. Yeah.

CSM: And you don't need more RAM, but you DO need more power. To supply the new graphics card. Otherwise it will *tech*, and you won't want that.

He pulled the memory card thingies out and waved them around, wafting clouds of filth and dust bunnies over both of us.

Me: Oh. Sure. Yeah. (Nodding wisely) Power. Mhmmm.

CSM: You've got a good size hard disk, and the current RAM will be fine. So, just the graphics card and a new power supply? Oh, and I'll reload the operating system to speed things up. That'll make it *tech* and *tech*, much better.

Me: (relieved and slightly bored now) Yes, lovely, thank you. That'll be fine, I'm sure.

CSM: But the new card is pretty big. I don't know if it'll fit in this.

He indicated my computer with a dismissive finger as he said "this."

Me: Um. What?

He went across to the window display and pulled a huge graphics card out of the artfully arranged heap of techno-parts designed to lure passers-by into the shop.

CSM: See this? If I install one of these, it won't fit.

He put the posh new graphics card next to my poor old PC, and waggled it about, demonstrating how deficient my machine was in terms of space.

It doesn't have a downstairs toilet or a conservatory, his gesture seemed to say. The bedrooms are too small. The stairs are cramped and dingy. And that kitchen...how can you bear it?

I may be reading too much into his waggling, of course.

Anyway, I agreed to have a new, larger case, and any of the old computer insides which survive the new regime will be slotted into it, along with the giant greedy graphics card, which I have no doubt will be ruling the roost, hogging the comfy chair and the remote control, demanding cups of tea and biscuits, gloating about its posh new power supply unit at the meek RAM, over in their squalid little corner.

At least there won't be any dust bunnies in there with them all. For a while.

So. In the meantime, I am back on my laptop.

I asked how long it would take to perform all these miracles of techno-rejuvination, and was told "Hmmm, a few days. Probably five or six working days, as I need to test everything thoroughly." He fixed me with a basilisk stare as he said "Thoroughly."

It's not like that in Star Trek. NOTHING gets tested. That's why the shields fail after one shot is fired at them, every single time.

Other news: I am pleased to report that Mr WithaY had a fab time at his bushcraft training course last week, and is sitting in his study as I type, busily writing up his homework for the next module. He was very pleased that he passed the "make fire with your bare hands and a bunch of twigs and other materials scavenged from the soaking wet forest floor" test. Apparently not everyone did, unfortunately.

I've been cooking new things this week, as I was getting bored with my repertoire of meals. Today I made a huge fish pie, containing salmon (which was on offer in Morrisons), smoked trout (caught by Mr WithaY and smoked by a local smokehouse) and prawns (from the freezer, can't remember where we got them from,)in a white sauce, topped with creamy mashed potato. We're having it for supper. Nom nom nom.

Last night I cooked a new variation on pork steaks - I cut them up and simmered them for a couple of hours in a sauce made from chopped onions, garlic, several sliced cooking apples (skin left on), vegetable stock, and white pepper. In the last 15 minutes or so, I added a generous splosh of double cream, which worked well. Serve with new potatoes, peas and carrots. Delicious.

And now I'm going to go and make flapjacks.

Master Chef

2011-11-12T14:33:00.000Z

Hello virtual mates! Hello hello hello. Yes, it's been a while, hasn't it?

Every time something has happened which I have thought would make an interesting and/or amusing blog post, I've self-edited in my head until I think "Actually, it would be dull and a bit shite, so I won't do it."

Bad habit to get into. Baaaaaad.

So, what has been going on in my life since the last rambling set of unrelated semi-anecdotes I inflicted on you all?

1) A wedding. Remember I told you about the hen party? Yeah you do. Mr WithaY went to the related stag party the following weekend - beer, watching a rugby match, curry, beer, whisky, sleep, nausea and pale fragility for the next 48 hours - which he said was "fine."

As an aside, whenever I ask him how something was, it was usually "fine." Sometimes it was "ok," occasionally it was "a bit weird," but in the main his go-to review of all social events at which I am not present is "fine."

Many years ago, he went to a re-enactment event in Cornwall without me. It was one I had been really looking forward to, and to which practically all our friends were going.

I had appendicitis, which for about two years was misdiagnosed as "a stomach bug" or "food poisoning" or even "a dairy allergy" and this was during that dark, miserable (but skinny) time. Eventually I had to be rushed to hospital to be operated on, and was able to gloat, pointing at my stitches and telling everyone "See? I TOLD you I was ill."

Anyhoo, this particular weekend I was vomiting and dizzy and feeling awful, so I said I wasn't going to go to Cornwall. Mr WithaY offered to stay home and look after me, but I said no no no, you go, you've been looking forward to it, have fun, you just enjoy yourself without me. So he did, the bugger.

He returned home on Sunday evening, sunburnt, muddy, bruised, exhausted, and I said "Well? How was the weekend? Who was there? What happened?" And he said "Yeah, it was fun."

I interrogated him for the best part of the evening. Who was there with who? Were there any relationship breakups? What scandal and gossip? Was anyone injured on the battlefield? What outrages were committed in the pub? Tell me! TELL me!

In the end I gave up and rang a female friend. We had a two hour conversation where she filled me in on all the many and varied events of the weekend. Gah. Blokes.

So, yeah. The wedding. It was lovely. But, lordy, I have never been to a wedding where so many people cried. It was like some airborne chemical had been sprayed into the room to make us all weep like children whose hamster just died. The bride walked in looking stunning, in floods of tears, which set all the women off. The groom started choking up as he said his vows, and ended up weeping, which set all the blokes off, which then set all the women off again. There was one small child there who took exception to the "noise" in the room, and she started weeping loudly, until her poor mother took her out, and spent the entire service weeping on her own in the bar as she was missing the ceremony.

Honestly. It was a soap opera wedding in emotional terms. The sun shone for the photographs, everyone looked lovely, including the specially-bathed mad spaniels, and the food was incredible. They'd arranged a Blues Brothers tribute band for the evening, who were excellent, and I think pretty much everyone there had a dance or two.

We were staying the night at a pub/hotel locally, along with a dozen or so of the wedding guests, so it ended up being a convivial team breakfast the following morning, then a huge mob went to the newlyweds house and drank tea, then huzzah, off to the pub for lunch. Mr WithaY and I finally got home at about 4pm.

Marvellous.

2) I've been making stuff. A neighbour asked me to make her some fabric-y bits and pieces. We bartered. She gave me a pedicure and some gorgeous nail polish (she's a beautician, not a foot fetishist,) and in return I did her the cushion covers and a noticeboard.

I like barter.

The photos don't do justice to the colour of the fabric she wanted me to use, or to the perfectly-matched ribbon and fabric I found for the criss-cross straps and fabric-covered buttons. That I made. Yes I did.

Today I have been finishing off the last cushion cover, and will take a picture of that too, just for completeness. I bet you can't wait.

3) Future business plans for the WithaY household are taking shape. I won't go into detail now, for fear of jinxing things, but I am feeling positive about the future. Plus we paid off half our mortgage this week with some of our redundancy money. Yay. Watch and learn, Greece. And Italy.

4) We had friends round for Sunday lunch last week, and I decided to have a go at making a sticky toffee pudding. I've never made one before, and was inspired by the delicious one I was given for my pudding at the wedding reception.

I followed the recipe to the letter - to the LETTER - and the end result was perfect. Rich, sticky, dark, sweet and fruity* with a light yet dense texture. The sticky topping was perfect too, the cream, butter and sugar sauce formed a dark toffee-coloured emulsion, thick and gooey and smelling of caramel and butterscotch. I poured a little onto the pudding as it baked and it formed a sticky, unctuous topping, as specified in the recipe. Which I followed TO THE LETTER.

The main course was roast pork, with a selection of vegetables, stuffing balls** and roast potatoes, served with delicious meaty gravy. Mr WithaY made the gravy, and it was perfect. Thick, rich, dark, savoury little flecks of pork meat floating in it from the roasting dish, just enough fat to make it cling to the food, not so much that it was greasy.

We ate our pork and vegetables, enjoying the delicious gravy. We enjoyed the delicious gravy so much that the gravy jug was almost empty.

I asked Mr WithaY to refill it from the pan on the stove top, as he was nearest to it. He jumped up with alacrity and returned in a moment, the jug practically brimming. Mmmm delicious gravy.

One of our friends poured a generous helping of gravy onto her greens. I picked up the jug and went to do the same. I sniffed at it, a sudden cold thrill of suspicion running through me.

It smelled like butterscotch.

Mr WithaY had refilled the jug from the wrong saucepan.

I was mortified.

Our friends declared that greens with pork and butterscotch sauce was wonderful, so, possibly influenced by the wine we had been swilling down, I tried it. And you know what? It was bloody lovely.

For pudding we had sticky toffee pudding with pork and butterscotch sauce, and that was bloody lovely too.

Last night, all on my own, I made up some more cream, butter and brown sugar sauce and had it with leftover sticky toffee pudding. It wasn't the same.

*much like me, except for the rich part.

**fnar

It costs a lot of money to look this cheap

2011-10-31T15:24:00.000Z

This week is the (sort of) official start to the new way of life in the WithaY household.

Mr WithaY finished his job last week - although today is the last formal paid working day for him - and had a leaving party on Friday lunchtime at the pub. It was very pleasant, a lot of his colleagues came to join him, some travelled some distance to be there, which was very touching. There were the traditional semi-embarrassing speeches, the giving of gifts and cards, and then it was home for tea and medals.

Twenty eight years and one day, he's done. It's a long time, and a lot of memories. But now it's all change, moving forward with the new life and all that. We're both still feeling positive about it all, despite the facts that:

a) We are no longer earning any money
b) The world economy seems to be doomed. DOOOOOOOMED
c) Winter is coming

Hey, what's the worst that can happen? Frankly, given the amount of shite* that we have coped with together over the last few years, I think we can handle it, whatever it is.

So. Today. Dawning of a new era etcetera etcetera etcetera.

We began by getting up at a reasonable hour, drinking tea, eating porridge and listening to Radio 4 Extra, a radio station I like more and more. All very domestic.

Then Kevin the Decorator arrived. He's great. He's fixing the huge unsightly crack across the bedroom ceiling, repainting the (cracked) bathroom ceiling, repainting the water-stained patch on my study ceiling, and replacing the broken front doorstep in our porch. He can do anything.

Mr WithaY made him a cup of tea, then headed off to see his mate Josh in Somerset. They are both on the bushcraft training course, and he handily lives nearby**. Josh is having our hideously uncomfortable futon for his house (although the more I hear about the house the more it sounds like a shelter made from brash in the forest) and in return he is helping Mr WithaY make a knife. For bushcrafting.

Mr WithaY has lately also been making lengths of cord out of nettle fibres. It was the homework he was given after the last bushcraft course instalment. The mice set up home in the bundles of cord-making and fire-lighting vegetation he has been garnering, hence his determination to remove them at all costs. Well, peanut butter doesn't grow on trees. Unlike the bark he needs for kindling.

He is thoroughly enthusiastic about his new career choice, which is excellent. I am going to have to learn to tolerate the seemingly endless collections of twigs, bark, reeds, plant seeds and Interesting Bits Of Wood that are accumulating around him. He's like Saint Francis of Assisi, but for woodland detritus.

I've been sorting out stuff around the house, hence Kevin the Decorator's visit, partly in preparation for the winter, partly to try and kick start myself a bit as I have got lazy over the last couple of weeks. In fact, once I finish this, I am going to cut out a load of cushion covers that I have been meaning to do for about 3 weeks now.

Yeah. Lazy.

Later on this week we are off to Gloucestershire for our lovely mates' wedding, which I am very much looking forward to. I am hoping their mad spaniels will be dressed as bridesmaids, with baskets of rose petals around their necks but I fear I may be in for disappointment.

The hen party I went to last week was interesting. I'd never been to a hen party before, which for a woman in her mid-40s is remiss. It was at a "Spa Hotel" near Bath***, and whist the hotel part was mostly ok, the spa wasn't great. Perhaps I am spoilt by having been to Ragdale Hall a couple of times. However, I don't think that having to walk across a car park and a fairly busy road in your robe and slippers to get to the treatment rooms is very nice, or wait in the lobby of the block while guests and conference attendees squeeze past you. Not classy.

The treatments themselves were fine; I had a sparkly manicure:

It lasted approximately 36 hours before I'd mangled the polish to such an extent that I had to take it all off again.

We had Champagne and nibbles and balloons and all sorts in one of the rooms before dinner, everyone dolled up in their party finery:

The photo is blurred due to Champagne. Note the straws with plastic cocks on. Niiiiice.

We ate a pleasant dinner in the restaurant, in a little side room that was semi-private so our laughing didn't (I hope) disturb too many other guests. However, after dinner we went back to one of the rooms and had more Champagne, and I suspect we may have been a tad noisy. But bugger it, I'll not be going back there, so it doesn't matter, eh?

The hotel could be really lovely, but they consistently failed to get things right - everyone's bill was wrong, so we had to get them all recalculated, and even then they didn't seem to charge us for all the wine we had, despite being asked several times to check the numbers. The bedroom I was in was clean and comfy, despite one or two issues with the bathroom****, and the food was (mostly) good, if a bit chaotic and disorganised. It was ok for a one night "party" awayday. I'd have been very disappointed if I'd booked it as a spa weekend break.

I had a two day hangover afterwards, which I am blaming on lack of sleep.

Right. Cushion time.

*See multiple previous posts about ill health, various family crises, the Shitstorm From Hades, many and varied tiresome work hassles, yadda yadda yadda...

**Within 50 miles.

***We went here...the reviews are a fair reflection of my own experience.

****The shower head was hanging on by a thread from a large ragged hole in the ceiling, and the sink drain stank of sewage. Not nice when brushing your teeth with a hangover.

Powerage

2011-10-27T12:47:00.000+01:00

I was planning on writing a post yesterday to whine about how hung over I was after a hen party, but then all the power went off - and stayed off for 9 hours - so I didn't.

It was a very odd day. Having no electricity makes life uncomfortable and awkward when you're utterly used to it. I kept thinking of things to do:

"I'll do some laundry...oh, no power."

"I'll just put the hoover round...oh, wait...."

"I'll do the ironing this morning....oh, no I won't."

"I'll make some cushion covers...gah, no sewing machine..."

"Cake! I'll bake something...oh...can't light the oven without the power*. Bugger."

So it went on. In the end I cleaned the windows (inside). By mid afternoon I was stressed and grumpy, so tried to chill out and read a book, but it was really very strange.

And of course my fallback "thing to do" - dick about on the Internet - was completely unavailable. I'd failed to charge my iPhone overnight, so couldn't even play Angry Birds on that, a favourite time-wasting activity. Oh, the horror.

The reason for this all-day trip back to the Dark Ages was the upgrading of the local power supply, which mostly seemed to involve men in high visibility coats standing in our front garden, pondering where to put the new power lines.

We were given prior notice, to be fair. A man came to the door a few weeks ago, handed me a letter telling me that the electricity was going to be turned off, and asked me to sign a sheet pf paper to confirm that I had received the letter. All very organised.

It would have been even better if I had remembered that yesterday was the Big Day. As it was, Mr WithaY and I were enjoying a lie-in - his first morning of "Not Being At Work Any More" - when there was a knock on the front door, and there stood a cheery man in a high visibility coat and sunglasses, grinning at my dishevelled appearance.

"Sorry, love," he said. "Did I wake you up?"

I thought about saying "No, we were engaging in wild, uninhibited, unimaginably hot monkey sex, it being Wednesday and all," but decided not to.

"Not at all, I was just about to get in the shower," I said with what dignity I could muster.

"Ah, well, we're turning the power off now, love." His grin broadened. Bastard.

I went back upstairs and dressed - no shower, no hair wash - and reflected that I would be spending the day festering in my own filth. Not for the first time, dear readers.

Mr WithaY carefully wrapped the fishtank in towels to try and keep it warm once the power was off, and scampered away to find the camping kettle in the garage, checking the mousetraps while he was there**.

When we had our kitchen renovated we decided to have a gas cooker installed, as we tend to get power cuts in the winter. Top tip. It means you can make tea, or even cook a meal when there's no electricity. We have to remember to replace the gas cylinders, but apart from the occasional panic (There's no gas! It's 6.30pm on New Year's Eve! Crap!) it's a very efficient and useful system.

Our long term plan for the sitting room involves replacing the open fire with a log burning stove for much the same reasons; it'll be more fuel efficient, and we can cook soup on top of it.

Anyhoo. The workmen set up a series of huge crane type machines all around the village, and started taking down all the power cables, which was quite interesting to watch.

I was disconcerted when I went into the bathroom later in the day, and was waved at by a workman up the power pole in next door's garden. Usually we don't have anyone overlooking the bathroom, so our curtains are the sort that only cover half the window. The lower half. He was waving at me over the top of them.

The pwer was restored at about 4pm, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The kettle was put on, the lights came back on, I put washing in the machine, and all was well with the world again.

Today I have been catching up with the domestic drudgery that a combination of hangover and lack of power had prevented me from doing earlier in the week.

Thank goodness I have an acoustic guitar, that's all I can say. I made my own entertainment.

*I think it is possible to light the oven with matches, but anything that involves me sticking my head into a gas oven with a lit match in my sweaty paw is classed as "too bloody dangerous, matey."

**7 mice caught so far. They had set up a nest in his bushcraft supplies, and are therefore being terminated with extreme prejudice. And peanut butter.

Inertia and other matters

2011-10-17T13:13:00.001+01:00

The weather's turned. Turned to SHIT.

We had the sunniest weekend - possibly ever - this weekend just gone and how did I spend much of it? Why, lounging idly on the sofa with the curtains closed, drinking tea and watching my new DVD set of The Big Bang Theory. I have a wholly inappropriate, probably immoral, and certainly ill-advised, crush on Leonard.

One of the many things I love* about that programme is the fact that I feel as though I am learning about Science as I watch. All those years of sitting in double physics at school, praying for the fire alarm to go off, or a mysterious stranger to burst in through the door and carry me away, or a runaway horse to gallop into the corridor, or, well, anything that wasn't double physics, really, wasted.

Wasted.

I have learned more about mass, energy, time and space via an American comedy show than I did whilst studying for my failed physics O level.

Failed? Oh yes. Actually, not so much "failed" as "crashed, then exploded, then crumbled into dust." I'm not good at listening to stuff I don't find engaging, and lordy, I was even worse at it back then when I was 17. I used to read all the notes diligently, but in lessons my brain shut down and went skipping off o'er the hills and far away while poor Mr Andrews (I think) tried to get me to learn about Van der Graaf generators** or inertia or gravity or resistance, or whatever tedious nonsense was on that day's agenda.

It was the same in maths lessons, as I have mentioned a few times in here previously. I would TRY to listen, but my brain just refused. If I ever seemed likely to actually absorb any mathematical knowledge, I'd get an agonising cluster headache to distract me before I could consolidate the knowledge into something helpful.

I must be the only person who was actually employed by the Civil Service with no Maths O Level. Shocking. And they gave me a billion pound contract to manage for a bit. Fools.

Anyhoo. I've been thinking about my days at school a fair bit lately, probably because the gym I go to is next to the local secondary school and if I time my morning visit wrong I drive past all the kids making their way there, gloomily dragging their feet, scrapping with each other, or walking along with their eyes locked immovably to their mobile phones.

People tend to trot out that weary axiom about your schooldays being the happiest of your life when the subject comes up. Readers, I disagree.

I was much happier when I was at college, reading books all day, working in a pub in the evenings, spending hours and hours in the college library reading Victorian copies of Punch magazine for research purposes***. I was happier when I started working full-time too, earning money, feeling like a real grown-up, living on my own in my teeny little flat.

School always felt like something to be got through to allow you to progress to the good stuff.

So. The good stuff in my life at the moment:

We are planting a few more trees in the garden, inspired by the success of the crabapple. This morning we planted a Victoria plum and a cherry tree in the front garden. I hope they thrive, and that in a year or two I can start harvesting their fruit.

My guitar playing has stepped up a notch (Bam! ****) and I am learning to play what my guitar teacher kindly refers to as "solos" but which are really just scales with ideas above their station. It's all rather fab though, and I love it.

The new song I am focussing on learning this week is the embarrassingly cheesy duet between Tim McGraw and (I'm sorry, but it's true) Gwyneth Paltrow "Me and Tennessee." Yes, I know. I know.

I like it. There. I said it.

I'm making some funky fabric-y stuff, specifically cushion covers this week. I'm discovering that I am quite good at it, too. Bam!

Oh, and I am going to brave Salisbury and go to the posh scary hairdresser this week. I am off to a wedding in a few weeks and my hair has suddenly reverted to "woman living in the country with no mirrors in the house" so urgent remedial action is needed.

It's all good, dawg.

*apart from Leonard

**The experimental apparatus, not the band

***Honestly. I did my dissertation on fairy stories and their reflected influence on Victorian novels, and how it all related to society in the Victorian era. Utterly pointless, but I loved doing it. It was a very fashionable subject in the 1980s, darlings.

****copyright Elzar and his spice weasel.

Splash

2011-10-13T20:56:00.000+01:00

I've been going to the gym for the last month or so. It's an attempt to stem the encroaching tide of middle-aged "can't be arsed-ness" and also to reduce my bulk to less vile proportions.

I have actually got a bit heavier, which is dispiriting, if not unexpected, and I can't see any real difference in my shape yet. However, I am already feeling stronger, and I sweat more when exerting myself. Niiiiice. Apparently, according to the nice gym staff, that's a common side effect of exercising. You get sweatier.

So. Heavier. Slightly more muscular. Sweaty. I bet you're all having a little private far-away moment just imagining that, aren't you?

The most difficult part of the entire business is getting into a routine. I am trying to go early in the day, to be there before 0900, do my routine, get home, get showered, get dressed and be ready to get on with my day by 1030 at the latest. The downside to that is that I don't eat before I go, which might be a bad thing. I may have to get up at the crack of dawn to have some porridge first.

I do 10 minutes on the cross trainer* to start with, which is ok, as long as I don't look at the timer counting down. I try to watch the TV screen above my head, where they show the BBC News with subtitles. There is a good deal of unintended hilarity caused by those subtitles, with the interpreters having to publish rapid corrections as they go.

If I can't see the TV screen, I look down into the swimming pool. Sometimes there are dozens of small children having swimming lessons, which is also hilarious. They are all so earnest; watching them splashing about like minnows, whacking one another in the face as they attempt backstroke takes me back to my own awful school swimming lessons.

The school I went to in London, way back in the early 1970s, took us to a concrete outdoor pool for lessons. It was very shallow, and I have distinct memories of regularly scraping my feet and stubbing my toes on the rough concrete bottom of the pool as I was learning to kick. I never knew what the swimming teacher's name was. It sounded like "Mr Vinehoff" but everyone in the class had a different opinion what it actually was. We couldn't hear him introduce himself over the splashing, shrieking masses and nobody had the nerve to ask him what his name was.

I don't think they taught us how to swim, as such. I think it was more along the lines of trial by ordeal, where they threw us into the water and if we didn't drown we had to go back to school and learn about the metric system and decimalisation.

The school I went to in Chichester took us to the municipal baths for lessons, in a bus. We seemed to spend about twice as long getting to the pool, getting changed into our swimsuits, getting dry afterwards and getting back into our uniforms than we ever did in the water. I remember the sense of achievement I had when I swam 100 yards. It was slow and inelegant, like so much of my school sporting career, but I did it, and I got a certificate to prove it.

I also jumped off the diving board. There was a low board, a springy plank on the edge of the pool which was perfect for doing "pirate walking the plank" impressions when the teacher wasn't looking, and everyone could jump off that. Well, it was practically the same as the edge of the pool. You had to be a real chicken to flunk that one.

Then there were the Other Boards. I definitely jumped off one of those, but my memory fails me here. I can't remember if it was the the middle board up a flight of scary rickety metal steps, or the "fuck me that's high" board at the very top, up abut four flights of steps. I have a nagging feeling that I did go off the top board, because I can recall the terror when I had jumped; that feeling that there was no going back. When I hit the water I went almost to the bottom of the pool - 12' 6" deep, whatever that is in metric** - and it was scary trying to get back up to the surface before I ran out of air. I didn't do it again.

It may have been something we had to do for a swimming badge with the Girl Guides.

We had to do so many odd things with the Girl Guides. That's a whole blog post in itself.

Anyhoo. Swimming flashbacks aside, I am enjoying the gym, and any day now will develop one of those bodies that you see on TV, memorably described by (I think) Terry Pratchett as a stocking full of walnuts.
I can't promise photos.

*See much earlier, older joke somewhere in the blog archives about this being a piece of gym equipment, not a grumpy muscular man in a singlet

**I learned NOTHING at school. Not a bloody thing.

In the News

2011-10-06T11:48:00.001+01:00

I do enjoy reading our local newspaper. Not only does it feature either the Mayor, the Town Crier or representatives of the various local military units on almost every page, the headlines are reassuringly bonkers.

It's how every local newspaper should be, really. Plus, and this is quite an important point, the hilarious "no news is what we're all about" publishing ethos demonstrates how little serious crime we have on a regular basis around here. So it's funny AND reassuring.

Last week almost the entire front page was covered with the scandalous revelation that the man who has bought the derelict Town Hall building has previous convictions for failing to comply with planning regulations when renovating a different derelict building. The last two or three years have seen many and varied front page stories about how is is a disgrace - an absolute DISGRACE!- that the Town Hall remains empty and derelict. Now there's a whole new angle to be outraged about. Our gorgeous pigeon-shit-encrusted Town Hall is in the hands of someone who might renovate it without getting the final sign-off from the planning officer to undertake internal modifications to the building. I'll keep you posted.

Ahhh, the Town Crier is on Page 2. All is well with the world. Something else I love about this newspaper is the way that the publisher - our local stationer - fills all the spare space on Page 2 with advertisements for their own shop. They sell everything you could possibly need in the stationery line. Wedding invitations? Calendars? School pencil cases? Maps? Greetings cards? Books about the local area? Labels of all types? Poster paint? Glue? Glitter? Dictionaries? Paperclips? They've got it all.

The shop itself is a delight, rambling back into nooks and crannies, all of them crammed with treasures you never knew you needed. It's staffed by a selection of elderly ladies who know exactly where everything is. Sometimes they have to get ladders to reach the high shelves, delicately avoiding setting off avalanches of rolls of brown paper and boxes of treasury tags.

Top Page 2 headline this week:

Break In
Nothing Stolen

Fantastic. On Page 4 we have the almost-as-good Air Rifle Pointed, which hints at all sorts of ill-natured duelling potential. When you read the story, however, it was a couple of blokes in a van with an air rifle, off out rabbiting probably. They were "subsequently allowed on their way" after being given some "suitable advice" by the police.

Two stories side by side on Page 8 in an unfortunate juxtaposition. One relates how our nearest cinema, a small independent one in Frome with a bar and everything, has been damaged by fire* and will be closed for a while. The story beside it tells us that a new cocktail bar has opened in town. The accompanying picture shows a frosty-glass delicious looking cocktail, with the strapline "Try out a cocktail this weekend."

Why not? You can't go to the cinema, after all.

Page 11 has the menacing Children Visit Biodigester. It doesn't say how many arrived, or - more importantly - how many left. I think that's the sort of thing we ought to be told. Next to that story is Chilli And Tomato Tastings. I don't know about you, but my appetite vanished at the word "Biodigester."

The sports pages are great as well. Every single week, regardless of the weather, the time of the year or the prevailing economic climate, our local teams lose. This week's football headline is Not A Good Home Day For Town. It's interesting to see how many different ways the newspaper people can say "They're A Bit Shit, Unfortunately." The Rugby headline is Better Performance But Still Defeated.

It reminds me of my old school reports.

Are all local newspapers like this, or are we just lucky, I wonder?

*Probably caused by the manager making everyone a nice bit of cheese on toast to eat during the film.

Fit for purpose

2011-10-05T00:28:00.001+01:00

Blimey, here we are in October already. It's warmer than it was in July, which is just WRONG. One of the most peculiar things about unseasonable heat in the Autumn is that it gets dark early, and we have to choose between sitting in the garden in the pitch black, or inside the house at 7.30 at night, sweltering. And, it being Autumn, many, many spiders are migrating indoors, so if we have the windows open to cool the house down, they come swarming in with little cries of glee.

Sitting outside in the dark isn't as much fun as you might imagine, either.

Anyway, today it's raining, but still really warm, which is even odder. It feels like being in the tropics, but with all the leaves falling off the trees, and everything in the garden looking tired and brown. Including me.

I've been busy of late, trying to get myself motivated and prepared for the oncoming winter. I am behaving like the proverbial ant in the fable, storing up for the cold days ahead. Unfortunately, I am not storing up anything very useful, or solid, like chopped logs and salted beef.

I spent a constructive few days making crab apple jelly, using the apples from the little tree in our front garden. The first batch I made turned out well, crystal clear and a beautiful pink colour, so I was encouraged to make some more. Mr WithaY brought home a helpful suggestion from a colleague that I add chilli, which I did, and it made the most delicious sweet hot jelly. It's perfect with roast chicken, and cold meat.

Inspired, I bought a dozen small "presentation" jars and have made a load more. Expect to receive it for Christmas, non-virtual mates!

Why yes, I did spend some time stacking them in a variety of ways, just to photograph them.

I don't have a job any more.

I also started on a commission for a friend. She asked if I could make her a noticeboard, which I was delighted to agree to.

It all went well at first. The fabric she gave me to make it with is gorgeous, I found ribbon to match it, and then some satin to self-cover some buttons to finish it off. I was mighty pleased with myself, I can tell you.

In an effort to bring my fabric noticeboard-making process into the post-Industrial age, I bought a hot glue gun recently. They're not particularly cheap - about £25 if I remember right - and I had high hopes for it. I envisaged a perfect series of satisfying gluey blobs being produced as required, aimed and controlled by my craftswoman-like skills to allow simple button placement and a professional finish to my work.

I was mistaken in that assumption.

Reader, it took me well over an hour to stick on 25 buttons. You have to plug the glue gun in and wait for it to heat up - at least 10 minutes - and then slooooowly and carefully squeeze the trigger until a blob of glue is extruded. That's the theory. In reality, you slooooowly and carefully squeeze the trigger, and nothing happens. You put the glue gun back on the stand, and curse quietly. waiting another minute or two, as the instructions tell you. You pick up the glue gun and you try again, squeezing the trigger slooooowly and carefully. Nothing happens, so you squeeze the trigger more rapidly, in a gunslinger trigger-happy pumping motion. A blob of glue drips out, and you cheer inwardly.

You stick a few buttons in place using this technique. You pause and make a cup of tea, smug that you have mastered the technology, and are a genius. A glue-based genius.

You pick up the glue gun to continue your creative endeavours. The glue gun refuses to extrude any more glue. It is sulking. You leave it for a minute or two and then try again. The rapid-fire technique no longer works. You revert back to the long slow squeeze. Nothing happens.

You swear, louder and more fluently. You keep trying different squeeze techniques, which makes your hand hurt. Eventually, you coax enough glue out of the gun to stick each button down.

You are not entirely confident that they will remain in place, but by now your hand is cramping and you hate the sight of your stupid crappy not-working-properly glue gun.

So. I took the completed noticeboard round to my friend, and gave it to her with the caveat that the buttons might not stay put, and that she should let me know if they fell off.

The next day she rang me. The buttons had fallen off. Arse.

I went and collected it, and now it is sitting on my kitchen table, looking reproachful as I try to think of a way to sort it out.

Other news: I have rejoined the gym. I am hilariously unfit. This situation will change, or I might die in the attempt.

Conversation

2011-09-29T23:23:00.000+01:00

Me: When you have an itchy palm on your right hand, does that mean you're going to come into money soon?

Mr WithaY: Yes, it does. That, or you've got a burrowing parasite.

Jobsearch

2011-09-24T14:16:00.000+01:00

I've been looking at the jobs pages in the local paper. Employment opportunities in this area are limited, compared with less rural localities, and as I don't want to commute, I am not looking even as far afield as Bristol and Bath at the moment.

I might change my mind, though.

So far, this is what I've found:

Job details

Elves

Location: Longleat Forest, Warminster
Salary: N/A
Industry: Other

Santa

Location: Longleat Forest, Warminster
Salary: N/A
Industry: Other

I am considering how to reframe my CV.

Basket cases

2011-09-17T17:31:00.000+01:00

Last week Mr WithaY and I went on a one-day willow basket-making course. You can't become a basket-maker in one day, but you can make a basket. Here's how:

You start with 6 sticks, all approximately the same thickness and straightness. You have to find the natural curve of the wood and follow it to get the proper basket base shape. My sticks all looked to be either completely straight or wavy as anything, not the gentle curve talked about by the instructor.

Once you have aligned your sticks properly, you stab them with a deadly steel bodkin, pointy, sharp and scary. Oh, before you do any stabbing, you grease the bodkin point with tallow. It's positively medieval.

Our instructor told us how she once had to rescue her can of tallow from a greedy dog which had its face in it. She didn't mention it to the dog's owners; I expect they found out later that day.

This is how the sticks look once you've STABBED them with the greased-up bodkin. It's interesting how unnerving it is, having to stab something when usually you are all English and repressed and un-stabby.

Once you've finished stabbing, you slide one set of sticks through the other, thus:

This is the basis for your basket. I had to stop and have a cup of tea at this point, all the craftsmanship was exhausting.

After you've had tea and braced yourself, you start doing the next step. It has a technical name which I have completely forgotten, but it involves weaving small willow stems to make the basket base.

See the two different colour willows? One sort has bark on and is slippery, the other sort doesn't and isn't. They're both bloody awkward to weave properly. You have to hold the spokes pressed hard into your tummy as you do this. Painful.

Once you've got the base woven, and it is properly convex, you add long sticks to make the sides of the basket. If it's not convex enough, you have to help it along using your knee and brute force.

Adding the long sticks was fiddly and hilarious, with all of us wrestling with our baskets on the floor. We got there in the end.

Once we'd got to that stage it was lunchtime. Lunch was excellent. Home-made and delicious. I recommend it.

After lunch it was time to start building the basket up. Da da daaaaaaaaa.

You have to STAB it once again with the bodkin to hold it in place while you weave the willow sticks. That's harder than it looks. Getting everything nice and even and tidy is even harder.

Once you've built up the base, you change both style and material to make the sides. I was using a weaving technique that involved using two lengths of willow in pairs at once, in a traditional English style. It's strangely hypnotic.

Then, when your basket is tall enough, you do another set of the stronger weave that you used for the base, to make the top nice and sturdy. If your basket is less than perfectly circular, you assist it with your knee and brute force.

Willow is very forgiving.

Once you've done that, you make the top edge, using the long sticks you stuck into the base to form the sides. Remember them? Yeah you do.

If you're a bit forgetful and have failed to keep your willow sticks wet, they will snap at this point. The instructor will then rescue you and fix it so it will not show. She was very good at rescuing people.

And at the end of the afternoon, you will have a lovely basket.

There were as many different baskets made as there were people on the course. Mr WithaY made one with a French weave in the middle, and conveniently it stacks neatly inside mine. There's tidy.

That's his on the left with the fancy French weave thing. Sacre bleu.

One lady made an up-and-over handle. Very pretty. Those round things in the background are big bundles of willow sticks. The barn we were working in smelled lovely.

One chap made these rather fetching finger holes. I shall try that next time I make a basket.

If at any point you got bored or frustrated, and went outside to look around, you could see where the willows grow:

They had information boards up to let people know all the kinds of animals and birds you might see if you looked for long enough. I saw bugger all.

I liked these gigantic sculptures, left over from a Glastonbury Festival, apparently.

And the maze was fun, despite being very low. I reckon I could have stepped over the partitions in an emergency.

So, after a long and full day, a splendid vegetable lasagna and fruit crumble for lunch, a lovely drive through the Somerset Levels, and weird bruises where I hadn't expected any, I now own a basket that I made. And it works.

Did I mention how much nicer this is than being stuck in the office?

Tiny tripe

2011-09-13T15:51:00.000+01:00

Well hello there. It's been a while, hasn't it? I was working on the assumption that everyone would be away on holiday and therefore not notice that I had been slack and idle for the best part of a fortnight.

To be honest, that's not true. I haven't been slack, and certainly no more idle than usual. In fact, I have been out and about, gallivanting across the countryside like a frisky gazelle, scampering hither and thither.

Yeah, I have.

Where have I been? Well I'll tell you.

Mr WithaY and I went up to Derbyshire for a weekend. The Chatsworth Show was on, and we fancied having a look at it. We drove up to a pleasant B&B on Friday evening, and were advised to try a local pub for dinner.

If you are ever in the area, go and eat there. Really. The food was excellent, the staff were competent and friendly and the prices were not too steep. In fact, here's their website - The Black Swan. It was so nice that we went back again the next night and tried their "sharing dish" of rib eye steak and big chips. Mr WithaY and I enjoy our food* but we still ended up with a small tinfoil package of steak to take home at the end of the meal.

The B&B was good too. Note for American readers - a B&B is a Bed and Breakfast establishment, where you stay overnight and they feed you breakfast - usually a huge and sausage-filled extravaganza - but you don't get an evening meal. B&Bs are less expensive than a hotel, and often more interesting. Sometimes, though, they are shite.

This one was lovely, though, and on a farm, our room looked out across one of their trout lakes. People were fishing, and Mr WithaY sat with his nose pressed forlornly against the window, watching them till we went out.

There was a degree of grumbling along the lines of "I knew I should have packed my travel fishing rod," but it soon passed.

The Chatsworth Show was excellent fun. We missed the Red Arrows, who flew on the Friday for the first time since the crash that killed one of their pilots, but we did see a splendid display of stomach-churning aeronautics by two small stunt planes as we were leaving on Saturday afternoon.

Chatsworth House itself was under wraps, unfortunately, possibly to deter visitors to the show from gawping in through their windows and watching the Duchess sitting there in her curlers eating cheesy Wotsits and watching Jeremy Kyle.

I took a couple of pictures of their impressive wall carvings though:

There were hundreds of different stands and displays there, ranging from the traditional country pursuits of ferret-racing (no photos, I was laughing too much to think of using my camera) and stick-whittling to formal mounted displays of the Household Cavalry, with a fairground and lots of small trade stands in between. There were people doing clever fishing demonstrations, shooting stands where you could Have A Go, and more delicious food vendors than you could shake a stick at.

As is traditional, Mr WithaY and I Had A Go at as many of the shooting stands as possible. It got competitive.

I am officially Rubbish With An Air Rifle. Mr WithaY was hoping to win an air rifle on the strength of that result, but as yet has not had a phone call telling him to go and collect his prize.

However, the .22 rifle was more successful. Mine:

Mr WithaY's:

And yes, that is the noticeboard I made. We have our targets displayed in the kitchen.

We watched some lurcher racing. It;s like greyhound racing but a bit less organised. The dogs have to run at high speed through a field, after a fake rabbit on a bit of string that is being dragged along at even higher speed. Blimey, they can move.

To such an extent that there are warning signs posted. They'll BREAK YOUR BONES, so stand back. I wonder how? Perhaps they use cudgels, although I'd have thought gripping a big twatting stick between small lurcher paws might be tricky.

There were many different craft tents, some crammed to the gills with talented people, others less so, some just brilliantly demented. We found these chaps in a far corner of the showground.

They had a whole marquee full of teeny little model carts and things, all made to accurate scale. My favourite was the butchers shop on wheels. It had dolls-house size meat, including little teeny pigs trotters.

You get a sense of the scale of it by comparing it to the proud creator sitting behind the table there. He was delighted that I was taking pictures, even moving the butchers shop around this way and that so I could capture the interior properly.

Look at the tiny pigs feet! And black puddings! And tripe! I was entranced.

I spotted this giant letter "R" made from trees on the opposite hillside. No idea what it is, or why it's there. Anyone who has any answers, please feel free to comment.

Oh, this is me firing a 2-bore muzzle-loaded gun. The recoil was hefty, hence the rather appalling firing stance I have there. You could have a go with four different types of muzzle-loader, shooting at clay pigeons. I am proud to announce that I managed to shatter a clay with a flintlock musket. Yay me.

We also popped in to see my genius clock-making mate, and selected two of the types of wood he is going to use to make our clock. That was interesting, and I am looking forward to hearing how it's progressing.

Where else have I been? Oh yes. Ragdale Hall.

I went on another - ANOTHER! - short break to the home of all that is relaxing and beautifying, along with both sisters, mother and auntie. We had a blast, I have not laughed so much in a very long time. I had a reflexology treatment, a full body massage, a facial and a pedicure, and loved every minute. We all went swimming in the fabulous pools, sat in the various steam rooms and saunas, chilled out in the comfy chairs that are artfully scattered around the place, and talked and talked and TALKED. So much to say to each other.

Normally when we all get together there are hordes of children and husbands and partners milling around, getting in the way and preventing two-hour conversations about nothing.

Middle Sis and Youngest Sis and I shared a triple room. It was like the Three Bears house. Three beds in a row in the room. Three robes hanging in a row in the cupboard. Three coffee mugs in a row by the kettle. Only one toilet in the bathroom, though. I had half expected to see three of those in a row in there too.

Other news: I have been harvesting crab apples from the tree in the garden, and making crab apple jelly. The first batch has turned out remarkably well.

I'd post a photo if Blogger would let me. Maybe later.

*are fat greedy bastards.

The Underworld

2011-08-30T12:39:00.000+01:00

We've just had the last Bank Holiday of the summer here, the traditional signal that Autumn is on the way, and then in no time it's winter, and then we might as well all just DIE in a howling void of ice and gales and closed roads due to 20 foot high snowdrifts.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

Mr WithaY was away for the weekend, taking part in a re-enactment thingy as part of his cunning plan for future solvency through swordfighting. I was, therefore, at home on my own for a 3-day weekend. What would Captain Kirk do? Call his mate and suggest going out for a curry, obviously.

As it happened, Bestest Mate was available at the weekend as well, so we went out for a curry on Saturday night. Mine was fab. His was good but not brilliant, partly due to unfortunate menu choices. For example: garlic mushrooms as a starter. In an Italian or French restaurant, yes, fantastic. Mushrooms. Garlic. Butter. Nom nom nom. But in an Indian restaurant? I'd suggest sticking to something a tad more traditional. That way, there's not likely to be any surprises when you cut into your vivid orange-crumb-encrusted mushroom to discover a strange yellow curry-flavoured paste nestling in there along with the mushroom.

As an aside, I learned a good deal about a product called "Ruskoline" that evening. It's a (possibly) vivid orange breadcrumb-type "crumb dressing" used to cover fish. I expect it could cover all kinds of other foodstuffs but Bestest Mate seemed most knowledgeable about the fish aspects. I'd never heard of it, he was insistent that it was well-known. Possibly only in Shetland, though.

The things you learn on a night out.

One thing I like about that particular curry place is that everyone in there seems to know everyone else. I saw some of our neighbours, and said a quick hello, but the surrounding tables were full of people exclaiming at seeing old mates around them. The restaurant used to be a Little Chef, so it's huge. I like that; it never feels crowded even if there are 30 people eating in there.

They have a childrens slide out the front of the restaurant, left over from the Little Chef days, in the shape of an elephant. I noticed that now it has been adorned with eyeliner and golden bodypaint highlights, rather than just plain grey paint. Excellent.

The following day we decided to go to the coast for a nice walk and a crab sandwich. Mr WithaY and I live in a landlocked county a surprisingly long way from the sea. It's always a bit of a shock to realise how fara way the coast is. We drove and drove and drove, miles and miles and bloody miles, till we got to Weymouth.

"There's the road to Portland," I advised, in my role as unwilling human satnav.

"Are you sure?" was the reply. Never a good sign. We had an agreeable - if accidental - scenic tour of Weymouth seafront, before finally turning round and following the road I had suggested initially. The one with the sign on it saying "Portland."

*sigh*

Portland itself is an odd place. As you drive through it on the way to Portland Bill, you pass a small shop for Portland's Feral Cats. I imagine it is a fundraising shop, rather than a hellish room crammed with spitting furry pointy-eared bastards wearing labels saying "This one half price" or "Special offer - buy one get one free" and a terrified sales assistant in full body armour, poking at them with a long stick if they get too close to the till.

We kept our eyes open but I failed to spot any cats whatsoever, never mind exciting feral ones. I had hoped we might witness a lynx perched moodily atop a rock on the cliffs, or perhaps leaping onto the fish and chips of unsuspecting holidaymakers.

No such luck.

As an aside, I just did a Google search for the Portland feral cat place, and found this news story in the Weymouth newspaper. It's got nothing to do with my post, but I like this quote in it:

Photographer Dave Haysom of Tollerdown Road said: “I didn’t see the car go up in flames but when I got there I saw the police photographing a pair of trousers which had been discarded in the road."

Never mind chasing the arsonists. Photograph their trousers, dammit!

Anyhoo. Portland Bill.

It was a breezy day, with big black clouds blowing across from France, so there were plenty of "Jeeeeez it's cold!" comments interspersed with basking in the sunshine.

Here's the lighthouse under moody and magnificent skies.

Here it is from a different angle, demonstrating the changeable-ness of the weather rather nicely.

There were plenty of people wandering about, a few brave souls canoeing in the sea off these cliffs. Mental.

I liked this boat-lifting crane, and the tumbled blocks of stone. It all looks half-finished somehow, as if someone will be back to put a last wall up or something. Once they've had their tea break.

And of course Portland is where they bury demons, to prevent them taking over this dimension. It's hard to bestride the human realm like a mighty terrorising fiend, subjugating all mortals to your eternal will when you're up to your horn-tips in Portland stone.

They also do a nice line in signage here.

I was tempted to stand on the clifftop, pointing at the sun, just to see what happened. Maybe they release the demon from his stone prison to fling you into the uttermost abyss of perpetual darkness. You and your unsupervised children, puny Earthling.

And there was this place. Is it a beach hut? A stable? A dairy? A hobbit holiday home? It looks like it's made of corrugated iron that's been plastered over, but the front is all stone. And it has a stable door. And a chimney.

I was very taken with it, anyway.

Maybe it's where the demon-wrangler lives.

Other news: The carrot crop is starting to get freaky.

Brrrrrr. It's the end of days, my friends.

Show and tell

2011-08-26T18:32:00.001+01:00

I've been living in a creative maelstrom this week. It all started with a cake I made.

We've had success with the vegetable garden this summer, and have a lot - a LOT - of courgettes coming to fruition now. Zucchini, for our American readers. We're eating them with supper most nights, cooked in a variety of interesting ways, often sliced into long thin strips and pan-fried with mixed herbs and a little butter. Nom nom nom.

Anyway. I was flicking through a free magazine that came through the door, and lo! it contained a recipe for chocolate courgette cake. I had to try it.

Readers, it was excellent. Really. Plenty of sugar, cocoa, eggs, flour, vanilla. All the usual malarky, but you also add loads of finely grated courgette. The cake was dark, moist and delicious, and I shall definitely make it again. I tore the recipe out of the magazine and put it in the new noticeboard.

In fact, here's a link to the recipe. Try it, you'll thank me. Plus, it's a great way to make children eat vegetables, apparently.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaaa.

What's that you say? Why, yes, I have made another fabulous notice board, thanks for asking.

Here it is, look:

Hanging in the kitchen, adding a much-needed point of interest to the otherwise dull sad corner where the bin lives. None of the cool appliances ever go there. It's like the Woking of the kitchen world.

Inspired by my soaraway success in the noticeboard arena, I made some cushion covers to replace a couple that had got tatty and spotted*, utilising some of the fabric liberated from father-in-law WithaY's antique-restoring stash.

Unfortunately, this gold one looks a bit sad and flat. I think it needs a new feather cushion thingy. We all get a bit squashed by life, I reckon, but this poor cushion shows it more than most.

However, this one I am delighted with:

I spent bloody ages making sure the pattern was central to the front of the cushion, as I knew that otherwise, every time I looked at it I'd get all anal** and grumpy about it being off-centre.

There is a new set of bathroom curtains almost finished, too, I plan to get them up tomorrow.

Other news: Went into town today thinking that the rain had stopped for the afternoon. Fool that I was. Mr T would have pitied me, no doubt about it.

As soon as I parked the car and got the heavy box of crockery and assorted ephemera from the boot, the heavens opened. Actually, I think the heavens opened, and hell was raining upwards, there was so much sodding water everywhere.

I had to walk (slowly because of the heavy box) to the charity shop in torrential rain, blinded by the wet stringy hair that was in my eyes (mine, not someone else's with no concept of personal space) and my raincoat hood blinkering me like some sort of piteous Victorian cab-horse.

Gah.

By the time I got to Oxfam and handed the box to the nice lady behind the counter, I was soaked. My trousers were absolutely drenched, but my feet stayed dry - hurrah for Converse shoes! - so I thought I might as well walk around town as it wasn't physically possible to get any wetter.

A man from Wessex Water was stood on the pavement beside his van, watching the rain flooding down onto the main road from a narrow driveway, muddy water cascading into the drains.

"You out collecting?" I asked him.

He laughed and said "Don't need to, we've got plenty thanks."

It's rained almost every day this month, or that's how it feels. Hopefully we'll have a nice Indian summer next month.

My roses are looking splendid though. All this rain has brought out a second crop of flowers, so I am dashing out and cutting a few in between downpours so we can enjoy them in the house.

Mr WithaY bought me a proper woven willow shopping basket the other week when he was at the Wilderness Gathering. It's a three day event where Men*** gather to do Manly Things. However, he didn't stay there this time, he commuted from home daily. Last time he went he slept in his little tent and spent the weekend making a fish spear, casually whittling and lashing as all the other manly men wandered past enviously.

I imagine he'll get a stern letter from Ray Mears, telling him off.

It was very impressive, though.

*Spotted with bits of food, mostly, from where we use them to rest trays on when we scarf down dinner in front of the telly. Shame, shame, we are chavs and slatterns. But, hey, Star Trek and all, right at dinnertime.

**Welcome, dodgy word googlers!

***And women.

Bootiful

2011-08-18T19:30:00.000+01:00

It's the middle of August, supposedly the height of summer. We've got all the lights on in the house in the middle of the afternoon; it looks like November outside. The rain hasn't stopped lashing down all day. Apparently there has been flash flooding in Dorset.

Ahhh, English weather.

Last weekend things were different.

Mr WithaY and I had a long-planned few days away to see some friends in East Anglia. Remember Tall Richard, who took me to dinner at the RAF Club? Yeah you do. It was a visit to see he and his lovely family. We've known them since before they had children, and now look at us. Their eldest is halfway through his time at University now, which makes me feel older than I like. I commented to Tall Richard that his son is now the same age I was when I first met him. That made us look faintly appalled for a moment.

Age-related trauma aside, it was a lovely weekend. We went to look around Thetford - sadly most of it was closed - but we wandered through the hill fort, supposedly the highest in the country. I'm not sure if it really is, or if it just seems that way to the people who live there, Norfolk being so notoriously flat and all.

On Sunday they took us for a look at the north Norfolk coast, which was very scenic. Flat, though. At one point we were driving along the coast road and realised that the sea was actually higher up than we were, thanks to the dykes. Not something I am used to.

However, low-lying land fears and all, we had a very pleasant day. A stroll on the causeway to look at the view, a fine pub lunch featuring crabs, then a wander round some art galleries, followed by a little walk around the town to look at the interesting architecture.

Lots of the towns and villages in Norfolk and Suffolk have these signs. Not all of them say "Blakeney" though.

There were people swimming, which I thought was rather ambitious. Rather more people were catching crabs off the quayside.

It really was a beautiful day. And there is an awful lot of sky up in that neck of the woods. Not many woods, though.

I did like the buildings made of flint, particularly the white-painted ones. Very pretty.

Worryingly, we saw metal signs in the walls of one house showing where the last lot of flood waters had risen to. It would have left only the very top of Tall Richard's head out of the water. We measured.

Other news: Today I made a chocolate and courgette cake. Nom nom nom.

Whose pigs are these?

2011-08-10T16:33:00.001+01:00

I had a busy day on Monday. I went into town to run a few errands, then called in to see father in law WithaY at the nursing home - things have indeed improved, and hopefully will continue to do so - then headed back towards home.

As I was driving into our village, I noticed some pigs snuffling about on the grass verge.

"How nice!" I thought. "Someone has pigs, and they are being allowed to graze free-range." I slowed the car down and took a proper look.

That was when I noticed that they weren't just grazing, they were escaping.

I stopped the car on the opposite side of the road and watched the pigs in the sunshine for a minute. They were intent on rootling about in the grass, seemingly unaffected by the traffic. Then one of them headed onto the pavement, and then towards the road itself.

I got out of the car. I was suddenly committed.

The pigs looked up, and then came trotting towards me. I squatted down and scritched them behind the ears and made vague pig-encouraging noises. They liked this, and both of them started rubbing their cheeks on my legs as I scritched them, grunting ecstatically.

Well.

What would you have done, readers? I enjoyed their company for a little while, shooing them off the pavement and back onto the grass every time they looked like they were going to wander onto the road.

They seemed to be all alone, there was nobody in sight, apart from the bemused car drivers going past. A woman slowed down and unrolled her window.

"Whose pigs are these, do you know?" I asked her.

"No...I don't know anyone in the village who keeps pigs," she said. She pulled her car over to the side of the road and got out as well. We both stood there, watching the pigs, unhurried and happy, methodically quartering the grass on the verge for, well, anything edible, I suppose.

We agreed that the pigs ought to be herded into a field for safety, and that the paddock across the road seemed like the best place, at least until their owners could be found.

We found a place in the wall that looked low enough that the pigs might be persuaded to jump over, and started to shoo them across the road. Remembering the Bath and West pig-wrangling contest, I got a couple of big map books out of my car and attempted to herd them along, making "cooosh cooosh" noises as I did so.

""Ooh, you're a natural!" said the other lady, admiringly.

Not necessarily what I would hope to be remembered for, but you know, it's nice to be applauded for a skill of any kind.

Another lady stopped her car - in the middle of the road - and hopped out.

"Whose pigs are these?" she asked us.

We admitted we didn't know, and explained what we were trying to do.

"I've got a pig feed bag in my car!" said the newcomer, retrieving it and waving it about triumphantly. The pigs looked up, eyes brightening at the possibility of a snack they didn't have to dig up with their noses.

Using a careful combination of luring (with the feed bag), and coaxing (me using my map books to great effect), we persuaded the pigs to walk across the road to the paddock. They refused to hop over the wall, and started gruntling and snorting in alarm as we tried to encourage them.

"It's really hard to move them," I said.

"Yes," said pig-feed-bag lady. "They have nothing to grab hold of."

She was right. A pig is designed without any convenient handholds. Schoolboy error.

As we coaxed the pigs off the road again, and out of the way of the traffic, a man in a van stopped and got out.

"Whose pigs are these?" he asked us, grinning widely. We explained the situation.

He joined us in our efforts to coax the pigs over the wall. It was no use. Pigs, like white men, can't jump.

I don't think I helped much, as by this time I was giggling like an idiot. Finally, eventually, the lady with the pig feed bag coaxed the pigs under a handy fence rail and into the paddock, then we dragged a bit of chicken wire across the gap, which seemed to do the trick.

The four of us stood in the road, proud.

Then we realised the combination of our haphazardly-parked cars and our inept pig-wrangling had drawn quite a crowd.

As they drove past us, I could hear people asking "Whose pigs are these?"

We never did find out. But at least they were safe.

Nothing ever happens

2011-08-07T23:11:00.000+01:00

Notable events of today:

1) Completed all of the ironing whilst watching a dreadful sci-fantasy film about dragons and that. Shame on you, Jeremy Irons, what were you thinking?

2) Did an impressively competent job of mending a right-angle rip in one of Mr WithaY's shirts. I quite like mending, it's like dressmaking without all the tiresome cutting out and machining of seams.

3) Ran around the house unplugging electrical appliances when there was a thunderstorm this afternoon. I look forward to discovering what I forgot to turn back on over the next day or two.

4) Bit a huge - seriously huge - lump out of the inside of my cheek whilst eating an apricot. I was spitting blood into the sink for half an hour afterwards. Nice.

Mr WithaY is away for the week. I'm lonely. Does it show?

Nothing is free...

2011-08-06T15:58:00.000+01:00

In an annoying recent development, The Onion have decided to start charging non-US visitors to their website. You can read 5 stories in any 30 day period, and after that you have to pay them about $3 a month.

They can poke right off.

Yeah, you heard me, Onion.

I shall get my top-notch news information via The Daily Mash from now on instead.

Other news: Went to Salisbury yesterday to meet bestest mate for lunch. All very pleasant. My, aren't there a lot of tourists about, though? I'd forgotten that about Salisbury. Mr WithaY and I tend to pop in early-ish on a Saturday and be on our way home by the time most of the tour buses are arriving in town.

I might re-think my plan to go to Bath one day next week. Or at least, make sure I get there early if I do go.

Newsworthy

2011-08-03T12:41:00.000+01:00

It is what is traditionally known as The Silly Season here in the UK. This means that, partly because Parliament is in recess, partly because most of the serious journos are on holiday, the newspapers are scrabbling around for things to fill their pages.

Today's winner is this. Apart from the fantastic headline - Paul-Daniels injured in Sooty pizza throwing accident - there are all the mental images it conjures up. Exactly what was on that pizza that was heavy enough to give him a black eye? Tinned anchovies? A whole coconut? Gravel?

Last week we had this. It's got all the elements you need for a good story. Again, a superb headline - Harry Potter dwarf spared jail over jugglers hat sex act - which immediately grabs the attention. Consider the composite elements of the headline, too:

Sex? Check. A dwarf? Check. A juggler's hat? Check. Harry Potter reference? Check. How could you not want to know more?

And, it all happened on a train. You can just see the made-for-TV-movie, can't you?

Other news: It's hot. Damn hot. Every day that I am able to sit in my garden, in the shade, reading a book, I am grateful for the fact that I am not stuffed into a stinking commuter train, heading for an office where the windows don't open, and if they did would just let in the traffic fumes from Victoria Street.

Yes, still enjoying the whole "not working" thing.

Developments with father in law WithaY are encouraging. We had a long talk this week with the owner of the nursing home. She was unaware of many of the issues we have been trying to resolve there over the last 2 years, and has taken personal charge of the situation. Things will improve, I think.

I've been scouring the house like a housewife in an Ealing Comedy over the last few days. Minus the curlers and headscarf, although I think I could rock that look if I tried.

I was sick and tired of the boxes everywhere, the endless detritus from someone else's house, so I moved a lot of it into the shed. At least it's out of sight, if not finally dealt with. I have piled up a heap of stuff in the hall to take to the charity shop in town, and have made executive decisions to throw away some things (a broken telephone, rolls of grubby wrapping paper, cracked crockery) which has made the place feel much better.

That leaves us with a few boxes in the kitchen, now consolidated in one place, and the ongoing Stygian hellhole that is Mr WithaY's study. Baby steps. Baby steps. We'll get the dumper truck and snowplough in there in time. One day, maybe one day soon, we'll see the floor again.

I'm still waiting for the builders to come back and repair the doorstep, which was the reason I called them in the first place. They fixed the hole in the roof - did a good job too - but obviously then got sidetracked and left the doorstep. I've phoned a couple of times, but they are "busy on another job" now, so I will have to wait. Gah.

Also, the keyword searches which have brought people here in the last few weeks include:

Big jugs porn - shame on you, filth seekers
Had to pee - shame on you, different filth seekers
He wore a monocle and looked at me - Hello monocle fans!
Recycling humour - Welcome, eco-conscious comedy seekers
Catholic who lives in the woods - If you're not following that with "firelighters" or "persecution" then hello
Basketry conservation - basket case, possibly

I like the thought that the readership of my blog consists of people looking for sleaze, people who are interested in conservation, and complete mentalists.

Welcome, one and all.

Narrow squeak

2011-07-27T10:43:00.000+01:00

Ah, life.

Just when you think it's all going so well, something comes along to throw you.

There's been a period of remarkable positivity in the WithaY household of late. I've left my job, and am enjoying a summer off work - still enjoying it, despite shitty weather a lot of the time - and not panicking just yet about running out of money. Mr WithaY has been successful in his application for a prestigious and competitive year-long course he applied for, and has also been told that his request to leave his job was approved, so he'll be free of his 28-year office drone shackles in a few months. We've sold Father in law WithaY's house, so that particular millstone is removed.

The house sale, inevitably, had a few final bizarre hiccups.

We had to pay for an insurance policy in case some long-forgotten Covenant on the land was found to have been breached. Nobody mentioned it when Father in law WithaY bought the house, several years ago, but hey.

We had to spend days and days and DAYS negotiating with the house clearance people, who, I assumed just took everything away, but it seems that some of them prefer to try and cherrypick, and just want to take the "sellable" stuff, and leave the junk there. Um, no. If we wanted to be heaving old mattresses and broken jamjars to the tip, we wouldn't be paying you to clear the house, would we?

Gah.

Anyhoo. Once all the tiresome faffing about clearing the house was over, and we'd cleaned it nicely, we settled back to relax, happy in the knowledge that the new owners were moving in, and all was complete.

Until we got a phone call from the lawyer.

The new owners - bearing in mind that the contracts had been exchanged, the deal was completed, they now owned the house - were complaining bitterly about "all the stuff" left in their new house. There was talk of legal action being taken against us if we didn't come down and remove it all immediately.

Whut?

Our lawyer was nonplussed. He said that he had never heard of people complaining about stuff being left in a house. Stuff being removed - door handles, light fittings, kitchen units - hell yes. But stuff left behind? Never.

Let us examine the list of stuff we left behind:

1) A small Victorian garden statue, stone. In the garden. I always assumed that things like that were included in a house sale unless specifically excluded. It seems that it offended the new buyers, and had to go.

2) A small, admittedly rickety, wooden bench in the back garden. As above. Offensive, to be removed.

3) A wall clock, fixed to the wall, in the kitchen. Yes, I can see why you'd want to sue us for leaving a clock in your kitchen. What bastards we are.

4) A fire extinguisher in the garage. Christ, I'd have had us assassinated for leaving that there.

5) Last but not least, the wheelchair access ramp at the front door, which they had dragged off to one side. Mr WithaY went down there after work with a sledgehammer and an attitude one evening and smashed it up, put it in the back of the Landrover and took it to the tip. He said that they had the builders in already, renovating and updating the house. The builders had carefully placed planks outside the front door to make a ramp for them to move tools and materials about. I hope they charge the new owners a thousand pounds extra for their home-made ramp.

But, now, finally, it's over. I think.

Remember I said we were looking into finding a new nursing home for Father in law WithaY? And we thought we'd found somewhere suitable? Well, they had one of their nurses visit F-in-L the other day to evaluate him. She phoned us last night to say that she thinks their nursing home is, unfortunately, not suited to his needs. Arse.

We've already given notice to his current home, but coincidentally, we had a letter from the owner yesterday telling us that the matron is leaving (mutually agreed, etc etc etc) and was there anything they could do to persuade Father in law WithaY to stay, given the impending change in management. We will go and talk to them next week,and see if we can get things improved for him there, and then maybe he'll be happier about having to stay.

Perhaps the new matron won't drop him on his head. That would be nice.

It's all very sad.

Other news: Today I am mostly making a linen Medieval shirt for Mr WithaY, who is off poncing about doing swordfighting again at the weekend. What larks. He's borrowed a jacket and hose from a mate who used to do Medieval re-enactment, but there is a slight sizing issue with the hose. Mr WithaY put them on, walking gingerly around the room, looking, as he said, like a sausage whose skin was too tight. I hope he doesn't try any lunges, or there could be an unfortunate burstage incident.

I am procrastinating, though, because my new sewing machine is intimidating me. Brrrrr. Multiple stitching options.

Showcase

2011-07-24T19:08:00.001+01:00

I thought I'd use a blog post or two to share some of my friends' amazing skills and talents with the wider world.

Not the sort of amazing talents that leave everyone else in the room hooting with laughter, or feeling a bit queasy, or calling an ambulance, though. No, no no. Although there's probably a few blog posts right there, come to think of it.

These are constructive and marketable talents, as opposed to the sort that get you a recurring slot on Rude Tube or some low-budget reality TV programme.

Part of the reason for this is because yesterday I had an Adventure. I went to the Art in Action show - all the way to Oxford! - all on my own. And I managed to get there and back without going via Watford Gap services. Yay me.

A mate of mine was exhibiting there, so I had a proper reason to visit, but I am really glad I went anyway, there was so much to see. Anyway, wandering round looking at all the various artists got me thinking about the people I know who make great stuff, and I thought I'd share some of them on here.

So, first up, my mate who I went to see at the show. He's called Bruce Aitken, and he makes clocks. Rather amazing ones. I have taken a few photos of his work, but look at the ones on his website too.

Gorgeous.

There was a chap there doing some blacksmithing, so I watched him...um...perform for a bit. I worked out that I know at least four blacksmiths. Hello Ian, Rick, Sherman and Chris!

Madregal Designs. If you need any fancy ironwork doing, swing by this place and see what they can do for you.

Anvil Art. If you prefer, go here and take a look.

Bowstock. If you need any leather working doing for you, or indeed, some hard-to-find leatherworking supplies, check out Steve's site here.

TymeAgain. If you need some well-made historical toys, go here. Their toys are just fab. And they are lovely people to boot.

Delingpole Studio. Need some fancy artwork doing? Go and look at Richard's website here.

The Full Motley. Having a party? Get a band! In fact, get this band!

I hope, in due course, to add my own little website to the list, but until I work out what I can make, and whether anyone else wants to buy it, it's staying in my head.

Other news: We continue with the great house clearance task, but it is improving. Mr WithaY has cleared out the shed this afternoon, moving various boxes hither and thither, and as a result there is far less junk in the kitchen.

Several of the bookcases have been found new homes, and most rooms no longer look like they belong in Steptoe's house. Relief all round.

To celebrate the (mostly) back to normal kitchen, I have been domestic goddessing in it. I made redcurrant jelly with about one third garden redcurrants, two thirds supermarket redcurrants, and it has turned out very well.

Today I made grape jelly. That was less successful, but hey, I had some grapes in the fridge and I was in a jellying frame of mind. I also made a lemon drizzle cake.

Note to cooks: When you make a lemon drizzle cake, pour the sticky lemon juice and sugar mixture over the top of the cake AFTER you do the two plates thing to invert it and get it out of the tin. Otherwise, the top of the cake stickes to the plate, leaving a sorry mess.

Gah.

Exotic blooms

2011-07-17T17:15:00.000+01:00

I can't cook much in my kitchen at the moment, what with the boxes and all. It's not as broken as Antonia's kitchen, but it's pretty much hors de combat.

Possibly to help me make up for that, I am finding myself looking at pictures of complicated food, sadly and longingly. And hey, how lucky, last week we went out for a meal in Bradford on Avon, and it was so nice that I took photos.

Mmmmmm. Food porn.

I really liked the teapots and cups. Excellent view of Mr WithaY's shark-gnawed finger there too.

My starter - tempura prawns and onion rings, a chicken teriaki skewer and some sort-of-sushi roll with crab and seaweed. And yes, I did share it.

Mr WithaY's starter was just the teriaki chicken. Luckily for him, he is married to a woman with a heart of gold and a dislike of onions.

My main course was duck in tamarind sauce - a very big piece of duck, I have to say - with coconut rice and Japanese vegetables. See the rice served up in the coconut shell there? How pretty.

Mr WithaY's main course was a steak in some sort of savoury teriaki-ish marinade, which he had with plain noodles. And it was marvellous. Cooked to perfection, and tender. Mmmmmm.

I asked the lady who brought the bill where they got the carved flowers from. "All hand made in the kitchen," she said, miming someone doing something impossibly intricate with a potato knife.

We'll be going back, probably on a semi-regular basis, as Father in law WithaY has decided to move to a different nursing home which is much further away from us (I don't think that was the reason for him deciding to move) and this restaurant is on the way back home. Clouds, silver linings, all that stuff.

Other news: We've had the hole in the roof fixed. I was sat in my study the other day and noticed an unsightly discoloured patch on the ceiling, below the corner of the house where we know there was a hole in the soffit board thingy under the guttering. Plus there have been birds nesting up there somewhere all Spring, so, yeah, probably not great for the water-tightness of the roof.

The builder came and had a look, scratched his head a bit, and then agreed to get it fixed for us as soon as possible. The next day, he sent his young team of minions over to sort it all out. They did a great job, whacking up a scaffolding tower and discovering the source of the problem in no time.

Bastard birds had made a HUGE nest in there and pushed one of the roof tiles up so much that the rain was getting in, and they'd also scuffed up the roofing felt so that there was hardly any weather protection there at all. The birds have long gone, so the nest was removed and all the broken bits were fixed. Scaffolding is down and the whole thing looks far tidier.

Good job too, with the horrible seemingly endless rain we've had all weekend. Ugh.

Bad news is that I will have to get the ceiling in here re-painted at some point, but it can wait.

The dispersal of the many bookcases continues. I have one in my study now, loaded with all manner of things, very few books, mostly boxes of sewing bits and guitar accoutrements. I need to find a new spot for my huge noticeboard I made, though, as it won't fit where it was any more. I daresay I will find somewhere suitable.

So, that's my life up to date. How's things with you?

Dressing up

2011-07-15T19:16:00.000+01:00

So, yeah, this re-enactment we went to the other week. That was fun.

It's been a fair few years since we gave all that malarky up and sold all our kit off, but we'd been asked to go along and take part in some specific activities* with some mates, so we rejoined on a weekend membership and hoved off to Cheriton to camp for the weekend. I say "camp." What I actually mean is "share a rather fine motorhome with our kind mates." There was no crawling around in small, damp tents for us that weekend, oh no indeedy.

It was a multi-period event, so there were lots of different people in many different uniforms.

Medieval.

French Napoleonic.

British Napoleonic.

Blokes on horses.

With sabres.

Corsairs. NOT pirates, they were most emphatic about that.

Second World War types.

English.

German.

And of course English Civil War. Dashing, no?

My personal favourite was the little vintage "pub" that was set up in a sort of wooden framed tent, run by the WW2 chaps. Mmmm whisky. It's a bit blurry because I turned the flash off for Atmosphere. They had a sign on the wall saying that due to a nearby broken gas pipe, no-one could smoke, which I thought was a clever touch.

What was particularly interesting was that while it was lovely to see old friends, and catch up on people that I ordinarily only chat to via Facebook, at no point did I think "I wish I was still involved in all this." I was perfectly happy to sit on my comfy camping chair, reading my book** in the shade, while most of the others rushed around in the boiling sun in layers of heavy woollen clothing, doing drill for hours, or queueing up to collect gunpowder, or marching off to the battlefield.

It also made a pleasant change to come home from a re-enactment with no injuries, other than some mild sunburn on my shins. Mmmm, attractive.

*Swordfighting, to be precise.
**Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - bloody marvellous. Read it immediately.

Basket case

2011-07-12T22:11:00.001+01:00

It's amazing what can cause stress, isn't it? For me, it used to be the whole getting up for work and travelling halfway across the country for work thing. Not now.

Now it's all about bookcases.

Bookcases.

Thousands* of them.

In my house.

It's all part of the final push to get Father in Law WithaY's house sold - the contracts are exchanged this Friday - so we have been clearing the last things out. Our friend with a van** came over last night and he and Mr WithaY went back and forth to Dorset a couple of times to bring everything back. The last time we were down there, I thought we'd pretty much cleared everything out, but it seems I was wrong. Oh, how very wrong.

It took two trips, one with a van AND a LandRover, the other with just the van, and now my house looks like Steptoe and Son live here.

In the style of Hello Magazine, allow me to show you around my gracious home.

As you enter the house, you are met by an original arrangement of furniture in the hallway.

Bookcases. Here, let us walk around them and admire them more fully.

They certainly add to the overall cosy feel of the place, I think.

Step into the sitting room and admire our library. In a trailblazing and somewhat daring move, we aren't using the bookcases to store the books. No, we prefer to use boxes. On the floor.

Why yes, that IS a book about King Tutankhamun on the top there. Every home should have one. In fact, I will sell you this one if you want it. Hell, you can have it for free.

Back into the hall, squeeze past the bookcases and step into the kitchen. I'd offer you a seat at the dining table, but as you see, we are currently hosting a modern art installation. It's called Too Much Bleach and Four Tea Services. I'm not certain what the artist is trying to say with it.

Can you see what is lurking on the bottom left corner of the table? It's a rather teasing shot there, but I won't keep you in suspense longer than I have to.

It's a Wurzels album! On vinyl! In Mono!
And it has sleeve notes. Forgive the terrible photograph, my hands were shaking.

I can't decide whether to bury it at dead of night under a rowan tree, put it on eBay or have it framed forever.

Turning away from the art installation, we see the eclectic mix of kitchenware across every work surface.

Handy.

And of course, big jugs are always nice to look at***.

Back into the hallway - another glimpse of those bookcases - and let's peek into Mr WithaY's study. Mmmm. The perfect relaxing little corner to sit and study, or listen to music****.

I have spent much of today hiding upstairs, ineffectually tidying up my own study, which I am turning into a sewing room. So far all I have managed to do is shove my sewing table into the corner, with a nasty CRACK as one of the legs got stuck on the carpet (the table's, not mine) and slide my new computer desk into place.

I keep telling myself it's all temporary. This too will pass. And all that stuff.

Until then, I will be in here, where there aren't dozens of bookcases, bizarre records and boxes of frankly mental belongings in every corner. Well, there are, but at least they are all mine, and I know why they're there.

*Not thousands. But more than I am comfortable with.

**Hello Ed!

***Apologies, big boob porn seekers

****Or play Portal 2 or Call of Duty.

Finding My Way - The Revenge

2011-07-07T00:40:00.000+01:00

When the weather is nice, I am outside, and consequently spending less time at the computer, which means I tend to blog less. Even less than normal, which, frankly, is not that frequently, is it?

Plus I have been away. Properly, like a mini holiday. Middle Sis and I went to Ragdale Hall for a couple of days R&R for her birthday treat. It was marvellous. We booked one of their special offer three-day, two-night breaks, with a few treatments included, and had a lovely time. Neither of us had ever been to a spa before, and I think going to Ragdale has now spoiled us for anywhere else.

Yes, everything was marvellous, and if it wasn't on the other side of the country it would be even better.

The journey up there was uneventful and smooth, and I found the place with no trouble at all, arriving in the sunshine with a big smile on my face. Mr WithaY had kindly offered to lend me his Satnav, but I declined on the grounds that I had the route all written down on a series of Post-it notes.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well. I'll tell you.

Remember the day I went to help at the lunch party? Remember how lost I got, travelling less than 15 miles? I bet you thought that was impressive. You ain't seen nothing yet.

Driving all the way back from Leicestershire offers so much more opportunity for monumental navigation errors*, and I took full advantage of that fact.

I left Ragdale on our last day after a fine lunch, and drove across to visit a mate who lives sort-of-locally. I called Mr WithaY as I was leaving their place at about 7pm to let him know I should be home in, oh, about three and a half hours or so, all being well.

All was not well.

I bowled along happily enough for an hour or so, heading for the M6, from which I planned to join the M5, scoot down the left hand side of the country as far as Bristol, go through Bath, and then home. Easy.

I got onto the M6, making good time, driving in a beautiful sunny late evening light which made everything look pretty. There was very little traffic, so it was comparatively stress-free, and I was pootling along listening to the radio in a relaxed and cheerful manner.

However, the weather changed, and by the time I got towards Birmingham it was pissing with rain. As anyone who has ever driven on a British motorway will know, when it rains hard, visibility reduces to terrifyingly short distances. I slowed down, cursing the huge lorries which were kicking up clouds of spray and making it impossible to see the road signs.

Yeah, you can see where this is going. Unlike me.

I saw a sign that said the M5 junction was coming up, but not when. There were also road signs for the M42, which I had no intention of driving along, so I stayed where I was, carefully pottering along the M6 in end of the world weather and almost zero visibility. More road signs followed, alternating between the M5 and the M42, as well as signs for smaller local roads leading to places I'd never heard of.

There's a major junction on the outskirts of Birmingham where the road splits into two, possibly three different directions. One of these continues along the M6, going South and - this is important - East. The other goes to the M42, headed I know not where, and the last gets you onto the M5, heading South and West.

I squinted at the signs when I could see them, waiting for the one that said "M5 this way", ignoring the ones that said "M42". And I continued to ignore them as I went sailing past the junction, spotting far, far too late that the M42 sign also said "Oh yeah, and the M5...go down here if you ever want to see Bristol again, sucker."

I missed it.

Well fuck, I thought to myself.

Ah well, I thought to myself. There will be another exit for the M5 in a couple of miles, it's a big motorway.

Bound to be another exit, I thought to myself. Bound to be.

All will be well, I thought to myself.

Readers, I was wrong.

I drove for miles. And miles. And MILES. I passed junctions to places I had heard of, but had no clue where they were in relation to each other, or, more importantly, to where I was trying to be. I wished, oh how I wished, that I had borrowed Mr WithaY's Satnav. Or indeed had the brains to put a bloody map book in the car.

I just kept on going, down the M6, thinking "at least I'm heading South," and trying to gauge where the fuck I was by the names on the roadsigns. My knowledge of the Midlands is woeful, a fact I was increasingly aware of as I drove through them.

After several thousand miles, the M6 turned into the M1. At that point I thought "Oh fucking hell," and realised I was seriously, seriously lost.

The car was getting low on diesel, I was hungry and needed a pee, and so when I spotted a sign for Services I said a small prayer of thanks. That turned into a wail of horror when I saw that it was Watford Gap services.

Bear in mind, readers, that I was aiming for Bath.

Bath in Somerset.

Almost on the other side of the bloody country.

I stopped at the Services, filled up with fuel, used the facilities, got some supper - it was 9.30pm by now - and bought a map. I looked at where I was, and where I ought to be and sighed deeply, showering the steering wheel with service station food crumbs..

Readers, I had to backtrack miles and miles and MILES across country, driving to Northampton, Oxford, Swindon and then finally home. It took hours, and I crashed through** the front door at close to midnight.

Other news: We went camping at the weekend. But, fortunately, we have mates who own a splendid motor home, who offered us the use of the other bed, so we were warm, comfy and very smug. Marvellous.

It was a multi-period re-enactment event, what larks. I shall post some photos as soon as I find my camera. I didn't dress up, though, instead spending much of the weekend chatting to old mates, reading an excellent book in the shade and wandering around in the sun admiring all the various Uniforms Through The Ages.

*The polite term for "fuck-ups"

**Not literally

Flaming

2011-06-26T18:41:00.001+01:00

I'm typing this slowly and painfully, moving my arms as little as possible. Why, dear readers, is this? Why, it's because I have:

a) Tired old arms from a day of hard work yesterday, mostly spent carrying trays across a sunshiny lawn, whilst nimbly dodging a football being kicked around by many small children.
b) Aching wrists after de-stoning a huge - huge - box of cherries and putting them in the freezer for "later".
c) Managed to get sunburn across by upper back and shoulders this morning whilst enjoying the glorious sudden advent of proper summer in the garden.

Yesterday I was helping a friend cater a garden party, all very smart, in a marquee in someone's garden. It was a cold buffet, lots of ham, salmon, asparagus quiche, potato salad, that kind of thing, and then a shitload* of fruit tarts and chocolate caramel cake.

Everyone was anxious about the weather, it being a garden party and all, but by noon the rain had stopped, the sun was out, and the remainder of the day was just gorgeous. The garden overlooks acres of green barley fields, so whenever the wind blew it was magical, watching the barley move like the sea. Loved it.

However, being the lazy non-working lightweight that I am, I was completely knackered by the time I got home, and spent the remainder of the evening on the sofa, whining. And eating a Chinese takeaway. And watching The Odd Couple on DVD, which neither Mr WithaY or I had seen before. It was very pleasant and relaxing.

Today - another gloriously sunny one, must be some mistake, surely - I have been doing stuff in the garden. Things have been transplanted, pruned, watered, trimmed and moved around, and now it all looks fab. My new parasol is finally up, and Mr WithaY and I sat under it together, reading our books for an hour earlier.

As a result of being an idiot, and not wearing sunblock whilst weeding the garden, I have bright scarlet shoulders and upper back. That's going to hurt when I get in the bath later.

Other news: I finally bit the bullet and bought a new mobile phone. My iPhone, which is about two and a half years old, has been playing up for several months, refusing to synch with iTunes, or to backup properly, and I kept putting it off and putting it off. Because, you know, it's a pain in the arse and all, changing mobiles.

I did go so far as to take it in to be examined by the Apple experts at the store in Bath a couple of months ago. Their expert opinion was "It's broken."

Yeah, thanks for that, genius.

Anyway, I had to go to Salisbury earlier this week, and as I was walking around, I passed the O2 store, so popped in and waited until one of the staff deigned to notice me. To be fair, they did have a laminated sign on the cashdesk which said "We're understaffed today, so we might just ignore you for a bit. You don't like it? Tough titty, loser." I may be mis-remembering the exact wording.

After six or seven hours, a girl emerged sulkily from a cupboard at the back of the shop and asked me what I wanted. I felt like replying "I want you all to kneel miserably at my feet while I lambast you at length for your total lack of any kind of customer-facing competence, you useless, useless goons," but what I actually said was "I want to buy an iPhone 4 please."

She looked at me as though I had asked her to sell me a guinea pig curry, then slowly went and fetched the correct item of technological crack cocaine.

We had a long, tiresome discussion about the sim card it needed. In my head, the conversation went like this:

Me: I would like to buy a new phone and keep my current number. How do I do that?

Helpful staff member: You buy the phone - here is one - and a new sim card - also here - and then contact the O2 customer services - here is the contact number - and they will migrate the number when you are ready. Thanks for your valued custom. Oh, and please take this pretty bunch of flowers as a thank you for spending so much money with us in these hard recession-driven times."

In reality, it wasn't quite like that.

Me: I would like to buy a new phone and keep my current number. How do I do that?

Staff member: Oh. Um. Well, we've got the phones in stock. You want one?

Me: Yes, please. (there was a brief struggle until she understood which type of iPhone I wanted, but we got there eventually.) Can I put the SIM card from my current phone into this one?

Staff member: Nah. S'different.

Me: Ok. So do I need a new SIM card?

Staff member: Um. Yeah. You want one?

Me: Yes. Please.

She rummaged under the desk, pulled out a small cardboard folder and dropped it on the counter in front of me.

Staff member: Anything else? (She was clearly bored by now, her attention riveted by the two young men with complicated hair who were sat at a nearby table having an animated conversation with her colleague. If she'd had some gum, she'd have been blowing bubbles at me.)

Me: So how do I transfer my number to the new phone?

Staff member: I can do that now. What's your number?

Me: No, I need to download everything off my old phone before I transfer anything. How do I do it?

Staff member: (exasperated by my stupidity) Yeah, I can do that now.

Me: Do I contact O2 when I'm ready to transfer? Or what?

Staff member: Yeah. You could do that.

I paid for the phone and the SIM card and went home, pausing only to buy a large bag of fresh cherries at the market stall on the way back to the car.

When I got home, 25 miles and 45 minutes later, I discovered that the SIM card was missing. The plastic casing was there, but the actual micro SIM was gone, probably previously sold and the cardboard wrapping dumped under the counter. How I laughed.

So, all the way back to Salisbury the next day to get a new SIM. The young man who served me was less challenging, but still seemed puzzled by what had happened. Well yes, I suggest you get your colleagues to stop chucking empty SIM wrappers in with the ones for sale, matey. That might help.

The story has a happy ending. My new phone is working, and my number has been successfully transferred to it. Yay.

Unfortunately, my OLD phone had stopped backing itself up to iTunes in early March, so I have a bit of work to do to get things back to spec, but otherwise, it's all good.

Oh, and I bought a great big box of cherries on my return visit, as they were so lovely. Today I have been de-stoning and freezing cherries, and my fingers are stained black. Niiiiice.

Other, other news: We've all but cleared out father-in-law WithaY's house now. The sale is progressing. I really hope in a couple of weeks it will all be over and we can stop fretting about it.

This week I am mostly going away with Middle Sis for a few days of pampering, foot massages, swimming, nice food and (if past history is anything to go by) lots of inappropriate laughter. I am very much looking forward to it.

*technical catering term.

Census tales

2011-06-19T19:42:00.002+01:00

When I was at Centerparcs, one of the girls brought along a copy of their local paper. My eye was caught by this story.

For those of you who can't be arsed to click the link, it's about a woman who decided to set fire to her Census form as a protest to the Government.

The article begins with some rather inarticulate framing of her grievances - she is something to do with Fathers For Justice - but she seems to have got a bit over-excited at the prospect of being interviewed:

“If the Government doesn’t recognise me and the parents I represent, then it doesn’t recognise us as a citizen so I won’t be counted. I will continue my campaign of non-compliance against the state and holding the Government to account. There is a chance I will be prosecuted and they will try and make an example of a few people but this lady is not for turning.”

I particularly like her loss of syntax in the first sentence and the Mrs Thatcher semi-quote later on. I can imagine her bouncing up and down, lighter at the ready as the reporter tries to get all this down for posterity.

Her plan was to ignite her Census form in the middle of the marketplace, while the local MP looked on in impotent horror, possibly hammering on his office windows, shouting "Noooooooooo!"

"Saturday morning’s census form burning was designed to bring the matter to the attention of Andover MP Sir George Young and give it wider public recognition."

It didn't go to plan.

"In the event the ceremonial flames failed to flare very much as the census form is seemingly made from a fire resistant material, the MP was not looking out the Guildhall window at the time although a few market traders looked on."

I just love - LOVE - that laconic word "Seemingly." And, oh yeah, he wasn't even watching. Perhaps next time she should blow a horn or something first, make sure she has Sir George's full attention before she tries and fails to set fire to a bit of paper.

A friend who was at Centerparcs (another friend, not the one who brought the newspaper with this gem in it) was doing some temporary work for the Office of National Statistics, conducting post-Census interviews in a particular area of Oxfordshire a little while ago. She said she was supposed to visit every single house in a specific postcode area, knock on the door, and try to get the occupant to take part in a survey to follow up on what was in the Census.

She told us about one row of cottages, each one occupied by a crazy person, but each crazy in a different way. She had us agog, listening to her stories of weeping women and slightly too security-conscious older men, but the climax was this one.

She knocked on the door of one cottage, and could hear the occupant moving around inside. There was no answer, so she knocked again. Apparently the ONS people are supposed to try for 10 consecutive days to get a reply, so she wasn't daunted. After another, louder knocking, the occupant shouted "Who is it?"

"Hello! I'm from the Office of National Statistics!" my friend replied cheerily. She had to shout through the letterbox, most undignified.

"What do you want?" bellowed the occupant.

"I'm here to ask you to take part in a follow-up survey, to confirm the Census form. It's entirely voluntary." She said she heard him walk to the front door, and then the bolts and locks being opened.

Imagine her horror when a large man, wearing a Guantanamo Bay style orange jumpsuit yanked the door open and glared at her. It didn't help that his face was traversed by a series of large, nasty-looking fresh scratches.

My friend said she backed away involuntarily.

"Oh yes?" said the scary scratched man. Then, leaning forward he bellowed into my friend's face "WELL I'M NOT DOING IT!" and slammed the door shut.

She said that one was marked down as "Declined to take part" on the form.

Adrenaline

2011-06-16T18:03:00.000+01:00

Ah, weekends away. They are a treat, aren't they? Spending time with friends, away from home and domestic ~~drudgery~~ bliss, enjoying the chance to catch up and relax.

I recently went to Centerparcs with a group of girls. Ladies. Women. Most of us are over 40, but this time there were a few youngsters too. It's something we've done a few times before. In fact I think it is the 11th year we've been there as a group.

Last time I went, I noticed how downmarket the place was getting. Readers, I have to report that things have not improved.

Once again, our group was staying in one of the posh villas with the hot tub and sauna and so on, which was lovely. However, there are even more new villas crammed on the site, and they are building a series of "tree houses" which are being heavily advertised, so I anticipate increased visitor numbers. It all meant that there were queues for everything, and that most of the activities - the selling point that Centerparcs advertises heavily - and treatments at the Spa were already booked up, meaning that a lot of people will have arrived and found that the only thing they could do all weekend (other than walk or cycle around the park in the pissing rain) was use the swimming pool and slides.

We stood and watched the slides for a bit. It was like watching a nature film of spawning salmon, dozens of people all rammed together, sqeeeeeeeeaking slowly down the slide in unison. One day I might break in, wearing the bear costume, and stand at the top, swiping at the slower ones with a huge clawed paw.

A new attraction since my last visit was this, the "Aerial adventure," described on the Centerparcs website thus:

A thrilling combination of Tree Trekking and Zip Wire for the serious adrenaline junkie. You are connected into the ExpoGlider safety harness system whilst you tackle our Aerial Adventure course, experiencing many individual challenges.

Yes. Well.

Looks nice and straightforward at the start, doesn't it? You climb up a short ladder, walk along a wooden log onto a platform, and then make your way along a series of rope and log traverses, strung between the trees. Yeah. Easy.

Except, it gets higher as you go along, because the ground slopes away.

And higher.

And then, as if that wasn't quite enough, you have to zipline across the lake to get to the end, where tea and medals await you.

One of our group* went for a walk one morning, and found herself walking alongside the Aerial Adventure. She was enjoying the sunshine, probably whistling to herself when she heard a "terrible screaming." She stopped, as you would, and looked around to see what was going on. A woman was standing on one of the wooden platforms, in her hard hat, safety rope clipped to the guide cable**, part-way along the Aerial Adventure. She had stopped having an adventure and was instead having a huge panic attack.

Apparently it took half an hour for one of the staff to coax her along the walkway thingy - a series of short logs artfully strung on ropes like a wobbly plank bridge - to the next platform. She was shaking so much that the entire walkway was shaking with her. When she got to the next platform, even higher up, of course, she refused point blank to go any further, and they had to rig up a special abseil rope to get her down. When she got to the ground, there was copious hysterical weeping and the medics had to be called.

Ah, adventure.

Her husband/partner was just behind her on the walkway, probably having persuaded her to give it a go - "You'll be fine, love, it's not that high! It'll be a laugh!" - so I like to imagine the painful, stony silence they drove home in.

Other highlights included a roebuck calmly eating his breakfast right outside our villa kitchen window.

We stood and watched him for ages, it was lovely.

And in less than two weeks I am off to Ragdale Hall for a Spa minibreak with Middle Sis. Hurrah. This not working malarky has a lot to be said for it.

*Hello Viv!
**Safety first

Drying out

2011-06-09T13:32:00.000+01:00

I have spent the last few days engaging in all manner of old-fashioned housewifely activities. By that, I don't mean spending three days boiling water, shaving soap flakes, scrubbing and mangling linen sheets, or having to walk 5 miles to the shop just to get some sugar.

No, I have been dicking about with roses. I'm turning into some sort of delusional Marie Antoinette type, I think.

Our garden looks gorgeous at the moment; all the roses are in full bloom. I have spent quite a lot of time and effort over the last 10 years getting some traditional scented varieties to grow out there, and it has paid off. Rather than simply admiring the roses outside, or cutting a few for a little vase in the house, I have been harvesting them.

Yeah. Harvesting. Like a farmer. Hence my Marie Antoinette delusion.

I am going to dry them all out and make delicious smelling pot-pourri and shizzle.

I started with the dark red roses, which have almost black buds and smell amazing.

Then I got a bit carried away and added some Rosa Mundi stripey ones and pale pink Chaucers.

Then some yellow and pink ones. I have no clue what they are called.

Some of them have already dried out, and I am keeping them in a dish till the others are ready too.

The others are shrivelling up satisfactorily, and ought to be ready in a couple of days.

In my head, I am an Eighteenth Century lady of leisure, in a huge country house. But with a washing machine.

To keep up my bucolic dream, I made some bread the other day. I had a go making a ciabatta, rather ruining the traditional English country house dream by adding Italian trendiness.

It was shite. Look.

That's a teaspoon - yes, a TEA spoon next to it for scale. Laughable.

So yesterday, in an attempt to revive my flagging bread making reputation, I made some by hand, not in the machine. It turned out alright.

Mmmmm, bread.

Here's a porn-style close up for you to enjoy.

Fwoar...look at the flour on that.

If it's seeping, run away

2011-06-08T16:42:00.002+01:00

Redacted.

Pigs etcetera

2011-06-06T21:43:00.001+01:00

I think I might go back to work for a rest.

I know that's a cliche, but hey, I've been too busy to come up with anything original.

Last week was a whirl - yes a whirl - of gaiety.

Tuesday was Mottisfont Day. It's a big annual day out for me and my lovely Mum. We go to look at the garden there, which includes the National Rose Collection, and is just beautiful.

The house is rather splendid too. Look:

I am pleased with the brooding sky in this photo. The whole day was like this, sunny and warm, with "end of the world" weather potential.

The gardens are just fab. Go. Even if you live in Texas or something, it'd be worth the trip, honest. And there's a tea shop and everything, so you know, not a wasted journey.

They've put a fence round the spring now, so you can't fall in unless you try really hard.

Unfortunately I am an idiot, and failed to check the battery in my camera, so these last few pictures were taken on my phone. Sorry.

More impressively dark skies on that one.

Mum and I took shelter in that little tiled hut thingy in the corner, waiting for the downpour. It never came. But if it had, we'd have been dry. Take that, weather.

Anyhoo, look. Pretty.

Later that same week, Middle Sis and family came to visit for a few days. We had a barbecue, and ended up sitting out in the garden with the fire lit till really quite late*. Party animals that we are.

Being the evil thief that I am, I have nicked one of her photos for my blog. Mwahahahahaaaaaaa.

Those are my new solar-powered garden lanterns. Marvellous.

The highlight of the week, though, was the Bath and West Show. It's not as brilliant as the Frome Cheese Show. To be fair, how could it be? It doesn't have the same depth of character, the same terse notes left by the judges, and the same dazzling arrays of prize silage and unfeasible leeks, but it does have pigs. Lots and lots of pigs.

Big ones.

Small ones.

Sleepy ones with a bucket on their head.

And my personal favourite, hugely tolerant ones which were being used to demonstrate "pig handling" by very young children. I did take some pictures, but won't post them on here, what with them being of other peoples' children and all.

Believe me, a four-year-old in a teeny white coat, whacking a huge pig with a stick to make it walk in a straight line is a sight you don't easily forget.

Other attractions included competitive sheep shearers. Middle Sis and I watched them for a fair while, impressed by their skill and dexterity. Nothing to do with the muscles and vests. No no no.

The sheep all looked faintly bored, the ones backstage jostling and peeking over the barricade, watching their mates being shorn. Little did they know it was their turn next.

"Haha, your new haircut makes you look like a dick, Kevin..."

The Army were there, doing lots of fun stuff, including challenging people to run about in the hot sun carrying heavy weights. There was a queue for this. Really.

There was a giant mounted knight made from recycled rubbish. I liked him a lot.

And there was this. We wantssssss it, my precious.

It's got a matching bag to put your shotgun in! How great is that? Perfect for nipping to the shops. The GUN shops.

Saturday night we went to a party for a neighbour's birthday, which was pleasant - marquees and tables in their riverside garden, with food and music and wine and chatting. Most convivial. I have garden envy now, though. I want river frontage and fishing rights.

Sunday I was woken up by the most godawful thunder and heavy rain I can remember, which enlivened the morning. Torrential rain all day, making up for all these past weeks of dry. Dryth? Drought? No rain, anyway.

Today has been lovely, not least because I didn't get up at 5:50 and then struggle in from work, knackered, at 8pm. I could get used to this.

*After 10pm. We're getting old.

Catcalls

2011-06-02T12:36:00.002+01:00

You know when you're expecting people to arrive? Family, specifically. You're bustling around, changing beds and hoovering up random filth, making the place look lovely for them.

You decide to go out into the garden, put the benches and deckchairs out ready to relax out there later on. While you're out there, you might think "I know, I'll sweep up all the grass clippings all over the paths so that it looks really tidy, and people won't trail grass all through my freshly-hoovered house.

You fetch the broom, and set to, sweeping cheerfully in the sunshine.

You hear a shrill "Coo-eeee!" from around the front of the house.

"Oh good," you think. "My guests are here nice and early. Hurrah."

"Coo-eeee!" you reply, continuing to sweep.

"Cooooooo-eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" comes the call again, louder and shriller.

"Helloooooooo!" you reply, still not stopping sweeping, waiting for your guests to appear round the corner into the back garden.

They don't appear.

You realise that they are playing games with you; their shrill calls take on a strangely urgent tone.

"Is there a cat in my front garden? I can hear it mewling and squawking at me," you call, as you walk round the corner.

You come face to face, not with your sister and her family, but with the post lady.

"Oh! I was expecting my sister! Um...sorry."

"Here's your post. I knew you must be about, I could hear you sweeping."

Gah.

The horror...

2011-05-29T15:35:00.001+01:00

Have you ever bought some nice soft French cheese, maybe a small whole Camembert, and thought "I'll put that in the fridge, and in a day or two it will be just perfect." Have you?

And then you make different meals that don't involve cheese in any shape or form. And then, after a week or so, you've all but forgotten it's there.

Oh, perhaps you had to put it into a sealed plastic box after a day or two, as it was smelling particularly cheesy, but otherwise it's been no trouble.

And then, then, one day, your husband decides to rummage around in the fridge, looking for something nice for his lunch. He finds the box with the small whole Camembert in it, and opens it in a spirit of keen scientific enquiry.

He removes the cheese from the box, leaving it on the side, while he starts looking for cheese biscuits.

Readers, it only takes a very few moments for the smell of that cheese to permeate the entire room, then the house.

I immediately began heaving violently, and had to beg him to take it outside. He did so, doubled up with laughter as I gagged and retched into the kitchen sink, finally dropping the offending cheese into the wheelie bin in the garden.

We may be sued by the dustmen.

Last day

2011-05-26T11:29:00.000+01:00

I am in a period of adjustment. I finished at work on Monday, and am now on leave until the end of the month, when my employment officially ends.

How does it feel?

It feels weird, mostly. I don't think it will actually sink in for a couple of weeks that I no longer have a job. I'm trying to resist the temptation to either panic or completely freak out*, both of which have threatened in the last couple of days. Instead, I am slowly sorting out my study, and emptying my handbag and rucksack of stuff I don't need to carry around any more every day.

I took my season ticket back to the railway station on Tuesday morning. The nice man who offered to make us tea was on duty.

"Morning," I said. "Can I cash in my season ticket please?"

"Ooh!" he said. "Have you left your job now?"

"Yes I have! Yay!" I did a little dance of joy. The ticket man did a little dance of joy behind the glass screen. His young trainee emerged from round the back somewhere and did a little dance of joy with us too.

An old lady walked in and we all stopped, embarrassed. The young trainee vanished round the back, never to be seen again.

I had to fill in many complicated forms, and hand over my season ticket - still with about £2500 left on it - and my long term parking ticket, and was assured that I would be told by the end of the week how much I was going to get refunded. I hope it's loads. Well, I'm practically unemployed now.

The last day in the office was very strange too.

I'd organised a farewell lunch at the local Wagamamas for some of my colleagues, and most of them were able to come along, including one or two who left the Department a while back, which was lovely. Before lunch I did a bit of desultory work-related stuff, chatted to people and emptied out my locker. Lunch was prolonged and animated, so I thoroughly enjoyed it, then back to the office for the last couple of hours before I could decently head home.

I was down on the first floor, chatting to a colleague, who had very kindly got me a farewell gift. As we sat there, one of my colleagues from the sixth floor, where I sat, came rushing through, looking for me. She was in a bit of a tizz.

I waved to her and she came over, all out of breath and anxious.

"You need to come back upstairs!" she said.

"Oh? What's the matter?"

"Um...you just need to come back upstairs." Bless.

Sure enough, when I arrived back at my desk, the entire team were assembled, waiting for me. The boss quickly came back from his end of the office and gave a flattering, if embarrassing, speech about how much help I'd been and how much I'd be missed. Always nice to hear. Then they gave me a huge bag of loot. How splendid.

I managed to say thank you and good luck and goodbye (I think, I actually can't really remember much of what I said) without blubbing like a great big girl, which had been a bit of a worry.

And then I went home. Handed in my security pass - first time in 23 years I haven't had one of those in my handbag - and my laptop, and left the building.

Mr WithaY had sorted out a very fine supper and a bottle of Champagne** so we sat together and drank that, and I showed him all my fab gifts, and told him how nice everyone had been.

And now I am looking at what to do next. Apart from stabbing futiley at molehills with a garden fork, I mean. Bastard.

Tell you one thing though. I am LOVING not getting up before 6am to catch the train. Oh yes indeedy.

*that's when I run in circles like Daffy Duck with his hair on fire, shrieking. It's not pretty.

**Lidl's finest - can't go wrong

Countdown

2011-05-21T19:23:00.000+01:00

I have only one more day of work left. Well, one more day - Monday - in the office, and then I am on leave until the end of the month, when my employment with Her Majesty ends officially.

Yesterday I was almost entirely lazy, dealing with a couple of minor issues via email, and spending the rest of my time electronically filing stuff where other people will be able to find it after I've gone. At about half past three, I logged off, shut down my laptop, and then packed it back in its case, ready to be returned to the office on Monday.

I may have heaved a deep, satisfied sigh as I did so.

After that, while waiting for my gorgeous guitar teacher to arrive, I tidied and rearranged my study, which feels much bigger now that the work ephemera is gone. I've chucked out* all the work-related papers I had kicking around, and the draft copies of legislation that I used to have to refer to. And hey, there's loads of space on the shelves all of a sudden.

I've also packed my Rickenbacker into its case and stashed it under the bed, freeing up a large gap in here. I will, of course, soon fill that gap with other stuff, but just for today I am enjoying the sense of light and air that has been manifest in here since I put my laptop away.

Today I also cleaned under our bed. Brrrr. That's a task you face with a steely determination and a recently-emptied hoover, I can tell you.

The things I found included:

A box full of scarves, bags and evening gloves
A yoga mat
A box of assorted hair implements - velcro rollers, clips, hairdryer attachements for hairdryers I don't own
A pair of funky sandals I had forgotten I owned, probably bought the last time we were in America
Three rucksacks of varying sizes, all grey and fluffy with dust

Mr WithaY's scuba gear was also under there, but I am terrified of his air tanks so I never touch those. He moved them all out so I could hoover.

It's all been cleaned, sorted and replaced or removed, and there is also room for my posh guitar and stand under there now. Marvellous.

Tonight, to celebrate, we have some friends coming over for dinner. It was supposed to be a casual supper but, as is our wont, it has escalated into something resembling a Fifteenth Century Venetian banquet. With port.

Other news: My iPhone is buggered. I need to replace it but a new handset will cost me over £100. Is it worth biting the bullet and getting an iPhone 4? Suggestions welcome.

*Burned. I'm not leaving work stuff in the bins where just anyone could find it and sell it to the tabloids.

Crests

2011-05-18T22:09:00.001+01:00

I am having a whale of a time at the moment. I think I've been out for lunch almost every day that I've been in London for the last fortnight, and was also wined and dined on Monday night in the heart of the West End.

My lovely mate Tall Richard took me to the RAF Club for dinner.

Well.

It was marvellous.

There are many beautiful paintings of aircraft, as you'd expect. Also chandeliers and brass fittings everywhere. And flunkies, guarding the door, and minding your rucksack if you happen to have come straight from work. Mine was much admired. Apparently they don't see many pink flowery ones.

I was particularly taken with the huge stained glass window. As I had completely forgotten to pack my camera, I took a few fuzzy snaps on my phone:

Please note the professional almost-joining of the two halves.

You're welcome.

There is a long corridor lined with original artwork from the Royal College of Heralds, one for each Squadron (I think), all very lovely.

Here's one up close.

But my very favourite thing about the place was that everything - everything - at dinner was emblazoned with the club crest. I bet if you conducted an intimate examination of the staff, they'd all have it tattooed on them somewhere.

The coffee cups.

The wine glasses.

The wine. And very nice it was too, by the way.

Even the after-dinner chocolates.

Excellent.

Tall Richard and I ate a huge and marvellous meal, got a Death Race 2000 taxi back to his flat, then walked to the Prospect of Whitby pub for a cheeky late night drink. And then back to the flat for port. I think it was almost 2am when I got to bed.

Work the next day is something of a hazy blur. Clearly I am too old to be out partying on a work night.

Tomorrow I am going out for lunch, and then our Gloucestershire mates are coming over in the evening (hopefully minus the garden-trashing spaniels) so I will have to knock off early to get home in time to see them.

And then, after that, it's my last day EVER on Monday next week. Blimey.

Other news: We've got a fucking mole in the garden.

Not in the lawn. Not in the flowerbeds. Not even in the bit behind the shed. No. He has made his little moley home in the middle of our flourishing vegetable bed.

Bastard.

He's been disrupting our radishes.

His days are numbered.

Glimpses of life

2011-05-13T19:19:00.000+01:00

The week in snippets.

Sunday. A quiet half-hour in the WithaY household, sipping tea and discussing the Vikings.

Me: Would you fancy going to Valhalla when you die?

Mr WithaY (after a thoughtful pause) I don't know. It sounds a bit raucous.

Me: So, you'd prefer a quiet corner, not one of the carousing tables?

Mr WithaY: Yes. I'd go if there was a chillout room.

Monday. Arriving at my sister's house, as previously arranged via text, to spend the evening with her and the family, and enjoy some quality family time. And a lie-in on Tuesday.

The look of shock on her face when she opened the door was a picture. Apparently she'd completely forgotten I was coming. We decided to get an Indian take-away (brave, given my recent stomach upset, but you'll be glad to know there were no ill effects) as there were apparently only 4 burgers in the fridge. Heh.

Tuesday. Watched a flustered man in a pink shirt struggle to open his box of salad to eat on the homeward journey, lose patience, jerk frustratedly at the lid, and successfully tip grated carrot, beans, couscous and salad dressing all over himself and the table. He muttered "...fuck...." sheepishly, scraped the mess up and sat there all the way to Basingstoke in a salad-dressing-smelling shirt.

Wednesday. You know, I can't remember a single event from Wednesday? Not one. Perhaps I spent the day asleep. Or locked in a cupboard. Or in another dimension. In all events, I have nothing to offer. Sorry.

Thursday. Arrived home from work, to a house with a strange smell.

me: Can I smell vinegar?

Mr WithaY: (proudly) Yes! I've been pickling!

Me: Oh. (with some trepidation) What have you pickled?

Mr WithaY: Ash keys! Look!

He ran into his study and returned triumphantly, waving a small jar with, yes, pickled ash keys and a garlic clove floating in it. Lord.

Me: Oh. Um. Well done?

Friday: Today has been all about fishwatching. We've had seven fatalities so far in the last week - two of the new samurai gourami, two tiger barbs, a leopard cory and two neon tetras. It may just be unfortunate coincidence, but Mr WithaY will be checking the water chemistry tomorrow to see if something has gone badly wrong. Over a year with no sad, last, long flushings, and now seven. In a week! Gah.

Oh, and I had a guitar lesson which - forgive the term - ROCKED. We played Sweet Child of Mine AND Freebird.

Fucking rock and roll, man.

Rock and roll.

Still got the blue(bell)s

2011-05-08T21:34:00.000+01:00

We went for a walk in the woods the other week. The woods by which I live. The bluebells were out, and it was gorgeous. In the absence of anything thrilling to tell you, here are some pictures:

I made a mental note of where the huge logpile was for possible Winter firewood foraging raids*.

We went with some friends and their charming dog.

There are little tiny white wood anemones mixed in with the bluebells, very pretty.

Beech trees in Spring leaf. I love that colour green.

We saw a tree with a woodpecker's hole.

I do love how the colour of bluebells changes from the single flower, where it looks quite dark, to the huge swathe, where it is much paler. Why is that?

It was all very pretty, and once again made me profoundly glad that I live here.

Other news: I've been really poorly with a hideous stomach bug for the best part of a week. It laid me low for 48 hours, seemed to go away, then came back with a vengeance again for another 48 hours. Today is the first day in several that I feel like myself again.

Yesterday - our wedding anniversary as it happens, 17 years, not that I'm counting or anything - I spent almost the entire day either laying on the bed with a fleecy blanket over me, sipping water and feeling dreadful, or curled up under the duvet, glaring at Grand Designs on TV with one squinty, tired, red eye.

So yeah, that was all a bit pants. On the bright side, Mr WithaY gave me the most beautiful bouquet of flowers** which was a lovely surprise.

Also, I made a few enquiries about selling my Rickenbacker. I seldom play it, and I was sat here the other day thinking "I need more room in here to do my sewing. There are just too many guitars, dammit."

From there it was a short step to ringing a well-known guitar emporium and asking how much a second-hand Rickenbacker 620 12-string would go for.

Well.

If you look at the Rickenbacker website, there are no prices listed, as they have a mega waiting list for their guitars. Anything up to (and beyond) 2 years is not uncommon. If you order a guitar from them, you pay them what the price is WHEN IT IS DELIVERED, not when you order it. So in 2 years it could have gone up a fair bit.

If you look on eBay, the average asking price for a guitar the same as mine is about £1500.

If you look at guitar shop websites, expect to pay anything from £1450 to £1750.

So imagine my chagrin when I was told that the retail price for a Rickenbacker 620 12-string is "about £900. So we'd offer you about £600 for it."

Their reasoning for this very low offer is that "the demand for Rickenbackers has dropped way down because of the waiting time."

Really.

I think I'll hang onto it for now, thanks.

Anyway, to end on a cheerful Spring note, here is some May in flower. The hedges round here are full of it.

*If I actually tried thieving any of the Longleat Estate's wood, I reckon I'd be thrown to the lions.

**For our anniversary, not because I had a hideous stomach bug. He tends not to celebrate outbreaks of the shits.

Dress sense

2011-04-27T12:17:00.001+01:00

In a serendipitous manner, Belgian Waffle recently posted about sartorial mistakes. Purchasing errors, really. She asked her readers to let her know about their own such errors, which got me thinking.

It so happened that I spent a good deal of yesterday up to my oxters* in clothes, what with all the ironing that has built up. When the weather is good, I get the all washing done, and it dries on the line really quickly. This is great. Except that it then turns from "washing" to "ironing" whereupon it lurks accusingly in the basket, eyeing me with big, reproachful eyes. Yeah, eyes made of buttons**.

I cracked, finally, and yesterday, as the weather had turned a bit cooler, I decided to Do The Ironing. Fortunately, several reruns of Star Trek DS9 were on TV, so I had a couple of hours of sci-fi nerdiness to keep me entertained while I slaved like a Victorian skivvy.

Once you've ironed everything to within an inch of its life, you have to put it away. This leads to a whole new set of issues. My wardrobe*** is large, and usually pretty well-organised, but of course, with the change in the weather and the impending end of formal employment, I need to rearrange everything. I dicked about with hangers, moving "work" stuff back and forth, putting summer clothes closer to the front, and so on, until I'd had enough, and thought "Ahhh, bugger it."

Everything was taken out, and laid on the bed. Lord I have a lot of black clothes. If I were a witch, I'd be laughing.

Cackling.

I decided to get rid of the last remaining suit in my wardrobe. The others were all put in the charity recycling collection skip thingy a while back, as they were too big.  This one, being a skirt suit, was less baggy, and at least I didn't run the risk of my trousers falling off, but it looked boxy and unflattering. Plus, I've had it for at least 10 years, possibly more, and despite it still looking smart and un-worn-out, I can't see myself wearing it in the near future. Into the bag it went.

As did several cardigans (too big, too boring, too work-like), a few t-shirts which I never wear, and a couple of dull skirts I bought in ill-advised shopping sprees and then wore maybe once, probably while visiting at Christmas. Gone, gone, gone.

I still have far too many pairs of black trousers, and at least 8 long black skirts which are really only suitable for office wear, or maybe to a formal-ish party with a really pretty top and nice shoes. They might be going to join their friends in the skip later in the year.

On the plus side, I found three pairs of sandals which I'd forgotten I had, lurking at the bottom of the wardrobe. I bought them in America last summer so they are already worn in, which means I can use them this summer without giving myself Medieval peasant feet for the first fortnight.

The point of all this rambling is that I don't have many clothes which I actively regret buying. There are a few things I have bought on a whim - usually in a sale, usually at Long Tall Sally - and then never wore, but I seldom think "I wish I hadn't bought that."

I do regret getting rid of a few things over the years. Not things that were loved to rags amd just wore out, but things I decided to sell or swap or give to charity, and now wish I hadn't. In fact, there are some clothes that I still look for from time to time, before remembering that I don't own them any more.

Top of the list is definitely my first leather jacket. It was a birthday present from an ex-boyfriend when I was 18 or 19, and I loved it. It was very 1980s, as it had long tassles along both sleeves and across the shoulders. It was made for me by a bike shop in Brighton, so the tassels were specially commissioned - they were 8 inches long, and I adored them.

Once I started riding motorcycles, rather than just perching decoratively on the pillion, I had to trim them to prevent them from interfering with the controls, but they were still pretty - they went in a diagonal line from elbow to wrist, from 8 inches long at the elbow to about 3 inches long at the cuff, and looked excellent.

A few years later, a very talented artistic friend painted a Celtic design across the shoulders in shades of blues, greens and purples, and it was stunning. The same friend also painted a Green Man on the back of Mr WithaY's leather jacket, which, if I can find a picture of, I will post on here.

Anyway, time passed and I got much fatter than I had been at 19 and eventually my beautiful jacket didn't fit me any more. I bought a "proper" bike jacket with padding and kevlar and bulletproofing and ninja protection and my tassely painted jacket languished at the back of a cupboard.

Years later, another friend (hello Fiona!) who is a dressmaking GENIUS accepted the painted jacket as part payment for some fabulous item of clothing she made for me - a ballgown or a seventeenth century corset or something - so it went to a good home. I assume it emigrated to Canada with them when they went.  I am too fat for it, without a doubt, but I still miss it.

Another garment I pine for is my kaftan. Yes, yes, I know.

It was a floor length dress, with dozens of small fabric buttons and rouleau loops all down the front from throat to navel, and long sleeves that had faux historical pointed bits, meaning that when you held your arms out you looked like a pre-Raphaelite lady. In a kaftan. It was made of ultra soft Indian cotton, printed all over with a small paisley-esque design in shades of red, amber, gold, brown and black. I adored it.

I bought it in a second-hand shop in the Lanes in Brighton, for something ridiculous like £3.50. Nowadays it would be classed as a "vintage" dress, and would probably cost about fifty times that much.

I loved it, and whenever I wore it - almost constantly in my first year at college, as I recall - I felt like someone slightly exotic and offbeat. I looked, as my family will attest, like a girl with very little dress sense and a lot of colourful second hand clothes, but that's neither here nor there.

My mate Martin, now a respected and media-friendly archaeologist**** told me that the first time he saw me - Freshers Week at college, when I was a first year and he was a worldy-wise second year - he said to his mate "Oooh, she's statuesque."

I was almost certainly wearing my kaftan, and probably several Indian silk scarves artfully draped and tied all over me.   We still talk about it now, more than 20 years later. Gah.

I might have to recreate that look when I am not having to look smart for work.

Heh.

*Just for you, badgerdaddy

**Neil Gaiman has a lot to answer for

***Mr WithaY's clothes are left in neat heaps on the bed for him to stash away as he pleases. He lacks my anal "everything has a place to be" mindset.

****He's on Time Team a lot. Media darling.

Cry "God for Harry, England and Saint George!"

2011-04-23T12:21:00.000+01:00

It's so strange, waking up to day after day of glorious sunshine. It feels like Abroad, somewhere not quite real. And of course, it's so early in the year - April! - that it is still Spring here, pretending to be Summer. We've got daffodils in the garden, which seems faintly bizarre in blazing 26 degree sun.

I spotted an anemone this morning too - gorgeous dark purple, the solitary show from a whole pack of bulbs that we planted. There are also some Mystery Plants coming up next to it, also from bulbs, but I have no idea what they are. It's like a very sedate whodunnit - what will they turn out to be? Alliums? Irises? Exotic lilies? Deadly Triffids? We have to wait a month and see.

The clematis is starting to flower - it is covered in buds so in a day or two will be covered in brilliant white flat flowers that look a bit like Tudor roses. Love it. Even the roses already have loads of buds forming, so it's easy to visualise how pretty everything will look soon.

We've got cowslips growing in the lawn, and some lily of the valley colonising a dank corner under the hedge out the front. Mr WithaY and I planted more lavender. We are making a hedge alongside the path at the side of the house, ooh get us, which I have high hopes for. Yesterday I bought a new bench to go out the front too, as the old one creaks unnervingly when sat upon*.

I like the fact that conversations for the last week have all followed the same pattern. They begin with "Wonderful weather! Isn't it fantastic? Hottest Easter for a decade/century/thousand years, they said on the news last night. Yeah, we're having a barbecue tonight. Got sunburnt on Bournemouth beach yesterday."

Then the tone changes slightly and we get the qualifier(s): "Let's hope we don't pay for it later, eh? It can't last much longer, can it? It's bound to piss down all through July now." There may or may not be some sort of half-arsed gripe about global warming too, and of course dire predictions about smog.

I love that we can't just enjoy a spell of sunshine without having to add all the riders about how it can't last forever. Neither can any kind of weather. Britain is famed for its weird and variable weather. The fact that we've had more than 3 days of the same weather - in this case sun - on the trot is unusual. Remember the snow in the winter? That went on a bit too. That's why it made the news. Gah.

Other news: Looks like we may have finally FINALLY sold Father in Law WithaY's house, thank the lord. The estate agents overvalued it in the first place, and then, of course, all the offers we received were way lower than the asking price. We have managed to convince Father in Law WithaY that the market is a bit crap at the moment, and that it makes more sense to sell the place than to hang on to it, empty and unloved for another year. Plus Mr WithaY won't have to risk losing more fingers mowing the lawn down there.

So, I reckon we need one more trip to clean the remaining rooms, a skip to get rid of all the accumulated crud that is not sellable or recyclable, and a man with a van to take away the furniture that didn't get sold at auction, and the place is ready to go. I can't say I'm sorry. It's been a millstone around our necks, knowing it was empty, and until fairly recently, crammed with a lifetime's collection of antiques. At least all the stuff that could be sold at auction has gone, so all that's left is more mundane stuff.

Plus, with the hideous price of diesel (£1.42 a litre! Fuck!) the journey there and back isn't cheap either.

Mr WithaY has taken himself off today to volunteer at this place. Now that he's booked onto his axe-head forging course, he is all inspired to do more prehistoric technical shit. And stuff.

I declined, on the grounds that I am not keen to spend the hottest day of the year so far up to my oxters in an Iron Age cess pit, or digging a well.

I might make some new curtains for the bathroom. If I can be arsed. Or I might just have a long cold drink, sitting on my new garden bench, reading a book. I've discovered the Classic Rock digital radio station, and am loving it.

Happy St George's Day.

*Possibly only when sat upon by two large adults, but I am not risking my life, tea or dignity any longer.

The Sock Game

2011-04-18T14:18:00.000+01:00

Today I am mostly typing with my hideous, scaly, thorn-embedded, scarred, muddy fingers. Yes, I have been gardening.

Mr WithaY and I are both on leave from work for a couple of weeks, and despite many conversations about Where Shall We Go For Easter, we are still here at home.

I have to say, I don't mind at all. The weather has been gorgeous for the last week and a half, and looks set to continue that way for a few more days, so being at home is no hardship. This weekend we did a lot of sorting out in the garden, clearing crap (not real crap, metaphorical crap) off the patio.

Things we cleared included:

- Broken garden umbrella, which was lying on its side on the floor, and had been left forgotten about for months and months. Note: When testing a garden umbrella for broken-ness, try not to stand under it as you open it. It will invariably be full of dead leaves, mud, litter, woodlice and snails. Top tip.

- Assorted garden detritus, plastic buckets, broken flowerpots, sticks ("for poking the drain with" according to Mr WithaY - too late, sunshine, they are in the green bin,) and blown-in litter that was all tangled up among everything else.

- Huge builders sacks full of old loft flooring material, which we have been meaning to take to the tip for ages. In fact, we discovered that as it is made of compressed sawdust* and other wood-based goodness, we can smash it up with a spade and then put it all on the bare patch behind the shed to suppress weeds. Plus it will give the rats somewhere cosy to sleep.

- The dead camellia that I have finally admitted is dead, and consigned to great compost bin in the sky. The cold winter did for it. I moved the other camellia (they're both in tubs) round to the front of the house where it is more sheltered, and where it will hopefully be a bit happier and actually produce some flowers next season.

With all that lot out of the way, we were inspired to begin the vegetable planting. Mr WithaY carefully put courgette (2 types) and squash seeds into little pots, then put the pots in the plastic greenhouse thingy. I planted "mixed salad" seeds in a big tub. Next month the aubergines, carrots and French beans go in.

Today I planted six lavender plants in pots and along one border in the front garden, some golden thyme in a different border, and a rosemary plant in a large pot. I need to get a new bench to go out the front though, the old one - at least 16 years old now - creaks alarmingly when it is sat on, and I have visions of us crashing to the ground in a miasma of tea and bad language one sunny afternoon.

Unfortunately, having been out in the garden so much, I noticed the bastard sparrows. The bastard sparrows who are nesting in the hedge are using my car as a sort of avian amusement park, sitting on the wing mirror and shitting liberally all down the driver's door. Sometimes, for a change, they hop down onto the rubber window trim and fight with their own reflections in the wing mirror. This is clearly alarming and makes them shit themselves. If they win the fight with themselves, they have a celebratory great big shit.

I tried folding the mirror back, but they still manage to get themselves between it and the car for a good old mirror fight. And a shit, of course. Bastards.

I wouldn't mind so much but we feed them, we have a little bath out there for them, we have nesting boxes all over the place, and how do they repay our kindness? By covering my car in a thick, copious layer of second-hand birdseed.

I have been washing huge amounts of sparrow crap off my car for three days now, and every time I go out there it is encrusted again. I might admit defeat and harvest it to sell on eBay. My own Organic Guano business.

Other News: It was Mr WithaY's birthday at the weekend.

Me: It's your birthday soon - what would you like as a present?

Mr WithaY: Oh, something bushcrafty please.

Me: ....? *thinks* Ohhh fuck...

"Something bushcrafty" could mean almost anything. An interesting stick? A pet squirrel? Snowshoes? A canoe? A week in a Youth Hostel in the bleakest corner of the North of Scotland? A banjo? I have no clue.

I chickened out and gave him some money.

Guess what he plans to spend it on, readers? I bet you won't, not in a million billion years.

He's booked himself onto a bronze axe-head forging course in Wales.

He's very excited about it.

*sigh*

Anyhoo, in a slightly less mental birthday vein, we went out for dinner with some friends on Saturday night to a fine local eaterie. We ate and drank like kings** then sat around chatting and drinking coffee. The owners of the eaterie have a splendid dog - a Rhodesian Ridgeback, to be specific - who came trotting out to say hello. We all made a huge fuss of her, and she was charming company, greeting everyone and being good-natured and friendly.

It came time to go, and we stood up, putting on coats and jackets, the lovely dog still milling around, sniffing hands and wagging her tail. One of our group pulled his jumper on, and was pulling the sleeves up over his hands and up his arms when the dog went mental.

Mental.

Still wagging her tail, she jumped up and put her paws on his shoulders (she's a big dog) and started mouthing and biting at his hands, still hidden in the sleeves. She was clearly playing, but it was all a bit sudden and unexpected, and the owner rushed over to grab the dog and pull her away.

"I'm so sorry," she explained. "My husband plays a game with her where he puts a sock over his hand and they romp about - she loves it!"

She'd spotted our friend with his hands hidden up his jumper sleeves and thought "Great! Not only are these nice people making a huge fuss of me, but they also know the sock game!"

Heh.

*If any builders out there know that the stuff is actually impregnated with deadly toxic chemicals, please keep it to yourself.

**Greedy kings who like steak. And booze.

Don't wear the ring...

2011-04-11T10:06:00.000+01:00

"We'll never make it...there's thousands of them and only nine of us..."

Serious vs. Normal

2011-04-09T11:17:00.000+01:00

Blimey I'm tired. Yes, yes. I know it's Saturday morning, and the sun is out, and the birds are tweeting cheerfully. I should be bursting forth into the world with a spring in my step and a song on my lips. But really. No. Just no.

I wish I had a dazzling array of adventures to relate, explanations for being so exhausted, but I've got nothing. NOTHING. It's all down to work, boringly. And train fuckwittery, so nothing new there.

As a result of me being asked to help out with a couple of short term projects, I had to change my working pattern, and go up to London for 3 days in a row. I hate doing that. My working week is usually 2 days in London, a day working at home, another day in London, then the final day at home. I can cope with that reasonably well, although by the end of the second day in London I am washed out. Having to get up at 5.45, do my usual 3 hour commute to the office, do some pretty intensive stuff all day long, then travel 3 hours home, only to get up and do it again for 3 days in a row was a stretch.

Things weren't helped by the massive - yes I mean MASSIVE - fuck up on the trains on Wednesday night. I got to Waterloo in time to hop onto the 1750 train, which usually gets me home by 8pm, all being well.

All was not well.

On arrival at the bustling concourse* I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of hundreds, possibly thousands, hell, maybe a million people, all standing transfixed like zombies, staring up at the array of screens. Usually the screens are populated with information about which train is going where and when, all that stuff. Wednesday night, however, was different. Only three of the boards were populated, and they showed local trains. The other dozen or so were ominously blank.

The little teeny TV screen in the middle of the board had a scrolling message, running in an endless, heartbreaking loop.

"Anyone who wishes to travel to the West of England, please take the first train to Basingstoke and change there."

Well arse biscuits.

I ran** onto the platform where the Basingstoke train was parked, and then walked along the entire length of the platform, agog at the number of people who had crammed themselves into the train. It looked like those pictures of the Tokyo Underground, where guards with peaked caps and big hands force everyone in so the doors will close. I decided not to try and wedge myself in, rather to wait for the next train and hopefully find a bit more space.

There was another train waiting on a different platform, far less crowded, so I hopped aboard and found a place to stand. All the seats were full, but there was a fair bit of standing room. Plus the train had air conditioning which was working intermittently, so it wasn't all bad.

Well, that trip to Basingstoke seemed to take weeks. We trundled along at a casual pace, stopping frequently, I assume at signals, although it may have been the driver simply wishing to admire the view. Every now and again the guard's voice crackled through the intercom, apologising profusely for the disruption to everyone's journeys.

At one point he explained that the reason for all the chaos was "a serious fatality at Surbiton." I am sorry to say, readers, that this provoked an unseemly outbreak of laughter in the carriage as everyone tried to understand how a serious fatality differed from a normal fatality.

At length, we made it to Basingstoke, and the train terminated. Everyone got off, and milled about on the platform, peering anxiously up at the information screens. These were not informative.

An announcement told us to go to Platform Two, where a train to Exeter was waiting. Hurrah! The mob surged across the platform, down the stairs, along the tunnel, UP the stairs and onto Platform Two. There was indeed a train, but it was going back to London. A few people got on, then hastily off again.

The electronic board told us that the train was going to Exeter, but we didn't believe it. Sure enough, after a few minutes it headed off, towards London.

A chap next to me sighed, and said sadly "When I was a child, my grandad used to tell me if I was naughty I'd be sent to Basingstoke. And here I am."

We agreed that he must have been very naughty that day.

It got quite pally, all of us standing there on the platform in the sun, watching wasps buzzing about in the roof. Announcements kept scrolling along the electronic board, bearing no relation to either the time, or the number of trains coming and going. After another lengthy delay, someone told us over the loudspeaker that the Exeter train was on Platform FOUR, and would be leaving shortly.

Once more the mob surged down the stairs, along the tunnel and back up the stairs. Everyone, as if choreographed, clambered aboard the train and wedged themselves in.

I got home by about 9.15, having left the office just after 5, in time to have supper, watch half a TV programme, and then crash out so I could get up at 5.45 and do it all again the next day.

Did I mention that I am leaving my job next month?

Other news: Following the appalling tie-dye debacle, I bought some new bedlinen on the Internet. It's lovely, and needs no half-arsed titivation from me.

Yesterday I had my first ever singing lesson. Apparently I have a two and a half octave range, but I have no idea if this is average, more than average, less than average, or what. Anyway, the teacher seemed to think I sounded ok, and I am going back next week for another lesson. I want to learn how to breathe properly, so that if and when I ever get round to performing in public I can get through a few songs without singing myself hoarse or running out of puff.

*I'm trying my hand at travel guide writing. I'll be unemployed soon, I need to get some money somehow.
**Artistic license

Finding my way

2011-04-03T14:06:00.000+01:00

Well hello strangers. It's been a while, hasn't it?

Not because nothing of note has happened, either. No, it's been more of a "not getting round to sitting down and writing" thing. Also known as either "laziness" or "procrastination." I prefer the latter. It sounds as though I was busy doing other, more useful, stuff instead of writing.

A mate suggested recently that once I finish work I'll be much happier, and will have more things to blog about. I am actually wondering if I am already happier (in fact, I know that I am) and therefore my ranting and whining on here is less of a necessary vent, so happens less often.

What have I been up to? You may well ask.

This week has been a week of new things, in part. A while ago, a mate asked me if I could help her out with a party she was catering, which sounded like fun. I took the day off work, and agreed to meet her at the party venue. Bear in mind that the party venue was in a small town/large village about 12 miles from where I live. I had been asked to be there for 11am, so allowing for traffic (tractors, flocks of sheep in the road, pheasants dive bombing the car etc) I planned that by leaving home at 1030 I'd be there in plenty of time.

Come the day, come the hour. I was ready to go by 1000 so thought "I'll get there early, it'll be fine."

That's me. Punctual. Well-prepared. Willing.

Except - and it's a big except - in the map department. I had checked the route on Google Maps the night before, so was confident that I knew how to get there. I am aware that everyone who knows me in real life is by now slapping their forehead in despair, knowing all too well what is coming next.

Google maps did their best, I have no word of blame for them.

West Wiltshire roads and signposts department, on the other hand... Fuckers.

I have prepared a helpful visual aid to accompany this story.

Timeline:

1010 - leave house, spirits high, sun shining. Set off along road through village, turn down smaller road and then immediately experience twinge of self-doubt. Continue along road, certain that a signpost will soon tell me whether or not I am on the right road.

1020 - no signposts. No junctions. No indicators of any kind that I am n the right road. No helpful passers-by, or indeed any other traffic. Wonder briefly if there has been a huge natural disaster in the night and I am the only person left alive for hundreds of miles*. Try not to panic about this.

1030 - only junction seen so far was to a dead end with an "unsuitable for motor vehicles" sign. And a ford. Decide not to go down that road. Still fairly relaxed that I have plenty of time to get to the party venue by 1100.

1035 - see a junction signposted to the Village of the Damned. Recognise the name, and decide to take the turning, determined that I am on the wrong road, and need to take an alternative direction.

1040 - drive drive drive. No traffic, nothing. No signposts. Enter the village of the damned, take the (wrong) turn at the only junction, continue along the endless road to nowhere. Fuck. Am now lost. And likely to be late.

1050 - arrive mysteriously on a busy dual carriageway with signposts to many places, none of them where I need to be. Head back towards Longleat, swearing copiously and fluently. Am definitely going to be late.

1055 - Ooh Longleat. Consider throwing myself to the lions, but decide to wait until after the party.

1110 - arrive at the party venue town, and then realise I am unable to find the actual venue location. Stop in the middle of the street and hail the postman, who is very helpful and kind. Abandon the car in nearby car park and walk the rest of the way.

1115 - arrive to help at party, only 15 minutes late. Hurrah. Am given glass of Champagne and a pinny. Things are looking up.

The party was a 4 course meal for 60 people, to celebrate an 80th birthday. It went very well, the food was praised, the atmosphere was lovely, and we more or less stuck to the timetable.

Look how nice it all was:

The only slight glitch was the dishwasher. It failed dramatically on first use, pissing water all over the kitchen floor, and we ended up having to wash everything by hand.

Aching back, dishpan hands and wet feet aside, it was great fun.

Plus we got to have some cake...

I was KNACKERED when I got home though. I can't remember the last time I spent a day actually doing physical stuff, rather than just dicking about on computers.

One of the highlights of the party for me was being introduced to a lovely German chap, who, when he shook my hand, did that heel-clicky thing. Excellent.

Other news: Yesterday I went to Bath to meet a friend, and spent a few hours very agreeably wandering the shops. I found another lion. Remember the Elvis lion? Yeah you do.

I spotted a mini version of the same shape, different colouration, in a cafe where we had a cup of tea and a nice sit-down.

Also took my phone to the Apple store there, to get it looked at by a professional. It's been playing up lately, failing to shut down, or to restart, or to backup when I synch it with the PC. Not every time, just often enough to be a pain in the arse.

The verdict of the Apple Genius I spoke to, after 20 minutes of careful examination and cross-questioning?

"Yeah...it's broken. You need another one."

Well, glad I brought it in to you, Dr Obvious. You've saved the day.

Gah.

Oh - if you are looking for gift ideas for someone you dislike, perhaps an irritating colleague, or an unloved family member, I recommend this:

It's an alarm clock that plays birdsong, or so it claims. But look at it. LOOK AT IT. I bet you anything that when the alarm goes off, there's a sinister red light in that eye slit, running back and forth. It looks like a cross between Darth Vader and the Iron Chicken.

I'd never sleep again, with that mere inches from my head all night long.

It comes in several colour variations.

Flesh pink, to match the colour of your vulnerable, sleeping body as it bides its time and waits.

Or bright red, the colour of blood. BLOOD.

Brrr.

*I often wonder this. I have a whole contingency plan ready for when that day comes.

Kebab

2011-03-25T19:21:00.003Z

As news stories go, this one is pretty splendid:

Frozen 18kg kebab stolen from Trowbridge takeaway

Astonishingly, it's not from our local paper, either...it's from the BBC website. Honest. Take a look.

The description of the kebab made me snort tea out of my nose. No charge for that image, blog fans.

"How big was the kebab, sir? We need a description for the Wanted posters."

"Hmm...pretty big, officer. Yeah, pretty big, I'd say."

"Pretty big? Can you be more specific at all, sir?"

"It was massive. And made of meat."

"Massive...meat... Ok, sir, got that. Anything else? Any distinguishing features?"

"Let me think...it was sort of meat-coloured I suppose. And massive. Did I already say that?"

"Yes, you did, sir."

"Oooh! It had a metal skewer through it. A massive one. Metal coloured."

"Excellent, thank you sir. We'll get that description out immediately. If you receive a ransom demand, please let us know."

I also love the idea that people might be offered "kebab meat in suspicious circumstances." You mean, other than at 2am from a food-vending caravan staffed by a sweaty man who has giant vats of chilli sauce close at hand?

Craft WIN

2011-03-19T19:42:00.000Z

To take away the shame and chagrin of The Terrible Tie-Dye Incident, I finished making my new notice board today.

Ta- daaa:

It began life as a skanky old cork pinboard.

Ugh. Please note the faded patches where it's been hanging in my study for SO LONG.

I used wadding, fabric, ribbons and buttons, cunningly held in place with a combination of terrifyingly sticky spray glue, staples and prolific (and fluent) swearing to create a new thing of beauty from the ashes of the old.

Aren't we posh? Fruit on the sideboard and nobody ill.

I did iron the fabric before I stapled it in place. This is just to give the general idea.

If you look closely, you may notice that the diamonds are not all exactly the same size. If that sort of thing matters to you, sorry. I measured by eye; next time I make one I shall use a tape measure I think.
The worst part was hand sewing all the buttons on at each intersection of the ribbon. I think there were about 40 in total, and it took fucking hours. HOURS. Next time I might use a staplegun to hold the ribbon in place, and then carefully (and lazily) glue the buttons on to disguise the staples.

So now I have a rather lovely fabric notice board, on which the Village Fete PRIZE certificate from Belgian Waffle sits in pride of place, among the Sherlock Holmes film cards and foreign receipts.

The shark postcard is from Mr WithaY's Great White Shark tagging expedition to Mexico a couple of years ago. He went away for two weeks to poke huge sharks with a stick. Impressively, he also came back again.

Now I feel less artistically inept. Plus it makes my study feel more organised, which is encouraging.

Time for a celebratory cup of tea, I think.

Craft FAIL

2011-03-19T10:58:00.000Z

Remember I was banging on about how unsuccessful that tie-dye experiment was? And how ghastly the bedding looked after I'd finished dicking about with it?

I wasn't kidding.

You can just about make out the unpleasant bruise-like quality of the colour mix. Please note the enhancing effect of the sickly yellow circles.

Mmm. Sweet dreams. Do the yellow circles look like unfortunate stains to you? They do to me.

Is that a patch of paler green in the top right hand corner? Why yes, I believe it is. What a delicious colour contrast.

Perhaps the pillowcases will look a bit better.

Or perhaps they won't.

The whole lot was discreetly wrapped in a bag and placed in the village clothing and fabric recycling bin while nobody was about.

I hope that someone, somewhere gets some use from them, although frankly I can imagine frozen Third World rough-sleeping beggars turning up their noses at the whole sorry mess.

Mellow yellow

2011-03-12T19:12:00.001Z

Yesterday was astonishing. I sat and watched the BBC news reports from Japan with horror, which got deeper and deeper as time went on. Waking up today to news of nuclear reactors exploding just seems unreal somehow.

The footage of that enormous whirlpool way out at sea, with the fishing boat fighting to get out of it was like something out of a disaster movie.

To try and raise my spirits, I thought I'd try to do something a bit creative today, what with my developing life plan to become a creative dynamo and all.

The other day as I was performing some unrelenting domestic drudgery, I found a set of bedlinen that looked a bit drab.

Plain white, a duvet cover and four matching pillowcases, all trimmed with sort of broiderie anglais stuff around the edges. Pretty in an uninspiring kind of way. Also, it was looking a bit tired somehow. Clean, and everything, but just not living the bedlinen dream any more.

Mr WithaY and I had already decided to go to Salisbury this morning, so I thought I'd pick up some fabric dye and attempt to tie-dye it. The bedlinen, not Salisbury.

What was I thinking?

We packed away the traditional brunch of Eggs Benedict in Patisserie Valerie, performed a rapid synchronised scoot round several shops to pick up various essentials, and then hey ho to the fabric shop. Mr WithaY needed to buy some orange fabric to make armbands.

Don't ask. I promise to take photos when all can be revealed.

While he was speculatively examining every roll of fabric in the shop, I decided to get some wadding, fabric and ribbon to make a posh notice board out of a scabby old cork board. That's my plan for tomorrow. If it works I will take gloating photos.

I also decided to get some fabric dye for my tie-dye experiment. How hard can it be? Hippies manage it, after all.

I bought a box of yellow, and a box of vibrant blue. My plan, such as it was, was to tie up the bedding, dye it yellow, undo the ties, re-tie it all slightly differently, dye it blue, and thus end up with a gorgeous mixture of white, yellow, blue and ahahahahahaaaaa GREEN in a random yet stylish pattern all over it.

The first part went ok. I spent bloody ages tying multiple bits of string artfully around the pillowcases and the duvet cover, then bunged them in the washing machine with the yellow dye and half a kilo of salt. I even had to make a special trip over to the garage to buy extra salt. That's how seriously I was taking this.

Mr WithaY was busily making armbands on the kitchen table, so we both had a cup of tea and watched the bright, bright yellow water in the washing machine.

The washing machine finished, beeping at me bossily. I took out the gorgeous yellow bedding. I untied the string, waiting to see the lovely patterns, and there was nothing. Nada. Zilch. Fuck all. The entirety of the fabric was bright yellow. Mr WithaY squinted helpfully, trying to be encouraging.

"I think there's a sort of paler bit there in the corner."
"Really? Where?"

"Right in the bottom corner...oh. Now you've moved it I can't see it any more. Is that a circle of white in the middle there, though?"

"Might be...maybe...."

I sighed sadly and put the beautiful blue dye and yet more salt in the washing machine, then spent at least seventeen hours (maybe longer) unpicking the wet string and re-tying it into careful patterns. I was hoping that where there were some paler white-ish bits, the dye would be blue, and where it was nice and yellow, there would be green, and where the string was, would stay yellow.

I remember having to spend ages in art at school dicking about with colour wheels and so on. Yellow and blue make green. Definitely.

I wasn't very good at art, mind.

I am now the proud owner of a set of khaki bedding, spotted with distressing yellow circles, much like little rings of sickly toadstools here and there on the forest floor.

Fuck it.

Fame at last

2011-03-11T22:28:00.000Z

I TOLD you they were from Bristol.

Bastards.