Gold!

Hurrah! We have completed the Alchemy Quest! ‘Salt’ wasn’t too tricky to find, once we’d run the gauntlet of the two black bears and Angus the cartoon bull. I’d always thought the snorts of steaming breath coming from the nostrils of enraged bovines was down to illustrator’s licence, but no, they really do that. It was a tad unnerving, especially when he started to paw (or hoof) the ground. ‘Sulphur’ was a little harder to locate, but fortunately we could keep in touch by mobile phone when the boys each followed the pointy-thing on their respective GPS, which were showing different directions, and I fussed around like a sheepdog whose flock had scattered. And luckily we all avoided tumbling into the canal as we rushed down the bank towards the towpath.

Then it was on to ‘Gold’. Now, I had the detailed instructions of where we were going, and I told the boys that the coordinates were for the parking place, and that it said we should park in the ‘Visitors’ Car Park’. You’d have thought that was fairly clear, but no. They decided the best place to park was at the side of the road, and that walking the rest of the way would be a good idea. And I was foolish enough to let them! It was a very, very long walk to the starting-point – nearly two miles, in fact. Gently uphill all the way. It was very pretty and peaceful, but that started to wear thin after a while. Anyway, we found all the locations we needed, and my sums-ability was up to the job, and we found the final cache. And that meant we had to walk all the way back again. I think it was about 5 miles on the return journey – at least that’s what my feet were telling me. By the time we got back to the cars Simon had lost the power of speech, and I was very nearly becoming girly.

Then we went to meet Marc. We arrived at the right village/town and Simon phoned him, and we were rather surprised to see that he was the lad almost immediately opposite us. After a couple of drinks in the pub we realised that it was nearly 4 o’clock and we unfortunately wouldn’t have time to go and visit the Morts, who were unable to join us this time, which was a disappointment. That meant it was only Ned, me and Simon who could share the one-off Pirate-Donkey celebration cake … it was very nice too.

Roll on the next time when the whole of team ‘Mr Edmonton’s Jig’ can go on the hunt together! Now I am off to soak my aching feet and legs (and probably the rest of me for good measure) in a nice, hot, bubbly bath ...

Art for art's sake?

I was listening to David Shepherd on the radio today, as I took a load of garden rubbish to the tip. He had some very interesting points of view, some of which (that human beings are no more important than any other animal, so why the hell doesn’t the BBC do an ‘Environment benefit’ day, rather than concentrating so much on children’s charities, laudable though they are) are considered way too extreme by those in positions of power. I must say his arguments for this stance struck me as being very valid, boiling down to the basic fact that if Man is allowed to selfishly abuse the environment for his own ends, then there’ll be nothing for children to inherit anyway.

He was also talking about his views on art, and how traditional, representational art is scorned nowadays. His work, and that of other artists such as Beryl Cook, isn’t put on display in galleries such as the Tate Modern, even though they are modern paintings. This seems to be because they are ‘popular’ and are therefore beyond the Pale as far as the Establishment is concerned. No matter that his work sells extremely well, both as originals and also in all forms of reproduction, whether framed print or greetings card. I laughed out loud when he described the loss of Charles Saatchi’s artworks in the warehouse fire. He sympathised that CS had spent so much money and had nothing to show for it (unless he had great insurance), but exploded when he read that one of the ‘artists’ (I don’t know whether it was Damian Hirst, Tracey Emin or another) had said that it didn’t matter, they’d do another one. A work of art is surely a one-off, that cannot be ‘done again’.

Oh, and we’ve discovered that digital radio is slower than analogue! We turned on both radios in the kitchen, hoping for a stereo effect, and the old analogue is about half a second faster than the new one! Great for some music – dreadful for talk!

Grease is the word

We had a busy day today. Once the house was emptied of teenagers (I’m not sure how many stayed over, but they were very good) and the chores (dog walking, laundry etc) had been done, we set of for our first shopping trip, into Leamington. That was successful, despite not seeing car registration 30. After lunch and the second dogwalk we went into Banbury to buy screws, glue and varnish for the trailer-lid Ned’s making. While we were there we had a look around Curry’s to see if we could get ideas for something I wanted to buy. A DVD/video would be good, seeing as our old video player died when water came down through the aerial cable. But so would a digital camera, or even a washing machine. But we don’t want to buy anything from a place like that because the staff don’t know anything about the products and are just trying to sell anything. I wonder if there’s an online version of ‘Which’ magazine – bound to be, surely?

After we got back and fed the dogs Ned got on with his woodwork, and to keep him company and be available for useful holding tasks I got out the car polish and started on the roof. Although my legs have a reasonable degree of stamina, my arms are pathetically weak. By the time I’d done the roof of the car, standing on tiptoe to reach the middle, they were ready to drop off. It was also nearly 8 o’clock by this time – too late really to start cooking supper. So Ned went for a takeaway.

Grroooooaaaaannnnn! Remind me I must resist fish and chips in future. We don’t have them often, as it’s quite a drive to the chippy (mind you it’s quite a drive to any takeaway, and nobody delivers to the villages) so every time I forget that, although I enjoy them enormously, within half an hour I feel like a bloated beached whale of blubber. I expect it’s my liver protesting at having to try to break down the enormous amount of fat. It’s soooo uncomfortable. I know if I went for a run around the village I’d feel a lot better, but it’s too much effort to get as far as the front door.

No thanks, I really don't want even one leetle waffer-theen meent ...

Me, myself, I

Following on from my hyperventilation, verbal incoherence, near cardiac arrest and general all-round pantsness yesterday (I keep thinking of all the things I should have said), I am now in a dilemma about what would be the most suitable purchase to celebrate the occasion. I'm told the spondulicks come in the form of 'High Street Vouchers' as opposed to pees in the Coin of the Realm, and until I discover which shops will accept these tokens we are open to suggestions as to their most worthwhile destination.

If I was a genuinely self-sacrificing Good Person I would donate them to charity. However, I have worked for charities in the past, and I know what a waste that would be, and besides, there comes a time in one's life when a little selfishness is in order. So there. I am not going to look a Gift Horse in the Mouth. It would probably bite me anyway.

So. What to buy? My serious ideas include a digital camera, although I am at heart a 35mm SLR girl, who has reached the stage of getting about a quarter of a film of decent shots, and who knows diddly-squat about the whole principle of digital photography; and a watch that actually tells me the correct time. Any more random suggestions are welcomed - luck like this doesn't often come my way, and I want to remember it!

Radio Gaga

My palpitations have just about subsided now, and the adrenalin level’s almost back to normal. After a childhood of listening to Radio One, I crossed the Rubicon to Radio Two when it started playing the Radio One music I liked, because Radio One had started playing crap instead. This meant I could carry on singing along to stuff I knew, and any new stuff was along the same lines; ie it had a melody and a lyric that wasn’t too obscene, and didn’t mention the word ‘wombat’* at all. (In between Radio One and Radio Two I spent a year or so listening to local radio, but I’m better now.)

Anyway. I have the radio on a lot, and just occasionally am tempted to enter competitions. I’ve never been bold enough to have a go at Ken Bruce’s Popmaster quiz, but I’m generally way out of my league there. Johnnie Walker’s Drivetime Mystery Voice is the one I’m most likely to have a go at. Just getting through on the phone is challenge enough, and then you have to make yourself sound like just the sort of person they want on the air. So this is what I did this evening. And guess what? They picked me to go on the show!! Resisting the temptation to calm the nerves with a pint of Bombay Sapphire, I settled for a glass of water and awaited my moment. And guess what? Despite sounding like a complete ostrich* (no, I’m not going onto the BBC website to listen to it) I won! Hurrah!


*According to SimonG’s swear filter

Brave Sir Robin

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. And bother.

A few days ago we learned that, because of the Motor Show being held this week at the NEC, Omally was going to be up in our neck of the woods. Never being averse to meeting fellow SimonGophytes, I got his mobile number, discovered which hotel he was staying at, and arranged that Ned and I would meet him for a drink on Thursday evening. We were looking forward to whizzing up the motorway tomorrow and paging ‘Grace Omally’ in the relevant hotel. So I rang him this evening to confirm a time, and he’s not going to be there after tonight! Grrr!

At the going down of the sun

I didn’t want to blog about anything particularly glum, because I was made very cheerful at work when I was told my second 6-month contract was going to be made permanent. The Big Bosses’ latest computer game project is getting terrific reviews, and it isn’t even released yet, so it looks as though the follow-up game will get the go-ahead. Our side of the company is also beginning to generate a bit of income, to the extent where we are cautiously dumping some of the totally non-productive or most time-consuming projects and put out feelers in other directions. It looks as though everyone’s job is secure for the next couple of years anyway. Hurrah!

However when I got home I found the latest issue of my old school magazine had arrived through the post, so I settled down to have a read and see what’s been going on. I read about the drama, the art, the music, the sports results (nowhere near as good as they used to be). Then it was time to turn to news of past pupils. That is when my mood changed. It’s very hard to read about your contemporaries, who you last saw going optimistically out into a bright world, and others the same age as your own child, being killed in war. Especially such an ill-conceived, illegal war as this one in Iraq. Bush and Bliar have a lot to answer for.

Dance to the music

It’s just as well I don’t get as embarrassed as I used to in my youth. Although there are still (too many) times when I wish the earth would open and swallow me, today’s shopping expedition wasn’t one of them. I scuttled around town in my lunch half-hour, getting a few girly odds and ends, then remembered I had to send a birthday card to my niece, so I pottered into Smiths to look at their selection. I don’t often go into Smiths now, so I have no idea when they introduced background music in the store, but generally it wasn’t too intrusive, and I thoughtfully perused the card selection. What would be suitable for her – a pretty one? An arty one? A saucy one? That was when it happened. The background music changed from something quiet and contemplative (no idea what it was) to ‘Happy Hour’ by The Housemartins. Now I’m very sorry, but it isn’t possible for me to hear that song without dancing. Not just a gentle sway of the shoulders or tap of the feet either; this necessitated a proper bop.

I expect people were staring in admiration at my teeshirt. I know my boss was. No doubt the orders for ‘I Thing’ shirts will be flocking in now, and Simon, Rich and Carol can go and buy their island paradises. I hope they don’t get all snooty and forget they have me to thank for their fortunes.

Fa-la-la-la it's a lovely day

Today I broke the back of the housework (vacuuming, laundry etc) while Ned walked the dogs, so we decided to take the rest of the day off to play. We went up to Burton Dassett to complete the 'James Bond' cache series which we'd had to abandon a few weeks ago through running out of time and because the microcache part had been abducted to the Hainault area. Luckily we know Burton Dassett reasonably well, so could work out roughly where each waypoint would logically be, and had a thoroughly nice (if steep) time strolling in the sunshine proving ourselves right. We found the cache still safely hidden where it should be, though SimonG's signature bookmark had been exchanged for a pair of bifocals.

It was good to have an excuse to go up to Burton Dassett again, because it's a fantastic place. We used to go there quite a lot when the Boy was small, to walk the dogs, and fly kites, and go rock-climbing (only mini-cliffs of about 10', but enough to make a five-year-old feel really brave!), and sledging in the winter. He and his chums still go up there to sledge when it's snowy, and it's also ideal for 'wargames' where they go up at twilight (and don't have to pay to park!) and play with BB guns and paintballers. Last time they did that, though, someone phoned the police saying that there were 'youths' shooting the sheep, and the lads were very alarmed when a police armed response squad arrived and pointed real guns at them! Once everything was explained, and the policemen (as relieved that it was a false alarm as the boys) had offered cigarettes all round to calm everyone's nerves it seemed like quite an adventure ...

The final happy thing is that Pandora the guinea pig, who hasn't been at all well for a couple of days, seems much better and is talking to us again. Hurrah!

Put a chain around my neck ...

I decided not to go with the ‘three questions chain blog’ because I am trying to resist being sucked into anything else at the moment. We are (and I do not have delusions of grandeur here, I mean both Ned and I … or Ned and me … hmmm) very susceptible to persuasion and easily led, so for this I shall put my foot down.

It all started with an innocent post on another Forum, saying ‘Hey look, here’s a puzzle site, it looks quite fun’. So I had a brief look, and at first glance it was innocent enough – and there was a monetary prize! Gosh – where’s the catch? So I went back to the first site and made sure it was free to register and all that (yes it was), returned to register and found the prize had been won! Damn! But I registered anyway, and that’s when the Donkey got his first little hoof-hold into me. Through the Donkey we found SimonG, which led to our discovery of the Favourite Things experiment, which led to geocaching, and teeshirts, and having my conceptions of verbal profanity realigned more in the direction of the animal kingdom, and Consecutive Number Plate Spotting, and blogging.

From a resistance point of view, we are straws in the wind.

Don't you hear my call, though you're many years away

I am descended from a long line of hoarders, where very little is thrown away if it might conceivably be of interest to future generations. I often envy people their neat, tidy, clutter-free homes which are a piece of cake to keep clean. We have houses and lofts which are filled to bursting with what is, to some, a load of junk but which is, to us, tomorrow’s history. Clothes, photographs and letters are all stored for future reference. This now results in my wanting to locate an appropriate publisher for a collection of letters chronicling the life of one of my forebears. The papers date from his schoolboy letters to his parents to the messages of condolence sent to his bereaved family after his early death.

The main bulk of his letters date from around 1860 when he was Chief Astronomer of the British Boundary Commission marking, on the ground, the 49th Parallel between British Columbia and the United States of America. It was an incredible undertaking, involving the clearing of a die-straight line from the coast at Vancouver right over the Rocky Mountains. His descriptions of the landscape and the conditions under which they worked (clicky on the piccy to enbiggify it) conjure up tremendous images. The letter written by a night-time campfire, where blots and smudges mark when the ink froze in his pen every 25 words makes me shiver, 150 years later.

One day I shall go out there and see the land, where he left his mark, for myself.

Bad, bad, bad, bad boy ...

Today my naughty Boy decided to celebrate his birthday by skiving off school and going into Stratford for the day. He said he'd be back 'early afternoon' which, to me, means before 6pm which is when he eventually returned, but maybe my sense of time is out of date along with everything else! He was very surprised to get home and find, amongst his mail, a birthday card from the local MP, congratulating him on achieving his majority - and with no obvious "and I hope you'll be voting for me" message anywhere! Clearly going for the subliminal influence. Anyway, we had a very enjoyable meal out with the Boy and his girlfriend. She's a lovely girl, who's welcome round our house as much as she likes. They've now descended on the pub to meet friends, and I shall take great pleasure in making sure everyone who stays here tonight is up and about, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, in time for school in the morning (mwahahahaha!)

When you are a king ...

A reasonably successful day, although I didn’t get half the things done that I wanted to. The home-check went well, and as long as I haven’t been spun a pack of lies, X seems a perfectly suitable person to have one of B’s pups. So that’s good. As I set off I saw a car with number 21 on its plate – the next number we were after – so that was good too. Now for 22. The weather was lovely, and I saw two magpies; another good thing.

A bad thing was that the recycling people didn’t take away my garden rubbish. I am psyching myself up for a discussion with the Council bloke responsible for this. Up until recently, everyone in the village was responsible for disposal of their garden waste. You could either make your own compost; buy green bags from the Council, and the dustmen would put them in a separate part of the lorry; or you took it to the tip yourself. Then to comply with Government targets, they introduced free green-waste wheelie-bins to everyone in the village, which would be emptied every fortnight. Except for the dozen houses down our road. We are the ‘wrong side’ of the old railway bridge, which isn’t strong enough to take the weight of the wheelie-bin collection lorry. So although we pay the same council tax, we haven’t been given the same benefit as the rest of the village; a situation which I think is unacceptable. I can’t for the life of me see what is fair about our being the only few people in the village who still have to pay to dispose of the garden rubbish. And when Mr Jobsworth at the council gets back from his month’s holiday I shall tell him so.

On a more positive note, we are going out to dinner tomorrow night. Ned and I will treat the Boy and his girlfriend, and probably Boy’s Best Mate and his girlfriend, to an Indian, after Boy has taken us to his local pub and bought us a drink. Tomorrow my baby boy hits 18. Happy birthday my love.

I'm just a girl who can't say no

Sometimes I suspect that I may have ‘SUCKER’ written across my forehead in big bold letters. I had a phonecall today asking me if I could do a home-check on a potential puppy-buyer for another Breed club member. This is something I’ve been asked to do a couple of times before, but previously for breed rescue. It’s not really an easy job, because sometimes people think you are judging them as people (though of course in some ways you are) rather than the environment, and they can get defensive.

Anyway, the breeder isn’t quite certain whether this particular person (we’ll call her ‘X’) would be suitable, because she (X) mentioned that the kennel was ready, and the breeder (we’ll call her ‘B’) wants her puppies to all live indoors – which is much better for this particular breed – they don’t thrive in kennels. So I’ve agreed to pop over to see X tomorrow, even though it’s about 15 miles away, and I had other plans for the morning. Then B mentioned in passing that another Club Member (‘E’) had told her that I lived locally to X, and would probably be willing to check the situation. Which is all very well, except that E lives several miles closer to X than I do.

Well, that was the first thing. An hour or so later the Club chairman rang me and booked me for August 7th at a do in Hanley Swan (bring rubber gloves) and August 28th at the Town and Country Festival at Stoneleigh (bring a dog). I have to admire her technique. Umpteen years of teaching at a girls' school has taught her all she needs to know to get people agreeing to things before they realise what they've said. She doesn't ask if you can do something, she asks when you can do it. Clever.

*note to self. Be More Assertive*

Just an old-fashioned girl

Today Ned returned the faulty pedometer, which had been given one last chance to behave on Saturday, when it registered about 11,000 steps till teatime then decided 371 was a much nicer figure, and exchanged it for an updated all-singing, all-dancing racing model. Which is all very well, but I can’t work out how to set it. After spending some time finding the English instructions in the three sets of enormous pages of info, it then took me 10 minutes to discover how to open the battery case. Removing the plastic tab from the first battery promptly set off the rape alarm. Gosh, that’s loud. Having silenced the damn thing I managed to set (nearly) the correct time, then turned to inputting the weight and stride details.

It was at this stage that I carefully unset everything, replaced the plastic tabs for the batteries, folded the destructions and neatly repacked it in its box. Why? Because it is all in metric. The weight is in kilos, the stride distance is centimetres and the distance travelled is in kilometres, and has no imperial option. I don’t do metric. This one will have to be returned as well. I hope he kept the receipt.

We'll dig dig dig dig dig dig dig ...

There were so many things I'd planned to do today. Being woken at 6 o'clock yet again by Piglet singing and setting all the others off wasn't on the list, but hey - you get queue jumpers. Wombats. But to get back to the plan. Anyway, the 'things to do' list involved washing, ironing, vacuuming, cleaning, dusting, dog walking and gardening, with the rest of the day off. I vacuumed as loudly as I could outside the Boy's room to wake him enough to go to w**k, then because the weather was so good, set about the garden with a vengeance. And trowel. And long rubber gloves because of the nettles.

Five 15kg dog food bags of weeds, plus front and back lawns mown later, there was no time left to go to Burton Dassett and complete the James Bond (or Robin Hood, which I keep referring to it as) series of caches. Ned hadn't wasted his time, as he had finally got around to logging the Alchemy Quest caches we have located so far. By now it was time for cake and a pot of tea, with no time left for recreation.

Anyway ...

I discovered that my lickle baby wobbins have all hatched and successfully flown the nest - apart from one who didn't fly far enough and was discovered and dismembered by Beattie. I hope the remaining four live rather longer.

Making your kisses bang a puppet birdie

On TV tonight there were two of the scariest-looking people I have ever seen. The female had the most extraordinary make-up; her face was bright orange, in the style made famous by David Dickinson, with bright blue eyelids flashing a band of brilliant white beneath the blackest of brows, and a scarlet mouth that appeared to have been applied with a sabre. Her male companion had skin of a similar startling hue, and bore a strong resemblance to an understudy Igor fresh from the Hammer House of Horror, though he lacked the requisite number of visible stitches.

After an outrageous public display of xenophobia and bias, the star of the show, however, was Xena the Warrior Princess and her cohorts, clad in studded leather, thongs and chains and brandishing whips, who was presented with her award by a person dressed as bride who got her stiletto heel trapped in a grille on the floor and fell out of her shoe and narrowly escaped being forced to either do an impression of Shirley Bassey on the Morecambe and Wise Show, hobbling across the stage in one high heel and one bare foot, or lob the trophy the width of the stage and hope that nobody important was concussed on the way.

Well, that's the Eurovision Song Contest over for another year. Roll on Kiev 2005!

Stilettos and an oven glove

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I always like to have a musical theme in the headings for the blog. Sometimes they’re obvious, sometimes they’re more cryptic, sometimes positively obscure (though generally googleable, if anyone's that interested) … but occasionally I defeat myself and bottle out entirely.

Yesterday my heading came courtesy of Joyce Grenfell, who is one of my all-time literary heroines whose use of words was sublime in its understatement. She was a master (mistress? Damn political correctness) of subtlety and could suggest, in a short phrase, a million possible images. All it required was a receptive listener. Although I was fortunate enough once to meet her, albeit briefly, I deeply regret that I never had an opportunity to see any of her performances. Her monologues can still reduce me to tears of laughter (George … don’t do that) and her songs conjure up very clear images – I too have been in church wondering whether I turned off the cooker before I left the house …

Her modern equivalent must surely be Victoria Wood, who is also a master wordsmith and is extraordinarily observant of the mundane details of life. I sincerely hope I find a chance one day to be in her audience.

Stately as a galleon ...

There’s either something wrong with my pedometer or with the way I walk. Yesterday, after a busy day taking the dogs out twice for over an hour, going round Asda and mowing the lawn, as well as the usual pottering about, it informed me at bedtime that I had completed 995 steps.

Today I did much the same, apart from the Asda bit and mowing the lawn, though instead I hung out three loads of washing, and by teatime it said I had completed 35 steps. I’m fairly convinced that it is lying to me, since it is more that 35 steps from my bed to the kitchen.

Perhaps, rather than walking, I have started to skim the ground as though I’m on castors. Or maybe I’m turning into a Dalek.

Smoke gets in your eyes

Brrr! It’s chilly in here this evening. This is because I decided to cook chips for supper tonight for the Boy and me, along with cheese-and-ham chicken kiev-things, and beans. I usually do plain boiled tatties with things like that, being a healthier option and all, but I decided to ring the changes. So I put the oven on to preheat for the chicken, and peeled and chipped a couple of decent sized spuds. Shortly before Boy finished work I put the chicken in, so that I could start the chips as soon as he got back, and everything would be ready at the same time.

All fine and dandy so far. When he arrived home I put the chip-pan on to heat the oil, and we stood in the kitchen and chatted for a while. Then he went upstairs to change, and I took the kitchen bin out to empty it into the dustbin. While outside I remembered that I hadn’t brought the guinea-pig in for the night, so went and got her. That involved quite a long chat about how much quicker it would be if she stopped messing around and jumped into her house so that I could pick her up more easily, instead of running about like that. Anyway, she eventually decided to play the game and I caught her and carried her indoors to her hutch.

Funny smell, I thought. Bit smoky.

Oops! The chip-pan was nice and hot alright. So hot that the kitchen was full of rank oily smoke. Trying not to get too agitated, I very carefully moved it off the ring to let it cool down. After a few minutes, and with a wrung-out teatowel at the ready, I cautiously edged the lid away from the pan, fearing spontaneous combustion at the introduction of oxygen. Luckily it had cooled enough to avoid that, but the removal of the lid allowed even more rancid smoke to fill the kitchen causing all and sundry to have paroxysms of coughing. Flinging open all the windows and the backdoor to get a through draught meant all the lovely warm air had to go too.

Which is why it’s so cold in here tonight.