Let's go surfin' now, everybody's learning how

You may never have guessed, but if truth be told I'm not entirely au fait with this intermaweb thingy. Over the past couple of years I've learned how to send emails, which now reach their intended targets at least 80% of the time, especially if they don't have attachments. I can use Google fairly well to search for information, and again most of what I find is either what I hoped for or, if not, is interesting and sends me off at a tangent so I have a senior moment and forget what I was looking for in the first place. Occasionally it all goes horribly wrong and I find something completely unlike anything I ever wanted to see, and never want to see again in my life ever ever, but thankfully that's been very rare.

I've almost learned that, when googling and I open a webpage which turns out to not be useful after all, to click 'Back' rather than closing it by the X, because that closes google entirely and I have to start again. But I still make it take longer than it need - am I the only person who carefully scrolls back to the top of a webpage before clicking ‘Back’?

Time after time

It’s been an odd sort of a day. It’s never really got light, so I’ve never really woken up, and as a consequence I’ve been in a strange mental limbo. I got to wondering about dates: not the fruit, you understand, which always looks nicer fresh than dried, but is horrible in either form, its only acceptable incarnation being in a sticky toffee pudding. No, I started pondering the accuracy of recorded dates. For instance, John Lennon was shot in New York at about 22.50 on December 8th 1980 and died shortly after. But at the instant he died it was nearly 4am on December 9th over here. If anyone from the UK had spoken to him on the phone up to 4 hours earlier they would have been talking to him the day after he officially died, which is a bit spooky. Why this should bother me is a mystery, but it did.

Of course the great benefit of a particular moment happening at different times is that at every year I can watch the Australian New Year celebrations on TV then go to bed at a reasonable hour. I’m not a New Year type person.

Don't you make me repeat it

I wasn't going to blog, because the only thing that I felt vaguely worthy of sharing was my distress at finishing my supper and finding half a snail in my vegetables. It was at least a fresh, organic snail, because I only picked the veg half an hour before and I don't use sprays on the veg garden - but I hadn't been psyched up for mollusc. I don't recommend them.

The only way is up

Or at least, that's how it's been for most of my meals today. I suppose I could have entitled this "Breakfast Revisited". I still don't feel very well, so I'll bid you all a goodnight.

As high as an elephant's eye

More household expenditure is on the way. I’d hoped the lawnmower would last to the end of the season, but it hasn’t; in fact today I couldn’t even complete the back garden. Some of the strips are nicely sheared, others have merely had the long grass rolled flat so that by tomorrow it will look as if nothing’s been done, and for others only half the blade seemed to be cutting. Then it gave up the ghost entirely. It all looks very strange.

So off we trotted to the garden centre to have a look at their selection, which turned out to be none. Instead we bought two large composts bins (300 litres) that the Council are discounting, from £45 or so to £11. Because our old bins, which Ned constructed from old pallets, have completely fallen apart this was a Good Buy. If only we had some lawnmowings to put in them.

My mind is on the blink

It's been a long day. After a late night yesterday (gone midnight before I got to bed) I was awake at 5 am wondering whether Her Majesty had been bothered by the heat of the Gobi desert, and why she was there in the first place. Surely there are deserts closer to home that she might visit? After that an orchestra got entangled in the wiles of a witch who was mowing the lawns of an arboretum before the earth moved. I think I need another drink.

The Vicar of Bray

Donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey donkey.

Good night.

Where the air is good

It looks like this will be a good year for country-wine makers. As I was walking the dogs around the fields I couldn’t help but notice how large and juicy all the hedgerow fruits are. The elderberries are the biggest I’ve ever seen them, although, like the blackberries, they aren’t very sweet; obviously the summer hasn’t been sunny enough for sweetness as well as juice. In one hedge there are some strange little plums, which I’ve never seen anywhere before. They’re about the size of a cherry, and when ripe are a greeny-yellow colour, with a red flush on the sunny side. I wouldn’t say they’re exactly sweet, but they are more edible than a sloe, for example. The hedgerow pear at the top of the field has a good crop of very round yellow pears, slightly smaller than a tennis ball, and the variety of crab apples is astonishing. Some are bright green, like tiny Granny Smith’s, some are yellow, and one tree has fruit that are a startling salmon pink. Absolutely stunning. The may-trees are crimson with berries, the sloes are almost the size of damsons and the dog-roses, which in June were studded with delicately-scented flowers, are scarlet with hips. The birds’ larder is well-stocked. I think I’ll go blackberrying at the weekend, donkeys and weather permitting - there’s room in the freezer for quite a few pounds, and I love blackberry and apple crumble in the winter.

It's the way that you do it

The washing machine is in the breakfast room. It has a prominent position, almost perfectly in the way of everything. Is it over the counter and where it should be? Is it wombat. Did it arrive before 10am, and if not, did I get a phonecall before 10 to arrange a time? Ho ho ho. You’re even more naïve than I. We looked at the installation instructions, and I’m sure it’s perfectly DIY-able, given time. However tasks like that have a tendency to cause marital disharmony, so I’ve called our excellent tame plumber, who will send his boy round next Wednesday morning. I hope he’s as efficient and competent as his dad. With any luck Ned, Boy and I can get it to its final destination in the meantime.

Oh, and we’ve had another postcard! This time from ‘Sunny Beach’, Bulgaria. The message reads: “We’re wombling free. Love, Uncle B”.

A wanderin' fool or a heart at rest?

I’ve been working at building up my muscles for tomorrow’s planned washing-machine juggling event, and I’m now confident that this is going to be a disaster. I’m assured that if the delivery bloke hasn’t arrived by 10am he will phone to arrange a delivery time. We’ll see. And what’s the betting he sucks his teeth and says “Oh no, madam, I’m not insured to lift anything” then mongooses off at high speed? If it does arrive before 10, at least Ned and the Boy will be around (and hopefully awake), so perhaps I will merely be required to supervise. I’m good at that.

Five skeins of geese flew over the house this evening, heading east. Good timing; tomorrow is the autumn equinox. It must nearly be time for the clocks to go back. I’d better top up the Brussels sprouts.

CNPS: 164

That will bring us back to doh

The freezer missed out on some stocks today. As I was bowling along on my merry way to work in fairly heavy traffic, I noticed that the cars in front of me were pulling away from the verge at a certain point. As there was no sign of a cyclist it seemed a little odd, till I realised they were trying to avoid a roe deer. It was a very silly roe deer, because the side of a busy road is not a sensible place to have a little sleep. Especially a sleep in that very strange position. It was clearly freshish because it was still deer-shaped, unlike the one further on which, by the morning rush-hour, had been fairly well ironed. If there had been less traffic, and if I had been homeward bound and not have to keep it all day in the car, getting hotter and hotter, I would have been able to stop and bung it in the boot for gralloching, peeling and dismemberment, with what wouldn’t fit in the freezer fitting perfectly in the dogs.

These boots were made for walking

I hope the wildlife appreciate that the rights of ramblers to roam the land are now far more important (especially because skylarks are as yet disenfranchised) than their (the wildlife's) demands of privacy to reproduce. This Government has absolutely no idea about the natural world that lies beyond the gay bars of Islington.

On another note. Hooray! Ned's home! He's had a lovely weekend and now he's back safe with me. The Boy's home too, so the whole family's under one roof. Batten down the hatches.

CNPS: 159

The game commences

Every time I ask the Boy for a bloggery suggestion he says “Harrod”. Harrod (not his real name, but it’s what he answers to) is one of his chums, who Ned and I have just about come to terms with. Our early dealings with him caused us to refer to him as ‘The Lying Braggart’ – and it’s a shame, because he could be a nice enough lad. But he’s always been insecure enough to try to buy friends – and his parents seem to have aided and abetted him, by showering him with money instead of their time and attention. Basically he’s a nice enough lad (and even nicer now that his parents have moved to France) and he’s growing up.

We had a major run-in with him a few years ago when his mother phoned me one morning and gave me an ear-bashing for the state in which Harrod, the Boy and another chum had left their house (“there was nobody else there, he knew he wasn’t to have a party while we were away and he swears he hasn’t”). Apparently, and judging by the debris, the three of them had smoked about 300 cigarettes (the Boy and O.C. didn’t smoke) and got through two bottles of whisky, two bottles of vodka, a bottle of Southern Comfort, 9 bottles of wine, about 100 assorted cans and bottles of beer and sundry alcopops. Call me suspicious, but I’d seen the Boy and Other Chum that morning, and they were fine, and so I said I reckoned they may have had outside help. I asked the Boy where he had been on the night in question – “At Harrod’s party” he said. It took over 6 months for Harrod to get around to apologising to us for the haranguing I received from his mother. Ned subtly reminded him every time he asked him to leave our house.

But I don’t think I can blame him for tonight’s little upset. A couple of months ago I started making a small stuffed toy orang-utan to be a geocaching ‘Travel Bug’ courier. It didn’t look too bad – the face was a bit of a problem – and it was put into a plastic bag and left on the kitchen table till we got around to planning the next cache. I’ve been tidying the table in readiness for Wednesday’s upheaval and found this toy. Someone – and it has to be one of the Boy’s friends – has opened the bag and drawn a frown and Hitler hairstyle on it. I’ll have to make a new one now. I’m not best pleased. I wonder which of the little s***s it was?

Climb ev'ry mountain

Things are improving. I’ve been making sure the Black Dog gets plenty of exercise trying to keep up with me, and I think it’s tiring. Scott is being a star and helping me with ideas (keep ‘em coming – you’re brilliant!) and Stu helped me sort out a computer problem I had. And of course Omally's bony hug helped. What lovely people I have got to know.

The only other problem looming on the horizon is how to get the new washing machine, which is being delivered on Wednesday, into the kitchen. It won’t fit between the units which divide the breakfast area from the kitchen, so it’ll have to be lifted over the top. Anyone feeling particularly strong?

You saw me standing alone

Aquamarine, azure, cerulean, cobalt, cyan, indigo, monestial, navy, Prussian, royal, sky, ultramarine. Blood, cross, eyes, heaven, meanies, moodies, Mondays, hats for days, kerry, jays, birds, ridge mountains, peter, ribbon, pencil, Nile, movie, moon, oyster cult, velvet, lamp, jeans, whale, thin line, cheese.

Yep. I’ve got the blues.

PS. I apologise to Paul g0tlg for monopolising his commentification box. I enjoy a sensible, rational debate - and he's good!

Everybody knows one

I can hear the pitter-patter of paws in the distance, getting gradually closer. I know they’ll get steadily louder, and then I’ll feel the hot breath of the demon on the back of my neck. If I keep moving around a lot, I might be able to shake it off, but I can’t think of anywhere to go or anything to do to distract myself. I know this fidgetiness of old – it heralds the approach of the Black Dog of depression.

In an effort to avert it I’ll commit a shameless feat of Omally-bloggery-idea-copyingitis and tell you about my pal PJ. He was a lovely bloke, great fun to hang around with, and tremendous fun. He was tall – about 6’3” or so – and lanky, and drove a very small car which meant he was limited to how many people he could give a lift to because there was no legroom behind the driver’s seat. Anyway, a gang of us – mostly girls it has to be said – used to take fairly frequent trips up to Town to go to the theatres and art exhibitions and such. Because PJ worked in London we sometimes arranged for him to meet us and join us on our jaunt. This particular occasion we arranged to meet in the cafe at Waterloo station, which in those days had large circular windows overlooking the concourse. We were sat with our teas and coffees, engrossed in chat, when the sound of sniggering attracted our attention. When we looked up, there was PJ slowly to-ing and fro-ing past the window, arms making slow swimming movements and his mouth opening and shutting like a goldfish. We scuttled out to collect him and set off for the theatre. As we ambled through the West End he said something that irritated Liz, and she stalked off in front of us. PJ apologised loudly “Daphne! Daphne! Wait! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!. All right then, I’ll have the operation!” All the passers-by stared, Liz was mortified, and the rest of us were collapsed on the pavement in hysterics.

I still chuckle over that 20 years later. I wonder what happened to PJ?

And that ain't what it takes

What on earth possesses them to do it? I refer, of course, to the enormous spiders which take it upon themselves to abseil into the bath overnight in order to squat there balefully and glare malevolently at me when I drag myself into the bathroom in the morning. Three there were today, busily covering the base of the bath with industrial-strength webs and pretending that the others didn’t exist. As usual I ignored them and hoped someone else would deal with them, but no, they’re still there. Why don’t they realise that I don’t keep flies in the bath, shin back up their ropes and go searching elsewhere? If I’m ever to have a bath again I’ll have to do my usual trick of scooping them up on the end of the backbrush and twitching them out of the window. Maybe I should mark them in some way to see if it’s the same stupid ones returning each time, or whether our house happens to be in the centre of Spiderworld.

I feel the earth move under my feet

When did the organisation of the world change? When my grandmother was young and living overseas, about the time of the first world war, the ‘Middle East’ was the Afghanistan, Persia, India region, the Far East was still China and Japan, but what is now known as the ‘Middle East’ (Palestine, Israel, Syria, etc) was the ‘Near East’. If that area is now the Middle East, what is India categorised as nowadays, and where has the Near East moved to? Belgium?

It's a sign of the times

I'm afraid I shouted at the TV tonight. There was a programme called "Who got Marc Bolan's millions?" and it opened with sycophants gushing such statements as "He was the major star of his era", "He put the 'glam' into glam rock" etc. Yuck. Puke. Well I'm sorry, but I was there. Marc Bolan and T.Rex were just A.N.Other band, and not even really that big. In a class of 30 fifteen-year-old girls, only one was a Marc Bolan fan. Come on, this was the era of Rod Stewart and Elton John, and from the glam rock point of view there was Slade, Gary Glitter (enough said), Sweet, Wizzard, Mud ... the list is huge.

I'm sorry, but the best that can be said of Marc Bolan is that he was 'of his time'. Just like Buddy Holly, his main claim to fame is that he died young, in a tragic accident, in his prime.

Death elevates us all.

We're riding along on the crest of a wave

Being a very tired person today (the burning ends of the candle seem to have met in the middle) I sat myself down with the puzzle section of the paper. Yes I know, coals to Newcastle and all that, but I like puzzles. So I had a go at the ‘fast five’ puzzle (completed within time, hooray!), tinkered with the large general knowledge crossword (Ned had started it) then moved on to the codebreaker. This is the puzzle where the letters of the alphabet are randomly numbered, the crossword squares numbered accordingly and you are given three letters to get you started. We make these at work - or rather, the computer generates them and we have to check them to make sure they are neither too easy nor impossible. Sometimes the given letters are too easy – E, R and S for example – and anyone with enough vocabulary to read a newspaper can solve it in minutes. Sometimes there is the opposite problem where the letters are very rarely used, such as J, V and Z. I was idly chatting to Ned as I worked on the puzzle (given letters I, P and V – not easy) telling him about one I was checking once with the letters B, J and M, and which I thought would be horribly difficult, until I scanned the wordlist (which also has to be checked against an ‘undesirable words’ list – nothing too obscure, nothing rude etc). There was ‘jamboree’ – a word containing all the given letters, and with the last two letters obviously being the same there was little else it could be, giving the solver four more letters straight away. Easy-peasy - and I've only seen that word appear twice in the year I've been checking those puzzles. Guess what word was in the puzzle in today’s paper. Yep, jamboree. How weird.