Strewth, Have I got to be rich?

Big day today, I went to have my eyes tested. Firstly, I got up late and had a choice of cleaning my teeth and eating breakfast or straightening my hair and drinking my cup of tea. So, in order to Not look like Wallace's girlfriend, I chose the latter.

Following the eye test, during which I had chew some cherry menthol gum, (see above re teeth) the nice man took me to look at the lovely (!) cheap eyeglass frames that Boots seem to think people want to wear. However, as I Am a Fashion Icon I decided that I would either a) keep the lovely pinkish frames I already own and paid shed loads of money for two years ago, or b) check out the fashion frames. Eeek! the prices! The only ones I reeeely liked cost over £200. And, apparently, the 'Buy One Pair and Get Another Pair Free Gratis' only applied to 'Buy one pair of Lush Glasses and get another, Gopping Boots' Own pair' for free. If I stuck to plan option a) then that would cost one arm and one leg soooo I chose a lovely pair made by guess.

Hooever, when the man looked on the pooter, he managed to get me 4 hundred quids worth of eyeglass wear for the, ahem, 2 hundred quid I am forking out. He made out that we were swizzling Boots, but I don't believe him.

Also, the eye-testing (opthalmist?) did suggest that I could also, at a very reasonable price perhaps use contact lenses. This was a tad suspicious as I only use glasses for reading, etc. It transpires, ladies and gentlemen that, if I so wish, I could Wear One Contact Lens at all times and so would not have to pull out the fucking expensive glasses to read things in shops etc. At All!

I am stupid and the Sun Shines

'My name's tea and cake and I am an addict.' There I said it. And, it is nearly true, damn me. I stayed up until gone three am this morning playing a sodding computer game called 'Zookeeper' (again, sorry, don't know how to 'link'.) I am proud to announce I reached a score of 13300 and ... oh, no I'm not. This must stop. It encroaches onto my days and I have a life to live.

Such as today, after I had gone through several errands and been swimming (slowly, I was too, too tired) and all at once, I realised that the Sun was Shining, and it had been so warm I did not even need a coat after my swim. I am so used to it being dark by 3.30 pm that it took a while for me to register that I could see the mountains in the distance, polker-dotted with snow, and there were bits of soft, white clouds scudding about in a bluey sky.

In future, when I have had sufficient sleep, I will have remembered to take my camera out with me.

I get to meet famous people

We have had visitors this weekend, my brother Wicker and a lovely, lovely friend of his, whom I shall call Forrisy. I am a bit over the top about her as I wish he would meet someone like Forrisy, fall in love, settle down and be happy ever after. Since breaking up with his wife a couple of years ago he has picked up with several strumpets who are old enough to know better and worse, much worse none of them have taken care of my beloved bro. Wicker and Forrisy are such lovely houseguests, too, very easy to live with And partake in Washing-Up Duties to boot. As my close pals who come to stay already know, I do love to have Lovely Houseguests who are easy to live with. Mainly, probably because I am not.

Anyhoo, a lot happened yesterday as firstly, I went to the 'Winter Words Week'* at The Pitlochry Festival Theatre, Perthshire. There I went to a workshop on writing poetry, with Kenneth Steven, a poet local to the area, which was brill. Out of an hour's talk I took away two things, 1) Find a separate place to write and most importantly Use It; and 2) He gave us an example of some of his own free verse, 'The Birth of the Foal' and talked us through the processes he used, which was fab anyway but, I felt for the first time, what Free Verse really could be. I hated this part of the OU A215 Creative Writing course last year, now I have a clue, I think!

Also, I had booked in to see/hear two authors read from their latest works. I was wiggly with excitement to be in the presence of Maggie O'Farrell, woohoo! I loved 'After You'd Gone' and wasn't disappointed with seeing her in the flesh as t'wer. I bought her latest novel, 'The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox' and can't wait to dig into it. I even got it signed, swoon.

The other author I thought I hadn't heard of was Isla Dewar. It was only as she was reading that I realised this is the writer my mother-in-law had been recently raving about. I enjoyed her reading and bought two copies of her latest 'The Consequences of Marriage'. Yep, I got these signed too - one for ma-in-law and one for me. I feel aged 15!

Later, we went along to our local Village Hall to a Burn's Night Supper, which was really good fun and we thoroughly enjoyed. Apart from the formalities of the tradition of celebrating the bard, there are lots of in-jokes about local people. The Address to the Ladies is sweet, and then the Ladies Answer is a rant against men! Which we all cheered, of course.

Then, it all goes on here, Freaky Friday and her famille came around for their Sunday dinner. NBG kept being asked to not wear nanny's purple peep-toe high heels (that nanny can't wear and Will put back on eBay.) She hasn't yet learned that nanny's request being worded 'Nanny would prefer it if you didn't wear those shoes, you might break your leg if you fall off them' is code for 'Take them off. Now'.

Freaky Friday is half way through her pregnancy and is moody and tired. Mr T was hung over and Very Grumpy and I seemed to keep upsetting them both. I have not yet learned when to just shut up and leave them to it, I'm afraid. So, I stuck in the kitchen getting dinner ready for seven of us, with help from NBG who re-filled the salt and pepper pots.

NBG: Did you cook all this dinner by yourself, nanny?

Nanny: Yep.

NBG: You're very clever.

NBG: Nanny, can you walk in high heels?

Nanny: No.

NBG: O.

* Sorry, haven't worked out yet just how to post links to places, books, people etc.

Don't change channels ...

No, don't turn over (I love that expression, 'turn over' I envisage people laying down and twizzling their bodies around) but I have been playing about with the text, layout, colours and pictures etc to make this slightly less sick-making and easier to read. To be expected, I suppose from a newbie blogger and someone who ahem, thinks she is a technobabe but is, in fact, a blagger. I s'pose I could then be termed a blagger-blogger. More laters.

Boys have a one track mind

For many years we boasted a dishwasher - this was between it being a 'status symbol' but before it became an 'every day' item in the kitchen. Bought when Mr T and I were both working shifts and the two adult children were smelly, lazy arsed teenagers, it was a necessity. You get the picture. However, when we moved into this aged Tied Cottage over two years ago, the previous occupant had not seen the need for one (Nor a tumble drier!! Nor yet a shower!!) so there was made no space for it.

I love cooking and like to indulge most days, now that I have the time; instead of working well, more than full-time - and we have to eat, after all. I particularly enjoy cooking Fresh Food and Vegetables, especially home grown or shot. But, I am now Meggerly Pissed Off at the Washing Up part of it. Mr T does take a turn in clearing up the mess but, as he works more hours, at heavier work than me, then the deal is that I do something I surprisingly enjoy - cooking and housekeeping (Not, I might add, am I particularly arsed to be houseproud, far from it!)

Of late, and particularly after having all our family up for Xmas, we have been having 'Discussions' on the merits of buying a dishwasher and making some small, tiny space for it, in what has to be politely described as a Shite kitchen. The Discussions, between moi and Mr T consist of;

Me: 'I hate this fucking washing up! Every time I cook there is loads of Washing Up! (smash, crash and heavily plonking down of ... whatever is being used at the time)

Mr T:

Me: 'I SAID... ' and so it continues to the sound of nothing.

BUT when a certain conversation starts between, well anyone who might be in anyway slightly interested on HD Ready, Thin Screen, Fuck Off Sized Televisions, or Laptops That Sing, Dance and Take Your Picture, or iPod's That Display Peter Kay et al Performing 'Is this the way to Amerillo' Mr T transforms into a right natter-box. Grr!

Don't get me wrong, I love all the above-mentioned technology (except the Peter Kay part) life would now be barren without it, But ...
I think I am now winning and a compromise has been reached - some bits can be moved around, a smaller sized d/washer can be purchased etc. etc. the rub now is to get said Mr T into some shops and part with a bit of his money that is not what boys with one track minds would like to spend on.

An illegal day

I have been to Physio And I now have a cold neck due to a fairly short back and sides, though the front remains longish and stylish a la Jade (Apparently, loads of people are asking for a 'Jade' so I'm not the first. ) However, as I am nearly 50 years old alterations to the style had to be made. I digress.

Considering I am usually a law-abiding person I have had an illegal day today.

On the way home from the hairdressers I had to make a teensy, weensy tele-communication to Freaky Friday, my youngest adult child, to check if she wanted to take a look at my new look. And, some TWAT, together with some more TWAT's in his small lorry cab (what is the collective name for a group of hairy, dirty, leering TWATS?) decided he would tail-gate me.

This is on slightly wettish, snowyish roads mind, that still have the remnants of fallen tree trunks by the sides of them. Quite frankly I was scared. So, what to do? I rang Mr T and, at those points that this Orange Lorry Cab was back enough for me to see his number plate, I recited it out, ensuring said TWAT could see that I was looking at the plate And speaking to somebody.

Mr T's advice, quite rightly, was to pull over and allow the motorist to pass by. Bugger that!

So, did I heed this advice? Nah. I put on my hazards, so he fully flashed his lights at me. I turned off my hazards and stated straight ahead. War was now being declared. I very slowly creaped along the road while I had a think. As I continued in this slow fashion he seemed to get a bit cross ... it's funny how my little car then went slower on the bendy bits or past the double white liney things, but would pick up a jolly good speed along the straight bits. Until we reached small town and he turned off, so I know where he goes but he doesn't know where I goes, hah!

This journey home was after having driven to town almost blinded by the low sun on my muddy, dried windscreen; found a broken mobile 'phone and didn't hand it in; Omitted to tell JT the physio that I was 30 minutes late due to perusal of emails, blogs and, of course McKenna's cd: And Lied to JT when I told him that, of course I had been doing my excercises at least twice a day, been sitting in the correct chair and walked the recommended 20 minutes each day.

Some are lies, omissions and occasionally illegal but it's been an eventful day. Mr T LIKES my new hairdo and we are off to a Pub Quiz this evening - where, I swear, I will not cheat. What's next for me then, International Jewel Thief?

Am I thin yet?

Well, I've been to Yoga tonight. For something that I thought was going to be laying down or just slowly wafting about to waffly music, it Wasn't, ow. There was candlelight and waffly, tinkly music but it was stretching and leaning and bending and stuff. There was also a bit of one-upwomanship in that some of the women had bought, yes bought special foam blocks to lay their heads upon - instead of using a jumper or pillow. O, and why is it always me that is the only one who has to fart?

I think, now that I've eaten my dinner (meatballs a la Nigella) I shall have a bath and go to my bed. I shall sleep tonight. And the teacher's voice wasn't as gravelly as that McKenna's.

I am, for the first time since about August last year, having my hair cut tomorrow, hooray! I can't afford to have all the highlights and stuff done, this time but I shall ask for my usual - to look young, slim, sexy and gorgeous, ahem. If they don't laugh I shall stay, but the answer I do like is 'Yes, madam, that will not take long.

tea and cake

Well, here goes. I've been and gone and done It. My own Blog, eow! I couldn't think what the hell to call the New Blog so chose my favourite drink/food. Though I'm not supposed to be thinking about food At All, according to the Paul McKenna cd I listened to yesterday and today, in my nth attempt to lose some weight, any weight at all, please. According to the gravelly-voiced Paul, I'm not supposed to diet at the same time as allowing him to make me thin, but what is a girl to do?