All Dressed up and Nowhere to Go.......

I was going to a lunch time party today, and luckily rang a mutual friend to see what time she was going.

'31st January' she said firmly.

Ah, I thought. Wrong day.

'What are you doing?' she asked.

'Nothing' I said, 'I thought I was going to a party'.

'Come over' she said, 'I'll do lunch.'

So I was treated to amazing turkey soup, lovely smoked salmon and cream cheese open sandwiches on home made granary bread, garnished with rocket, beautiful home made Christmas cake, some chocolates and it was all washed down with a bottle of rose Prosecco frizante and a cup of Earl Grey to finish. That was a good lunch.

That was a very good lunch indeed.

On the way back I bumped into the friend who's party it wasn't.

'You look nice' she said.

'Yes', I said, not wanting to add I was already dressed for her party next month.

M for Memories

It's dark and it's raining hard. The inside of the car is womb-like in its comfort and warmth. Music, friendly in its familiarity, swirls around. The rain forms slithering sheets across the windscreen and is shunted sideways by the wipers thumping back and forth. I focus on the tail lights of the car in front and fix my speed to match. The rhythm of the wipers cuts across other patterns; the neon lights flashing above, the cat's eyes pulsating just ahead, always just a few more. The eye's turn to emeralds for a moment as a slip road melts into the darkness. The big blue sign takes on an iridescent glow in the headlights. A huge shimmering Mother-of-Pearl finger points out my destination in reassuringly confident font - I am on the right road, going in the right direction. Pairs of sparkling diamonds string along the opposite carriageway, throwing shadows like spokes onto the fast lane from the crash barrier stands. The rear wiper judders as rubber frays from metal - I should have changed it a while ago, and now curse that I can't see properly out of the back window.

I relax a bit and let my mind wander. Memories of past journeys come back and with them, little spikes of tangential thoughts. 'Hero' the fur-trimmed Anglia Estate with an MG Magnet radiator grille, that coughed us across Scotland in a haze of passionate happiness. Of cheering D on as he drove faster and faster at a hump back bridge and screaming in delight as Hero took flight and all the camping gear in the back hit the roof. I remembered the moment a man came to clear rubbish from the garden. He found the radiator grille which had outlasted the car by about twenty years, and asked whether I wanted it taken away. I said yes, and went into the house. As I closed the back door, I leant on it, wondering whether I had done the right thing. I was very relieved to hear a knock on the door, and when I opened it, to see the man still holding the grille asking, 'Are you sure?'.

The windscreen wipers were still thumping left and right, creating their segments of momentary clarity. The lights in front had halos of red fog, and the cat's eyes were still coming, always a few more.

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Baileys

Typical. I switched on my fairy lights this morning, there was a pop and they all went out. I have been digging around in the nether reaches of an old wardrobe, and found a set previously discarded because none of the red or green lights work. We now have a slightly weedy display of yellow and blue lights. The overall impression is one of too much cabling for not much effect. Luckily I have bags full of tea lights, so can still be ambitious about my ambience. It won't be a patch on all those people who cleverly manage to do marvellous things with holly. The last time I tried that, for reasons rather too complicated to go into here, my car was written off in the Thames, but you will understand that I am shy of the prickly stuff now.

It's a relief to have stopped shopping at last. Sainsbury's was my last port of call (seeing as we are on a watery/potentially alcoholic theme here). 'Aha', I thought to myself, 'time to get the Crimbo drinks in'. My most favourite Christmas drink is Bailey's, but Sainsbury's, although the shelves were stacked to brimming with every other drink, had RUN OUT OF BAILEYS. I had to bring home a weak and feeble alternative, but at least that will run with the lighting theme.

Anyway, it's not about the alcohol, it's not about the turkey, it's not even about the presents. It's all about being surrounded by the people you love most in the world. Have a good one.

Christmas, Dead and Buried

Like most of the population, I was out shopping yesterday. I was walking past an undertaker's window, thinking merry thoughts, when something caught my eye. Someone had taken great care to make a festive display among the headstones. Sure enough, there was the usual nativity scene and quite a lot of what might have been icing sugar scattered about. What struck me as particularly strange though, was the model of a horse drawn hearse approaching the stable. It was a beautifully made, and had been polished to perfection. The horses wore their plumes well, and there was a coffin resting inside the glass partitioning.

A birth, three wise men, some shepherds, an angel or two, a star and.... a funeral procession?

I felt confused.

It happens at Christmas.

I actually felt quite relieved to be back in conglomerate consumerville, and even found myself humming nervously along to 'Rudolph-feed-the-white-nosed-world-Christmas-do-they-know-time'.

Release your Inner Child

Christmas is at its best when you are with your beloved old friends and family having a great time. Last night was wonderful, a concert where we sang our hearts out, followed by dancing the night away to a great band in a local pub. On the way home it started to snow. Looking upwards I could see an endless supply of snowflakes falling into the street light. The more I stared, the more I felt I was travelling through the stars, like at the beginning of the old Dr Who programmes. I couldn't resist tipping my head back and sticking my tongue out to catch a snowflake or two, which must have looked strange to anyone driving past.

I didn't care.

I was snuggly inside my ski jacket, I was enjoying the occasional feathery dab of ice in my mouth.

I was happy.

Ashes to Ashes

Something odd woke me up this morning. I heard strange popping noises and mused that rain drops must have become a lot fatter lately to make such a racket. After a while, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided I had better look out of the window. There was a massive fire about quarter of a mile away. The flames were leaping so high they were taller than the trees around them. I couldn't make out what was burning, but it was so intense and the base so wide and I wondered whether one of the planes coming into Heathrow had crashed. The December morning darkness seemed to encircle the orange flaming madness. Blue flashing lights disappeared and reappeared from behind houses as they hurried, wailing towards the maelstrom. At one point the fire suddenly became so violent, I thought I had better put my clothes on and have my morning cup of tea ready, in case someone came to evacuate us.

It was impressive how quickly the fire brigade controlled it all, within about 30 minutes you could see where the hoses were playing upon the flames as they were gradually replaced by more leisurely, billowing clouds of smoke.

It turned out the fire had destroyed a lovely little 100 year old wooden church hall a couple of roads away. Luckily no one was hurt, but it is still rather sad that such an atmospheric little place had turned to dust. When I went out to work later, the air smelt of cinders and it made me rather melancholy. There were some happy memories in that smoke.

When I Was Younger, So Much Younger........

Christmas is starting to grate on me. If I hear, 'White-Well-Here-it-is-Merry-Feed-the-Christmas-Rudolph-World' again I will thcweam and thcwean until I'm thick. I will put 'Ear Defenders' down on my Santa list and pin it to the chim chiminee - AAARGH you see! I'm going mad! Help!

Too many parties as well! Help!

Drowning in chocolate! Help!

No self restraint!

Help!

Take Five

I'm feeling a bit full, too much curry washed down with a tad too much red, too much coffee and a mint choc chip ice-cream. Very yummy though.

The Skip has been out of action at the car doctor, who is lovingly antifreezing and MOTing him. I had a call to say he had failed the MOT on, among other things, the back number plate. I don't know if you've tried to buy a number plate lately, but it seems the hardest thing on earth. Especially if your car is several miles away, it's snowing and you only have two bicycles at your disposal, and you can't quite remember where you last saw your driving licence.

Everything is getting complicated, but it is that time of year. The bathroom light switch has stopped working. I can only hope the people coming to view the house with a view to buying it think I am in the habit of romantic, candle lit baths, not that its the only way to locate the toilet roll.

The timer on the central heating has decided we only need to be warm once a day. My son complained it was so cold last night, he was even too cold to get out of bed to find another blanket.

At least the leak in the bedroom ceiling seems to have stopped. I suspect it's a bit like toothache, and will come back with a vengeance any time soon.

The good news is that the buttons on the TV remote have been twiddled extensively, and, as if by magic, most of the channels have returned. I was rewarded with, 'Dance Like Michael Jackson', which made all the effort seem a bit pointless.

Back to the curry - I had to go by bus (due to the poorly Skip), I left lots of time as I know that buses can be a bore, and I didn't want my friend waiting in the cold. Of course, this is the one time the bus arrived quickly, and got me there double quick. 'Never mind', I thought, I can read a paper with a cup of tea in the restaurant while I wait. I bought the paper, then realised I'd left my glasses at work and in the gloomy, ambient lighting, could only admire the large photos and banner straplines. I boldly had a go at the Suduko, but couldn't read my own little figures in the boxes and went wrong fairly soon. The people on the next table had been eyeing me a bit suspiciously, obviously thinking I had no friends. I didn't want them to think I was also too stupid to manage the easy level Suduko, so boldly continued putting numbers in boxes, even though two number fives in one line were an obvious glitch to any serious puzzler. It was also annoying to discover that this Indian Restaurant was the only one in the United Kingdom that didn't have a tea bag on the premises.

Sometimes life is like that though.

Good Old George

In desperation to watch 'Strictly' last night, I pulled the TV out of the corner and unplugged the spaghetti of wires and cables that have been long hidden from view. The TV still didn't work, so I resorted to a DVD. Sadly, my improvements to the cable situation seemed to have finished that off too and the screen remained an ominous black even after I had shunted the DVD in and out several times. I gave up and had a glass of wine, then tried again. A lot of jiggling of one of the scart cables blasted the TV back into life, but sadly only ITV. I've got a freeview box that should offer about 100 million channels, but I am now limited to just one. So, I've had to change my allegiance from 'Strictly' to the 'X Factor' (blast, blast and double blast). I am now in a state of agitated excitement - will it be Ollie or the other one (can't even remember his name, sorry). One thing that was good was to see old George Michael doing my favourite Elton John song, 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down'. I had forgotten George still existed, which is a shameful admission, because I absolutely loved his stuff in the 80s, or was it 90s? I forget. So this spurred me on to a) get all my old best of Elton CDs out and have a jolly good singalong while cooking dinner and b) dig out some ancient going brown round the edges piano music for 'Don't Let'. My piano playing has gone rusty (from a not very shiny start it has to be said) so I suspect my neighbours will be singing something like, 'Don't Let her go near a piano again'.

Seeing your favourite 80s stars looking old is the same sort of shock as seeing policemen that obviously should still be learning the alphabet at low tables in a nursery somewhere.

Anyway, dear old George, thanks for being back and making it worth me scrambling around the nether regions of the telly.

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Be glad, be very glad, that you don't live next door to me!

Costa Del Cuba

As the TV is still not working, I hurried to the hardware shop round the corner to buy an indoor digital TV aerial. I've plugged it into several sockets and there is still only white noise on the screen. In desperation to see something moving in that corner of the living room, I rented 'Che' part I on DVD. Apart from being dreadfully slow (how long do you need to read the name of a region in Cuba?) this has started to pixilate, and the subtitles have become illegible. My Spanish isn't up to much either. On top of all this, my clocks aren't working, so I'm not totally sure what time it is. I feel like I am suspended somewhere strange that's a bit like my house, but in a parallel universe. Luckily I have a glass of cab sav, and a roaring fire going, so I can sit and try to improve my Spanish for, 'You have brought disrepute to the rebels, you must be executed'. You never know when that might come in handy on the Costa Del Sol.

Early Morning Bun

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Start the Revolution on Gas Mark 3!

As I drove through Kingston yesterday evening, I saw a chap standing with his hands on his hips in just a dressing gown (cheekily hanging open) and festive boxer shorts. He had an improbably muscled torso, with every ripple clearly chisled to perfection. It was a fine sight, but disappointingly only the figment of someone's imagination as a) he had remembered to take his socks off and b) was standing in the department store window.

There's quite a move now for more realistic female models, so how about Bentalls going for the cosy, beer-gutted mannequin, posed, not as if leading the troops into battle (albeit in Santa motif underwear), but slumped on a settee can of beer in hand? How many men are driving round the Kingston one way system, feeling festive and jolly as they start, but end up with body image issues by the time the lights change? Wouldn't the realistic couch potato model help them come to terms with their own inadequacies?

My recipe for Christmas happiness is for all those plastic people to be melted down in a moderate oven, and half way through the process, drag them out again. That way you will get a more realistic representation of the human race complete with sagging midrift and double chins. I hope the Santa boxer shorts have the elastic to cope with the change.

Another Sound Experiment - on the Beach

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I hadn't realised how the sound of walking to the water's edge describes what the beach is like. There is a clear difference between the sound generated from bands of stones lying on firm sand, and the loosely banked pebbles that slip easily when walked on. The gentle noise from the waves tells how insignificant they were in size, and you can tell how far out the tide was by how long it took to walk there. Who needs cameras?

Watt happened to Christmas?

Someone a couple of roads away has festooned their garden with Christmas lights to rival the Blackpool Illuminations. There are the three kings in flashing, neon glory, Mary cradling the baby Jesus (depicted in 240 volt red and orange) and the main feature, the Star of Bethlehem, in pride of place over the front door. I couldn't help noticing that Mary's veil is missing a bulb. I'm sure she wouldn't like that and would prefer to sit and darn in a new filament.

The star is huge, and made up of concentric, jagged orbits in varying shades of blue, which flash in sequence. It is so bright, it illuminates the neighbours' gardens as well (just like the real thing all those years ago). The star looks like it would be happier at the end of the pier or in a supermarket drawing your attention to a 'buy one get one free' offer, rather than the birth of the Messiah. The electricity is obviously struggling to keep the vista going and there is an ominous flicker, warning us of its impending threat to wipe out one of the world's major religions.

There does seem to be some cross fertilization of the concept of Christmas, how long will it be before we see neon displays reminding us that baby Jesus was visited in the manger by Santa, a snowman and Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and that Joseph was actually busy mending the fuse on a flashing sign imploring us to have a 'Merry Christmas'?

Rapt Attention

There's a full moon tonight. When I went out in the early evening, I was admiring it through the spindly branches of some trees. Something caught my eye and in the darkness I picked out an exceptionally large spanned bird gliding silently towards me, which landed on a branch above my head. I was delighted to see that it was a beautiful owl, with his feathers puffed up against the biting December chill. Just to make sure I knew he was an owl, he put his head on backwards and posed like something out of a Disney cartoon. His huge 'eyes like saucers' were clocking everything going on around him. He looked rather arrogant, like he knew how handsome he was with the full moon and star scattered backdrop, how his presence made an otherwise nondescript suburban street something magnificent for a moment.

Audio Blog - deer

I am planning on branching out into audio blogging, so see what you think of this (deer bellowing in Bushy Park):

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Don't be confused by the 'download this song' option, unless you think the stag was giving a rendition of his favourite tune.

The Round Robin

I've received a Christmas Round Robin and it's still only November.

I find Round Robins challenging (particularly when they underline the fact that someone else has bought, written and posted their Christmas cards before 1st December). There was an exception to this one year when I was featured rather flatteringly, and in my fickle way, decided I actually really do love them. So I think it's a love hate relationship. I love hearing everyone's good news. The 'hate' has something to do with the fact no one writes the tough stuff, so you get a glossy, possibly slightly fake overview of the year, which makes your own year look rather less perfect than you already suspected it to be. Are all these families really having such a great time? Does no-one else settle down to watch a spot of TV and have to wrestle with difficult moral questions like, 'Do you mind if I roll a couple of joints while I sit here?'. Didn't some of those gap year expeditions cause sleepless nights when the last communication with the loved one in question was, 'I feel really ill' and then nothing, nothing for several days, by which time you have decided they have died and no one has found the body yet? Does no one think, 'Hey, I can't afford that holiday in Thailand, I'll go self catering in Wales instead!'

Did no-one have a nothingy year, where nothing special happened and they just plodded on regardless? Granted, this wouldn't make an exciting read, so I suppose there is natural selection in that it is only those successful, confident and dynamic families that will send Round Robins out.

So this is a request, that if you are sending a Round Robin, it is truly rounded and includes some of the grim stuff that will make everyone else think their year wasn't so bad after all, otherwise feature the person you are sending it to in glorious technicolour so they can't complain.

Happy Birthday Buttered Toast!

Buttered Toast Blog is one year old today, hooray!

Thank you for all your support and comments, keep them coming!

Washing Powder and Asprins

Those Persil ads used to really annoy me. Those sad women on TV who hold their children's beach towels up and discuss washing powder. As if.

The TV company over expose the whiteness so it has a sort of halo. Check your bath towel to see if it has a halo. If it doesn't, check whether it smells 'lemon fresh'. You should wear an expression of having just achieved a drug induced high while doing this. Then phone a friend to discuss it all.

No? Don't blame you. Life's too short.

I will think of this next time I pull the sludgy mass of washing out of the machine. Running my fingers round those horrid rubbery edges to the drum and coaxing the load to come out always makes me feel uncomfortably like a midwife. However hard I try, it always lands in a mess on the kitchen floor or a sock spills onto the stairs when I carry it up to the bedrooms. Luckily I gave up nursing in the early stages, so never made it to Midwife. (I've just experienced a nursing flashback here, of shaking a thermometer really hard and smashing it against a bed rail. Little globs of mercury rolled around in every direction. I went to get a dustpan and brush, and was a bit surprised to get back to the bed and find police style tape cordonning off the area and men in white paper jumpsuits and masks looking like they were playing marbles with the little grey spheres. I hadn't just broken a thermometer, I'd created a 'mercury incident' which was quite exciting.)

There is something very impressive about those people in the paper jump suits and masks. You see them on the news quite often. They really look like they know what they're doing, it's more effective than even having a stethoscope round your neck. It's science in action!

On a separate but still medicinal note, I was thinking about the word 'paradox' yesterday. It's a nice word. Sounds like something you might dissolve in water to cure a headache. Take two paradox three times daily. Your headache won't go, and you will certainly be feeling quite confused by bedtime. Which also reminds me of those headache adverts, with more annoying women (maybe the same jobbing actresses?) clutching their foreheads with a pained expression on their faces, then looking like they have discovered Utopia when they see a packet of asprin. So, if you're a woman reading this, remember to act up big time over the headaches, and make sure all your party conversations are centered around the whiteness of your washing.

Blood Money, Bombs and Broken Bodies

How can it be that the best way we can think of in the 21st century to solve problems is war?

The repeated images in our media of the miserable processions of coffins down the main street in Wootton Basset and glossy photos in the colour supplements about our brave servicemen and women, smiling from their wheelchairs, remind us of the cost.

The smiles disturb me. These people have staggering injuries that will keep them struggling to cope with day to day life, all the way into 2069 and beyond - why do they smile?

We are the lucky ones. We can turn the TV off if the howls of grief stricken families become too harrowing. We can turn the page in the newspaper to something less demanding if the photograph of a twenty year old with no limbs disturbs us. We can absolve our responsibility because, after all, it's up to the politicians - isn't it?

How about the others we hear less about? The ones who will never have a good night's sleep again because they wake up screaming in terror from the horrific things they have seen? The families that become fractured by stress and depression? What about the Afghan casualties, the children and civilians that have parts of their bodies blown off by our bullets and bombs? Is it because these don't make such good photographic based stories? Or is it that the emotive sight of coffins and brave young people in wheelchairs raises support to continue an unpopular battle?

Why do we trust our politicians, many of whom have been shown to be corrupt in the way they manage even their own affairs, to send these brave and selfless people into an Armageddon that will last way beyond the political war?

Some people will be getting very rich on trading the arms to keep the battles going. Who exactly are they and what is their influence on this confusing conflict?

Do their consciences keep them awake at night?

Existential Despair on a Park Bench

I was early for an outdoor meeting in a local town this morning, so I bought a lovely cappuccino and sat on a bench by a clocktower, enjoying the view. I was rather surprised when two older women walked past, and gave me a leaflet entitled, 'Comfort for the Depressed' with a soft focus photograph of female with the sort of expression that cleverly combined both existential despair with new found relief. The two women were hovering over me in a 'caring' way, exuding the sort of comfort they obviously thought I needed. I handed the leaflet back, saying thank you, but I wasn't depressed. I could have sworn one of them looked decidedly disappointed, as she tried to press the leaflet back in my hand. No, I said, more firmly, but with a large smile, 'I'm not depressed, I'm quite happy thank you'. They gave each other a look and walked off, I suspect they must have thought I was in denial, why else would I be sitting on a park bench in November? It's an odd pastime, looking for people who are depressed. I think they should be careful, as someone who was only just on the happy side of life might be swayed back into gloom by their ministrations. The leaflet could rustle up more customers by itself, it was mainly a funereal black, and just looking at the miserable woman on the front could turn an alright day into something more glum.

I recounted this story to a colleague back in Prefab Towers, who said I must be the only person who worked there at the moment who wasn't depressed. Those ladies should try their leaflets where I work, they would be a lot happier with the success rate.

The Bells, The Bells

I've taken up bellringing again. I'm quite surprised. The last time I bellrang was about thirty years ago. What has also surprised me is how difficult it is to ring a bell - I'd forgotten - but also how satisfying it is when you get it right. There is a lovely rhythm to pulling on the end of the rope and then the sally (the fluffy bit), and the bells make a nice noise too. Quite an ancient sound, echoing across the centuries. I was also surprised to end up feeling sea-sick. When I was sitting watching the experts ring I realised with some unease that the floor was moving around and making my chair wobble. I tried to focus on the windowsill to see whether the whole tower was going to collapse, but it is impossible to tell whether it was me moving, or the bricks. I realised that it would take quite a while to escape the tower in a disaster, the winding staircase seemed to go on for eons, and was specially built to avoid stairwell confrontations with swords or something, so only one of us at a time could squeeze down.

I put these morbid thoughts to one side and decided to have a read of the boards, which were jiggling around ominously. They explained who rang a peal of what and when and how long it took. About 5 hours for Grandsire Triples in 1804 apparently. I secretly hoped that one day I would be in a pub quiz team and there would be a round (forgive the pun) on campanology, and I would triumph to congratulatory slaps on the back and smile generously as the bottles of wine and handfuls of money came our way.

I wasn't deemed ready for Grandsire Triples or even Plain Bob. I did manage some straight rounds and even received some applause at the end for getting my bell dinging in the right place. I would have said 'round of applause' but you can have too many types of round and it gets confusing.

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You can hear the ropes flicking on the floor.

Popping and Banging

It's Firework Friday. You can tell this from where I am sitting by the sirens echoing off into the distance and the occasional squeal and bang as a rocket takes off. There are more people than usual padding up and down the street. Arms pressed straight down their sides, hands as far into their pockets as they will go, heads bent forward with hoods flopping over their brows. It's also raining. It reminds me I have a gutter that needs sorting out as there is a steady splash of water onto my front doorstep, about the speed of tea coming out of the pot. The splashes creep in under the badly fitting front door and make the carpet there a bit soggy.

I don't mind not going out fireworking, I have someone coming for dinner, and I have enjoyed pottering in the kitchen, rustling up something that is smelling gorgeous in the oven. While the meat was browning I enjoyed finding tracks on CDs I haven't heard for ages, playing them very loudly on the huge speakers and dancing around, imagining I was the most beautiful, sensual creature to walk the earth. It involved a lot of waving my arms around, like 'Music and Movement' in primary school, only better - much better. Every so often the image was spoiled by catching a glimpse of someone quite odd in the reflection from the window, or the pictures on the wall. I'm not sure who they were, but they really couldn't dance.

Anyway, Vanessa Mae did the best fireworks of the year - you can't beat the electrified excitement of Vivaldi with the sky metamorphosing into a maelstrom of colour. I don't need to see a puny rocket wobble out of a milkbottle and worry about whether it's going to take my eyes out. My idea of fun doesn't include a trip to A&E to wait on a trolley for several hours.

Huge Handluggage

I read somewhere that having a big handbag creates the impression you are thinner. I am now the proud owner of the largest handbag in the universe. This is good news as it means I don't have to visit the scary lady at the diet club any more. It is doubly good news as I have lots of space for carrying the iced buns. It is hard to find things in it though and makes fishing for glasses or coins quite frustrating as most of my upper body has to dive into the deep recesses to retrieve them, which is embarrassing at checkouts.

I can't decide whether it's better to carry it over my shoulder (although the straps aren't quite long enough and tend to slide off), or with the straps in the crook of my arm. It's odd, but carrying a bag over my shoulder feels a bit trendy (like flinging a jacket over and being all cas (as in casual, but can't work out the spelling for the abbreviation), whereas carrying it over my arm feels a bit bossy and like I should have a diamonte broach on my lapel. So not only does this bag transform me into a tall, slim being, it has an effect on my personality. Being a bit self conscious of it at lunchtime today, I was swinging it back and forth like a satchel. Someone commented on how carefree I was - proving yet another personality transformation, I was impressed.

So, don't feel down, get out your handbag and take it for a walk and explore all your personality possibilities. Make sure it's packed full of goodies though, you never know when an emergency tea break might be called for.

The Working Lunch

Sometimes it's hard to beat my job for fun. Granted, I did have a stressful morning which included a few minutes where I felt I had completely lost the plot, but a cup of tea and a glazed session of staring at the traffic stopping and starting outside my window sorted out most of the problem. The afternoon had an unpromising meeting scheduled. It started badly (it was that sort of a day) with me not realising the meeting was taking place off site, which explained why the other person hadn't turned up. So, a rather rushed band of us legged it to a local leisure centre to meet a caterer about an event. I hadn't realised this was a tasting session, which involved demonstration plates of food showing off the chef's skills. I felt a pang of guilt about the toasted panini I had already scoffed for lunch, as plate after plate of delicious dinners came out of the kitchen. 'No, no not more' we all cried as some sea bass, potato rosti and spring greens squeezed onto the table next to the stuffed chicken breasts and vegetable parcels. (And this was after some wonderful mushroom soup and warm goat's cheese salad starters). Then, just when we thought we couldn't eat any more, out came the biggest slab of rib-eye steak you could fit on a dinner plate, it was so big, it had to sit on top of the vegetables. As we groaned and clutched our stomachs, the caterer ominously said, 'I hope the bread and butter pudding is on it's way'. Sure enough, out came three different versions of the famous dessert, with chocolate ice cream and fruit. I never, ever drink at work, but the offer of brandy at lunchtime seemed too exotic to be true, so, as it came out despite my remonstrations, I had a little slug to keep me going. It seemed a shame to waste it, and while my back was turned, a colleague thoughtfully poured it into a water bottle, which fitted rather nicely into my handbag.

Banking on Failure

It used to be so straightforward, you’d go into a bank, join a queue, and get sorted.

Now, when you go into a bank, there seem to be more people meeting and greeting than actually seeing to customers’ needs. One I came across was very good at pointing me in the direction of the nearest empty desk, and, when the employee finally appeared, they said I needed to be waiting in a queue upstairs. It must be a cushy number, smiling and pointing and getting paid. Bit like being a politician mounting the party conference platform. They’re trained to point and wave into the crowd, makes them look like they’ve got friends, apparently. Come to think of it, not a bad thing for bankers to start doing.

In the bank I visited today, the person dealing with all enquiries other than straightforward withdrawls and deposits stood awkwardly at a shelf with a computer on it, with his backside up against the printer. As there was no desk as such, customers lingered in the ‘lounge’ area. No one dared sit on the sofas in case they lost their place and had to wait another eon. The loitering mass got a bit shifty and the lack of desk boundary meant you got too close and accidentally heard the financial traumas of the person in front. A toddler with his mother behind me expressed what we were all thinking, by lying on his back in the middle of the circulation area and yawning loudly. Eventually a bullet proof door painted bright red (possibly to camouflage the blood splatters I thought ruefully) was flung open and a harassed manager came out to assist the crowd. She helpfully told me that I could no longer do the transaction I had successfully done in the bank many times before, that I needed to use the card. ‘ I don’t have a card’, I helpfully interjected. She looked quite annoyed, took all my documents into a secret cave where bankers hide, like Bin Laden, and eventually came back saying she’d get into trouble, but she’d done it, in a tone that demanded my gratitude. Having spent most of my lunch hour in the queue there wasn’t much I could offer in the way of gratitude. Maybe she could be grateful she still had some customers, although it wouldn’t be for long judging by the comments they were making in the psuedo lounge, which had since taken on the feel of a party no one wanted to be at. They could start offering shorts, that would help. By the time we all got pressed up against the stressed man at the shelf, we’d be squiffy enough to sign up for anything and add extra noughts on our loans.

Thirty Seven and a Half Minutes

The clock on the mantelpiece stopped this week, broken at 10.37. It struck a chord and after a while, I realised it was the time of one of the morning lesson bells at school. We had these really weird thirty seven and a half minute lessons. It's odd how watching the clock hands move round interminably slowly to 10.37 over a period of seven years, leaves an indelible mark. Break followed at 11.15am. The rich girls had sticky buns to eat, probably why I've spent a lifetime eating them whenever possible, to subconsciously join the elite. We used to sit in small groups on the desk tops, chatting away. There would be a lot of gossip about who had 'gone the furthest' with the boys. There was an air of shock and disbelief when one girl did bravely admit in the cloakroom that she had 'done it'. Apart from being gloriously horrified at her confession, the only other thing I remember about her is that she had hairy legs. Strange, the odd bits that stick in your mind.

Most of the classrooms were the Victorian type, high windows to stop anything distracting us outside, vaulted ceilings and wooden desks with lids and strange holes for long gone ink wells. The wood and chalk dust had a particular smell, not unpleasant, just a mustiness that became so familiar it felt friendly. There were some modern classrooms in the trendy, cuboid science block.

The chemistry lab always smelt of the strange potions in quaint, glass-stoppered jars, and all those puffs of conjurer's smoke in the fume cupboard. The physics lab was always warm and sunny, which helped make up for my dislike of the subject. The biology teacher relied heavily on Banda machine copies on which the writing was reproduced rather faintly, and with a distracting shininess. As it was her own, loopy handwriting it was quite hard to read, and I failed to fully 'digest' the life cycle of the tape worm and other intriguing facts. The maths teacher had a bad lisp and started each lesson with 'do shit down', which resulted in giggles.

We had a music teacher who looked so old she was almost fossilised in chalk dust. She played epic works on the school's grand piano with great gusto, arms flying into the air between stanzas, as if flicking cobwebs out of her blue rinse perm.

The PE teacher seemed determined to give detentions to any girl not wearing regulation blue knickers and, with hindsight, possibly took more interest than was appropriate in checking out our underwear for signs of anarchy.

It was a school where a roll-around blackboard was considered pretty hot technology. I might be exaggerating, but I do believe the lessons were so unutterably dull, even the use of coloured chalk by a teacher made them a bit more exciting.

Girls' secondary schools were moribund places indeed, I hope they've improved. At least I don't suppose anyone has thirty seven and a half minute lessons anymore.

The Train to Nowhere

I was on a train home from Oxford this evening. At the start of the journey, there was a group of lean young men with clever faces, studying books and jotting notes, ensuring a glittering future for themselves. Behind them was a grey suit with white hair, bags under his eyes and a lost expression. He must have been missing the buffet car, as he was meticulously scooping bogeys out of his nose and popping them into his mouth. He needn't have been so thoughtful, the floor was pretty bad and no one would have noticed if he'd dropped them. It was coated in the detritus of the day; a torn back page from a newspaper with a headline screaming bad news for a local club; a sweet wrapper, and a crushed can rolling past a dehydrating gobbit of phlegm.

There was very little relief to the monotony of the journey, apart from listening to the inappropriate intonation of the automated announcements. They made the prospect of arriving at Feltham so exciting, even the bacteria in the gobbit must have wanted to get off.

I made the mistake of visiting the 'restroom'. The door didn't lock and necessitated an awkward sitting position with one foot wedged to prevent intruders entering. It was tricky to wash my hands as there was a beer bottle rolling around in the sink. It was all accompanied by the gagging smell of testosterone laden urine that covered most of the floor. I went back to my seat, past a couple of ticket inspectors bemoaning the drunkards that always came out with the same excuses for not having valid tickets, and how intimidating it was dealing with them. They were so engrossed in their conversation, they missed a youth swaying past them towards the 'bathroom' with one hand clamped round a half drunk bottle of Lambrini. I had to admire the sensitivity of his 'nose', that he felt he would be better able to appreciate the subtle blend of grapes over the stench of dried piss. It would make for an interesting conversation in the off licence, 'Could you suggest a cheeky little rose to compliment the aroma of a train toilet?'. Perhaps, I thought hopefully, he was going to the toilet to tip it away. No, a few moments later he came staggering back to kindly share the beverage among his friends, who I noticed were all too polite to remark on the lack of wine glasses.

My station was approaching, so I made for the perspex partitions that carried the greasy fingerprints of previous train travel victims. As I waited to get off, I heard one woman ask her friend, 'Where are we in then?'.

The friend replied, 'We're in nowhere. We're in Twickenham'.

Model Behaviour

Most of us are aware of the vpl (visible panty line), but not much is written about the visible bra line. It is very annoying to get a bra wrong. Too small and you have deep lines etched across your chest, creating not two, but four wobbly sections which look unattractive. Too loose and everything moves around untethered and uncomfy. It is almost as important to your daily happiness as a well fitting pair of shoes. Get it wrong and you feel quite grumpy by the time you get home from work. And don't even mention going for a run without adequate upholstery. Fortunately I am not built to be a natural athlete, apart from a maybe weightlifting. I am hewn from stocky, solid genes which helpfully create a stable, low centre of gravity. Unlike Claudia Schiffer who I seriously doubt could haul a dingy out of the Thames with one hand. Could she even lift a 25kg bag of coal? Moving coal and dingies is obviously much more useful in real life than posing in high heels with shiny, blonde hair and a pout. Anyone can pout. Thinking about it, I could pout while I fill the coal scuttle up. I could wear high heels while I do the vacuuming (hang on, didn't I see somewhere that men pay good money to do that?).

So, I'm nearly there. I'm nearly a supermodel.

Oh, and if you would like to pay me lots to vacuum my house, I'll turn a blind eye to your attire.

One in the Eye

When I got home last night after cycling back from work, I sat on the settee for a minute to catch my breath (and the end of Deal or No Deal) hurting nobody, when a tiny fly dive bombed my eyeball. It pinged as it tried to penetrate my lens, then wriggled a lot, cunningly avoiding my finger nail as I scraped it across that little ledge between my lash and eyeball. It's probably got a name, the ledge that is, not the fly. Well, perhaps the fly had a name.

I'm sure it's dead now. I can feel it, lodged under my eyelid, but eerily (or eyeily?) there is no movement.

It's rather unpleasant to have experienced death so 'in my face'. I'm also annoyed that out of all the cubic metres available to it in my sitting room, the fly chose to collide with my eye. I expect this is how astronauts feel when out of the infinite expanse of the universe, one of those pesky flakes of paint collide with their sensitive equipment (I'm talking about the outside of the space shuttle here - you're very naughty people sometimes).

Being an even minded sort of person, I can feel sorry for the little fly, and will spare a thought for it at intervals today. A little fly funeral maybe - I could hum a hymn on my bike this morning and say a little prayer for the fly soul as it makes the journey to join his mates who have been splattered across windscreens.

Remember My Name

We went to see Fame at the cinema yesterday - it looked like it might have been a bad idea by the time we were embedded in the queue for tickets among precocious pre-teens. It had a 'started so we'll finish' sort of feel to it, so we ended up in a reassuringly half empty auditorium, a long way away from any theatre school types (not that there's anything wrong with theatre school types, it's just I didn't want to sit near them). The film was OK, the plot even thinner than expected (not even the obligatory dancing competition), but the music was rather good. It was all interspersed by 11 year olds filing past us at regular intervals to go to the ladies to giggle and gossip. They were very polite and kept saying 'sorry' (with nicely rounded vowel sounds), but it did get a bit tiresome. In spite of all this, the film worked it's magic, and I found myself wondering why I hadn't yet written the most acclaimed monologue of the 21st century, or penned some 'keeping it real' rap lyrics. I think it might be quite fun to write some middle class, middle aged, middle management rap. I think I stand more chance of being a success with that, than donning a sparkling bowler and belting out 'Cabaret' for Simon Cowell.

I've just checked the lyrics for 'Come to the Cabaret' and was surprised to read the line, 'Put down that knittin?...that book and the broom'.

Sounds dangerously middle England to me.

Tapping into my Potential

A plumber's van went past at the traffic lights this morning. I'd seen the lights go through their cycle twice already, so was feeling a bit dull around the edges. The plumber's van had a rather uninspiring decoration on the side. Although it was a large box van, only the back end was decorated with a monochrome photograph of a 'trendy' sink (although it reminded me of the ones at school that were demolished many years ago). Perched on one corner was a woman clad in a style which can only be politely described as, 'up for it'. A slip dress, with the strap falling off one shoulder and high heeled, sparkly sandals. One hand roamed casually through her fashionably messy hair as she gave as coy a look as her heavily made up eyes would allow.

I'm going to try it tomorrow morning. I'll dig out those shoes I bought for lying down, and I'll clean my teeth with my back to the sink while practicing my come hither look at the laundry basket.

You'll know if I'm any good because I'll be coming in a plumber's van near you soon!

Salad - why can't it be more filling?

I've just eaten some very tasty rocket and spinach, with a pleasant dressing, some tomatoes and parmesan. I think it's a design fault that the rocket or spinach leaf don't actually fill you up though. You munch your way through, enjoying the little explosions of flavour as they bounce off your palate, feel virtuous that you are not resorting to the pastry encrusted sausage roll or doughy bun, but the plate is empty, and so is your stomach. I've come to realise that the amount of leaves you need to constitute a hearty meal wouldn't actually fit on a normal sized plate. So, my latest invention is the salad trough. Forget dainty tableware and think volume and quantity.

Either that, or serve the salad with a chunk of dead animal that you can really sink your teeth into. Yes, it might have frolicked through the spring time fields of daffodils, or clucked across to the village pond in the late afternoon sunshine followed by appealing, Disney-eyed offspring, but all it really wanted to do, was to relax on your plate surrounded by lettuce.

Thank you, small furry or feathered creatures, for your generous sacrifice to hungry people everywhere.

A Sign of the Times

I keep buying the Sunday paper week on week. It's become a habit I'm not sure I can break. I enjoy the property pages despite the smug couples standing in front of bijou cottages with straplines declaring how much money they've made, and minimalist interiors only the seriously depressed could enjoy (It's got to be tidy! It's got to be clean!). I like the review of the week even though my favourite coloumnist stopped being funny quite a long time ago. I keep reading in hope that the cutting edge humour re-emerges from the grumpiness. The main news is always interesting and so is the colour supplement. This still leaves quite a lot of dross. I once tried to dispose of this at the bin outside the newsagent, but wrestling with the polythene packets and leaflets, advertising fitted library furnishings, in a strong wind turned into a muddle like that party game you used to play putting the pages back in order (still don't quite get where the fun was in that). So as soon as I get back home and settled onto the settee - cup of tea at the ready - I fling onto the floor the what-to-do-with-all-your-money pages (too depressing if you haven't got any), the job ads (I don't want to be the CEO of a multinational - possibly why I don't need to read the money management section), the what's on guide (I'll only end up wanting to watch something on a channel the aerial last picked up two storms ago), the petrol head pages, the geeky techy news and the travel advice (more smug people, only this time tanned, thin, and in white bikinis). I would like sections on travel featuring more 'comfortably' proportioned people with cellulite, someone featuring a house that looks really loved and lived in, jobs you can apply for without a perma-tan and a Jag, and money advice for the financially disadvantaged. Oh, I'd like the colour supplement to demonstrate gender equality, and every time there is an 'arty' photo of a woman with few or no clothes on, they feature a man in the same satorial state. It's not a lot to ask is it?

Seeing Through the Past

I was invited to a slide show on Saturday evening. I love slideshows. You can keep your Powerpoint and disappointing laptop screens. Nothing quite beats the magic of the big, white, wobbly screen. The projection gives a real sense of light and depth to the photos, and it's fun to see dust dancing in the beam when you look round. Arranging the chairs to make a mini auditorium, drawing the curtains and turning the lights off adds to the fun. The click click of the magazine whirring through memories and the light blinking as the pictures swap over is very atmospheric. To complete the effect, someone has to wave their hands around to make shadow puppets and you have to be surprised at how messy the hair on top of your head is in silhouette.

I was invited to take a couple of boxes of my slides, and it was completely engrossing digging around in the past trying to choose which would interest my friends and not seem too self indulgent. I have an eclectic selection of slides. These include a set of Escher transparencies, the moon landings, explosions in factories, Arthur Rackham sketches along with some Leonardo da Vinci, and some strange people my sister and I drew as toddlers. I wasn't too disciplined in sorting these into order, so the evening became a bit surreal as we leapt from Neil Armstrong, to the Mona Lisa, to me in a nappy smelling a tulip, to water running the wrong way round a tower, a monochrome fairy and back to some footprints on the moon. It was confusing, but very jolly. There was even one photo of 'mother at the oven' - as I've mentioned before, the oven would seldom be cleaned, but when it was it required a hammer and chisel. My friends gasped in horror as the stark truth of these stories was brought home to them in ghastly, life sized technicolour glory. She was frying something to clog my father's arteries.

Some of the slides brought back sharp memories - father hanging a white double sheet back-drop on the garden fence, arranging us all in a 'loving family' pose and running round the camera before the shutter went. I can remember the unusual glaring whiteness of it all, and the oddity of seeing my father move faster than usual. Even though I could only have been about three, I remember wickedly hoping the shutter would click before he made it into the happy family tableau. I look at the slides now and wonder why my mother didn't iron the sheet before it was immortalised.

Vampires with Syringes

As my house is going on the market, I was told by a friend that I needed to clean my carpets, so dutifully rented a Rug Doctor. It was very satisfying (although also somewhat alarming) seeing copious amounts of black gunge build up in the tank. It did make quite a difference, but as the carpets dried, there appeared some very annoying triangular streaks of grey shouting, 'Missed a bit!'. Sadly, I had taken the machine back to the shop, so am now constantly reminded of my mistakes by the grimy patches.

I'm not very keen on my house being so tidy either, it looks rather bland. Everything is going a bit magnolia on me. I also have to keep putting things away, which is an alien concept. Some cruel people at work have suggested I am an alien - strange lights were seen in the sky last night and it was suggested that the mother ship had arrived.

Another friend thinks I've contracted malaria and has been telling me to have a blood test, so this morning I dutifully traipsed off to the doctor and then the hospital for a meeting with the vampire/phlebotomist. He plonked not one, not two, not three, but four vials in the tray and there was a very unpleasant sucking noise, like taking the plug out of a sink, as my arm was emptied. I had a momentary vision of being totally deflated, with just my skin left in a heap on the surgery floor, as the needle drained my insides out. I tried to distract myself by being engrossed in the paper towel holder on the wall. It didn't work, I couldn't but help imagining the syringe becoming larger and larger, like something out of 'Alice Through the Looking Glass', until I was trapped inside, tapping on the sides in panic as the sticky label was applied. I didn't fancy the centrifuge, so was pleased to come back to reality when the little blob of cotton wool was applied and stuck firmly down with some of that papery tape they only seem to have in hospitals - the useless stuff that drops off shortly after.

"I've not seen blood like this before, I wonder where she's from?"

Trident - Three Questions

If no-one knows where Trident is at any time, why not just get rid of it? In fact, how do we know they haven't done this already?

Who's ever going to be stupid enough to press the button to launch the nuclear warheads? If your country has already been atomised, why would you finish off all the other possible ports?

Who likes being on a submarine so much they would want to melt all the landmasses in the world?


Make love, not thermonuclear war!

Are You Receiving Me?

I'm annoyed with my radio. I should just point out that I do love my radio, but I'm experiencing a falling out with it lately. Why is it that you spend quite a time jiggling your set around to find just the right angle to receive the best quality signal, step back ready to get comfy on the settee, and it goes all crackly? I tried several different positions this evening (remember, I'm talking about my radio) and it happened each time. Aha! I thought to myself, if I turn it to a jaunty angle where it is crackly, when I step back it will be tuned in nicely. Very annoyingly it was crackly again. It happened in bed last night too. Got all comfy, pillows and duvet plumped up voluptuously (or was that me?), adjusted my radio to perfection, snuggled down, and off it went again, white noise to match my white duvet set. I used the aerial even though it shouldn't make a difference on medium wave (not sure why this is, but I remember a clever person telling me once). When I was holding the aerial, perfect sound came out, then I let go - well, I don't need to tell you what happened. Perhaps I am full of spooky static. Maybe it depends on whether the radio likes what I'm listening to. Farming Today seems OK, and thankfully, so is the Shipping Forecast (including inland waterways). It must be those plays the Beeb puts on, full of actors used to speaking with received pronunciation trying to sound colloquial - I'm in sympathy with my radio over this.

While I'm on the subject of aerials, my TV goes funny too. The box thing offers a huge selection of channels, but when I select something that looks really fascinating I get a message like 'data channel only' or 'audio channel'. When I find a station that does work, it quite often goes pixilated and Noel Edmonds (yes, I have to confess to the occasional fix of 'Deal or No Deal') starts talking like a robot. Deal or No Deal is bad enough at the best of times, but when you don't even find out what they've won, it seriously loses what little appeal it might have had. I think this has something to do with the aerial being stuffed down the neighbour's chimney. When it's windy it blows round and I get a different set of channels to those I've become addicted to. I've given up watching series, a gale between episodes can be very frustrating.

I've just come up with an invention - the radio stick. I can poke the radio into a good position without my static doing its stuff.

All I need to do now is have a chat with that pixie in the telly.

First Fire of the Season

I scooped up a scuttleful of tired looking lumps of coal that had been lounging around in a heap in the back garden all summer, and filled up the grate in the sitting room. It was wonderful to see the heart come back into the house. Soft, flickering light from the flames and candles, soothing music, glass of red wine and some hot chilly with a very good friend. What could be nicer?

I just love the autumn. I love the crisp chill in the air in the mornings, the smell of bonfires. Woolly jumpers and jeans and walks in the park crunching over dried leaves. Drawing the curtains earlier and earlier and making a warm nest to curl up in. Good books and cups of tea and no guilt about it being a lovely evening - I should go out. Lovely evenings are by my fire, while the rain pelts down outside.

Pull up the drawbridge, batten down the hatches, it's nearly time to hibernate.

My Desk Today

Filing card box full of telephone numbers that probably don’t exist any more.
Two lever arch files full of useful stuff.
Plate of Jammy Dodgers squiggling around shouting ‘eat us, eat us’ (must move those later).
Stapler looking rather bored.
Heavy duty hole punch, looking quite macho and threatening (especially if you’re a piece of paper).
Bone china cup and saucer, looking too refined for a dishwasher.
Unwanted raffle prize (it wasn’t what it said it was on the box).
Sellotape dispenser in dull grey.
Tub of drawing pins looking spiteful.
Scissors lying atop an envelope with an incorrect address on it(I've always had an urge to find an excuse to use 'atop').
Glass with a film of orange juice across the bottom.
Telephone with knotted cable, letter from a boring, moany person (resist the temptation to reply,‘Get a life’).
Office diary open at October 31st (meaning?).
List of names under the wrong headings, spiral bound notebook with more doodles than notes in it, rubber with worn out ends and black scummy stuff round them, pencil that needs sharpening when I can find the sharpener.
Overflowing in-trays, black and menacing computer crouching, ready to pounce.
Jammy Dodgers shouting ‘eat me’,
Jammy Dodgers shouting ‘eat me’,
Jammy Dodgers shouting ‘eat me’.

but this blog

is going to be a little longer.

Or not.

As the case may be.

I think my blogs

have been getting too long, so this one will be short.

Playbox Biscuits

I’ve just discovered a hoard of Playbox biscuits in the office. They are my most favourite biscuit in the world. I am in gratitude to the jolly coloured icing brightening up an otherwise monochrome childhood. Playbox biscuits meant a friend was coming to tea and there might be a sludgy looking chocolate cake with Smarties dotted around to go with them. The Smarties went a bit white round the edges as the colour seeped into the wet cake topping. The edges of the chocolate cake would always be a bit crusty and dry – I don’t think my mother’s oven worked too well back then. The icing wouldn’t make it right to the edge, so plates were always left with a handle of disappointing sponge. We had a jelly mould which came out for special occasions. Sadly, my mother never left the jelly long enough to set properly and we would have to scoop bright red, droopy globules of tepid slops onto our plates. I never did see the promised voluptuous structure with domes and columns.

The cake and biscuits were laid out on the dining room table, which was huge. It had been a conference table in a previous life, and a large crank could wheel open a yawning gap in the middle, where extra mahogany slats could be fitted in. I enjoyed turning the handle, like the starting handle on an old car, and seeing the table drift open on its castors. It was always a bit annoying that the slats, having been kept in the darkness of a cupboard, never properly matched the rest of the wood.

The table was so big, that you couldn’t reach food laid out in the middle without more or less standing on your chair. In the middle was ceremoniously placed a pair of ‘Willow Pattern’ candlesticks containing two rather bent candles. We were never allowed to light these candles, which always seemed a bit odd to me, and they became yellow and jaded as well as knock-kneed over the years.

My father was a devotee of classical music, and meals were accompanied by tapes of warbling, opera-singing women. My father, fancying himself as a singer, would add to the ambience by singing along, humming and ta ta di da-ing. If he stopped singing, it would be to ‘twang’ whoever was present. This involved making deliberately antagonistic statements - aimed at the jugular - and when the target became riled, he would laugh and say, ‘Only twanging, why are you getting so terse?’. This meant meal times quite often sank into a simmering silence of resentment.

There was a gas fire in the room, but the table was so big that anyone sitting on the wrong side of the table was likely to get burned. The organ bench was placed this side, as there were never enough chairs, and the smallest children crammed on to roast. Anyone sitting round the other sides would be cold – such is the magic of gas fires.

The youngest child present would get the worst seat, the plate that didn’t match, the bent fork and the scrag ends of the meals. You can see why the Playbox biscuits were so popular – they didn’t discriminate, they were bright and jolly for everyone.

Make your own bed and lie in it

I hate making my bed. You need seriously long arms to cope with a king size duvet and cover. The pillows are too billowy to fit easily into their cases and have to be scrunched up. The elasticated sheet pings off the diagonal corners. I end up grumpy. I can't help it, I just do. It's like pumping up my bike tyres with a hand pump, I end up in tears. Some things just do that. (I have had my wheel rims drilled to take a foot pump now, so no sympathy necessary, thank you anyway).

I wish I was taller, I wish I had arms like an orangutan. The duvet cover is always still a bit damp in one place, but then I quite like that. It's cooling, and I'm always hot. I have to have my feet sticking out of the end to achieve the right temperature. Perhaps my hypothalamus is trying to tell me something.

The good thing about making your bed is you can have a sneaky little lie down when you've finished. It is exhausting work and you deserve to collapse in a bit of a heap. Strangely, when collapsing onto the bed after making it, I always end up at a jaunty angle. It seems a shame to dent the newly billowed pillows. There is something rather pleasant about dangling my head over the edge and staring at the wall, upside down. I wait for all the blood to rush to my head and then decide to get up. There's that slightly giddy feeling, which I quite enjoy, like I've just been on a roundabout without the vomity feeling.

It is then essential to forget about changing the bed, so that you have a lovely surprise at night time, slithering into crispy, cool sheets and letting the fluffy pillows take the strain. I adopt the starfish pose and let the day sink into the mattress. It's a starfish with one limb missing though. But I'm not going to let that bother me. Somewhere on the planet will be a four legged starfish, it's just that no-one has found it yet.

Summer?

I think I spoke too soon about the summer. I'm sitting here at my desk in Prefab Towers (note to manager: it's my lunchtime), the wind is howling through the air conditioning vents and whistling round the building. This building actually moans in the wind, 'I want a holiday! I want to get away from the three lane gyratory system that makes me dizzy all the time!, Let me free from my footings!'.

The noises are quite spooky, and all that is needed to convert the whole working day experience into a Gothic horror movie would be the squadron of bats I saw in India that had the wing span of light aircraft. During the day they could hang upside down from the air conditioning vents. In quiet moments, employees could get up and tickle their tummies as a stress busting exercise. We could throw in a couple of rabid dogs slathering at the bottom of the stairwells and lifts that go up and down without picking up any passengers (hang on a minute, I think we've got that effect already).

My slightly grubby-from-pollution net curtains are straining at the rail, billowing out as if allowing access to unseen entities. Time seems to have stood still (sorry, that's just how it feels at the new photocopying/printing machine) and the electrical equipment in the office is acting strangely (no change there either, come to think of it).

This is of course all an effort to take my mind off the yearning I am currently experiencing for a large, iced currant bun. I've had a couple of boiled sweets, but they're just not hitting the spot. I've also eaten all my favourite orangey ones, and am feeling depressed at the thought of succombing, in desperation, to pineapple. If you eat too many boiled sweets, your teeth get a bit furry. You can spend a bit of time deciding whether to suck or crunch (no comments please, I know what you're like now). Sucking gives longer lasting pleasure, the crunch gives a lovely burst of flavour, but runs the risk of follow up appointments with the 'Butcher of Teddington', sorry, I mean my dentist.

Maybe that's the where the real terror lies.

Beach Life

Ah, the summer.

Spent yesterday lying on a beach, looking through the gaps in my straw hat carefully positioned over my face (I know what you're saying, and its not funny) at the cotton wool clouds drifting past. My favourite skies are the ones that look like the title frame for 'The Simpsons', and this one didn't disappoint. I could hear my breathing echoing around the inside of my hat, as well as the lazy inhalation and exhalation of the sea rolling over the pebbles. Someone had a baggy panel in their windbreak that rattled in the occasional breeze. Every so often there would be the scrunching of footsteps in the stones - 'Keep going, keep going, don't sit near me'. In the distance excited children's voices called to each other, and once or twice an admonishing adult's tone.

When the level of relaxation became too strenuous, a cup of tea would be sought from the kiosk nearby. A good cup of tea, that excused it's nasty little expanded polystyrene container. I was even quite glad of the plastic lid as it did arrive pleasantly hot.

There is a knack to getting comfy on a stony beach, it never works at the first attempt, and once you acknowledge this, things become easier. There is the little ceremony of trying to tack the rug down in the breeze, making sure you go for the stones that look too big first off (saves effort in the end). When you lie down you will undoubtedly find that one or two stones are a bit pointy, and catch you in that tender area around your kidneys. Remember that they have been around for several million years so have earned their place on the beach as well. A small amount of shuffling, or even a kneel up and pat movement should sort this out. You can then enjoy several hours of worrying only about whether to have a Magnum or a Ninety Nine. Actually, you HAVE to have the Ninety Nine if you are a serious beach person. Magnums (Magna/Magnii?) just don't dribble down your forearm in the traditional manner, rather like modern candles don't dribble wax down the Liebfraumilch bottle any more (and not just because no-one buys cheap white these days).

The best finale to a beach day is the take away curry. This means you don't have to retain a vertical position for too long while slaving over a hot stove. You can phone from the sitting position and just move sideways onto a comfy couch when the doorbell rings with the chicken tickler masala. ALWAYS remember that however careful you are, the oil from the curry containers will trickle out onto the nearest surface. Forego any Feng Shui concerns and just keep a bin liner propped open at the ready.

Wash down with copious amounts of red and when your eyelids get heavy, fall into bed.

Job done.

Coming Home

I've been shouting, 'Yeah Baby!' quite often since I got back; on feeling my pillow, on my first cup of tea, on washing my malaria tablets down with white wine, on turning the cold tap and DRINKING THE WATER, on leaving the back door open and not worrying about the mosquitos coming in, on eating meals that aren’t curried - but mostly on having completed such an amazing adventure.

India II

For the last week in India we went to help out in a rural orphanage. This is where children from the city slums come for sanctuary when their home life is considered unsafe, or when one or both parents have died – usually from AIDS. The orphanage houses 45 boys and 5 girls aged between 6 and 18. They had an assembly hall, called the Temple of Peace, a dining area with kitchen, and small houses to live in. The little ones had house-mothers to help with washing and cleaning. The older ones performed these chores themselves. The women who worked there had also been offered sanctuary from destitution.

The children had clothes, presumably donated, and virtually nothing else. There were some well-thumbed books available, three worn out tennis balls and a broken cricket set. A volley ball net was strung out over some rough ground.

The electricity only worked for twelve hours each day, a week of daytime power, followed by a week of night-time power. When the children settled to do their homework, they were limited in how long they could write by the setting sun. Some of them would gather round two solar powered street lights to continue their studies.

The campus was delightful. There was a lovely playground with swings and climbing equipment - something of a luxury in India. The area around the buildings had an abundance of banana trees, lemon bushes, palm trees heavy with coconuts and neatly tilled fields of grain, maize and vegetables. The ploughing was done by a very elderly man and a pair of white oxen. It seemed quite medieval, as did the local village, with basic thatched huts and women sitting outside cooking over open fires. There was a properly covered well, donated by visiting doctors who had serious concerns about the health implications of the old water supply. The village housed the primary and high schools. Both buildings were Victorian in their facilities – benches built into double desks, bare floors, chalk boards around the room and very little else. One board had the seasons written on it; summer, monsoon and winter. The children sat quietly and attentively. When we asked a class of teenagers what they dreamed of, the answers were about being doctors, teachers or lawyers. One boy wanted to be a software engineer, which I found particularly poignant, given that the school was probably about 5 miles away from the nearest internet connection. The contrast between these well motivated young people and their equivalent in this country was quite startling. None of them gave evasive ‘dunno’ style answers, they all had strong self esteem and ambition that would put their Western counterparts to shame.

There was no furniture to speak of in the orphanage. The children slept on mats on the floor (as they did in the slums) and sat on mats in the dining area to eat. Each meal consisted of chapatti, dhal, rice and a delicately spiced vegetable curry, washed down with sugary chai. The children each had a tin plate and mug, which they washed up after the meals. No cutlery was needed as the chapattis were used in traditional style to scoop the food off the plate.

The community was warm, loving and extremely happy. All the children shared the chores and never seemed to argue or complain. The timetable was well structured, the day starting with outdoor exercises at 6am, followed by washing and cleaning duties, assembly at 8am. The assembly quite often broke into vibrant drumming and dancing, a proper celebration for a new day. Breakfast was at 9am and then school or other activities on holidays. In the evenings they did their homework and ate dinner at 8pm. After dinner the children had to make their way to their houses to sleep, it was too dangerous for them to walk around in the dark on a campus that was visited regularly by cobras and the occasional anaconda. The snakes were seen to by what must be one of the bravest men around, a gentle giant of a man, who could spot the snakes tens of metres away, stalk them and throttle them with his bare hands. He had to do this once or twice a week to protect the children. We were advised to take our torches to the toilet block in the night, to check for cobras. This was extremely worrying, but luckily the cobras stayed out of the way while we were there. To think that before being warned about the snakes, I had been worried by the size of the ants. Somehow they paled into insignificance as I lay in bed trying to convince myself that I didn’t need to go to the bathroom after all.

The most startling and profound revelation about the orphanage was how well balanced, happy and enthusiastic the children were. They all shared a love of life and eagerness to learn that was infectious. When given some art materials they were astonishingly creative, and when some basic percussion instruments were brought out, their dancing and drumming took wings and soared. They worked together really well, being used to community life, sharing and caring for each other.

The children all looked lean and fit on their high carbohydrate diet. Their food was all organically grown and locally sourced, much from the fields around them. There was no junk food within miles and no money to buy it had it been. Some of the children however were smaller than you would expect for their ages, a sad reflection of their malnourished start in life.

The work the charity is doing for these children and adults is almost miraculous, giving a chance in life to so many who would otherwise have languished in the slums. The fact that they are happy and caring individuals is testimony to the love and commitment shown to them by the staff running the orphanage.

The term ‘poor’ had no meaning in this place.

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India

I've been wizzing around in little motorised rickshaws in India, which once you get used to the fact that no-one follows any sort of highway code, gets quite exciting. You cling on for your life as traffic drives straight at you from every angle. I am surprised to still be alive.

Sad things greet you when you look beyond the bus that is threatening to kill you. Some people sleep on the traffic islands, some children come begging (and can then be seen to give their procured goods and money to a Fagin character in the background).

From the trains you can see men defaecating, but oddly enough, this seems to be quite a chatty, communal time. The train facility dumps its effluent straight onto the line anyway, so not much difference in the end (those of us with Delhi Belly got quite chatty too as we kept bumping into each other on the frequent trudges to the toilet).

More offputting was the sight of rats happily frolicking on the railway lines, but this was made up for by seeing a couple of elephants frolicking in some fields outside Delhi.

Attempting to use squat toilets while suffering from the runs and wearing floaty, Indian costume is a bit of a bother. I am full of admiration for Indian women, who always look totally composed and almost regal, while I have been dragging various bits of my clothes back out of the U bend only just in the nick of time - I have been keen to avoid being strangled as the scarf disappears into the sump of the train.

When we were staying in Poona there were pigs wandering around, and ferral dogs with their ribs sticking out. At night you could hear when the dogs formed packs to hunt some poor pig, the squealing was something out of a horror movie. Cows wander around freely too, but they seem quite relaxed and can be seen drinking from the taps in the street (that the locals also drink from).

The mosquitos haven't been as bad as the midges I have become aquainted with on trips to Scotland, but it's quite hard to remember to take the anti-malaria tablets when on the move so much.

The food is delicious, really simple rice and dhal for most meals, but all home-made from local produce. It is interesting to see the chippatties being cooked, I think I've forgotten how to use a knife and fork.

The children we have been working with are delightful, and so enthusiastic about anything we do. The people running the charity here are inspirational, and as is often the case, inspirational people attract other incredible people to work with them - so all the charity workers we have met have been amazing. The work they are doing to help the children here is so valuable, literally changing the lives of many and saving lives with the AIDS awareness project they are also running. One memorable moment was going to watch some beautiful Indian women dressed in elegant red sarees peforming a play about AIDS in a truckers yard, where oil tankers were coming and going, interspersed with ox drawn carts. The sight of the elegant women bravely tackling such a sensitive issue in front of the tough truckers was very moving. It was made all the more fascinating when one of the women couldn't then sit in the minibus home next to a man - but had been party to a condom demonstration in the yard. Whoever had the idea to promote AIDS awareness to truckers is a genius, as the drivers are encouraged to spread the word at each truck stop they go to - spreading the knowledge across the whole of India via the transport network. As they say in the charity office, the battle for AIDS will be won or lost in India.

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Camera Obscura and Chaos

I had an idea that I could set up a camera obscura in my back room at the weekend. It should have been easy I reasoned, as I tried to black out the (mainly glazed) back door and pin the large curtains back as best I could. Achieving a black out is quite tricky I discovered as the hours passed, and the navy blue plastic table covers I thought would do the trick weren't up to the task. I had to pin layer upon layer of blankets all over the place. The drawing pins were straining at the task, and just as I stepped down from the ladder for what felt like the millionth time, the blankets fell in a crumpled heap on the floor and I was left in bright sunshine again. After quite a lot of grumpiness, but with a strong, 'I've started so I'll finish' mentality, I managed to get the room mainly dark. I then realised I'd have to bore a hole through a blanket to get the pin hole that is needed. That didn't seem sensible, so it was back to pinning bits of blanket up in a rough 'hem' and trying to jigsaw puzzle bits of cardboard to the relevant cracks. This was further complicated by the fact that as the room did become darker, I kept losing the scissors, drawing pins and sellotape. The room might not have been going black, but the air was certainly going blue.

At last I was able to make the pin hole, and realised with dismay that the sunny side of the house is actually the front. The sun did come out for a few minutes and I was able to see a very small, and admittedly rather disappointing, image of some clouds on the side of my bookcase. The next stage should have been to get a mirror to reflect the image through a lens onto another mirror on the floor. By this time I was feeling quite depressed and decided to just admire my 2p sized image of clouds. The only good thing about this, I thought ruefully to myself, was that at least you couldn't tell they were upside down.

Apparently Leonardo Da Vinci used this method to paint some pictures. Sadly the clouds were in fuzzy vision, so that combined with my limited artistic skills, wasn't going to produce a 'master' anytime soon - Leo can rest easy in his grave.

Black Mould and Tap Dancing Spiders

It’s all rather exciting, there is a new bath in the bathroom and a rather smart toilet which is a bit like one you’d find in a five star hotel, except the hotel wouldn’t have bare walls with lumps missing (the plumber said the walls were 'really terrible' – I think he was worried that if he leant too heavily in the wrong place, he would find himself in the back garden). I tentatively experienced the new bath this morning and enjoyed the view that notably lacked any black mould. There seem to be several bits of flooring missing, which is a bit creepy as I am fairly sure that Brother-of-the-Biggest-Spider-in-the-Universe will be procreating somewhere under the planks. I walk around rather gingerly as I am still suffering from a touch of paranoia about the fearsome furry fiends. I console myself with the thought that he and his clan might be tap dancing – their eight legs each working away on a new routine, ready to perform on my faucet(?) when I am next relaxing in foaming, five star luxury.

Master of all he Surveys

I popped downstairs into the kitchen to get a cup of tea last night, but patrolling the basement floor was The Biggest Spider in the Universe. He was just sitting there, glaring at me, daring me to walk past him to the kettle without the password. His long legs were bent at careful angles to keep his bloated, furry body suspended, ready to pounce. He actually had horns, which was quite scary. I decided to be brave and do the glass and card trick, but by the time I had got them ready, braced myself for the battle and turned to get him, the floor was empty. I almost fancied that I heard the clatter of eight jack booted feet as he ran to hide. It's all a bit disconcerting as every time I go into the kitchen, I feel like I'm being watched. I make sure I put shoes on now, I wouldn't want to step on anything that big, and I go wriggly down my spine when I think about his spindly, hairy legs interwoven between my toes, with the mush of spider abdomen stuck onto the ball of my foot. It didn't help when I found Son of the Universe in the bath this morning. I think having the bathroom done has sent various wildlife scurrying round the house in search of new abodes. It reminded me of cycling down the towpath of the Thames past a building development once, and rats were dashing across the path as their nests were disturbed. I've gone all yucky thinking about it.

Perhaps if I give the spider a name other than Master of the Universe I won't feel so bad. I'll call him Bob the Spider, which has friendly overtones of tool belts, primary colours and jolly songs. It's a shame he can't hold a paintbrush in each hairy leg - the bathroom would be finished in no time at all.

Taupe, ecru, beige

My bathroom is going to be replaced from tomorrow. This is particularly exciting as the plumber has been promising to come for several months. This had lead to a rather long period of not really bothering to clean the bathroom properly 'as its going to be gutted soon'. As a result it's been a place of less than welcoming demeanour. I had to go to a DIY shop (and I still feel slightly phobic about these places) to choose complicated things like floor and wall tiles and paint. I’m no interior decorator, but am quite pleased with a colour scheme of marbled white tiles with a hint of ‘granite’ and ‘granite’ floor tiles (non-slip luckily) and ‘Arctic white’ for the walls. It won’t be a warm and cosy room, but it might be a nice, clean room soon. I’m looking forward to waving goodbye to the black mould that has been depressing me for sometime, that even the spray-on sulphuric acid stuff couldn't help with, and the carefully positioned house plant wilted away from.

I'm not sure why 'granite' is a selling point - it doesn't look particularly special. The only thing I can think of worthy of note is its radon emitting properties (forget going to A&E for your suspected broken bone, just hold it over the draining board for a while). However, the paint colours were reassuringly pretentious as always; 'crushed cotton' and 'freyed hessian' giving a whole new dimension to Adrian Mole's sock drawer.

The pretentious colour names remind me of those menus that talk about freshly harvested sea vegetables from under the wild waves of the Atlantic or the rice that is grown in the flood waters of the Himalayan foothills. I used to think prawns on a bed of lettuce was bad enough, but reading these menus is like reading the pompous information notices next to paintings in art galleries; 'Trystan used gouache mixed with mud from the bottom of his Barbour boots and his own pubic hair to create this evocative scene reflecting the enduring power of democracy'.

Perhaps I'm going to the wrong art galleries.