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?