All Downhill from Here...

There comes a time in every mum’s life when she realises she’s ‘getting on a bit’. I guess. I hope. It can’t just be ME, surely? And it doesn’t happen overnight either (unlike the spread of the age round the middle which seemed to just suddenly turn up one morning and has made itself very much at home now thank you) "GOaB" creeps up and taps you on the shoulder at times but you manage to ignore it until one day it flat out hits you squarely round the chops.
Meh.
Case in point this evening.
Girl is off on one of her jolly jaunts (I’m betting she doesn’t call them this and would cringe with a “de-er” and a tongue to the inside bottom lip with dismay if she heard me) this evening – a Christmas Bowling Extravaganza in the city with her Explorer Group (they’re like very grown up Scouts and Guides – they Kayak and Camp and Canoe and Climb and Paintball and do all sorts of exciting things).
Anyway.
Because of my continued afearement of driving in the car and especially at night and because hubby is still whittling in his workshop (Carpenters whittle legitimately – this is not a derogatory term) I refused to take her - with heart in mouth, I hasten to add - because I’m one of those parents who hates refusing my child anything unless it means an outbreak of another war and/or plague/pestilence/flood etc. I can’t help it. I was a deprived child. Which means the Girl will have everything in my power. Anyway – that’s a whole other issue… back to tonight…
So one of her fellow Explorers came to pick her up. Courtesy his own parents, no doubt (they’re all only 16 anyway). And whilst she was stuffing her lovely size sixes into her shoes, I entertained her escort on the front step.
(Are you picturing a Les Dawson type character with pinny, scarf and hair curlers, supporting a sagging chest with crossed arms and toothless smacking gums?)
(Please don’t. It’ll only make matters worse).
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ he said politely back, smiling and everything. They’re lovely these teenagers we have today aren’t they?
‘Well…’ I fumble for a natural continuation of the world “hello”. ‘Um… so…you’ve grown… haven’t you?’
(Note to self: Saying this to a child any older than ten is potentially embarrassing to both parties)
‘What?’ The Girl spins round.
‘Um... he’s grown... Well… haven’t you?’ I flash the Boy a (thinking back, very probably a senile) smile in the hope that he can corroborate my statement. ‘Taller, I mean…’ I fan the flame.
‘What?’ the Girl does incredulous brilliantly.
(The Boy is still very politely standing on the mat smiling nicely and rocking on his heels a bit. Clearly hasn’t a clue what to say. I’m beginning to feel as if I’ve just asked him if he’d like to see some puppies).
‘Well… he’s grown… up… taller – since the last time I saw him. Anyway. Hasn’t he? Look.’ my heart hammers away. I feel a Basil Fawlty moment coming on. I can either dig myself in deeper or else pretend to faint.
I don’t faint.
‘Since my Birthday party four weeks ago you mean?’ The girl says.
Ah.
‘Really?’ I peer at him over the threshold – even though I don’t need glasses for close-up. Maybe he’ll think I do. Maybe She’ll think I do.
Maybe I do.
‘You were at the party, were you?’ Three degrees below outside. Plenty hot in the hallway, I can tell you.
‘Yes mum. Who do you think this is?’ Girl doesn’t so much demand as try to lead me gently to a conclusion that needs to be reached.
‘Um… he’s… young John,’ I say – v-e-r-y slowly, swallowing and actually thinking to myself “Why the frigg did I just say the word YOUNG? Was it my manic attempt at trying to make him appear somehow shorter four weeks ago? It was. It didn’t work.
The Girl shook her head disbelievingly, made a ‘Gah!’-ing sound and hugged me goodbye, patting me on the back …shades of Happy Fields Nursing Home wafted through my ridiculous bones and I could have whipped myself with the nearest Birch twig for my idiocy.
I actually behaved like a total moron.
Like the totally moronic mother that I always vowed I would never become but which I now realise I have absolutely no control over becoming. I am an arse.
An arse with foot in mouth disease.
And now all I can hear in my head are the little whispers of apology she was making to her escort as they walked off down the drive to their car.
I still haven’t located my heart, it sank and slank, never to be seen again.
*whimper*

Anyone else watching "Miranda"?

We are LOVING this...
What I *heart* most about this is that although it IS a bit cheesy and slightly daft in places, Miranda (the star) posseses that natural comedic talent that other comediens like Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd had - she involves her audience like we're her friend.  She has these great 'asides' to the camera which totally endear you to her madcap world. 
Try it out - you'll be glad you did!
Oh, and there's that lovely 'You were Watching...' thing as the credits roll - the actors all have a little wave goodbye to their audience too.  It's great.  Um... did I already say that?
Mondays 8.30pm BBC2.

As if men need another excuse to ‘Go’ anywhere they damn well like…

I don't often LOL at catalogue e-mails, but this part of the 'Dobies of Devon' (seeds for the discerning gardner type) mail had me snorting into my Typhoo this afternoon as I read it...
And I'm pretty sure they're talking about the menfolk here becasue I'd imagine if the lady of the house was caught with her pants down over her compost heap, there'd be a whole new meaning to the "Neighbourhood Watch".

PEE TO HELP YOUR GARDEN GROW
Most of us know all about the benefits of composting, and many of us are aware that urine can help to speed up the composting process. Now a National Trust property in Cambridgeshire have taken this to its logical conclusion and are urging people to relieve themselves outdoors to help gardens grow greener. Head gardener Philip Whaites is urging his male colleagues to pee on the straw bale to activate the composting process on the estate's compost heap. He said the "pee bale" is only in use out of visitor hours, since "we don't want to scare the public". Indeed. Read more, if you wish, on the BBC site. On a similar note, the Daily Mail reports that tomato growers can enrich the soil and therefore their plants using their own wee. Must be something in the water.

Garbage?
No - LOLage!

Winter Drawers on - Anyone?

I did something truly uncharacteristic yesterday evening.

Now that NaNo’s over and there’s no utter urgency to make a dash for the keyboard armed with a nice cup of tea and some Digestives, I watched a bit of catch-up TV and ‘Rebus’ ( is it me, or is anything Ken Stott in, always incredibly absorbing?) and darned.

I swear to god, I darned. I licked the end of my piece of cotton, double-threaded it and darned away to my heart’s content. Well, maybe “content” is pushing it a bit - but I darned, damnit. And that’s got to be a feat in itself, right?

I should have know this was going to happen because at work that morning I’d even felt my eyes widen in interest – INTEREST – at a colleague who was waxing lyrical about these new oven cleaner things – you know the one with the TV tagline “so simple even a man can do it”? And she was telling me her husband had tried it and it had transformed her oven into something shiny and slinky and stainless steeley all over again. And I very nearly salivated – for I wanted some of that please… (not her husband shining up my oven – not EVEN my own husband performing this same feat) … but I had a strange desire to get down and dirty and polish up my oven.

I didn’t of course, because a trip to Sainsbury’s isn’t due ‘til tomorrow (I’m rationing my trips now I don’t like the car so much and that’s pretty much the only way I can get there and back) but it’s on my list!

And now my eyes aren’t fixed on the screen and in particular that ‘WordCount-ometer’ icon that’s taunted me for the past 30 days, I find my gaze now falls on the most innocuous of things like the state of the inside windows. The outside takes care of itself with a tenner a month to those nice boys who ‘do’, but the insides look like someone’s just thrown a load of bath scum dregs down them and then legged it before I notice. But I have. Noticed. Just now. Now that NaNo is over.

And the dust! I’ve said it before but dust only becomes a problem if it’s looked at.

So that’s pretty much going to be the line-up for the weekend I’m thinking.

Oven, windows, dust.

Oh god, pretty soon I'm going to be hoiking out me thermals and parading about wi' me mop an bucket wi' curlers in me 'air whistling 'The Girl from Ipanema'.

OMG! I DID IT!!!

Yay, yay and thrice YAY!! I did it - I bloody well did it (again, for the 2nd year running so that means 2008 wasn't a fluke - Yay oh Yay!) See?  Look there - The Office of Letters and Light don't give out this prestigious accolade to just Anybody you know - you have to be a Winner!  You have to have written on average 1,670 words per day - which makes a grand total of 50,000 - and ten if you want to be precise - words in one month.  One month!
And I did it against some unpleasant odds.
(Cue Richard Chamberlain and Rachel Ward getting steamy on a beach.. if memory serves...)
The Open Evening.  Mayhem and Madness and utter idiocy in the lead up to every November 3rd (or thereabouts) and overtime a-plenty.
The head-on collision on the 6th.  'Nuff said.
The Girl's Sixteenth - a party for 17 hormonally ravaged teenagers with whiplash (that's mine - not theirs).
The realisation that I won't have a paid job come 2013.
And of course there was still the house to keep clean (yeah right) and the meals to prepare (ditto) and the shaky job to turn up at - but I did it.
And the feeling when that Winner's icon came flashing up big and bold on my screen once my word count was checked and verified was almost as exciting as the fact that I now have another Teenage book almost written and I did it in 4 weeks!
NaNo, I love you and I hate you and youalways make me cry - one way or the other.
Same time again next year then, yeah?

Oh, and congratulations also to fellow writer friends, Keris and Jacqui who've also passed the finish line.
*sob*sniff*

Is There Anybody There?

I’m *that* far away from demanding a refund with our Television Licence. Were it not for the fact that we have a million and one other channels courtesy (paid for courtesy of course) those nice** Virginal people so, okay, it’s not as if it’s the ONLY channel we can watch at that time – whatever that time is. After all, these programmes seem to be constantly on a loop-de-loop. It’s a wonder Sarah Beeney hasn’t gone down in medical history the number of times she’s been pregnant-not-pregnant all within the space of 24 hours – she must be exhausted, poor thing.

Anyway, my truck, viewers, is with that most stupid of stupidest programmes to ever have the idiot mad sense to ‘grace’ our screens. And quite how or when or by whom this ridiculous idea for a programme was passed remains almost as mysterious as the content of the programme itself.

In England we have ‘Most Haunted’. In the US, I think it’s called ‘A-Haunting’ which at least sounds a little nonsensical to start with so it begs a tongue-in-cheek attitude at the off (similar to ‘a-wassailing’ only with night-vision cameras and no carol-sheets).

And for the life of me I cannot remember a more ill-spent use of my viewing time other than the second or third year during Big Brother when I deliberately tuned in to see what all the fuss was about and spent about 40 minutes watching bodies sleeping followed by chickens peck the dusty ground for whatever it was they were looking for – inspiration or a way out – and the rest listening to irritatingly silenced-out random conversations about how hot and dusty it was and what were the chickens doing? Total waste of time. I’ve been more interested in hold-music and believe me recently I’ve heard a lot.

These people GET PAID to stand in dark rooms wearing padded coats and pained expressions, waiting. For what? They ‘get feelings’ about things. Oh yeah? They probably get the feeling that their pay packets will be nice and substantial and paid for by idiot Us, the viewing public. Then the ‘atmosphere’ (i.e. room/corridor/stairway somewhere – anywhere – they don’t care) in which they stand is so clogged with spiritual activity that they have to get in some supernatural expert to confirm that the air they are currently breathing is, in fact, laden with paranormal activity and they’ll have to get their table out.

Table out.
They all sit around, some cameraman at the back starts to hyperventilate and so another camera swings round unsteadily to catch him hyperventilate, during which time “Whoa, did you feel that?!” Answer: No, because this is television – a visual thing – not a tactile thing – we felt nothing. And, for the record – how do we know you bloody well did anyway?

“Something just touched my leg!” somebody shrieks and off we go again - a dodgy spin of the camera with loads of shake, some expressions of feigned shock and terror (ahem – terror?) and it was probably Kevin the hyperventilating cameraman who touched somebody’s leg as he toppled over with the sheer boredom of trying to hold a camera up waiting for nothing to happen again.

Nothing Happens.

Nothing.
And we’re the idiots who sit glued to it waiting for something to happen.

It’d be more believable if they at least put some spooky music to it like in Scooby Doo instead of all this heavy breathing and everyone comparing their levels of clamminess and fear and trying to out-do each other in heart-rate comparisons.
My god, in the American version they even have instruments – proper Ghost-hunting instruments like heat sensors and motion detectors – trip wire - and all that nonsense to help them see these apparitions.

But nobody ever has.

Have you?

Have they?

You only have to stand behind a particularly grumblesome old person in a queue somewhere to know that anybody can stand there and say they feel scared and they feel cold and they have a bad feeling about something. But very few of us have the unqualified cheek to demand they get paid for reporting these personal sentiments to a viewing public.

Of course, I’ll expect all of you to be racking up the viewing figures for me when I commission a pilot for a new show called ‘When Paint Dries’.

It’ll be edge-of-seat stuff, I’m telling you.

**not always

This makes me go fuzzy all over!

Uplifting or what!