Immaculate Timing and The Turner Prize?
Last night I wrote a lengthy update to the Blog and posted it - just as the connection to the internet was cut, so yes the whole blooming lot was lost. At which the *** it factor kicked in and I gave up. However, today is a new ball game, I have learnt from that and will copy before I post. Hah! There are ways of dealing with these stupid systems, bear in mind they are only stupid when they don't allow humane mistakes to be rectified.... OK OK.
So, how have you been ending the year? Going to the sales, work, sleeping? As you so kindly asked asked me, I have been up in the attic sorting out the boxes of historical junk. And wow, there are some. Dress patterns from the 70's - the days when I would buy a pattern, material etc on a Saturday morning and the garment would be finished for the dance that night at the Winter Gardens. I still have the original cat suit made just after their first appearance - slinky and swirly op artish patterns in bright colours. Mmmm, now how did the style guru of the day let me out of the house in that?!!
There are other various bits and pieces too, funnily enough there was a programme excerpt on yesterday about the girl's mag called Jackie, which I used to read avidly. There in one of the plastic boxes is a plastic wallet that was given way in the magazine at some stage. A box revealed lots of other little things I have collected at some stage in life - small tins seem to have been the only constant theme, so I will stick to those and throw away a lot of other stuff.
As for the pictures - when I moved here my good firend helped me to pack lots of stuff and wrote wonderfully daft comments on the items she carefully wrapped, comments that were wholly judgmental and funny, so I know exactly what is inside the wrapping even though I have not unpacked the pictures in five years. In fact I think a fashion of hanging up brown paper wrappings with comments on is far more entertaining than the original art work. Is this something that I could put up for the Turner Prize next year? I shall make enquiries....

Loose Connections!
Previous Christmases have seen my mother and I prepare the Christmas meal, table, presents etc together, with liberal helpings of wine and snacks, this Christmas was obviously going to be difficult for me. I hadn't realised quite how loose those connections of lists of 'obvious things to do' had become. Christmas morning saw me making the crackers, failing to find a Christmas pud - so making a fresh one. Thank goodness I had the ingredients in the house! The afternoon was spent fetching Livvy and Ru, then icing the cake. Last July I smugly made three Christmas cakes, two were initially meant as presents, however, I took one down to feed people after mum's cremation service, so I kept the other two - one for Christmas and one for something special in the new year, I don't know what yet! So you can see that Christmas day was extremely busy on a catch-up basis, oh and I forgot to own up to not having even bought my daughter's present! We had chosen it and then I had failed to do anything about it.
Dire? I think so, but we laughed a lot, toasted my mother in her absence and I made my new year's resolution to take note of the poem I read at her service, which so far I have singularly failed to live up to.
The first part of that resolution was prompted by Rupert pointing out that my kitchen cupboards could do with a sort out. He was so right! Even just a glimpse of the Best Before Dates was shaming, the mustard powder was my original tin of mustard bought - I don't know when! So meals will now have no musty hints of flavour, it will be salt pepper and whatever herbs are available from the garden. I shall sprout the coriander seeds and eat them in a stir fry. And the most valuable piece of housewifery I found out? If you have a blocked sink, throw in combinations of old sauces- Hoi Sin and Chile sauces do a wonderful job of clearing the blocked drain!
Every cloud has a silver lining and I have got on and done something positive today.Yeah!!!!!

It's all a question of priorities...
When you go away the week-end before Christmas, come home with all sorts of unfestive things, get stuck into a book etc etc, what are the top priorities? Get a tree, decorate it, put up the decorations, clear up and start to make mince pies etc. Yes?
What do I do? Buy a DVD player, the two series of West Wing (and that is a story for another day!)then start to watch them... Now how obedient is that Dame Lardy Girl?

The crown is back!
Two nil! Two nil! The scrabble rivalry continued this week-end, the return match was at Leicester. After a night out eating and drinking with other travellers, a day's serious shopping, and I mean serious! We ate a delicious dinner cooked by Shirley's partner Lee, then played scrabble. Both games started with Shirley leaping into the lead, but with single scores in the 60s I caught up and thrashed her. Am I a competitive person? Nah! Well, only when it comes to scrabble and draughts, oh and finding the purple wrapped chocolated in Cadbury's Roses, the skin on custard, the crust on a loaf of freshly baked bread, the gooey part of the Brie - oh my goodness, so that's where Rupert gets it from!!!!

The smell was right....
just as we walked up toward sthe Town Hall in Birmingham, the smell of roasting nuts in a spicy mix was so German it was unbelievable! Livvy invited me to go to the Frankfurt Christmas Market in Birmingham with her and her friend Catherine. It was lovely!! Mulled wine of various types - from South Africa I later found on the bottle that I bought, very funny little boots to drink it out of - so I had my attack of bad taste and bought one!! There were those lovely herbal sweets and the fruity ones - black and red used to be my favourites, the huge lollipops, little houses that you put candles into and of course lots and lots of chocolate and stollen cake. Did I succumb? Too true I did, it brought back so many happy memories of school trips to Germany and the fairs, holidays in Germany since then and also in Luxembourg where we took Livvy and Ru when they were little. The toys were the same - push up the base and the creature bends its knees, puppets that you can cut out and lots of proper tin toys for adults! The country was slightly different but the customs the same, and that walk of smells - the frankfurters, chips, pancakes, chocolate, herby sweets and the mulled wine. Ooooh, if only I could post a smelly site for you!

I Have .....
sorted out my desk top in the study - no phone, cleared my bedroom - no phone, cleaned under all the cushions in the sofa - ditto, so tomorrow I shall clean the inside of the car and hope to goodness it is there. That's before I go to the German Christmas fair in Birmingham with Livvy. I have decided to make the Christmas Crackers again this year so I shall look for some interesting bits to go inside them. And before you say it - no a new mobile would not fit inside a christmas cracker!!!

HELP!!!
Where are the most obvious places that I would put my mobile phone down? I simply cannot find it and I am sure it is a case of putting it down and not losing it - so where? I am even having to clean the house in the attempt to find it - I keep coming across mountains of dust where it might be lurking so I have to hoover. This is serious folks, my street cred is going down the pan....
HELP!!

Well that was different!
I needed to do something totally out of the ordinary today so my birthday evening was spent at Lilleshall on a cricket coaching course. It was brilliant and very enjoyable. I laughed a lot and the others did, but what was even better I played the most fantastic straight drives - even in front of some pretty intimidating cricketers. Wow! I had thought I ought to give up and just manage a squad, but a really good session like that just fires up the enthusiasm again and I want to get a team going at school again.
I wonder who would be a good wicket keeper out of my year 6 sodpots?

The Sun has come out!
I have just crept out of bed - Sunday morning is the time I can relax and listen to the radio without a panic. It is a lovely day outside, the tree skeletons just in front of my little study look lovely against the blue sky. It is going to be a wonderful day.
Yesterday was a first in a very important way. My daughter came over and was keen to go clothes shopping. When I say keen, I mean it; she had that look in her eye which meant, 'Stop wasting time, I want to go to Moet NOW!'
We did. DLG you would have been proud of her, three hours later we left the shop with some clothes for her and a few for me. She tried everything on with a thoroughness that any true clothes shopper whould be proud of. The end result? Some lovely jeans in a size which was really wonderful -- she has lost some weight recently and gone down two - yes two dress sizes this year! A lovely jumper with a false fur neckline that hovers on the shoulders - great fun! A skirt and some little tops. Then we went up the road to the shoe shop and were extremely successful in there too - two pairs of casual shoes. It was such a lovely experience - successful shopping!!!!!
We then ordered some Chinese takeaway from a restaurant at Loggerheads - Ambrosia.
It was superb! Ambrosia

I have now had two excellent Chinese meals in this country - one in Leicester and this one last night. Livvy had a wonderful deep fried Mongolian dish and another veggie one on noodles, the Mongolian one was a completely new taste experience for me. I shall go for tha when I return!! My prawn and scallop dishes were excellent too - all very differerent flavours, no hint of msg and juice around any old veg, they had different selections in each one. Then I think we drank a bottle of the Christmas wine - it was delicious, so I shall have to go down to the pub at Worcester and get another bottle of that!!
Well, I think we celebrated our birthdays in style! When is it Christmas?

Hmmmmmm...
What do you get for being a 'Force 10 Prat'? Someone said somehting to me recently which was so hurtful, I wept for hours. However, another friend came up with this:

"People can be spiteful but remember that only YOU can make yourself feel bad. You have no control over their crass stupitidy but you have control over YOUR reaction to it. This controls the OUTCOME. Stay strong and warm in the knowledge of the tender loving care that you all shared with your mum because the main thing is that SHE knew. She may well also have been fairly dismissive of the ******** *** of the world. Just imagine!!!"

Now I know what he means by my mother's dismissive attitude towards these fools and this has sorted out my feelings, I am so grateful for his support at this time. That message can relate to many situations and is one that I need to remember, but I am sharing it with you - on a just in case basis!

AHA!
We think it might be a Jaguar SS100 - a mere £40,000 for a restored one, £150,000 for a real one!! Cough, splutter choke! But it is SO beautiful! Must try to remember how to download a pickie onto here and do that at the week-end, after I go sleuthing to see if the original car is back in Newport again! The spookie thing is that the photo that my sister sent me has the car's registration plates with my initials on it...oooooh!

OK, OK!
So I don't know how to describe a car - fine!! Now I'm getting bolshy about all of this techie stuff. I want to treat myself to a DVD player, the video recorder -which came from my uncle 10 years ago and has just cocked up its toes, is on the way OUT! Yes, that's another thing out of my home, the piles are on the march out of the door.....! So what do I buy in the DVD range? Advice please - the kind type, without too much of the plastic involved, I do not want to add my name to the list of those who are £40,000 in debt, and that's without considering the mortgage!!
Oh, by the way, this does not have to have a begging puppy on it - I don't really like them!