In yer facebook

Evil Facebook taking everyone away from their blogs...
Maybe I'm gonna get all old skool and get busy here, or maybe I won't. Only time will tell.

Blue feet

Normally, if your baby has blue feet it is a sure sign something is afoot (a-hem).

However, today Baby M's feet were painted blue by my friend while I held him firmly in order to make foot print cards for the grandparents. Ahh, so cute! And he didn't protest, at least not for about five minutes.

If I've said it once, I'll say it again - motherhood sure beats working for a living!

Strange things in the countryside

One of the great pleasures of living in the countryside is all the weird and wonderful things people do to pass the time - things which simply don't happen in Canning Town.

For example, the nearby village of Abbotsley is currently hosting its annual scarecrow festival which involves practically every house and cottage constructing a scarecrow (a term which is quite loosely adhered to) and displaying it out front.

This year's theme was films. There were plenty of Pirates of the Caribbean, Spidermen and Alice In Wonderlands. Surprisingly, just the one Harry Potter but several Singing In The Rains. What does this all tell us about the average age of the locals?

My personal favourite was a superb ET flying across a moon in Eliot's bicycle basket.

And for the rest of the year's entertainment, we have the Soap Box Derby, Sponge Flinging and Vegetable Show to look forward too!

Perfect housewife

Actually it is quite hard to be the perfect housewife. While I don't miss working in an office, it is tricky motivating oneself to do domestic chores when there is no real deadline, except for getting ready for the next session of feeding Baby M. Likewise, it is virtually impossible to make lunch, or even have a shower. Luckily, TOH never comes home and asks 'what have you been doing all day' or thinks mumming is all about coffee mornings.

Anyway, I managed to find time to do a spot of carpentry and build a step in the nursery (there is a door between it and our bedroom which, once the wall was opened up, is about half a metre higher!), clear out the old carpet and underlay and make a cup of tea for the carpet fitter to lay down new flooring. Two months after he was born, Baby M finally has a nursery he can go in!

So, once I've hoovered, dusted, washed the floors, done the washing, finished weeding the front garden (ready for my grand plan of planting a knot garden, seeing as we do live in a castle), I might be able to finally clean my teeth and organise that coffee morning with the rest of the mums for Friday!

A year off!

Good lord - has it really been so long since I last posted on this little-read blog?
What has happened in all that time?
Well, I shall list events in order:

1. I gave up my job after the office bully boy was installed as my 'boss' after my immediate boss managed to leave with a nice payment for 'unfair dismissal'. Yes the evil world of newspaper publishing shat on the little people and women (which the management seemed to be scared of in the manner of Father Dougal on Craggy Island) so I had no choice but to leave too. Unfortunately, I didn't get a nice payment. I just lost my job ...

2. Went freelance instead and did a stint at a new (equally shambolic) rival free paper.

3. Got pregnant.

4. Moved to the sticks. Yes, we are no longer Londoners but country folk way up north in Bedfordshire. We now live in a Victorian semi-detached castle which we are trying to restore. The outside has been repointed, the battlements made safe and soon we should have new windows which don't allow gales through. The inside, however, remains a tribute to 80s decor - turquoise bathroom suite, dado rails, Artex ceilings and wallpaper borders.

5. Started a gardening course one day a week with a view to eventually (maybe) getting into garden design. My own gardens are no advertisment of any skill though, unless a client would like an impressive collection of bind weed and brambles!

6. Gave up work all together as pregnancy progressed and I turned into a) a fat blimp and b) a figure of much scorn and hatred on the tube, which I couldn't stand. Actually, it was partly because I had to stand all the way to work and all the way back from King's Cross on the Circle Line as people are so fucking rude and selfish that I eventually gave up work a couple of months early.

5. Had a baby. A little boy, who is absolutely delightful. Started to attend coffee mornings and breastfeed in various cafes (and today a pub thanks to the end of the filthy smoking brigade) around the country. There are many more weird and wonderful biological functions which I now enjoy as a mother but shan't go into them here.

So, life has changed immeasurably for me. Not quite so much for TOH, who still trundles off to his office in London Town five days a week and does lots of training for triathlons in his spare time!

Will write about the past year as the thoughts enter my mind. In the mean time, let's have a laugh at the UK's most rubbish terrorists who, after trying to drive into Glasgow airport several times, managed to set themselves on fire.

The Hate Mail's Ideal Home Show

I feel dirty enough as it is accepting the Associated dollar but free tickets to the Ideal Home Show? That's just plain filth.

Still, TOH and I braved the Sunday District line and headed to Earl's Court.

Our reward was to witness a double-decker pikey-fest. It full of Northern salesmen trying to flog furniture and garden equipment that simply wouldn't sell in a shop, all the while sounding like Jerry 'The Saint' Sinclair. It was rather like Jim Bowen giving away Bullie's special prize - a caravan for the confused looking darts players who don't even own a car.

One guy tried to sell us a £4,000 electrical bed, which vibrated like a high-performance motorbike, while another got bored with us immediately and said 'if you want to buy this bed, come and find me' and flounced off with an impressive twirl.

As it happens, we are in the market for a new bed. It's me back, you see.

Upstairs (two floors of fun!) was an Essex girl's dream day out. Spray on tan, madam? Nope. Acrylic fingernails? Erm, fuck off. Free gift, madam, if you sign up for a credit card - you don't have to activate it. Gah!

We spent a few amusing minutes watching a French bloke demonstrating a £400 blender, mainly because he kept giving away free food tasters.

A hideous place.

Although I do now covet a waterbed.

Eye, eye

TOH won us a romantic dinner on that floating greenhouse on the Thames, the Bateux restaurant, followed by a spin on the London Eye, all for shifting a few extra boxes of paperclips.

So we had a nice day out.

The boat trip was brief - I guess I am used to cruising the river at narrowboat speeds, ie about walking pace. The Eye was so-so. It was a misty day.

We followed our tourist activities with a visit to the Three Emperors exhibition at the Royal Academy. If you like medieval Chinese stuff, this is the show for you. Plenty of dragon robes, processional paintings and royal seals.


Westminster from the Eye


St Paul's looks more interesting in negative ...


The Hungerford Bridge, forever a special place for me - I fantasised about my first big trip on the old bridge


A misty view over Battersea