Weevilstepmother

Lily the Pink

2011-07-20T19:36:00.002+01:00

Taking a spot of walkies at lunchtime to get out and clear my head, I passed by my favourite-flowerbed-in-the-vicinity-of-work and saw some Granny's Bonnets bobbing in the wind. It really took me back. I remember my Granny pointing out Granny's Bonnets to me, and thinking 'how appropriate'. Except I never saw my Granny in a bonnet, not even in old pictures. I imagine her Granny called them Granny's Bonnets too, and maybe then it fitted more - so that would make them my Granny's Granny's Granny's Bonnets. Yeah. That works.

As I walked on, I started thinking about other flowers I remembered from my childhood, and suddenly felt all dreamy nostalgia. I remembered pinks, with their spiky leaves, the blooms all little and er pink. I remember getting down and breathing in nosefuls of their scent. They were in the border of the flowerbed, a row of them, and they were my particular delight. Carnations were their grown up sisters, and I loved them too, with their frothy petals and bizarre stork-leg stems.

I always felt a bit undecided about foxgloves - I adored the shape of the flowers and the way they hung, revealing pattern and decoration on the inside while the outside was plainer and less intriguing. But fox gloves? Really? I'd not met a fox close up but I was pretty certain that it would have to be quite a teeny one to even try to get his paws into the flowers. And why would he even try? And yes, OK, he wouldn't have fingers and a thumb but there would be some division within the paw, like a dog or something, so they didn't even qualify as gloves because it would totally be a mitten. And it could kill you. Best observed from a distance, where you wouldn't get any harmful effects, and where you might - if quiet - see a fox trot past, pausing momentarily to slide a paw in just to see if it fitted.

The real treat for me was snapdragons. I would pluck one of the flowers from its stem, hold it gently around the middle between finger and thumb, and squeeze. A moderate pressure would open its jaw and by means of alternating pressure and no pressure, one could achieve a most satisfactory talking motion, perfect for pretending you had a tiny dragon in your hands, or just for having someone to talk to. RAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR! Yep, just like that.

Sweet Peas fascinated me, and I'd peer closely at the bamboo supports to see the tendrils curling so elegantly. The flower buds reminded me of butterflies perched with closed wings, and the flowers themselves, a gorgeous pastelly mixture, were little paragons of perfection of form and scent. They were still interesting after the flower had gone, the seed pod fresh and green and growing daily, with its discernible cargo safely cradled.

Lily of the Valley I always thought got a bad press. We had a clump in a corner by a low wall, and there were always dire warnings of it running out of control. I didn't see the harm in this, as I loved the delicate little bell flowers and the incredible scent they produced. I always seemed to get Lily of the Valley bath salts at Christmas (you remember the ones pressed into little cubes, with a foil wrapper and a paper sleeve sporting a picture of the poor plant which had been macerated for your pleasure?).

Aubretia was very popular in the dim and distant when I was small. We had millions of it in the front garden, mostly adorning the front wall. I forgave it its boring aspect and lack of memorable scent as it excelled in disguising the wall and looked a bit like wall hair. I seem to remember the woodlice rather liked it in there.

Pansies I've always had a soft spot for, with their little worried faces. I used to wonder what they were so concerned about, but I suppose when you've got other plants out there being all exuberant, someone's got to take things seriously.

The best ones of all were, I think, lupins. With their two-tone flowers, tapering shape, and mysterious hairy seed pods, they were always a treat to look at. But to see them at their best, you had either to volunteer to do the watering, or to rush out to see them after the rain, because then the leaves would be covered with tiny sparkling gems, and in the middle of the leaf clusters would be nestling a perfect diamond of water, all surface tension and glisten and deceiving tangibility. If you just touched it so gently, it would stay solid, and be yours. But I never could manage it, and there would just be some wet leaves where a diamond had been sitting...

I bin smoovin' the cat

2011-06-24T20:28:00.002+01:00

I haven't really. I don't have one any more. But today I've been thinking about regional accents, and the one dearest to me is of course Bristolian. There's a place down here that makes T-Shirts with phrases on them which warm the hearts of those born and bred in the areal, and which make Tallboy pull such a puzzled face that you can almost see the question mark materialising above his head.

'I bin smoovin' the cat' is a favourite, as are 'Pick 'ee out the stingerz', 'Cheers Drive!', and the incomparable 'Muh!! I wants a go on the slider!'. When I see these, I can hear the voices of my childhood speaking the words, and get a bit of a fuzzy smile feeling. I'm sure that a few years ago I saw the 'Cheers Drive!' one in Polish, as a nod to the Polish drivers who were recruited en masse to keep the public transport running to time.

It was My Polish Colleague who started me on the regional accentuation today. He has been asking, in passing, random citizenship test questions for the past few weeks. He's mugging up, you see. Many of the questions are things to which I don't believe most residents in the UK would know the answer. Could you say what proportion of the population in 2001 was Bangladeshi? He has to know the Census breakdown by heart, and answer multiple choices on it. There are also helpful questions which test your knowledge of bin collections and whether the postman is responsible for ensuring that your rubbish is removed in a timely fashion. The Mayor, My Polish Colleague earnestly assures me, is not the person to whom you should go for contraception. I'm glad this was covered - there could have been the most embarrassing mix-up otherwise.

I have to admit at this point that I've just been googling the citizenship test to check if I've been having my leg pulled. I haven't. I also have to admit that I just took a test, one of the many practice ones available. I'm not sure how true-to-life it was. But I failed it...

Today, I wasn't asked random questions. But I did pass by My Polish Colleague, who was sat opposite My Hungarian Colleague.

'Dzien dobry!'

'Jó reggelt!'

MPC's attention was drawn back to a question he was reading. 'In which area of the UK,' he read out, 'would you hear Cockney spoken?'

'Oh, I know this!' said MHC, and pondered for a moment. 'Liverpool!'

'No!' (and this little word contained a smattering or so of triumph) 'It's London! In Liverpool they speak, er, Scows.'

He looked up at me, brow furrowed. 'In T...ine...side, they speak Guh, ummm, Guh...'

'Geordie?'

'Yes, I can never work out how you say that word. Geordie!'

As I went back to my side of the room to do battle with SQL, which might as well be a foreign language sometimes, I mused about this test, and how much knowledge one must acquire to pass it, and how glad I was not to have to do it myself. You'll have to excuse me now though - I need to go on the waste collection website to complain about my postman not taking my bin again this week.

This is the room

2011-02-16T22:34:00.001Z

I tread the same path, follow the same vector to the same side of the same sofa in the same room. There's a dip on my side of the sofa from the last person to have sat there, my only contact with them as they left unseen, just as I entered. I imagine from the way your chair is positioned that most people choose to sit here on the right. The door is behind your chair and I'm glad the room is arranged as it is. I feel safer seeing the door behind you, knowing it is safely shut and that no one will come in. This is all the world for the next fifty minutes, just this room, and you, and me. To my right is the little bin where my scrunched up snotty tearful tissues will go. Further away along that wall is the fireplace and mantelpiece. Beyond that the table and chair in the corner of the room. I notice these least of all. Your chair is opposite me, and to your right is the wooden chest on which the boxes of tissues, your diary and the torch live. There are shells too, in a wicker bowl. And juggling balls. I am very rusty juggling-wise, but sometimes I imagine picking them up and tossing them into the air.

On the walls are lamps and images. The lamps are quarter spheres attached to the wall, sending a glow mostly upwards and a little downwards. There's a calendar between the door and the table down at the far end of the room, and a flowery picture above the fireplace, but the image which inexorably tugs at my attention is on the left wall, above the wooden chest. It's really three pictures, or three sections of a picture, one above the other and all within the same plain wooden frame. It's easier to look at that picture than it is to look anywhere else. For a long time I saw the mirroring of my depression in that picture, the last orange rays of a setting sun powerless to fend off the encroaching darkness - the sky is purple in the middle picture, inky in the top. After quite some time, during one session I looked at the familiar image and was astonished to find that it was a totally different picture. I saw the first rays of the sunrise starting to pierce the early morning, chasing away the darkness and turning the night from inky to purple. It was a new day and the darkness soon would fade. This image is a barometer for me - the instant knowing if it is setting or rising a telling indication of where I am in my head. At the moment, in spite of everything, it's still rising for me.

At times, I have approached this room with apprehension, knowing that waiting for me there are wrenching effort and obliterating emotion. At other times, I am eager to unburden myself and seek relief and lightness to leave with me. Sometimes I know exactly what I need to talk about, I marshal the things in a list in my brain and make sure to tick them all off. Sometimes it's just a vague sense of something, but that's OK because we can draw it out. And sometimes I've no idea, and then you ask me about something from last time or the time before, or we talk about something surprising and new.

When the emotions and memories and feelings are whirling around in my head, it can be hard to make them spill out. Even though I know these things are better expressed than bottled up, my articulation deserts me. It's impossible to gather it all up and turn it into words one after the other. Sometimes the things I'm thinking streak across my brain, burning up in the atmosphere and defying their communication with anyone. When I'm trying to find the words to bring what's in my head out into the room, sometimes I stop breathing. It's like I am keeping it all in, come hell or high water. Then I notice it, or sometimes I don't and you remind me, and I breathe again and somehow the words come.

There are times when there are already tissues in the bin, and I am reminded just like with the sofa dint that someone was there before me. Where did their pain go? Is it wrapped up in the discarded tissues? Is that where mine goes? Does it go into you? How do you avoid being pressed to the floor by the weight of it? Does it seep into the walls, the floor, the ceiling? The room doesn't feel like it's full of pain and distress. Maybe that's what the fireplace is for, all the badness and sadness flows up the chimney to be diluted and dispersed by the air and the sky and the wind.

Today I had something horrible and frightening to share. In my distraction, I brought my lunch box up to the room along with my work bag. I followed you to the room then we did the going in dance where you stop and gesture for me to go in. I walk to my spot on the sofa and put my things down, then sit and settle. You close the door and come to sit in your chair. The horrible and frightening stuff is still there. Talking about it didn't make it go away. It won't go away. But I mostly wasn't tongue-tied and I mostly remembered to breathe and some of my pain and fear and distress has gone from me. At the end, we do the going out dance, where you open the door and stand just outside it. You tell me to take care and raise your hand to me as if to touch my arm, but don't quite make contact. I say goodbye. Walking down the big staircase I feel lighter and breathe easier.

The sun is still rising.

Recursive script

2010-11-25T22:21:00.004Z

As I'd had to unlock the mortice lock, I knew I was the first one home from work. But as I opened the front door and spotted the fresh mail on the foot of the stairs, it became apparent that someone had been there already that evening. It couldn't have been Tallboy, who was going straight to apheresis from work, so that meant the Sun had snuck in for some nefarious purpose while on a Dad week.

Sure enough, dumped on the sofa was a bag he'd borrowed, and balanced on top a small handwritten note:

'I came round.
Tried to use printer but out of ink,
The Sun'

Well yes, the 'out of ink' error had popped up a few days before, but as neither Tallboy nor I had wanted to print anything, there was no urgency about the situation. Clearly the Sun had visited to print out some homework, his father's printer being once again (still?) hors de combat, and he had been thwarted by a magenta deficiency at our end.

I knew there was a cartridge somewhere and after a few minutes spent fossicking up and down the house, I emerged from the loftice with a triumphant box in my hand. OK, so a careful disrobing of the bags and tags, removal of the old one (careful, no drippage), insertion and acceptance by the printer. Then the head clean, ka-shum ka-shum ka-shum, and a final shuddering to a halt, ready and alert like a retriever willing you to throw something so that they can impress by fetching it back.

*brrrrring brrrrrring*

'Ullo.

Hello, it's your mother.

Oh. 'Ullo.

I've sorted the printer.

Right.

So if you want to email me your homework, I can print it out for you.

What?

You know, the homework you tried to print earlier.

I don't need to print any homework.

Well, you tried to use the printer round at mine earlier, didn't you?

Oh yes. I wanted to print out the note...

Frying tonight

2010-10-17T19:02:00.002+01:00

Tootles and I raced each other to Bath. I lead by three or four cars out of town, but by the time we were south of the M4, he's right there behind me. A snap decision to take a right and attempt a zoom down the short cut, and there he is passing me on the left down the dogleg, radiating smugness. Eight cars back in the queue of other short-cut-attempting muppets at the end, I scan the passing vehicles until at last Tootles pootles past, his face turned my way to check that he'd beaten me. Bugger.

By the time I've duelled with the traffic on the approach to Bath and finally parked up in the car park on other side of town, he has already had a shower and is lounging, so he reports over the phone, in his dressing gown. We arrange to meet in half an hour at the Mad Panda Shop. I arrive there a bit early, and as it's still open, go in for the first time. Madness abounds, although not just in the form of Pandas. Manoeuvring myself and my two bags carefully between the busy shelves, I astonish myself by quite liking a couple of things. In fact, I'm just looking rather fondly at an overpriced clock when I catch sight of Tootles outside, and scuttle out guiltily.

We head for the restaurant, and seeing me laden with my bags but knowing my delight in being thus burdened when accompanied by a gentleman who then looks beastly to all around, he ponders aloud: 'Not much point in offering to carry one of your bags, is there?' My delight in martyrous self-burdening is only surpassed by my delight in being contrary, so I hand him a bag instantly. I choose the knot-wrap bag which has a strange low centre of gravity and needs to be held in a certain way to avoid the contents bumping your shins. He gets the hang of it eventually.

We join the throng at the Forum and squeeze upstairs, where we exchange our tickets for a copy of Mr Fry's book each. We are offered the option of a pre-signed volume, or a virgin one to present afterwards to the Great Man for signature. Tootles decides he really can't be arsed to wait around in a queue for a billion hours, so goes for the signed one. Having tweeted Mr Fry the day before, asking whether there was any chance of a hug, I went for the unsigned one, committing myself to an indeterminate wait. 'I'm not going to wait with you, you know,' said Tootles in a comradely manner.

Waiting for Tootles to come back from the loo, balancing both bags and both books, I am approached by a young man who asks me where I got the books from. Indicating with my head (well it was that or my leg) I tell him: 'Over there on that huge table under the enormous piles of books.' Inexplicably, he fails to punch me.

Stephen Fry talks for an hour and a half, and it seems like only a few minutes. He is effortless, sharp, fluent, entertaining and wonderful. Bastard. He's even unfazed when his microphone gives out, booming instead to the rafters. During the first half, I am mesmerised by the appearance of something dangly peeping out from behind his left jacket front. Is it his radio mike pouch, I wonder. Is it deliberate, I muse. It protrudes further and further until he notices it, and curses his peripatetic scarf. Tucked back in, it isn't long before it peeks out again, finally tossed in a disgraced heap on the table. At the end, we applaud for as short a time as feels decent, then dash downstairs to join the queue for signing.

It's a hell of a squeeze, some people giving up on decent behaviour, muttering insouciantly 'oh look, here's the end of the queue' and pushing in like evil queue jumping gits. I start to simmer, and cast Paddington squared stares which are expertly avoided. These people have done this before. Tootles doesn't last long in the crush before he makes his excuses and leaves with his pre-signed copy, heading for the pub. I soldier on on my own, using my knot-wrap with finesse to prevent the manky bugger who has been pushing himself up against me from passing me down the inside.

Once back inside the auditorium, I see that the queues stretch down each aisle - instant decision agony. I plump for what turns out to be the slowest moving queue, and have the pleasure of queueing for the next hour with the most boring man on the planet behind me. He talks loudly and at length on a range of subjects, most of which involve his brilliance at one thing or another. Hoping to be surrounded by Fry-like wit, I am sadly disappointed. Tootles, now ensconced in the pub, sustains me by text. Mr Boring behind confides (to his companion and half the bloody queue) that he is feeling warm but can't remove his pullover as his t-shirt sports the caption 'Your lips are moving but all I can hear is "blah blah blah"' and he feels that approaching Mr F with such a sentiment would be rather unworthy. I share this nugget with Tootles, who assumes the t-shirt must have been a gift.

At long last, I approach the steps up on to the stage. Looking behind me, I can see that the only aisle with people still queueing down it is mine. It's like some special sixth sense I have. If I choose one, then at the last minute change my mind and make for another, then that's the one that will be slowest. So there's no point in even trying to cheat it. It's just something I have to live with...

Approaching the signing table, I bring up Twitter on my phone so I can show him my hug-requesting tweet. He takes my book and looks at the yellow sticky inside for the dedication name. 'Weev?' he queries. Yep. In my haste, I forget to tell him what it's short for. 'Er, I tweeted you yesterday,' I start. He makes a sound and a face, both indicative of what I already know. 'Yes, I bet you get millions. Here's what I said: "I wonder if I might have a hug in Bath tomorrow night?"'

'Oh bless you,' he replies, standing up and spreading out his arms. 'Of course.'

I flew home on wings of recent huggedness and nearly didn't even mind the dozy buggers doing 30 all the way home in front of me.

100 not out

2010-09-30T22:10:00.003+01:00

This lunchtime, My Polish Colleague and I took our usual walk to Tesco Inferno. Our conversation covered the usual wide mix of subjects, including the fact that Polish people don't have the concept of a roof in quite the same way as we Brits perceive it. Or maybe it's just me...

We looked in the Estate Agent's window and he pointed out two properties. 'Why,' he enquired, 'is this one so much more than this one?' He had indicated first an old terraced cottage, and second a modern semi. 'Well, that one is much older,' I pointed out. 'Yes, so why would anyone buy it? It might fall down soon!' The cottage was only a few dozen yards past the Estate Agent and we looked closely as we passed it. He gestured upwards: 'That looks like it would fall off!' 'What?' I wondered, peering and seeing nothing wrong. 'Up there!' he pointed to the top of the building, 'It's not straight! The ummmm , you know, up there!'

I tried to follow the attitude of his raised arm. 'Chimneys?' I ventured. 'No!' 'Er, the roof?' 'No! It's the bit all on top, made up of lots of little bits.' 'Ah, tiles!' 'Not really, what is it called the bit where they are all forming a covering, the name for that bit?' 'Well, I'd call that the roof.' 'No, but isn't that the bit you see from the inside?' 'Nope, the covering of a house, all the components, the timbers and slates and tiles and all of it, that's the roof - whether you're inside or outside.' In Poland, apparently, there's a word for the stuff that forms the lid of a house that you can see from the inside, and there's another word for the externally visible bit.

Our conversation drifted onto other topics, and I told him of my plans for Weevil Jnr's birthday cake. It occurred to me that I didn't know what were the birthday customs in Poland, and enquired if you had parties and cake and so on. 'Oh yes,' he said. 'You have your family round and there is a cake and food.' 'And is there,' I wondered, 'a special birthday song?' 'Yes, there is!' and with a smile he broke into song. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, I remembered: 'Sto lat, sto lat...' I had read somewhere that the name of the land of Sto Lat on the Discworld was also a Polish birthday greeting. 'Erm, "I wish you one hundred years"?' I faltered as the memory banks kicked into operation. 'Yeah, sort of,' he smiled again.

We walked on in silence for a few moments. I mused about this very specific birthday greeting. 'What do you sing when it's someone's hundred and first birthday?' I asked him. His turn to muse. 'I suppose we would sing "I wish you two hundred years" instead.' 'OK then, what if it's their ninety-ninth birthday?' This was trickier, and the musing commensurately longer. We agreed that wishing a 99 year old a hundred years was probably OK; many a slip 'tween cup and lip and all that, and it was a reasonable target.

Finally, I played my trump card. 'Right! What if it's their hundredth birthday?' More musing. Somehow, the two hundred years seemed a bit too much of a leap. But could you really wish them a hundred only? A cunning look crept across his face as he formulated the answer. 'You sing "I wish you a hundred years", then you say "hooray, you made it!", and then you shoot them!'

Quelle surprise

2010-09-26T11:16:00.004+01:00

'A large soya latte with a shot of syrup, please.'

'And which syrup do you want?'

Ah. Well. The thing is, I love them all. I don't have a favourite. I just want one. If I choose one, I will agonise over that choice as I drink. Would I have preferred a different one? Am I really in the mood for this one? Is there one I haven't tried which I would have liked better? Argh.

All, however, is not lost. About a year ago I hit on the perfect answer to my twice-monthly-or-so coffee conundrum.

'Surprise-me syrup.' *big smile*

This gets quite a range of responses, although they all start off the same: a puzzled pause, a mental replaying of the last exchange, and a smile of comprehension. Mostly, there is an enjoyment of the silliness and a ready entering into the spirit of it - sometimes the person taking the order will make the choice, sometimes they will direct the coffee-maker to choose. I make sure to look away from the syrup bottles so that the first sip is a revelation.

On a few occasions, the burden of choice has proved intolerable for the poor unfortunate who is dealing with me. In York, the young lady turned to a colleague and pleaded 'You make this one, I just can't do it!'. At other times, it's turned into a game. In Taunton, the older guy who was training two young women leapt upon the idea and insisted that the syrup be added secretly, demanding with a smile as he passed it over that I identify it. It was hazelnut, by the way. And very nice it was too.

As an added bonus, the 'surprise me' policy works very well with tea. I'm not entirely sure how many types of tea I have - 'about three shelves' worth' is the closest I can come to quantifying - and sometimes I am overwhelmed with the choice. 'Tea, darling?' Tallboy will say. 'Oh, yes please!' 'What would you like?' 'Surprise me.' Having a cup of Earl Grey served by a suddenly naked husband was quite a surprise, I suppose. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen in Costa...

Recipe for a hotel breakfast

2008-07-12T12:24:00.003+01:00

1. Make sure you come down for breakfast just when everyone else does. That way you get to know people really well in the lift.

2. You'll get plenty of exercise too, as you are forced to select a table at the furthest extremity of the cathedral-sized breakfast room.

3. If you wish to entertain yourself, you can look for soya milk. Then you can give up, and have apple juice on your cornflakes instead. The first day. You may find it easier just not to bother on subsequent occasions.

4. On the first day, you will join the shuffling queue at the mouth of the conveyor belt toaster affair. It will finally be your turn to place your bread on the fiery track then hang around in the heat protectively, in case someone else grabs them when they are spat out at the bottom.

5. On the second day, you will spot the other one round the corner which nobody else seems to use. Result.

6. On the third day you will realise that since parallel processing is much faster than serial, inserting your breads together in portrait orientation rather than consecutively in landscape will afford a processing time saving of at least two seconds.

7. You may be tempted to have scrambled egg on toast. This will almost certainly be a mistake.

8. If you care to, you could undertake a comparison exercise throughout the week. On no two days will the colour and consistency of the scrambled eggs be similar, let alone identical.

9. You may find yourself drawn to the baked beans. This will followed quite quickly by a repulsion. Stirring the crusty dry bits in might help to make things look a bit more palatable.

10. On the way back to your table, you might consider that stirring the horrible bits in means that you get far more of them in your spoonful than if you had, say, carefully spooned the top layer off into a corner of the dish and helped yourself to the uncrusted goodness below.

11. Every morning you will choose to sit at a table next to a sneezer or a cougher.

12. The one time you get to sit close enough to see and hear the plasma TV on the wall, it will be displaying CBeebies and not the Breakfast News.

Spongeball Peskypants

2008-02-05T12:15:00.000Z

We have a new kitten at Weevil Mansions. We'd realised that Pesky was tending rather to the senior side at fifteen, and she had got to the point where she was spending all day inside resting after a hard night's sleeping on her luxurious bean bag. When she got up she was clearly stiff around the hips, and had taken to bunny hopping down the stairs in what might at first have appeared a fit of youthful playfulness but which instead indicated the pain caused to her by descending in a more conventional manner.

In consultation with the V.E.T., it was agreed that she was an old girl and that arthritis was an unsurprising consequence of her years. Looking at her age, her condition and her heart murmur, it was clear than a full diagnosis involving an X-Ray (and therefore a general anaesthetic) was out of the question. So it was time to make A Decision.

This is where the new kitten comes in. Papers exuberantly fringed by playful claws, charging round the house after assorted playthings, animation, chirrups and head on one side. Needs feeding all hours of the day and night, nose into everything, squirting unseen through closing doors into quiet bedrooms then yowling for egress, and generally bringing mayhem and life and smiles to the house. It's amazing what a couple of cc of feline ibuprofen will do...

Now, I do not begrudge in the slightest the monthly outlay on the drug which has ensprightened her so astonishingly. But I do find myself a little cheesed off by other disbursements entailed by her new condition. Her red mousey with the bell and no ears had lain discarded and dusty for years but has been pressed into service one again, with no outlay. Good start. In a fit of excitement, I have to confess that I splurged a little in the cat toy section of the local hardware shop and purchased assorted toys, cats for the edification of. It transpired that purple fluffy things with a pull cord which vibrated and jiggled engagingly left her cold, as did plastic balls with bells inside and strange whip-like objects which rejoiced in the name of 'Cat Dancers' - but I did hit the jackpot with a bag of brightly coloured sponge balls which bounced and rolled beautifully, were just the right texture for clawing and biting and generally won the Pesky seal of approval.

The only trouble is that there appears, somewhere in Weevil Mansions, to be a Bermuda Triangle type phenomenon which preys solely on small, brightly coloured sponge balls. In the space of two months, Pesky has been the joyful recipient of 12 of the said balls. One survives. Well, I say survives - it is unrecognisable in size, colour and texture as the glorious sphere of yellow it once was. Of the others, there is no trace. It's driving me crazy - somewhere in this house there is a cache of kitty toys in which are hiding two pounds and seventy five pence worth of spongeballs. We have searched under sofas, we have safaried under the fridge, we have poked under bureaux, all to no avail. To add insult to injury, when I went to restock I found, having surveyed carefully the breathtaking expanse of kitty tat at the hardware shop, and resurveying just to make sure, that there was no sign of the spongeballs at all, so she's going to have to make the manky ex-yellow one last, and by the look of the bits left on the carpet when she plays with it, its days are numbered. Would anyone mind inventing a spongeball detector? Please...?

View from a train

2007-11-12T22:18:00.001Z

"Morning, Mr Magpie." He flicks his tail towards me twice in what might equally be a gesture of contempt or an attempt to balance on the high metal fence on which he has chosen to alight.

It's blear o'clock on a Saturday morning, I'm settling into my seat on a train pulling out of Newport, heading for Manchester and beyond. As I waited on the platform, I watched with mounting excitement the scrolling litany of stations that lay between me and my destination. I've never travelled this line before, not seen these stations. What sights will I see, what peeks will I sneak on the way?

Nothing can beat the intimate views of life afforded by a journey on the train. Tallboy can peer over walls when we're out walking; I'm not so blessed. Views from the car are thwarted by hedges and walls. Oh, and having to concentrate on the road and stuff. OK, you get pretty views from a plane, but that's about as intimate as Google Earth without the zoom functionality. The closest is possibly the motorbike - you're up higher, and you have smell-o-vision too which adds another, not always welcome, dimension to the trip. But the concentrating on the road thing is even more of an issue on the bike, and there's no real chance to immerse yourself in your surroundings.

My musings are interrupted by my phone; the SMS alert embarrassingly loud in the otherwise quiet carriage. It's Tallboy, texting me with enormous enthusiasm to let me know that he is having a boiled egg sandwich for his breakfast.

I nestle back in my seat and watch the world go by - a row of back gardens, each the same size, but each utterly individual. Some are manicured and inch-perfect, some are wild and untidy, many are occupied by large trampolines. I see footballs, discarded bicycles, tables and chairs, wheelbarrows and washing. I wonder if the owners realise how visible they are, how on show? Yes, they can see the trains passing at the bottom of the garden, but do they even notice them any more? Do they see past the shell and consider that there are people inside looking out? My back garden is so much more private, overlooked only by Shouty Neighbours and Nice Neighbours. How would I feel if hundreds of people saw it every day?

The houses, too, fascinate me, as I see the side of them that can't be seen from the street. Over the years, owners have tried to maximise their living space, and these properties, so uniform at the front, are so diverse at the rear. Single storey rear additions, whole new wings, conservatories, sheds, lean-tos, gazebos, sheds, aviaries, sheds, and er more sheds. Such a jumble, such variety, the stamp of individuals over time.

There are industrial and commercial premises to see as well, apparently similarly oblivious to the tubes of voyeurs speeding past. The dirty back ends of buildings slide by as I look at the piles heaped up by the fence which borders the railway - pallets, tyres, bricks. From time to time there is a patch of waste ground with a hint of a former building.

Soon enough, we are back in the countryside, passing through green sheep-filled valleys. The early-morning hills are snagging the low cloud, their slopes snapshotted mid-transition from green to gold. There is still evidence of people - dog walkers, country houses, a treehouse proudly flying the Jolly Roger, mouldy caravans in the corners of fields, a police car stopped by a field gate, the officer petting the muzzle of a horse - but they become less and less frequent. Past Leominster, there is a vast mast farm, sprinkled with white dishes pointing in all directions.

At intervals, the driver sounds the train's horn, a satisfying, musical blart. I wonder what prompts this, and try to detect a pattern. I'm pretty confident he was doing it whenever we came up on a field of prone sheep - inured as they were to the passage of the train, the horn made several of them at a time rise indignantly and shake themselves.

I scan each field margin closely for any sight of BUNNIES! but see none at all. I am rewarded instead by prodigious quantities of bird life. A ramrod heron, all concentrated attention with a beak of doom. A harlequin pheasant bumbling by the hedgerow. Magpies everywhere, often in pairs, flicking their tails at me. Pigeons rising ponderously from fields of young crops, plump and pompous. A cloud of starlings ascending in unison, disturbed by the train. Two swans on the river, aware of their stately beauty and presenting their best sides to double advantage, reflected in the water. Affronted mallards emerging beneath the bridge we are crossing, looking almost too solid for flight. Small birds fluttering from cover to cover round the edges of the fields. Larger birds circling lazily higher up. Single predators following meticulous flight paths, razor precise.

I lose count of the level crossings we pass, revelling in our priority over the lesser beings on the roads. At some, no one is waiting and I have a Zen moment and think of trees falling in the forest with no one to hear them. At others, single vehicles wait for us to pass, the drivers taking the opportunity to touch up their makeup or rummage in the glove compartment. I smile grandly at them, but none of them notices. At a very few, there is a satisfyingly long queue of traffic. I am tempted to wave, but think better of it.

As we leave Ludlow, I am forced to scrabble in my bag for my mp3 player to drown out the inane chatter of the women who have joined me at my table, before my brain explodes; the remainder of my journey has a soundtrack of ELO and the Eurythmics. In my case are two sets of mittens I finished just in time. One is a pair of monkeys, with tufts of hair on their foreheads and cheeky grins; the other are blue and red with smart black spiders embroidered on them. Each pair is joined by a cord, and they will dangle engagingly from the sleeves of the four year old twins at my journey's end. I smile at the thought and sink back, Jeff Lynne in my ears, the fields unrolling before my eyes.

Tallboy's guide to hard drive recording

2007-10-20T19:12:00.000+01:00

1. Moan about non-Y2K compliant video recorder in front room which won't record anything set to record more than a day in advance.

2. Include in the moan the twin machine in the back room.

3. Do nothing for several years until your wife buys a hard drive/DVD recorder.

4. Decide to record the F1 Grand Prix qualifying.

5. Realise that a test run a couple of days before might be an idea.

6. Go into setup mode.

7. Fail to select your chosen channel to record from.

8. Continue to fail to select your chosen channel.

9. Have chosen channel selected for you by your wife.

10. Try to set the date.

11. Argue with the unit that today isn't the 18th.

12. Ask wife for support about the date.

12. Argue with wife that today isn't the 18th.

13. Accept it's the 18th.

14. Set it to record chosen channel in 15 minutes' time.

15. Wonder whether you need to turn unit off to set it into standby recording mode.

16. Find instructions.

17. Seek enlightenment.

18. Find glasses.

19. Switch on reading lamp.

20. Seek enlightenment again, this time with a chance of actually seeing it.

21. Mutter.

22. Delete current timer recording job.

23. Decide to record programme about toxic children rather than The Bill.

24. Choose channel, set date, set time for ten minutes hence, turn unit off.

25. Wait half an hour.

26. Play recording.

27. Realise you are watching people pretending to be police officers, not chemical-filled children.

28. Mutter. Loudly.

29. Wait until the next day.

30. Ask wife for guidance.

31. Watch in annoyance as she sets timer with about the same effort involved in scratching left ear.

32. Decide that you're not that bothered about recording the qualifying anyway. I mean it's not the actual race is it? And it'll be a busy weekend so there's not much chance of actually sitting down and watching it, so there's no point really...

Breadslap

2007-06-19T09:34:00.000+01:00

Tallboy raised his hand to me the other night. I almost stopped choking in amazement. You may remember that he recently sat by and watched me choke on a piece of pineapple. This time, we were sharing a block of chocolate in front of a film. I took a swig out of my water bottle and managed to choke on it. I controlled myself enough to prevent myself performing a fountain impression but the tickle in the back of my throat persisted and I coughed and coughed, streaming at the eyes. Hunched over and occupied though I was, I detected some movement in my peripheral vision; Tallboy was readying with his hand to render me a life-saving clout to the back. I gestured that it wasn't necessary, and his state of alert subsided with my diminishing coughs.

Charitably, he pointed to the last bit of chocolate. 'You have that,' he said. 'Nah, it's all right,' I gasped between coughs. 'Leave it a minute,' he said, ' have it later.' OK, I thought, I will. After a few more swigs of water, some deep breathing and several minutes without coughing, I felt ready for my chocolate. Reaching out to pick up the last piece, my fingers met wrapping; looking down to improve my aim, I discovered the reason for my inability to touch the chocolate. It wasn't there. I turned to Tallboy. I may have yelled a little bit. His face turned from pleased-with-himself-post-chocolate-consumption to aghast and mortified. He had bloody well eaten it, without saying a word.

That piece of chocolate now ranks with the cherry pancakes I didn't have at the Little Chef we drove past because Tallboy didn't want to wake me even though I had said before dropping off in the passenger seat: 'Please can we stop at the services.' Let's say that the number of cherry pancakes I have between now and the end of my days is C. And let's say that the potential number of cherry pancakes I could have had during my life is P. However many C turns out to be (and believe me, it could be lots) C will always be P-1...

The next day, still smarting at the chocnapping, I was preparing my tea. As Tallboy, numb and dribbling, just returned from the dentist, happened to be passing, I was wielding a pitta bread. Not just any old pitta bread either, but a Tesco LARGE pitta bread. Turning to face him, I was unable to prevent myself bringing the bread round in an arc and coming to a rest against his cheek. In my defence, I must say that I had intended it to be a gentle, jocular kind of thing. But sadly it turned out like the time I intended to pretend to knee the Ex in the nuts. Possibly because I hadn't properly assessed the extra size of the bread, it slapped rather firmly against Tallboy's cheek. His look of astonishment so moved me that I had to apologise between guffaws.

Mes Vacances en France

2007-06-15T21:04:00.000+01:00

1. Receive summons from Dad to visit him and Wicked Stepmother in France.

2. Spend hours researching best deals/routes/modes of travel on web.

3. Book plane tickets for self, Tallboy and Sun.

4. Realise the next morning that this will clash with 3 day course at work.

5. Receive warning from Dad to expect many flying biting things, and to come prepared with creams, salves, preventatives and the like.

6. Fly to France.

7. Realise en route that since we haven't seen Dad for a few years, and since a) the Sun has grown (the little toad is now taller than I am, a fact which he brings to my attention several times a day) and b) I am now 8 and a half stone lighter, the only member of the family likely to be recognised by our reception party at the airport was Tallboy.

8. Squeeze into impossibly small back seat with WSM and the Sun for the two hour journey to chez Dad.

9. Peer out at unfamiliar French countryside.

10. Shut eyes tightly as aggressive Frenchman towing small caravan looms large in windscreen at roundabout. There is, amazingly, no collision.

11. Take turn during stop at another roundabout to pore over map and agree with WSM that we are miles off course and need an urgent 180.

12. Peer out at strangely familiar French countryside.

13. Unfold self with painful difficulty from car upon arrival at charming French residence.

14. Realise within hours that wandering the house without shoes is not a good idea, given that the apparent aim of the elderly resident cat is to play poo Russian Roulette with my feet.

15. Assist WSM in attempting to locate smelly cat poo by wandering round the house, sniffing. But not too hard.

16. Decide that to sample the real French ambience, you need to walk with Tallboy to the village boulangerie at stupid o'clock in the morning. Wake early, walk couple of miles to boulangerie along country roads containing scarily fast vehicles, salivating all the while at the thought of croissants and pains au chocolat. Arrive at boulangerie to find it shuttered and quiet. Walk the two uphill miles back, hungry and disappointed.

17. Insist on visiting the village of Largeasse.

18. Insist on having photo taken by sign in village of Largeasse.

19. Suggest mooning whilst having photo taken by sign in village of Largeasse. Receive strict interdiction from Tallboy, the Sun and Dad, almost in unison.

20. Get bitten in the small of your back by unidentified flying creature, during the night.

21. Visit Goat Farm.

22. Watch in amazement, whilst waiting for Goat Farmer, as small farm cat proudly bears immense dead rabbit almost twice its own size across the farmyard towards the barn.

23. Purchase goats cheese from small dingy in-farm dairy. To fill in silence as Goat Farmer lady wraps goat cheeses, point to the rabbit pate on the shelves and ask if they send the cats out to hunt the rabbits for them. Receive stony Gallic stare.

24. Assist Dad in attempting to locate smelly cat poo by wandering round the house, sniffing. Find inordinately long brown sausage carefully laid along the power extension block behind the TV. Point at it then run away.

25. Start feeling old as you need a nap every afternoon. Fail totally to be reassured by WSM declaring that it's down to the fresh air.

26. Peer closely at every wall you pass, exclaiming every time you see a lizard. Exclaim lots, really.

27. Become a regular at the local Hyper U supermarket.

28. At the cafe, pick the bacon out of your omelette; clearly when you carefully ask for one without lardons because you don't eat meat, you don't actually mean it.

29. As you are an IT professional, on holiday, fix Dad's poorly computer.

30. As Tallboy is a vacuum pump engineer, on holiday, let him take apart poorly vacuum pump and read it the last rites.

31. Find your insect bite has spread overnight.

32. Fail, along with everyone else, to inform Tallboy that the cistern in the downstairs loo is knackered. Snigger quietly as he realises the situation rather too late...

33. Buy as a souvenir a French Cheese identification book, explaining to the lady at the checkout in the bookshop that looking at them is less risky, calorifically, than ingesting them.

34. Spot many wildlifes including a myriad lizards, a battalion of bats, mad donkeys, lapins, vaches and a horse. Called Fanny.

35. Watch the Sun feed the horse, torn between amusement at her 'rude' name and fear that she would have his hand as well as the apple.

36. At the last visit to the Hyper U, incur WSM's wrath by spotting the Sun in sole control of the trolley containing everyone's shopping, making a dash for the checkout with it, and paying for the shopping in toto.

37. Watch in horror as your insect bite gets very angry and redness spreads across your buttock. Wonder at the insect juice that is causing this reaction, and consider the possibility of a limb amputation through septicaemia. Apply soothing ointment without conviction.

38. Return to the UK having consumed far too much red wine, bread and French cheese.

39. Note with concern the continued progress of the insect bite from hell.

40. Run the Race for Life two days after getting home. Need a nap after finishing it.

41. With antihistamines failing to quell the manky bite, make appointment at the surgery. Moon the practice nurse to show her the bite and associated mankiness. Sit down stunned as she informs you that it's not a bite, you have shingles.

42. Collapse in a heap for the next few weeks.

Weevil's Wildlife Watch

2007-05-01T21:53:00.000+01:00

Or detectoring bats the fun fun fun way...

1. Go on a bat walk with Tallboy and experience first hand the thrill of flying mammalia.

2. With Christmas on the horizon, investigate the purchase of a bat detector for Tallboy. Recoil in horror at the cost.

3. Take Methane Boy to one side on visit to Manchester Uni and suggest that he might like to craft a home-made bat detector for Tallboy's Christmas present.

4. Watch Tallboy's undisguised glee as he unwraps said bat detector on Christmas Day.

5. Watch the undisguised glee fade a little as he realised the little buggers would still be hibernating and he had no chance of trying it out for months.

6. Fast forward several months.

7. Walk back from the gym in the twilight. Suffer extreme strafeage by bats on multiple occasions on your journey home. Phone Tallboy after the first one, but find him reluctant to come out. Call him again after the third, and wait for him under the street light in the lane, wondering where the bloody bats have gone. Hear nothing through bat detector but interference.

8. Sally forth the next evening armed with a Tallboy and a bat detector.

9. Get fed up with calling it a bat detector.

10. Ponder a bit.

11. Plump for bat-dar.

12. Decide that's silly.

13. Settle on batzuma instead. Wonder why.

14. Walk down the lane of batness with Tallboy, pausing between the two lampposts most frequently frequented by the bats.

15. Look up at Tallboy, who is concentrating like an arch-concentrator, moving the batzuma through the air in many thrilling directions and listening intently to the earpiece.

16. Wonder idly if the bats are ever going to turn up.

17. Wonder even idlier if the people in the bungalow outside which we have stopped are going to phone the police to complain that the tall bloke and his female accomplice are stood outside again.

18. Join in excitement as bat-strafery commences.

19. When the show is over, decamp to other known bat haunt just round the corner.

20. Watch Tallboy, who is walking along, batzuma held proudly aloft, earpiece plugged firmly in ear, a look of expectant rapture on his face.

21. Decide that he looks like some Sci-Fi freak who is trying to contact the mothership.

22. Return home on crest of bat-fuelled excitement, listening to Tallboy's breathless plans for LEDs and anti-interference measures on the batzuma.

23. Confide to the Sun, who is lazily reclining on the sofa watching Brittas Empire DVDs that his stepfather has the air of a UFO freak when he wanders around with the batzuma.

24. Receive the hushed response, whispered confidentially: 'Do you? I thought it looks like he is wearing a hearing aid...'

So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye

2007-04-09T18:30:00.000+01:00

It's been a funny old week. Every time I've been out of the office on an errand to fix a computer or change a cartridge or test a whiteboard, I've been looking round the classroom/office/library with new eyes, wondering if this will be the last time I'll be in this room/talk to this person/handle this printer...

On Tuesday, we escaped school at lunchtime for a little goodbye event. I invited Tigger (Baldrick's old boss), Lanky Herbert -01, Baldrick and Horace the Happy Hacker out for lunch at a little local hostelry. Since the school day was reorganised, lunchtimes are rather shorter than they used to be and a quick lunch out of school is a tight thing. As we sat waiting for our order, the clock ticked ominously. The jolly chatter and gossip took my attention away from it for a while, particularly when I got into explaining my proposed trip to Switzerland later this month. I'm going to Basel. For the day. To deliver a handknit. But still, slowly, that minute hand described an arc of doom.

At five minutes past the beginning of afternoon school we were taking our last mouthfuls of lunch. It was less of an issue for Baldrick and me, as we have a longer lunchbreak than there is break at lunchtime, if you see what I mean. Horace, however, was due to be in a lesson with a member of staff who has been known to err on the eggy side. Feeling terribly responsible for his situation, I left Baldrick and the others chatting happily in the pub while I whisked Horace back to school. He accompanied me back to the office to pick up his bag, our path taking us right past the classroom he should have been in. I fretted and worried and demanded that if he got into any trouble at all, he must come and tell me and I would go and talk to his teacher and take all the blame. I beseeched him to come and see me after the lesson, assuming he still had the ability to walk, and tell me what had happened.

He put his head round the door some time later and smiled in his Happy Horace way. No problem. He had walked in ten minutes after he should have been there, apologised for his lateness, apology was accepted. Phew.

On Wednesday I took the handknit into school for a colleague to try on. Mrs Tuck is the same size as the intended recipient, and I was keen to see how it looked on a person rather than a hanger. Mrs Tuck loved the item in question and it took quite some time and effort to retrieve it from her. 'I hope your lady in Switzerland doesn't like it,' she said. 'Then you can bring it back and I'll have it.'

On Thursday, it was my goodbye meal at a local Chinese restaurant. As an added surprise bonus, Beryl (who retired last month) turned up too, along with a lovely bunch of admin and teaching colleagues. As with every other work function to date, Baldrick was my sober chauffeur for the evening, leaving me free to indulge in the odd glass or two. Once again he was an honorary veggie for the meal - these places often offer very nice veggie set meals, but only for a minimum of two people. Or one, in my case, the time we went there for the Christmas do and I managed to trough my way through two people's worth of yummy Chinese...

The morning of my last day dawned and I got ready for work with a sense of complete unreality. The next working day I would be getting ready just the same but would be heading for a new place, working with new people, doing new stuff. Today I was going to a place where I knew the network like the back of my hand, where I knew my colleagues' names and foibles, where I knew the way we did stuff. The lack of knowledge of any of this vis a vis the new place was scary.

The last drive to work, the last time passing the familiar uniforms swarming towards school, the last battle for a parking space with the pesky sixth formers parking in the staff car park, the last trudge towards the office through the screaming throng massing by the bus bays...

I barely gave Baldrick time to settle in his seat before I thrust a package in his hand. 'I suppose I should give it to you later, but I can't wait!' I grinned. 'You didn't have to,' he said, ripping open the envelope. No, I didn't, but I wanted to. Two and a half years ago he took me on, keen yes, experienced no. He taught me patiently, bore with me, shared my triumphs, failed to mock my failures. I think that deserves a thank you. He peered at the text I'd written in the card, his brow wrinkling. He held the card a little further away and re-read it. 'Er, can you not read my writing?' I wondered. 'No,' he said in a strange voice. 'I can read it. It's just that last night, you know when we went for the meal, I wasn't sure if I'd be called upon to say a few words. So I thought of a few things to say while I was in the shower.' He pointed out a whole sentence that I'd written. 'I came up with this *exact* phrase.' We stared at each other for a moment, spooked. We've often found ourselves thinking the same word at the same time, but this was a record - 11 words exactly the same...

The Twilight Zone vibe was shattered by the phone ringing and I gladly trotted over to the Learning Support department at their request. They were all sat round a table on which sat a beautifully wrapped gift and a card. For me. Their good wishes made me a bit watery and I tried to dab casually at my eyes without being too obvious. It hit me that this really was goodbye.

At break time I was shepherded over to the Staff Room by the Beak's PA. 'They're all sat there waiting for you,' she said breathlessly as she tottered across the grass in the quad in her spikes. 'I asked them if anyone had actually gone to invite you over, and they looked blank and said 'no'. Honestly!' As I entered the Staff Room, I could see that it was packed, with standing room only. All the heads turned to me as I came in, and a little channel opened up to allow me passage towards the middle of the room, closing up as I passed; a Moses moment. The Beak made a little speech and presented me with a huge card with a gazillion signatures and messages on it, and some vouchers. Then it was my turn to say something. Standing in the middle of the room, I was aware that my back was towards a quarter of my audience, so as I started talking, I began to rotate so that I could at least for a second or two be facing everyone. After a couple of rotations I began to feel a bit dizzy and decided that static was probably the way to go. I said thanks, and other such stuff, and concluded with a reminder that Baldrick was going to be rather busy, and could they please remember to... *pause while I scanned the room for a particular face* (here I should probably interject that the teacher I was about to single out thought it amusing to shout 'Turn it off and turn it back on again!' at me across the car park on a depressingly regular basis) 'Where's Mr Ivory?' The heads turned to a particular corner and a little hand was raised in semi-reluctant self-identification. 'What do they need to remember to do, Mr Ivory?' 'Er, turn it off and turn it on again?' 'Exactly!'

At lunchtime I was assailed by an avalanche of Herberts - Lanky Herbert 01 (on leave from Uni) put in an appearance, as did Java Boy (also on leave from Uni). JB brought with him a rather delish homemade Chocolate Cake and we all had a slice. Horace the Happy Hacker turned up too (on leave from his senses, possibly) with his magic tin. Opening it with a flourish, he revealed a pile of little goodbye cards, millimetres big.

The afternoon passed really quickly. I was out and about all over the school, there were loads of little jobs here and there. Everywhere I went there was a goodbye, an 'I'll miss you' and a little hug or a kiss on the cheek. When school finished, I popped over to see the German German teacher for a quick German lesson. Did I mention I'm going to Switzerland? For the day? To deliver a handknit? I can't abide being somewhere without being about to speak the language so although my host speaks impeccable English and French, I *have* to get to grips with a little German, just for my own satisfaction. And before you start imagining me wrestling Teutonic midgets, I just want to be able to say some simple but polite stuff. At the moment my vocabulary is limited to spare parts for my East German motorbikes. Auspuff anyone?

At half four, I picked up the five bags of stuff I had acquired - my cards and pressies, my purple cushion, books and other assorted crap. Leaning slightly to one side, I swept the room with a final glance, and left. Walking out to the car park, Baldrick asked me jokingly, 'So is there anything I could say to make you stay?' 'Nope!' I grinned. We paused in the middle of the car park, midway between our two vehicles. This was it, then. The last day. The last time we would walk out of school together like this. The work divorce. We smiled. And hugged. And said goodbye. As I chucked my gear into the car, my eyes were smarting. As I drove off out of the gates a plump, hot tear traced its way down each cheek...

Lay a little egg for me

2007-03-28T20:39:00.001+01:00

Tallboy has become rather twit-obsessed in recent weeks. To be honest, I think he may have gone a little stir-crazy what with being forced to take things easy and recover nicely from the hyena banishment. I do believe he spends a large proportion of each day propped up over the sink in the kitchen, binoculars in hand and twit identikit pictures at the ready...

In particular, he has been anxiously scanning the various bird boxes dotted around the garden. We've got the original one on the old shed, with the berry-laden branches just next to it, so not too far to go on a food jaunt and very convenient for the pond. There's the special sparrow box (three adjacent dwellings with perches and shade from the midday sun) on the new shed - it's probably a bit close to the house but you never know... And of course we've got the box at the far end of the climbing frame down the bottom of the garden. It appeared mysteriously at about the same time the shelf I used to have my wireless networking stuff on disappeared. Spooky, eh?

There has been quite a bit of activity in the box next to the berries over the past week or so. There's one blue tit in particular which has been nervously approaching, perching on the roof, scooting off, coming back, perching closer to the entrance hole, flying off again, coming back, sticking his head in, zooming away, coming back, sticking his head further in, fleeing, coming back, and finally going inside. For ages. After a few minutes you can see him peeping out, then he goes back to doing whatever it was he was doing. Then a bit of peeping again, then back to busy bird box business. It's agonising, we can't tell what's going on in there - is he going to nest, where's the Mrs, what is he doing in there all this time? I'm going to have to rig up a webcam over the winter.

Tallboy would be delighted if a pair of twits took up residence in one of his handcrafted creations. He has been watching all the preliminary goings on with bated breath. On my return to Weevil Mansions in the evenings he regales me with tales of the titillating tit who keeps teasing him with its pre-nesting behaviour.

I first suspected him of becoming more-than-healthily interested in the twits when we were discussing the recent news report that fewer birds were being seen in gardens because they were doing OK for food out there in the fields thank you very much. On the news was a keen bird feeder who told the reporter excitedly that his twits were consuming only half the amount of food they were getting through this time last year. Tallboy didn't think that was the case with our garden visitors - they seemed as voracious as ever. 'You could always keep a daily record of the weight of food you put out for them,' I suggested, deadpan. 'Now there's an idea!' came his response, a thoughtful look on his face. I didn't have the heart to tell him I was joking...

Anyway, yesterday, he had a twit-related wish come true. Out in the garden, he decided to do a little pottering in the new shed. Forgetting that he is 6'5", and that the doorway to the new shed isn't, he smacked his head into the door frame as he went in. 'It made me reel a bit,' was his commentary to me later. 'I had to stand there for a minute or two.' Still, he did get to see a lovely egg - it's right there in the middle of his forehead...

Only choking...

2007-03-18T22:19:00.000Z

We had the Cossack for dinner last night. Then curried today, and there’ll be plenty left over for sandwiches all week and a nice broth next weekend. OK, I’ll start again… We had the pleasure of the Cossack’s company for dinner last night. He turned up on his bike, waddling slightly as he alighted, as a consequence of the number of layers he was wearing. Stabling his bike in the garage, he emptied the panniers of several clinking bottles, divested himself of his outer layers at the bottom of the stairs, put on his slippers (which live by the front door at Weevil Mansions) and settled down in an armchair.

At Tea Minus 10 (and counting) I popped down the road to see if the Brazil Nut wanted to join us for dinner – yes she did, she would trot round in five minutes. I got back to find Tallboy eyeing up the baking beans I’d used to pre-bake the pie bases, and which I’d left to cool in a little bowl. ‘I keep wanting to eat one of these,’ he said sheepishly. ‘What are they?’ ‘Baking beans. Ceramic.’ He managed, impressively, to combine relief with extremely crestfallen.

We enjoyed our soup and our crisp-bottomed pies and finally got stuck into a pile of fresh pineapple and strawberries with a dip of dark chocolate ganache. Sadly one of my pieces of pineapple went down the wrong way and I started to splutter and choke. The Brazil Nut looked at me with deep concern across the table. ‘You might want to hit her on the back,’ she prompted in Tallboy’s direction. ‘Oh no, I don’t need to do that.’ With my windpipe blocked by a pineapple chunk and tears streaming from my eyes, I started to feel slightly muzzy. Through the fog and the choking I wondered if I would expire to the sound of my husband denying the need to rescue me. He finally succumbed to pressure and belted me between the shoulder blades, dislodged the errant fruit. Remind me to check whether there’s a fresh looking life insurance policy lying around the place…

After dinner and recriminations, we adjourned to the front room where we sampled some more of the clinky contents of the Cossack’s panniers and played with our little 20 Questions gizmo. The Cossack chose an object, then answered the questions the machine came up with. His look of amazement when it guessed he was thinking of a loaf of bread was a sight to behold. After a few more rounds, he developed a sly look and wondered aloud whether it could pick it up if you were thinking of something rude. Go on then, we challenged him. Firing the questions at him, sometimes through hiccoughs of breathless laughter, it took some time (and a couple of give-away hand gestures) to twig what his mystery item was. It didn’t help that the machine kept asking questions like ‘Is it hard?’, ‘Is it soft?’, ‘Would it fit in an envelope?’, ‘Can it get wet?’ and ‘Do you wash it regularly?’. It guessed 'Giant Squid'...

The Banishment of the Hyena

2007-03-08T21:02:00.000Z

OK, so it had been pending for some time. We'd respectively booked time off work and so on, but things really started hotting up with the mission to buy slippers on Sunday. Yes, the last day we could possibly have left it to (Hyena Banishment Day minus 1), we were running round the countryside looking for bloody slippers. Tallboy has problem feet, you see. None of your normal-sized, average-shaped, easy-to-buy-for hooves, not he. They are long, bony and thin. And he has the weirdest-looking toes I've ever seen in my life. And in that, I'm including the Ex's icky no-nail-on-big-toe look. So, we're traipsing round looking at slippers, the style of which nowadays seem to be half the slipper they used to be, and thus completely useless for Tallboy's purposes - his feet are too thin to grip the front end, and without an enclosed heel, they just slip off. Not so much slippers as full-blown tripper-uppers. We eventually found a pair of moccasins which almost fitted and bought them eagerly, realising this was as close as we were going to get.

On the way home, as we were approaching a traffic light controlled roundabout, Tallboy managed at one and the same time to brace himself stiffly for impact whilst directing my attention to the 4x4 approaching us from the right. 'There's a car coming!' he squealed. Proceeding safely through the green light and around the roundabout, my adrenal glands emptying their payload in a tidal wave of heart-racing stomach-churniness, I was too het up to berate him. Ten seconds later, though, I felt better. I suppose in my case it's not just fight or flight - there's bicker in there somewhere...

The next day was Hyena Banishment day itself. We were up blearily early, as we had to book in at Southmead at seven thirty in the morning. There was no breakfast for Tallboy, and mindful of his usually rampant early morning hunger, I had a discreet something out of sight. I had also made my packed lunch the night before, to avoid me having to parade it in front of him during his fast. See, I can be nice to him.

As if it knew something was happening, the Hyena was huge and uncomfortable. Usually in the habit of receding completely overnight, that morning it was still there, bulging horribly - the Hyena's last stand. Well, it wouldn't be so perky for long.

On the way to hospital, driving up the A38 past Filton, I couldn't help ducking in my seat and exclaiming, 'Bloody hell! That's close!' Tallboy, looking hawkishly ahead at the sparse traffic in front of us, could see nothing untoward. Wordlessly I pointed at the large jet which had almost scraped our roof with its undercarriage and which was currently landing on the runway to our right. So, that's screaming panic at a vehicle obeying traffic signals, and complete indifference to several tons of metal hanging in the sky above our heads...

We got to the hospital in good time, with time enough to pause at the car park for a mini rant about the fact that the parking charges were a whole pound higher than advertised on the hospital's website. A few minutes later we had taken up position in the ward by the impossibly narrow bed. We watched a new member of staff being shown around the place. '...and there's 7 beds in this part, so with the other 11 that makes 19 altogether...' We exchanged panicked looks and hoped that the nurse with the dodgy maths skills wasn't going to administer anything important to him.

As the minutes ticked away, the beds surrounding us started to fill up. To our left was a moustachio'd Scotsman; to our right a young man with his grandmother in tow. Tallboy and I came to the conclusion that he was in training for membership of the Great Britain 2012 Extreme Moaning Squad. He didn't stop talking. Well, not so much talking as whinging. Having fully explored the potential of 'what Daphne said to our Lyn down the pub last week', and 'how spoiled little Kayleegh is' and 'what are we going to do for our tea now Harry Ramsden's has shut', he was pretty well warmed up, and went on to give his full attention to his surroundings. After a thirty minute moan about his condition and the pain he was in, naturally.

He moaned about being kept waiting - 'DAY surgery? Yeah, 'cos you're in here ALL DAY!' He moaned about not having eaten anything that day. Like everyone else on the ward waiting for their surgery. He moaned about being told he would be offered a roll after the op - 'Nothing to eat all bloody day and they are going to give me a roll? And the bread's always stale in hospital.' He moaned about the nurses talking to each other and taking refreshments - 'All they bloody do is chat and drink tea.' He moaned about the care the staff took to avoid the spread of infection - 'All they bloody do is wash their hands.' In between the chatting and tea-drinking, presumably.

It was a blessing when they came to take him away. Silence slowly flowed in to fill the space he left. Tallboy and I relaxed. Well, Tallboy did. I was on modesty guard and felt the need to be on standby at all times. He had changed into the operation gown and dressing gown (and slippers!) but on occasion seemed to forget that sitting legs akimbo probably wasn't the best idea in all the circumstances.

We chatted quietly, idly wondering how much time had passed. Neither of us wears a watch, relying on our phones for the time. Which is fine, unless you're in a place like a hospital where you have to turn your phone off. There was a clock in the kitchen area at the far end of the ward, and in passing on the way to the loo, if you craned your neck at just the right angle, you could make out the time. The hours passed, with people coming and going, trips to the loo with added clock-peeking, and several modesty emergencies. On one of the trips back from the loo, Tallboy pointed up above my head. There, on the wall, was a clock...

So much time passed, in fact, that Wally the Whinger got back from his op before Tallboy was even taken away for his. You'd have thought the nursing staff would have learned, but there at his bedside was a fresh-faced angel making the huge mistake of asking him how he felt. After ten minutes or so, she managed to prise herself away...

Soon afterwards, they came to fetch Tallboy for his Banishment. He gave me a hug and a kiss, and I wished him good luck, watching him leave the ward with a smile and a wave and quailing inside with fear. A routine operation, yes - but a General Anaesthetic, and he's not as young as he used to be. Having sat on my fears all morning so as not to worry him, I had a bit of a wobble. Picking up my knitting, I trotted round the corner to the relative privacy of the waiting area which had the added bonus of being out of range of Wally the Whinger. It was occupied by an older gent whom I'd spotted on one of my previous passes squinting into the window of the kitchen, trying to see the time.

'I've been here all bloody day!' was his opening conversational gambit. Wibbling as I was, I didn't really feel like talking to a stranger, made a couple of non-committal noises, and buried myself in my knitting. He gave it a couple more goes, but realised I wasn't up for it and sank back into a silent perusal of Heat magazine. I was dimly aware of comings and goings around me, but kept up my mechanical brain-occupying task. It was two hours later that my shield was breached - I heard a loud voice telling its companions that 'Look! There's two armchairs next to each other, perfect for you!' I looked up to see a jolly-looking prison officer coming round the corner, pointing at the seat next to me and its neighbour. I hastily cleared my balls of wool off, and looked up again to see another prison officer heading towards me, a prisoner in tow, joined to him at the wrist by a substantial pair of shiny handcuffs.

Mr Garrulous couldn't believe his luck. A captive audience, no less! 'I've got a bullet working its way through my guts!' he announced proudly to the prisoner sat next to him. The prison officers were too busy blagging cups of tea from the nurses to notice what was happening, but I could see the prisoner desperately shrinking back into his chair. There was no escape. Fortunately for me, above the noise of Mr Garrulous holding forth on the subject of his digestive issues, I could hear a familiar voice joking with a nurse. Peering round the corner, I saw a remarkably perky Tallboy sat up in his bed and was met with the hugest smile ever as he spotted me. All had gone well.

The next few hours passed really quickly. Tallboy was alert and chatty (unlike Wally who alternated between snoring and complaining). He drank his tea, ate his biscuits, munched his rolls and generally was bright and happy. 'Is it a big wound?' I asked tentatively. 'Dunno,' he said, pulling up the blanket to have a peek. 'All still present?' I asked him as he pulled the gown to one side to inspect the damage. His face assembled itself into an expression of mock horror and he exclaimed 'Oh no! I'm a eunuch!' He spoilt the effect rather by breaking into a broad grin and saying, 'Still, I get to go into the harem now...'

I gave my soon-to-be ex work husband a quick ring to explain that I would be required for nursing duty the next day so wouldn't be in to work, and was met by the news that over the weekend some morons had broken into the school and nicked some stuff. In an office full of TFT monitors, a colour laser printer and generally a shedload of portable kit, they had chosen to use a spade to lever a comms cab off the wall. This cabinet contained a bunch of patch panels and two cheapish switches, none of it very saleable or valuable, and generally not much use to most people. 'Perhaps they thought they were pinching a couple of blade servers,' sniggered Baldrick. Oh, I do hope so...

D.I.V.O.R.C.E.

2007-03-04T09:01:00.000Z

I can't believe this is happening. I suppose, in the back of my mind, I could tell it was inevitable. The prospect was just too difficult to contemplate. So I didn't. In the moments that I skirted around the possiblity of it ending, I always thought it would be him who finished it. And now it's come to it, it's me who's doing the leaving.

He knows it's me, not him. He's been consistently brilliant, supportive, giving. I couldn't have asked for anyone better. The first time we met, we just clicked. It was more than I could have hoped for that I would see him again, and when I realised it was going to happen, I was beyond exhilarated. We've had rocky times too - in the early days I wondered if I was doing the right thing, and I'm sure that thought crossed his mind too. But those doubts faded and over time we became a team. It has always spooked me how tuned in to each other we are - we find ourselves thinking the same thing on a frighteningly frequent basis. And I don't mean just having the same obvious thoughts either; some of the things we've found ourselves thinking have been bizarrely random. Tinfoil helmet anyone?

So, what's changed? I have. My needs and desires aren't what they were those years ago. I'm not the same person who turned up on his doorstep. I need more. To be honest, the way I've been feeling the past few months, it's been a question of get out or lose my sanity. Perversely, it was a chance comment of his which opened my eyes to life without him, and sent me down the road away from him.

Once I was certain, I told him. He knew how I'd been feeling, and it was no surprise to him. He could sense my mixed emotions, and encouraged me and congratulated me on my new life.

Later, I was talking to Tallboy. 'I suppose you could call it a work divorce,' I mused. 'Nah,' said Tallboy with a consoling hug. 'I bet it's nothing more than a work trial separation...'

Windows on my world

2007-02-27T19:49:00.000Z

Today, Baldrick and I weren't in school. We had a Grand Day Out in Bristol. At the Microsoft TechNet Roadshow, going 'Oooh!' and 'Aaaaah!' at Vista.

Baldrick decided that we would do battle with the appalling rush hour traffic and the extortionate and sparse city centre parking by going in on the bus. He'd looked at the timetable and decided that we needed to catch the 7:50 service. For an event which started at nine thirty. Poot.

I made it to the bus stop with four minutes to spare. I was greeted by the back view of a single decker pulling away - which service it was, I didn't know. I scanned it for signs of a shiny head but couldn't see evidence of Baldrick, so I was reassured that it wasn't the one I wanted. There was no sign of Baldrick at the bus stop either, and no sign of him crossing the car park. I hoicked my phone out of my pocket to check for messages - it was sullenly silent. Had I got the right day? The right time? The right bus stop? I looked up to see the bus pulling in to the bus stop. Well, tough on Baldrick. I could wait for him. But I wasn't going to make myself late because he couldn't be on time.

I was third onto the bus and brightly presented myself to the driver, stating my destination. Reeling slightly from the amount of money with which I had just parted, I made my way down the bus, clinging to the bright green poles and twirling round the last one to plonk myself into a vacant seat. Still dazed from the cash haemorrhage, I sat there looking vacantly at my fellow travellers boarding the bus. I became aware of a rapidly travelling, umbrella-carrying, shiny-headed individual sprinting across the car park towards the dwindling queue at the front of the bus. As he skidded to a stop at the end of the queue, Baldrick peered worriedly into the bus, breaking into a broad grin as he spotted me. He must have seen the bus at the stop as he rounded the corner, and broken into a run to get there in time. Although, as he continued to puff mightily as he waited to board the bus, I began to wonder a) just how far he had run, or b) just how unfit he was.

He boarded the bus last, handed over a king's ransom to the driver, and plonked himself down on the seat next to me. Still puffing. 'I would have been in plenty of time,' he told me between gasps for air. 'But when I left the house I realised that no one had put the bin out.' After a delay while he remedied this, he found himself being overtaken by the bus he was due to catch almost half mile from the bus stop, and had to race it. 'I was looking and looking for you in the queue, but couldn't see you, so I decided if I made it to the bus in time I wasn't going to wait for you after all that running.' Cheek! Oh hang on, that was my approach too, wasn't it?

We sat in companionable silence in the steamed up bus, surrounded by morose commuters. I was quietly revelling in the fact that my arse no longer takes up most of a double seat, when it struck me why I don't like travelling by bus if I can avoid it. 'Is this a good time,' I said, turning towards Baldrick, 'to mention that I get travel sick? Particularly on buses. Most particularly in buses which are constantly stopping and starting.' Peering out of the misted window and noting the length of the rush hour traffic queues, Baldrick gathered his skirts and inched further away from me down the seat.

The bus got to Bristol in record time. Seriously. We were there an hour before things were due to kick off. 'No matter,' said a cheery Baldrick, 'we can find somewhere to grab a coffee.' As we walked across the centre of Bristol, the clouds darkened and rain started splattering us. 'You know that thing in your right hand?' I asked him after a little while, looking pointedly at the object in question. 'Er, yeah, I was just thinking it might be an idea to use it,' he responded lamely, unfurling his umbrella. We trailed along the waterfront, past bar after bar which were clearly hip and happening at night time but before nine a.m. were dark, quiet, and very very shut. Drawing a blank, we turned back, and wandered damply and early to the venue, where we were met with meticulous Microsoft hosting, a Danish pastry, a warm cup of coffee and a welcome seat overlooking the river.

Waving madly, we attracted the attention of Mr Claypole and the Cookie Monster as they passed us on their way into the coffee-and-pastry room. Laden, they joined us a few minutes later. The Cookie Monster peered at me blearily and confided that on top of a week skiing during half term, he had got home at two that morning after a jolly nice evening at a ball. I had an internal bet that he wouldn't make it awake through the first session... Baldrick took advantage of my distraction to jump up and go for seconds of both cakey and coffee.

Filing in to the first session in a dark, warm, cosy cinema, we sat down in comfy seats next to the other two. I saw the Cookie Monster settle himself down gratefully next to Baldrick and lengthened the odds on my internal bet. He was still awake when I passed round the Polos twenty minutes later, but as the longest session of the morning dragged on I peered across Baldrick and saw the lolling head and drooping eyelids of doom.

Baldrick took two more cakes at the next break. Honest. I restrained myself to just the one, a most plumptious creation liberally sprinkled with slivered almonds and just the one shaving of chocolate. Picking the almonds off the top one by one, I finally got to the chocolate, intending to savour it most of all. 'Bleagh!' I interrupted the others' deep and meaningful conversation about Windows. They turned towards me with questioning looks on their faces. 'Er, I thought it was chocolate.' I responded limply. 'It wasn't. It was a very very burnt almond sliver. Meh.' Mr Claypole and the Cookie Monster made tracks at this point, bizarrely preferring work to the rest of the roadshow. Baldrick made tracks too, for his second cake of the break, and plonked it triumphantly down on the table in front of him on his return. 'Blimey!' I said, pointing back into the main room behind him. 'Did you see that!' 'No,' he said, steadfastly looking me in the face and refusing to turn his head. 'Did you want some of my cake at all?' 'Er, well, maybe,' I said, crestfallen. I must be losing my touch, that trick normally works a treat. The Ex is still smarting about that extra garlic bread I bagged this way, and that was twenty years ago...

'What do you think of the cubicle doors?' I asked Baldrick as we emerged from a loo break, forgetting for an instant that boys' toilets aren't like the girls' and that I was in consequence quizzing him rather too closely about his recently-completed visit to the littlest room. 'Huh?' 'Er, it was just that the ones in the ladies are sheets of solid metal, rather impressive really...'

We spent the afternoon sessions in a different auditorium, which had the blessing of more legroom. As we settled ourselves down to our randomly-allocated seats, Baldrick peered at the plaques attached to the seatbacks in front of us. 'Here, I should be in yours!' I squinted at it - it said 'Tony Robinson'. Blimey days. I didn't swap. During the first session, Baldrick nudged me gently, and gestured with his head at the guy sitting next to him. Neck bent over, mouth open, and, yes, snoring. For the second time that day, the person next to him had dropped off...

Nipping to the loo for the last time before we left, Baldrick reported on his return that he had investigated the cubicle doors and that they were nothing to write home about. I had contemplated ushering him into the ladies for a second to show him the ones in there, but for the first time that day, the loos were occupied by other females*, and I think they may have objected. He will never know the joy of those heavy, solid, steel doors.

Visiting the temple of food and scrumminess for the last time, we saw laid out before us bars and bars of chocolate. We grabbed a bottle of juice each, and I scooped up a Mars Bar (I'm starting the diet again on Thursday, honestly). Baldrick grabbed a chocolate bar and dropped it into his bag, then in a well-practised and smoothly-executed move, picked up another at the second table. 'Did you just pick up another one?' I hissed, a picture of shocked amazement. 'Yep!' was his happy response. I looked around to see if anyone was joining me in the self-righteous corner. Nope, no one was looking. Including Baldrick. Perfect! Just a little jink in passing, and thanks for the KitKat, Mr Gates!

*On two occasions during my life, I have been in situations where there were queues for the gents and none for the ladies. The first was during my week long motorcycle training course. The second was today, at an IT roadshow. Ah, well.

Meet Fridge Froggy

2007-02-25T10:25:00.000Z

Tallboy and I went to Mum's for Christmas and had a wonderful festive time, including opening some rather fetching little stockings with our names on. In mine were all sorts of little goodies: a notebook, lipbalm, sweeties, a pen, and a little cuddly frog full of magnets for sticking on the fridge.

As soon as we got home, Fridge Froggy was introduced to his new white good habitat and it was clear that he was right at home there. Various shifty manipulations would take place in secret and every so often you'd pass Fridge Froggy and he'd be doing something else.

I took to posting photos of his poses on a forum I frequent - they were well received, and I even got pose requests. So after a bit I fired up Blogger and now Fridge Froggy has gone all bloggy - come and say hello to him and suggest a new pose if you'd like...

Today, Fridge Froggy will be...

It's just not fair

2007-02-18T14:04:00.000Z

The Valentine's Fair has hit town. What is Valentine-ish about it I'm not sure; it runs from the 16th to the 22nd February so it can't be the date. You'll have to excuse my grumpiness about it - the Fair has transformed in my eyes from an evening's fun where you'd come back happy, penniless, queasy and grasping an assortment of tawdry cuddly animals to a magnet for bad teenaged behaviour with a scarily low rating on the value for money scale. And it's taking up the entire car park which is the favoured testing venue for the new Weevil sidecar. Humph.

As the signs went up, we braced ourselves for the disturbed evenings and lack of sleep. If it's not the blaring music belting out and echoing round the houses, then it's excited, tiddly and possibly puking kids on their way home. At just about the point where we want to go to sleep.

Last night, Tallboy lounged decorously on the bed reading his book while I ran our bath. Once full, I summoned him in and we relaxed in the bubbles and talked about the day, the water full of red sparkles which annoyingly failed to adhere to him in any way. Afterwards, snuggled up in bed warm and clean and wrapped in Tallboy's gibbon-like arms, I was aware of a niggle on the edge of my consciousness. Now, we all know that Tallboy's hyena has been giving him gyp, and that it does produce some rather startling noises from time to time. So I was puzzling whether the noise I could almost hear was a hyena-related event or whether it was something else. Sometimes it seemed like a distant gurgle, at others a far away snatch of music wafted on the evening breeze. Sensing my distraction, Tallboy enquired what was wrong. 'Is that your hyena?' I asked him. 'Or is it some music?' 'Oh, it's music I think. There's been some people outside chatting for a good half hour.'

I listened more intently and yes it was music, filtering in faintly through the windows. It must have been kids on the way back from the fair, listening to godawful tinny music on their mobiles. I lay there fretting, unable to focus on Tallboy's cuddles. At least the music had stopped now, it was just talking. Why the hell had they chosen to sit outside our house and make a noise there? Should I stick my head out of the window and tell them to bugger off? Would they respond meekly and wander off? Would they shout at me? Would they appear to wander off and then return quietly gently to let down the tyres on the car? 'It's no good!' I shouted as I threw back the duvet. 'I have to look!' Peering out of the blinds, I tried in vain to locate the source of the sound. There was no one outside. The music now seemed to be coming from down the road to my left, rather than directly outside. I couldn't put my finger on it at all.

I leapt back into bed in a huff, snuggling up to steal Tallboy's warmth. As he wrapped his arms round me, he tried to calm me down and I lay there, trying to clear my head. It didn't add up somehow. The voice I could hear didn't sound like it was in a conversation. It wasn't animated and dynamic enough. It had a more delivered feel to it, like you might get on the radio with someone filling in the gaps between pieces of music...

'Tallboy?' 'Yes?' 'You don't suppose there might be the outside possibility of a chance that your clock radio could be on really really quietly?' 'Don't be daft!' 'Humour me, have a look will you?'

Tallboy turned over and fumbled with his clock radio. There was a click, then blessed, wonderful silence...

A keynote speech

2007-01-28T21:35:00.000Z

Recently, I had occasion to remonstrate with Tallboy. I have a little security routine at home, you see. I am slightly paranoid about doors being left unlocked and stuff being left in sight of potential miscreants. It probably comes of being the daughter of a police officer who spent a fair number of years as a crime prevention officer. At night, I have to go round checking that doors are safely locked, that keys are out of sight and so on. In the morning as I leave the house I need to check that the front door is securely locked even though I know I just locked it thirty seconds ago. The other morning I took it into my head to try the garage door and to my horror it was unlocked. It wouldn't open fully because of the secondary security measures in place but it was still UNLOCKED and this caused me no little anxiety.

I unlocked the freshly-locked front door, traipsed through the house, muttered a bit, secured the garage door, came back out through the house, locked the front door and checked that it was locked. On the way to work I planned the dressing down I was going to give Tallboy for leaving the house insecure. On arrival at work, I moaned to my work husband about my home husband's lack of regard for the home.

When I got home, I told Tallboy in sombre tones that I had something important to discuss with him. I used words like 'security' and 'irresponsible'. He was suitably chastened and apologetic and we agreed to leave it at that. Returning from the gym later that evening, I walked in from the chill cloudless darkness to be greeted by light, warmth and a smell I couldn't immediately identify. As I stood in the doorway, transfixed by the smell, I tried to place it. Finally, it clicked - beetroot! I pulled the door behind me and dashed to the kitchen, where several organic beet were bubbling in a purple bath on the stove. My residual niggles melted - Tallboy was back in favour.

The next morning, there was a ring on the doorbell at half past seven. It was the Junior Nutette, in a rush, with a cookery lesson at school today and nothing to put her fruit salad in, and did I have a Tupperware box she could borrow and by the way there are some keys in the front door. An icy feeling grabbed my heart and I pulled the door further open. There were the keys dangling sadly from the lock. They even had frost on them, and they chilled my fingers as I wrenched them from their overnight berth. Once I'd sorted out the Junior Nutette with a suitable receptacle, I sought out Tallboy for another little discussion. 'Er, Tallboy,' I ventured, broaching the subject of domestic security once again. 'Er, I appear to have left my keys in the lock overnight...'

And it makes the loudest gurgle in the West...

2007-01-20T07:55:00.000Z

Tallboy's hernia (christened 'hyena' by the Sun) has popped up again. He had a laparoscopic repair three and a half years ago; it failed last year. So we're back to the 'ouch it's aching but I don't want to complain about it' face, the unconscious hand-to-groin moments and a sometimes alarmingly large prominence when he disrobes at bedtime.

For the most part, it's inconvenient rather than crippling. He's on the cancellation list for surgery and should have it dealt with by the end of March. Until then he faces an ache which varies from not there at all to ouch ouch ouch. And the gurgling. If you're not familiar with hyenas, it's basically where the stomach wall develops a gap and some of your intestine pokes through. For some reason (at least in Tallboy's case) the bit of intestine which pokes through is a particularly vocal one. As someone who is always grabbing 'a quick sandwich' ^TM and generally feeding his face, he does have quite a talkative tummy. Often I drift off to sleep to the gentle lullaby of his almost bovine gastric processes.

The hyena gurgle, however, is in a class of its own. Violent, abrupt, with no prior warning, it trumpets proudly with a sustain which would make a musician weep. 'That was the hyena,' says a sheepish looking Tallboy in the starkly quiet aftermath. Well quite - what else could that horrendous noise have been?

When I was little, there was a song about a milkman which I rather liked. I used to sing along with the chorus, unaware of the darker overtones of the plot, which involved lust, violent death and uncensored bakery products. The other night this song came to mind as I lay in bed, the echoes of the latest hyena broadcast dying away. Trying my best to mimic Benny Hill's delivery, I sang just the one word: 'Hernie...'

Bin there, done that

2007-01-10T21:59:00.000Z

It was cold on Monday night. Cold, dark and blustery. As I put my layers on, wrapped my scarf and pulled my hat down tight, Tallboy waited for me on the doorstep. 'Er, it's raining a bit,' he advised as I pulled on my gym bag. I peeked out of the door and saw the rain dancing in the light from the street lamp across the road. I had expected the determined, persistent precipitation of the previous few days; I saw that wierd almost-lighter-than-air rain that seems to go up and along just as much as it goes downwards, sometimes almost hanging in the air. 'Nah, I won't take my waterproof, it's not coming down that heavy.' *slam*

By the time we'd made it a hundred metres down the road, it was clear I'd made a ~~mistake~~ choice which I might make differently next time. We were out in that kind of special wetting rain which Tallboy calls 'mizzle': halfway between mist and drizzle. The teeny droplets, so innocuous looking, get you so wet in such a short time. Big rain clumps together and runs off you. Mizzle lands and soaks in. Particularly if you're wearing a big hairy fleece offering a huge surface area on which mizzle drops can do their horrible business.

By the time we got to the gym, I was soaked. Tallboy, hatless, turned a glistening face towards me to kiss me goodbye, his hair sadly spiked. I left him to walk home again and ducked into the welcome doorway. Before I bundled my stuff away in my locker, I shook out my coat and hat. The amount of water in there was astonishing, but I did my best. Returning an hour and a half later to put it all on again was not a pleasant experience, and I was relieved to see that the rain had at least stopped now. I walked home briskly, feeling the heat being leached out by my damp outer layer.

As I walked along the road before the road before mine, I felt the wind really get up. Retreating further into my fleece, I hunched over and bravely trod through the cold darkness. I nearly leaped out of my skin at a loud rustling noise right behind me; I looked over my shoulder in fright and groaned in relief at the sight of a Tesco's carrier bag dancing in the wind. As I watched, the wind filled it up, and it sped past me down the middle of the road, never quite getting airborne. It travelled in straight lines, fast and purposeful, not quite a zigzag, nothing so regular - more a zigzigzigzagzigzigzagzigzagzag. It slowed down and came to a stop at the next T junction. I turned right and felt the wind seem to follow me around the corner; for some reason I hoped against hope that the bag would be swept up past me again on my new vector. I looked back; it sat there flapping and rustling and defiantly stationary...

As I joined Weevil Mansions Road, it occurred to me that there was rather a lot of rubbish around in gutters and caught in the hedgerows. A little further along, the reason for this became apparent: it appears that many of my neighbours are unable to read, digest and act upon simple items of information. The bin collection schedule was disrupted by Christmas and New Year. This is hardly headline news. The council even kindly gave us a leaflet just before Christmas explaining the holiday schedule and informing us that things wouldn't be normal until the third week of the new year. Looking at the array of wheelie bins smugly lining the pavement as I wended my way homewards, I wondered why they'd bothered. Particularly when I drew level with the Brazil Nut's house - the people opposite her had put out their bin. It was full, so full that the lid didn't shut properly. The wind had gleefully dived in under the lid and thrown it back with a flourish. The contents of the bin, unbagged and itching for some fun, had excitedly jumped at the chance of liberation. The street was strewn with carrier bags, plastic milk bottles and goodness knows what else, and the wind was teasing at the next layer. I hurried home.

Tallboy had an early start the next morning and wanted an early night, so we headed up to bed and tried to get to sleep. I lay there, listening to the wind blowing about outside, sleep elusive. Just as I thought I might start to think about drifting off, a rattling outside grabbed my attention. A loud and irregular noise, such as might be caused by a tin or can being propelled around the road by a gust of wind. I tried to let it wash over me, but every time I heard it, it wound me up more and more. 'I can't stand it!' I screamed, eventually. 'Hmmm, wassat?' muttered a dozy Tallboy. 'That bloody can. I'm going to go outside and pick it up.' 'Zzzzzzzzz.'

I grabbed a coat, slipped my feet into my shoes, and headed out of the front door, carefully arranging things so that it couldn't slam shut after me. I've been there before. Now, if the script had been written properly, as soon as I got outside the wind would have gusted and I'd have heard that rattling, and the miscreant tin would have been propelled towards me, coming to an obedient rest at my feet. As a matter of fact, that is what happened. Right up to the wind gusting part, anyway. That wind blew and blew. And that tin failed to move. At all. I stood out there in the orangey lamplight, scrunched up inside my coat, ears straining for the slightest tinkle. Nothing. Apart from Nice Neighbours' cat, which thought it marvellous fun to see me. I gave it five minutes, but that bloody tin never shifted, and although I cast around, I couldn't see it. Petting the cat one last time, I trotted back inside, miffed and chilly.

Back in bed, Tallboy had woken up, particularly when a cold and annoyed Weevil got back in. We lay there listening to the wind, tense and waiting for the rattle again. We listened. It failed to rattle. We listened some more. It continued to fail to rattle. More listening. Extended persistence of failure to rattle. It never piped up again. I finally fell asleep and dreamed a dream of revenge and remonstration and inculcation of proper civic behaviour. Much more understandable than the one I had last week where Baldrick and I stole a horse. I made him sit behind though, I wanted to drive...

How to wake up within 0.0004 seconds

2007-01-03T17:20:00.000Z

1. Leave the snuggery of your duvet and shamble towards the bathroom, clutching what you hope is your dressing gown, hastily grabbed in the darkness of the bedroom.

2. Feel the radiator in the bathroom to check if it's started to get warm yet. It hasn't. Drape dressing gown over it anyway in the hope that it might be slightly not cold when it's time to get out of the shower.

3. (This step to be omitted 1 time out of 10) Check that the power is on.

4. Step into the shower.

5. Angle the shower head away from you so that the initial cold rush doesn't hit you. Turn shower on.

6. Feel fine spray of very cold water over face and torso. Realise cold water is spraying horizontally out of the showerhead, probably due to buildup of limescale within.

7. Feel horribly, horribly awake.

8. Resolve to take a look in the showerhead tonight and clean it up so this doesn't happen again.

9. Repeat steps 5 to 8 for weeks.

10. This morning, decide to do something about it before you get to step 5.

11. Take down showerhead, drenching self in the cold water lying inside it and the hose.

12. Feel really awake.

13. Turn showerhead to remove it.

14. Sustain step 13 for half a minute.

15. Swear at lack of progress.

16. Realise that turning showerhead simply selects another jet permutation and does not remove it. At all.

17. Peer myopically at the bloody thing and spy part of it which might come off.

18. Try and prise it off, but find your fingers slip and you can't get a grip.

19. Hold slippy bit in sleeve of dressing gown and try again.

20. Fail miserably.

21. Sadly inspect sleeve of dressing gown which used to be nice and white and is now covered with grubby limescale detritus.

22. Drape mucky dressing gown over stone cold radiator.

23. Angle showerhead the other way to avoid premature cold wetting.

24. Turn shower on.

25. Feel fine spray of cold water over face and torso as the shower sprays out its horizontal bounty the other way.

26. Feel horribly horribly horribly awake.

27. Grapple with the showerhead and turn it until you finally select a jet grouping that doesn't force water out of the side.

28. Mutter to yourself as you shower.

Twelve Benificent Winds

2007-01-01T14:37:00.000Z

Well, it's that time of year when we usher out the old year and welcome in the new, preferably with the assistance of a bottle of wine or two. So what better houseguest could we have than the dear old Cossack...

We spent the afternoon peering out of the windows with dismal looks and weather-laden predictions of doom. As I wrestled with the food preparation in the kitchen, I kept an ear open out the front, straining to hear the thud thud thud of his bike's engine above the lashing winds and rain. I had decided to replicate a very successful dinner party dish of Mum's: Pork Chops with mushrooms and cream. Quite the challenge for a vegetarian, one might think. I decided to whip up a batch of seitan (otherwise labelled Devil Meat) to take the place of the porcine portions and was just draining it as the doorbell rang unexpectedly. I found at the door a chirpy looking Cossack, helmetless and undishevelled. I followed his gaze to the lawn, where there was parked jauntily a large, brown, and most of all, four-wheeled vehicle. 'It was blowing a gale,' he said. 'I didn't fancy coming across the bridge on the bike.' Well, quite.

He performed his usual arriving-at-Weevil-Mansion activities, including boot removal, slipper donning, wine bottle unloading, and of course cork removal. It was a pretty potent red, and I could feel its warming tendrils reaching all the way to my toes at the first sip. By the time the pretend pork chops were safely nestled in their shiny foil packages in the oven, I was feeling distinctly lightheaded. And when the time came to steam the veg my fingers felt a little rubbery. Dishing up was interesting, I have to admit to wavering around once or twice, although most of the food made it safely to the plates.

PPC with mountains of steamed veg soon helped soak up the excess wine sloshing around inside me, although the Cossack did his best to splash more into my glass whenever it showed any danger of becoming less than 50% full. After the meal, we adjourned to the sitting room, and worked very hard at sitting down and not moving very much. To accompany our post-prandial wine consumption, we stuck a DVD on and the Cossack nodded gently off in his chair.

At ten o'clock on the nose, a fusillade of fireworks made us jump. Looks like someone had an itchy trigger finger there, then... Pesky cowered on the sofa, and we stroked and petted her to reassure her that, yes it was a scary noise, but she had been scared of that noise for 14 years and it hadn't come and got her yet, so she'd be OK, honestly. Our kitty soothing was interrupted by the doorbell, and I opened the door to see an excited-looking Brazil Nut who bounded across the threshold, gave me a huge hug and a kiss on the cheek, and wished me a Happy New Year. She was followed through the door by her Shadow (the Nutette), who made a much quieter entrance.

We piled into the living room, and the Brazil Nut stopped dead, staring at the clock on the wall. 'Ten o'clock? No way!' She turned to me, confused. 'I heard the fireworks,' she said. 'They woke me up. I thought it was midnight!' Bless her, she looked so crestfallen... We chatted, drank and played games until it really was midnight. As Big Ben chimed, I was grappling furiously with the recalcitrant cork of a bottle of bubbly, but managed to fire it off quickly enough to grab New Year hugs all round. After the excitement had died down, we sat round sipping our bubbly and ridiculing what was on the TV. At ten past, I realised with a start that I hadn't phoned Mum to wish her a Happy New Year, so grabbed the phone and hit dial. As the phone at the other end rang and rang, I started to wonder if I'd done the right thing. Nah, it was OK, I reasoned. They were probably outside watching the fireworks, no worries. A ring before I was going to give up and replace the receiver, a flustered-sounding Mum picked up the phone. 'Happy New Year!' I boomed. 'Oh, _you_ stayed up then, did you?' 'Er, didn't you?' 'No, but it's OK, _I_ was awake.' 'Erk. Sorry.' Whoops...

This morning, actually make that this afternoon, risen, breakfasted and full of last night's cabbage, Tallboy, the Cossack and I ventured out for a walk. We showed the Cossack the local sights: The Post Office, the squirrels, the Lidl. I quickly learned to position myself upwind from him; the cabbage was having quite an effect on his innards, and his forward progress was partially powered by powerful posterior puffings. We made our way to the park to feed the ducks, although we ended up mostly (and unintentionally) feeding the seagulls. At one end of the pond we saw a clump of cygnets, halfway between dirty brown and big white and beautiful. Approaching them, I tried to 'tice them with my bread nuggets, thrown carelessly in their general direction. When I landed a direct hit on the wing of a large cygnet standing with its head under its wing, it opened its eyes, unfurled its neck and gave me the most evil look I have ever received from one of our feathered friends.

Leaving the park, I heard another loud quack from the direction of the Cossack's trousers. In a cheery voice, he announced loudly that this was the twelfth time he had broken wind today. 'They say that to be healthy, you have to break wind 12 times a day!' he boomed, happily. Tallboy and I looked at each other, slightly fazed at the concept not only of keeping count of episodes of wind breakage on a daily basis, but also of having a quotidian target - "have you had your twelve a day?"

I suppose the only thing left for me to do is to thank you for reading, and wish you all a Parpy New Year...

Stumped

2006-12-20T17:13:00.000Z

I keep seeing three-legged dogs. I fear that I have developed quasi-Gorgon powers; whenever I turn my Medusa gaze upon a canine, its back leg turns to dust. On our walks around and about, Tallboy and I don't encounter other walkers. In fact, it's quite stunning just how many people round here don't walk further than to the car. The only people we pass on the pavement are people out with their dogs. And recently, it's been people out with dogs deficient in the leg department to the tune of one.

I fear that the next statement will somehow blight your deeply-imprinted impressions of my caring and nurturing character, yet say it I must. Whenever I see a three-legged dog, I really really want to laugh. There is something about the way they ignore the fact that they don't have a full complement of limbs, and progress along in a tripodesque manner that cracks me up. Particularly, for some reason, if it's a small dog, a Jack Russell for preference. I know that the missing leg is probably due to some traumatic accident or disease, and that it must have been an awful thing for the dog and the owners to go through. I realise what adjustment the poor creature has had to make and how confusing it all must have been. But still I snigger. Inside of course. I'm not *that* evil.

There's something about their little stump, gamely going for it even though it's never going to help propel them along. Yes, that's definitely the word - these tri-pawed little creatures exude nothing but game-ness, trotting along with no concession to their absent appendage.

The game little terrier I spotted last night really caught my eye. I noted, without surprise, that he only had three legs. There was, however, something spooky about him, and I watched his progress on the opposite pavement, transfixed. Something about his method of locomotion, maybe. Or his stance? Finally it clicked - his amputation had been made high up on his leg, so high up that there was no visible stump, and therefore no movement. If you focused just on the part of him where his leg should have been, he just seemed to be moving smoothly through the air, and you could almost imagine he was supported on a cushion of air, something like Dougal but six inches off the ground. The magic hovering doggie. I flashed a winning smile at his owner, attempting to communicate something along the lines of 'what a lovely little dog you have there, and so game, and how wicked he looks as he hovers along' but I'm not sure that's how it was received...

I did see a four-legged friend last night too - Islay was in good, if rather stinky, form, leaping up on me as I sat down for a quick chat in the Brazil Nut's back room. Talking turkey, she told me about traditional Brazilian Christmas fare. Pork is a favourite, she said. Oh, and turkey. In fact, she confided, the turkeys rather like Christmas in Brazil. I exuded bafflement. She explained that in the run-up to the festivities, say for six weeks, the turkeys are kept in a permanent state of inebriation by the administration of copious amounts of cider. She assured me that this had a most beneficial effect on the flavour and texture of the turkey meat. Oh, and there was another rather handy side effect too. My brain swimming with images of tipsy turkeys staggering around Brazilian back gardens, I asked what that was. 'Well, they're really easy to catch and kill when they're pissed...'

Spot the difference

2006-12-17T16:44:00.000Z

You know how it is. You've had a big night out pencilled into the diary for weeks. You've already done a mental trawl of your wardrobe and in your mind tried on all the likely outfit combinations, settling on one that seems the best of a bad job. You've made yourself a virtual list instructing you to remember to clean your shoes/teeth/hair/nails, you're desperately trying to remember what you actually chose on the menu, and you're wondering if it was a 7.00 or 7.30 start.

You wake up on the morning of the Work Evening of Fun and as you come to, you realise with a sinking feeling of doom that the skin on your nose feels rather tight and red and hurty. You stumble into the bathroom and peer tremulously at your anxious reflection. Yep, there it is, glowing red, a hint of a milky centre, a flesh volcano. Today of all days. You reach up and dab at it tentatively; under your fingertip, it feels monstrously, unfeasibly huge. You squeeze it in the full knowledge that this can do nothing but make things worse. It's now surrounded by a huge red patch, and the throbbing feels like it's never going to stop. Resignedly you trudge to work, knowing a) that everyone is going to notice it; and b) that it's never going to disappear before the do this evening.

In school, I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. It was so there. Wherever I looked, my eye was always drawn to it, no matter how crosseyed I ended up. Persistently on the periphery of my vision, the bloody thing haunted me. And Baldrick was just as aware of it as I, I could tell. I said nothing, he said nothing. The day went by, with three of us in the room; Baldrick, me and The Enormous Spot of Doom. Every time I caught sight of it, it seemed bigger, redder, more volcanic. I upped the levels of ignoring. So did Baldrick. We ignored it for all we were worth, all morning, and for most of the afternoon. As the day drew on, I became more and more tired of the ignoring. The effort of pretending it wasn't there was too much. I just couldn't stand it any more. It was like the elephant in the room of which nobody spoke - the pressure was intense and I knew I had to say something, or burst.

'Baldrick,' I said resolutely, turning squarely towards him,' Hell's bells mate! That's an ENORMOUS spot!'

A Christmas Scene

2006-12-13T21:48:00.000Z

Tallboy and I, out for a walk the other night, stumbled across a quaint little Christmas scene, and breathless with wonder, stopped to drink it all in. Let me paint you a little picture...

In front of us is a large garden shed, er gingerbread house looking affair. On the roof is piled artistic heaps of cotton wool stuff, er convincing looking snow. All around us, within the curtilage demarcated with a white paling fence, abounded cute plush creatures, all clearly indigenous to Great Britain, no, Europe, no, the planet, somewhere...

Oh, and I nearly forgot the snowmen. All sizes there were, a real Russian Doll feeling to the proceedings. Each had pretend coal for eyes and a mad smile which made the backs of our knees itch. Several were holding old fashioned broomsticks, and some were graced with the ability to move. See, that medium sized one to our right, swinging his broom backwards and forwards with gay abandon, striking his smaller companion about the bonce with the regularity of a metronome. And the bigger one to the left doing the same, but with a bit more of a vicious swing.

As for the animals, I didn't know where to put my face. For a start, I've never seen such an eclectic mix of creatures. Peering closely around the set, we counted three big-eyed fluffy seals, with not a drop of icy water anywhere near. Then there was the rabbit with the animatronic ears. Actually, thinking about the size of them, it was probably a hare. Whichever it was, I'm sure I saw a gentlemen in the crowd clinging on to his hairpiece for dear life. They reckon a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane, don't they? It's a bloody good job they've never met that rabbit...

And, my dears, would you believe - pandas? No no, not at all incongruous. Quite. One was peeking out of a snowball. Maybe he'd burrowed in there in the vain hopes of finding some tasty bamboo shoots?. There was another panda too, this one was riding on a sledge. Maybe he was the getaway driver, and once the snowball panda had got the bamboo loot, he would have leaped aboard and they would have whizzed away out of sight before you could yell 'Stop I-know-you're-an-endangered-species-but-that-doesn't-excuse-this-sort-of-behaviour thief!'. You could tell he was the getaway driver because the engine was running. At least that's what we assumed. The sledge was moving forwards and backwards with an hypnotic rhythm which brought the panda's rear end into staccato contact with the groinal area of the snowman stood smiling behind him. Erk.

Next in the animal parade is the American badger (after some debate we finally decided this was what it was). Splayed out on the floor he was, with his head extended, moving from side to side. I thought he was pretending to be a novelty hoover in the hoped that some passerby would snap him up as a Christmas present and take him away before that snowman made him take his turn on the sledge. Tallboy thought this unlikely, and pronounced that he was clearly practising to be roadkill.

Continuing with the Arctic theme, we have a cutesy Polar Bear at the front, hunched over, with a Christmas stocking in his lap. With the same regular rhythm as the poor besledged panda, he is rocking backwards and forwards, lifting his front legs up and down and raising and lowering the Christmas stocking. Eyebrow raised, Tallboy wondered what was in the stocking... Unaccountably naive, I ventured that it probably contained presents. Realising this wasn't what Tallboy meant, I followed his gaze and looked blankly at the up and down motion originating in the crotchal area. Slowly, horrible realisation dawned...

Frankly, it was a relief to look up at the roof and seek solace in the wee woodland creatures we could see up there. And Santa, of course. Although poor Santa appeared to be rather unwell. All we could see of his was his arse sticking out of the chimney, with his legs waving helplessly in the air. I wondered if he might have had a little too much Christmas cheer - maybe he was even now calling down the chimney for his friend Ralph? To his right, a chirpy red squirrel (another American one, we decided) sat proudly on the rooftop, looking out across the shopping centre. He too had a part of his body moving in the unceasing rhythmic manner of his ground-based chums. As I watched him, I was reminded strongly of Pesky's attitude on her litter tray, and the twitch of her tail as she completes her evacuation. Yep, that squirrel was defecating on the roof. His squirrelly companion, on the other side of the roof, had his hands raised to his mouth in the traditional squirrel-eating-nut pose. Tallboy and I could see through this subterfuge, and understood the reality of the situation - what with Santa being ill down the chimney and his friend repeatedly losing control of his bowels, all he could do was adopt a Munch-like position and pray that the whole horror would be over soon. Coming to the same conclusion, Tallboy and I turned and picked our way through the crowds of children gawping at the scene before them, the nightmare receding as we drew away, the notes of the carol-playing brass band tailing off into the darkness...

The Weevil Effect

2006-12-10T20:45:00.000Z

Ever have one of those days?

I got home tired and niggly after what seemed a day and a half at work. There was a pile of post for me waiting on the bottom of the stairs. Two of the letters were from my electricity provider telling me that they needed to up my monthly payments by over 400% to clear the hundreds of pounds' arrears on my account. This was the first I'd heard of it, and confident that some computer somewhere had made a huge mistake, I gave them a ring to give them the chance to rectify their error. The nice young man on the end of the phone invited me to read the meters so that he could work with the most up to date information. I did, straining on tippy-toe to read the electric meter up in the corner of the kitchen, and then adopting a sinuous pose in the garage with the twin objectives of being able clearly to read the meter and failing to occupy the same piece of space as Tallboy's motorbike. It was at this point that Tallboy came into the garage, flailing his arms about and saying 'Mind the paint!'. 'What?' I mouthed at him. He pointed wordlessly to where the freshly-coated sidecar chassis was interfacing with my lower leg. Still engaging the young man from the power provider in light-hearted conversation, I wriggled out of my trousers, thrust them at Tallboy with a mouthed injunction to 'bloody clean them off then' and stormed back to the front room in my tights. And a huff.

The Nice Young Man tapped away on his computer and told me that the arrears quoted in the letters were, in fact, incorrect, and that the real total was ten quid higher than that specified. Now, how many hundreds of pounds would I like to pay off each month?

With such a good start to the evening, I should have known better. Instead, I brightly asked Tallboy, 'When you're driving out to Poppy's tonight, can you drop me off at the Mall? There's a couple of bits I need to get, and you can pick me up on your way back from Poppy's.' 'OK,' said Tallboy, 'but won't it be busy? What with that accident on the motorway and everything...' I looked up the Mall's website and checked the average time in/time out and car park occupancy levels. Less than two minutes, and less than a quarter. No problemo.

As we turned onto the A38 and joined the stationary traffic, Tallboy couldn't resist a little 'I told you so'. The traffic announcement piped up on the radio, ungraciously interrupting The Archers - four junctions were closed on the M5 and everyone had decided to come along the A38. As we inched along, with people cutting before after and round us, the levels of tetch rose slightly in the car. After half an hour or so we'd progressed all of half a mile. 'That's it!' I said as we rounded the corner onto the gridlocked roundabout. 'Tuck into that side road and I'll walk from here, then you can turn round and get out of this madness.' I hopped out of the car and trotted off alone up the long dark road, keeping pace with the crawling traffic, and even catching up with and overtaking the Sainsburys lorry at the rear end of which we had been staring as we slothed along the A38.

Pulling my jacket round me, I cursed my moronity in selecting the one through which the wind scythes rather than the warm one. I hadn't imagined I'd have a mile and a bit to walk, I was more going for the hop out of the car into the Mall approach. I upped my pace a bit to get my heart going and my temperature. And to annoy the car drivers who were going more slowly than that bloody pedestrian...

I'd never noticed whether there was a pedestrian footpath up this road as I'd only ever driven up it. Fortunately there was one, far from the road, in the dim further reaches at the edge of the streetlights' glow, on the high-fenced perimeter of the airfield. I trotted along for a mile or so, the phallolith in the middle of the roundabout at the end of the road slowly growing bigger as I approached. Skirting the roundabout containing the enormous thrusting stone which really does look like a penis when approaching from the road in from Patchway, honest, I started wondering how, on foot, I was going to get to a large shopping centre which was basically designed for car drivers. Across the road, I spotted a gap in the shrubbery and could see that by merely crossing a dark secluded patch of muddy grass, I could attain the far car park and thence, eventually, the Mall. I crossed the road, slipping a bit on the grass in the middle, and worrying as I looked searchingly at the dark break in the hedge. I trotted up from the road and gingerly set foot on the grass, which on a more careful and close-up inspection turned out to be a mud slick with a light turf garnish. I minced gently across it, sliding a little and getting dollops of mud inside my shoes, but on the plus side, I made it across without falling over. Just.

Relishing in the warm air and lack of cutting icy wind as I entered the heaving shopping centre, I grabbed my mobile and dialled Tallboy's number to let him know, as promised, that I had arrived safely. Network busy. I tried again. And again. Network busy was a recurring theme. I got on with my shopping, trying at various moments to call Tallboy. No luck. Until finally, a live connection. Woohoo! 'We're sorry, but the mobile you have called is unavailable. Please try later.' Aaaaarrrggggghhhh! Disgruntled, I headed off to the loos in M&S and took up station in the farthest cubicle. Losing myself in a moment or two of blessed release, I was bumped back to reality as I reached up for the paper - my fingers met cardboard. At the same instant, I heard a tentative knocking from further down the rank. 'Hello?' quavered a little voice. 'Yes?' came back a voice from the next cubicle, a mixture of curiosity and nerves. 'Er, do you have any loo paper in there at all?' 'Yes, I do.' 'Would you mind passing some to me please?' Aha, so I wasn't the only one! Fortunately I normally tend to have a mini pack of tissues secreted somewhere about me, and I was not without succour in my moment of need.

Leaving the Mall, I grabbed my phone again and finally got another connection, this time to Poppy's phone. Tallboy came to the phone, breathless and worried at not having heard from me. 'You got there OK then?' 'Er, yeah, got here ages ago, done my shopping and I'm ready to leave. Can you come and get me?' 'Well, I only got here ten minutes ago. The traffic is terrible!' 'OK well I'll start walking back to where you dropped me off. See you soon!'

I skated back over the slidy mud patch, trotted back up to the phallolith, and started my way back down the long road, on the other side this time. All was fine until the path ran out and I had to cross the busy road back to the dark fringes of the airfield, where I jogged back to civilisation with my bags flapping around me. Regaining the more populated and brightly-lit street, I slowed up and relaxed a little. I'd got past the scary dark bit and Tallboy would be coming to pick me up soon. It was at this point that the rain started, and I discovered that not only was my coat ultrapervious to wind, but that it sucked up water with the thirst of a camel which has just returned to the waterhole after a three month journey through the more arid reaches of the Sahara.

I trotted on to the pick up point, hoping to see Tallboy there and waiting. He wasn't. The wind started blowing stronger, chilling me further as it hit my damp clothes. I huddled behind a willow tree in the middle of the verge. Luckily, it was just wide enough to cut out 80% of the of the windchill and just left me shivering around the edges. I peered down the road to the roundabout where the cars were no longer stationary but were free-flowing in bursts of four or five at a time. None of them was Zafira-shaped. I watched and shivered, shivered and watched. Peering through the leafless hedge that surrounded the church, I strained to see what would be coming round the roundabout next. If it looked people-carrierish, I held my breath, only to release it in disappointment as it revealed itself as not the one I was hoping for. I was only there for thirty minutes so it only took me twenty seconds or so to unfreeze my stiffened limbs enough to hobble across to my lift. Tallboy turned a mournful face towards me. 'It was mental in Bristol,' he said. 'Took me ages to do two miles.'

On the way home, very late, we scooped up the Sun from the Ex's, where he had been about to go to bed as he given up on us coming to get him, poor lamb. Good job there were some bottles of my Smile case left...

How to get a free case of wine

2006-12-04T20:08:00.000Z

1. Spot Smile's offer to send you a case of wine for opening an account with them and depositing some money in it.

2. Do a few quick mental calculations and reach for the mouse.

3. Sign up.

4. Deposit money.

5. Wait.

6. Check the offer terms and conditions.

7. Wait a bit longer.

8. Email Smile.

9. Receive response from Smile.

10. Sigh. Log in to your Smile account, fire up the secure messaging client and send them a message.

11. Receive response. Respond. Wait. Respond again. Respond again.

12. Receive email with wine voucher.

13. Within minutes, order wine from Virgin.

14. Skip happily - you just paid Â£4.99 for 12 bottles of wine.

15. Wish they could email the wine but resign yourself to waiting 'til Monday when they will be delivered to work.

16. Have an appointment with the Dr before work on Monday.

17. Receive prescription for week-long antibiotic course.

18. Worriedly query whether they are the type that you shouldn't take alcohol with.

19. Receive reassurance that they're not.

20. Queue for ages in Boots, get the wrong tablets, get the right tablets.

21. Get to work a couple of hours late.

22. Find nowhere to park but the furthest reaches of bandit country known as the Sixth Form car park.

23. Walk the long walk into school across the gravel, avoiding the puddle-filled potholes and muttering at the morons who have parked across two bays and thus condemned you to your far-flung parking.

24. Enter the office to be greeted by Baldrick informing you that your wine is here.

25. Dust off the big yellow sacktruck and go fetch the wine.

26. Retrieve case of wine before the Guardian of the Parcels makes good her threat of sampling it for you.

27. Stash case of wine in the Cupboard of Doom.

28. At home time, realise that the case of wine is too heavy for you to carry across the wide, potholy, dimly lit car park.

29. Dust off the big yellow sacktruck again.

30. Guide yellow truck of wineness across the car park, avoiding all obvious puddles and potholes. You might not be able to avoid some of the less obvious ones...

31. Bid Baldrick goodbye at the edge of the normal car park, and teeter off across the dark gravel in your heels, alone.

32. Remark how the wind is making a funny noise as it blows over a tubular fence post, and how the rain is splattering wetly on your hair and face.

33. Arrive at the car and realise that you can't open the boot.

34. Park the big yellow sacktruck, dive into the car and drive it forward so that you can open the boot.

35. Mess around with the middle row of seats in the dark, desperate to find the catch that will ping them up and send them forward.

36. Stash the wine case in the back of the car.

37. Resign yourself to taking the big yellow sacktruck home with you as you're bloody well not going to trundle it back to the Cupboard of Doom at this time of the evening.

38. Stash the big yellow truck in the back of the car. Realise with deep relief that it fits, with a bit of an inch to spare. Hooray!

39. Drive home, swearing volubly but incoherently at the morons who think it's ok to stop on the box junction in front of you, impeding your progress home and increasing the time until the first sip. Aaarrrggggghhhh!

40. Unload the case, rip it open and stash the contents in the formerly barren wine rack.

41. *clink* *screw* *plop!* *glugglugglug* Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.

Nice to meat you?

2006-11-27T21:41:00.000Z

I spent the weekend with a bunch of strangers doing silly things, many of which I had never done before. Desperately challenging, and strangely liberating. During the lunch break of the second day, we were all more comfortable with each other, and sat round in a big circle, eating, instead of grouping up into twos and threes as we had the previous day. One group member, eyeing up his sandwich, wondered idly if any of us had ever been to a pork pie factory at all? 'Oh no, don't!' screamed the woman opposite him. 'My friend used to work in one. You do NOT want to hear about how the extreme tedium affected their attitudes to basic hygiene.' Quite. I didn't. There was some desultory speculation which tailed off into a conversation about a sandwich packet which boasted proudly on its side 'Hand made'. A virtual Heath Robinson machine shimmered into existence in the middle of the circle as we conjured up the different parts of the assembly - the slice-holder, the lettuce-layer, the butter-spreader, the filling-applicator (finely calibrated to apply more in the centre so that the cut sandwich looked more plumply and appealing filled than it in fact was) and so on. The conjecture ended rather abruptly when a previously lunchless member of the group returned from Tesco and unwrapped a pork pie as he joined the group...

Annoyingly, Baldrick has been following a bit of a meat theme today. First off, he told me with glee about the new place to eat he and Mrs Baldrick had discovered while waiting for Baldrick Junior to finish her la-di-dah Light Opera auditions in Bristol. 'It was great!' he enthused, suddenly livening up and getting a glint in his eye. 'Er, although you probably wouldn't have thought so, actually. Hmmm. It was ummmm a carvery.' 'Oh, right. Lovely.' 'Yeah!' the enthusiasm returning now, 'there were three kinds of meat, you could have all of them if you wanted! I was just going to have the beef but at the last minute they persuaded me to have a bit of gammon too.' He grinned at me in a happy meat memory haze. Now, I know I've been a veggie for *casts mind back, tots up on fingers, checks calculations in surprise* ooh gosh well nearly 20 years now, but I'm pretty sure that in my meaty days, beef and gammon is not a combination that I would have found particularly seductive. Or is that just me?

Anyway, Baldrick continued in full-on meatfest mode. 'Mrs Baldrick had all three kinds of meat. I couldn't believe the beef, huge slabs, this big, and thick like you wouldn't beli e v e ...' As his hands described the size and shape of the dead cow slices on his plate, he saw my face and tailed off gently. 'Er, there were loads of vegetables too!' he continued gamely. 'They piled them up on my plate, then asked me if I wanted Yorkshire pud and stuffing. Too right!' The image of Baldrick walking back to his table, balancing his plate carefully to maintain a level attitude and avert a vegalanche helped me to wipe the preceding meatiness from my poor veggie brain. Mostly.

Later, we were looking at some rather nifty aerial photos on the web. We saw our office window on a photo of the school, and I looked at my old college in Oxford and pointed out the chapel where I married the Ex. Some while later, I was immersed in work on my own machine, when Baldrick made excited noises and demanded my attention. 'Look!' he pointed at the screen like a little chirpy monkey with something extra special to be chirpy about. I looked. It wasn't, as I suspected, a finely crafted image of a ripe banana, a diamond drop of water glinting sexily down its side. It was an aerial photo. Of an industrial estate. 'Look there! That used to be my office! This was the lift company I used to work at.' 'Ah right,' I responded, maintaining the talking-to-idiots-while-scanning-the-room-for-exits tone and expression. 'Lovely.' He waved his mouse pointer in the general area of a hedgerow next to the lift company's unit. 'Used to be lovely blackberries in that hedge,' he reminisced in a hungry kind of way. 'Mind you, that was probably down to this lot *waving mouse pointer over the next door unit* chucking offal into the ditch.' Mistaking my horror-filled queasiness for interest and exhortation to continue, he fleshed out the story a little. 'Horrible bunch they were in there, horrible. I remember Thursdays when they had their deliveries, there were these frozen pigs heads coming off the lorries and they used to chuck them round the car park and they'd bounce round like footballs.' 'STOP!' I squealed, unable to bear it. 'I am on the verge of being sick!' He looked at me appraisingly, and appeared to believe me. 'Huh. OK then. Mind you, I haven't even got onto the bad stuff yet. There was this time...' He caught my eye and thought better of it.

I'm as game as the next girl, and I don't like to beef about a colleague, but I can't help but feel this behaviour was rasher than it needed to be. He had no concept of how he was making me veal. I can't tell you how offal it was...

Layers - like an onion...

2006-11-17T21:15:00.000Z

I've discovered something about late autumn/early winter. It's bloody cold! And yes, I know we've hardly even had a proper frost yet, but the Weevil is freezing. I had no idea what a brilliant insulator fat was. It's almost as if it were somehow designed to keep you warm, nestling there all subcutaneous and thermally efficient. It hasn't all gone (yet) but most of it has, and I can't believe how much I'm noticing it.

For years, I have owned one coat and one jumper. If you saw me actually wearing the coat, then it was a dead giveaway that temperatures were sub-zero. Or that it was snowing, at least. The coat I had for the past ten years or so was a rust coloured item with a corduroy collar and a inkstain near the left pocket. Size 30 it was (if you need a translation, on a scale of small to large, that's HUGE), and padded too for extra hugeness. On sub-zero days I'd put my coat on to walk the Sun to school. On really cold days, I'd do it up. I wouldn't have to go far down the road before I was unbuttoning a button or two to adjust the temperature to comfortable levels. I was never comfortable all constrained in the paddedness, and I was always too warm.

That's something else that's different about the new me. A quick waddle down the road to school and I'd be tugging open buttons and steaming gently out of the neck hole. I only had to do something slightly more energetic than breathing to break into hideous perspiration. These days I only get sweaty when I'm hammering it a bit on the cross trainer at the gym. Long sleeves, heavy fabric, done-up coats: these all felt constricting, oppressive and humidity-inducing.

All these years I preferred winter to summer; cooler temperatures were much more comfortable for me. In the summer, I didn't dare wear the minimum, I had to keep covered up at all times, and it was excruciating. In the winter, I might add another layer, but would probably have sleeves rolled up, or buttons undone. My instinct, therefore, is to avoid buying clothes with long sleeves, fleeces, coats, hats, scarves and so on, because 'I don't wear them'. Except, now I do.

I can't leave the house in the evenings without my purple woolly hat pulled down tight over my head. I need my purple woolly gloves on my poor chilly fingers. I have to have a long-sleeved top on, and a long-sleeved jumper, and a nice snug long-sleeved fleece. I don't think I've worn three long-sleeved things one on top of the other since I was a kid. Perversely, it makes me want to laugh hysterically when I do it, for some reason. I'm walking down the street thinking 'I have three layers on. Me! Hahahahaha!'

Tonight, I was walking to the gym and contemplating my extreme layeredness. T-shirt, fleece, bigger fleece and cagoule on top. It was raining, you see, and I have the biker's antipathy to rain; I don't mind getting wet, so long as it's on the way home... Extremities wrapped up in hat and gloves too, I still felt chilly. A year ago, in the same gear, I would have been swimming in perspiration. Tonight, to save a few more joules of warmth, in a quasi-chelonian manner I retracted my neck into my fleece as far as it would go.

It all makes me feel not like me. I don't wear coats, get cold, need a hat. I don't sit shivering after I've eaten my lunch and need to put my coat on to warm up. I don't return from a walk, remove my gloves and demonstrate to Tallboy that my hands are, impossibly, colder than the ambient temperature. Although the proving to Tallboy can be rather fun. For me, at any rate. His reaction to a stealthy chilled mitt thrust up inside the back of his T-shirt would gladden anyone's heart. You'd think he'd have learned by now...

Man's best friend

2006-11-13T21:20:00.000Z

So, Mum was telling me about a funny old thing which happened to a local farmer the other day. Farmer George was herding(?) his pigs into the pig wagon ready for a run out to the market. As he was making all secure, his cousin Farmer Jack drew up with Fluffybunny, the butch farm dog, in the seat beside him. 'Any chance you could take him with you?' asked Farmer Jack. 'He's been tetchy and nippy and pretty bloody miserable lately. A run out would do him the world of good.'

Farmer George saw nothing wrong with this, and held open the door of the cab so that Fluffybunny could climb in. All through the run into town, Fluffybunny sat there quiet and happy, watching the world go by. Farmer George was rather pleased to have the company.

Fluffybunny had to stay in the cab while all the business took place at the market, but soon enough Farmer George had finished his transactions and it was time to come on home. Approaching the cab, he saw with a smile that Fluffybunny had shifted over and was sat, tall and proud, in the driving seat. 'Ah, now, look at that. Keeping my seat warm for me, whatever next!' Reaching up for the handle, he saw the dog's ears go just slightly back, and a faint tremor about his lips. Reaching closer, he saw teeth and heard the growl. Opening the door, the growl increased in volume, the fangs were bared and the general body language suggested that competing for the driving seat was probably not a good idea just at the moment.

So there we have it. Impasse. Man wants to get in and drive home. Dog says 'I don't think so.' Farmer George in desperation dug in his pocket for his mobile; Farmer Jack would have to come out and sort this one out. 'Er, Jack. Slight problem with Fluffybunny. He won't let me back in the cab. He's sat in my seat and he's growling at me if I try to get in...' 'Not again! Right, put him on!' 'Er, what?' 'Put him on!' So Farmer George carefully extends the phone towards the dog's ear. Even from the other end of the arm he can hear Farmer Jack's instruction to 'GET OVER!' Tail between legs, shoulders drooped, Fluffybunny does so. Pocketing his mobile, Farmer George hops up into the cab and drives home unmolested.

I wish I could boast such remote control command over Pesky. Appalled by our confining her to the kitchen at night, she has taken to hiding invisibly somewhere in the house about five minutes before I decide it's time to round her up and head to bed. The other night, though, I was dead chuffed. I actually managed to catch her and put her in the kitchen. She turned, and was considering a bid for freedom, but I said 'NO! On your bed!' and she looked up at me, looked at the door, weighed things up and went and slunk onto her cushion next to the radiator with a pained look it would have broken your heart to see...

How to solve a simple network problem

2006-11-03T12:56:00.000Z

1. Receive fault report from staff member who writes 'My office was decorated in the holidays, so they took my computer and everything out, and now I've put it back together but I can't get the internet so I'm not sure I set it up properly.'

2. Sigh gently, wishing someone had asked you to come and disassemble/reassemble the IT kit.

3. Grab keys, lock computer, and trot off to the office in question knowing that all you will need to do is plug a network lead into the wall, two second job, if that.

4. Chuckle to yourself when you see what they've done - the network lead from the laptop is plugged not into the wall, but the printer.

5. Sort out the network leads so that the printer plugs directly into the left network socket. Try to plug the laptop into the right network socket. Realise it has been graunched and plugging will be impossible.

6. Trot back to office to get screwdriver to take faceplate off network socket so you can see what's what.

7. Take faceplate off, hampered by the short length of cable coming out of the wall.

8. Note extreme graunchedness of network module, requiring replacement. Remove module from cable and return to office in search of a spare.

9. Grab spare module and punchdown tool, and on way out of office, show Baldrick the damaged module. Marvel as, with a few deft clicks, he fixes it. Point out that this is all well and good, but the shutter is damaged too. Marvel once again as, with a few deft clicks, he rips the shutter off completely and hands it back with a smug look.

10. Attempt to reattach module and fail miserably as the tiny length of cable in the socket gives no room for manoeuvre.

11. Go back to office for stepladders. Note Baldrick's raised eyebrows as you pass.

12. Climb stepladders, dislodge ceiling tile and try to forcefeed extra cable down the wall trunking. Give up as it doesn't work.

13. Try to remove trunking lid. Notice that during the decoration it was painted over, thus sealing it shut. Hack away at the joins with screwdriver until you can lever lid off.

14. Attempt to forcefeed cable down trunking again. Give up as it doesn't work because the cable is routed through the telephone socket next to the network socket at an impossible angle.

15. Sigh.

16. Wish you'd saved this job for allocation to Horace the Happy Hacker in his Lanky Herbert role.

17. Remove telephone socket faceplate.

18. Successfully (though slowly) feed cable down trunking and through telephone socket.

19. Strip insulation on cable using pair of scissors handily available in desk tidy.

20. Realise that scissors weren't normal school issue ones: these were actually sharp.

21. Look forlornly at the severed blue core.

22. Re-strip insulation even further back. Carefully.

23. Re-punch the module.

24. Thread cables back through telephone socket and up through trunking.

25. Re-attach network socket faceplate.

26. Re-attach telephone socket faceplate.

27. Re-attach trunking lid. Realise that you don't get to do this very often, which is a shame as it's rather a fun thing to do.

28. Fire up laptop and printer, and check connectivity (hooray!).

29. Return to office with steps, tools and frazzled expression.

30. Resolve never to underestimate even the teeniest-sounding task ever again.

Well owl be blowed

2006-10-31T21:56:00.000Z

The Sun and I have had a bit of baking frenzy this weekend. Well, he's been on holiday from school, and calories be blowed, it's just been astonishing that he has shown an interest in something other than the Playstation. Last week we made short butter biscuits with orange zest and vanilla. Coo, they were yummy in the extreme. We made the mistake of alerting the Brazil Nut to our impending bakerising, and she demanded a fresh sample when they were ready. Not that that was a problem - it was the perfect opportunity to return the plate of hers that's been languishing in my cupboard for the past seven months... Filled with excitement at the Cossack's imminent arrival, the Sun used our new alphabet cookie cutters to craft an array of biscuity goodness so: C O S S A C K. The letters were reverentially placed in a little tupperware for safekeeping and ceremonially presented on a plate (not the Brazil Nut's) to an appreciative Cossack on his arrival on Saturday night.

Yesterday it was gingerbread biccies. I'd forgotten just how many you can get out of one portion of the mixture, there seemed no end to them. No letters this time, but motorbikes, witches, pumpkins, crosses and clovers. The Sun keeps saying 'I feel really cross!' and storming into the kitchen, only to emerge smiling seconds later brandishing a gingerbread cross. Gets me every time... This morning, cold but clear, we decided to pay a visit to Grandma's with a bag of biccies. We walked through the woods, chatting and huffing our breath, and took a hidden path to Grandma's road ('I'm not letting anyone see me walking down the main street carrying these' ). Sadly, no Grandma, so we tied the bag of biccies to the door handle and walked back home, one of us stressing that the biccies would be purloined by person or persons unknown before the return of the oldies. The Sun chose our route home, and took us down the huge hill and through the woods again. On this journey through, we could see a poster at the entrance, carefully angled so that on our first pass we had missed it completely. 'Owl Prowl' it said. '31st October'. Tonight, then. Did the Sun fancy it? 'Oh, I went last year,' he said grandly, then with slight indignation, 'The man brought his own owl!' No, he confirmed, he didn't want to come again tonight.

Tallboy and I did, though. We wrapped up in multi layers and I donned hat, scarf and gloves. I didn't realise what an efficient insulator subcutaneous fat was until I lost most of mine. We grabbed our torches and trotted off excitedly to the woods (yes, the same ones where we went for the bat walk). A display of torch beams met us at the meeting point, and soon we were all trooping along behind the jovial and enthusiastic Owlist. 'We'll go into the woods,' he said, ' and we'll play a recording of a Tawny Owl. They're territorial beggars so that should bring them out. We didn't have any on the owl prowl I did last night, but it's a lovely night tonight and I guarantee you'll see one. In fact I'm so confident, I'll give you a tenner each if we don't.'

We stopped off at the first lecture point and were rewarded with a picture show in the pitch black, a small child next to the Owlist playing a torch in the general direction both of the images he was holding up for us and my eyes. At the next stop we had another picture show and then, advised earnestly to keep our eyes skywards on the lookout for any owlish silhouettes, the Tape of the Tawny was played - several Twits and some Twoos too. We stood still, torches off, silent, craning for owls. None came, so we upped sticks and headed for the next lecture point where we followed the same pattern of images, torch in eyes, lecture and Twit Twooing. Still no owls. As we made our way towards the next lecture point, the teenaged girl behind me was excitedly discussing what she was going to spend her tenner on...

Another lecture, habitats, food, hunting tactics, branching, nest boxes. Apparently owls have a special feature - did you know the left one is higher and bigger, the right one lower and smaller? A last attempt with the tape recorder - my neck was aching as I peered up into the sky in the vain hope of seeing a Tawny friend. They clearly weren't feeling very territorial tonight. Or maybe it was the moany teenager stood next to me loudly complaining about the pain in her neck that they were finding offputting. It did occur to me as we were peering up into the inky sky that it would be rather a good tactic for, say, a professional pickpocket to lure people into the woods with the promise of owls, get them to a quiet and dark place and instruct them to turn off their torches and stare up into the sky for five minutes. I mentioned this to Tallboy. 'Oh, it's OK,' he told me. 'I had my hand on my valuables all the time.' Right.

There was a sense of triumph amongst the gathered throng as precisely no owls showed up; I could almost sense the pound signs glowing in their eyes (the owl prowlers, I mean, not the owls - I couldn't sense anything about them). The Owlist tried to put us off the scent by having his friend take photos of us - this might not seem too bad, but imagine that you're in a pitch dark wood when suddenly some bloke points a camera at you and fires off the flash out of nowhere. Just ever so slightly startling, it was. Having disoriented us sufficiently, he enticed us to the car park with the promise of not one, ladies and gentlemen, but TWO owls. And there were. A Tawny owl and a Barn owl. In cat baskets in the boot of his car...

Beetroot the Weevil way

2006-10-23T22:03:00.000+01:00

Method:

1. Skulk at home, off sick and miserable. Pine for that 'I feel so well I don't even notice that I am so well' feeling.

2. Receive apologetic email from Baldrick announcing the arrival of this week's organic veg box at school and apologising for his hectic schedule preventing his delivering the same as he would otherwise have done.

3. Alternate between excitement at arrival of mystery box of yummy vegetables and misery at having to go into work whilst off sick and rescue it before the Guardian of the Parcels in the front office decides to adopt it in your absence.

4. Drive to school, muttering.

5. Realise, as you turn into the car park, that you don't have to crowbar your way in to the last, impossible space because you won't be there long and can safely park in the bus bays. Perk up inordinately.

6. Pop in to see Baldrick. Log in while you're there. Check email while you're logged in. Note, with heavy heart, the huge number of fault reports which have been entered in your absence. Read a couple of reports. Weep.

7. Bid farewell to Baldrick and plod across to the front office. Bump into the Guardian of the Parcels, who expresses surprise and possibly slight dismay at seeing you. Stand your ground, forcing her to hand the hostage over. 'It looks very nice this week,' she says enviously. 'I would have given it a good home, you know...'

8. Have a little rummage through the box with the G of the P looking over your shoulder. Check the list of contents and debate with her just what the hell escarole might be.

9. Heft yummy veg box and make good your escape before the G of the P tries to take advantage of your weakened state and wrestle it off you. Totter along corridor with huge, heavy and leafy veg box clasped in your arms. Bump into German teacher who starts to moan about her problematic PDA. Cut her short by informing her that you are off sick, cast a meaningful glance at the vegucopia in your arms and pivot on your heel, shedding the odd cabbage leaf as you stalk down the corridor towards the door.

10. Dump veg box on the worktop when you get home and rifle excitedly through the contents. Waggle the fennel fronds and giggle. Discover large brown paper bag of beetroot and feel so overcome that you need to spend the afternoon asleep.

11. After dinner, put beetroot on to boil and head off to the office to finish programming Mum's 60th birthday present. Anticipate own engrossedness in coding, so set reminder on computer to go and turn beet off in an hour. Express surprise when computer reminds you to go and turn beet off, surely only five minutes have passed, good grief where is the time going, there's so much more to do and so much less time to do it in. Cease panicking and go and turn beet off, just in time before they boil dry. Leave them on the ring as it cools and get back to the coding, don't you realise it's the party in three days and you have to have a working program by then...

12. Emerge from crazed coding some time later, slightly dazed and very confused. Make your way down to the kitchen to rediscover forgotten pan of cooked and cooled beet. Remove lid, bring dish near and adopt the 'peeling beetroot but don't want any drips on my t shirt thank you very much' position (entailing a solid stance with legs apart shoulder width, a forward lean of the body towards the pan but not too close, and outstretched arms to peel those stainy little beggars with fingertips, gently).

13. Peel without drips or drops on clothing. A victory.

14. Slice the nudey beets into the dish. Note how small and sweet the last one looks. Decide not to slice it, and consume it quickly in one mouthful with no one noticing.

15. Try to keep innocent look on face and traces of beetroot out of sight as Tallboy enters the kitchen unexpectedly. Find that all your covering up is scuppered as he leans down to kiss you and detects beet traces at close quarters. Curses!

16. Flake out from exhaustion of feeling poorly, coded out and unmasked as beet thief.

17. Some time later, beets all snuggled up in the fridge and safely forgotten, retire to bed. Notice that your pre-bed wee is strangely pink. Panic hugely as a range of potential maladies conveyor belt through your imagination, each more disastrous than the last.

18. As you speculate about the nature of the mystery disease which has you, brush teeth idly. Stare in horror at the redness in the sink as you spit. Close mouth quickly in case teeth fall out. Take far too long to connect beetroot snaffling with both panics...

Serves One.

She ate a whole 24?

2006-10-03T21:10:00.000+01:00

It's my birthday tomorrow. Since the Sun will be at Scouts tomorrow evening, and Tallboy and I will be out, I won't see him - so he's over here tonight (it's his week with the Ex this week, you see). We popped out to the shops to get some nice stuff for a special tea, and as I prepared to queue up with my basket, the Sun asked me gently if he might have his pocket money (due on the 1st of the month, he'll be charging me interest next...). 'I'll follow you home,' he said. 'I just want to have a look at some stuff over here... Oh, and when I get home, can you make sure Tallboy answers the door to me?' 'Sure thing, mate. See you later then!'

He got back about ten minutes after me, Tallboy duly answering the door to him. I was upstairs, and was instructed not to look out of the doorway as the Sun went past. I didn't. There was a trotting of feet up the stairs, a rustling, and a relieved door closing. 'It's OK now.' He appeared around the door frame, smiling shyly. 'Were you OK getting back then?' I asked. 'Oh yes, it was fine, apart from this bunch of teenagers I had to go past. One of them said to me "Oooh lovely flowers, are they for me?".' I hid the little smile which played over my lips by clasping my hand to my mouth in an 'oops, what did I just say?' kind of gesture. Which he misinterpreted by a mile. 'Oh, these silly teenagers say all kinds of nonsense,' he responded authoritatively. I kept my hand pressed tightly to my mouth, desperate not to laugh. I saw the realisation dawn on his face, and he stamped his foot on the ground. 'Oh! I don't believe it! You might as well have them now!' Off he trotted to his room, and came back proferring a charming bunch of pink roses. 'Happy birthday for tomorrow.' Thank you my darling, they're lovely.

Tomorrow evening I'll be heading off to play basketball for an hour, then it will be a quick shower and off to a nice Chinese eatery nearby for a meal with my lovely husband. I first discovered the restaurant when I went out with the girls from work the first year I started at the school. The veggie choices that were brought out for me were amazing, I loved every mouthful. The portions were staggering though, I had trouble finishing them. Even I, at twenty one and a half stone and with an appetite unrivalled amongst my entire acquaintance. I plugged away, though - there was no way this meal was going to beat me. The second time I went was a family outing to celebrate StepD's birthday, a little while later. Tallboy and I shared the veggie set meal. Out came those same dishes that I remembered. The same food, the same plates, the same portion sizes...

I coloured from my toes to the roots of my hair. I had put away an entire set meal for two. On my own. I had visions of the staff lurking in the shadows, pointing me out whispering to each other in Mandarin, taking bets on how much I was going to eat this time. 2:1 she eats her husband's meal as well, 3:1 she eats the table decoration and 40:1 there are only three legs on the table when she gets up to leave...

Just how hard is it to find a coat at the Trafford Centre?

2006-09-30T21:10:00.000+01:00

Well, I can report that, contrary to previous predictions, there was no large cloud of methane over Manchester. I wish there had been, or at least over his Hall of Residence. It would have made locating it a lot easier...

Things didn't start off too well. We meant to leave at 7 (and just for clarification that's seven in the 'Bloody hell, this is early' morning), but ran twenty or so minutes late. I'm afraid late starts do tend to make me just a teensy little bit stressy. The stress levels rocketed even higher when I opened the boot to stash the final thing on top of the mountain of crap that Tallboy had already stuffed in there. As the boot opened, something fell out right on top of the squished snail which had unwisely strayed under Tallboy's footfall as he packed the vehicle. The mystery item was one of the two cushions in Weevil Mansions which are any good - white, plump, clean and comfortable. Er, make that one cushion in Weevil Mansions that is any good. Oil, general muck and squished snail aren't a good look for a white cushion. We entertained (and possibly woke up?) the Shouty Neighbours with an extended conversation about Tallboy's moronity in using a) a cushion and b) that cushion for a good five minutes before the strop levels dropped sufficiently for me to get behind the wheel. By the time we'd got to Birmingham, I'd softened a bit...

Poppy had filled us with tales of doom about the trip up. 'Ignore the TomTom Go', she said, 'it will take hours and hours.' 'Don't take big stuff, his room is tiny,' she said, 'he can't have the big speakers in there.' 'He is NOT to have the blowtorch you bought him,' she instructed. 'He will cause a fire with it.'

I was feeling a bit cagey about the traffic in Manchester, particularly as it was the day before the Labour Conference opened, but in the end we zoomed straight there, with only a small bicker when we were no more than two hundred yards from our destination. We parked up, both desperate for a wee, and looked for the entrance to the building. If this was an intelligence test, then we failed at the first obstacle. I called Methane Boy on my mobile, praying that he was actually awake, and he came down and let us in. 'We're not unloading just yet,' I informed him urgently. 'Give us the guided tour first. You can start with the bogs!'

His room, it transpired, wasn't all that small at all. In fact, compared with the half-sized cupboard which had been described to us, it was pretty much a palace. Twenty minutes and three trips to the car later, I have to admit that it did look a bit smaller.

I unpacked the food parcel we'd brought for him - mostly biscuits and naughty stuff that we'd scoured Lidl for the night before. The piece de resistance was a huge Italian cake-in-a-box thing. I'd stashed everything else anonymously in my backpack; Tallboy had to walk home from the store with the cake-in-a-box dangling genteelly from his finger via the handy integral gold ribbon carry handle. As we crossed the road away from the store, me strutting proudly with my sensible backpack and Tallboy exuding an extreme air of camp, I fired up Edith Evans mode and bellowed: 'A Cakebag?'. I'm glad I opted for that one and not Handcake - it sounds like a euphemism for some ghastly act of depravity.

Now that the car was empty of food parcel and big speakers and blowtorch (oops, how did that get there?) we piled in and headed off for the Trafford Centre. By a rather lovely coincidence, there was to be a meeting of some of the lovely ladies from the Lush Forum there at lunchtime, so I was able to combine seeing Methane Boy and going to Lush in one fell swoop. The boys headed off to treat themselves to lunch and some father/son time, closely followed by the selection and purchase of a suitable waterproof coat to protect Methane Boy from the regular precipitation they get up that way. I spotted a couple of likely-looking ladies at the scheduled meeting point and trotted up to introduce myself. 'Hello, I'm Weevil!' I announced. 'Oooh!' said one of them excitedly. 'I've made your cake!' I felt almost famous for five minutes...

We chatted, Lushed and wandered. Eventually, just before the group broke up, we met up with a Lush lady who also happened to be a Manchester Fresher. There were two Lush Forum ladies who'd just started at Manchester that I knew of, and hoping to meet up with them, I'd made them a couple of little Red Cross food parcels in decorated boxes to keep them going. I remembered the first couple of weeks, the dizzy ride of unfamiliarity, the sharing a room with someone I didn't know, the newness and strangeness of it all. I wanted to give them a nice little something to enjoy. Sadly, the parcels were back in Methane Boy's room, but I offered Miss Fresh a lift back to Halls so that she could pick up her gift.

We hung around waiting for Tallboy and Methane Boy to find us, which they did in an amazingly short time. Quick, they may have been, but coatless they were. 'Well, we had lunch,' said a slightly frazzled Tallboy. 'We went for pizza in the end, we were going to go to the tapas bar but it would have meant making too many decisions in a short space of time. And we've looked at a couple of coats but can't find anything. Methane Boy fancies a long black leather one like in the Matrix.' Hmmm... Apologising to Miss Fresh, I explained that her lift was coming at the price of traipsing round the Trafford Centre with a bunch of unknowns to find a coat for a fresher colleague of hers. Bless her, she was game.

We found a couple of nondescript non leather non full length coats, which Methane Boy tried on. One by one the panel gave their opinions, and we moved on. In the third shop, we found a more promising looking coat, generously sized in XXXL for the larger gentleman. Methane Boy shrugged in on then looked in horror as it failed to meet around his middle. Some clown had put a Medium coat onto the XXXL hanger. Dropping a size, Methane Boy modelled the coat and the panel agreed that this time it was a definite hit.

As we piled into the car, I felt it was only fair to warn Miss Fresh that there was a risk of bickering ahead. We went wrong as soon as we left the environs of the Trafford Centre, but I sussed where we were, turned the car round at the next roundabout and headed back the right way up the motorway. A mile or so further on, under pressure, Tallboy finally agreed that we were now going the right way. 'Say the words,' I demanded. There was a short silence, followed by: 'This is the right road.' 'No, say the words.' A longer silence. 'I was wrong.' 'No! Say the words!' Realisation dawns: 'You were right.' That's the one...

Presenting Miss Fresh with her shoebox of goodies, I asked if she could take the other one for her colleague who hadn't been able to make it to the meet. Assuring me that she could, she said a big thank you, balanced the boxes carefully and made her way off into the sunset.

'I'm glad I've got these,' said Methane Boy, happily assembling his Hi-Fi and grappling with the huge speakers. 'I told the lads I had some huge speakers, now they will believe me.' Did I detect a hint of evil in his eyes?

We left him gleefully sorting out his stuff, reassured now we knew where he was living and that he was happy and well. Back onto the motorway we went, but diverted to Mum's on the way back for a night out. But that's another story...

What's white, runny and goes 'ping' when it's done?

2006-09-21T22:03:00.000+01:00

So, anyway, back to the amusing stuff...

At the end of last month I started telling the story of Squash Ball, heading off at a bit of a tangent I'm afraid. Time to finish the job now, then.

So, follow me back again to Oxford in the late 1980s, into a nondescript college, up the stairs to the third floor, there to see Weevil and Squash Ball lounging idly. Squash Ball's room had both an advantage and a disadvantage. The disadvantage? The presence in the room immediately below of Bird Dog, a serious scientist of the highest order, who was even more intolerant of noise than I am. Conversations in Squash Ball's room would routinely be interrupted by Bird Dog coming upstairs, knocking on the door, and explaining, once again, with a pained expression that our general low level chatter was disturbing him. Once I remember Mr Bobsequious idly and gently bouncing a squash ball on the arm of his chair whilst in there chatting. Ooh, hang on, maybe that's how it came to be bifurcated... Anyway, up came Bird Dog in quite a bate - the rhythmical intrusion having wound him up to previously unwitnessed indignation. We couldn't believe that the gentle noise had caused him such grief.

The advantage, however, was that Squash Ball had his very own microwave, all his own, in the corner of his room. Yes, I know it doesn't sound too impressive, but this was 1988, and we were poor students. It was quite the height of amazingness, dontcher know. So, one day I'm up in Squash Ball's room, chatting (quietly, so as not to wind up Bird Dog) and generally seeking to avoid work as much as possible. My eyes light on the sacred white microwave in the corner, sat on the altar to hot food, draped in the ceremonial tea towel of destiny. I married this vision of culinary ping-zappery with the yen I was feeling for something sweet and yummy. 'Er, Squash Ball?' I asked, with possibly a slight wheedling in my voice. 'Do you think it's possible to make fudge in a microwave?' 'Um, maybe. Actually, why not? I'm sure you can!' 'Shall we?' 'Oh yes!'

Leaving Squash Ball to prepare the necessary rites and perform supplicating incantations, I headed off to Waterstones. Or, more precisely, the cookery section in Waterstones. Or, extremely bloody pedantically, the microwave region of the cookery section in Waterstones. Skimming through one book then another, I was soon rewarded with a recipe for microwave fudge - so it was possible! With the prickly in-between-shoulder-blades feeling of someone waiting for the approaching footsteps of an assistant who's been waiting all day to say 'This isn't a library, you know' for the twentieth time, I stood, read, and memorised.

Desperately trying to keep my brain buffer full, I replaced the book and trotted off to the subterranean Co-op on Cornmarket (a handy place for all your student necessaries, though I avoided going in there as much as I might otherwise have done because there was a sign above one of the aisles which proclaimed proudly the legend "Soup's" and the sight of it used to upset me and make me cross). With speeds of only just sub-Supermarket Sweep levels I basketed my way round the shelves, chucking in all the ingredients and trying not to salivate too much.

Back at Squash Ball's room, I unloaded my shopping and scribbled the method onto a piece of paper, only stopping to breathe and relax when the final full stop was dotted. We mixed and stirred and finally reached the climactic point of setting our full bowl o'goodness into the offering space within the microwave. *click click clickclickclick ping whiirrrrr* We sat back, pleased with ourselves, and smug in the knowledge that soon we would have fudge. The tray for it to cool in was on stand by, all we had to do was wait for this final cooking period to be over. We smiled at each other in anticipation. It was some time later that one of us thought to actually look into the microwave.

Disaster! A bowl full of milky sugar and a microwave do not make the best partners. The mixture had heated, melted, boiled and, well, erupted. It was everywhere. *click clickclickclick ping bdoing* It looked even worse with the door open. Squash Ball grabbed inside to remove the offending bowl, shrieked, and dropped it back down. A teensy bit hot in there, it was. We armoured our hands with tea towels and got the bowl out, scraping its contents into the cooling tray. A sad little pathetic layer of wannabe fudge pooled in the bottom, almost touching the sides. Most of the bloody stuff was still in the microwave, coating it internally.

We teetered between knowledge that the stuff was searingly hot and that it would be even more of a swine to clean up when it was solid, and came down on the side of let's wipe it up now. A box of tissues to hand, we wiped, each tissue managing just a single wipe before it became overloaded with hot mixture and needed to be put down before it burned our fingertips. We wiped and dropped, wiped and dropped. The pile of tissues got higher and higher.

We had pretty much finished clearing it up when Mr Bobsequious swept in, unaware of our culinary caper. He came to a halt, staring at the two of us squatting forlorn in the corner, a prodigious pile of tissues next to us. A pile of tissues which had been used to wipe up something viscous, cream coloured, shiny and horrifyingly abundant. 'What on earth have you been doing?' he blurted out, although I could see that his brain was busy telling his mouth to shut up, it didn't want to know. 'Making microwave fudge, of course,' I replied with a brittle smile. I waved the cooling tray at him, and he recoiled in horror when he saw its contents. 'Go on,' I said, offering a drippy fingerful of it to him, 'Try some. It's lovely' It bloody was too, what there was of it. And Squash Ball and I had it to ourselves. For some reason, Mr Bobsequious didn't fancy any...

Life as a Hippo

2006-09-20T19:09:00.000+01:00

'You remind me of my granddaughter,' said the old dear, smiling at me. 'A big round moonface, so jolly. Lovely.' My first, swiftly-smothered gut response was an inchoate fist clenching. My second reaction was the piercing prickle of unwanted tears in the corners of my eyes. My third (and only discernible) response was to say 'Thanks' and smile. In a jolly way. Because that's what we're like, right?

I've been overweight for all of my adult life, and most of it not just overweight but obese - it crept up on me after I married the Ex. Eighteen years of avoiding my awful-truth reflection in toilets, shop windows, shoe shops, department stores - anywhere with a surprise reflective surface waiting to assail me with myself. Eighteen years of looking pathetically in the windows of fashionable shops at items of clothing so teeny that if I sewed the whole display together I might just have been able to assemble a brief and rather impractical legwarmer. Eighteen years of shopping exclusively in plus size shops - no choice, no feel-good factor, just wretched gratitude that someone somewhere sold clothes that would actually fit me, avoiding the need for me to go out in public clad in a marquee. How many times I bought that cardigan, this skirt, those trousers, all in the knowledge that every other big girl in the area would have it too. I'd see them out and about, wearing the same clothes as me, a universal badge of obesity. I don't even know the very heaviest weight I achieved - it was off the scale for my bathroom scales (er, no pun intended) which top out at 140 kilos (or a massive 22 stone).

I could never find anything that made me feel comfortable or - heaven forbid! - elegant. My clothes seemed to consist of yards of fabric draping round me, touching me only if absolutely necessary. The net effect? A large galleon under weigh with full sail. Sometimes I would see something nice, but small, and kid myself that if I bought it, it would encourage me to lose weight so that I could fit into it. Amazing the number of times I managed to con myself, really. The top or skirt or whatever would hang mockingly in my wardrobe until I once again resigned myself to my monstrousness and flung it out.

How could fate conspire so against me? Why was I cursed with a metabolism which squeezed every milligramme of adipose value out of each mouthful I consumed? The Cartographer ate like a horse and was infuriatingly rake-like. My genes seemed to come from another planet to his. How unfair, how maddening, how bloody undeserved was it? Yet, as I railed, I knew deep down where the fault lay, why I was like I was. Knowing it all came down to me made it an even more bitter pill.

I was aware of my size, painfully so. I knew it wasn't healthy and that I should do something about it. Sadly, for most of my adult life, it's been easier to carry on eating what I wanted, avoid exercise, and stay fat and miserable. There have been several episodes of dieting, some more successful than others, but none reducing me to a sensible target weight, and all ultimately failing as I returned to old habits and out-gained any losses.

Wherever I went, my inner critic would play the 'I'm the fattest' game with me. 'I'm the fattest person in this room' was a constant chime in my head. 'I'm the fattest person walking down this street' was another. 'I'm the fattest mum in the playground' was a favourite for many years as I waited for the Sun to finish school, surveying the other, smaller mums around me. 'I'm the fattest member of staff at this school' was hideous, but true. Everywhere I went, no matter how hard I tried to avoid noticing it, people would look at me, and I'd know what they were thinking. Mostly it was comparisons with pachyderms, some ridicule, some sympathy, and a fair bit of amazement. How hard I tried to deflect their looks, to appear invisible, to will an impenetrable forcefield around me.

I would get out of breath if I climbed a few steps. I would deliberately plan routes to avoid effort. I sweated at the slightest exertion. My knees articulated as if there were gravel between the bones. I awoke in the morning aching down the side I had been lying on, all that pressure all night was painful. I would find excuses not to go for walks at Mum's. I was pathetic.

Sometimes, people would make comments. Some without a scrap of ill intention, like the one I quoted up there. Others were designed to wound and humiliate. Some teenage boys in the shopping centre, shouting out 'Sumo! Sumo!' with accompanying leg lifting and gesturing, just for added effect. The scruffy guy on the industrial estate in Cardiff who shouted 'Why don't you go on a diet?' as I walked past him (I invited him to learn some manners, but as a scything riposte it left a lot to be desired...). The Year 9 girls at the front desk in a maths lesson who chanted 'Massive, massive, massive' in tones designed to reach only my ears as I knelt in front of them fixing the computer at the front of the room. I felt sick for the rest of the day after that.

The incident which hit me the worst though wasn't a comment, but it amounted to the same thing. I was standing at my workbench (which is at the end of one of the computer suites) intent on fixing a computer. Gradually, a repeated noise filtered into my ears. It was the sound of hysterical laughter, desperately smothered. As I tuned in to the noise, it increased in frequency and intensity. Finally I felt something brush the back of my leg, and looked down. All around my feet were sweets. The Year 8s in the room had been throwing sweets at me for what must have been ages, and (whether due to my huge padding or the sheer volume of my drapy clothing) I hadn't felt it at all. Not only was I a target for ridicule, but I was too fat to even bloody well notice it...

The root of my problem was - well actually the root of it was eating more calories than I burned up each day, and the way I've solved it is by inverting that, but on with the story - an utter lack of self-esteem. And my, how that self-esteem thing compounds itself wonderfully - it's almost Darwinian how it works. 'I am worthless. I am not worth bothering about. My God, look at me, I'm so fat. That means I'm worthless. I am not worth bothering about. Where's the chocolate. That feels better. My God, look at me, I'm so fat. That means I'm worthless.' Repeat for 18 years.

The obesity was an amazing shield too. What a get-out clause. 'Oh they didn't offer me the job because of their prejudice at the way I look.' 'He won't fancy me because I'm too fat.' Nothing had to be about me, everything could be about other people's attitude to how I looked. Way to not take responsibility, Weev.

I'm free of that now. How it happened, so suddenly, I don't fully understand. I think a lot of it has to do with meeting Tallboy and feeling totally loved and valued as me, myself. I think I started feeling worth it, after all. Working with Baldrick has been instrumental too. For a start, he saw past my size and my inexperience and latched on to my potential. It was such a boost getting this job. Then I discovered that he had lost several stone just before I started, and that he was successfully keeping it off. Inspiration sat right next to me, you can't ask for more than that. He also tipped me off about an approach to weight loss which really spoke to me, and which has worked better than my wildest feverish imaginings.

Today, I weigh 8 stone 3 lbs (52 kilos or 115 lbs) less than I did in November last year. I have some weight left to lose, but not much, and I'll do it. I look normal. I feel normal. No, I feel better than normal, I feel great! My head is up as I walk down the street. People smile at me. I am so not the fattest person anywhere. I can got into shops and if I walk out without having bought anything, it's because I didn't like anything, not because nothing would fit me. My confidence is up, I'm challenging myself constantly, I'm fit, happy and loving life. Do you know what? I've found out this self-esteem cycle thing works in reverse too. It's like all that fat was a shell which I've finally stepped out of, a different person. I carry a photo with me of the old Weevil. I show it to people, and they can't believe it was me. I refer to the person in the picture as 'her' and not 'me'. She doesn't feel like me. I'm not her. Life hasn't suddenly changed to bluebirds singing along my path and petals scattering in front of me - there's still major amounts of crap lurking here and there. But I've changed in how I'm dealing with it - I'm embracing life in a way I've never done before. I love the new Weevil...

Warning: Cloud of methane forecast over Manchester.

2006-09-15T08:12:00.000+01:00

Your room feels just like a shell now. Bare walls, disassembled hi-fi, empty drawers. Wine brews despondently in the corner, unsupervised. What you wanted to take with you won't all fit in Poppy's car; it may well not all fit in your new room. We're briefed to bring it up with us when we visit in a couple of weeks.

Everyone is missing you before you're gone. The stretch of your impending absence presses on us all. For the other kids, a term seems like a life sentence.

I know your nerves have been increasing steadily over the past few weeks. With every item you pack, the awful moment creeps closer. I remember the doom-laden excitement of the night before I went. The Ex and I went for a walk on the Downs; I picked up a conker, which later I kept in a box (it's probably still there, somewhere). I was excited, worried, buzzing. He was almost devastated at my leaving. He asked me hesitatingly, 'If I asked you not to go, would you stay?' I looked at him, stunned. 'No,' I replied quietly.

It's facile and glib for me to say this, but you'll be fine. Give it a few days to settle in, find your feet, and then suddenly it will all be normal, it will just be your life, different from before. I know it's going to be ok because of who you are. You're smart, capable, easygoing, practical. You know how to cook and clean and look after a household. You shone in your A Levels. You're held in great regard throughout the entire family. You will cope. Actually, no. You'll do more than cope. You will be challenged, you'll push yourself, you will make friends with all sorts of people. And most important of all, you will have a chance to be yourself. In a new place, where no one knows you, where no one has expectations of who you are and how you'll be, you'll have the chance to be you.

When Mum and Dad took me up to Oxford, we unloaded my paltry junk from the car. The room that had been allocated to me was half full of stuff already; I was to share with some unknown person who had already neatly arranged things on their desk. We went for a subdued lunch, then they hugged me and went. As that door shut, a sense of dejection descended over me and just sat, quietly. I knew no one. At school I had been one of the smartest; here I was a new nobody in one of the highest-ranking academic institutions in the world. It all seemed very bleak. But, because there was nothing else to do, I picked myself up, went out and got my bearings, met my new room-mate, spoke to people who were in the same boat as me, and sooner than I could have believed, I settled in to my new way of life.

You will be missing from our home, and we will feel that absence terribly. But you won't be missing from our family. Dad and I love you and are so proud of you. You're going to have a briliant time. And you know what? When you come back at Christmas, we're really looking forward to meeting the new Methane Boy.

All tyred out

2006-09-11T08:15:00.000+01:00

Things didn't bode well the night before. Tallboy and I rushed round, collecting items, planning, bickering, perusing maps, checking tickets and so on. Did I mention the bickering? 'Where exactly _is_ Donington Park?' I asked Tallboy, wondering what time we'd have to leave in the morning. 'Er, I dunno. What time does it start?' he countered, smartly. 'Er, I dunno. You check the map, I'll check the tickets...'

The Sun confided that he didn't want to go after all. Busy and preoccupied, I put it down to standard last minute mind-changing and responded with a brisk 'Well you're going, so tough.' When he dissolved into tears, I reflected that this possibly hadn't been the best approach. We sat down and had a little chat, and it turned out that the poor chap had been seeing so much on the news about terrorist plots and the anniversary of 9/11 that he was scared to go to a big gathering because he felt it was a good target. I tried to reassure him that it was incredibly unlikely to happen, and that a Renault race meeting at Donington probably wasn't very high on the list, and hadn't the good old security services done a great job stopping the plane bombings? He went off to bed somewhat mollified; I was left musing that my big armageddon fear at his age with the Cold War all around me had been the prospect of nuclear war.

Once we had established where Donington was, and what time the meet started, we relaxed a bit. Tallboy got out his new backpack and explored it thoroughly, planning to give it its first outing the next day. 'Look, there's a pocket here!' he exclaimed. 'And here! And what's this bit for?' He shrugged it on, zipped it up and clipped it tight, twisting left and right in an effort to see how it looked. At that moment I was chatting online to some chums on a forum - I told them about Tallboy's preening with his new thing. 'Tell him to model it naked!' suggested one bright spark. I relayed the suggestion to him; he did it, though he kept his socks on for effect.

Lying in bed, sleep eluding me because I had to get up early and drive in the morning, I fretted about the trip. Although Tallboy likes watching the Grand Prix (although it's not so much watching as ranting at Michael Schumacher) we're not a huge motorsport family. The four tickets to the Renault World Series meet had been free and therefore a bargain, so I'd snapped them up and stuck the date on the calendar. But now I was worrying about how far it was, and how bad the traffic would be, and how horrendous it would be to park, and how packed the event would be, and would we take enough food, and would the bogs be foul and few and far between, and would we queue for hours to leave the event, and would the traffic be horrendous on the way home too... I'm a natural optimist, me.

Tallboy and I got up early in the morning to assemble huge quantities of packed lunch. At the last possible moment we roused Methane Boy and the Sun (the Dozy Duo), packed the car, and set off in the limp sunshine. Five minutes later we were back home again to pick up the water bottles that we'd each thought the other had packed.

The road to Donington was straight and clear. The hordes of other race-goers failed to show up. The route from the motorway was clearly signposted; even Tallboy failed to avoid directing me right to the site. There was a tiny queue just outside the racetrack - we wound down our windows and listened with rising excitement to the infuriated buzzing of the invisible vehicles belting round the track. Tuning our radio to 101.9 (Radio Renault), we heard the commentary for the unseen race, with an overlay of infuriated buzzing as the cars passed the commentary point.

We were directed to park in what was labelled VIP parking, and who were we to argue? When we came back, there were a couple of helicopters parked up nearby. We walked up towards the noise, the sound of the vehicles becoming incredibly loud as we approached. As we entered the track we were plied with free Renault branded radios, but Methane Boy's eye was caught by bigger prey; all he could see were the teenagers clutching prize booty in the form of used tyres discarded by the teams to eager race fans. We wandered the paddock for a little while and found a pile of used tyres marked up 'free'. Methane boy grabbed a big one, his face wreathed in smiles. I could tell the Sun quite fancied one too, but they were big and heavy and dirty, and I said we could get one on the way out if he still wanted one.

We headed over to Redgate Corner at the end of the fast downhill straight. The noise of the engines was painfully loud; Tallboy gave me a knowing look and reached into his backpack, producing four small packages with a prestidigitatory flourish. Earplugs all round then! The Sun settled himself comfortably on the tyre, Methane Boy, Tallboy and myself leaned on the barrier and watched the cars zoom past. The earplugs were great - they made the engine noise bearable - but they meant we had to repeat everything at least once. During the day we developed hugely overemphasised lip patterns and gestures as we spoke.

Although it was still well before 11, the sun was beating down strongly. Tallboy saw my worried glance up into the sky, gave another knowing look, reached into his backpack and withdrew a brace of sun lotion bottles. In true Weevil fashion, as soon as the last traces of lotion had been rubbed in, the sun disappeared behind a large grey cloud. The clouds weren't the only things in the sky. The race circuit is directly under the flight path for the airport in the next field. The jumbo jets were coming in loud and low every couple of minutes. After the first half hour I stopped jumping in fright as the bloody things loomed up behind me, causing me to look fearfully up above my head to witness the huge belly of a lumbering great plane suspended impossibly close above me, undercarriage out, almost within touching distance.

'We're well placed to see some offs here,' I said to Tallboy as I contemplated the fast straight and 90 degree bend. 'Huh?' he responded, indicating the earplugs. 'I said {extravagant lip movements} we're well placed {emphatic hand gesture} to see some offs {complicated hand movements} here. {pause to check for understanding} {vigorous pointing} Bloody hell look at that, there he goes!' I wish my prescience would run to this week's winning lottery numbers...

We stood and watched the cars and the planes for a while, then we saw a test driver take Alonso's Championship winning Formula One car round the track a few times, amazingly fast it was, such a thrill to see it. We walked round the track, pausing to watch a French daredevil take a tiny plane through its paces in the sky above us. We prayed she wouldn't be sick during her looping the loop; we'd have been showered.

Making our way through the welcome coolness and shade of a tunnel, we found ourselves in the middle of the track, thronged with people having a good time. Again and again someone came up to Methane Boy to ask where he had got his tyre from. One young lad came up and grabbed it and said 'I'm having it!' He was no match for 6' 4" of determined 18 year old. The Sun was ruing not having picked one up himself, but it was a struggle for us to lug just that one around with us. 'If he doesn't manage to get one before we leave, he can have this one,' was Methane Boy's generous offer. 'That's kind,' I said. 'Well, I only wanted one because all the other boys had one,' he admitted.

The Sun and I queued for the Big Wheel. It's probably twenty years since I'd been on one. I always feared the awful moment of sitting in the car, the Big Wheel dude with the fag hanging out of the corner of his mouth eyeing me up disdainfully, and the lack of clang as the safety gate failed to click home, but rather bounced pitifully on my capacious midriff. Oh, and the irrational fear of the whole bloody thing buckling with me on it. 8 stone lighter and half the width, I was keen to get on. The Sun and I made a pact not to rock the chair; both of us only breached it once. It was a great thrill to sit there at the top of the wheel, whimpering with fear, the sky feeling so close, the bloody aeroplanes feeling even closer. On the third or fourth go round I stopped being so scared, and the Sun and I pointed out sights to each other, and waved feebly to the ground-bound Tallboy and Methane Boy.

It was an amazing day. No holdups on either the way there or the way back. Parking close to the entrance. Clean toilets everywhere. Taps for drinking water in plentiful abundance (I had envisaged ripoff bottled water stands). Displays, funfair, simulators, games - all free. Excitement and interest on and off the track. It was one of those brilliant days where you just have fun, the weather is great, everyone enjoys themselves, no one moans, and everyone falls asleep in the car on the way back. Except Tallboy that is. He was driving.

So thank you very much the nice people at Renault for giving us the tickets. Mind you, they've already had a return on their investment. After spending the previous day surrounded by logos and branding and all the rest, the Sun (not known for any interest in cars) piped up as we were crossing the road yesterday: 'Look! There's a Renault!'

Well, I survived the week...

2006-09-08T21:47:00.000+01:00

It's been a funny old day today. The end of the first week of the school year, and suddenly it's like the quiet empty summer never was. Noise and bustle everywhere now, the phone has remembered how to ring, and many people are failing to recognise me. The weight loss is currently standing at 8 stone, and I'm finding it hard to get from one end of the school to another. Not because I don't fit through the corridor or anything - I keep getting stopped and complimented. Which is nice.

Amongst my jobs today I have sought out sockets, trained a remote and had more to do with greasy palmtops than I would like. This morning, Baldrick and I made our way out to the far flung Elliot building at the remotest furthest reaches of the school. I had had an email from the Gorgeous Wireless Wizard asking about the proposed location of another Wireless point, and the propinquity (or otherwise) of power to it. We went to look. 'Ooooh!' said a teacher, sat solitary at the desk at the front of an empty classroom, 'just the people!' I get a bit nervous when people seem so pleased to see me. It always seems to spell trouble. In the classroom next door, a slightly more reticent teacher asked hesitatingly if we had come to fix the computer. No, we said, we were surveying. Why, we wondered, what was wrong with it? She responded with the universal unhelpful fault report: 'It doesn't work'. We fired it up in passing and watched the boot process like hawks. It all seemed to be going fine. The teacher looked up and saw activity on the screen. 'But how did you do that? I mean, where was it? We couldn't see it...' It finally transpired that 'it doesn't work' translates directly as 'We couldn't find the on/off button.' I was a good girl. I contained my laughter until we were outside...

This afternoon I trained a programmable remote control. I had hoped this would involve chairs, whips and derring-do. Instead it was a highly tedious and repetitive job which involved a lot of pointing and pressing. Ah well.

The monotony was lifted a little when Tallboy called me to tell me that he had nipped home from work and had arrived home at the exact moment a delivery dude was ringing the bell to deliver a sumptuous package from my favourite company. 'I'm just popping off to Llanelli now,' he finished, cheerily. 'See you later!' I relayed my joy at the contents of the phone call to Baldrick. He was singularly unmoved by the serendipity of the situation. Though he did have to stop me mid-sentence when I went on to say that Tallboy was off to Llanelli now to pick up a leak detector. 'He's off to Wales?' he cried joyously.'For a leek detector?' Tish.

Returning from my remote training session, Baldrick told me we'd had another staff member in reporting problems with their new PDA. This one wouldn't connect to the network. 'I showed her how to turn it off then on again, and it connected up fine and synchronised her emails. "There you go," I said to her as I passed it back, "Three hundred emails." She was pretty surprised: "Three hundred emails?" ' He stopped, with an expectant look on his face. He was waiting for me to respond, but I was not sure how. It was perfectly feasible that she had three hundred emails. Some of them don't look at their email from one term to the next. I decided on a safe option, and looked blank. 'Er, three hundred emails, right, blimey...' 'No,' said Baldrick, with a patience that seemed rather tautly stretched. 'Three unread emails.' Ah, right...

Brassica Spotting

2006-09-05T19:49:00.000+01:00

Tallboy didn't have a brilliant day on Saturday. To be honest, the day before wasn't much better - he was sent to Coventry. Which, let's face it, is a fair old drive there and back, especially when you're wrestling with recalcitrant vacuum pumps for hours in the middle. It didn't help matters that the person he was supposed to be liaising with was off all day. Or that no one else seemed to know what was going on, with responses varying from 'Oh, do we have vacuum pumps here?' to 'No, you can't switch it off to work on it, I'm using it!' There was also the mystery of where one of the pumps actually was; no one could tell him. In the end, he phoned his colleague back in the workshop and was remotely directed (left, down to the end, through the double doors, right, through the double doors, straight across, in the far right hand corner) by someone a hundred miles away.

The next morning, he and I were taking our usual Saturday constitutional to the shops. As we stood next to the busy main road with lorries whooshing past our noses, and with me peering first left, then right, then left with increasing desperation at the neverending traffic stream, despairing of ever being able to cross, Tallboy said something to me. Focusing as I was on the traffic, I didn't quite catch it and had to latch my attention on to him and ask him to repeat himself. 'There's some bits of cabbage down there,' he said brightly. It took me a moment or two to register what he'd said, and mere further milliseconds to craft a witty riposte: 'WHAT?' 'Down there, those plants, they look a bit like cabbage plants.' Yes, they did, those poor scraps of traffic-blown flora on the verge, a bit. 'Or some kind of brassica, anyway,' was his generous concession. I tugged my consciousness away from the delightful prospect of continuing down this pleasant conversational avenue and back to the rather more mundane business of trying to make it across the road alive.

Later that afternoon, I was in the kitchen and witnessed a pale and shaky Tallboy coming in from the garden. Patting his heart gently as if to reassure himself that it was still going (or maybe he was trying to contain it in his chest), he said weakly, 'I nearly screamed.' I found myself responding in a familiar vein :'What?' He had just been picking up windfalls under Nice Neighbours' apple tree (the bit that overhangs our garden, obviously) when he had felt a creature climbing up his shin. Inside his trousers. It felt cold against his skin and he was sure it must be a slug. He stuck his hand over it to prevent it from gaining his knee and who knows what further dizzy heights, and realised instantly that it didn't feel slug-shaped in the slightest. Knocking it gently back down he shook it out of the bottom of his trousers (are you getting the same 'Great Escape' feeling as me?) and found himself looking at a small green and yellow frog which frankly was about as surprised as he was himself.

Later still, we went to pick up the Sun from his week at Mum's (during which week he was overhead to mutter as he carried food out to the waiting guests at the dinner table: 'A person of my intelligence reduced to slavery!'). We loaded the car up with dirty wellies, a wet tent, a small mountain of dirty washing and assorted treasures, and headed back down the M5. It wouldn't be fair to say that the Sun talked for the entire journey home. There were many fractions of seconds during which he was too busy drawing breath to make a sound. Passing Junction 10, he asked Tallboy at which junction we would leave the motorway. 14 was the reply. 'So we've got 5 more junctions to go then?' 'No,' said Tallboy, 'it's 4 more to junction 14.' 'Aha!' (I could tell he was enjoying this)'What about junction 11A?' Cabbages, frogs and outfoxings by an 11 year old. Poor Tallboy.

During the car journey, Tallboy was telling the Sun about the Great Frog Incident. 'Did you feel tempted to kiss it?' I asked. 'Oh no,' said the Sun, very serious. 'He doesn't need to. He's already got his Princess...'

I lied to the Vet

2006-08-31T21:50:00.000+01:00

During Pesky's recent poorly period, I was quizzed about her eating habits by the vet. 'Does she hunt?' she asked me. 'Oh no, she's well past all that nonsense now.' Aged 14, with a bit of a rusty hip and a generally dozy air, I had ruled out any potential sporting behaviour.

We certainly wouldn't have built up the Twit Palace at the end of the garden if we had felt for a moment that we would have been enticing the poor things to a terminal feast. Over the past couple of years, I've seen her glance once or twice at the twits feeding on the seeds or taking a bath, but on the whole she has been decidedly uninterested.

Imagine, then, my surprise when this afternoon Tallboy peered out into the garden and blurted out, 'Blimey, has she got a bird?' 'Nah, she can't have, don't be daft!' I looked out to see a feathery thing lying limply in her mouth. We dashed down the path to see what was going on, and found Pesky hanging on desperately to a large bird with a rather surprised expression on her face. To be fair, I don't think it was so much 'hunting' as 'having a bird land in your open jaws'.

So, as a vegetarian bird-lover, I was aghast and distraught. Wasn't I? Well, I was a bit upset at a needless death in my garden. But every cloud has a silver lining; Lord knows how she managed it, but Pesky caught one of the manky pigeons. It's not looking so smug any more...

Aaargh! Get it off me!

2006-08-30T12:48:00.000+01:00

My memory was jogged by one of the Lanky Herberts this week. I can't remember what he said, but it triggered in me the reminiscence of a sticky couple of hours I spent in a fellow student's study one summer afternoon. Follow me back, if you will, to Oxford in the late 1980s, into a nondescript college, up the stairs to the third floor, there to see Weevil and Squash Ball lounging idly.

Squash Ball was a medic, one of a group of four of us who used to hang out together most of the time. There was Amanada too, and Mr Bobsequious (he had a thing about Bob Monkhouse, to whom he addressed the epithet I have just bounced back at him). Squash Ball was a quiet, nervous kind of chap. The kind who sidles silently into a room with a quick nod of acknowledgement before sitting down, all right angles and fidgety fingers.

In the third year, he was writing a dissertation and once in a while had to visit the typist who was typing it up, just to clear up any problems and see how it was going. We were in central Oxford; the typist was in Headington, a short bus ride away. Except that Squash Ball wouldn't go on the bus. He was almost phobic about it. 'But I might miss my stop!' he would say, pallid at the imagery and aghast that anyone might suggest such a course of action. So he walked. In shoes that didn't fit well and tore his feet to ribbons. One fine day he got back from his walk from Headington, all hot and sweaty and needing a sit down. Back in the sanctuary of his room, he sat back in his chair and unconsciously cast around for something to fiddle with while he regained his equilibrium. His hands lit upon a perfect half squash ball - it had been a whole one once, but it had been fiddled and fiddled with (and hammered round a squash court) until it came apart in two.

For reasons known only to himself, he thought he might stick it to his forehead. He'd done it several times before, pressing it gently to create a semi-vacuum to keep it attached, and now he wanted to do it again. So he did. This time, unfortunately for him, as a consequence of his failure to take the bus his forehead was covered in a thin layer of perspiration. Pressing the ball to expel some air caused it to seal perfectly with his damp skin and he sat there for a moment, horrified at the sensation. Later he told me, 'It was like it was sucking my whole head into itself!' His forehead in agony, his only thought was to remove the offending object. He couldn't. The seal was too good. He poked and tugged and wrestled and succeeded only in affixing it even more firmly.

Eventually he managed to get it off, and raced to the mirror to inspect the damage, though he wasn't prepared for what he was about to see. In the middle of his forehead, perfectly delineated, circular, squash ball sized, and most of all red was the imprint of the ball. Remember sucking your forearm as a kid and leaving a mark where the blood vessels broke? Remember trying to hide the lovebites on your neck from your mum? Well, it was like that but a perfect shape, and evenly coloured. It looked for all the world like a Land of the Rising Sun bandana, without so much of the bandana.

Over the next few days, I believe he became rather weary of the looks, the pointing, the sniggering, and most of all the explaining, particularly why oh why would someone want to affix a half squash ball to his forehead. And now I've spent an entire post explaining his name, and not writing the post I intended. You'll have to wait for the stickiness another time...

Tarking around

2006-08-28T21:53:00.000+01:00

They're Tarka mad round Barnstaple way. They've got Tarka holiday parks, Tarka housing developments, Tarka pubs, Tarka abso-bloody-lutely everything. Oh, and the Tarka Trail - a 180 mile figure of eight trail round some rather nice bits of Devon, with a 30 mile section of tarmac covered old railway line between Braunton and Meeth. Last time Tallboy and I were down that way, visiting his sister, we resolved that come the next Bank Holiday, we'd walk that 30 miles. I researched the trail on the web, read the guidelines for walkers and cyclists, printed out maps and bus timetables and worked out various distances and timings depending on walking speed and so on. This weekend was the Bank Holiday, and down to Devon we went.

Guidelines for Weevil and Tallboy (part I)

1. Look miserably at the weather forecasts. Believe them. On no account pack any sun cream.

2. Weevil should spend most of Friday concerned at the prospect of driving down the M5 on the busiest Bank Holiday of them all. Her apprehension should compel her to forget to remind the Lanky Herberts that Monday will be a Bank Holiday, and that their attendance that day is not required. In fact she should go so far as to say to them as they leave work 'See you Monday, then!'

3. Amaze yourselves by arriving at Tallboy's Sister's a) in good time and b) dry

4. Amaze hosts by getting up bright and early on Saturday morning, more than ready for the off.

5. Weevil should pack a pair of proper walking boots (cast-offs from Mum). Tallboy should wear his old steel toe-capped boots which have no insoles.

Guidelines for Dog Walkers using the Tarka Trail

1. Please ignore the red receptacles placed at regular and frequent intervals along the trail. Although they can be used for disposal of dog faeces, such use is entirely optional. And only for boring squares, to be honest.

2. Encourage your dog to defecate on the trail itself. Avoiding the turds adds interest to an otherwise boring walk or cycle ride. Your fellow trail-users will thank you!

3. If you are particularly proud of your dog's offering, why not try bagging it up in a nappy sack. Don't be tempted to place it in the bin though, by discarding it on the verge you will ensure that it fails to biodegrade like all the other unprotected turds and will remain proudly there for ever.

Guidelines for Cyclists on the Tarka Trail

1. Ignore the other rogue guidelines published elsewhere. They are simply a subversive attempt to penalise cyclists with unnecessary regulation.

2. Contrary to the other guidelines, on no account slow down as you approach walkers. Frankly, if they dare to walk on your trail, they deserve to be spooked.

3. When overtaking walkers, judge the clearances finely. Anything more than half an inch is just sloppy.

4. Ring your bell when approaching walkers, especially from behind? Only if you're a five year old with a new bike with a shiny new bell. Making walkers jump by speeding past them from behind with a clearance of less than half an inch will add interest to their day.

5. It is your cycleway. Ignore repeated instructions posted along the path requiring you to give way to pedestrians. It's clearly a leg-pull.

6. Liberate yourselves. On the road, you are subject to the tyranny of car drivers. On the trail, you are king. Wield your wheely power over the puny two-legs.

7. Safety first - always bring your cycling helmet with you. If you don't want to wear it on your head, no problem. We suggest that you fasten it securely around your handlebars and ride proudly along with it dangling uselessly in front of the bike.

Guidelines for Weevil and Tallboy (part II)

1. You might feel that you would benefit from attaching one of those orange plastic keep-away-from-me-you-car-driving-bastards pennants (much beloved of cyclists in the 80s and 90s) to your rucksack at about hip height.

2. Do not jump out of the way, tugging forelock and bowing low from the verge as cyclists three and four abreast attempt to pass you. Firm in your belief in the guidelines for cyclists which state that you have right of way, stand your ground and enjoy the venomous looks as they have to shuffle themselves into single file.

3. Stifle the urge to draw a lady cyclist's attention to her RPL (Risible Panty Line) by shouting 'Whaletail!' as she disappears away up the track in front of you.

4. Weevil should try to avoid dampening her boot when taking a wee break behind a bush by the side of the trail.

5. Screw up eyes and lean forward for the three mile stretch up the side of the estuary into the prevailing wind. Notice the sunshine and blue skies but feel cold in the wind and think nothing of it.

6. Amaze yourselves by arriving at your destination (after 15 and a half miles) two hours before the earliest possible arrival time you had envisaged. Celebrate by hopping onto a bus and heading off to Westward Ho! (the only English placename to contain an exclamation mark?) to have an ice cream from the van at the sea front. (Seriously, if you get the chance, have one. Fantastic locally-produced ice cream finished off with a dollop of clotted cream. Ah shush, we deserved it.)

7. Amaze your hosts by arriving back at theirs several hours before they envisaged, having done several miles more than they envisaged, and having consumed one ice cream each more than they envisaged.

8. Weevil should experience no problems with stiffness or blisters. Tallboy should complain of stiffness in his calf muscles, sore hips, and a painful right sole.

9. Wonder, over dinner, at the pinkness of both your countenances. Realise that you have a touch of sunburn. Weevil might like at this juncture to point out to Tallboy that his crows' feet remain pasty white as his sunburn was sustained with his eyes screwed up. Tallboy might like to peer in the mirror to examine his face, note the radiating white lines, smile broadly, turn to Weevil and say 'I'm a tiger! Grrrr.'

10. Plans for walking another 15 miles the second day should be radically altered when Tallboy admits on waking that he doesn't feel up to it. Start the walk five and a half miles away from your destination instead.

11. Half a mile into the second day's walk, Weevil should regret her oft-uttered desire to see a mole in the wild. She should revise her desire to signify her wish to see a live mole in the wild.

12. Tallboy should hobble progressively more and more as the walk goes on.

13. Weevil should attempt to avoid dampening her trousers when taking a wee break behind a bush by the side of the trail.

14. Upon returning to base after a mere five and a half mile walk, Tallboy should remove his right boot to display a blister the size of France on the sole of his foot.

15. Abandon any plans for walking on the third day given the tragically huge levels of injury to Tallboy.

16. Set off home earlier than intended, calling in at Poppy's to see the Steps on the way home.

17. Weevil should check her phone after two hours on the road to notice a text from Horace the Happy Hacker an hour an a half previously saying 'Am I missing something? There's no one else here...' and realise that he has turned up for work. Respond, telling him it's a Bank Holiday. Receive accusation (strenuously denied)that she set it up on purpose. Regret not having set it up on purpose.

The girl with kaleidoscope eyes

2006-08-25T12:49:00.000+01:00

Mum and I had a little girly trip last night. She came down to stop overnight before spending the weekend walking part of Offa's Dyke with Brummie Stepdad, and with the Sun staying at his dad's, I took the opportunity to sneak into Bristol with her for a couple of hours after work.

As we made our way out of the car park, she asked me where she could find an outdoors type store. I reeled off a couple of places where one might be, and asked what it was for. A compass, she said, for the walk.

I spent a happy nose-scintillating quarter of an hour in Lush while Mum hunted for an outdoors shop with no luck. Fortunately she got back in time to be seduced by one or two little items; I joined her in the queue, having previously resolved not to buy anything, just to sniff. Ah, well...

We headed off to the Bristol branch of my new favourite make up counter. I wanted to ask for some advice about colours to try; I know what I like, but I'm pants at knowing if they suit me. I have, I'm pleased to say, graduated past the 'applied by a three year old' look. My daily slap looks like it was crafted by at least an eight year old nowadays. Mum decided she would go off and look again for an outdoors shop; I directed her unerringly to a part of Bristol which has been demolished for months. A nice young lady came to help me and, having studied my face intently for what felt like hours, decisively picked up several pans of eyeshadow in shades which I would never have picked up in a million years. Seeing the uncertainty on my face, she asked me which I would have gone for. I pointed them out petulantly, and she told me in her soft Welsh accent that they wouldn't do anything for my eyes. 'They're too cold,' said the Welsh Wonder. 'You need warm colours, like these. They will bring out the blue in your eyes.'

At this point, I experienced a feeling akin to the whole world dropping away from me whilst being struck on the head with a large, heavy, but suitably padded mallet. You see, for the past nearly-but-not-quite four decades, I have believed my eyes to be green. 'Seriously?' I asked her. 'Tell me again what colour you think they are?' 'Blue,' she said with assurance. 'Why, what colour do you think they are?' 'Er, they're green. Aren't they?' 'Well, if you wear purple lots that will bring out the green in them, but I think they're blue.' I peered in the mirror, doubting myself to my core. They bloody well looked green to me.

I recovered my composure enough to perch on the stool by the window for my makeover. Five minutes into the primpage, I opened my eyes as directed and noticed that Mum was back, hanging on at the periphery. 'OK then,' I said to the Welsh Wonder. 'Let's ask this unknown bystander what colour they are. Excuse me, what colour would you say my eyes were?' 'They're blue, dear,' was Mum's unhesitating response. I do have to admit that when the Welsh Wonder had finished and I was gazing closely (nose touching the glass - spectacles off) at my reflection, I could see a teeny weeny hint of bluosity in my overwhelmingly green eyes. I shall be spending the weekend mostly asking people what colour they think my eyes are.

To help me recover from the shock, we decided to nip up to Clifton for some tapas. As we made our way back to the car park, I asked if she had managed to find a compass. No, she confirmed, no luck anywhere. I remembered that Tallboy had a Silva compass hidden away somewhere - might she like to borrow that? 'No, I want to get one for myself. Anyway, Tallboy showed me his earlier. It's not as big as Brummie Stepdad's so I don't want it.' Well, quite.

Chatting over tapas, we relaxed and joked. And in the course of a conversational thread I can't now recall, Mum admitted that she had once, having been decorating until two in the morning in a frenzied attempt to finish off my brother's bedroom, got to such a point of exasperation with my dad that she let him have it in the face with a fully laden paste brush. As I hooted, she looked at me and said sternly, 'Here, I'm not proud of it, you know!' I'm sorry Mum - you've given me an image that makes me smile whenever I think of it, and which I will never, ever, ever forget...

Pesky's problems persist

2006-08-17T17:47:00.000+01:00

Poor little Pesky; she's no better, in fact she's a bit worse. Er, I think I'd better post the 'if you're eating while reading this, then stop one of those activities 'til you've finished the other one' type warning. I know cats can have the odd tummy upset, but she's still got it, so it's time to worry. Tallboy caught her throwing up in Methane Boy's room this morning, so this afternoon off she and I trotted to the V.E.T.

I managed to get her into the basket on only the second attempt - a record, I believe. Leaving her encaged and slightly enraged, I took a plastic bag and a towel out to the car and covered the seat in case of accidents. After what happened to the Ex that time, I'm not taking any chances, even if she's not on my lap.

We made it to the Vet's just in time for the appointment, which gave us forty minutes to sit and wait and watch before we were eventually called. There was a little fluffy dog (I'm not so good with breeds) which had half its tail shaved and some poorly looking stitches on it. I suppose it would have looked much less amusing if it had been the free waggy end of its tail which had been shaved; as it was, it was the bit attached to its bum that was bare, and this gave it the sad air of a wannabe poodle in much the same way that a desperately keen but dreadfully inexperienced transvestite manages to miss the mark by a hundred miles.

The next dog of note was a large Boxer (yep, I can recognise them) with an uncanny resemblance to Samuel L Jackson, remarkable not only for this but for its possession of three legs. The waiting room floor was a bit skiddy, which made its progress across the room rather erratic as he bounced around on his single back leg. I watched, hypnotised by the way it moved. And by the Samuel L Jackson thing too, obviously. As a child, I always thought boy dogs were very rude, what with their bits dangling all over the place, and I suppose a smidge of that childhood prudery has followed me into adulthood. When Samuel Boxer fetched up still for a moment, sideways on to me, I mused on how very extremely rude a three legged dog looks from certain angles, with no modest thigh in the way of the danglies... He was soon decorously lying down in the corner, but was up on his feet again in a couple of minutes when his other owner pulled up outside on a scooter and came into the waiting room. You could tell that he really really wanted to jump up to greet his dad, but his leg just wouldn't take it and he had to content himself with a bit of mad skipping and slipping instead.

Eventually we were called in and Pesky was poked prodded and probed from all angles, diagnosed and prescribed. Keen she was to get back in the basket when all that was over, and once I'd paid up I was soon strapping her back into the passenger seat in the car. As I pulled away, I was aware of an aroma on the edge of my olfactory range. I wondered if my caution with the plastic bag and the towel had been warranted, and turned to look at her. No, she wasn't weeing. She had shat. Mightily, yea and also runnily. Her back end was right up to the portcullis of her basket and with one well-aimed burst she could coat my arm. Panicking slightly, I nosed out into the rush hour traffic and tried to work out what to do. If I stopped, I'd only have to drive her home later, so that wouldn't solve anything. I just had to keep going.

Every single traffic light that could have been red, was. I limped home gently, talking soothingly to her, pausing only to swear when I saw her turn round in her basket and stand right in the crap. Oh brilliant. I had lowered my window at the first sniff, and as the journey progressed and the stench heightened, I felt obliged to open hers too. Stopping at the penultimate set of traffic lights, I turned to her and tried to calm her down. I made my normal 'kissy kissy' kind of noise to her (the one where if I do it behind his back, Tallboy thinks I'm coming on to him and turns round with outstretched arms only to discover to his embarrassment that I'm talking to the cat). The guy crossing the road in front of the car heard me, and gave me quite the look. I smiled back serenely and swept off before the smell caught up with him.

Once I had parked up at home, the tough thinking really started. I had to remove the cat from the basket in a controlled manner, clean the basket, clean her, keep her distress to a minimum, avoid getting too much crap on myself or my surroundings, and generally try to avoid heaving. It was a tall order. I decided that I would dump the basket in the kids' bath (complete with Pesky still on board). Then I grabbed some flannels, took off my nice top, found a spare bag and as a quick afterthought opened the 'Never open this window even in an emergency, it's a swine to close again what with the warped woodwork and broken fixtures' bathroom window to let some air in and (importantly) some smell out. I shut the door and opened Pesky's basket, restraining her from flight for all I was worth. I could see this being a repeat of the time I was painting the front doorstep and she trotted through the wet red paint then took fright at my horrified reaction and ran three times round the ground floor planting pawprints all over the bloody place. I mopped and wiped her little paws, making such little headway that in the end I was reduced to sluicing out her feet in a pot of water.

As I write, she's lying on her cushion in the kitchen, complaining very loudly that there isn't a bloody thing to eat, and what was all that business before with the bath and the water, and where's my food, and you can't keep me shut up in here, it's not fair. No mate, it might not be fair. It's just the most wipeable floor area in the house...

na-na na-na na-na na-na BATWALK!!

2006-08-16T22:04:00.000+01:00

It's been on the calendar for weeks now: 'August 16th, Batwalk'. We saw a poster advertising a Batwalk and Barbecue in the woods. Actually, that way round it sounds like you do the batwalk first, catch a plump one then head back to the sizzle pit. Probably better to call it a barbecue and batwalk. Anyway, it was all due to kick off at 7.30 with a barbie at the meeting place in the woods. I had no idea where exactly this place was, but Tallboy and I hatched up a cunning plan: we'd turn up at half eight when all the meaty stuff was over and done with, and we'd be able to locate the batty people by the noise they were making. Almost batlike, that plan.

So at half eight we're sat in the Brazil Nut's back garden talking about her brother in law's inflamed bowels. We managed to drag ourselves away after ten minutes or so, and walked through the gloaming to the woods, at the entrance to which we were presented with three options: left, right or straight on. I was confident that the meeting place couldn't be off to the right, and hadn't noticed one on our previous walks off to the left, so decided that we should head into the uncharted lands of straight on. We stumbled over tree roots and up unevenly-slanted steps. Tallboy got the worst of the overhanging branches; I was more into stubbing my toes. We probed further and further into the woods without seeing or hearing anyone else, and reaching a dead end, turned back a way then took another route.

Finally, we heard voices and saw some lights - there they were on the path all the way down below us. We tripped gently down another set of steep, adversely-cambered steps and peered through the gloom, trying to make out which was the quickest (and safest) route to join our fellow batwalkers. Some of them spotted our feeble glow worm light as we picked our way across the undergrowth, and turned their gazillion candle power uber torches to shine them in our faces. Thanks. No, really.

We slotted ourselves in to the straggling crocodile processing slowly through the woods and realised that we were right next to the Batleader. We earwigged an interesting conversation in which we learned that Pipistrelles will fly 2 km a night, while Horseshoes will go for up to 10. On colder nights they will only have an hour to catch their food, but when it's warmer, they can be on the wing for five hours. The bloke who had been talking to the Batleader dropped back behind us and struck up a conversation with his wife. 'Did you know the Pipistrelles will fly up to 2km a night?' It wasn't very interesting the second time round, so I amused myself by groping Tallboy unexpectedly in the dark and laughing at his attempts to avoid a vocal reaction.

At the end of the woods we gathered on the grass by the side of the road, peering into the sky like a bunch of UFO freaks waiting for the aliens to land. Several of the party were holding little black boxes in the air and we realised that this was a full-on hi-tech bat session - they had bat detectors. They chattered into life as a bat swooped above us, his ultrasonic clicks amplified and mutated so that our feeble ears could hear them. In between bat passes, the Batleader (who in the light turned out to be desperately gorgeous) told us about different kinds of bats.

I was particularly interested by his description of South American Vampire bats. Keen to dispel the myths, he told us how they really operate. Their targets are normally cattle, and they will land next to a bunch of cows, pick a likely target, and climb its back leg. Having reached the summit of mount cowji, they will then bite it on the bum, dabbing their tongue into the bite frequently to keep the blood flowing. Now, what with blood being huge amounts of water and little smidges of protein, the bats have to ingest a fair old amount to get any kind of goodness out of it. So they sit there on the cow's arse, dabbing their tongues in the bite wound, drinking the blood and getting rounder and rounder as they fill up. In fact they fill up so much that they have to let it out, so they sit there on the cow's arse, dabbing their tongues in the bite wound, getting rounder and rounder as they fill up, and weeing for all they're worth.

A time comes when they have had enough blood, at which point they fall off the cow's arse onto the ground. Unfortunately they are still sloshing around with blood and can't actually fly at this point, or do anything other than roll around sloshily on the ground and hope it doesn't get trodden on. As it rolls around in bursty fullness and hoof avoidance, it does the only thing it can - it wees. And wees. And wees some more. When it has wee'd enough to reach the point of floaty lightness, it heaves itself up and flaps off back to its roost. Not quite the satin-lined cloak elegance that we tend to expect from Vampires, I feel...

Returning back through the woods, we didn't see any more bats but heard detectors going off in front and behind, which was rather exciting. Pausing at the meeting place, which had of course been just a bit down the way had we taken the 'go left' option, we picked up a leaflet, learned about how cats think bats are the perfect plaything, and I ogled the gorgeous Batleader some more until it was time to make tracks. As I sit here typing, Tallboy has his head deep in our wildlife garden book, looking at how to build a bat box...

I wasn't aware she knew anyone called Ralph

2006-08-15T18:31:00.000+01:00

Pity poor Pesky; she has been prodigiously poorly. Actually, I ought to mention that if you're eating while you're reading this, you should probably suspend one of those activities until you have finished the other one. Just in case.

When Tallboy got home last night he found that the cat had been rather poorly. In the front room. And the hall. And the kitchen. He'd wiped up the solid stuff by the time I got back from the gym, but there was still a tell-tale ochre trail of bile-coloured dribbly droplets. The cat was looking very sorry for herself as she sat in the kitchen and watched Tallboy removing her wet food outside as a precaution. If there was something wrong with it, I imagine our dear Shouty Neighbours will have been making good use of a scrubbing brush today, given the alacrity with which their kitty polished it off.

I mashed up a new potato with a fork and set it down in front of Pesky, who sniffed it tentatively then tucked in with gusto. I stood, amazed, and watched her eat a vegetable. Well, there's got to be a first time for everything. I got a bowl of soapy water and attacked the hallway with the scrubbing brush. As I worked the suds vigorously into the carpet, the awful realisation dawned on me that the carpet was really quite blue, wasn't it? Now that it's dried, I can see we're going to need to hire one of those carpet cleaners one weekend in the not-too-distant future.

In the kitchen, cleaning was much easier, although Pesky when seized by her regurgitatory urges spectacularly failed to stand still and let nature take its course; the trail across the floor showed rather that she had crossed the kitchen, leaking all the while. Lovely. I got that clear too, and stood up when I got to the door so that I could see back across the floor and check I hadn't missed anything. The shame hit me as I saw a gleaming white path across a rather darker-looking background. Mops out this weekend as well then...

Later, I trotted downstairs to cook tea. As I hit the last step, I saw that Pesky had been ill again. This time her vomit target had been my mobile phone, lying innocently on the bottom of the stairs. Forlorn it looked now, covered with a little trail of semi-digested stomach contents. I picked it up gingerly with my fingertips and took it into the kitchen where I managed to clean it off notwithstanding my inability to look at it more closely than at arms' length. It's bad enough that it was covered with something else's vomit. It was nasty that some of it had trickled down inside the keys. It was vile that I was sure I could still detect the scent of it even after it was all sparkly clean looking. The worst, by far far far the worst of it (for my vegetarian sensibilities at least) was that those semi-digested stomach contents consisted of meat.

She seems a lot better today. There were no manky puddles when I got home from work tonight, and she's eaten a reasonable amount so it all looks good. I did pander to her a little, cooking up a little pot of spaghetti for her. I reasoned that if she still felt a little tender in the tummy, something plain and bland would be good, and I knew she likes pasta. Whenever I cook pasta, I can't resist sneaking a crunchy nibble of uncooked pasta for myself. I can't help it. As soon as I crunch down on it, Pesky hears the crack and makes a beeline for my feet, where she sits, mewing insistently, until she is given some for herself. I break off the end of a stick of spaghetti, or crush a shell and put it down for her. She loves it, and pesters me for more, more, more - I never give her much, it would swell up inside her and be horrible. So tonight, she tucked into her cooked spaghetti with enthusiasm, a sight to bring a tear to any Italian's eye.

As I watched the spaghetti in the bubbling pan, a memory was triggered for me. I'd broken it up into tiny lengths so that she would be able to manage it, and looking at the pile of broken spaghetti, I recalled my many brave encounters during my teenage years with a large Vent Axia fan, armed only with a stick of uncooked spaghetti.

This is a hold up

2006-08-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

Total weight loss to date is now standing at a staggering 7 stone 9 lbs. As I type this, I find it hard to believe. Down by my side are 48 bags of sugar - a visible, tangible representation of the mass that has dropped off me. 48 kilograms, now sitting on the floor as I began to fear for the shelf on which I had previously been stacking them. I couldn't possibly lift them up all at once; I used to carry that mass around with me all the time... Tallboy has also lost weight - the new healthy eating regime has worked wonders for the extra three stone that he used to lug around with him.

The inevitable consequence of this for both of us has been a distinct loosening of the waistband. Tallboy has been busily punching extra holes in his belt but had to admit defeat when even this didn't help. As he rides his bike to work, he takes his work trousers in his panniers and changes out of his leathers when he gets there. He admitted to me this evening that he took in a pair of his biggest trousers with him today, but forgot his belt. He tied a piece of string through his belt loops to keep his trousers up, and kept his overalls on all day so that no one saw...

I've had to get creative with the waistband restriction devices too. I've tried:

The obvious approach - needle and thread. Works OK with some skirts but not with others, and isn't easily adjustable.

The quick-fix approach - safety pins. Reasonably secure and easy to apply. Tend to rust when forgotten about and allowed to go through a wash cycle.

The oh-crap-I-need-something-now-it's-falling-down-oh-crap-oh-crap-oh-crap - a bulldog clip. Fantastic in an emergency, secure grip, tends to dig in a smidge after a while.

The perfect solution - wearing smaller clothes. This may seem rather obvious but over the course of six months I was dropping a dress size every six weeks. I can't afford to buy a whole new wardrobe every other month. Mum was really kind and came up with the solution - she galloped to my rescue with a Red Cross Clothes parcel containing about a gazillion of her old clothes.

It's been a bizarre experience being dressed exclusively in someone else's clothes. I'm sure Mum would be the first to admit that we don't necessarily share the same taste in styles, colours, fabrics and so on. Unpacking the bulging bags, there were times I looked at the garment in my hands and thought 'Eek, no, I couldn't!' only to find myself gloriously wearing it a few weeks later and looking brilliant in it. I've been without any clothes in my beloved purple, and it has felt very weird to be a purple free zone. Fortunately my aura is deepest heliotrope.

I've been wearing T-Shirts emblazoned with someone else's travels and memories. 'Been to Lanza-grotty then?' asked one of the caretakers. 'Er, no,' I responded, thrown slightly, and went on to explain. In the end, it would have been easier just to have said 'Yes'. I've been going to the gym with Canada geese, Canada bears, Canada wolves and so on plastered across my chest. I've been waiting for someone to strike up a conversation about Toronto, but it hasn't happened yet...

Two Take Tea in Sodbury

2006-08-11T18:41:00.000+01:00

Now, I have met up with internet weirdos before. The first one I ever met up with gave me a cucumber. And there's nothing on this planet that would induce me to reveal to you what the second one gave me. I'm a sensible girl though, I let people know what I'm doing, where I'm going, who I'm meeting. You can't be too careful, you know; there are some strange people out there in internet land.

Which is why I had the police in Chipping Sodbury on high alert as I waited outside the Town Hall at 1.30 this afternoon to meet a 54 year old mother of three (and fellow forumite) for a cup of tea. I'll call her Mother of the Bride as that's what she soon will be...

It's at times like this when my appalling inability to recognise faces is a huge obstacle. I find it really hard to recognise people even if I've actually met them before - and if the person in question is outside their usual surroundings, then it's abandon hope time. I'd seen a photograph of MOTB on the forum and was kicking myself as I stood waiting that I hadn't been studying it as a quick refresher before I left the house. As it turned out, I had no trouble recognising her - as she approached she waved hugely at me and said 'Hello!'. No worries.

We trotted over to Poppy's Tea Rooms to find them bursting at the seams so made a calculated retreat and went for a wander up and down the High Street instead. I haven't wandered up and the High Street for some time - I tend to just dive into whichever shop I need - so it came as quite a surprise to see the thousandfold increase in shops purveying knick-knackery around there. I mentioned the tattoo parlour round the corner to MOTB but she was already launching herself into the nearest Charity Shop.

Quick digression to mention the tattoo parlour - no, I've never been in there, thank you very much. I was aware, some years ago, of a 4x4 driving round the area, branded with the legend Tat-2-U. I had no idea what it might be, until inspiration struck and I realised it was a clever extension of the Reginald Perrin 'Grot' idea - we sell tat to you, something like that. It was only much later on that I realised it was a Tattoo place...

We wandered the street, chatting. We snuck into the Catholic Church and had a little recce. We looked in the other Charity Shop which was doing a BOGOF on books (bargain!). We popped into the Cake shop so MOTB could hire a 12" square cake tin (she's going to have to hire a crane to lift the finished cake). We went into the wedding shop, marvelling loudly at the dresses and under our breath at the prices. We went back to the Tea Rooms to find them still full but we negotiated with a single lady taking up a four setting table and plonked ourselves down.

We chatted some more, ate lunch, drank tea. Oh, and chatted. It was great fun, she was a lovely lady. I signed to the plainclothes police officer stationed outside that it looked like everything was OK and he could stand down now if he wanted to. We chatted some more, then suddenly the place was full of elderly people. On an outing, possibly. Or a mission. Instantly there were no vacant seats in the place as they settled down where they could in a neat synchronised fashion. Mid-sentence, MOTB tailed off and flashed me an agonised look. 'Actually, it's probably time to go now,' she said greenly, then mouthed 'SMELL' at me. Bursting out into the fresh air, she explained that the dear old thing who had chosen to sit next to her was decidedly unsavoury and rather high. Ah well, I was only getting a gentle talc and lavender combination from the one next to me...

So there you go - they're not all mad axe-wielding weirdos out there. Some of them are jolly nice. Even if they are stinky-old-people-magnets...

Five Go Mad in Sodbury

2006-08-07T12:27:00.000+01:00

We had the Cossack over for dinner on Saturday. He turned up on his thumping great bike, unloaded bottle upon bottle of wine from his panniers, kicked off his boots, stuck his slippers on, and adopted his position of choice. This is normally with his face about six inches behind my right shoulder. 'I could watch you all day!' he proclaims, Welshly. He seems to like watching me cook almost as much as he enjoys eating the end product.

While I was kneading like a dervish, the phone went. Dripping nuggets of dough, I answered, slightly tetchily. It was Ducati Dave, after a lend of one of our tools. I told him the Cossack was there, and he said he'd be over directly. I asked if he'd had his tea? No, he hadn't. So I invited him too. We had a fantastic evening - one of those spontaneous times that happens every now and then.

The next morning I filled everyone with a cooked breakfast (whilst nibbling daintily on a small bowl of fruit myself). 'Fancy a walk?' I asked the Cossack, when he'd had a chance to start digesting. 'Ooh yes, lovely.'

Tallboy, the Cossack and I strode off into the sunshine on a route carefully designed to take in sights close to the Cossack's heart: elderberry-laden hedgerows, brambles heavy with fruit, babbling brooks complete with dancing damselflies, placid ponds, an interesting churchyard for poking around in and Woolworth's DVD department.

Between the babbling brook and the churchyard was a park. We crossed the grass, rising up a little hill, and relishing the play of the warm sun on our faces. It was deliciously perfect. 'We're like the Famous Five, going on an adventure,' said the Cossack. 'Except that there's three of us.' The Famous Three didn't have the same ring at all. We decided to compromise and include my chest as the fourth and fifth members of the gang, just for correctness' sake. At the corner of the park, immediately before the churchyard, was a kids' play area. 'Oooh!' I exclaimed, remembering. 'The Ex and I brought the Sun here once. You see those spikes over there, you sit on them and spin round and they don't half make you dizzy. We put the Sun on one and span him a bit and when he got off he fell over...'

The metal tubes sticking proudly up into the air, topped with gentle items like a crescent moon, looked innocuous enough, and the Cossack and Tallboy ridiculed my assertion. 'Right!' I marched into the unoccupied play area and pointed at the seat of the first one. 'Hop on, then!' After spending a moment spinning one round from the safety of dry land, and commenting on the quality of the bearings, Tallboy put his money where his mouth was, and I gave him a spin. Well, a sort of spin. His legs are substantially longer than the average five-year-old's and I was only able to get him going once he'd brought his knees up to ear level. After half a dozen spins, he staggered off woozily. 'Blimey,' he managed. 'I didn't expect it to be that vicious. Here, Cossack, you have a go!' The Cossack sat on the next one and I span him too, with the same results.

I looked up, and saw at the very end of the play area the King amongst apparatus: The Tyre. Dangling by chains from the middle of a huge tripod, it spins the poor captive wedged in the middle of the tyre at huge speed, whilst allowing for huge and erratic lateral motion. I've always loved these. I skipped over and jumped aboard, Tallboy running behind me - this was far too good an opportunity for him to miss. He grabbed the tyre hard and span me round and round till I squealed, then pushed the tyre sideways with a hefty heave. After that it took on a life of its own, swinging and spinning like a thing possessed. I'm rather afraid I screamed like a girl. Eventually, Tallboy took pity on my green-faced whimpering and stopped the tyre. With my eyes tight shut and my inner ears addled, it felt like I was still flailing around the place and it was a minute or two before I was able to regain my feet. 'That was ghastly,' I said to the boys. 'I loved it!'

After the delights of Woolies, we headed up a back street to the High Street in Chipping Sodbury, passing under a Horse Chestnut which was already dropping unripe little conkers the size of ping pong balls (but spikier). I kicked one down the road; it came to a little stop near the gutter. When Tallboy caught up with it, he hoofed it a bit more, and the three of us proceeded along the street kicking it along in front of us. Things got a little hairy when we reached the High Street where our path was to take us straight across the road. Clearly, the unwritten rules of the game wouldn't allow us to pick it up, so, looking left and right as carefully as if he himself were about to cross the road, Tallboy lined up the shot and booted the conker safely over before we joined it a minute later. The game ended when it was my turn to kick and I refused as it was in a nettle bed and I had sandals on.

As we made our way on the walk, Tallboy and I amused ourselves by catching 'fairies'. When I was little, this is what we called the floating thistledowny seeds that are lifted and wafted by the gentlest of breezes. As a child, I found them so hard to catch - rubbish hand/eye co-ordination coupled with a youthful enthusiasm which managed to build up a shockwave of air as my hand approached the fairy which was enough to push it out of my way. I had more success this time. The Cossack just shook his head.

I'd better go now, Tallboy wants to show me this wizard den he's made in the back garden...

Weevil under the doctor

2006-08-02T22:06:00.000+01:00

Talking of gorgeous men, let me mention my doctor. He's also very delicious, he of the sympathetic mien and the chocolatey voice. I've been seeing him quite a bit recently; he's keeping an eye on my weight loss (7 stone 5lbs so far, thanks for asking) and over the past few weeks I've had armfuls of blood taken for tests because I've not been quite the ticket.

The good news is that my liver and kidney function are fine, my cholesterol is 3.3 (which, apparently, is fine). The less than good news is that I am light in the metal department and need to take iron and zinc supplements to help while I am on a restricted diet. The even less good news is that I am pants at swallowing tablets. My daily regime now includes:

First thing

Large orangey vitamin C tablet which is nearly impossible to swallow but which I refuse to break in half because, although that makes the halves easier to swallow in themselves, it means an extra swallow in total.

Medium sized white iron tablet

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Lunch time

Medium sized white iron tablet

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Evening

Large orangey vitamin C tablet which is nearly impossible to swallow but which I refuse to break in half because, although that makes the halves easier to swallow in themselves, it means an extra swallow in total.

Medium sized white iron tablet

Teeny zinc coloured zinc tablet

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Just before bed

Two unpleasant-looking Ayrtons to counteract the combined effects of the above

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I swear I rattle when I walk...

He's a Wireless Wizard...

2006-08-01T20:03:00.000+01:00

We're going wireless at school. When the teachers come back after the holidays, they will be taking registers with neat little handhelds. None of your old fashioned pen and paper malarkey. A few months ago, a rather nice Wireless Engineer came to do a survey of the school to determine how many wireless points we'd need, and where, and (importantly) how much. He was awfully gorgeous and I was rather jealous of Baldrick who got to spend time with him going round the school. After the Gorgeous Wireless Wizard left the premises, I sat at my desk sighing deeply. 'He's rather gorgeous, isn't he?' Baldrick didn't share my opinion but noted my hankering.

Towards the end of last term, Baldrick became slightly impatient with my constant prodding. We knew what we would need to do over the summer (you'd be amazed what we can get done while there's no-one there) but hadn't planned who'd do what and when. We were both aware that I had a week off, then he had a week off, then I had a week off - but until the afternoon of the penultimate day of term, I was the only one who'd realised that this meant a trial separation of our work marriage of three weeks' duration, hence my need to have stuff planned as we wouldn't see each other. I printed out several months' worth of calendar so that I could annotate as we went, and we divvied up the jobs and tried to schedule them as well as we could. Baldrick noted with a wry smile the dates for the installation of the wireless network and the fact that my first day back to work would see me meeting the GWW again and helping him commission the new network. Gleefully I noted down GWW's name against yesterday's date, and as much to wind up my work husband as anything, I drew a little purple heart next to his name.

It must have made more of an impression than I thought, for as Baldrick was shutting up shop prior to his week on the continent, he sent me an update email which closed with a reminder that GWW would be in on Monday and an injunction to 'Enjoy!'. Well, quite.

I was a little delayed on my arrival back at work yesterday, and I anxiously enquired of the Lanky Herberts (who now comprise Lanky Herbert 01 and Horace the Happy Hacker, Lanky Herbert 02 being in Borneo trying to evade being mistaken for an Orang Utang) whether they had seen a gorgeous network engineer. 'Er, there were these two blokes who didn't look that gorgeous. And they were in that van that says 'Air conditioning servicing' on the side. And they were looking at the aircon in here. No, probably not them, then.' 'Anyone else?' 'Er, yeah, this other guy was wandering around with a clipboard.' 'Well, was he gorgeous?' 'Not as such, no. About sixty, with a large white beard.' 'Not him then, phew...'

GWW turned up a little while later, still gorgeous. 'Baldrick around, is he?' he asked. 'Nah, Hungary.' 'OK, we'll see him after lunch then?' He spent the day trotting backwards and forwards, firing up the wireless points. Occasionally he would trot back and ask for the stepladders, or a key to a cabinet, or access to some remote and locked part of the building. I was happy to help. As we made our way over the car park to the furthest point of school, I rued my decision to wear my farting sandals - with the hard, sculptured base that just fits the sole of my foot. For some reason this means that air gets trapped between my foot and the sole of the shoe, and then squirts out in a very realistic wind breakage impression. I cringed every time it happened, and was too embarrassed to explain that I wasn't farting, it was my shoes, honest...

We didn't manage to finish the job yesterday, so he said he'd be back in the morning (be still my beating heart). After he had left, I told the Lanky Herberts in a sad voice: 'He has a girlfriend'. 'Yes, and you have a husband!' came the indignant response. I told them about my farting shoes, and wondered whether it would be better to wear some non-farting shoes the next day. Or would that just make it look like I had been flatulent the day before? I was in agonies of indecision. Still, at least that gave me a glimpse of what it's like to be Tallboy...

This morning, for some insane reason, I chose my other sandals which fart worse than the first pair. I was braver though - as we walked across the quad and my parpy shoes struck up, I said rather lamely 'It's my shoes, you know, the noise...' 'Oh,' he said, and that was that. We spent a couple of hours touring the school, checking wireless coverage, exclaiming over dropped ping packets, comparing signal strength and so on. In one of the classrooms my shoe let out a riproarer - with a lopsided grin he said 'The shoes, right?' Why, oh why do I blush so easily?

Back in the office, he needed to print out the work sheet so that I could sign it off. Could he use my machine, please? I vacated my seat and as he sat down felt the icy hand of doom tighten around my heart.Those calendar sheets that I printed out and annotated and had been referring to - they were in a pile right in front of my keyboard. Yes, those sheets, the ones with his name and little hand-drawn heart next to it. Had he seen it? Could he see it? 'Oh, let me get that rubbish out of your way,' I breezed, yanking them from under him and bundling them away in the corner in a surprise manoeuvre which may perversely have served to draw his attention to the traitorous entry even more closely.

I explained this to the Lanky Herberts after the GWW had gone. I don't think I've ever seen Lanky Herbert 01 laugh so much before. Oh yes, I have. That was the afternoon before, when I explained about my farty shoes...

It's a long way to get to Romsey, it's a long way to go...

2006-07-31T22:04:00.000+01:00

So, a couple of days before our holiday, Tallboy and I are planning our route to Romsey. I reach for the Road Atlas, Tallboy grabs the TomTom Go and punches in the postcode. The majority of the route is our normal road towards regular destination Ringwood - I decide which way I think is best from the map, Tallboy decides that we'll use the TTG. 'Look,' he says, 'it's only 80 miles and will take us 2 hours 33 minutes.' The night before we go, Tallboy decides to input our day out destination into the TTG ready for when we need it. He rather likes the TTG...

Sunday afternoon we load up the car and pile in. Tallboy suckers the TTG to the windscreen with Oliver Hardy-esque smugness and precision. He'd have done that tie-fingering thing too, had he been wearing one... The TTG took us south towards Bath and then directed us in exactly the opposite direction we would normally have taken. We glanced at each other and agreed that we would have faith in the little magic box. As Tallboy negotiated the roundabout, I peeped behind me and checked that the Road Atlas was in its usual place (in the rear offside footwell so that the kids can really trample it good without putting themselves out too much) in case of emergency directions requirements.

The TTG took us down a most unpromising-looking lane where we ended up at the tail end of a tailback. The cause of the holdup was an ancient-looking toll bridge, staffed by a brace of inept-looking herberts whose traffic management skills amounted to standing in the middle of the bridge, flapping their hands ineffectually and shrugging in a pseudo-Gallic manner. As we pulled away from the bridge and navigated back onto our normal route, Tallboy and I agreed that it would have been further to drive had we taken the old way. Quicker, and cheaper - but further...

I settled back into the passenger seat, knowing I wasn't to be called on to navigate as the nice lady told Tallboy where to go. We conjectured about the point where we would be diverted from our usual Ringwood route. I stood by my Atlas-planned route. Tallboy just showed huge faith in the TTG. So much faith in fact, that when we passed the point where I would have turned off, I quelled my worries, reminding myself that at Bath we had gone the opposite way I would have chosen and here we were happily on our way. Although Tallboy did start getting twitchy as we approached Ringwood, miles away from our destination. 'I'd have thought we'd have turned off by now,' he muttered, peering sternly at the TTG screen.

I mused a little. I wondered. I cogitated. I ruminated. 'Er, Tallboy dearest,' I enquired gently, 'did you actually set up the TTG to take us to where we're going, or is it just doing its default thing and taking us to the last destination you entered?' Tallboy's response said it all: 'Er...' The TTG was taking us to our day out destination for the next day (a little spot just near Ringwood), and not our accommodation. Wordlessly I reached for the Atlas, and glad to shake my brain out of its torpor, navigated us elegantly and stylishly to the door of what is possibly the most brilliant place to stay on the planet.

On the way back, we swung past Poole (Tallboy indulging me in my desire to make a pilgrimage to the home of Lush). At a roundabout just outside Poole we saw a lorry which had shed its load of steel girders. Blue flashing lights, policemen directing traffic, the works. The oncoming traffic was being diverted off the main road and the huge tailback of traffic that we passed had no idea what lay in store for it. We only sniggered a little.

Pilgrimage over, the TTG was asked to navigate us home. It all went swimmingly. Until we ended up at that roundabout. You know, the one with the lights and the lorry. Diverted we were, all off our route and everything.

'No matter,' said Tallboy lightly, 'she'll recalculate the route.'
'Please turn round, then take the roundabout, third exit'
'Nah, give her a minute, she'll recalculate.'
'Please turn round'
'Any minute now.'
'Please turn round'
'WE CAN'T BLOODY WELL TURN ROUND THERE'S A LORRY IN THE WAY!!!'
'Please turn round'
*click of mute button*

Later, when calm was restored, Tallboy noticed a brown sign. 'Ooh Badbury Rings, look.' A bit of a bonus that, rather off our route but very welcome nonetheless. 'Let's pull in, I'd love to have a little wander.' And we did. And it was fantastic - trees and Iron Age fortifications and a pond and dragonflies and cows and more butterflies than you could shake a curly antenna at. Perfect. In the middle of the clump of trees in the centre, Tallboy professed a need to wee. Looking around him in a semi-hunted manner, he ensured that the coast was clear before selecting his preferred shrub. Unthinking, I reached out my hand towards him, meaning to relieve him of his water bottle and leave both his hands free for the business in hand. He looked at me sideways and in somewhat petulant tones informed me 'It's all right, I can manage by myself, you know!'

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of Britain

2006-07-28T22:00:00.000+01:00

Tallboy and I have been on holiday. Two nights near Romsey in a rather spiffing little establishment, and very nice it was too.

The only problem with going somewhere you've never been before is that you're going somewhere you've never been before. Yes, there are such things as maps, but these rather nifty little items become rather redundant when it's Tallboy sitting in the passenger seat next to you. He's very good at identifying the former species of what is by now just a mangled lump of protein at the side of the road. Or commenting on the year of manufacture, number of downpipes, engine capacity, cylinder arrangement, transmission quirks and nicknames of the motorbike hammering down the road in front of us. Or gazing vacantly out of the window just at the point when he ought to be looking at the sign showing which exit of the horribly be-junctioned roundabout up ahead we should be taking in order to arrive at our chosen holiday destination.

It was a great relief when he bought his TomTom Go. Funnily enough, although I'm the techie of the family, it failed to move me much at all. But Tallboy was all fiddling and poking and charging and excitement. So what that he had to take it outside into the garden in the rain for it to actually get a signal. He remained excited; I, unmoved. And he made me remove the custom splash screen I created for it. I still fail to see what could be objectionable about a finely crafted bitmap image of a pair of purple Y-fronts appearing every time the gizmo was switched on...

It did mean, however, that the stress of driving halfway across the country for work did evaporate rather. Knowing that he would get where he was going alleviated the routefinding worry and left him able to concentrate through the whole journey on worrying whether he'd be able to fix the broken kit when he got there.

The comforting lady's voice has become Tallboy's constant companion on the road. He has learned her foibles and ways, and they have an understanding. As for me - she freaks me out. 'Prepare to turn left' she says, and I'm poised like an ocelot about to spring. 'Not yet,' says Tallboy, 'she means in 800 yards or so.' I can't cope with too-early instructions. They throw me.

Then there's the motorway problem. When you're going in a straight line, she doesn't give you any instructions. Not even a little bit of chatter: 'You're doing grand there, Weevil, keep it up' or 'Have you lost weight at all?' or 'Lovely day for it' or anything. So you're on the M5 and the whole bloody point of being on the M5 is that you can go squidloads of miles without turning off the road. I drive. I concentrate on the traffic. I swear at the morons. I forget that the bloody TTG is there. Until we're 800 yards away from our junction. All of a sudden, heartstoppingly, from nowhere, comes the voice: 'prepare to turn left'. 'Arrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhh!' I jump in my seat, I squeal in alarm, my heart pounds and to be honest it's likely that before long there's going to be a puddle in the driver's seat.

Er, this was meant to be a quick tale about our journey to Romsey. But I appear to have gone off at a little tangent. I'll tell you about it next time. In the meantime, perhaps I need a BlogNav?

'Prepare to pick up the thread.'
'Deviation ahead.'
'Cross the ramble-about, third exit.'
'You have reached the end of your post. Please remove all luggage and ensure the blog is securely locked when you leave it...'

Bog standard

2006-07-19T21:19:00.000+01:00

As well as escape, my focus at the weekend was also making the acquaintance of a new member of the Weevil clan - the Cartographer and the Planner have produced a lovely little girl who does not in any way resemble a gibbon as previously predicted by me.

In a stunning display of synchronised chaos, the Planette put in her appearance a week before the Cartographer and the Planner were due to move house. The Planner went into hospital from one house and left to the other. From the new Auntie's point of view, it was an admirable opportunity for a cuddle with her favourite niece and a poke round a new house. Bonus.

Visiting the handy cloakroom conveniently situated off the spacious entrance hallway, I was slightly taken aback to see that the obscure glazing in the window behind the loo wasn't really very obscure at all. Just a little fuzzy, kinda. Even more alarming, it was overlooked by Next Door. I found this desperately offputting - I really don't like feeling visible when about my business.

I suppose I have a thing about loos that aren't mine. If I have something stressful bubbling up in my brain, it often manifests itself in my standard 'worry dream' which consists of me, in a strange place, needing a wee and finding only a loo that doesn't have a full door or is overlooked or has a secret second door that I didn't spot and so on. I don't like loos that have little doors, open windows, doors too close to the loo so you have to squeeze in, doors too far from the loo so you can't bring an emergency wedging foot into play should the lock fail, loos with holes drilled through the door (like at college), loos with an occupied adjacent cubicle...

When I was 16 and had finished my O levels, I had to do two weeks' voluntary work - I ended up at the Dogs' Home, cleaning kennels, feeding pooches, looking the other way on Fridays when the condemned pups were taken through to the Putting Down Room and avoiding going for a wee if I could possibly avoid it. They had a perfectly adequate ladies loo. It was just that it was miles away from the door. And on my first day the all-knowing 17 year old had told me the lads liked to take the lock off from the outside, and I believed her. My overriding memory of that place is a constant feeling of pressure...

My arch-nemesis toilet was to be found at the home of my Best Friend At School: Shrimp. A large, many-storied property, the loo was just outside her bedroom door at the top of the first flight of stairs, separate from the bathroom. The hours I spent at that house, refusing offers of cups of tea, in dread at the prospect of using that loo. The door, you see, was a huge single pane of clear glass. It was like sitting down for a wee in a phone box without the benefit of the discreet BT signage. I used to only go if I really had to, and was as quick I could possibly be, trembling at the impending excruciating embarrassment if one of the family came up the stairs. This never happened, though my fear never lessened.

The last time I used that loo, as I reached to open the door to leave, I noticed the discreet roller blind mounted at the top of the door...

Weevil waxes musical

2006-07-18T20:53:00.000+01:00

I escaped last weekend - from Friday evening to Sunday morning I was a guest at the heavenly haven known as Mum's place - a gorgeous cottage in the Worcestershire countryside.

On Saturday afternoon, Mum was in bed having a leetle siesta, Brummie Stepdad was off at a Steam Fair and the dogs and I were sat in the garden in the sunshine. I was idly making a few jottings in my notebook and relishing the peace and tranquility surrounding me. As I sat there staring into space, the realisation dawned on me that it wasn't actually very peaceful at all, though the collection of background sounds ganged up to give that impression. What with the birds and dogs and so on, there was a veritable symphony happening all around me. To see it, you'll need to click here - it's the wrong shape to fit on this page...

Making up is hard to do

2006-07-09T22:02:00.000+01:00

Tallboy and I caught the Park and Ride into Bath yesterday. The day started well as we both jiggled excitedly in the car as we drove to Lansdown. 'I'm going to Lush! I'm going to Lush!' was my mantra, while Tallboy gleefully repeated 'I'm going on a bus! I'm going on a bus!" I guess we're easily pleased... Things deteriorated a little as the turning into the P&R place rather took Tallboy by surprise and we nearly went past it. And then we had a little tiff about what parking inside the bay really means. But in the end we made it onto the double decker and scrambled to the top deck to secure a place at the front for the best view.

It was a thrill-packed ride to Bath, round impossible corners and down vertiginous hills, our little white-knuckled hands clutching the bar as we lurched around in our seats. We staggered slightly as we alighted in Milsom street, anointed by the rain which had kindly started to fall to mark our re-entry onto Terra Firma. I grabbed Tallboy's hand and dodged round the bus, across the street and into the dry haven of Jollys. I looked round me and registered my presence at the makeup counter. A stroke of luck...

I hadn't actually mentioned to Tallboy but as part of the Weevil transform-a-thon (7 stone 1 lb lost so far and counting) I had planned to spend half an hour or so at the makeup counter, looking in bewilderment at the selection until a kind assistant whisked me away to make me up properly, revealing with a flourish an astonished and gorgeous reflection in the hand mirror to the hushed applause of half a dozen other customers overwhelmed by the amazing transformation. Or something like that. Trying to convey this on the spot was beyond me, so a suggestion that he wander off and avoid returning for half an hour or until earlier summons seemed to suffice.

Now, I performed quite well at the viewing extensive range of colours and products with bewilderment part. I've never been very good with makeup. I tried as a teenager and kind of gave up. The aim: sultry glamour. The outcome: third prize in free expression for three year olds with hand-eye co-ordination problems. My friends just seemed to touch the brushes to their lids and behold they looked wonderful. Mine looked lopsided and patchy and just pants really. Lipstick made their lips look luscious and pouting. Mine looked like I had been pigging out on jam doughnuts and had forgotten to lick my lips. How I envied their ability to make themselves look good. In the intervening years I had the occasional foray into makeup but it never looked right, I never felt comfortable with it on and I never stuck with it. I just didn't know what to do.

Now in front of me were eyeshadows and little brushes and pencils and medium sized brushes and lipsticks and pigments and big brushes and bottles with mysterious contents and tiny brushes and packages and well all kinds of unfamiliar stuff... Colours vibrant, muted, tantalising, offputting, smoky, pretty, scary, yukky, nice. Eek!

'Are you OK there?' came a little voice from behind my left shoulder. I turned gratefully to face her, er him, and started to explain what a numpty novice I was with makeup and how I fancied giving it a proper go as part of the Weevil transform-a-thon and could he please please help me? He steeled himself and said he'd give it a go. First he ran me through his look. 'Well, we've got Tangerine Acrostic over the brow, Savage Wombat to the crease, then I've got Asphodel Hamster blended into the socket and just a touch of Loulou la Web underneath.' 'Erk.' 'OK, you come here, take a seat, we'll try a daytime look for starters, here we go, a bunch of neutrals.' I sat there with my glasses off and eyes shut as he painted and dabbed and blended. He talked me through what he was doing, showed me what brushes he used for what and became the first person other than myself to apply mascara to my eyelashes (he did it a thousand percent better than any of my previous feeble attempts).

When he'd finished, he held up the mirror and I popped my glasses back on and peered in. No hushed applause. No glamorous reflection. Just me, looking tidy and nice. A subtle application that belied the effort that had gone into it. Something I could wear every day and feel nice in. But how could I be sure that I could reproduce what he'd done? I made him go over the brushes and their uses again. We rehearsed the order and location of application of the colours. He grabbed a lippy and suddenly my lips did look rather gorgeous and pouty. I was sold. The scary pile of makeup and brushes translated into an even scarier total on the till. What a mug I was going to feel if I couldn't use this stuff...

As I was about to attempt my barely-remembered credit card PIN number entry, my phone rang. Tallboy was wondering if he might come back yet? But yes, all finished this end. I met him in the street outside, and as he approached he smiled at me and bent his head to say in my ear 'You look lovely, darling.' He's not daft. Well, sometimes, anyway. He bent his head even more to plant a kiss on my lips but I turned my cheek. 'You can't kiss me! I've got lipstick on!'

When we got home I did something rather brave. I wiped off every trace of the beautifully applied makeup. And redid it all by myself, carefully unwrapping my three new mindblowingly expensive brushes, reverentially popping open my new little pots of eyeshadow, bracing my quivering hand to apply mascara and finally summoning enough courage to put my glasses back on and look in the mirror. Do you know, it wasn't bad, even if I say so myself. Later as I slaved over the cooker I realised that we were out of carrots. 'Just popping round to the Brazil Nut's,' I called as I zoomed out of the front door. Prefacing my request for some emergency veg with a bit of polite chatter, I mentioned where I'd been that morning. 'Oh yes, I can see you have some makeup on, very nice,' she dutifully replied. I told her about my makeover and took off my glasses so that she could inspect. 'Oh,' she said, impressed, 'he's made a nice job of your eyes.' 'Noooo,' I responded joyfully, 'it was meeeeeeeeeeeee!'

Skipping happily out of her front door with a whole bag of carrots (that's the best I've ever done there if you don't include the cucumbers from the greenhouse) I was so chuffed that I chased a clump of errant party balloons round her front garden. 'Happy 50th Birthday' read the legend. 'I don't want them,' she squealed. 'People will think they're for me!' I hooked them up on a vacant hanging basket bracket and they danced happily in the breeze. I turned at the front gate and raised my hand in a gesture as grateful as it was valedictory. 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY!' I shouted at the top of my voice and ran home, my pounding footsteps accompanied by a drawn out screech that registered at least 6.7 on the indignation scale...

Fair to Middling

2006-07-07T20:13:00.000+01:00

The Sun has been chirping mightily all week in anticipation of his School Fair this afternoon. At the stroke of 6 he was harrying me towards the door, sheepdog-like. I managed to evade him for long enough to nip to the loo, then off we went down the street, stopping only to call for the Brazil Nut.

The Fair was in full swing when we got there, balloons and horses and bouncy castles and stalls and coconuts and screaming children and everything. The Sun had a momentary options-overload moment of indecision then dived off into the fray in the general direction of the cake stall. The Brazil Nut and I wandered around casually, chatting about life and work and her poor aching feet, peering at the offerings over the heads of the children thronging the stalls. I parted with my first one pound fifty at the Tombola and came away with a soothing foot spray. The Brazil Nut pocketed that one quick enough, though I did manage to persuade her not to apply it there and then.

We visited other stalls but none had the lure, the draw, the potential wine-winnage of the Tombola and we soon found ourselves back there. Er, and once again a bit later. I can't help it, I like it the best...

So, as a dieting vegetarian my haul at the end of the Fair comprised:

a soothing foot spray - donated to the Brazil Nut's poor aching night-shift feet

two sachets each containing an fcuk deodorising wipe - cheers

a 400g bar of Galaxy chocolate - that's 38.2 calories a chunk you realise

a leather photo frame - eep

and

a tin of Tesco Value Meatballs - woop de doo

The piece de resistance had to be the third ticket I pulled out of the tub - it seemed somehow to set the scene for my chances of winning something decent. Ending neither in a winning 0 nor a victorious 5, my special ticket was number 666.

We're Doin' the Mozzie Dance

2006-07-03T21:31:00.000+01:00

OK so it's that time of year again. The boiling days. The sweltering nights. That time when it gets so bloody hot that you need to open the windows, even though you know this will allow the ingress of a) noise from the Shouty Neighbours shouting happily in their garden, b) smell from the Shouty Neighbours' crappy ducks, c) projectiles lobbed by ASBO-in-waiting Shouty Neighbour junior, or d) all of the above. Sadly, this also allows an entry route for the least welcome visitors to our pond: *pause for dramatic and foreboding music* ~~~~~~~ mosquitos.

As Tallboy and I made ourselves comfortable last night, just ready to drift off to sleep, a high-pitched buzz echoed round inside both our heads. 'It's a mozzie, isn't it?' enquired a sleepy sounding voice from my left. 'Uh-huh,' I replied, reaching for the lightswitch.

Like a well-oiled machine we each glided into our Mozzie hunting roles: Tallboy leaping out of bed and hefting his weapon of choice (a single sock) while I grabbed my glasses and lay out on my back, scanning the ceiling and walls for small black moving things. Needless to say the damn thing shut up at this point, and the scanniest scanning of the walls and ceilings revealed no trace of the little creature. There were a few false alarms, but they turned out to be the traces of previous squishings.

'Jiggle the curtain,' I suggested, from my vantage point. 'No, not that one, _that_ one!' He jiggled half-heartedly. 'Now try actually agitating the bloody thing instead of just agitating me!' Finally he drove the Mozzie out and I tracked its progress across the room. Pointing out its location I squealed like an excited three year old. Tallboy trotted across the room, poised for action. He wielded the sock and missed by a mile; he was so slow in the squishing that the Mozzie had an age to evade the Sock of Doom. I lost track of the Mozzie trajectory and instead watched Tallboy wandering aimlessly in search of the enemy.

'Hmmm?' I responded, aware that he had said something to me but that I had been too busy admiring his bottom to take whatever he had said on board. 'I said - where did it go? On top of the wardrobe do you think?' Quickly weighing up the relative benefits of a Tallboy perched on the end of the bed peering on top of the wardrobes and the view this would afford me, I agreed emphatically. 'Ouch!' he yelped as he turned his ankle trying to climb up on the end of the bed whilst slightly entangled in the duvet. Wimp. He made it on his second attempt. 'Can't see a bloody thing up here,' came a muffled voice from the dusty reaches of the North face of the Wardrobe. 'Lovely view from down here,' was all I could say...

Suddenly the noise started up again and we both cocked our heads to locate the source. There he was on the blinds. Tallboy dashed to apply the sock but he pulled his punch through fear of bending the cheapo Ikea metal blinds and the Mozzie lived to buzz another day. Gah! It was late, we were tired, Tallboy had to get up early the next morning, but there was no way we could sleep with that winged marauder making that noise in the room.

I caught a glimpse of movement as it traversed the bed and ended up high on the wall in the corner. This was my cue for more pointing and juvenile squealing. Tallboy crossed the perilous duvet-at-the-bottom-of-the-bed terrain and crept up on the resting Mozzie. Bunching the sock in his most menacing manner, he sized up the angle of attack and struck. What a blinder! Cheering to himself, he scraped the Mozzie remains off his sock and into the bin and returned triumphantly to bed, laying his sock (sans Mozzie, more or less) on the floor next to him, ready for the morning.

I turned off the light and snuggled under my sheet. 'Night darling,' came Tallboy's muzzy voice as he dozed off. In the stillness between wakefulness and sleep, I could hear a buzzing. Was it another bloody Mozzie or an echo of the ex-Mozzie interred in the bin, a ghostly insect presence to haunt my fitful... zzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Does this count as work adultery?

2006-06-29T20:20:00.000+01:00

So Baldrick announced to me one day last month that he had been busy working behind the scenes to arrange a week's swap with a techie from another school. Or, to put it another way, get me out of his hair for a few days. For one reason and another, the first arrangement fell through, but this week I've been seconded to the IT support department at the other school (and no swappage in sight).

Last Friday I logged off my machine, took a last look round the office, and took the long walk back across the car park to my bike for the last time in a little while. I said goodbye to Baldrick (or my work husband, as he has otherwise been dubbed, given the amount of time we spend in each other's company) as he got into his car, then zoomed home with a plume of blue smoke behind me. (It's OK, it's a two stroke.)

On Monday I turned up bright and early at my new place of work. A bit too early it turned out, as only one of my new work husbands was in yet. I settled myself down in a corner of the office, feeling strange in such unfamiliar surroundings. I presented WH No. 1 (Mr Claypole) with the tin of biscuits I had brought with me as a little giftie, then sat back and waited for something to do. WH No. 2 (the Cookie Monster) arrived and greeted me warmly though with a little panicked look in his eye. I thought it was just that I had beaten him in; turns out he was having a Type F reaction to the weight loss.

I've had a great week - seeing how things are set up in a similar but different environment, observing interactions, seeing other technologies at work, etc etc.

Highlights of the week include:

The presence of a TV (with a Sky feed) in the office.

The presence of an X-Box in the office.

The fact that their office is a converted cupboard too. Though it's about three times the size of ours...

The breaks for freedom in Cookie Monster's car at lunchtime down to the bakery, giving me ample practice at refusing naughty food.

The speed with which the tin of biscuits I took them disappeared.

The staff member who was so flustered when I answered the telephone (instead of either of the chaps who weren't there just then) that she couldn't speak to me and had to put the phone down.

The propinquity of the Ladies' loo to the office (as opposed to the cross-school trek I usually have).

Finding out that new school would be shut on Friday, and relishing for a second the thought of a sneaky day off as I was expected to be away the whole week. Don't worry, I'll be back at the old place tomorrow.

The excellent company of my new work husbands.

Joshing the staff member who will be attending a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace in the not too distant future but who is refusing to go for tails.

The sight of a car in the car park with slightly non-standard seat covers. 'Look,' sniggered Mr Claypole, 'she's got ladies' tops as seat covers.' Nonsense, I thought, she'll just have discarded her cardie over the seat or something. Peering in the direction of Mr Claypole's pointing finger, I couldn't contain an explosive laugh. Both front seats had been deliberately dressed in pink vest tops pulled down over the seat backs. It looked desperately bizarre. And hopelessly non-protective, if that was the intention...

And finally, the number one trumping-all-others experience has to be getting the high score in the intra-office Burnout challenge on the X-Box this afternoon. Over a million, I got - they didn't even come close...

Well, it got me thinking

2006-06-25T18:42:00.000+01:00

Tallboy and I were driving home from Barnstaple yesterday afternoon after a jolly little stay with his sister and her husband. As we drove out of town, I spotted a graffito on a bridge above us: 'OLD PEOPLE SHOULD BE SHOT AT BIRTH'.

This triggered an interesting little philosophical debate in my head. My first reaction had of course been amazement - not one spelling mistake. My second reaction was puzzlement - how had they managed to write it just there on the side of the bridge without falling off or getting the letter size wonky? Finally I got on to the philosophy.

I felt the unknown author was raising some provocative points here. Was he suggesting a belief in reincarnation? He wasn't suggesting that old people should have been shot at birth, but that they should be shot at birth; maybe his meaning was that this fate should befall them if born again?

Perhaps though he was just trying to write quickly to avoid falling to an early and strawberry jam-like death, and missed out the should have been bit. Is he therefore telling us that he himself does not expect to become old? If he will be old, he should have been shot at birth and therefore wouldn't be around to write what he did. But if he knows he will not become old, then he didn't need to have been shot at birth, so he was around and able to write on the bridge. I think I go with the second one here - someone who monkeys around on bridges without holding on with both hands is probably unlikely to see that many more birthdays...

Is he possibly suggesting a solution to our overcrowded planet and the problem of out of control consumption of scant irreplaceable resources? By shooting at birth all those likely to become old, would we be sparing the planet from the ravages of depletion?

Or could he be approaching the overcrowding issue in a Soylent Green kind of way? Old people should be shot at the birth of a descendant, thus making way for them?

Tallboy rudely interrupted my ontological musings. 'I know! I'll have this one at my funeral!' We'd been singing along to our ELO tape, and the jaunty strains of Mr Blue Sky were currently pumping out of the stereo. His little face was all lit up at the image of a coffin, a congregation and a CD player. Actually, it would be quite neat to watch people trying not to tap their feet and sing along... 'Sure thing, matey,' I responded. 'If I'm there, I'll play it.'

A few miles further down the road, enlightenment struck me. What the unknown author of the Barnstaple comment had been trying to communicate to me. Of course! It was as clear as anything now. I'm pretty sure it was something along the lines of 'I AM A MORON'.

Er, do I know you?

2006-06-21T22:15:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm 6 and a half stone down the weight loss road. My body has changed shape, my face has changed shape, my posture has changed, my self-image has changed, my self-confidence has er, well, let's just say I've got some now - I'm (from the outside at least) a different person. The reactions have been fascinating:

Type A:
'Yeah, you're not as fat as you used to be.' The brutally honest approach, as typified by Baldrick. A former fatty himself, he's been an incredible support and a mine of honest feedback. Recently I've been relying on him for fashion advice, secure in the knowledge that if it looks ridiculous, he'll tell me. I've had to coach him a little though - he hadn't even heard of muffin tops and whale tails (not, I hasten to add, that I have committed either of these fashion faux pas).

Type B
'OH MY GOD! Look at you! Amazing!' They've only just noticed the incremental change and act like it happened last night. They'll talk loudly and repeatedly about the weight loss, often summoning third parties to come and marvel too. Gratifying but ultimately wearing, entailing cheek-paining rictus smiling and so on.

Type C
'How did you do it? It's not fair, diets never work for me...' Usually a woman, on the sturdy side herself, and desperate for the magic bullet fat-melting pills that I must have been taking. 'I've been consuming less calories than I've burned' is my stock response. You should see their faces fall. 'So you mean I need to eat less and exercise more?' 'Uh-huh.' 'Oh...'

Type D
'Er, I really hope you don't mind me mentioning this, but, er, have you, er, lost weight at all?' They can see I have, but they feel delicate about asking. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe they think I'm ill and that's why I've lost the weight. Or maybe they're just utterly polite and think that by inference their noticing that I've lost weight is the equivalent of shouting 'Oh my god you used to be so fat!' I reassure that yes I have lost weight, deliberately, and then they turn into either b or c above.

Type E
'How much have you lost? How much do you weigh now? What's your BMI? What size clothes are you wearing?' Do you want my inside leg measurement as well? I don't mind a spot of polite interest but this is really taking things too far. A lady just doesn't divulge this kind of thing...

Type F
'Hi, how are you? Good, yes fine thanks. So, busy at all? Yeah, me too...' They fix you with their eye and you can see that going on in their head is a whirl of thoughts - 'Eek, what do I say? Do I mention the weight? No, I'll not say anything, see if she says something. Or should I? Help, I wish I'd never spoken to her...' I'm afraid I'm a bit mean with these - I just keep the idle chatter going.

Type G
'-' Many of the responses aren't even responses. I get ignored, because people just don't recognise me. At work, outside school, passing friends at the shop, callers to the door, visiting relatives... At the monthly bike meeting a couple of weeks ago, a section member took me to one side to congratulate me on my weight loss. 'As I got off the bike, I thought to myself, that woman over there is acting like she knows me. It took a moment or two to work out it was you.' Once I've attracted their attention and convinced them it really is me, these are my favourites.

A favourite question of any of the above groups is 'So I bet you've had a lot of fun buying new clothes?' to which the answer is no, I can't afford it. I've been dropping a dress size every six weeks and there's no way I can fund a new wardrobe at such short intervals. I've partially been wearing a selection of my huger stuff which is baggy but not unwearable. The other part of my wardrobe consists of a couple of Red Cross type Clothes Parcels from mum, who has donated a bunch of stuff which used to fit her but is now too big. The joy of buying a shedload of new stuff will have to wait until I reach my goal weight. But boy, am I looking forward to that day...

Welcome to Weevil's World of Timewasting

2006-06-19T22:11:00.000+01:00

Bonjour mes petits cochons d'Inde. Welcome indeed to another Timewaster, joining us today from the brilliant stable of Messrs. Anode and Cathode (home of the office, the house, the museum and the casino).

They've only gone and done it again, though this time with a little twist. Instead of waking up in an unknown place with a thick head and evidence of dodgy wrongdoing all around you along with muffled memories of a glamorous lady in a red dress, you are cast this time as a couple of schoolkids seeking to solve both the mystery of the theft of several of the artworks from a local museum and the non-fatal poisoning of your schoolteacher by some nefarious individual who likes to introduce narcotics into espressos. Er, there's another twist too. This one isn't actually translated at all, and some of the clues and dialogue are in French. Ah, don't be like that; it's not that hard, really.

A few pointers:

The dog you meet early on is telling you he might be able to help you, but only if you find him a battery. For the lamp on his hat.

You need to collect together all the bits of the artworks and replace them on their pedestals. You get an item you need each time you do this (you need five of these items to make up the requested potion to clean the painting).

No, I don't know where all the ghosts come from either.

Yes, the fish game was annoying and it took me several attempts to complete.

A 'sechoir' might look like the kind of thing a space alien might wear in his holster, but in actual fact it's a hairdryer. Probably cordless.

Click everything.

You need to get a potion before you can jump in the lake.

Yes, I enjoyed bashing the moles, too.

You need to dress the mannequin in what he was wearing before the theft: a helmet, some lights, a watch, and weird overall thingies.

As before, I'm far too mean to post a walkthrough, but if you're stuck, you're welcome to email me for hints or helps.

I wish you the very best of British as you attempt to solve the mystery of L'expresso empoisonne

Baldrick, the fruit basket, and the squirrel with the itchy bottom

2006-06-15T22:32:00.000+01:00

Poor old Baldrick hasn't been in to work today. Nor yesterday. Nor are we likely to see him tomorrow. He hurt his back moving a server and the quack has ordered him to rest. I've really been missing him - his chair is next to the door so he often gets zapped by the incoming and I generally avoid it. Er, I mean, I miss his ready wit and cheerful company. Obviously.

I decided to pop a little get well giftie round to him tonight. Surveying the unusually well-stocked fruit bowl, I realised that there was no choice to make. Often, when narked, one or the other of us may make reference to inserting something into the cause of the nark. Baldrick will often terminate this idle daydreaming with a suggestion as to what to insert: 'A pineapple. The wrong way.'

I raided the remains of my figgy costume and decorated the pineapple with curly ribbon fronds. I gathered it up and Tallboy and I left for our evening walk in the direction of Baldrick's house, pineapple proudly carried for all to see. Tucking it awkwardly behind my back, I made my way down his garden path and knocked on the open front door. Baldrick accepted the gift with a bemused smile, Mrs Baldrick appeared and looked over his shoulder with an expression that suggested that receipt of ribbon-bedecked pineapples wasn't a daily occurrence round their way. I thought she looked a little apprehensive, too, so I reassured her that we weren't there to burn her garden furniture. Not like last time.

Retreating down the garden path, I turned imploring to Baldrick, clasped my hands, and pleaded 'Please come back!' It's been tough on my own, and I don't want him to get used to being at home now. 'Don't worry,' said Mrs Baldrick, 'He'll be back on Monday. I'm not working, and there's no way I'm having him under my feet round the house. I'll drive him in if I have to!'

On the way back home, we passed a house with a wooden name-plate next to the front door. On my third take, I could see that I had originally misread it quite dramatically - I thought it had said 'FIG-IT'. Given my recent choice of costume, I thought this wasn't an unreasonable reading. Tallboy thought it said 'FIGHT'. It was number 8 with some bits missing...

We cut through the park and went to peer in the pond. I spied a nice vantage point on the bank and teetered down to peek in. As I bent forward, the water heaved and splashed and something reared out at me. I may have a squealed just a little. And I didn't half jump back. Tallboy said it was a fish, but from the size of the splash I was thinking at least large marine mammal. As our eyes adjusted, we made out one, two, three huge carp. At one point, a red one leaped out of the water after a fly - it looked like a massive red rugby ball. Leaving the park, we saw a grey squirrel, apparently untroubled by our propinquity. As I watched it, it hunched its back over and dragged its bottom along the ground, like a dog with worms. I have to admit, I stood there and laughed at it, which seemed to spur on its manic bottom scraping to even greater heights (yes, I know I'm mean). For some reason it amuses me greatly to see a dog doing it; it had never occurred to me that a squirrel might, and the sight was truly bizarre.

It's a dog eat dog world

2006-06-14T18:37:00.000+01:00

Poor old Pesky had to go the vet the other day, nothing serious - just a check up, although you wouldn't have thought it from the fuss she made. First we had to coax her in from the garden by rustling the plastic wrapping of her favourite snack (a fishstick). A bit of quick work was then required, one of us distracting her with the fishstick while the other zoomed behind her and shut the door on her retreat just in time, as her response to seeing the Wicker Basket of Doom was to turn tail and attempt to escape at MACH 3.

In a concerted effort, Tallboy and I maximised our advantage of four forelimbs and opposable thumbs. Despite Pesky clinging on to the edges of the basket with all four sets of claws, we managed incrementally to unhook her and encourage her deeper into the wickery prison. I did up the leather straps on the door of the basket with a flourish, only to have my bubble burst when I noticed one end of the top carrying strap dangling uselessly inside the basket. I managed to squeeze my hand in and retrieve it without letting Pesky out, burrow madly though she might...

It's only 7 or 8 minutes to the vets, but with a persistent 'wrrrrrooooooaaaaaaawwwwww' soundtrack it felt somehow longer. Talking gently to her, we negotiated the rampy entrance and checked her in. 'Ah, yes, Pesk?' 'Er no, Pesky.' 'Yes, that's what I've got here.' Since when has a terminal 'y' been silent?

We kept talking gently to Pesky to drown out the alarming vet noises around us. We did quite well too, until a perky Jack Russell came out of the consulting room and bounced around the surgery. She didn't like that much. 'She's really not going to like this,' I said to Tallboy, nudging his attention to what was crossing the car park. Pulling his slight owner towards the entrance was a vast, double-decker bus sized Boxer. As it dragged her into the reception area, the Jack Russell went ballistic. The Boxer was restrained somehow from eating the Jack Russell, which was going beserk on the end of its lead. Pesky was vocally unhappy with the goings on which she could hear but not see, and things generally got a bit noisy.

'Oi! Boxer!' shouted one of the receptionists. 'You're supposed to be ill!' Looked on good form from where I was sitting, I can tell you. 'And you,' she turned her attention to the Jack Russell, 'you'd better shut up. You need to walk past him on the way out...' Once the Jack Russell had nipped out smartish, the receptionist asked Boxer's owner whether she had ever, er, you know, considered him having some training. 'Oh yes,' replied the owner. 'We tried that. They asked us to come back when he'd calmed down a bit...'

We stifled our sniggering, then were totally silenced as we noticed an enormously massive dog making its way towards the entry ramp. It was a Great Dane. It was Boxer's turn to a) be dwarfed and b) go ballistic. Great Dane's owners tried to distract him by getting him to go on the scales, just next to us. Great Dane wasn't having any of it, and reared up on his hind legs, forelegs on his owner's shoulders. It was scary how he towered. His owner managed to bring him back down and drag him over to sit down in Boxer's now vacated space, but in doing so his face (Great Dane's, not the owner's) loomed at Pesky's portcullis as he passed and she spat hugely and wildly at him like a fatty sausage in a frying pan.

Wonderful silence reigned in the waiting room. Apart from the voices we could hear coming out of the consulting room containing Boxer and his owner. At one point there was a sustained rattle of claws against the door, followed by excited male and female talking. Finally, a despairing 'SIT!'

Soon it was our turn to go in. Funnily enough, once perched on the examining table, Pesky doesn't want to come out of the basket any more. I de-basketed her and plonked her on the scales. The vet read off the weight and recorded it, noting with surprise that she weighed exactly the same, to two decimal places, as she did six months ago. That, or those scales only ever read 3.76 kilos.

The Vet checked her over and reported that her poorly old heart hadn't deteriorated any. He asked about her general demeanour - any signs of lethargy? Well, she sleeps about 23 and three quarter hours a day, but that's nothing new. Appetite OK? Oh yes, she eats like a horse. Er, I mean a hungry cat...

As soon as the Vet Grip (TM) was released, Pesky zoomed back into her woven sanctuary, leaving four little paw print blooms on the tabletop.

All the way home Tallboy comforted her with his fingers through the portcullis, nursing her basket on his knees. I related to him the tale of the time I took her to the vets in that very basket, the Ex nursing it on his knees. She took fright and wee'd hugely, to cries of aaaahhhh it's wet and warm which quickly turned to aaaah it's wet and cold. He was walking like John Wayne when we crossed the car park at the vet's, his jeans all soaked with stinking cat pee. How I laughed...

What a releaf

2006-06-11T21:13:00.000+01:00

Last weekend the Lush shop in Bristol had a party, with special offers if you spent a certain amount, and staff who were dressing up as products. If you could guess which they were, you got a prize. And if you came dressed as a product yourself, you also got a prize. The Sun and I were due a trip to Lush, so I racked my brains as to what we could go as.

My favourite Lush product is a soap, called Figs and Leaves. The Sun's favourite is Bunny I Washed the Kids. This seemed a good starting place for costume planning...

I assembled my costume kit on Friday. At school, I asked if I could grab some leaves from the fig tree that lives in a sunny corner of the grounds, as I needed them for a costume. He looked faintly puzzled and asked me how many I was going to pick, was it three? Er, not that kind of costume. As I headed off figwards with my tupperware box and secateurs, he called out to me across the quad: 'Can I give you a hand?' 'No thanks,' I shouted back, 'I can manage!' 'I meant afterwards - do you need a hand fixing them on?' 'Er, no...'

That afternoon, Tallboy and I finished work early with to zoom off to Oxford to stay with his parents. I made sure to pack my leaves (and a couple of figs), a ball of yellow wool, some cardboard and the pencil crayon tin. When the four of us settled down on the sofas after tea, I whipped out my stuff. I made a huge necklace from ribbon, in which I entwined the figs and leaves, reserving the biggest one for a special purpose. I thrust the card at Tallboy with the request that he sketch out and colour in two rabbit ears, pink in the middle and brown round the outside. I got on with making a yellow tail pompom; I made the cardboard circle so huge that when I put it down to go to bed I hadn't even half-finished it.

In the morning we set off back for home, Tallboy driving, and me in the passenger seat pompomming like a lunatic. I did break my stride for a moment to call Poppy to give her an ETA for Tallboy picking up the Steps. I mentioned the Lush party, and wondered if she wanted to come too. There was just time to grab lunch when we got home, find a safety pin for the pompom, assemble the bunny ears, then pick up the Sun from the Ex's. Tallboy drove us into a busy and sweltering Bristol and dropped us behind Castle Green, five minutes or so away from the shop. The Sun and I donned our Lush costumery by the side of the road: he, a bunny ear headdress and a big yellow pompom tail, I a huge fig and figleaf necklace, set off by a large figleaf tied round my head at a jaunty angle, flopping slightly over one eye.

Taking a deep breath, we made our way through Castle Park, which was not only thronged with people, but thronged with people sitting down and watching the world go by. It's safe to say we felt slightly silly. The Sun mithered a bit when he saw a large dog (a Setter, I think it may have been). 'It will want to eat me!' he wailed. He had obviously got right into character... I reassured him, then the dog made a beeline for him, sniffing interestedly. He squealed and scampered away, the dog following him with a wagging tail. Its owner brought it to heel and took it off down the path, pausing only to look back over his shoulder and shake his head gently.

At the shop, we were well received, and spent a very pleasant half hour surrounded by all sorts of Lush lovelies and loveliness. The Sun was in seventh heaven, he adores Lush stuff and was desperately chuffed to get a prize for his dressing up. Poppy arrived eventually, and we stuffed our purchases away and left the fun to walk home.

'Er, I need to go into WHSmith,' Poppy mentioned quietly. I could see that something was bothering her about this course of action. 'You're not going to take that off, are you?' Well no, I had decided to keep the costume on. For a start, my backpack was full of Lush stuff, so I had nowhere to put it. Secondly, the funny looks I was getting were rather amusing. To me, at least...

We dived into Smith's and left the Sun perusing the Dr Who stuff while we searched for the Filofax pages she needed for her diary. We couldn't see them anywhere. Up and down the aisles we went, up high, down low, nothing. Meeting up at an intersection, we exchanged a despairing look. 'You know what this means?' I said. 'We're going to have to ask for help.' Poppy looked at me with a mildly panicky expression: 'But, but, you have a leaf on your head!' It was clearly a much bigger issue for her than for me. I marched up to a young shop assistant with an engaging grin on my face and said in tones loud enough for Poppy (at this point cowering behind a fitting) to hear 'I know I have a leaf on my head, but could you possibly tell me where the Filofax pages are, please?' He pointed them out. It was one of those points; wordless, sustained, with the pointer's eyes not once leaving the face of the pointee.

We had to re-cross Castle Park to begin our walk back to Poppy's. I'm sure she was walking far enough away from us to suggest to the casual observer that she wasn't with the weird leafy woman and the huge bunny child. As we climbed the steps, a gust of wind flipped my headleaf back, and I whipped it off my head, annoyed. 'I don't be-leaf it!' piped up a little voice from behind. I flashed him a 'Grrrr' look over my shoulder, to be met with a plea: 'Help, help! Leaf me alone!' Little toad...

Been busy

2006-06-08T22:36:00.000+01:00

Eek, haven't been here for a week!

I've discovered a fantastic stop motion animation package called Monkey Jam and this is some of what I've been up to with it...

In which Weevil and Tallboy brave the Bank Holiday crowds in pursuance of Tallboy's butt obsession

2006-05-31T19:05:00.000+01:00

Tallboy and I have ventured into new territory. We've been together a while now (it's five years since we met over a hot MZ in a pub car park) and there comes a time in each relationship when you have to branch out a bit, and try something new. I had done it before, with the Ex, but that was ages ago. Mum has confided to me that she really enjoys it, I know she's been doing it a lot more in recent years. To be honest, I don't really think it's been something that Tallboy has wanted to do, but once he got into it, he was fine.

Yup, that's right. We did some Gardening. On a Bank Holiday too! Blimey days... In fact it was even worse - allow me *clicks rewind button to take us back to just before lunchtime on Bank Holiday Monday*

We dropped the Steps off at Poppy's, and congregated in the kitchen to hear the mournful news of the dry-rot-under-the-kitchen-floorboards-down-there-see-it's-all-spongy-from-that-time-when-the-shower-leaked-all-down-the-wall. Tallboy didn't help much, he launched sadly into the account of the dry rot in his old house and how far it spread and oh yes I had the fruiting bodies that's the worst you know. I was tempted to kick him in the shin to give him a sign that this wasn't helping, so shut up you moron, but instead opted for the subtle approach and told him 'This isn't helping, so shut up you moron', which worked a treat.

Having spread doom and gloom in equal measure, we trotted off to that traditional British Bank Holiday haunt, B&Q, in search of water butts. Tallboy has a bee in his bonnet. He looks angrily out of the kitchen window whenever it rains, and rails at the amount of water going down the drain. We have a water butt fed by a gutter on one side of the new shed, which used to overflow when full. Tallboy has now fitted a hosepipe high up on the side, and trailed it artfully across the path so that it can ~~trip up the unwary on their way to pegging out the washing~~ top up the pond when the water butt is full. How much more water could we have, though, if only we diverted the downpipe from the house roof...

He has been scouring catalogues and DIY shops for such a diverter, rare and scant they are, and none to be had locally. He finally sourced one, triumphant for a minute, until he realised that he would need something into which to divert the rainwater from the downpipe. Downer. Again, no butts were to be had locally, so we braced ourselves and went for the mega-super-ultra huge DIY cathedral. Like everyone else in Bristol that afternoon, it appears.

Picking our way through crowds of people dawdling and exclaiming over irrelevant stuff like paint and bedding plants, we fetched up in the garden area at the water butt shrine. And there it was, the holy grail of water butts. And its twin brother. Big black butts (arrrrgggghhhhh the search hits), just what we needed. All 420 litres of them. Tallboy had huge plans to set them up in series, with the diverter feeding the first one, and the first one feeding the second one, and the second one feeding the pond. A middle-aged chap came over and looked interestedly at the shelf in front of us. I grabbed the one in front of me, and Tallboy reached up and got down the high one. Phew! Now all we had to do was thread our way back to the till.

It was like one of those army assault courses. Toddlers dodged out in front of me unexpectedly. Low-slung trolleys appeared by my feet, ready to trip me. Annoying slow people were destined to amble into the space I should by rights have been occupying. Manoeuvring my large butt through these obstacles was tough, but I did it. As we approached the checkout, I eyed the teenaged till-jockey, and dared Tallboy to tell him 'I like big butts and I cannot lie'. Needless to say he chickened out...

Back at home, Tallboy fussed around with his butts while I attacked the brambles and bindweed which were choking the unknown baby bush which the Ex's girlfriend had carefully propagated for me from the one in the Ex's back garden which I have always admired. The bush, that is, not the garden. Not that it's bad, I just couldn't say I admired it. Unlike the bush. Which I do. I had gloves and shears and I hacked and tugged and punctured myself and got stung by nettles and swore viciously but inaudibly (kids out playing next door) at the nastier plants and generally made rather good progress. Tallboy came to relieve me once he had finished butt-fussing and then putting out the washing. He didn't trip too badly on the pipe. I relocated to an overgrown flower bed with the intention of clearing it so that we could plant the runner bean plants we had been given.

Once I'd got the weeds out, it was only a matter of chasing away the frog and then removing the just slightly but not very subterranean enormous slabs of stone which were rendering any serious digging jarringly impossible. Tallboy trotted up with a barrow full of home-rotted compost, tipped it over the earth, then scooted off with an oath to get the washing in. He didn't trip too badly on the pipe. It was a minute before I felt a drop of rain, then there was a flash and a burst of thunder and sky started leaking right on top of me. I planted the fork in the mud and fled inside. Tallboy joined me with the slightly damp washing and a slight limp, and took up station just inside the door, breathlessly expectant.

Ah, right - the diverter. It was hooked up to butt No. 1 and within seconds the deluge was forcing rainwater through the pipe and into the butt. We nipped out to peek in, and gasped at the jet of water produced by the downpour. Back inside again, we could clearly hear the water jetting into the butt. It was like when you're downstairs in the kitchen with a slight muzzy headache the morning after cooking a jolly nice meal and drinking some terrific wine and having a super evening, and as you're trying to muster enough co-ordination to get some coffee underway, you hear your houseguest from last night shutting the toilet door upstairs, and you stand stock still with nowhere to turn as the floodgates open and he has the most unfeasibly interminable wee which you can't help but overhear and wish you couldn't. Or is that just me?

The rain lasted no more than five minutes; the butt was at least an eighth full. Tallboy was deliriously happy. Positively capering, my dear. I nipped next door to ask Nice Neighbours if I might pinch some of their bamboo canes for the bean plants, as they weren't using them this year, and Tallboy got planting. Job done, he came back into the kitchen and purposefully retrieved a bottle of beer from the fridge. Most uncommon behaviour on his part, but I supposed he had been working hard and deserved it. I couldn't help a raised eyebrow though. 'It's for the slugs!' he gestured with the bottle. Of course! The Slug Chalets of Death - The Slaughter Continues... Don't want the little blighters munching our bean plants.

I'm sorry if your Bank Holiday was marred by the thunderstorm at five o'clock in the afternoon. It was all Tallboy's fault, he was so utterly desperate for it to rain, you see. I wouldn't be surprised if he'd had a little raindance or two while my back was turned...

Weevil works it out

2006-05-30T19:05:00.000+01:00

I'm not doing bad in my efforts to emulate Mr Gardner's hugely commendable weight loss of 10 stone. Current weight loss stands at 6 stone 2 lbs or very nearly 40 kg. I've dropped 14 BMI points and 5 or so dress sizes. I fit through narrow gaps and can walk up a flight of stairs without turning purple and needing a nice sit down. On the contrary, I now skip around lightly, unable to move from one end of school to the other without being cornered by admiring members of staff demanding to know the current weight loss total, my weight loss secret, or both. On several occasions, both inside and outside school, people have rather gratifyingly failed to recognise me.

As part of the weight loss campaign, I have done something I never though I would - I have joined the gym. I found out that as a council employee I qualify for a reduced rate of membership, and when I popped in to have a little peek at the place, I saw that they had taken down the mirrors, so I was sold.

I'm not a natural gym-goer. I don't particularly like looking an idiot, especially not when exerting myself vigorously. I thought it was time to bite the bullet though, and signed up. Last week I had my first fitness test with a very nice young man who gave me a strap to wear round my chest then made me pedal like a maniac on an exercise bike. I stunned both myself and him by being really rather fit - the daily walks over the past few months have paid off. Nice Young Man said he'd work out a program for me to follow which would help me achieve my dearest gym-based desire. For some reason, I'd like to do three press ups in a row. Since I can't even do one, it seems rather far-fetched, but he's confident I'll get there, so who am I to quibble?

Saturday evening was my first session under the new program. I read it through, understood about half of it, read it through again, increased my understanding by at least 0.009%, then asked the Bored Looking Young Lady at the desk if she could translate for me. We identified a block of weights work which she needed to demonstrate so she told me when I got to that bit to give her a call.

I trotted off for the first set in the weights room. The weights room is down the corridor and round the corner in a little room with some mirrors and a penetrating odour. Muttering to myself, I peered at the machines to identify them as possible candidates for my first exercises. Trouble was, my mental name for the machine and what they are actually called are poles apart. The Adductor, for example. Was this the push-the-bar-up-nearly-as-far-as-you-can-then-lower-it-gently-remembering-not-to-let-the-weights-bash-down machine? Or the how-well-can-you-impersonate-an-oven-ready-chicken-during-the-stuffing-process machine? I got there in the end...

That set over, I had to nip back to the main gym for 10 minutes of cardio-vascular stuff. On my way past the main hall I peeped in at the preparations for a pro wrestling bout due to take place later on that evening. I can't say I've ever really got the point of it, myself. Back in the gym, I plonked down onto a rowing machine and started to pull. After ten minutes, I had rowed 2 kilometres, this was enough, so I toppled off sideways and on shaking knees went to find Bored Looking Young Lady for help with the next set.

As we walked to the weights room, she held forth about the wrestlers. Not a fan either, it turned out. In the weights room, she showed me tricep curls and lateral raises, which turned out to be the standard posey moves that anyone with handheld weights in a movie will be performing. As she returned a weight to its rack, she noticed a bumpy sticker on it. 'It's Braille,' said a helpful young man next to her when he clocked her puzzled expression. 'So blind people know what it is.' 'Oh right!' said BLYL. 'I get it now! There are a load of them on the new machines in the gym. I thought they didn't have anything on them. I've been flicking them off with my nail all day...'

I scanned through the rest of the set and pointed out the last item. 'Er, it says press ups here.' 'Yes, that's press ups.' 'Er, yeah, 'cept I can't actually do them.' She looked at me with an expression that suggested she wasn't at all surprised at this, and said (with an intonation worthy of Little Britain) 'You could always do lady press ups.' 'Er, OK then, how do you do them?' She showed me, then wandered off back to the gym, leaving me to work my way through the list. The first item was bicep curls, and I stood by the weight rack, plumb in front of the mirror, curling my bicep for all I was worth. The muscle boys do the same, except they're looking approvingly at themselves in the mirror. I had a little peek at myself and decided I probably wouldn't watch after all.

Back to the gym for another ten minutes of CV stuff, this time I leaped onto a bike and pedalled like a gibbon with ants in its ... er ... pant-area fur. I did 3 and three quarter kilometres in the ten minutes, this was enough, so I toppled off sideways and on shaking knees wandered back to the weights room where I could finish the last set at a gentle pace. Lastly, another ten minutes back in the gym, on a different bike. I have no idea how far I went, I was mesmerised by the TFT TV screen built into the bike, which allowed me to watch the Graham Norton dance thingy with no sound, to the accompaniment of GWR radio blaring out from speakers on the wall, which frankly did nothing for it. The TV picture obscured any useful information like how far I'd gone or how fast I was going, so I gave it ten minutes, then toppled off sideways and on shaking knees wandered over to the corner, there to stretch my poor old muscles.

You've no idea how much I'm enjoying it...

Weevil surfaces from revision

2006-05-23T21:04:00.000+01:00

So, it was my exam today. I asked the dear people who provide my so-called training to book up the exam in April, preferably in Bristol or even closer to home. Which is why I found myself trekking across country today to take it. But let's rewind a smidge...

I spent the weekend and all of yesterday cramming like a mad crammer with a new, high-performance brain crowbar at an all-you-can-cram cramathon. When I got into bed at night, I had to do it carefully; too much of a shock as my head hit the pillow might have dislodged some crucial factette. It's how I do things - I can spend months carefully going through the training materials, but at the end of the day I can't retain it all and end up cramming like a good 'un.

I got up early this morning to continue the cramming - I had left my arch-nemesis (Certificate Services, if you must know) 'til last so that it would be fresh in my memory. Cramming done, I packed my lunchbox, verified for at least the third time that my driving licence with the scary looking Prisoner Cell Block H photo was indeed in my bag, checked the back door was locked, went to the loo, checked my driving licence was in my bag, checked the back door was locked, said goodbye to Pesky and headed off.

The examination centre was all the way across Bristol, and then a good way away still, past the airport. I could go the back way, or down the motorway. I had decided on motorway, then through town - possibly busier but unlikely to get stuck behind some arthritic tractor. How I regretted my well-reasoned choice as I sat in an unmoving queue at the end of the M32, and then again as I did a creditable weaver bird impression through the changed lanes and altered priorities they seem to have brought in as soon as my back was turned. I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that I had allowed myself more than double the worst-case-scenario travel time.

Driving across the river as I negotiated the Cumberland Basin, I mused how lovely it is for cities to be based round rivers. Wide, noble, silver - they stamp the place with gravitas and respectability. I imagine so, anyway. Bristol has rivers aplenty, don't get me wrong. It's just that with something like the second biggest tidal reach anywhere in the world (? maybe - I've had too much wine to bother checking my facts) most of what you see is mud. Either suspended in the brown swirling waters, or just banks of slick brown-ness with a pathetic trickle between them.

Heading out to the examination centre, I did pass my favourite road sign on the planet - it points off from the A38 and it says 'Nempnett Thrubwell'. How I love those words. It was almost worth the battle through town to have seen them.

The examination centre was a revelation. Last time it had been an anonymous hideous business building in the centre of Bristol. This time I was at a fantastic country manor with rolling landscaped grounds, views of the Mendips, and gorgeously fragranced Wisteria everywhere. I signed in at reception, apologising for arriving an hour ahead of time, and begged leave to sit in some nook so as to eat my lunch and skim through my book one last time. As I sat in the corner of the lounge, I could hear the conversation of a quartet of bids in the corner. 'You know, Mary's boy. He was GAY! He took her to London!' Reluctantly I blocked my ears and concentrated on DNS servers and subnetting.

As I finished my final skim, I became aware of another presence behind me - a nervous looking young man who headed straight for the toilets. When he returned I said hello, and asked if he was here to take an exam at all? Oh yes, he was. He'd failed it twice before but this time he was hoping to nail it. We chatted about computers for a bit until the brisk lady from the exam centre came down to fetch us.

We were quickly installed in a small attic room containing two computers and not much else. Did my companion mind where he sat, I wondered. Oh no, he told me, I failed at this one last time, I'm not superstitious though, I'll sit here again. I sat next to the window, the brisk lady logged me in, and I was away.

The exam comprises 50 questions, and you have two and a quarter hours to answer them all. The answers vary, sometimes you need to choose which is the right answer out of the four or five offered, sometimes you need to indicate which one or two or three or four or five out of the options shown combine to create the right answer. My heart beating hard and my stomach regretting my lunch, I started clicking. Two and a quarter hours sounds a long time - but it's not even three minutes per question. Sometimes it takes that long to understand what they're asking.

At about half time, my companion had finished his exam, waved as instructed to the camera monitoring us from the corner of the room, and was collected by the brisk woman. At last I could stretch out a bit notwithstanding the creaking chair. I could jiggle my leg and tap my pen. I could swear quietly at the bloody questions. Bliss.

I went through all the questions once, answering all but a few of the most tricky ones, went back and considered them, then started going back through and reviewing all my answers just to make sure I'd read the questions properly. I didn't even get halfway through my review before the time was up.

Heart hammering wildly, I clicked the 'End Exam Now' button. I had no feeling for whether I had answered enough correctly to hit the 700/1000 pass mark. The result failed to appear before me - instead up came the add comments screen. Ah yes, I'd indicated that I wanted to comment on a couple of questions. The desperately precise points I'd wanted to make at the end about format and terms and layout seemed rather irrelevant to me now they were standing in the way of me seeing my result, but I tapped away with shaking fingers, then clicked the magic button again. I looked away from the screen, out of the window, unable to bear the suspense. With my peripheral vision I could see that the screen had changed, and glanced back. The first word I saw was 'congratulations' and I breathed a deep sigh of relief and waved like a gibbon at the camera to indicate my pressing desire to pick up my printout and get the hell out of there. I asked the brisk lady how my companion had done. Composing her features into a suitable expression, she told me he had failed.

Relaxed and chuffed to bits, I drove back across country and arrived home to a flurry of enquiring phonecalls, emails and msn messenger er messages. I have not studied tonight. I have eaten at a leisurely pace. I have been for a walk. I have sat down with the Sun to watch the DVD produced by the school to document the daily life of the students there. On occasion I have uttered the word 'orang-utang' which, it appears, is the cue for the Sun to start capering madly to the accompaniment of the singsong incantation 'constipated monkey, constipated monkey'. So has Tallboy. Uttered the word 'orang-utang' I mean, not the mad capering bit. I have had a teeny weeny glass or two of wine. Life is good.

The exam was Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure, nicknamed in some quarters 'the beast'. It was a swine. I got 909/1000. The wine has deprived me of the ability to put down in words how chuffed I am. I think I'd better go and have another glass...

Keep the home fires burning

2006-05-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

Another little break from the nightmare that is revising everything there is to know about Windows 2000 Network Infrastructure. *brain melts* Ooh by the way, while we're on revision, I discovered a neat little site today quite by accident. Once you've done the tedious signing up business, you can create sets of flashcards to help your revision along. I find it much easier to do this than learn a horrible list of port numbers and so on. It has been a really useful tool for me, and if any of you out there are in the same slough of revision despond, you might like it too - click here.

And now, on with the post...

Here at Weevil Mansions, we're dead keen on giving things a home. Over the past few years we've done our bit for wildlife. We dug a laborious pond in soil of finest clay so that we could house newts and frogs and toads and ramshorn snails and dragonfly larvae and pondskaters and oooh all those icky microscopic doohickeys that Tallboy likes to look at under his usb microscope. We constructed a logpile in the corner of the garden for those creatures who favour that kind of habitat. So what? you might think - bear in mind that in order to create the log pile we had to resist the temptation of burning the wood... Tallboy constructed a fine birdhouse out of old wood, which he lovingly positioned on the shady side of the old shed so the bluetwits would have somewhere to live. OK so they didn't actually move in, I blame the pigeon we recruited as estate agent. Never trust anyone who will work for peanuts...

This weekend, Tallboy has been in home provision overdrive. During the week, we both noticed a spadger on the new shed, skipping around and flapping with interest at the eaves. No gaps there mate, sorry. Tallboy was musing about constructing a home for them, and went off to get the handy wildlife book which we love (apart from the bit that refers to newts as gormless [which they totally are not]). The book had a sketch of a spadger home - not just a one-room job but a tenement block. They like being social, apparently, though the entry holes must each be on a different side. Tallboy was keen to get carpenting, impeded by one small factor - we'd burned all the wood (apart from the logpile, natch). I came to the spadgers' rescue by spotting a gate in a skip - the building work at the Nice Neighbours' place is drawing to a close, but there was still bounty to be had. Tallboy went and had a quiet word and came back bearing a great gate. Soon, where there had been a wooden entry prevention device, there appeared a des res in finest natural materials, complete with bamboo perches. He stuck it up on the shady side of the new shed, where it has been ignored by several spadgers already.

He then stood at the kitchen window and mused about the wooden climbing frame at the bottom which was originally designed to keep the kids happy but is now possibly the country's only bird feeding station which cost several hundred pounds... 'I could make another one and put it on the far end there, in the shade, what do you think?' 'Yeah, go for it if you like,' I responded vacantly, mind on subnetting and routing protocols. Later, he pointed out the new addition, proud and everything. I was pleased that the gate had stretched to another birdhouse, that was good value. 'Oh no, there wasn't enough wood left. I used that shelf, you know the one that your router used to sit on before it fell down.' 'Ah the one I was hoping might miraculously be put up again, this time securely?' 'Er, yeah, that one...'

He's also been fretting about my lupins. I actually grew some plants last year. From seed. They survived and everything. Lupins are my absolute favourite flowers, I remember being fascinated by them when I was a kid, particularly by the diamond that is left in the centre of the leaf cluster after the rain. Magical. Then there's the Monty Python connection, but don't get me started. Anyway, Tallboy had noticed the leaves looking slightly nibbled, and suspected the slimy evilness of slugs. I'd forgotten all about this, but we had bought some slug defences some time ago in Lidl. Tallboy emerged triumphant from the garage, brandishing what for all the world looked like a four inch square monopoly house. Ah yes, the Slug Chalet of Death, how could I forget? Truly, the ideal residence for these most unwelcome of visitors. Tallboy sacrificed a sploosh of beer and set it outside to tempt the muculent marauders. The death toll as of this morning stands at twelve...

Two, four, six, eight - perforate

2006-05-08T19:10:00.000+01:00

Last week I got some gum on my bum. Ooh, I hadn't realised how rhymy that was 'til I wrote it down.. I was over in one of the sixth form suites, fixing 'puters, and leaned against a tabletop. Bad mistake, as I should have realised when I felt a little tug on standing up straight again. Sadly, it wasn't until I had been sitting back at my desk that I realised the awful truth; by then, the gum was on my chair and well and truly squidged into my trousers. Meh. At least it was the end of the day by then, so I drove home with rage in my heart(and gum on my bum).

Removing my trousers (there go the search engine hits!) as soon as I got through the door, I quelled Tallboy's interested look with a rant about gum and trousers and the horrendous interaction between the two. I insisted that we go out for a walk to the shop, there to buy the most horrifically efficient chemical-laden substance known to man, in order to put the unholy alliance between gum and clothing asunder. It did occur to me that I had been quite lucky, in many ways; much of my fixing computer time is spent underneath desks, and I won't spoil your dinner by describing what stuff is like under there. Suffice to say that I'm amazed I haven't had any in my hair yet.

The product we purchased promised to remove the gum, but earnestly enjoined me to test an area for colourfastness first. This I did; not a trace of pigment left the garment, so I splooshed the stuff on with gay abandon. And watched in horror as a pool of blackness oozed out in a chrysanthemum of doom on the draining board. My resolve held, and I left it for the required amount of time, and the gum came off, and the trousers were still black, and my rage was quelled slightly. I did take the receipt in the next day though, and demand recompense.

My heart sank when I went into the office the next morning - I'd forgotten about the gum on the chair - it was too squidged to pick off. Baldrick proffered an aerosol, suggesting it was worth a try. 'Computer solvent' it said on the label. Adopting my jocular office voice, I said, 'Ooh, I'd better be careful not to spray it near the computers then. I don't want to dissolve any!' Oh, how we chortled... Actually, we did giggle a little bit, it was mildly funny, and to be honest we leap upon any opportunity for a spot of light relief.

I recalled another product which was strangely named. I found myself, as a university student, in dire need of a hole punch. I trundled off to the student union shop, and found a cheap one. I was a little put off by the name of the product, but I decided to be brave - I was big and it was only little. According to the box, it was a 'student perforator'. Eek!

Later in the week, a member of staff came in to complain that some herbert or herberts unknown had stuck a strip of double sided tape across a monitor. Did we, he wondered, have anything to get it off with? Baldrick handed over the Computer Solvent, which the member of staff gratefully received, and toddled off with in his hands. Within a couple of steps, he had turned around, and I could see from the look on his face what was coming. 'I'd better be careful where I spray this!' he said. 'I don't want to dissolve any computers! Heh heh heh!' Baldrick and I smiled weakly at him. As his footsteps disappeared away down the room, we looked at each other and shook our heads. 'Nah,' I said. 'Mmm,' agreed Baldrick. 'That kind of thing's only funny when _we_ say it...'

podge, podger, podgiest

2006-05-06T09:33:00.000+01:00

Quick five minutes for a post then back to study (exam looming...)

Tallboy came home yesterday and headed straight for the dictionary. The word wasn't there. Not in the old falling apart dictionary, nor in the new birthday-present-from-mum dictionary. 'Podgy' was there, fine, but 'podger' was nowhere to be seen.

His colleague and best chum at work, DIY Derek, had referred to a metal rod, ground into a taper at one end, as his podger. Tallboy had never heard this term before, and assumed that it was of the same sort of ilk as 'doofer' or 'whatsit'. No, insisted Derek, it was a real word. And not just some local dialect either, an engineering term, no less.

Tallboy wasn't convinced that his leg wasn't being pulled, and the lack of the word in the dictionary seemed to confirm it. However, when he did what would have been my first move and fired up the 'puter, a quick Google showed more podgers than you could shake a (metal, ground at one end) stick at.

What's it for, you may just possibly be wondering (award yourself two housepoints if you already know). Apparently, it's for lining holes up. 'Ah, I get you!' I said, when Tallboy explained this. 'It's like when you're trying to file a bunch of papers in a ring binder and you try and align the edges by doing the newsreader shuffle on the desk but it doesn't quite work, so you poke a pencil through and jiggle it to line the holes up so the whole lot will slip over the ring in a one-er rather than doing it bit by bit?' 'Er, yeah...'

Out! No it wasn't! Yes it was!

2006-05-01T21:45:00.000+01:00

All five of us today spent an hour together doing something we all enjoyed; indeed, an event so rare as to merit recording.

I'd asked Tallboy if he fancied a game of badminton over the weekend, and if so, would StepD like to join us again. Aware that three is an awkward badminton number, I asked Methane Boy if there was any way on the planet I could possibly persuade him to make up the fourth member of the party. To my amazement, he said yes. Well, he grunted in an affirmative kind of manner, at any rate. Then the Ex brought the Sun back on Saturday night, and I told him he was coming too, so there were going to be five of us.

It didn't start desperately smoothly. We'd booked the court (No. 1 in the Summer Hall - we like it in there, we don't seem to fall over as often) for 11.00, requiring us to drag Methane Boy and the Sun from their pits at the ungodly hour of ten. StepD was already up, having woken us at 8 by 'creeping' (her term, NOT mine) downstairs. Tallboy gathered together various water bottles, racquets, shuttlecocks, etc, along with what one might call a towel or (more accurately) one of the terry nappies I used when the Sun was a baby. The Sun moaned as he realised we were going to walk to the Leisure Centre. I fixed him with a steely gaze and told him that was the last moan I was going to hear from him that day. Do you know, I was right!

As we surged out of the front door, a sixth member of the party made her presence felt. Pesky doesn't like to be left out when there's something interesting in the offing. 'OK,' I said, 'We're going to have to run away from her. We need to get out of sight of her down the road.' The cries of disbelief died away as they realised I was serious. Pesky, if she can see you, will follow you. This once very nearly led to a nasty squashing incident on the main road. We all jogged down the road, water swishing, racquets akimbo, giggling like loons. We managed to leave that arthritic 14 year old cat behind. Just.

Half way down the road, Tallboy asked Methane Boy if he had brought his glasses. No, he had forgotten. Back he went to get them, while we wandered down to the end of the road then hung around waiting for him. He couldn't have played without them, he'd have had no chance of seeing anything. Ideal opponent in many ways...

Finally, we made it to the Leisure Centre and claimed our court, where we walloped shuttlecocks round for an hour, and generally had a good time. The kids all had fun, and so did Tallboy and I. The Sun was initially unable to hit anything at all except himself, but soon got his eye in. His earlier reluctance to attend was replaced by a fervour for the game, and at the end he enquired earnestly of Tallboy whether we might make this a weekly event.

We took it in turns to sit out while the other 4 played; on my turn I was able to observe the other players and their different styles of play.

Tallboy

Tall and rangy, with the reach of an orangutang recently given a session on the rack. Highly competitive, goes for every shot, particularly the impossible ones. Often to be found on his knees at the end of a rally. Rehearses mis-timed or mis-hit shots after the event. Vocal in his disappointment at missed shots.

Speciality shot - vicious smash from an impossible height at an unfeasible angle.

Weevil

Not tall and definitely not rangy. Quicker on court than you might imagine, often able to return shots that Tallboy had thought were winners. Restrains urge to shout expletives at missed shots, instead contenting herself with mouthing them at Tallboy in an attempt a) to vent the frustration and b) put Tallboy off.

Speciality shot - rocketing smash straight to opponent's testicles. This has proved satisfyingly offputting...

The Sun

Erratic in direction of shot, but able to sustain decent rally. Can return the shuttlecock in three or less strikes. Gets very sweaty and often needs to run off court to wipe self down with nappy.

Speciality shot - serving to self.

StepD

Tall and enthusiastic. Enjoys sending her father racing round the court. Often misses sitters, which generally then land on her head.

Speciality shot - mock tennis serve.

Methane Boy

Tall and unused to physical exertion. Able to wallop shuttle high and hard. Always beatable by a little dolly over the net. Will not move more than one pace to return the shuttle.

Speciality shot - assessing that more than one pace is required to return this shuttle, keeping both feet planted together and following with his eyes its downward trajectory, ending with a sad little dink onto the court.

Two pounds and four pence

2006-04-30T14:43:00.000+01:00

The sofa in the front room at Weevil Mansions has been on its last legs for some time. Tallboy has mended it once or twice, and we wedged a huge length of 2 x 2 under it to stave off the threatened collapse. I suppose that's what you get with three large offspring who don't so much sit down as cease resisting gravity. The chair, which matched the sofa to the extent that it was a piece of furniture in the same room, wasn't as bad. With the castors off, it was well supported by the floor, though it was just a teeny little bit lower than one might expect - this has been evidenced by the surprised faces of several visitors.

When Mum said that she was getting a new suite, and would we like the old one at all, I got rather excited. The prospect of having a sofa and two whole chairs (so that we could all be seated simultaneously), and not only that but matching as well, was quite overwhelming. We accepted gratefully, and so it was that Tallboy and I liberated his work's van from the company compound early yesterday morning. As we approached the van, I started to have doubts that a sofa would fit, but opening the side door, I was reassured by the TARDIS-like nature of the vehicle. There was a box of straps on the floor, which Tallboy put in the boot of the car - all oily and manky they were, and most liable to stain any fabric they might have touched. There was a small pause for a bicker as Tallboy couldn't find the car keys to lock the car up again, but the discovery of the keys in the box of straps (how mysterious!) put an end to that and we were able to head off to Mum's.

Although Mum shared my initial concern about stuff fitting, we were able to jigsaw the pieces into the back of the van, adding blankets at strategic places to save the cream covers from the general oiliness of the van's interior. A quick thank you and we were off again (not that we were ungrateful, you understand, but we had to vacate the drive to allow the dogsitter in).

Back at Weevil Mansions, I put into effect the planning in which I had engaged on the journey back down the M5. First we had to get the old sofa and chair out of the room and onto the front lawn. Then (and this wasn't in the plan), aghast at the mess thus uncovered, I had to run for the Dyson. I thought it was a neat idea to have a see-through receptacle when I first bought it; it seems to turn my stomach now... Then we had to move the bureau (a huge, dark, nicotine-coated, gothic object which nearly reaches the ceiling - inherited from my grandparents) through ninety degrees. 'We'll have to empty it out and take it apart,' wailed Tallboy. Not if you know exactly where to push it - it glided balletically into place, though I did need Tallboy's help to pull it back out a little as I had forgotten that its new position obscures the lightswitch just a teensy weensy bit, so it has to sit just a little forward.

We managed to get the new stuff in with only the minimum bickering and knuckle grazing, which was nice. What wasn't quite so nice was the oil - somehow a streak of it had appeared on the front of the sofa cover. Since we were planning on washing the covers anyway (two energetic and mud-loving doggies don't tend to go very well with cream furniture covers), we whipped off the cover and took it into the kitchen, where I anointed the oil with washing liquid. I then tried to stuff the cover into the washing machine, but couldn't even cram half of it in. Eeek! What to do? There was only one option - the bath! This is how I found myself trampling up and down on two chair covers and a sofa cover in the bath yesterday afternoon. The cushion covers, washed in the washing machine in batches of three, and (very importantly) spun, dried quickly on the line. The big covers didn't so much dry as drip, so we left them out there overnight and prayed for dry weather.

Today, Tallboy decided to gut and joint the carcasses of the old furniture. I had already had an exploratory hand down the sides last evening (buggered if I was going to let Master ASBO-in-waiting next door get his hands on anything nice out of my old furniture) but all I retrieved was a pair of trainer socks (clean) and a pair of tights (not sure). This afternoon, Tallboy took a knife to the underside of the sofa, and I watched excitedly for the deluge of money and lost and forgotten goodies. There was nothing in it. Not one thing. The chair was a different proposition - we'd heard jingling from it as we moved it, so knew were onto a good thing. It yielded two two pence coins, one two pound coin, a battery, some wizened orange peel, an orange smartie, and various sweet wrappings. I swiped the two pound coin and grandly informed Tallboy that he was welcome to keep the rest of the stuff...

I watched in incredulity as Tallboy ripped the foam off the sofa. I couldn't believe that I had paid hundreds of pounds for a rickety-looking construction of hardboard and cardboard. Then I recalled that it had been the Ex who had paid for it, and brightened up rather. I managed to stop Tallboy as he was on the verge of trotting off to get a saw. 'Do you know,' I said musingly, 'what we could really do with is some kind of frame, ideally sofa-shaped, on which to stretch the wet sofa cover and thus accelerate the drying process.' Tallboy looked at me with a mixture of pity and disbelief, his mind on terminal destruction of crappy sofa carcasses. 'Possibly, yes, but I don't see how that actually helps us here and now.' 'I was just wondering whether there might be anything around which might just serve that purpose,' I continued, with a significant glance down at the overpriced skeleton sitting between us on the lawn. Realisation dawned in his eyes, and he went off to enlist Methane Boy's assistance.

As I write, it's nearly four o'clock, we haven't had an ounce of sunshine all day, the rainclouds are gathering, and the covers are still far from dry. Oh, and we can't get into the dining room because some idiot's stuck a stripped sofa draped with a wet cover in there...

Big shoes and deep voices

2006-04-28T21:10:00.000+01:00

The Ex's new job seems to be going well. It's quite a jump from factory worker to measurer-of-the-elderly, but he seems to be getting the hang of it.

Earlier this week he drove a minibus full of Occupational Therapists up to some trade show in Birmingham. Everyone else breezed in, but he hadn't been pre-registered so had to register at the desk. He filled in a little form and handed it to the lady, who tapped his details into a computer and printed out a badge for him. Peering upside-down at it, pinned on his chest, he noticed a barcode on it. As he made his way round the stands and got bipped by various barcode reader wielding herberts, its purpose became clear.

Having safely brought the herd of OTs back, and picked up the Sun in the minibus (he chose to travel in the back rather than next to his father, how grand) he went home to put his feet up. Taking off his name badge, he examined it idly. Hang on, he thought, the woman at reception missed a letter in her rush. The realisation dawned on him that he had been walking round in public all day wearing a badge proclaiming that he was a 'Tranee Care Consultant'. A niche market, but I bet it pays well...

It's not properly yours til you say thank you

2006-04-25T21:52:00.000+01:00

It was Methane Boy's 18th on Easter Sunday. We got him a shedload of brewing and winemaking stuff (malt, hops, fermentation vessels, spoons, funnels, heating belts, fancy bottle stoppers, yeasts, chemicals for this, chemicals for that and so on - oh, and about a tonne of sodium metabisulphite). And a fancy electronics toolcase, all shiny aluminium, stuffed with loads of lovely new tools. Well, he's not bloody taking mine or Tallboy's away to Uni with him...

I think so far he's only looked lovingly at the tools, but he has a gallon of ale brewing already. It looks a bit sad in the 5 gallon vessel, but it was all my biggest pan could contain. He's been looking wistfully at 60 quid mash boilers (or whatever they're called) on the web. At least this time he's written down what he put into the brew. There's a first time for everything I suppose...

The past ten days or so have seen the saga of the thank you letters. I reminded him to do them but didn't actually got round to it while he was here. I promised to nag him and on the Monday night he emailed me from Poppy's for everyone's addresses. These I provided to him, along with a note of the amount of folding enclosed in each card (I had taken the precaution of noting the same in pen on the back of each card, just in case).

He emailed me back asking me for Tallboy's sister's address. I quoted the line in my first email when I provided exactly that; he admitted his goldfishian memory traits. Next he emailed asking for how much Tallboy's brother had sent him - I couldn't find a card from him, nor did I remember one coming, though Methane Boy seemed to think that there had been one. Feeling guilty about a card going astray in the chaos that is my front room, I fretted right up until the card in question arrived on the Wednesday morning.

The next email asked me if we had anything planned on Saturday, as he has been invited out. Having concluded my previous email, mere hours beforehand, with the words 'Remember, Saturday night is Cossack night!' I felt more than a little bemused.

Next, Methane Boy emailed me for Tallboy's brother's address, which was fair enough as I hadn't included it on the original list. Then he emailed me to ask how to spell his cousin's name. The final email hit my inbox tonight - how had Tallboy's Mum and Dad signed off in their card? With any luck the letters might be on their way before the end of the month...

Mind you, it's not just the young 'uns... Today I was busy wrestling with a recalcitrant network install when my mobile went off. I don't often get a call at work, and if I do, it's generally the Ex telling me he can't pick the Sun up, or the Sun's school telling me he's done a vomit fountain and is awaiting collection by me (never the Ex, funnily enough) at my earliest convenience, and so on. Sometimes it's Tallboy saying 'Hello, how's your day going, just wanted to hear your voice, etc', which is nice. Last week it was the Ex with the news that his mum was in hospital with a suspected (now confirmed)return of her colon cancer, which wasn't nice.

So it was with some trepidation that I saw the unexpected caller was Mum. 'Hello? Is everything all right?' 'Oh yes,' she said brightly, 'Just thought I'd give you a quick ring. Now, then, for these wills that we're doing, do I refer to you as Mrs Weevil [Ex's surname] or Mrs Weevil [Tallboy's surname]?' 'Er, well I'm mostly known as Mrs Weevil [Ex's surname] I guess.' 'Fine then, I'll put that. Byeeee!' 'Erp...'

I preferred the one where she called me one evening a couple of weeks ago. 'Just a quick question, Weev' 'OK, fire away' 'If I'm sending out a letter but it's not my name at the bottom, what do I do?' 'Ah, right, well you sign it in your name and then you write pp next to the name of the person it's from at the bottom.' 'I knew you'd know that, thanks! (Weevil starts to glow with pride at this point) I remember you poured scorn on someone who got it wrong years ago, so I knew you'd set me straight! (Weevil's glow fades rather) Byeee!' 'Erp...'

Although, as I keep explaining to both Tallboy and Baldrick, it's not pedantry, it's just being correct, and there's nothing wrong with that...

The light at the end of the tunnel

2006-04-23T22:00:00.000+01:00

We entertained the Cossack last night. Eventually. As the late afternoon became evening, I became more and more worried at his non-appearance. There was no response from his home number, and as for a mobile - well, would you expect a chap who wears a cork helmet to possess such a thing? At last, he arrived, and all in one piece. 'Sorry I'm late!' he boomed. 'It's the funniest thing! I was looking for a pair of trousers to wear, and I found I fitted into an old pair that I haven't been able to squeeze into for ages! So I decided to try on all the stuff that didn't fit, and most of it did! I've lost weight!' And with a cheery beam he unloaded four bottles of wine and one of port from his saddlebags, and in he came.

This morning was slightly groggy, though cooking a breakfast for the houseful woke me up nicely. Afterwards we sat round, full and rather lethargic. I suggested a walk. Agreed, but where to? Well, I ventured, there was this seat I had always fancied sitting on...

The road out of Chipping Sodbury towards the A46 climbs an almighty hill half way up which it also develops a never-ending curve, by the end of which you almost feel you're coming back on yourself. At around the half way point of the bend, the pedestrian footpath runs out, and there is a bench set for weary walkers to gaze across the South Gloucestershire countryside. I've always wanted to sit on it, and gaze. I've also fantasised that it sits above the entrance to the Chipping Sodbury Tunnel (on the Bristol Parkway to London Paddington line; most often referred to in the context of 'and the Chipping Sodbury Tunnel is closed due to flooding')- I've been through it countless times in a train, but never seen the start of it from a static viewpoint, and would like to. For some strange reason.

This walk would be a 5 or 6 mile round trip, and I asked the Cossack if his leg could stand it. He had a nasty smash on the bike some years ago, in hospital for ages, much metal remaining in his leg. Oh no, that would be fine; he was as game as we were. I packed some water bottles and the binoculars into my backpack. Then I repacked it with my waterproof coat as well; I didn't like the look of the sky at all. The Cossack grabbed his stout stick, and we were all set.

We passed the centre of the Caravan universe on the way out of Chipping Sodbury, and the scenery got much greener. Hidden birds were twitting in the hedgerows, and a deep inhalation judiciously timed to avoid recently-passed traffic filled the lungs with some pretty decent lightly-fragranced springtime air. I saw a Goldtwit dart across the road. I imagine it wouldn't have hidden away quite so effectively if I hadn't been squealing about it ooh look ooh look to the chaps, but I couldn't help it. A little further on, there was a pile of feathers scattered and I felt sorry for the bird that didn't make it. On closer inspection it was a peaceful-looking pigeon, so I stopped feeling bad. Bloody things. The Cossack felt moved to render a chorus of Jerusalem, his strong Welsh tones ringing out across the green and pleasant land. He rather spoiled it by concluding with a sustained belch.

We climbed the long drag of the hill of doom, noting the crenellated tower atop the hill, built by Mr IK Brunel as a vent for the output of steam trains travelling through the tunnel. My excitement mounted as I heard a train rumbling - I'd soon be seeing the tunnel entrance! By dint of repeating a quiet mantra in my head ('it's doing you good, it's doing you good') I managed to keep going long enough to reach the bench of desire. We collapsed onto it and got our breath back, handing the binoculars from one to another and eagerly scanning the countryside. We could see hills, fields, sheep, fences, trees, cars, roads, sheep, churches, houses, farm buildings, sheep. And sky. Not one jot of a hint of a suspicion of a railway line or tunnel entrance. Poot.

We had noticed a signpost for a public footpath on the way up; on the way back down, we explored it. It was notable for two main reasons: firstly, the way the steep initial climb downwards was constituted mainly by moss and if not moss, then mud, and secondly by coming to an abrupt halt next to a horse, an electric fence and a sign that said 'Private. Danger Dog.' Not wishing to become entangled with some pooch with a cavalier attitude to risk and sufficient fortitude to have forged a career in the army, we turned tail and headed off back up the slippery slope.

At the next crossroads, we turned off to see what we could see down the side road. Nothing much, aside from the Kingfisher-emblazoned sign advertising the Frome Valley Walkway. Without a clue where it led, we leapt the stile with agility and grace and headed off for adventure. I still held out a feeble hope that I might see the tunnel entrance...

3 fields later, The Cossack spied the parapet of a bridge through a break in the hedge. 'That's a railway bridge! Look at the engineering bricks!' He was right as well. I trotted over, excited. Tallboy wasn't far behind me when I squealed my delight at spying the tunnel entrance some 200 metres up the track. I looked around for The Cossack, he needed to join the celebrations too, but found he was a little busy weeing in the hedge at that moment. I trotted to the other side of the bridge; the track parallelled its way off into the distance, ramrod straight. And empty. There were no trains to be seen, and my pleasure at gaining the tunnel was tinged with regret. I love seeing trains go by. I particularly like stationing myself somewhere with a good view of the cab, and waving as they pass. They always hoot, and this pleases me about a thousand percent more than it should. Today though, a Sunday, the chances of seeing one were slim to say the least.

Tallboy grabbed the binoculars and pointed them skywards, training them on a passing Microlight. He waved at the occupant. I scorned his feeble waving attempt - how pitiful an object to wave at. For a start, there was no hooter to reward the wave with... His attention was then caught by a small aeroplane, but mine wandered. To the tunnel entrance. Where, in the deadly inky blackness, there were two little glows. Which got bigger and bigger and closer and closer. 'Atrainatrainatrainatrainatrainatrainatrain!' I whooped, and waved for all I was worth with both my arms over my head in Famous Five mode. The driver hooted and hooted, and, just before the train disappeared under my feet, waved back. I was elated. If you happen to have been on an InterCity 125 which left the Sodbury tunnel at 1.00 and were alarmed by the major hootage, I'm sorry; it was my fault.

I was so elated, in fact, that I managed to get us comprehensively lost in the fields although we managed at last to make our way back to Chipping Sodbury, where The Cossack treated us to a pint of jolly nice beer in the Beaufort Hunt, which gave us just enough energy to trot home and collapse on the sofa.

I've been smiling while writing this post. Finding the tunnel was fantastic. Seeing a train come out of it was the icing on the cake. Being in a position to wave at it was a dream come true. The hooting and the wave back were the best thing ever. Tallboy's response? 'I bet he thought you were going to chuck a brick at the cab...'

The heat is on

2006-04-22T14:36:00.000+01:00

Java Boy wandered into the office earlier in the week, and inquired whether anyone might like a second hand dining room table - they were having a new one delivered the next day and the old one had to go. Neither Baldrick nor I needed a new table, and declined. 'Only, if I can't get rid of it, we haven't got a towbar for the trailer anymore so I'll have to chop it up to get it to the tip...' That ignited a little spark in my brain. 'Is it a solid wood table at all?' 'Yup' 'Well, if you can't find anyone who wants it, I'll have it when you've chopped it up. It'll go up a treat!' Methane Boy, our resident pyromaniac, would be well chuffed. A couple of days later, a happy Java Boy told me he had spent a pleasant hour with his dad's circular saw, and the former table was awaiting collection at my convenience.

Thus it was that Tallboy and I set off for chez Java Boy this morning. I'd arranged to pick the table up at 10 o'clock, so at 9.30 I was in the car, starting the engine. Tallboy was on the front step trying to make one of the kids hear the doorbell so that he could go back in and fetch the mp3 player. And his house keys. We managed to get going a little later than planned, but it was a lovely morning and the bickering didn't last too long.

We passed the last house and were out between fields, surrounded by greens (and the odd brown from the faded daffodil clumps by the side of the road). I caught sight of a pair of ears, and another. 'BUNNY!!!!!!!!' I am unable to quell my response to rabbits by the side of the road. I adore them. Driving mum back from Bristol once, I saw a rabbit, and exclaimed in my usual fashion. Except she's not used to it. Her heart started beating again eventually.

Further down the road, there were two more. 'BUNNY!!!!!' He was expecting that one... On the way to Poppy's house, there is a field which used to be full of scampering bunnies but is now bereft of them. Tallboy always looks to see if there are any, most of the time turning to me to say 'NB*' in a sad tone of voice.

As time went on I became aware of a smell in the car. *snff snff* Ah, yes. We're expecting the Cossack for dinner tonight, you see. I mean, we're expecting him to come here to have dinner, we're not going to eat him for dinner. That would be most un-hostlike. Mind you, there'd be good eating on him... Anyway, I'd decided to do some of the cooking first thing, to cut down on the eeek-where-has-the-time-gone rush at the end. One of the dishes is Delia's Thick Onion Tart, which requires the cooking of a pound and a half of onions for half an hour. That's what I could smell. I was all oniony.

I asked Tallboy if I smelled of onions. 'No,' he responded quickly, in his let's-not-be-controversial-here tone of voice. 'No, really,' I asked, 'do I smell of onions?' He leaned over and sniffed my shoulder. 'Well, yes, you do.' He then made a noise which at first caused me to think he was suffering a stroke but which turned out to be the noise Homer Simpson makes when he thinks of food and salivates (and which I am absolutely unable to render in this medium). Fair enough, it was quite a pleasant smell, I was just uncomfortable about it. For the rest of the trip I became more and more aware of my caramelised onion odour, and fretted. It didn't seem a very polite thing to smell of when you go to someone else's house.

Tallboy's faffing around before we left ensured that we arrived outside Java Boy's house on the stroke of 10, which was nice. I like to be prompt. Tallboy and Java Boy loaded up the car with the chopped up woody goodness, and I chatted to Java Boy's mum who came out to say hello. I suddenly felt a bit mean, taking her lovely old table away in bits to burn, but she didn't seem too bothered.

Methane Boy has already unloaded it all next to the fire place in the garden. We'll burn it later. The last time we had a bonfire, we didn't have any firelighters and it was a swine trying to get it going. Eventually, Tallboy pinched a disposable BBQ out of the garage and used that to get it going. This time, we have firelighters and a whole bin full of kindling courtesy of the shredder. We bought the firelighters in Lidl, and when we got them home, Tallboy took them out of the bag and read out the name on the pack. Instead of firelighters, it said 'firestarters'. 'Twisted firestarters' was my immediate, unthinking response. Tallboy failed completely to get the Prodigy reference, and started inspecting the packaging closely, to see how curly wurly they were. Bless.

* NB = No Bunnies

Today I cried at work

2006-04-20T21:27:00.000+01:00

Baldrick is getting suspicious about the blog. He's aware of its existence, though he has never visited. His interest was piqued earlier this week when I told him that a reader thought him 'uppity'. There was a spot of gentle joshing from the Lanky Herberts and Horace. 'I'd better start reading this blog,' he muttered darkly. 'With my legal advisor.'

One thing about Baldrick, (and I'm advised this statement isn't actionable at all, oh no) is that he cannot leave a cake unconsumed. Or a biscuit. The man is a human cake radar. If there is something sweet and yumptious available anywhere in the school, he will locate it, lock on to the target, home in, and destroy it. By eating it, I mean, not by sitting on it or hitting it with a cricket bat or something.

I had to pop into one of the admin offices this morning, and as I passed through, I spotted a mountain of cakes and biscuits on the table in the middle. Not tempted myself (my willpower remains strong, honest), I logged the fact on Baldrick's behalf.

Later in the day, I actually remembered to tell him, and he was up out of his seat before I had finished speaking. Heading off to the office, he popped in casually to take down the MAC address (long hexadecimal number) of the print server in the room. He used a little square of yellow post-it to record the number, then looked up and noticed the table groaning with cake. 'Whose birthday is it?' he enquired. 'Weavil's' was the answer. 'Nah, really, whose is it?' 'Weavil's!' Ah, the light dawned - not mine, the other member of staff with the same name as me...

'Have a piece.' He didn't need asking twice. Casting around for something to cart his booty off in, he realised that he needed both hands. Sticking the post-it onto his bald forehead with a flourish, he bent down to the recycling bin and retrieved a piece of clean waste paper which he used as a plate substitute for a stonking piece of moist, rich chocolate cake. Thanking the birthday girl and wishing her many happy returns, he turned to leave. 'Er, Baldrick,' came a hesitant voice from near his elbow. 'Yes?' 'Er, you seem to have a post-it note stuck to your forehead.' 'Yes, I put it there.' 'Oh, I thought it must have got there when you bent down...'

Baldrick returned to the office and re-enacted the proceedings, capturing the flourish of the forehead sticking, and the uncertain cadences of the post-it queryist. I laughed until I cried, then I carried on laughing and crying until I had to stop so that I could breathe. He does that sometimes, comes out with something that has me almost on the point of rupture.

The worst was the time when a member of the Senior Team was striding past our windows. Peering at him, I enquired of Baldrick what was with the little square dressing high up on the guy's forehead? 'Oh, he got a tooth in his head,' Baldrick informed me casually. I don't know why, but I found this hilarious. Once I could breathe again, he explained more; the tooth-head guy had been playing football, had been involved in a tackle/collision, had finished the game with one more tooth than he started, embedded like. Every time I saw this guy walk past the window with his little dressing, I couldn't suppress the giggles. Yes, I felt bad about it, obviously he had been injured and deserved sympathy. I just couldn't help it. Once I was on the phone, looked up and caught sight of him, and had to end the call in hysterics, blurting out my apologies and a promise to call back in a minute.

The dressing went after a little while, and my reaction abated somewhat. Till I met him in the corridor and he wanted to speak to me. Focusing anywhere but on the injury site, I kept my self control without too much difficulty, until he voluntarily mentioned his injury. Biting my cheeks to prevent my hilarity becoming evident in my expression, I nodded sympathetically. I nearly lost it when he told me that it had left a hole which might not ever fill in again, but retained my composure enough to trot back to the office before I let the hysterics out. Baldrick looked on wordlessly until I could stutter out what the matter was. This set me off again and it was ages until my ribs stopping hurting and I could breathe sensibly.

Oh dear, I feel awfully mean now...