Goodwill to all Brankind...

It's when you can taste the sugar in All Bran you know you have a habit. Sugar is crack cocaine to the recovering Slimmer. But it is very hard to avoid, unless you submit to a lifetime of vigilance. Reading every label. Sometimes twice. Before and after you've found your specs, because this is the small print. Yes, it's the small print that makes you large. You read it and then decide the carton would contain less sugar and therefore be better for you. Not as tasty, but in some cases, providing equal amount of fibre. 

So I am packing up all the remaining sweetmeats after Christmas and hiding them under the stairs ( Ssh! Step back! This post will self-destruct in 30 seconds). I am trusting of my own will power but not of my fellow addict who has been eyeing up his next indulgence with a maniacal gleam in his eye, which is all too familiar.

2017 will be the year I save ourselves from the tyrannical thrall of sugar... 

I wish you all a happy, healthy New Year.

"No, I don't know where they went..."

"Maybe I gave them to the kids..."

"Got some lovely fruit salad in the fridge. No, I know it's not the same as Rumtopf, or Stollen, or the last packet of mince pies..."

Wish me luck. 

May all baubles remain attached 'til Twelfth Night

Of Festive Food and Not the Finest Feet..

Hello? Sorry, didn't see you sitting there. Was just studying my personal pig sans blanket. Oh come on, my toe looks like a pink wee cocktail sausage.

Yes, downed a few of those pink cocktails over the festive season, but went  easy on the sausages. Six bloomin' syns per sausage with Slimming World and it doesn't specify the size.  So enjoyed several platefuls of sherry trifle, a couple of large slabs of Christmas cake and discovered that Mince pies no longer ring my Jingle bells. Who'd have thought? But when it comes to navigating Christmas calories, don't listen to Mrs Bunion, my darlings.

The bathroom scales are cringing at my daily approach. And no amount of gently lowering myself from the towel rail will change the indisputable fact that this little swollen toe weighs 1.84 kg.

Amazing. Even without a blanket.

Pigs in blankets

Pigs without blankets

This bad little piggy has iPhone shadow

Brussel sprout avoidance (Footnote 7)

On Thursday evening the rod was removed. You know, the one holding my toe straight. You'd forgotten. Didn't care. Bored with all this toe business. I get it. Even my Dearest failed to notice that I am now wearing matching footwear and smell newly-fragrant, after my first shower in a month. But for those who read these ramblings in search of serious foot education, let me reassure you that rod-removal was a breeze and over in seconds. I don't know whether my active imagination had envisaged a dyna-rod being removed, for I had been a tad queasy at the prospect. The toe is swollen and a little on the under-done side. Medium rare, really. But functional and hopefully about to give me a much surer platform for all the walking I intend to do, to off-set mince-spies.

Anyway, I should be doing something useful like peeling a sprout or three instead of talking to you.
However, if you are still here on Christmas eve, let me wish all my lovely readers a very Merry Christmas, and a Happy, Healthy 2017. Thank you for keeping me company this year.

The last word from a young friend...

Limbering up.....

I can hear the merry clink of ice in a tumbler. I am slicing the cucumber in defiance of dietary options. Gentle on the tonic. Mother has not been ruined for many a dry month in search of a more refined silhouette. Well, blow that for a game of soldiers over the next few days. I have to get into practice for the 25th. I do not want to pass out after the pre-turkey sherry. I want to be up and at'em for two whole days before I return to constraint and corsetry.

So here's to you and one for me. Cheers, me dears!

Will a Cricket Bat Under the Bed Become the New Weapon of Choice (against marauders)?

The day before my mother's funeral, we cleaned her brasses. An eclectic collection of pots and plates. Her brasses were always kept gleaming. She would say that nobody else noticed, but that did not deter her. I find myself now carrying on the job. No one will notice, but I will.

This time I have cleaned a few more. I have cleaned the fire-irons that were made by a great, maybe great great grandfather who was a brass founder. They are whoppers. Not those mincy little jobs that sit apologetically in the hearth (or used to, in the days of open fires) but a strenuously crafted poker and shovel that requires manly effort to prod dying embers or scoop up coal ( from the coal house, of course). They used to reside in Heol Elli, by the side of Grandma Leyshon's open fire. After she died, they were given to me, as I had always loved them, and we, at that time, had an open fire with a brick fireplace.There, they gave us pleasure for twenty five years or more.
But for the past ten years, since we plastered the fireplace and installed a mantlepiece, they have resided under our bed. I could say gathering dust, but then, you know, my house is immaculate.




So today, I have resurrected them, brushed off the imaginary dust and tried to bring back that almost silver gleam of brass that has just been cleaned. No. Not quite as golden as I remember, but good enough. Because I am passing them on to a younger cousin who remembers them in Grandma's kitchen; he has an open fire, where they will now reside. Connecting his young family with their history and creating new memories.

Things go better with..

You won't find a jigsaw puzzle in our house this Christmas. Not in yours either? I think they are pretty much out of fashion, because nobody has the patience to fiddle. There are endless other seductive distractions which are all more enticing than looking for a bit of cloud in a sky or an elusive porthole in  The Fighting Temeraire. My Grandma used to like a large one at Christmas. Kept in the parlour on a small table all by itself, inviting anyone and everyone to complete a small section. It should have provided brain-training, but that front room chilled your cheeks.

Then, as a good and dutiful mother, I bought jigsaw puzzles for my young children, and all but elbowed them out of the way when they reached the twelve-piece puzzle because I found I could do an elementary puzzle all by myself. Immensely satisfying. But that was as far as it went.
I do however, have an unhappy knack for losing parts of games, toys and even earrings. It distresses me, but I have lived with this character flaw for many years. So imagine my joy, when I shook a plastic bag that had been in the loft and a miniature twelve-pack of coca cola bottles fell out. I knew exactly what they were and where they had come from.

Thirty years ago, an old neighbour had given me a Coca Cola van for our son as hers were past the age of playing with it. He was intrigued by the twenty four tiny bottles that fitted into the back.
However, when one of the bottle packs disappeared I could not bring myself to get rid of the toy.
About a year ago, I discovered the missing item which afforded me huge satisfaction as I restored the full load.

Today, as I took my remaining Christmas cards to deliver by hand, I wrapped the toy and left it with a note of explanation at my old neighbour's house. She now has grandchildren who will be intrigued by its history.

I just love it when the missing piece completes the picture.
But please, no jigsaw puzzles this Christmas. Unless it's The Fighting Temeraire. For old times' sake.

No product placement here- hashtag

Humble Brothers...

I had, last night, been going to write about umbrellas. I like a good umbrella. Usually, so I can leave it behind on a bus. Or a train. I'm not fussed really. Until I find that I have done it again. So no point in buying expensive ones. I am therefore consigned to the cheap blow-inside-out jobs that you have to Japanese arm-wrestle to erect during a summertime squall.

But not any longer. There are now Smart brollies on the market which you can connect to your phone which will alert you when you are 50 metres away from them. By which time some canny bugger will have pinched it, as these gizmos are obviously going to become highly desirable. Because don't we all want to shake a brolly handle to find out if it will rain or shine before setting off? And of course, we all want to leave around yet another hackable item that will expose our data to thieves. Let's get ourselves a Smart umbrella for Christmas and live dangerously.

That's what I was going to write last night until I saw the news on the television.
For many people, a hard rain is gonna fall this Christmas.

Seasalt design

                                     

Little Drummer Boy...

Parrumpa-pum-pum... A newborn gift... Oh you are so lucky that you cannot hear me. It was one of the first singles bought by my parents who in their modern way were moving away from the stack of 78s they had amassed.
But this weekend... Well, frankly, I wasn't, when it came down to it, as keen on the idea as I had been when my dearest husband booked way back in September. Firstly, I still am encumbered by untrendy surgical boot which ridicules any attempt to look half way decent in an evening outfit and when dressed-down I simply look like an escapee from A&E. Dearest had got us tickets for Ronnie Scott's Jazz club in London. I've always wanted to go but when I learnt that the doors opened at 10.30pm I quailed inwardly at the prospect of having to stay out SO LATE.
So I had to quell inner turbulence with liquor and good company. Indeed, I  found myself quite fortified by our arrival at 10.45, a time that normally finds my good god-fearing self curled up in a duvet.
Ray Gelato and the Giants were playing. Oh, my kind of music. Brought up, as I was, on bands  and crooners I could almost smell the brown paper covers of those 78s.
It was an hour and a half of sheer pleasure. But for me the surprise of the evening was a young lad, Ed Richardson, whose drum solo was a virtuoso performance.
Forget the parrumpa pum pums and see if you can find him on Youtube. Prepare to be amazed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhw1rtjq33U

Christmas presents past and present.....

I have the sort of husband that many will recognise. No, he's not Nigel Havers. I don't mean famous. He fits a certain behavioural type. Like he never ever notices what I am wearing. This can be a good thing. Clothes bought last week usually fly under the radar. So I was a bit unnerved by a brief conversation before he went to work this morning.
"That's a nice blue jumper. Is it new?"
"No, you bought it for me last Christmas.."
"Did I?"
"Yes, you did."
"Well, it's a lovely colour. You do like it, don't you?"
"Yes, it's very warm which means I can keep the thermostat down during the day." (Liar. It's my pants on fire that keep me warm.)
So I am looking forward to my identical blue jumper this Christmas.
That's fine. As he continues to work his socks off, I have bought him some new ones. Really, I have.
Sometimes it's the little things in life that are important.
Especially when they come ready-matched.

What will Nigel Havers get for Christmas?

Not on the invitation list....

I judge the painfulness of gout by measuring it in decibels. I am not sure that this is a medically approved diagnosis. Otherwise it could easily be mis-diagnosed for missing socks, keys, phone or last month's bank statement.
The pinkness of the toe joint and the accompanying swelling makes it an easy call for the amateur medic. Not that it is easy, living with gout. And, as the Afflicted roars even more loudly when it is pointed out that red wine and Naproxen are verboten, the Afflictee finds it very hard not to stand on the Afflicted's foot (in error).
You will notice that I am bending over backwards here to preserve anonymity. I could, of course, have used the gender neutral ze. Seemingly, if one is to believe everything in the newspapers, students and staff at Oxford and Cambridge are being encouraged to do so, to preserve the sensibilities of transgender people.
What a load of gobswallop. It's almost enough to distract me from this uninvited guest at Christmas. Holy Moley.
Oh, for a Silent Night.
                                                 

The Wrong Trousers...

You'd never mistake Theresa May for Wallace or even Gromit. Wallace has curbed any conceivable desire to wear kitten heels, and leopard print simply does not feature in his limited wardrobe. He did once develop a demon pair of walking trousers that threatened to take over the Wensleydale world.
And that's where the problem lies. Mrs May's now famous leather trousers were once walking beings. And now they are showing every indication that they have developed a second life of their own. But it's not the anti-leather brigade that have been burning rubber outside Number 10. Oh no, it's rumblings from within.
It's the cost. Yes, £995 for a pair of leather trousers. Not just any old M&S pair, but by Amanda Wakeley. (Bless her. Never heard of her, but all this attention can't be bad for business.) Now you and I might think that a thousand quid is a bit steep for a pair of trews.  If someone gave me a thousand pounds I can assure you I would not be looking to turn my ample thighs into "bitter chocolate" reflector boards. No sirree. But how Mrs May chooses to spend her money is her prerogative. She has no children (I whisper this) so she can afford to splash the cash. But it wasn't very savvy of her to indulge her evident love of fashionable attire whilst professing to be concerned about the just about managing sector of society.
She could have got away with it if it had not been for the lippy Mrs Morgan, former Education Secretary, who perpetuated the debate by suggesting that Mrs May was "diverting attention" from Brexit. By wearing leather trousers?
Then it gets worse. Mrs Morgan has been excluded from talks in No. 10.
"Don't you dis my trousers, girl!"
Then Nadine Dorries accuses Nicky Morgan of "rank hypocrisy " because she owns a £1000 Mulberry handbag.
Nicky Morgan's friends say that it is 12 years old and had been a gift. Na-na-nana-na!

This is just ghastly. I hate it when women, not just those in high places, conform to the stereotypical image held by many men.
Too much talk. Think more and say less.
                                           

Trees, trees me....

The tree is up ( artificial, if you're wondering) .. Actually, both trees are: the elegant one in the living room, and my mother's tacky tree in the study. The only ever breach of her inimitable taste.  You never even saw her swallowing hard as  she gracefully  accepted every ornament that any of her grandchildren ever bought her, regardless of style or colour. So each branch is laden with recollection and family history. Memory and desire.
So that's me done. Well, no, I haven't wrapped all my presents or written a card. So the smugometer is failing to register as much as a smirk.
That's what comes from peaking too soon. No, not peeking too soon. I am so over that.

                   Naughty?                                   or                                     Nice?

AA Gill is away (1954-2016)

AA Gill died yesterday.
The suddenness of his death has shocked everyone. Little did I anticipate as I wrote about the recent announcement of his cancer, that death would so soon follow.
No more eager anticipation on a Sunday morning. No more laughter, and reading aloud of the choice bits across the breakfast table. An immeasurable loss.
I think it's going to rain today.

                                                                             Getty Images

A Star was Born...

As parents, we tried to squeeze a little religion into our young children's lives. Well, at least at Christmas time. Carols, Christingles, and the Crib service: that sort of thing. Though one Christingle almost came to an unholy end when our four year old son was so busy chatting to his sister that he scorched the hood of the child's anorak in front of him. Only a lunge that the Angel Gabriel would have been proud of from the Playgroup leader, Mrs Baxter, saved the day.

So now it's back to Nativity plays as an introduction to the festive season.  We attended our grandson's this week. I was looking forward, apart from anything else, to seeing my High Street purchases brought to life. I had been a little bit chuffed that I had so successfully kitted out a  shepherd.
I have a lot to learn, it seems, about dressing a six year old.
The scarf I'd bought had been tied round his head like a bandanna, so he looked like a renegade from Pirates of the Caribbean, or a Ninja Turtle. So not exactly what you'd call a conventional shepherd.
The wonderful ethnic shawl gave him grief through out the whole performance: he grappled with it as if it had a life of its own. But not losing a single cue - every word and action, bang on the button. It was a treat that not even the halo of the angel in front could obscure.
Mark Rylance, apparently, was never allowed to play Joseph in the Nativity plays, as his mother directed them, and she felt it would have been favouritism to have given him a named part.
"I was a shepherd for f****ing ages," he moaned.
So being a shepherd can be an apprenticeship for great things...
                                    

The dog has been de-throned......

I felt really flat when I discovered that Father Christmas did not exist. This devastating piece of news was kept from me until last week, when I failed to read the spoiler alert in The Times. Yes we, have to be so careful these days to protect our young from the abject truth that some fat old geezer in a red plush rig-out is not going to squeeze down the chimney with the new bike they ordered. So very careful, that The Times had to apologise for the article where a psychologist spilled the festive beans by suggesting that it was harmful to children to perpetuate  the myth. Any child reading The Times needs to brought into the inner-circle, says I.
My childhood memories do not include leaving out a glass of sherry for Father Christmas. Just as well, really, as a glass of Bristol Cream would not have sat comfortably upon the generous few pints that my father would have consumed at the Con Club in Llanelli with my Uncle Heilyn.  As the mince-pies made by my grandmother would have been off-limit, my father would have been directed instead to the turkey-neck and giblets that were slow-cooking in readiness for the gravy on Christmas day. Stomachs were stronger in those days. At least my father's was.
We managed to keep the myth for our own two children for as long as we could. At least, the whole process was not complicated by a bloomin' Elf. This is the latest thing. As a parent you purchase your Elf on the Shelf in November, then each night you re-position him somewhere in your house, getting up to mischief. Each morning, the credulous child runs downstairs to see what Elfie has been up to.
Well, as if any normal parents did not have enough on their plate at this time of year? However, the Elf gives a great deal of pleasure, and much laughter as the one remaining believer in Buckingham gets up each morning with huge enthusiasm to see whatever next.
I watch and say nothing. But entrenous, I've heard it tell, that often at midnight as his tired parents get into bed there is a cry of "The 'king Elf! For goddsake!".
Thank goodness he disappears back to the North Pole on the 24th. (No, doesn't wait for Twelf Night..)
I fear for the mental elf of parents everywhere.
                                          

It's foggy today.. no rain,dear.... (Footnote 6)

Shall I tell you a secret? Come closer. No, not that close... Sorry, it's for your benefit, actually. I haven't had a bath or a shower for two weeks. It's been the oily-rag-time-routine all that time. Didn't bother with that plastic bag contraption, after last time round. Can't afford to get that little metal rod poking oot ma wee toe, all rusty. Dear me, no. What would that lead to? A lot worse than a bit of toe-curling, I tell you. So, I have been ultra-careful in the ablutions department. In fact, I would venture to suggest that I could pass an OFSTED inspection for ablutions, with flying flannels.

But I am bored with very careful washing. I yearn for the carefree liberation of splash-and-go in the shower, or for wallowing in the womb-like warmth of the bath. And I thought that today was the day that my surgeon would remove the metal rod that is in my little toe and send me for a prolonged dunk in the bath.
But I don't listen.
Two weeks to have the stitches removed. Four to six weeks to have the metal removed. So in two weeks' time, just before Christmas I say goodbye to Rod. The ninth reindeer.

And Rod, obvs.

                                   

Anyone for a Codpiece? "Nice Fish"

Would you like a nice cup of tea?
Comforting words, aren't they? Not merely issued by old ladies. Or vicars. We never offer anyone anything less. My father would occasionally pass back  the cup, if it had  been brewed insufficiently and say in Welsh, "Parson's piss.."  So when my dearest husband said, way back in March, "Nice Fish?" on a mobile phone with bad reception, I said,"Sure, why not?"but failed to hear the italics. When the grilled fish did not arrive with his homecoming on the Friday evening, the conversation was re-constructed (and fishfingers came to the rescue).
Last Saturday was the evening for which tickets to see Mark Rylance in Nice Fish had been bought.
I had read nothing about it, so had no expectations. Other than, of course, a sense of pleasure at seeing Mark Rylance on stage again. We had enjoyed Farinelli and the King very much, earlier in the year.
The show comes to London after a sell-out in New York. It is written by Rylance and Louis Jenkins, and directed by Rylance's wife, Claire van Kampen.
The play is set on a frozen lake in Minnesota. Delightful miniature marionettes set the scene which brings us to two larger than life characters, who are fishing on the ice. Comparisons with "Waiting for Godot" are inevitable, or as one critic said, "Waiting for Codot". Not as lyrical, not as funny, but a quiet, compelling masterclass in meaningful inactivity.
Be wary. Ninety minutes and no interval (rightly so). For me, with a full bladder, it was also mind over Minnesota.

Photo by Teddy Woolfe

How many industrial rubs before it becomes bobbly?

I have to  confess that on the Smugometer I was riding high. Made Christmas cake before my toe op last week. Never happened that early before. Alright, I did have a slight incident with the All Spice thinking it was the same as Mixed spice, but think I managed to dig most of it out of the flour. Looks good, smells good and I'm busy feeding it Brandy which is a heroic act of pure altruism in these alcohol-free days.
Wrapping up presents and it's not even Christmas eve! What is going on? Ah, yes, I'm retired. This is what retired people do. Immediate sense of Der flater mouse. I thought that for once in my life I was on top of my game, even with a broken but mending toe. But no. This is my game.

Never mind, suggested to son et lumiere that he might like to have an Ercol chair we gave them re-covered. They loved the Melin fabrics and enjoyed choosing from the samples I'd been sent. Choice made, I went back to the catalogue and found that the fabric they had chosen was from the upholstery fabric page.  Where was my fabric? Not on the upholstery page. Then I recalled my upholsterer saying that it had been a bit of a challenge because the fabric had been a bit stretchy. Thought nothing of it. On the upholstery page there are references to Teflon treatment and how many industrial rubs the upholstery fabric could withstand.

So we sit and look at our beautiful chaise and practise shouting at imaginary guests who will be real enough at Christmas,
"NOT ON THE CHAISE!"
Can't wait. (Smugometer reduced to zero.)

You can't have your cake and eat it.......

Pity the Postmen and the Bin Men...

Do you know what? I feel sorry for Bin Men. You see my forgiving nature (re: A Woman Scorned) when they refused to take my bin because of one sad bit of paper lying in with the plastics and cardboard. No, I genuinely feel sorry for them when they have to cart away the heavy blue re-cycling box full of paper and magazines. We manage to do a pretty fine job of filling it with a daily news paper, but at this time of year it's the catalogues.
Yes! It's the catalogues that stream in daily, unsolicited. Yes, that's right: I didn't ask for them... Just because I happened to show a slight interest by clicking (sometimes inadvertently) on your web-site, I was browsing, what we used to call window-shopping in the real world. And now, damnit, you've gone and told your friends and now they are sending me catalogues. Acres, hectares, (if they're bigger- not sure, and if I look it up I will receive a tree catalogue for godsake, so I'd better not, as I only have a small garden) forests of trees are being destroyed. In vain. Because all I do, if you're lucky, (and don't count on it) is give it a quick flick and then I chuck it out. Yes, outski, where it may or may not end up by being pulped or possibly find itself in a Chinese landfill site. Who knows? So no more catalogues, please. Hello? Hello? The line's gone dead.
This morning Dearest set off with the Dukeshill catalogue. I noticed it, half-secreted between some files, he'd brought home. A foodie husband in charge of a luxury brand Food retailer's catalogue, is a dangerous combination.
I texted him:"When thinking Dukeshill, please think of reduced capacity fridge and freezer at Christmas and your wife's reduced capacity to squeeze a quart into a pint pot." Clear or what?
He has been warned. And I am on notice.

Quizzes and cocktails....

In my youth, I would occasionally do the Cosmopolitan quiz. Depended on how I wanted to delude myself, really, because the answers were always blindingly obvious. If I wanted to be a spontaneous party-gal, I would pick all the Bs, and reject anything that might confirm me as the feet-on-ground, totally-centred, homegirl that  I really am. Personality quizzes are silly and usually unsophisticated. I don't need a quiz or a test to tell me I am an introverted extrovert, or an extroverted introvert. I still haven't decided which, and hell, it doesn't matter a jot.
But old habits die hard and in the paper at the weekend, a headline caught my eye: "Want a loan? Then take the super power test."
I didn't want a loan, thank you, and I am not looking for another mortgage, but this was irresistable. And unguessable. And that surely was the point. This was a test for those poor souls who have been refused credit using conventional schemes. Seemingly, present systems are dependent on demographics rather than personality which means that a number of worthy candidates are consistently being failed by the system. It is a measure of emotional stability. There are no right or wrong answers (I just love tests like these..) The more sophisticated aspect of the test is that it records how long your mouse hovers over an answer which feeds back even more data for assessment.
So I am sharing some of the questions with you and my answers:
If you were a drink, which one would you be?
A cocktail
A cup of coffee
Fizzy pop
A cup of tea
A glass of water

Well, darlings, the altruist in me would be a glass of water but I would have to say cocktail. Makes me shallow, I know. Not that shallow... a really deep cocktail. And better company too. Been drinking a lot of water recently and I'm as miserable as sin.

What's your worst habit?
Shopping
Gambling
Untidiness
Spilling Drinks on carpets
Flatulence in lifts      (Never in a lift)
Nose picking

Hands up to untidiness.... Both hands while kicking undies under bed when Alarm man calls unexpectedly to service alarm.

Which super power would you give yourself?
The power to find a pot of gold at end of the rainbow
Invisibility
Extraordinary horticultural skills   (Blimey! Who wants to be the fastest hedge-cutter in the west? Hmm..but always fancied topiary)
Superfast runner
Superhuman strength
Mind reading
Such suppleness that your nose can touch your bottom

As I limp around the place, now with two feet on the ground, but one still bandaged, and move from chair to chair, I am what you might call, rickety-boo.  But as the inactivity for the past week has seized me up, it is like gazing into the future. So I would go for such suppleness that my nose can touch my bottom. Guess what? That answer would give me a splendid 5/6 stars for being a credit good egg. Defo time for a cocktail. Now where's the gin and glucosamine?  You could forget all about the tonic.
I frequently do.

I just had to sit right down and write himself a letter...

I am not given to writing fan-letters. The last one I wrote, aged 11, to an actor, Martin Jarvis, who was playing the lead in the BBC's adaptation of "Nicholas Nickelby." Even then, keen to find an angle, something that would make my adulation stand out from the rest, I told him that I loved his nose. Novel approach, eh? It got me a signed photograph but no special acknowledgement, which is what I'd really hoped for.
On Friday, I wrote my second fan-letter to the journalist AA Gill whose columns I have enjoyed for so many years in the Sunday Times. I, like many others, was shocked and saddened last weekend when he announced, in the same sentence, that he was getting married and that he has cancer. Not just some little tumour, but, as he described it, " an embarrassment of cancer, the full English." He wrote, "There is barely a morsel of offal that is not included. I have a trucker's gut-buster, gimpy, malevolent, meaty, malignancy." Until now, he has always made smile aloud, wincing at his excoriating wit, while marvelling at his eloquence. Severely dyslexic he writes nothing and dictates everything. For me, he symbolises a triumph over dyslexia. While he talks dismissively of the well-intentioned efforts of special needs teachers like myself, I am the first to admit there is no magic bullet for those who experience severe dyslexia.
So I wrote to him because the news weighed heavily on my heart and I had to write, to release the valve on pain which would not lift. So I thanked him and said how much I had enjoyed his latest book, "Pour me, a Life," an autobiography describing his recovery from alcoholism when he was thirty. I told him how I was one of the happy band of special needs teachers who'd done their best to make him better. It was important to me to say what I felt, because too often we miss out on opportunities of saying things that need to be said. So I wrote him a letter, a proper pen and ink job,  which I hoped would stand out from the hundreds of emails he would no doubt be receiving. I hope he reads it. It makes me feel better thinking that he might. 
I am sure he he will be happier that I praised his elegant prose and not his aquiline nose.

Preserving and Improving Family Heirlooms...

No pain. Well none to speak of. Tedious, yes. Spare room closer to the bathroom. So installed there, for time being. Just at night. Yesterday morning Dearest husband walks into spare room which I laughingly call his Dressing Room. A while ago, I decided to rationalise his dressing options to reduce the "Where's-my?" in my life.
"Jesus Christ!" he said, "I'd forgotten you were there!" Obviously not missing a wifely shape in the marital bed.
For someone who notices everything in fine print, a kitchen cupboard door hanging wonky, or a bathroom drawer that simply isn't straight, he is famous for missing the blindingly obvious. Like a grandfather clock delivered from Scotland (and no, it was not at the end of a baronial hall, but in a snug study) and now a mis-placed wife.
At the back of the wardrobe which sounds more like Narnia every time I make reference to it, I recently unearthed two dreary oil paintings. They had been painted by my late father-in-law over 60 years ago.  I was thinking of re-burying them when I was touched by sentiment. Perhaps Dearest would like these for Christmas, if I got them cleaned up. The frames were quite nice, after all. So I had a word with our artist friend, Anthony Wildig, who was prepared to do some work on them.
Last week they were ready. I couldn't wait for Christmas, I wanted him to enjoy them right now. So Anthony hung them and they didn't look bad at all. In fact, they looked considerably better.
It was twenty minutes before my Dearest husband noticed them. I put a clock on it. He was, however, very pleased.
What he doesn't know, is that Anthony, with my permission, had added little soupçon of colour to the clouds: brought them up lovely. The paintings were unsigned. If they turn out to be by JMW Turner, then I, no longer a smug thing, will have buggered the inheritance.
Now that really would be a pain.
                         

Raising the Blues...but Limiting the Rock and Roll

Don't step on my new blue (not suede) shoe!  With hair that remains resolutely uncurly, I have returned to my familiar domain with a foot held high and a toe with which I intend to point for Britain.
With instructions to elevate the foot for 96 hours (dividing by 24 is not easy for this mathematical retard ) I returned home to find myself disengaging two kitchen drawers which had managed to lock together in our absence between 7am and our return at 2.00. I don't know who breathed the deeper sigh of relief: Dearest to be relinquished from patient duty or I at being left to my own devices?
So it's hup two three four possibly five days... back to Boot Camp.
I was reminded of a delightful book by Eva Rice, written in 1975: New Blue Shoes. Thank goodness I have only one shoe..

Happy memories are made of this..

Very still life...

Foot note 5

I've dug out the old boot. What boot? Not the old Das Boot which was where this all started.. ? Yes indeed. I have rummaged at the back of my shoe cupboard and there it is. Age and dust have not withered its ugliness or reduced its consummate practicality. You might be wondering whether I have lost the plot or inadvertently gained a few extraneous marbles, but let me reassure you that there is method in my meandering.
Tomorrow is the day that I am getting my toe straightened. It is the one next to my almost perfectly aligned ex-bunion. Because of its increasing claw-like tendencies it is somehow preventing the big toe from touching the ground.
So hello again, Bunionistas, everywhere. So much jollier than Bunion people. I haven't mentioned this date because I feel rather self-conscious that after the much-heralded bunion op that I am yet again subjecting myself to surgery. But this is not cosmetic, I assure you. It is necessary if I am to walk squarely, without discomfort.
Burning question of the moment is: will getting my toe uncurled, make my hair stand on end?
In the interests of science, I'll let you know..

While Shepherds Washed Their Socks...

Well, I was on a mission this morning. Not just any ordinary mission. Not just any routine shopping expedition. I had been charged with finding a Shepherd's costume in our local town.
The school letter requesting a costume had most recently been unearthed at the bottom of a school bag allowing four days' notice. Just long enough to discard the idea of cutting three holes in a pillow case, but not long enough to get something off ebay. I offered to go on the hunt for a suitable remnant. It sounded comfortingly like my mother who would have been able to whistle up something magical with a little remnant. Could I rise to the challenge?
I went to the market where years ago there were always stalls festooned with rolls of fabric of every hue and texture. Nobody does dress-making any more. No such stall existed. I could have bought fresh fish, a Man United tea shirt for a five year old or a Jamaican sausage, but fabric there was not.

I went into a large toyshop and asked if they had any Shepherd outfits? The stable was bare. I went into Linens Direct to see what the pillow case and sheet situation looked like. I came across some dead cheap bathroom and pedestal mats in a brown chunky twist. For a moment I envisaged my grandson in a pillow case with a pedestal mat over his shoulders: it could have passed muster as a simulated animal skin with just a little imagination... but then the thought of burdening him forever as the boy with the bog-mat in Year 2 gave me reason to hesitate.

It was now all down to John Lewis. What offerings would they have in their remnants bin? Did they still have a remnants bin or am I destined to remain stuck in the eighties forever? But just before I got to JL, I saw Primark. And there was a stripy night shirt. I could turn in the collar and make it look like a grandad shirt (the sort that all self-respecting shepherds wear) and there was an ethnic looking wrap that could go over the shoulder, and a scarf that would sit better than any old tea towel would.
All ridiculously cheap.
Possibly not that cheap for a shepherd's costume.
And don't let anyone whisper to the little lad that we are dressing him up in women's clothing.

The best-dressed shepherd in Buckinghamshire... I think.

In Praise of Welsh Weaving...

I am not one to broadcast my Welsh roots. Until I open my mouth, that is, and the unmistakable Welsh lilt in my dulcets gives it all away.  Even though I was not born in Wales, and have never lived in Wales, I still sound as though that would be the likeliest explanation. However, my Welsh parentage, and holidays three times a year in Llanelli have imbued me with an innate sense of Welshness which only evaporates when I go to Wales and realise that I am merely an imposter, not the real deal. I  support the Welsh Rugby team, am moved to tears by singing at Welsh rugby matches, and I'm brimming up as I write this, with the Treorchy Male Voice choir singing Calon Lan in my head.
So when I had a big rationalisation of our bedroom this summer, I brought out the old traditional Welsh blanket that had come down to me from my grandma. I was never that keen on it, as a child, but now, fifty years later, it takes on an entirely different hue.

Looking good for another 50 Moth-free years.

A gorgeous company called Melin Tregwynt have been sending me their catalogues for some years. It is a Woollen Mill in a remote wooded valley on the Pembrokeshire coast. A mill has been on this site since the 17th century. So when I needed to re-cover the first piece of furniture we bought before we got married, a chaise longue (oh, the headiness of youth!) I realised that at last, I could become a customer. 

And once more return to my roots.

You Can't Beat Home Made...

Domestic Science is what it was called back in the day. A very useful subject which taught you how to make an apron or bake a cake. 

I made a Christmas cake in secondary school. Not so much as a whisper of a Kenwood mixer in sight : all done with a large wooden spoon. After half an hour of laborious mixing of fruited pebble-dashing, my hand was red and raw. My teacher harrumphed as she fetched me a plaster, "Can't have you bleeding in that!"

Next generation it was called Food Technology and my daughter brought home the definitive Sausage Casserole which has sustained us in the winter months for the following 20 years. My, it was a big one.. 

Then this afternoon, the third generation, our six year old grandson, brought home his offering. On this bleak wet autumn evening he announced,

"No need to cook tonight, Mummy, I've made Coleslaw!"

We raised a faux cheer as he opened  the Tupperware box. He stood on a step in the kitchen to get out four bowls. 

"And which of your friends helped you make this?"asked his mother.

"Ronnie," he replied.

"Oh great, " his mother said, with a tone that suggested that possibly it was not. 

We sat down to eat. 

"I've saved an extra large portion for Daddy," said my daughter.

We all started chomping. Conversation was replaced by extreme concentration, accompanied by noisy industrial-style chomping.

"This is disgusting! " spluttered the young chef, his mouth full of semi-chewed vegetation.

"I can't eat this.."

Everyone put down their knife and fork, with ill-disguised relief, and agreed that Daddy should get an an even larger helping upon his return from work. 

I didn't think it was too bad actually. But everyone else blamed Ronnie.  

The Chef's Dad puts in a damn fine effort...

On Being a Nivea Girl at Heart

I have never been one to be dragooned into buying any thing. Not even in my younger days, with children young and impressionable around me. They saw me on one occasion answer the door to A Man in a Fish van who'd driven down from Grimsby that morning with fish fresher than I could possibly buy in any supermarket. Sounded good. As he reeled off (like any good fish salesman) a list of fish: cod, salmon, sea bass... I said, "Ooh lovely.." Then he brought in these large boxes and put them down in my porch and said, "That'll be three hundred quid, love."
I remember saying, "But I don't want to spend three hundred pounds on fish!" He reluctantly took it all back and I bought a sea bass as a gesture of good will which he sold me, very churlishly, I thought. My children watched aghast. "Weren't you embarrassed, Mum?" Not at all.

So it was with some bemusement that on a quick trip to London yesterday that I found myself being approached by an attractive lady outside a ritzy-looking skincare shop. For once I wasn't in a blinding hurry and I really don't like ignoring people when they approach so politely.
"You have lovely natural skin,"  this young American lady said. "What do you use?"
"Fresh,"I told her. Not saying that the jar bought for me last Christmas was still going strong. Skincare is simply not top of my agenda.
"Come inside, I have something for those little lines around your eyes.."
And dear readers, I followed. There I received a very charming but full frontal sales pitch while she smoothed unguents on my compliant face. I could feel my skin tightening up almost immediately.
"Oh, can't you see the difference?"
"Mmm. Possibly, "I said.
"Let me put some of this on these jaw lines to soften them." Now you would need some pretty hefty weight-lifting cream to sort out wrinkle lines adjacent to the jowls... so I waited. In vain.
The cost of these serums caused an instant wrinkling of the sphincter muscle: three hundred and something pounds for the eye cream and slightly less for the face cream. But hey, it was a two year supply and it only cost six pounds a week. Bargainous. By now, my smile was incredulous. I would give it some thought and find out a bit more about Ora Gold before committing. I slid out of the shop with an inner glow of amusement and a curious sensation of wearing a face-mask.

On the way home, I read all about this company and the a number of interesting reviews which bore similarities to my own experience. There were many people who'd actually believed the hype, submitted to strong-arm tactics and bought the products.

Ah, but they had not had the benefit of practising on the Fish man from Grimsby first.

All that glistens......

My Personal Recipe...

For marital harmony. Buy a new television. What were you expecting? A recipe for Banana Cake? Well, I have a very nice one of those and with the way I am going bananas this evening, there will be plenty left over next week ... They have to be very ripe, you see...
And I suppose you could say the air has been very ripe this evening...  A new television.. driven by the need for better sound, as we have rued the day we bought a sound box for our previous television.
So today was the day that the new baby arrived. Big but certainly not bouncing. Several hours to install and a brief intro to the instructions which made this TV so simple to operate.
"I can't stand it when I am patronised by people who say it is SO simple!" First demi-rant from my Dearest and Best Beloved.
Netflix let us down, you see. Failed to deliver. Said (very nicely there was a fault). I check account online (find the monthly sub has gone up: more frothing...) and try playing The Crown online. No problem: we could see it on our computer.  Fuel to fire.
Ok, so we will watch something on the Virgin Tivo box. Ah, but it keeps saying we have a problem with Netflix. It is a message that will not make itself disappear despite vigorous jabbing and it is evidently impervious to bad language which is hurled like a nuclear weapon in the direction of the screen.
"I know we have  a sodding problem with Netflix!" Rising crescendo. " I will be on the phone tomorrow! This bloody doesn't work!"
I found the cricket. I clicked the button. Peace. I never thought I'd say this:
"Thank the good Lord for cricket." ( Ok, and Hendricks.Two large ones - easy on the tonic. For me, obvs.)
It could be a long weekend.

Enough to drive a saint to cake....

House of Cards...?

The world is still turning. President Elect Trump has rung our Prime Minister. She just made his top ten. ( Tenth if you're interested: well below Australia and Turkey... but who's counting?) And she got an invite to the White House... yeh! So maybe not such a bad thing after all, when you can get a bit of a trade thing going -obviously much needed after Brexit. 

So in our own particular political patch, we are busy re-calibrating and shuffling the pack faster than you can call Trump. Could make one cynical. Whilst our American friends are still reeling with the shock and fearing the ramifications, the groundswell of British people commiserate.

Peter Brook in The Times today

A Seriously Bad Hair Day...

Well, a cataclysmic victory took place last night. We did not have three in the bed.  At my insistence, Dearest left his i-pad downstairs. I did not want to hear about Donald Trump in the small wee hours.
Instead, Dearest got out of bed, sometime around 4am and came back to bed at five, saying with weary resignation, "It's a done deal".

In Britain we follow the American elections with a fervour that I'm sure is not reciprocated by our American friends, regarding our own. We struggle at times with the complexity, but we listen hard. Everyone we have spoken to has said, since the middle of summer that Trump's bid stood more than a chance of success. Nobody wanted to believe it. But when Brexit took place here, it seemed a unnerving possibility.

I am no political commentator, but I fail to see any positives today. All I can envisage is a field-day for political cartoonists who are so good at mocking what we fear most.

I Blame Eliza Doolittle...

So women are swearier than men, FFS! What a startling revelation in the Sunday press yesterday. Well, of course we are. We have been primed since birth, to be equal to our male counterparts which means healthy competition. And competition means sometimes we win. Even this dubious trophy.
Apparently our ability to swear like troopers curtails in the over 50s. I can only imagine that the appearance of grandchildren  encourages us to apply the filter which miraculously converts, in my case, the ubiquitous bugger into a little acknowledged Beatrix Potter character called, Buggerlugs.

These days I hear bad language wherever I go. Essentially, I have to tune  it out or I would be going around in a state of perpetual disapproval. "Who are these people who can swear louder and lairier than me?" Frankly, when it comes to swearing, I believe in context and knowing your audience. So I was amused the other day when I happened to be in Selfridges' young Menswear department (looking with increasing desperation for the Ladies' Loos) and saw this jacket.

Reading with my red marking pen in my head, I bridled at the mixture of upper and lowercase letters and the lack of apostrophe in No ones. For a moment, I read it to mean that  people were talking very nicely and not using sweary words at all, when, blow me down, I spotted a double negative.
I was further offended by the £675 price tag.
Shame. Would have sorted Dearest's Christmas present..

Action with the Pants...

You can call me Chi Chi, if you like. Just don't try and mate me with another Giant Panda, is all I ask.
You'll be thinking, but be too polite to say, that the old girl  has lost her marbles. Well, let me tell you, it weren't no marbles I lost yesterday: I almost got detached from my dear old schnozz. And how so, you may ask?
It was all because I did not want to hang my granny pants in full view of a friend who was visiting yesterday morning. I decided to hang them on my nifty little washing line (Hills Supa fold Mini Washing line - buy with caution) which hangs out of sight down the side passage. I erected it as usual so that it hung 90 degrees from the wall, and started to peg out my knickers. I was on the third pair when the metal bar came crashing down on my nose. Stunned I was. But upright. Only moving when the blood began to drip into my laundry basket. The mechanism for holding it up had obviously malfunctioned. I was lucky that blood and bruising was my only malfunction.
My friend arrived some ten minutes later. I told her my sorry tale.
"Some heavy pants,"she commented.
So when I got on the scales this morning, at Slimming World, and found that I had gained a pound this week, I realised she wasn't kidding.

I'm sticking to bamboo shoots from now on...

Raining in My Heart...

I spoke yesterday of rote learning. Chunks of poetry learnt in school continue to give many people of my generation immense pleasure. Partly it's prowess: look, I can still do this (Can't find my specs but I can recite John Donne, except that now I am "the busy old fool") and partly pleasure. Just proves a point that these activities become enmeshed in long-term memory because of the effectiveness of over-learning carried out decades earlier.
The other day Dearest was going on an outing with an old school friend to the Royal Airforce Museum in Hendon. Joy of joys... I begged to go with them because I love stroking an old Spitfire on a Saturday morning. You know me ..
They heeded me not, and I was left to more delightful devices at home. Jim arrived promptly on the most beautiful of autumn mornings.
We sat down to a coffee before they set off:
"The sun is out/ The sky is blue," he mused aloud.
"There's not a cloud/To obstruct the view," I joined in, with something resembling a tune...
We looked at Dearest who looked at us bemused.
"I never liked Wordsworth," he said.

 

The Confusables.....

How Many Times in a Table?

Learning by heart is better for brain. This was a headline that caught my eye yesterday in The Times.
Don't you just love it when something you have been banging on about for the past twenty five years, is picked up by someone who has clout and brings it to public attention? No, this is not a self-congratulatory post. Many, many of my contemporaries will be shaking their heads in disbelief that it has taken so long to come to this conclusion.
So-called Progressive education has done more damage to the academic standards of this country than anything else. I am thinking about education, not in terms of hoop-jumping examination grades, but in terms of basic numeracy, literacy and thinking skills.
"Pupils without the automatic and unconscious ability to do mental arithmetic, and those without facts at their finger tips are unlikely to progress to analytical thinking," said Dr Helen Abadzi.

I just hope there are enough Head teachers out there who can pause, a moment, from their budget-crunching bulldozing to reflect on her findings. Bring back rote-learning. It is not punitive; it is not archaic. The brain is the most precious and complex computer of them all.
Technology, unless we we are careful, will change the way in which the brain functions.
If we are careless we will end up the servant, not the master.

Never too old for a refresher course

Frying Green Tomatoes...

I've put away my broomstick for another year. Glad that Halloween has past.
This day sees me annually mourning the loss of  a beloved  mother, nine years ago, and strangely strange, our dear Aunt who also died a year ago.
I've always disliked the 31st October ever since my young children were traumatised by a witch mask peering in through the dining room window. So it intrigues me to see how trauma translates into tradition as my grandchildren scrape out the squishy innards of a pumpkin and watch as their mother carves out a gaping grin.  I smile, as I hear of them dressing up for a brief interlude of after-dark trick or treating accompanied by one bumblebee-costumed Cockerpoo.
Different generation; different times.
This afternoon I picked the only tomato in my vegetable-free garden. Some months earlier, Joseph and I planted some wrapping paper that contained tomato seeds.
It looks like a charming green pumpkin.

Pausing for Pinter...

Sometimes you say yes to something because you think it will be good for you. When, in March this year, Dearest suggested going to see "No Man's Land", I didn't hear Pinter, I heard Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart. Besides, it is over thirty years since I 'd seen and had been left bemused by a Pinter play. Surely I had become older, wiser and educated by the School of Life during that time?

We had already seen "Godot" played by McKellan and Stuart, together with Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup (a divine cast), and relished an opportunity to see McKellan and Stewart once more.
In that we were not disappointed: these two grandees of the theatre justified the not inconsiderable cost of the seats. Ah, but the play's the thing whereupon I caught Dearest 'King napping ten minutes in.
By the interval he awoke, saying, "Did I miss anything?"
I summed it up as succinctly as I could: "I am bewitched, buggered, and bewildered."
The second Act was more of the same, but the power nap had done him good. It was either that or the handsaw laugh of the woman behind that kept him awake.
So I am not going to pretend that I could make sense of it; it will be many different things to different people. But what I will say to you is that in future I will most likely avoid Pinter.
Make mine a Pinta Gin tonight, and go easy on the tonic.

Bye bye Bake Off, Don't Cry....

Well I did.
Not copious, plump tears. More of a genteel sniff. What a very grand finale. So sorry to say goodbye to them all. And very pleased for the finalists that deservedly won their places. A life-changer for Candice, a turbo-charge for Jane, and maybe a game-changer for Andrew. Who knows, but briefly last night, I cared.  No more Great British Bake Off as we know and love it. It has been a great big Linus Blanket for our unquiet nation. Marvellous displacement therapy.
The irony of following a programme that is promoting every calorie combination invented whilst re-educating my life-style habits is not lost on me. Watching the talent of others does not, astoundingly, make me reach for the biscuit barrel.
I can even withstand Dearest scoffing his way through a large bag of Heroes as he watched intently the culinary extravaganzas which will never reach him in this house. His own waist displacement therapy, obviously.

Husbands being heroic?

She Nose You Know...

No, I am not tapping my proboscis as I write. Or anyone else's before you make the suggestion. You mean that's not a proboscis? Dear me.

The husband of a friend of mine recently told me that he said he could no longer smell and that my friend could no longer hear properly but that together they made a fully functioning human being. He drily commented, "She smells and I listen". Foundation of a very happy marriage. We have obviously reached a stage in our lives where we are reconciled to a  deterioration of our working parts.

But noses are in the news this past week. Kicking off with The Nose, an opera -the first by Shostakovich.  Based on a short story by Gogol, concerning a St Petersburg official whose nose is stolen and goes on to develop a life of its own. It sounds an absolute hoot(er).
Audiences at The Royal Opera  laughing uproariously? We missed a trick here.

But what a treat to read about the latest device invented to foil bicycle thieves. Skunklock may soon be coming on the market, if the crowd-funding exercise is successful. When a thief attempts to saw through the lock, such vile and putrid gas is released it induces vomiting. It almost makes me wish I had a bike.

And finally we learn that the Lynx effect has some scientific credibility. Who'd have thought that there was a documented basis for women preferring men to smell of something other than themselves. Though I have been fortunate enough to be married to a man who puts showering high on his list of trivial pursuits, I have nevertheless ensured that he has always been well-fragranced. This might have been an own goal, if there were any truth in the science.
What he doesn't know is that Le Labo's  Thé  Noir smells of leather and tobacco. I love it. If he but knew it (or read my Blog) it reminds me of my Grandfather who smoked "Baby's Bottom"
Trust me, my nose has a remarkable memory.

And you thought I was joking...