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.......