Christmas Eve 2017

Hands up, if you've got a Christmas Pudding? Apparently we are eating fewer figgy puddings. People are going for alternative desserts because the young don't like Christmas Puddings... What's not to love about that hefty wedge of deliciousness?  Look, you can have a sliver. I'm mainlining this year.. Brandy butter, the works. And I will have a slice for breakfast on Boxing Day morning. A friend has made us one this year: so sorry, Marks and Spencer you've been sacked.

Very soon we will be joined by the family. I am hoping that there will be so much distraction that all i-phones and devices will be ignored for at least 24 hours. When I see our dependence on them, I feel disquieted and sometimes resentful. However, I received a card this Christmas that I think is lovely in its simplicity. I am not a religious soul, but the beauty of these economically drawn lines moved me immeasurably. I looked on the back of the card to read about the artist. It was drawn by Prof Ian Ritchie CBE RA, it said. I read on:"Created digitally with finger pressure on a smart phone using vector graphic software."  Amazing.

All that remains is to wish you all a peaceful Christmas, and to thank you for reading this.

Prof. Ian Ritchie CBE RA Mary on a Mule with Joseph 2015

 

Noel or No Hell? The hand-delivered Christmas card..

Have you pruned yours? I've tried to prune back mine. It has shrunk, through life's natural wastage of divorce and death. But it's still pretty long and straggly. The Christmas card list. I don't have one. I just wade, kamikaze style, through a ragged coffee-stained address book. I do not tick off who's sent me and who's not. Not interested in numbers. Not in the slightest. Which means that every year I am in denial about how many cards I need and how many stamps. Because there are always the by-hands. When you've breathed a huge sigh of relief that you've got most of your cards into the postal system, this large pile of local cards sits on a side table, admonishing you for ignoring it. For at least a couple of days.
It will seem strange to some of my readers who don't live in the UK to hear that we run around to our neighbours to post cards through their boxes.
Why? To save the cost of a stamp: a second class one is currently 56 pence.
To prove that we still can?
It's a joke! If you are like me, you covertly scan the house for signs of movement inside. You do NOT want to be caught. You focus keenly on the letterbox, and reduce fumbling to an absolute minimum. You avoid making any potential eye-contact through the window.
Then you run like hell before anyone catches you.
Well, you don't run because that would look infantile, but you assume a nonchalant-but-detached air, as if you are calculating how many Brussel sprouts are required per person, and hasten your pace in a determined fashion.
I've just done 6 miles this afternoon. I kid you not. I'm totally knackered. But was only collared once by a very good friend, so that was acceptable.
I tell you what. Next year, all but the folks next door, will receive stamped cards from us. As my dear old dad would have said,
"Bugger the expense. We'll fry another goldfish."

The Jaunty Flaneur..

Toby Wiseman lived up to his name the other day in The Sunday Times Style magazine. He introduced us to The Jaunty Flaneur, a shoe renovation service. I can see you smothering a yawn from here. But listen up, this might be relevant.
Dearest is blessed with piano-playing toes. They have not actually been put to the test but they look capable of tackling Rachmaninoff's Third piano concerto. This makes shoe-wearing problematic, as you may imagine. So when he discovered a shoemaker called Tod he finally found the comfort he'd been looking for, albeit expensively. The only trouble is, that after a year the rubber soles wear down and become treacherous on wet pavements. We have always believed that they were beyond repair. This article, however, gave me hope.
Today I returned from the capital with a pair of fully renovated shoes. This is going to save us a fortune. I am delighted and he will be. So that's Christmas for the old man all stitched up. I just need to find a pair of socks...

What do you say?

Curtain-Raiser to Christmas...

Went to Ronnie Scott's last night. Saw Ray Gelato with his fabulous line-up which included the especially talented drummer, Ed Richardson.  We did it first last year; so this was a re-play for us Ageds and the boys.
It was another great evening. The only disappointment being that there wasn't a drum solo. At the end of the set, I saw Ed Richardson standing alone by the stage. Emboldened by alcohol, I announced that I was going to have a word with him.
Son et Lumière winced and told me not to. Then seeing I was hell-bent, said he was heading for the exit. Dearest told me to go for it. (That's what I like about him, he is never embarrassed by me.) So I approached the young man and said that I'd been disappointed that there'd been no drum solo, as there had been last year. He told me that he'd done one in the earlier show. But, at least, I was able to tell him that last year's had been tremendous. He said," Thank you, "Darling." And this old lady glowed happily into the night.

Job done. So important, when you get a chance, to thank artists directly.

And I didn't feel the slightest bit bad about it in the morning.  And the head was remarkably fine, in case you're wondering.

Look, I could have asked for a selfie with him. Now that is what I would call consummately embarrassing. I'm glad to say, it did not cross my befuddled brain. (Damnit, would have spiced up this entry a treat..)

Christmas Comes Early, Delivering The Mother

I had a Great Uncle Willy. I believe he was one of Grandma Leyshon's brothers. Sadly, I remember nothing more, other than his name. This of course, gave rise to puerile giggles every time his name was innocently mentioned by my grandmother. Sniggering that was instantly silenced by an arched eyebrow and steely glare from my mother. (In the days when correctional behaviour could be administered subtly but effectively across a crowded room.)

Yesterday Dearest Daughter gave Dearest a bottle of Willy's ACV as an early Christmas present. She said that one should never wait for medicine. And that, dear readers, is what it is. So you can settle down at the back. We all have to just get over ourselves.
Willy's is Bio-Organic Apple Cider, unpasteurised, raw and gluten-free. Its secret ingredient is called The Mother which contains strands of proteins ( I just love a strand of protein) and friendly (thank the good Lord) bacteria.

Its list of purported benefits tick all our medical boxes: weight loss; arthritis; de-tox; heart disease. Even energy-boosting. No wonder the dear girl gave it to us before Christmas... Wonderfully thoughtful. I can't wait to take my first slug of it. ((Presents are meant to be shared, after all.)
I might, however,  just have to have a small measure of Hendricks standing by. We all know that that certainly can deliver the next day.. The Mother of all hang-overs.

Hamilton the Musical....... Hooray!

We've been to see Hamilton. Not Lewis Hamilton. Really...  I've told two people today, one of which was my brother (of whom I'd expected better) with the pause to enable them to respond with a gasp of awe. Bugger-all, in response. Very disappointing.

However, my erudite readers will naturally know about the hugely-hyped production from Broadway. Yessiree, the show about Alexander Hamilton.. cue mega-whooping and hurrahing. Can't hear any? You mean you haven't been following its arrival on social media? You've not familiarised yourself with the songs, so when your favourite character on stage comes on, you cheer and burst into rapturous applause? No? Me neither.

On the suggestion of Son et lumiere, I decided to listen to the song-list on Youtube last Sunday afternoon. I was half-way through the opening track when Dearest emerged from behind the Sunday Times with,
"What the bloody-hell are you listening to?"
"It's what we're going to see on Tuesday night."
"Oh God," he said. Which didn't sound propitious. Nothing worse, than when you are sitting as an invited guest and exuding disaffection. Or sleeping. Sonorously. As he did in Rent, many moons and German Exchanges ago.

But one thing (on a long list containing many... just covering myself, in the unlikely event he reads this while I am still alive) yes, one thing that Dearest is really good at, is embracing new ideas, and  being ahead of everyone else. So brand new musical. Tick. Historical setting. Tick. First week of previews in London. Double tick. So I have to say that while Rap is certainly not on his list of loves, I was quietly confident that he would  move on from the rap-is-crap attitood.

Hamilton is amazing. Groundbreaking in many ways. Unexpectedly moving and genuinely uplifting. Clever lyrics which you could actually hear. Historically interesting, and  aligning with so many contemporary parallels. We all really enjoyed it. I would love to go again. In six months time, possibly, when maybe  the youthful over-excitement will have  calmed to a level where habitual theatre-goers can simply enjoy the show.

Now I sound like a prig. Or old-fogey.  Never mind. Did I tell you I'd been to see Hamilton?

Twitching about Christmas presents...

Well, what are you getting yours? Socks? Oh, come on, you can do better than that... Though, in fairness, mine would be quite happy with a few new pairs. So he says. But might look a bit mournful if that was all he found in his pillow case on the 25th. Buying for difficult men, I mean, buying for men is difficult. However, I am hugging myself because I think I've found the answer.

We went our separate ways this weekend: him to Northamptonshire and me to Cardiff to catch up with friends. While I was away, I was entranced by the birds purposefully flying into my friends' garden. There was quite a range of different birds around a feeder. It inspired me. This is what I would  buy Dearest for Christmas. When he came back from his travels, I couldn't believe that he too had experienced the joys of watching feeding birds at Rushden.  In fact, he mentioned it more than once. So I showed absolutely zilch interest, apart from saying dismissively that I'd seen it all in Wales. Because I wanted to put him off the scent.
Dearest is very partial to peanuts (of the oily, salted variety). So I will buy him a big bag of bird-friendly peanuts which will slow him down considerably, and be better for his cholesterol. Then he will open his surprise bird-feeder. (Ta-rah! I bet you wish you could be here..)
And then, I will open my surprise present and no doubt receive something very similar. And how we will laugh about great minds and big tits.

In this unpredictable world, I at least, can be relied upon. To lower the tone..

I'm Dreaming of a hell-on-Earth Monday morning....

We get a bit excited about snow in England. I have been in a state of hyper-excitement today because it simply didn't stop until late afternoon. That's a lot of snow. Enough to reduce my husband and me to a complete Sunday slow-down. Slothful Sunday.


I could have been doing my Christmas cards, but why ruin a perfectly idle day with a tedious chore? I am so relieved that I have only received two in the post and it is already 10th December. Marvellous. Everyone else is obviously on a go-slow too. Or else I am unknowingly involved in a game of chicken with friends who are, after twenty five years of not seeing me in the flesh, wondering whether or not to delete me from the list? Truth to tell, my list is shrinking. We are surely the last generation to send Christmas cards in vast quantities. You'll notice that the young don't seem to bother much, either.
I think I'll wait until I am seized by panic. Or maybe, I'll breathe through the moment until it passes.

I'm dreaming of a White Christmas with every Christmas card I don't write.....

An Illuminating Moment...

I've decorated my ham-bones with tinsel, no less. I was so pleased with my ironic retro touch until I read that tinsel is making a big come-back this year! Fancy that. Never thought of myself as being one who was on trend. Marvellous.
Mind you, I'm all done with decorating now. I've been up a ladder and strung up a few lights outside. Wobbled precariously at one point and whilst berating myself for being a silly git for attempting this on my own, continued until the job was done.
What do you think? Subtle? Not too flashy? Guess Who failed to notice... Are we surprised?



Well, actually, I was. I thought there had been a breakthrough of sorts, when at the start of the week, Dearest said,
"What's happened to that bauble?"
He was referring to the one I'd recently hung in the kitchen. I patiently explained that I had replaced it with a Christmas bauble.
"Jeez, I thought I was going mad. You make things so confusing for a chap."
Yes, dear readers, I deliberately set out to confuse my husband by changing the baubles. Which I intend to do weekly. Not to throw him off kilter, but purely for my own pleasure. It was at this point that I realised I had  become a woman with too much time on her hands, and made a decision to return to work.
I wonder if he will notice?

A bauble too far...

"Lights, lights, get us some lights...".

Are you all lit up? Too soon?  I'm lit up inside. I'm not talking about the rosy glow of smugness that you can see in the dark. I mean my Christmas trees are decked and twinkling. And why not? Don't we need a bit of artificial sparkle to lighten the gloom. You will agree, I'm sure, that it's all looking a bit grim in all sorts of directions. So if mindful drinking no longer delivers alcoholic anaesthesia to all things awful, then, at least, let us festoon the place with fairy lights and bathe ourselves in glitter. I would, however, possibly prefer a gin. And the fairy lights. Don't see why they should be mutually exclusive.

(Of Life and lemons)

We don't put lights outside our house. We tried once. Paid a man to go up a long ladder to hang lights from the branches of our now late and lamented Wisteria. I thought it would look charming. For three nights they flashed like Tesco's. I felt like I should set up a stall in front of the house. It was such a relief when the lights fused on day three. It has put me right off. And yet I see houses around me with tasteful lights entwined around creepers or scattered over bushes. Our neighbours opposite have, this year, gone for the icicles. First night they were delightful. Just right. Last night, however, the sequence was changed and their icicles aggressively beat out  a coruscating assault on our senses.

"Looks a little like Tesco's," I thought, as I lit my modest candles in the window.


Post script:
Since writing this, the lights across the road have been put on static. Spooky or what? Much much better. More Waitrose.  I'm such a snob.

Stranger in our Midst...

There is a dark brooding Nordic presence in our living room. No, it's not Sven the masseur... Though it is naked, like Sven. What? Yours keeps his clothes on?
It is our Christmas tree. What are you like? I decided to lug it downstairs yesterday, as Ewelina was able to help with a little furniture re-arrangement. So much easier with two. And so much easier than trying to work with one's husband.  So there it stands, fluffed and waiting to be dressed.

I put the clock on it last night. An hour and a half before Dearest noticed that it had arrived.
Sven is so discreet. Even when he is evidently pining for his baubles...

Not yet, but Sven it's time..

And it's still November....

Big weekend. But a truly great one. Jools Holland and Jose Feliciano at The Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night for the grown-ups and Winter Wonderland and Cinderella on Ice for the little ones on Sunday morning.
The first part reminded me how much I love jazz and the second how much I dislike ice shows. And Winter Wonderland is my idea of hell's jingle bells. A mercifully brief visit on a day that was blindingly bright and crisp. Timing is all; it was a lovely introduction to Christmas.

We returned home to the bowl of brandy-infused fruit I'd left some days earlier, in readiness for the Christmas cake. As I write, I can smell it cooking. I feel as though as though the Christmas season is launched.
I hope I haven't peaked too soon. It isn't even December yet! I need to get a grip. Or lose one.

And they all moved away from me on the bench....

Happy Thanksgiving! May all your turkeys be succulent, and your brussels be maple-glazed with bacon...
I am quietly relieved that we do not celebrate it in this house. I don't need an eatathon as a dress-rehearsal for Christmas. However, as a non-participant it does sound like a heart-warming festival.

I don't know if it were mention of Thanksgiving that made me think of Alice's Restaurant
and Arlo Guthrie this morning. I no longer own my much-played album, so I tried Jukebox. Sure enough, there he was, giving a 50 year anniversary performance. I can almost recite the lyrics and they still made me smile.
So if you want to give yourself a blast of nostalgia this Thanksgiving then take a trip to Alice's Restaurant where you can have anything you want (exceptin'Alice). And then do the B side and sing along with Ring Around Rosy Rag. And be sure this Thanksgiving to Touch your nose and Blow your toes while you're doing it.
Or you ain't doing it right.

1967 ... as if it were yesterday

One Green bauble,hangin' on a wall...

I am one of life's bodgers. I don't wear my bodger badge with pride. Nor am I being nauseatingly self-deprecating when I say this. I am an enthusiastic have-a-go-gal who accepts that the end results may be less than perfect, but then life is like that.
I received a gift of a glass bauble from an old friend during the summer. A beautiful piece of glass made by someone in the West country called Will Shakespeare, no less. This is no Christmas bauble. It is all all year round one. There was only one place it could possibly hang and that was in the recess of a small kitchen window where it would catch the light.

I thought at first that with a bit of brute force I could make a hole in the plaster, put in a rawal plug (already impressed?) and screw in a hook.
Four months later I had to call in the expert. My brother who is the handiest man alive and has a Makita drill which, if you know anything about anything, is the meatiest, manliest, meanest drill on the block. But he could not drill through the steel lintel.

I suggested we stuck a plinth on to the surface, through which we could screw a hook. He said he would go home and saw off the top of a broom handle which would do the job. He returned shortly with hewn handle and super strong glue. I had my hook. The glue had to dry overnight. Ready for bauble?  No, my brother weighed the weighty piece of glass and the next day returned with a small bag of pea shingle similarly weighted, to hang for 24 hours to ensure the fixture would hold.

So for 24 hours my kitchen looked as though it was adorned by a dog's poo bag.
Thoroughly tested by the most meticulous of men, I finally got to hang my bauble.
Singing, "Baubles, bunions and beads, rings-linga..."And it's not even December!

Precious Things....

When Tom Baker, the fourth Doctor Who, got into the large lift at BBC Television Centre he would gaze at the array of buttons with his googly eyes and say, "Now where would you like to go?" He always got a laugh. My mother had a laugh too, when I said I wanted to knit myself a scarf like Tom Baker's.  In brief, as opposed to the scarf which was very very long, every time I put it down, my grandmother or mother would pick it up and undo my holey bits and compensate by knitting six rows more. I fear I have mentioned this previously, but the chances are that neither you or I can remember. So we're good?

Anyway, knitting and all other fine craft work skipped my generation. I wasn't overly hopeful of the knitting genes untangling in the next. Dearest daughter showed a small inclination ten years ago in an attempt to engage with her M-in-Law. Not a good combination. Lethal weapon in same room as husband's mother. It was the knitting that died the death. Which is possibly a good thing.

So when Son-et-lumiere decided he needed to engage his brain during recreation, he thought of knitting. It is not something I would have thought of, personally, but then I am blessed with a brain that goes into snooze mode on command.  I bought him the needles and the wool (like the Good Mother that I am) as we still have a Wool shop in our village. And equipped with a You Tube video he cast-on. Never been able to do that. And as for How-to videos.. never got me anywhere with my pom-poms. I'm delighted to report that his scarf is coming on a treat. (I'm also relieved that I won't find it in my Christmas stocking.. not the Good Mother.)

This week I finally got round to laundering the baby knitting I'd retrieved from Buckingham on a previous purge. This consisted of two shawls: an everyday one and one for special occasions, and the christening gown. All made by Grandma Leyshon for her first grandchild. Last worn by my granddaughter eleven years ago.
I find it hard to put them away, because I have been enjoying their intricate beauty. I will write a note with them so that whoever looks at them next will have a record of their history. In the meantime, they have been recorded in a Bunion blog.
Sublime in the ridiculous, really.

Gathering of the Clans...

I never stood a chance with my mother-in-law. Put simply, she did not like women. She was a mother of men, and revelled in her role of matriarch. No female competition. Until later. She did, however, place importance on family. But more specifically, family gatherings. The bigger the better. Regardless of how much their size would daunt my Dearest husband for whom they would be absolute hell.

However, time passes. We are now the family elders. And yesterday we sat seven around a dining table, brothers and sisters from two branches of Dearest's family. Convivial eating, drinking and writing names on the backs of curling and ancient family photographs. Putting heads together over the identities of some, and making educated guesses as to others. Realising with poignancy that there is no one left to ask. And being mindful that whilst we still have it in us to do so, we should all be putting the names on the backs of photographs, no matter how obvious it appears to us right now. Or else, in fifty years time, another few generations  down the line, will be left scratching their heads.

It would be overly sentimental to think of Dearest's mother looking down on this modest gathering, but if she had been, she would have been spitting feathers at missing out.

Woman on a Mission....

I raised a question in class today. 
No, I haven’t joined the  University for the Third Age.  No no no... it’s Thursday and a Slimming World day.
I wanted advice for dealing with a husband who persistently eats LARGE bars of Cadbury’s (during the nightly binge-watch of Bloodline).

And nothing useful came back...
You see, I have tried eating one of those humungously large carrots Ocado persist in delivering me. Last night, I crunched an award-winning one loudly, from top to bottom, in a very ostentatious manner.  Dearest, didn't turn  a hair (or even a rabbit) but turned up the volume with the remote...
So carrot-crunching isn’t going to cut it. My group have lame suggestions that involve divorce, so I have to fall back on my own deviousness.
I think I might have it...
When practising the piano the other day,  I said ( in a jolly voice), 
“I will be getting better if I practice..”
He replied (darkly, I felt),
“When?”

So the next time he dives into the chocolate, I’m going to announce that I will do my piano practice for as long as he is eating the chocolate.
Passive aggressive piano playing might produce a Pavlovian reverse-response.

There again, it might not. 
Worth a try. Meanwhile, costing me a fortune in carrots...

Keeping One's Brain in Gear....

Do you ruminate while you're driving? No, I don't mean chew gum. Though that sometimes helps. I'm asking, because I find I have an internal monologue running the whole journey. Dearest says driving helps him think. Dear Lord, if I did that as well as drive, I'd be up the next gum tree. No, my thinking consists of:
"A lorry on the horizon. Will I have to overtake the bugger? " or
"New cars joining this road ahead... do I swing out into the fast lane or do I throw down the anchors to let them in? "
Decisions. Decisions. All of which are undoubtedly good for giving the grey matter a bit of therapeutic pummelling. So what's all this talk of introducing driverless cars? How is that going to exercise the brain? Life will be one long taxi-ride and no fun whatsoever. Just when I am getting used the gadgets on my new car.

Actually, I think you can have too many gadgets. Dearest, who is a boy-racer at heart, and couldn't wait to give the Mini a spin, rang me on his maiden outing from the hard shoulder of the M1 feed lane. He had tried answering the phone using the steering wheel button and had pressed speed control in error. He couldn't go beyond 43 miles an hour.
"How the bloody hell do you get it off?" he rang to ask, "and where is the sodding manual?". I knew he was cross because he rarely swears..

The manual was on our dining room table. Natch. Where I had been busy not studying it.
These cars are too sophisticated. Take a friend of mine who has a new car. It has a little lever,  instead of a handbrake. It has a small indentation beneath it. Perfect place for depositing her earrings which were giving her gyp. That was until she went to recover the earrings and lifted that little lever as her husband was driving at 80 miles an hour down the motorway. What a totally daft design. Which is what I'm pretty confident her husband did not say as he thankfully controlled the vehicle.

How we will reminisce over these gay old times when we step into our driverless cars and say,
"Home, James, and don't spare the horses.."  

Country Matters...

I'm going to get berries on my new Skimmia! I've already got one, you know the kind with red florets?
Come on, I'm doing really well with Skimmia and you want more details? I bought this new one months ago and it was only when I brought it home did I read the small print and see that it needed a male one to produce berries. Bloody hell, I thought, how do you tell the sex of a Skimmia? It's not as if there are any overt indications, after all. This is a plant of our times, obviously.
So, respectful of their privacy, with eyes closed , I waved the new girl in the general direction of the possible boy plant. Pimp for plants, that's me. Well, it looks as though it may well have worked as girl plant is getting flowers. It's the small things in life that get you excited as a sexagenarian.

I have adopted this word, rather than sixty year old because it's all about sex these days. Not me, silly, every other bugger in this country and abroad, is on about sexual misdemeanour. I blame Harvey Weinstein, the lion rampant of all predatory males. If half of what he's accused of is true, then his roar has rightly been reduced to a squeak. This seems to have started a witch-hunt of the most extraordinary proportions. Where will it all end? Will it bring down government?

I do wish we could get a collective grip on the situation and save the abject anguish over knee-patters for the genuinely abused. Women of my generation are looking on, bemused at the numerous instances that are coming to light. How did we deal with it? With a well-aimed blow if necessary, a withering retort, or sometimes the best weapon of all, humour. Where did it all go so badly wrong? Nothing really has changed. I just hope that women will be happy when they have finally succeeded in emasculating males and are not offended when the men sex solace in sex-bots.

I'm going out to talk to the plants...

Inkling Cards, By the Book by Simon Dorrell 

                                   

Naked Concerns...

I'm worried about myself. I think I might be entering into a Chippendale period. No, not the chair, Though in fairness, I do have one of those. Welsh country Chippendale. Worth not a lot, but came from Pembroke, as possibly the only family heirloom on my father's side. Comfort nil versus sentiment huge. I sit on it, bolstered by cushions in order to play the piano.
I am much entranced by Martha Mier. I  am currently working on Downright Happy Rag which is proving problematic and taking rather a long time to reach the boil.

Rather than persevere, I flicked through the book and found an easier-looking one called Rocking Chair Blues. Oh yes, I could get a handle on this, I thought. Then, I did what I often do, I looked up the piece on Youtube. It is so helpful looking at hand positions and getting a demonstration of what I'm struggling to achieve. Some pieces are done nice and slowly for the novice, and others are at normal performance speed. It's been a very helpful supplement to my weekly piano lessons which I have to say, are a source of great joy.
Imagine my consternation, when I called up a version of Rocking Chair Blues and there was a half naked man playing away on his keyboard. It was most distracting and not what I had been expecting at all. I was so shocked, I had to watch it several times over and never once looked at his hands.
Does this mean I am soon to be joining the frenzied ranks of old dears who shriek and scream at Chippendale events?
I hope not. No, I will sit firmly on my Welsh Chippendale and will not be re-visiting that version.

Not unless, I'm truly stuck.

Sorry to disappoint. Youtube you can search yourself...

The Nights are Fair Drawing in .......

Grandma Leyshon loved a juicy murder. Literary of course. And probably something in the the style of Agatha Christie. She would often confess to jumping ahead to the last page because she could not stand the tension.
I know what she means, because we are watching season three of Narcos, and I'm having to ration them to to two episodes a night. I didn't think it could equal the compelling tale of the capture of Escobar, the Colombian drug baron. I wasn't convinced I wanted or needed to go back to Colombia to see presumably more of the same. However, the story this time, is even more gripping, as we  follow the fate of the  Jorge Salcedo, Security Chief of the Cali Cartel. He is trying to destroy it from within. As this is a true story, I want to know if he survives. My Google finger is vibrating, but I am resisting.
This is tense gritty drama. Pretty bloody, but great story-telling.

I love it from the opening credits where a seductive, sultry Bossa Nova simply makes me shiggle across the room, like a girl who's lost her Ipanema.
I'd like to say my dancing is driving Dearest crazy. But sad fact is, he doesn't seem to notice at all.
Is this normal?

On not being an heiress...

Oh Mr Lee, oh, Mr Lee
How could you,
Why would you,
Make a chump out of me?

A private heir hunter has tracked me down,
A journey complex and long,
As no doubt it would be,
All the way from Hong Kong.
My elderly relative,
Of whom I've not heard,
Has left a nine million sum
(This is getting absurd)
Which the kind Mr Lee
Will divvy 50:50
(Such honesty)
Provided, that is
We keep this to ourselves,
And I send him my details
Of email and bank
(The man is a cretin
And totally rank.)

Before I deposited
Letter in bin,
Dearest came home,
And I showed it to him,
"I've got one of those too,"
He said, with a grin
"A Chinese Take-Away?"

Well, not tonight, Mr Lee,
Your efforts to win,
In the fullness of time,
Simply end up, Bad Lee,
Re-cycled chow mein.

But what about all those Ancient Grain Muffins who get taken in?

Losing my Bottle...

​
The understairs cupboard. A half-term project. I still think in terms, after a life-time of school involvement.
I could spend the whole of half-term restoring order to the chaos that reigns supremely in that small cramped space. It is a self-perpetuating generator of bric a brac, Any order, ever imposed on it, is purely temporary.
This morning, I carefully removed a glass bottle of cherry juice, in readiness for the next gout attack. ( It may be more imminent than we think, after Beef Bourgignon this weekend, a lamb roast dinner on Sunday, and blow me down, if Dearest didn’t bring home, dressed crab after flying solo at Waitrose. That cherry juice has got to achieve some serious cleansing .. ) Then I started to remove bulky items that had been recently stashed in the speedy clear-up before guests. I was on a bit of a roll. I could actually see floor space. Unfettered enthusiasm is always dangerous in a confined space. I usually thump my head, at least once. Not so today. No head-banging for me. No indeedy. Instead,  with incomparable flair, I manage to send a bottle of elderflower cordial crashing to the ground.
Glass and sticky viscous liquid all over the cupboard floor. And beyond.

It took me an hour to mop and sweep. I’m getting to be a dab hand at this malarkey after the bathroom mirror a couple of days ago.
And now, despite my best endeavours, I sound as though I am detaching myself from strips of Velcro wherever I walk. It’s enough to unhinge a girl. I dare say it will unhinge Dearest when he gets home from work.
He’ll ask me how my day has been,
“Pretty sticky," I will reply. “Fancy a glass of cherry juice and a crab sandwich?”

Make mine a small one. Actually, don't bother..

You Don't Always Get What You Want......

Absolute whoppers. A carrot that could feed a family of rabbits for a week, and Brussel sprouts the size of canon balls. You get what you get, with home-delivered shopping. You can almost hear the midnight-sorters at the depot, muttering,

"We'll give all those lazy lard-arses who can't be bothered going to the shops, the biggest buggers that we can't get shifted".

Last week, pushed for opportunity, I ordered two bunches of roses with my groceries. I was so busy bantering with the delivery man, 

"You shouldn't have brought me flowers!"

" I'm that kinda guy.."

that sparkling repartee blinded me temporarily to their floral droop. I was cross with myself for not being smarter. 

This morning, I was catching up on last week's news when a headline caught my eye,  "Free-range firm's 4.3m caged hens."

The Happy Egg company is at the centre of this scandal. Noble Foods (talk about an overdose of euphemisms here...) does not provide any outdoor access to its 4.3 million hens. They share cages with up to 80 other birds and have little more space than an A4 sheet. 

I was aghast. I always buy Happy Eggs. The packaging is as uplifting as the premise that these were hens that roamed wild and free. 

My delivery from Ocado was due any minute. This time I was prepared. I retrieved the packet and handed it back to the driver, explaining why. No problem to him. 

How naive I've been to trust the packaging. I thought we'd got this problem sorted. Patently not. Boycotting feels feeble. But it's a start. 

Find me a farmer's market quick.

 

Who is the fairest of them all...?

Re-cycling at the bottle bank, in the days before one had one's own personal recycling bin, used to be a job one would put off for as long as possible. (Sorry about the ones. I've turned into her Majesty overnight.)As a result, I would fill my boot with bags of bottles, jars and hope. Yes, I'd travel in hope, that no one I knew would see me disgorge the evidence of a month's drunken debauchery. (Heavier on the drinking than on the debauchery, if I'm brutally honest.)

As the recriminatory clatter of glass-hitting-glass resonated around the car-park, I always felt like calling out to an imagined audience,

"These are jam jars, not wine bottles!!"

As the years have gone by, our wine consumption has become more modest. But not so our young neighbour's. I think she regularly disposes of huge numbers of jolly jam jars with scant regard for reputation or noise abatement. 

So when I was having a cup of tea this afternoon with an old friend, and there was an almighty crash of glass, close by, I thought it was Lil, next door, after a particularly enjoyable weekend.

It wasn't until bed time, that I saw massive shards of mirror on our bathroom floor. What a mess. Dearest immediately sprang into action. 

And took over the downstairs bathroom, while I swept, hoovered, and re-swept every glittering fragment from every corner. And road-tested it myself, with bare feet. (I am nothing if not noble.)

Some people might be fretting about ten years of bad luck. We, conversely, are counting our good luck. Firstly, that it didn't crack the new tiles on the bathroom floor, and secondly, that it didn't happen in the middle of the night.

Now that could have proved terminal.

"These are fragments I have shored against my ruins... "

How Many Bat Man outfits do you need?

I am a sharer of wisdom. Even when my chosen recipients recoil nervously, the belief that my pearls are fresh from oysters (not any of those cheap substitutes) enables me to wade in, fearlessly. 

My son-in-law may, however, be choking on my pearls when he gets back from Germany next week. 

This is the thing that I have taken a whole lifetime to realise. We all hang on to too much. We have duplicates of everything and then think we do not have enough space in which to store them. So like a mother possessed, I have been the driving-force behind removing the flotsam and jetsam of twelve years of family life. 

The  black plastic bags festoon the hall: some destined for charity, some for friends and some for the bin.

Son-in-law's shirts hang, ironed, in colour coordination. He will just adore them. Don't you think? 

"I have put his pyjamas in a drawer marked pyjamas."

Well, not quite, but Dylan Thomas is obviously hovering over my shoulder. 

Oh, he is going to so love me that he will quite overlook the settee that I have off-set diagonally across the living room to make it look cosier, positively hygge which means that I am on song stylistically. Another thing he is bound to notice, being totally fluent in Danish, as you would expect, coming from South London. And during this brave move, I have usefully exposed a radiator.. all that lovely extra heat! What's not to approve?).

This week, I have been the mother from heaven and most likely, the mother-in-law from hell. 

Dressed in nothing but a string of pearls. Naturally. Just as nature intended.

Of course, I could try going under cover, and hang upside down?

Strewth! Which Ruth is Ruth?

It drives me to distraction. Who or what? You may well ask. Husband on ipad. I call it his Didgeridoo, to be offensive, as in,

"Do you think you could stop playing on your didgeridoo for one evening?"

There is always a good excuse as to why the subject of his research is absolutely vital. 

I  suggested last night, however, that we watched another episode of The Affair. 

"I can do both," he insisted. 

"I am off tomorrow for the rest of the week. On your own you'll be able to do exactly what you want. 
Tonight, I want a shared experience."

You will have gathered that I am not a demanding woman. The ipad was closed and we started to watch. 

"Is this the one with Ruth Davidson?" (Bonny Lesbian leader of Scottish Conservative party.)

"Yup," I reply, because I'm finished with explaining it's Ruth Wilson. 

Later on, he says,

" I think you're right about Maura Tierney having a facelift because her neck looks older than her face... "

Dear reader, I picked up the iPad and put it back on his lap. 

With a pile of Charlie Binghams ( yes, sorry, meals for one) and unsupervised iPad time I am not sure he's going to miss me. 

Ruth Wilson              Ruth Davidson. 

Winged Messenger....

As I pulled on to my drive yesterday..  Excuse me while I savour that phrase. A white van driver wound down his window and stuck his head out.
"O-oh!"I thought, and waited for a volley of abuse. Had I cut him up in Glencoe Road? I don't think so.
"I've put your Amazon delivery behind your bins!"
"Oh, thank you very much indeed," I replied, sounding excessively grateful, even to myself.

Deliveries. So many these days and horribly convenient, while we soundlessly kill off the traditional High Street by our jaywalking fingers over the keyboard.
The efficiency of the delivery company is often determined by its local  agent. Hermes is one such company which has given grief in Buckingham and Cardiff, I'm told, and yet I have been lucky with my own jolly winged messenger - no complaints whatsoever.

This morning in Buckingham I heard that Izzy asked her mother if Herpes had arrived.
"It wasn't what I was expecting to have to deal with at 8.30 on a Saturday morning, Mum," she said.
As she told me this on the phone, a little voice, Joseph, asked, "So what are herpes, Mummy?"
I am not sure how she delivered that one.
Little herps?

Lee Murray RUST

There is never a young person around when you need one. We used to say that about policemen. I daresay the same could be said now. They are usually hiding in lay-bys waiting to nab you for speeding. Not me, Mr Plod, I am virtuously cruising well below the speed limit and aggravating my fellow road-users with white-striped, lily-livered caution.
I digress. I need a download. Aha, I can hear you thinking, that is the reason you have a Blog to download all your thoughts great and very small. No, I need to download some music. The truth of the matter is that I am not entirely sure what I do with it once I have downloaded it and who I pay. So many questions.
Meanwhile, I can play it to my heart's content on YouTube. It's called Rust and the singer is a friend of mine, called Lee Murray and it is his first solo single since he was in the boy band, Let Loose in the 90s.
I think it's really great and I would like to award him the Golden Bunion Award which as you know, I do not give out like Smarties. I wish him luck with his new single and hope that my regulars will take time to have a listen on YouTube and tell their friends. If you can also download, then drop me a post card with the instructions. You can always teach an old dog new tricks.
As I've recently discovered.

One man and his dog...

Nobody Beeped Me....

I am driven to writing. If I don't, you'll think I have pranged the car or worse. I am well and alive! (as one Spanish extra insisted thirty odd years ago, despite all Ken Hannam's efforts to persuade him to put the words in the right order.)

We took possession of my new pocket rocket on Thursday afternoon. They had left on the Go Faster stripes, in error. I decided, impulsively, that I would go with. And in this spirit of fragile bravura I said I would drive off the Show room forecourt, negotiating a badly-parked truck and drive my Dearest husband home. Two challenges.

The car has more bells and whistles than my last car. Cars have been evolving speedily in the past six years. I am going to have to study a manual, says she who has never studied a manual in her life. However, I felt I knew enough to drive down the next day to Buckingham, at the crack of dawn.
In view of the torrential rain, before I set off, I did take time to refresh my understanding of some of the basics that were lit up like Blackpool illuminations on my many control panels. I looked out the window. What a day to make my maiden voyage... could hardly see a thing through the windscreen. So murky and misty. I then realised that I had my reading glasses on. Once removed, the scales fell from eyes and I was off. Very steadily.

When I returned to base at seven yesterday evening, I felt as though I had earned those stripes. Well, maybe just one of them.

You Take the High Road and I'll ...

One of the many joys of incipient old age is that one's hearing is less than perfect. So when Dearest asked me the other day what the hell I was doing,  I told him I was practising my clutch-control. He disappeared back behind the newspaper, sharpish.

I think he thought I'd described some pelvic floor manoeuvre. Made him squeamish. Until I reassured him that I was fine-tuning my brain in readiness for a return to the road.

I immediately wished I'd shown no sign of weakness, as he then suggested I took a driving lesson. Admittedly, I haven't been driving for nigh on three years. Do you know what? There are some people who would get on their high horse at this point, but not me. 

Very sensible, I said and immediately booked an appointment with a friend I'd not seen for some years. We spent a very happy couple of hours: an hour driving and an hour catching up. It's true. It is like riding a bike. 

That was a week ago. Tomorrow is the big day I collect my red mini. I have asked them to remove the Go-Faster stripes because I believe this sets up false expectations amongst fellow road-users. I will not be going too fast. Unless I need to get myself out of trouble. Rest assured, I will then be going like the proverbial manure off the spade. (You can tell I have spent the past week in the garden.)

My first ever car in the 80s

How do you define exotic?

I don't like throwing food away. I'm a post-war baby, through and through, brought up to waste-not-want-not.  As a child, I never suggested giving away my unwanted peas to the starving infant in Africa; I forked up every last one of them.  And as an adult, it grieves me, when I find a furring red-pepper at the back of the fridge, that has to be jettisoned.

Today, however, I have thrown away some brand new mushrooms. Yes, nowt wrong with them. Pure lookism on my part. And the fact that they came all the way from South Korea, which, as we all know, is not North Korea where the man-in-charge seems intent on making mushroom clouds of his own. I could say that I didn't like the air miles they'd clocked up. I could say that I should have taken more notice of the country of origin. But really, I just didn't like the appearance of them. I didn't trust them. Because they look like Mutant Mushrooms. Really, grotesque gothic mushrooms, the stuff of nightmares.

Rude?

I know I am prone to the occasional bout of hyperbole but I would like to share these pictures with you. You make your own mind up. Would you fancy this lot, accompanying a fry-up? Or am I being incredibly parochial?

Or simply artistic?

George Lets the Side Down (Badly)..

Look, I have to say straight away: he was not my pin-up boy. I don't have a pin-up boy. Haven't had one since I tore Steve Marriott of Small Faces, from the pages of  "Jackie," and sellotaped it to my bedroom wall. So when I bring up the case of our ex-Chancellor, George Osborne, I don't want you thinking I held him previously in some kind of esteem. Nevertheless, I viewed him with a certain amount of respect. Sympathy even, when he was unceremoniously sacked by the incoming Prime Minister, Theresa May.

But that has been blown to smithereens by last week's press when, as the now editor of The Evening Standard, he is reported as telling colleagues that he would not rest until Mrs May was "chopped up in bags in" his "freezer." Revenge is evidently not served just cold, but in freezer-bags in his house.
So much for sticks and stones, Georgie Boy, these words are shards and axes. They do you no credit whatsoever. And you have been summarily admonished in a Bunion Blog.
How are the mighty fallen!

George should heed old Russian advice

Biscuits and Billions...

The opening of Billions should come with a government health warning for the over-sixties, or should that be the over-sexties? If I hadn't had a recommendation from one of my dearest friends in Cardiff, I would have thought it was time to pull the plug, in the first twenty seconds. Biting on a Bourbon biscuit sharply, I told Dearest  that this was standard viewing in Cardiff. And that (gulp)  we should stick with it. Which is what the screen couple... oh, never mind. Well, once we got over that rather novel way of grabbing the viewer by the Bourbon (which I shouldn't have been eating anyway) the rest was plain-sailing.

Not exactly plain and not much sailing. But an extremely slick, well-crafted drama that moves along apace and carries you with it. Even though as an ordinary hedge-fundless mortal, I grasp at meanings of short-longs and long-shorts. You get the gist, because this is the setting for a power-struggle between an attorney and a fabulously wealthy entrepreneur who has made a financial killing on the back of 9.11. The plot pivots and twists between the the two adversaries, leaving the moral compass vibrating. There is no classic good guy; they are both fatally flawed, but with redeeming features.

So this is my recommendation: don't watch it with your Granny or your children, and keep a packet of crisp biscuits at the ready. And maybe a warm cocoa for dunking..

Alternatively, embrace it with a stiff gin. My idea of a short-long. Or maybe it's a long-short? Either way.... Mine's a double. Easy on the tonic.

Norwegians have a way with diplomacy..

We went to Oslo on Saturday night. It was showing at the National Theatre, fresh from its lauded Broadway run.  If we want to brutally frank, then son et lumière  booked Follies for Mummy and Oslo for Daddy. I can't think why. His father loved the frou-frou of the dancing girls and I was totally engaged by the politics behind the Israeli-Palestininian peace. But I know what he means. I did love Follies with every highly-tuned thespian sinew; but I did have to stretch every critical faculty to keep up with political prancing of Oslo. It wasn't difficult. It's just that at three hours long, it requires focus. But it was truly fascinating.
I had no idea how the Norwegians were responsible for brokering a deal between between the Palestinians and the Israelis. In 1993 the Oslo Accord took place after months of secret diplomatic meetings where the chief representatives were closeted in meetings until they came out with a sensible fair solution. It's a serious topic but there were moments of surprising mirth. However, the important message that we take from this play is that we need to talk. Why can't the representatives of  the UK and the EU be holed-up  on neutral territory until something reasonable is thrashed out? Away from the press who require statements every whipped stitch.   There's too much posturing going on in the world, Mr Trump and Mr Kim Jong-un. More jaw-jaw required.

So pretty serious stuff, enlivened by light touches. Interesting that the two Norwegians responsible for this momentous achievement, Mona Juul and her husband Terje Rod-Larsen are very much alive today. Mona Juul is Norwegian Ambassador to the UK. She has been to see the play and given it her stamp of approval. What I want to know is what was it like seeing Toby Stephenson playing your husband? She would probably be far too polite to go, "Phwoar!"

Naturally he had to tame his mane for this part....