Knitting with Fine Yarn...

I just love a new word. I've been looking for ages for a word to describe the tips of my chromosomes. And now I have it: telomeres. They protect our genetic makeup from deterioration. Our lifestyle can determine how we can protect and lengthen them, or at least, delay the natural ageing process which results in their shortening. 

So my darlings, a New Year's resolution, late to the table, is that I am going to strengthen and lengthen my telomeres. Just off for another joggette around the block in time for one of my four cups of coffee a day. See? Not all bad...

Husband on-a-short-fuse is building up his, with yoga.  Judging by the amount of kit he has: the chair, the blocks, the pillow, the rug, I suspect I'll be tripping over his telomeres sometime soon. 

Our diet is pretty much on task. We regularly feed our telomeres vitamins B, C and E in the form of strawberries, blueberries, broccoli, onions and tomatoes. Fish, flaxseed, green veg all regularly feature in our menus.Unsurprisingly, not a single reference to a Ferraro Rocher. 

Dearest knows there is a large box of them in the house. What he doesn't know is that they are closer than he thinks. Under the bed. Sssh! 

I'm going to knit a long scarf with his telomeres. I hope he thanks me.

Love the colour!

Saturday Night Salad...

Ah, the joys of an Indian take-away, as a Saturday night treat, have been taken away. Replaced by a healthy-eating regime. As commander-in-chief of this unilateral initiative, I thought tonight I would make a salad to put all other salads in the shade.
Hard cheese in his. Which is what I'd have said to him if he'd started to growl. Mozzarella in mine. Then as much crunch and colour as I could artistically heap on the plate. We munched companiably in as much silence as a crunchy salad would allow. I waited for the praise. It required a nudge.
"Could have done with a few pomegranate seeds and pine nuts,"he said bravely.
Where is he eating that kind of stuff, I want to know? When did Fish Finger Man become Pine nut and Pomegranate Man?  I was bothered.
I plonked down a fruit layered yoghurt in front of him with little less than my usual aplomb.
He looked at it, dismally.
"I don't suppose we could stick a Ferrero Rocher in the middle?"
Hmm, normality reigns.

The missing ingredient

                                       

Candid Conversation...

There is no fun in funeral. Not unless you are a phonics teacher. However, funerals can offer a time of reflection and a celebration of a life. I went to the funeral today of a man whom we used to describe as our builder. He was more than that. He became the man most likely to resolve whatever domestic crisis we experienced in our early years of marriage. He built our extension and manufactured it so that it was able to house the length of a single bed, by enhancing the plans by a couple of inches. And engaging the Buildings Reg officer in conversation, to divert him from measuring. He was a chap who took his family camping in France, got as far as Dover when he realised, with three children in the back of the van, they were one passport short. A strategically placed tarpaulin, and an order to "Keep your head down!" and they made their holiday to France- there and back. Different times indeed.
The choice of music for a funeral is a very personal choice. Some people make their wishes known well in advance; others leave it in the hands of their nearest and dearest. After the funeral, I decided to ring a cherished friend of my mother's. She is in her mid-eighties and blessed with sharp mental acuity. I told her that one hymn I most certainly would not have at my funeral would be, "Abide with me". A total dirge, we both agreed. She said that had expressed a wish for Wings of a Dove at the beginning of the service but she wanted Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody  for the way out as she wanted to put a smile on everyone's face.
My kind of girl.  I wish her long life. (And she's not even Jewish.)

A new toy for the technically challenged....

I have an innate distrust of the name Bonnie. Do you remember Gone with The Wind? Little girl, Scarlett's daughter, on a pony, taking a jump. "Bonnieeeeeeee...!" as she tragically hits the dust. Then Bonnie Langford, a curly haired cutie, oozing with manufactured charm in the eighties. So when I asked my partner in grime, the redoubtable Ewelina, if she would like to choose any artist she fancied this morning to help the chores go with a swing, and she said, "Bonnie Tyler", I paused a moment. Actually, what she said at first was, "I like the old ones.." In my head I am thinking, "Fancy that. Frank Sinatra?". Then I realised  Ewelina, in her early thirties, would have old ones slightly different from my old ones. So I found her The Best of Bonnie Tyler and I have to say that Hero added a certain je ne sais quoi to the proceedings and made me review my somewhat baseless prejudice against all things Bonnie.

Now, you are quite possibly wondering how I was able to conjur up an album of choice, just like that.
Before Christmas, I overheard Grandpa telling the children that he was getting Grandma a Juke Box. I have to say I was not best pleased. Not least of all by him getting it in through the back door, so to speak, by involving our young people. Where was the bloody thing going to hang? It's just not that sort of house, you understand. I am a woman of refinement and taste. An aesthete, no less. A Juke Box fun, though it might be, would look completely out of place. A small box arrived. It contained a compact device called  Electric Jukebox. It fits at the back of your television, takes a couple of minutes to set up and plays through your TV. You have millions of songs you can call up either by voice command or using the keyboard. Even then I was sceptical. It didn't seem to respond to  my voice when I spoke into the microphone.
"You hold it in front of your mouth, Mum, not like you're doing Karaoke!"
Isn't it strange how young males assume that if not hard of hearing, you are certainly hard of understanding?

Anyway, it works really well. No sub to pay in the first year. And so my Dearest husband has been upgraded to Hero. By Bonnie Tyler. Such a pretty name.

This Won't Be one of My Favourite Things....

You could call me a klutz. Been called worse. But never to my face. I could never have been an actress because, honest truth, I would have banged into the furniture. If you were to walk down the road with me, I would gravitate towards your side of the pavement. Not with any determined intention to get smoochily close to you, it would just happen.
I once heard a correspondent talking on the radio saying that when he was in an airport in Japan despite the vast numbers, everyone glided around each other, scarcely touching. When he had landed in a quiet airport somewhere in Australia, a guy ran across the tarmac and managed to bump into him with a "Sorry, mate!"
You see, I understand that Australian because he and I suffer from the same thing: a poor lack of proprioception. There we are, incontrovertible admission in print. It is one of my favourite words, proprioception, partly because very few people know what it means and partly because I ain't got any. Or very little at least. Proprioception is a sense of where you are in space. I never know fully where I am, so hence my bruised thighs and knees.
But I've been reading about a new sport called Parkour. This is all about urban acrobatics, flinging yourself across natural terrain, running and jumping and climbing. It started in France, would you know, as L'art du deplacement. And guess what? It develops your proprioceptivity.
So scan the sky-line and beware of large hurtling object heading your way.
But it won't be me.
I'll be huddling in my Parker and trying to keep to a straight line on the pavement.

Feeling grounded...

Roast Baloney on Browned Toast....

What was there on the front page this morning? Regurgitated crape du jour. More fear-mongering by the Food Police. So put down that nice piece of toast. Yes, you with the toast. It's too brown. No, I can still see it under those baked beans. You can't hide it. It should be a gentle golden colour if you don't want to get cancer. But you like acrylamide, do you? I expect you like it in your roast potatoes as well? Don't we all? What use is a gently golden roast tattie to man or beast? For some of us, non-Domestic goddesses, our offerings from the  cuisine would be dramatically reduced, if we did not include a soupçon of acrylamide now and again.
This is a recurring warning which seems to be dusted off every few years. As if we could ever be complacent, what with contrary messages hitting us weekly between the eyes or whacking us across the behind. I feel as if life is becoming a loop.

The news over the weekend was certainly stuck in a loop as we visited, then re-visited every aspect of the Presidential inauguration. What a surreality show it was. Far more concerning than the colour of my toast.

Browned off? Eat too much toast and you will be Brown Bread..

An ageing barrel finds new gin...

I have been measuring my skimmed milk and glugging red wine with reckless abandon. Silly silly me. Half a pound of lard on this week. What a lardon am I? Nothing in particular has driven me to drink. I have simply been an enthusiastic matcher of glass for glass with my dearest husband. He's had a challenging week. So I'll drink to that. And pour us another.
Added to the units consumed is a new gin. Introduced to me by my son and his partner I fell upon it with with glee that verged on the indecent. It is called Smooth Ambler Barrel Aged Gin. It is gin that is aged in Bourbon barrels so that it hits the taste buds initially as a gin but with a whisky finish. Now how exciting is that?  It is described as burnt caramel intertwined with lemon meringue. Interesting.
For me it tasted of spice and Christmas pudding with one heck of a punch.
Dear me. I must get out more.  Ah, but I put on weight when I do.

How the Great British Bunion became a Smooth Ambler

Here Comes the Judge...

Read a lovely anecdote this week. A judge told how he'd presided over a case of indecency where the young female witness was too embarrassed to say aloud what the defendant had said to her. She was invited to write it down in a note which was duly passed to the jurors. "Would you care for a screw?" it read. There was an old gent sitting on the jury who'd dropped off. So when the young attractive juror to his left passed him the note, he woke up, looked at it, smiled and put it in his pocket. The Judge interjected and told him to return the note. The old guy smiled, patted his pocket and said, "It's a private matter, my Lord".

It made me smile.  It obviously referrred to a bygone age with the use of the phrase, "Would you care for..?" Real Downton-speak. 

It reminded me of a joke my father would tell of the deaf judge who asking the villain in the dock if he had anything to say for himself in the light of the heinous crime he'd committed. 

"Bugger all, me Lord," he replied. 

The Judge turns and asks his Clerk what the defendant had said.

The Clerk coughs nervously, and says,

"Bugger all, me Lord".

"Really? "says the Judge, "I could have sworn I saw his lips move!"

No trace of Downton in my dad. 

La La, pas pour moi....

There was someone gently snoring in the Curzon yesterday. No, it wasn't my Dearest husband. The very idea!
Ah, but if you'd asked someone who knows us, which of us would have loved La La Land and which would not, the answer would've been wrong. Because I was wrong. Yet, I had been the one who'd really wanted to see it. I confess, don't tell anyone, I wanted to see it before anyone else. I know. Makes me shallow and competitive. But I'd read the reviews, and absolutely everyone seemed...  well, besotted by it.
So dear readers, I am the abnormal one. Dearest, conversely, enjoyed it and said he found it uplifting and an anti-dote to grit, grime and all that sci-fi bollocks (I'm quoting here); while I sat there wanting to love it, willing to love it, with every sinew stretching and straining saying, Please engage me.  Alright, it was pleasant enough, and the young protagonists, sweet. And anyone who can learn the piano in three months and play like that is truly awe-inspiring. So well done, Mr Gosling, I salute you.
But I just wanted to come out of it, dancing in the street. Instead of which, I felt as though I'd consumed a big bag of candy floss. I plodded back to the car, whilst Dearest seemed curiously, but engagingly, light in spirits and fleet of foot.

Incidentally, Dearest says he prefers it when I don't dance in the street. (I don't get it.)

My Kinda Marathon..

We cannot keep this up.
I am breathless with the emotional and physical energy we've expended since New Year. Three times to the National Theatre. Parking in Regent's Park, we hot foot it across the West End and Waterloo Bridge, arriving flushed and drunk with endorphins as we slide into our seats. (Over 13000 steps, including return, if you're with someone who has a phone in his pocket.)
So Red Barn first, an adaptation by David Hare. A fabulous fusion of cinema and theatre from the incredibly talented director, Robert Icke. Next up, Patrick Marber's adaptation of Hedda Gabler for light relief?  Hardly. Ruth Wilson making the portrayal of a psycho-bitch into an art-form. Bewitching performance. Gripping stuff. Then on Tuesday back again for Amadeus which was beyond fabulous. Live music by the Southbank Sinfonia and wonderful operatic arias added to the power of this revival. Oh, it pressed all my buttons! Feet hardly touched the ground on the way back to the car.

Saturday night in with the telly? Doesn't really compare.

And a View from the Bridge without an Arthur Miller  

No business like snow business...

If you don't get very much of something, then there is a strong possibility that you will go beserk when you do. No, I am not talking about tackling that left behind box of Quality Street. That seriously wasn't me. Not this year, anyway.
I am talking about snow. We really don't do snow well in the UK. Thankfully, we do not get a great deal of the stuff, but when we do, it always seems to take us by surprise. Not this time though. We have been ardent weather-watchers this week. Bracing ourselves for some great white-out. Heralded by the headlines of The Daily Express last week who always like to be right on it even when historically proven to be right off it. Particularly memorable being the "Barbecue Summer" of  recent times when the summer turned out to be one of the worst on record.
We have been checking iPhones, Met sites and exchanging updates on a regular basis. This morning in the South East we have had a token offering. Not enough for a scrimp snowball.
Thank the good Lord and bless those gritters everywhere.

Black Bird by Nicola Byrne www. brightartlicencing.com

Liar liar, pants on fire..

I'd have worn silk pants, if I'd had them. Instead, I decided to weigh three pairs of trousers, individually, on my cooking scales. Having selected the lightest pair, I removed my watch, false teeth (not really) and found a skimpy blouse. I kept the earrings on. The girl has standards. It was my Slimming Club today, and I had a weigh-in. I have had to negotiate two meals out this week and I was doubtful that I would have any success on the scales, unless I gave into a little mechanical engineering. Today I lost one and a half pounds. That's what the scales said, and that is in my book.
We live in an age where, apparently, it is the norm to str-etch the truth. So that is what I was doing this morning.
It might have been the smell of burning underwear that gave me away. Except I wasn't wearing any.
'Course I was.  Truth-stretching is so much easier than Pilates. But I know which one would be better for me.

Sounding off with sophistication...

Everybody has an opinion. I acknowledge this as a universal, if unremarkable truth. I have aired a great number in this blog. But I do my best not to prosthelytize or even bang my drum (which is much easier to spell). Alright, occasionally, I might. However, I did feel that Mrs Streep gave in to the actor's huge temptation  of using the Golden Globe ceremony as a political platform. I am not heavy duty in admonishment, in that  I might easily have done the same. It's just that I feel it was unwise.
These are not normal times. The US have a President-elect who brays from his side of the school yard by using Twitter. Meryl Streep's comments, justifiable as they were, are simply trumped by a disparaging tweet. What happens next? Does she then engage in an argument  focusing on the insult that she is a second rate actress?  No, you have to let his words hang in the air. Confident that they will soon be superseded by utterances more asinine.
My personal award goes to Hugh Laurie when he accepted his Golden Globe for his portrayal of the baddie in The Night Manager: "on behalf of psychopathic billionaires everywhere."
A supreme example of where saying less, is so much more..

Hugh Laurie Managing to get it Right on the Night

Cross words to self...

I have great craters in my brain where general knowledge should reside. I don't believe it's demonstrative of a degenerative process (here's hoping not) rather, that I never acquired the knowledge in the first place. 

In our school, it was Geography or History for O Level. No brainer for me. I was marginally less interested in Geography than I was in History. Besides History had the added attraction of Miss Sweeney. Face like a Bulldog, she would sit, with her bloomered legs, astride a single raised Victorian desk, snarling out a double-period of dictated notes. What was not to like? 

So today, as I attempt to kick start the brain into activity with the Times 2 Quick Crossword, I know instantly I am on a sticky wicket with "Yucatan native language (4 letters). Alright, you smug-smilers out there.. you got it. I know it now, of course, three clicks later. Go on then, clever clogs, "Chinese port (8 letters)" and no, I have no letter clues. Yes, not so smug now. Come and join me at the back of the class where we can scratch our heads together and make dandruff piles on the desk. You never did that? Nor me.

I have a friend who has offered to teach me how to solve cryptic crosswords. I would rather gnaw off my arm than learn this new trick. 

Yet learning a new trick would be good for the brain. But what about my old tricks? What happened to my piano lessons? Learnt for two years and neglected for four.. 

17 across today: "Piano string  silencer (6 letters)" Answer: "Dampner". Nice try.

Real answer : "Lack of resolve and self-discipline". 

But couldn't fit that in ..

I just want to be a Honky tonk woman.....

How to embrace household chores....

I love crap tv. There I've said it. It's out there.
Over Christmas, though more specifically, that post- Bacchanalian lull between Boxing Day and New Year, (You didn't have one ? Poor you.) we started to watch Orphan Black on Netflix. If you loved Desperate Housewives, or Revenge then this is the show for you. I said to Sonetlumiere that it was a bit Buffyesque in order to ensnare him, so that I could discuss it with someone... but he rebuts that descriptor, saying it's more X-Files than Vampire-slaying. Never mind. He's hooked now.

There has, in fairness been a plethora of good television to watch. This autumn we discovered Narcos. If anybody had told me I'd be recommending  the true story of Pablo Escobar, Columbian drug baron, I would have insisted they checked me for a pulse. Absolutely knicker-grippingly good. And my Spanish, with all those sub-titles, improved immeasurably. Then there was the extraordinary Stranger Things which made fantasy and sc-fi beguiling, in a way that I have not seen since early Spielberg. The Crown was, for me unexpectedly, a joy and delight. So in brief, we have been thoroughly spoiled by Netflix. So we were woofling around for another hum-dinger.
If we are unsure of a new series, we give it a 30 minute chance to grab us. So it was with the 30 minute mandate that we gave Orphan Black the once-over. We were seduced immediately. Ridiculous premise, but it went at  a stonking pace.  However, even while cocooned in our bubble, I did venture to point out that the only way we were watching a drama such as this was because there were no distractions. Dearest nodded, while pouring another glass of wine.

He returned to work on Tuesday and after supper I put on Orphan Black. Ten minutes in, he said,
"I can't watch any more of this rubbish. I think we pigged out on it too much last week."
You'd think that Orphan Black has been orphaned once more.

Fear not. Mummy is here. She's got an awful lot of ironing to catch up on. Which she will be doing very slowly, darling.

Tatiana Mislany is the very talented lead.

A return to auld claes and cauld porritch...

A new year and new beginnings. If your new year's resolution involves a Ninja Auto iq then don't take it out of the box, and get a refund while you can. Seriously. Mine has been off the shelf twice this year. Good for the upper arms, if used regularly, because it's a heavy little blighter. But as it's only been given two outings my bingo wings still flap in the breeze. Go for a hand blender. That would be my advice, if you think the answer to a slim new you, involves puree. Or Gloop, as Dearest refers to my homemade blended soup.
It may be back to school for many today. However, it's back to Slimmers World for me after a six week sabbatical to deal with toe. (Still plumptious, but quite painless, thanks for asking.)I love my Slimming Leader. No, I am not going to run off with her. I just love the fact that she is real. She put on five pounds over Christmas. Who is not going to love a leader who confesses to having eaten a whole big bag of Kettles crisps and a tub of Hummus: twenty minutes and 70 syns later she ground to a halt, having scoffed the lot. Yes, the last thing you want, is a young, smug stick-insect preaching at you: I used to be like you, but now, I'm better.  No, Claire is completely one of us. Her struggle is our struggle.
So I came out of there glowing with re-booted resolve. Came home. Ate a balanced, nutritious meal and had some fruit. And some more fruit. And some more. And no matter how much fruit I ate, I failed to fill that carbohydrate-shaped space in my stomach. So  I had a piece of my banana cake.
A banana. One of my five a day.
Yes, I know. Sometimes I like all my syns in one hit.

Bananas queuing up to become banana cake

                                         

Candlelight supper (cold)

Last night, we peered out of a rear bedroom window at the ensuing scene below. No chance of being caught snooping, as we were in total darkness. As was every house and street lamp around us. Two men in the electricity substation site at the bottom of our small garden were straining every sinew to restore power which had disappeared with a strange boom and a flickering of lights some five hours earlier. One man held a spotlight, while the other referred to a manual. It looked as though it was going to be a long job. 

We blew out all the candles and like a pair of Wee Willy Winkies, we carried a candle each to bed. It was only nine pm but we had been in darkness since four that afternoon. Peering is tiring.

No light to read by, no tv, no radio and no computer. Even our phones had died. It was a salutary lesson in how not to be prepared. 

A future list would contain batteries for the radio, a robust torch, and plentiful supply of large candles. Fairy grotto candles are good for fairies, but not for ageing eyes, where ambient gloom spells doom. 

I reflected on the day, as I lay in bed. It had been the last hurrah of the season to celebrate Christmas before decorations were packed away. One last big lunch. I had foolishly asked my Dearest husband to vacuum the living room. Not a job he has done, for about 25 years. The hoover, he told me, was far too heavy. ( It is the lightest and smallest Miele you can buy.) He told me that all the sockets were in the wrong places as you had to move furniture to reach them. ( An armchair, 6 inches to the left). At this point, I closed the kitchen door. 

I wondered, could it be possible that my undomesticated spouse, whilst railing at  imposed drudgery, had caused a power surge that reduced the whole neighbourhood to a grinding halt? I decided that, sadly, the idea was too far-fetched, as I slipped into a dreamless sleep. With a smile on my face.

Get the picture? Only just....