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.