Almost random

Well I fancied blogging but to be honest I am the least inspired person in the world right now so thank goodness for Moonroot tagging me.

The rules are:
Link to the person or persons who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

So stuff whats been on my mind but not worth blogging about

1) I don't have a mobile phone
I used to have one but I was never very good at it despite having worked for a mobile network and a mobile service provider at various points in my illustrious career. I think I have told you already but I am so bad at texting that I had to turn off the beeps due to the extreme hilarity and piss taking caused by the slowness of my thumbs. Plus I just couldn't get interested in having the latest model or the best deal For one astonished telesales person who wanted to send me their latest model absolutely free and with no obligation this just didn't compute, "But what do you do when you want to talk to someone?" he stammered.

Now this is not to say that I don't get enjoyment out of mobile phones I absolutely love eavesdropping on other people's conversations on the bus. My only bug bear is the Eastern European lady who can fill a whole thirty minute journey with a non-stop monologue into her mobile. I need a translator.

2) I am not on a diet
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Yes it's a good idea to eat a healthy balanced diet I would like it in an abstract kind of way if there was a bit less of me to go round but PLEASE when I hear people defining themselves as good or bad depending on if they had a cream bun or worse still one yes ONE chocolate I can feel myself reaching for the soap box. Get a grip people you are good if you do things that make the world a better place. Don't even get me started on those stupid magazines that alternate articles on "My Eating Disorder Hell" with photos of celebrity cellulite.

3) I am having pet withdrawal symptoms
This means that I steal cuddles from other people's pets as I go about my daily business. There are a perfect pair of labradors on my way to the bus stop a golden one and a black one both chubby and waggy and they both hang their heads over the gate to get their ears scratched. Then there is the ginger cat on my way home and the little black cat with the cut off tail. Give it another 10 years and I know I'll be mad cat woman or something.

4) I love Strictly Come Dancing
What's not to love?


5) I have not won the lottery yet
But I live in hope or is that in a dream world? Honestly I would be the perfect lottery winner it would change my life and I would live happily ever after. So if you have any influence . . .

6) I've got to go now cos Dancing with the Stars is on

So I've run out of time to nominate some people but I would like to read any and all of your six random things

Bells and whistles

I went shopping yesterday for a birthday present for my great nephew (how old does that make me sound?). For his first birthday. Ah bless!

I ran round to the Early Learning Centre in my lunch hour and I had so much fun pressing buttons and having toys sing me nursery rhymes or flash lights or do funny sound effects. Obviously if I had any shame I would have been embarrassed.

Now before I set out I had it in mind to find something sort of sturdy and traditional you know a painted wood kind of thing. Tasteful. So what did I get?

A plastic book that sings nursery rhymes and giggles. It is pink but the giggles more than make up for that. To counteract the girlyness of the book a toy work bench with a drill that makes drill noises and has flashing red lights, a circular saw that makes circular saw noises and hammers and nails that make boing noises.

Fortunately he is not old enough yet to be totally underwhelmed by gifts from aged aunt and uncle so there is non of the usual buying for children anxiety I suppose I'd better make the most of it.

Black black

I am at the Uni again which is handy transport wise but it does mean being surrounded by 18 to 20 somethings all of whom seem to be 7 stone wet through. That is quite depressing. All of a sudden I feel old and frumpy instead of just feeling like me.

It may be my old frumpyness but I would like a long sleeved black T shirt with a V neck, not a round or a square neck or a neck with an imitation bit of blouse attached. Plain black no sparkly bits, no writing, no pattern, not ribbed not down to my knees or up round my armpits. Three quarter length sleeves would be acceptable. Can I find one? Can I buggery. Maybe I'll have to buy Peoples Friend or some other old people's magazine and send off for one mail order.

Other than my total lack of a black long sleeved T s.hirt things are just steady away

The first job I got was data input. Very boring but on the plus side they provided breakfast of toast, fruit and real coffee every day. Very civilised I thought, it almost made up for the RSI and brain death and subsidised the cost of lunch no end.

The latest is a little more varied and a little more money but I have to bring my own coffee. Also it is dangerously close to one of the student coffee bars and an abundance of danish pastries. Not good for the wallet or any hopes of ever being 7 stone wet through.

Anyway three weeks to go then I'm off home for a fortnight courtesy of a cheapie flight from Ryanair hopefully to take in some of the glorious Limousin autumn colour.

Extreme lazyness

I've been a bit quiet of late mainly because I am once again in the UK getting a bit of extra dosh and I felt a bit sulky about it to be honest but I've got over myself now. It's lucky that I can do it and that I have a brother who will pick me up at the airport and put me up in his spare room for the price of a couple of bars of French chocolate with raspberry bits in.

TS is at home looking after the gang, working and doing DIY on our house in my absence. I'm in two minds on this one. Half glad that I don't have to do it and half wanting to stick my oar in because I just can't bear not to be in charge. Actually I'm at least seven eighths glad that I don't have to do it and I can offer reams of advice and guidance by e-mail anyway.

To make sure I can play my part properly on my return I have been studying Extreme Makeover. Honestly that's the only reason. I don't really want to spend hours vegging out in front of the telly eating Martin's ice cream and crying buckets over all those tales of hardship while TS does all the work. I just want to do my bit. So whatever the house looks like I will jump up and down, scream and cry and shout Oh My God.

Come to think of it that will be fine either way won't it?

Just need to look up the French for bus driver move that bus and I'm sorted

Pumpkins and stuff

The first of the pumpkin harvest and a busy cooking day.

Cornish pasties (nothing to do with pumpkins but anyway a batch of 14 for the freezer)

Butternut squash soup was the next on the list to be followed by an attempt at pumpkin pie.

The large orange pumpkins were from a volunteer plant. I didn't have a big enough, sharp enough knife to slice through one but TS came to the rescue with his wood splitting axe and split one in four for me.

We were so busy chopping up this pumpkin and turning it into puree that I accidently invented a new recipe, butternut squash and ginger mash. This involves a couple of cloves of garlic, an onion, a carrot, a potato, a teaspoon of ginger, lovage and coriander leaves, two butternut squashes and a litre of vegetable stock. Combine as if for soup ie sweating veg first in butter then adding stock then forget about it while you wrestle with an oversized pumpkin so that the stock is absorbed by the veg and the excess boils away and the vegetables will mash with a fork. But catch it just before it starts catching on the pan. Delicious! I might try making it on purpose next time.

Just waiting for the pumpkin pie to cool now. If we like it I've got another 5lbs of pumpkin puree on standby.

A lazy excuse for a post

Sunday

What's a cat to do?

A spot of fishing

or just sitting on a pole


take a nap in the back seat of the car with the dog

or just have a lie in

It's all gone quiet over here

I've not been feeling right chatty of late or internetty really. I've had a stash of novels non of which were stunning but I felt like burying myself in them anyway.

So whats been going on?

Well we've finally got the floor varnished downstairs in our house, the main job that we moved out to do. A little moment of sadness there as we discovered paw prints made by Mimo behind the kitchen shelves the time she got covered in green Hammerite. I've varnished over them so they will always be there now.

I've half painted the shutters, a rather nice shade of lavender I feel. Just as well. A stage of the Tour de Limousin will starting more or less outside our house next week. It wouldn't do to have scruffy shutters now would it and be lowering the tone.

It's been raining lots so a whole bucket of tomatoes have gone on the compost due to being blighted. But my carrots are huge and sweet and carroty and the pumpkins are looking prrrretty damn good (that's them hexed now).

Next big job is putting in the stairs leading up to the attic. We need some big strong men for that as we've been given a solid oak staircase and it weighs a ton. So if you're passing . . .

Petula Gordino is roosting with the rest of the Dinnerladies rather than going off on her own and is finally part of the gang. Now that they can roam at will with no neighbours to annoy they have turned their attention to the one place we don't want them which is in the house. We seem to be constantly shooing them away from the kitchen door. Perhaps they just want to be with us. It seems that wherever we go to up here we have 5 chickens, a cockerel, two kittens and the dog following along behind

It's like a budget production odf the Pied Piper.

Anyway me, the Dinnerladies, Stan, Eddie, Ernie and Sissy are off to get the washing in now

Sturdy sheep smell spooky

I thought I would have a pic of them before they went. They are all coming over for their heads scratching

Petula Gordino

I just realised you don't know what she looks like. She's a bit of a blur I'm afraid

Moving House is Such Hard Work