Sunday, June 25, 2006

Who'd have thunk it?

Thanks to Cheryl, who appears to be back to her normal (?) self, you can now stereotype me by drink.

You Are A Martini

You are the kind of drinker who appreciates a nice hard drink.
And for you, only quality alcohol. You don't waste your time on the cheap stuff.
Obviously, you're usually found with a martini in your hand. But sometimes you mix it up with a gin and tonic.
And you'd never, ever consider one of those flavored martinis. They're hardly a drink!


As you can see, any of you worried that I might be dead this is not the case, I'm just a bit bogged down at work which finishes soon for the summer. Yee hah as they say in my nearest Martini bar.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Oliver's Adventures at LTB's house

This week had to be the one where Lachlan had to look after the class "pet". Oliver came complete with a bag and a book of his adventures at all the other boys and girls houses (all written by other mummies). Just another thing to add to the ever increasing list of things to do. I should probably add that Oliver is a toy cat not a real pet at all.
I have just finished it and I must admit to being quietly pleased, so here for your delight and edification is the story. Are you sitting comfortably? Right, then we'll begin.

OLIVER’S ADVENTURE AT LACHLAN’S HOUSE

Oliver came to stay at my house for the weekend but he didn’t know that he would actually stay a week. On Sunday we went to Mount Edgcumbe. It is a long way away and we had to get a bus and a ferry. It wasn’t very sunny but we had a barbecue anyway and I played football. Oliver sat on the mat and watched. After lunch I didn’t feel very well. Mummy said I had a temperature and we would need to go home. So we got a ferry and a bus back home.
On Monday I still wasn’t very well, my skin was very itchy and I had a headache and I was very hot. Oliver helped mummy to look after me; he kept me company and made me feel better
On Tuesday I was feeling a bit better but still not well enough to come back to school and I did something very silly: I hit my old dog Jack, on the head. It made him very frightened and he bit me. My mouth was bleeding and I had to go to hospital. A nurse looked at my mouth and said the doctor would need to look at it. When the doctor came He got a special face doctor to look at my mouth. She told my mummy I would need to have an operation to mend my lip and that I would need very strong medicine in my arm to make me better. Oliver was very worried about me and he went home with my daddy to wait for me.
In the afternoon a special doctor put me to sleep and when I woke up it was night-time. I was only awake for a little while. Mummy was at the hospital with me and she had to sleep in the playroom! She was very tired.
The next day the mouth doctor came and looked at my lip and said he thought it would get better soon but I needed to have some more strong medicine in my arm. I stayed at the hospital until I had had all my medicine. When I finished having my strong medicine in my arm I was allowed to go home and I went with mummy and daddy on the bus.
On Thursday I went to see my doctor to make my skin better; Oliver stayed at home and did some colouring in. My skin is feeling much better now and mummy says I can come back to school on Monday.
Oliver told me I was very mean to smack my dog and I won’t ever do it again: operations aren’t very nice; I would rather play with Oliver instead.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Friday Picture


Some pictures from the Painter's exhibition on the Barbican, Plymouth last year.

Courtesy of Surrealo Son

I'm probably the last person to find this site but courtesy of Surrealo Son yesterday in a vain attempt to cheer me up he introduced me to this. I haven't tried out the other bits and pieces yet but will do today whilst trying to complete some irksome tasks I have to get out of the way.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

LTB in dog bite drama


















I've been a bit distracted. At the moment the whole world feels like a very hostile and unkind place and I feel completely overwhelmed. I will be about but there is just so much ruminating going on in my head that there is no other room for words.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Little Jenny Wren



This post was inspired by Doris over at Grans on Bran. Many Happy Returns, Doris.

Your anniversary date is one I share as on 9 June 1986 I left home aged 17 to join the Women's Royal Naval Service as a trainee Wren Radar. The girls I shared a mess (bedroom) with were Sue Thomas, Elaine ____ from Sunderland, Claire Norsworthy from Cardiff and Lesley ______ who's dad had been in the Navy with mine.

I could say that I joined for all the usual reasons given for joining the armed forces but in truth I joined to escape a situation that over the previous six years had eroded my confidence and broken me into tiny fragments of myself. The shards were so shattered that it has taken me the intervening twenty years to try and reassemble them and they are still not all in the right order and some may still be missing in action.

At 17 I found myself close to emotional meltdown and considered a career in the Wrens as a safer option than the complete boundarylessness of the next few years spent at University. In fact it was anything other than safe and in effect just pulverised the shards into smaller fragments than they would otherwise have been.

My memories are therefore bittersweet. I do not blame the Navy; my expectations were flawed. The people I met were not all angels and their motives were sometimes very suspect but on the whole they were good people. I was the ubiquitous square peg and however hard I tried I just didn't fit.

I have felt like that for a lot of my adult life apart from here; I actually feel like I do fit in. What that says about the rest of you, though, I couldn't begin to imagine.

Monday, June 12, 2006

New thingamajig


I'm trying something new while I wrestle with something old. I have a Sheweevil forum which I am trying out: FORUM.

Friday, June 09, 2006

Friday Picture


This one is off down under soon to a lovely patron of the arts and I must admit to it being a favourite. It also currenlty adorns our livingroom wall and so as with any of the Painter's pictures it will, no literally, leave a gap.

In other news the bits and pieces have arrived from cafe press and are so fabulous that the bag I bought for Happy Christmas Fairy is going nowhere fast. Sorry and all that but I just love it too much to part with it. One word of caution though; if any of you decide to buy something and your order exceeds £18 you will be liable to pay UK duty.

I will get you one, Happy, you jst can't have this one and Huffy you just need to tell me which design you like.

Sorry the rest of you, just chat amongst yourselves, it's the only way we three weird sisters communicate with each other. I exaggerate but only slightly. If I can get the battery charger to work I will post a piccie of the true loveliness of the stuff later including perhaps one of the Painter sporting a very attractive strawberry tee-shirt.

In more other news my lovely allotment neighbour Tom has managed to get me a water butt all I have to do is is dig a hole to sit it in so that the kids who live nearby and collect gardening implements to sell at car boots don't kick it over.

That's tomorrow sorted out then: a hole to dig. Strange, that; I'm more used to digging myself out of them than in.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Moses supposes ...


To make up for my lack of posting I thought I would send you all flowers. Well, a flower at any rate. This is the William Morris posted about previously, and as you can see it now is flowering.

It's really appreciating being in a bright and sunny position as opposed to where it was before. It got the best of the sunlight in my old garden but still not really enough to keep it happy.

It was a bit of a shame to dead head it really but the bloom is beginning to fade with intensity of the sunshine and hopefully it will just encourage it to flower some more.

Hugs to all.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Of cabbages and kings ...



So we spent the day yesterday laying the rest of the weed fabric my lovely mum got me for my birthday (which isn't until July but the garden wouldn't wait that long) including some of the paths. I also managed to plant out 10 Sweetcorn plants, a variety called Lark and 15 each of Red Cabbage (Inferno), Brussel Sprouts (Diablo), Cauliflower (Skywalker) and Savoy Cabbage (Famosa). I have planted cornflowers in amongst the sweetcorn and hope that they will help the ground stay freer of weeds and provide some additional support and help in pollinating the corn.

I actually only managed to fit 52 of the brassica plants in the bed I'd put aside for them and have had to dot the spare around in various places to make sure they don't go to waste. I'm planting morre intensively than recommeneded as I only have a half plot veg and a second half plot for fruit. My allotment neighbour, Tom (80 next year) says he doesn't think they are even halves and I should get it remeasured but to be honest I've got about as much as I can cope with at the moment I shall just have to try and give them extra food until I can manure all the beds in the winter. I think I'm going to get them some pelleted chicken manure (called Cluck!)

It was very hot there yesterday and Friday and, according to another allotment neighbour, it was up to 90 degrees on his shed; I did feel somewhat like the witch in the Wizard of Oz: "I'm melting" but survived and the whole place, although not looking massively attractive with the addition of the plastic matting does, at least, look and feel a tad more manageable.

In other news, it's back to work on Monday, so no more halcyon days indulging my shepherdess fantasy.

*Wanders off singing "high on a hill lived a lonely goatherd ...."*

Friday, June 02, 2006

Friday picture


Sadly this is another one that has gone to the place where unwanted paintings (underneath other paintings) go. I love it and had I seen it before it was overpainted would have shouted "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo" in slow motion. I love it. It helps that green is my favourite coulour. There is an underlying sense of corruption which I adore.

As ever it is by my lovely husband and talent on legs John Morris. We are excitedly awaiting delivery of two tote bags, a t-shirt and packet of greetings cards from here.

The sun has got his hat on ...


Yestreday, after the funeral, I went up to the allotment to do a bit more preparation. I wore the black cotton top that I had worn to the funeral as it's stretchy and comfortable to work in but it has no sleeves. This means it's quite cool, I also had on a pair of baggy dark grey linen trouser and felt comfortable despite the sunshine.
I didn't think "stick on a hat, something long sleeved or at the very least some suncream" and consequently today I am paying the price. If someone could find a method of converting the heat coming from my arms into something useful we could heat a greenhouse or three, quite probably.
Ally asked about the cheese and it is still being quite cheesy. I heated 2 pints of milk to blood temperature and added Vegeren to the amount stated on the bottle (10 drops per pint) and waited for it to set. Once it was thoroughly cooled I strained the curds from the whey using a linen napkin (as I had no muslin to hand) and then later I put a knife through the curds added some salt and pressed the curds into a mold (a 3 inch plat pot that I had) lined with some curtain netting that I had. At this stage it tasted a little like mozarella and was the same kind of consistency but after being pressed over night it now smells cheesy. I have been looking at the recipes here and am hoping that my little bit of cheese will turn into something resembling a brie*.
It may be horrid; I don't know but I have been wanting to try this for quite a while and I am, so far, very pleased with the results. Just the rudimentary equipment I have to hand has meant I have something that resembles cheese. It may be that in a couple of weeks I have something unpleasant that I don't want to touch we'll have to see. I'll keep you posted.
*Note to self: In future do not enter term "brie" into google images unless you want something you hadn't bargained for. Try Camembert instead.