Mrs Smith is moving

Well, we've made it to the end of the year and it was quite an eventful one really. We went to the Caribbean, our little boy graduated from his university much to our amazement, we erected a shed (a mighty expensive palatial shed), went to France, I got super fat, the Apprentice got himself properly employed, Mr Smith got himself properly unemployed, I managed half a C&G confectionery course and a broken tooth, the dog got tail alopoecia and we got the leak in the top bathroom sorted out. I think that just about sums up the excitements of our year. Just as well we don't go in for those awful round robins. I always reply to them with "nobody in prison or on serious drugs" and hope they get the hint.

On the other hand the unachievements are notable. I have not done any of my intended tasks of 2011. Actually I did finish a few things. I made three patchwork quilts, a zillion lavender bags and almost finished the Bayeux Tapestry; there's a teeny bit of mast to fill in; the little men and little horses are getting cross as they can't sail straight. I will sort this out for them later today.

Today is planting day. My mother gave Mr Smith a vine for Christmas that, according to the label, produces grapes suitable for both eating and wine making. That'll tbe fun; we will invite you all to the first pressing in our bathtub in September - clean feet only please.
Firstly, I have to dig a big hole, whilst he looks on, add fertiliser and sexy compost then replace sods. Mr Smith will then be fatigued and require a cup of tea following this strenuous activity. Oh he's so lucky to have a wife to do these things for him.

New blog location for New year: Mrs Smith's Olympic Blog.
www.mrssmithsolympicblog.blogspot.com

I have done this so you can just click on it and whizz straight there.  However if you are on any fruit machines e.g. Apple or Blackberry this might not work - it didn't for me.

Blue soup

I have failed spectacularly to find a dentist so I have reinforced my mend with more filler. I have so overdone it, covering the whole tooth and quite a bit of the one next door in temporary filling material, that I am now a bit embarrassed to go to Harley Street with my mummified ivories. On a good note my dreadful mend seems to be holding up quite well.

Christmas films: I haven't seen many but Shopaholic was just what I needed yesterday as I lounged on the sofa after my Richmond Park dog walk feeling all post-Christmassy. Last night I watched Dorian Gray which was very debauched; I had to send Mr Smith to bed assuring him it was all terribly boring and not his sort of thing at all. By the way was Colin Firth really bad? I got a bit confused.

Mr Smith bought me the Covent Garden Soups recipe book for Christmas so I can cook him interesting soups for his lunches - oh lucky me. Maybe he had a premonition that I was going to break a tooth so needed mushy stuff. The book gives you a soup a day, each with a date. Today I will make both eye of newt and toe of bat. In fact the recipes for this time of year all seem to involve things we have handy - good old Supermarketman. There was a particularly delicious soup yesterday, Christmas wrapping soup. I think today is ham and hemlock or something.

This is the week where everyone has had quite enough Christmas but is still sitting around hating their family and yearning for them to return to work. I've just remembered Mr Smith has no work. It's permanent. We are stuck in the inter Dec Jan groove forever and ever watching rubbish telly and eating brussels sprouts and chocolates with paper hats on our heads irritating each other for eternity. Oh well at least there will be a different soup every day.

Smashing Christmas

What with my broken tooth and Mr Smith breaking all our china, I think we are having a rather clumsy Christmas. We have now sent Mrs Smith Mother of Mr Smith packing. I only really lost my rag with her once which, seeing what a bloody irritating woman she is, was exceptionally well controlled. I feel it's all over now and my tasks before New Year all revolve around my lovely presents. There are jigsaw puzzles to be done, apps to be downloaded, books to be read, sweets to be eaten and a vine to be planted. Mr Smith can choose the spot, dig the hole, place roots therein, replace earth and tread down sod and I will ring my mother and tell her how splendidly I planted the vine and we will send her the first vintage.

And now I must find a dentist who isn't skiing or in the Caribbean.

Alan Measles and me

I was going a little stir crazy here in my mad house of overeating so I decided to venture out in search of culture. Almost anything I fancied was closed but I found Grayson Perry at the British Museum so I dragged Mrs Smith Mother of Mr Smith off on a piligrimage to Bloomsbury. It is a fabulous exhibition and if you haven't been just hop on your pink motorbike and zoom there without further ado. Best exhib I have been to this year. Look out for all the references to Alan Measles, a teddy bear with godlike status who just makes me want to draw and draw.

On my return over a cup of tea and attack of a Christmas cake with very hard icing, I broke a tooth - a front one. Oh blow! I dashed down to Boots this morning and bought myself a My Little Dentist Kit. When I got back Mr Smith had somehow rammed too many books on the shelf in the dining room whereupon the dresser came crashing down smashing all the plates and teapots to smithereens all over Mrs Smith Mother of Mr Smith. Oh well, quite cathartic really; we dusted down Mrs Smith MoMS and got her to hoover up the bits. I can be gloriously cross with Mr Smith for a very long time.

My parents came to lunch today suitably laden with gifts. We dutifully relieved them of these replacing them with different gifts. They thought I'd done a good job on my home dentistry tooth repair - I think I look a fright, but at least there's no gap. Perhaps I should take up dentistry in the New Year; I could save us a fortune.

Aye aye pad, captain

Ate too much, drank too much and feel like poo - me too. It's Christmas.

Worst present: a pot of mustard taken from the cupboard and wrapped by Mr Smith because traditionally he always gives me jars of mustard. I thought I'd cured him of such behaviour along with selfish cookery books of exceptionally impossible recipes. There are also some rather odd pieces of china from MAd Carina purchased in one of her madder moments in Harvey Nic's sale.

Best present, and this is best present ever ever in the whole wide world, an iPad. How I love my eldest son. I suddenly feel very grown up to have a son who has bought me an expensive toy. And wow oh wow it's just so wow.

Christmas urgency

It's Christmas Eve and we can no longer put off the inevitability of Christmas so we are cleaning.  I have latrine duty.  When don't I?  There are parts of our house that only get an annual cleaning - these gets bigger and bigger until we simply close the door and leave that room for another year.  Bathrooms gleam, showers shine, loos sparkle and we are all bursting.  Well, we can't use our nice clean facilities.

For some barking reason that escapes me (one does odd things at this time of year) I decided to master panettone.  This is supposed to be light and fluffy not ammunition - oh!  I want to rush to a shop and buy some, rip all the paper off and pretend I made it.  I would but I'm a bit fatigued from all that loo cleaning.

The dog inspects all the presents under the tree and is so pissed off there aren't any for him tears off the labels.  Hint: don't leave them chewed up in your basket, this is a dead giveaway.  Why don't you just pop them into Mr Smith's golf bag, we'd recognise his teeth marks anywhere.

Sing choirs of angels

Come on Christmas; I'm all excited.  Let's sing a Slade song.  Oh do let's not.  I'll do Wizard instead.  Is Roy Wood still alive?  I suppose he must be and very rich too.  Listening to the exquisite Military wives on the radio I thought they'd be beautiful angels with those heavenly voices then last night I saw the programme about them - a load of fat tattooed slags really but, Goodness me, isn't Gareth Choirmaster a dish!

Gosh, I can hear Christmas chimes - it's Mr Smith lining up the dirty silver for me to polish.  Mrs Smith Mother of Mr Smith is arriving tomorrow; wouldn't she like to clean the silver?   Perhaps this is not particularly Christmas spirited of me - I don't know, I've made her do it on so many previous years it's almost a tradition.  Do you think she could clean the bathroom and hoover her bedroom too?  I'd like a nice afternoon nap in front of some super crappy film.  Oh, could she walk the dog as well?

Oh well, I'd better look lively; a man in a bate is getting out the silvo and I'm in a Christmas mood.

P.S. I've just googled Roy Wood and found he supported Status Quo at a concert in the summer.  Everyone must have been longing for him to burst into "I wish it could be Christmas every day".... in August.

It's all Claudia's fault

If there is no food in Sainsburys this is because Mr Smith, in the guise of Supermarketman, has transferred it all to our bulging fridge, cupboards, sideboards, worktops, both bursting freezers and anywhere else he can ram it.  We're full ... til May.

The Lovely Claudia was going to drop round with a book she borrowed then denied borrowing then owned up to borrowing.  She cancelled but it was OK as I had in the meantime Amazoned a new one.  People who bought that also bought .... so I did too and spent most of the morning reading "When God was a Rabbit" , an absolutely blissful read.  This was most remiss of me as my house is in an awful state and it's almost Christmas.  Did you see that programme on Channel 4 about a prissy village with a messy hoarder right in the middle who upset them all no end?  Well my house is almost as bad.  Admittedly you don't have to tunnel your way through rubbish to get to the kitchen but you do have to step over an awful lot of debris in most rooms and the silver needs cleaning - tomorrow's task.

I did the ironing then I found a hoover I had never used.  I bought it for the Best Boy when he was at University.  It was remarkably pristine.  I plugged it in and experimented with the attachments and the different buttons one of which made it so powerful you could suck the paint off the walls.  After hoovering myself a few times and suffering suction marks, I applied it to the stairs - cor blimey, I didn't know the carpet was that colour! I was going to clean the sitting room but I got sidetracked thinking how dreadful our cushions looked and thought I'd run up some new covers.  That took the rest of the day along with applauding Supermarketman's ridiculously extravagant and overindulgent shopping and making a particularly disgusting soup.

"God, those cushion covers are hideous."  Shut up and eat your soup then you can clean the silver.

Halls decked

I have tarted up the hall with a few sprigs of other people's christmas tree offcuts.   These are not the non-drop variety so it's a bit like getting married every time you enter or exit our dining room with seasonal confetti all over your head.  I have now left the hoover on permanent standby and stopped inviting friends round to admire it.  It looks like a bald and lonely Christmas for me and Mr Smith.

Mad Carina's mad Christmas

Having a shopaholic friend, Mad Carina, is totally brilliant on several levels.  Firstly, you get fantastic presents and billions of them and secondly, it makes ones own overspending at this festive time look monastic in comparison.  My only minor gripe was I tried to tell her a few months ago that I didn't need to have every cupcake themed item that has ever been made - (enough with the cupcakes already).  So she gave all the (my) cupcake shaped and flavoured gifts to the Lovely Claudia.  I did notice and I do mind.  I actually need a bath-hat that looks like a cupcake and cupcake writing paper and a lovely cupcake shopping bag and ... well I stopped looking at that point. Actually, I am being a little spoilt here as I am drowning in fabulous gifts.  She buys me all things I really want but don't know I want til I see them.  I have put them back in the lovely shopping bag they arrived in and I will take them out and play with them one by one including the darlek pencil and the book of my favourite lies - yet to be written.

I gave one measly gift to each friend which I can assure you took great levels of control and little dosh.

Coven Christmas Meeting

Oh sisters three with a cup of tea and a cupcake we will cast goodly spells.  Ooooh I absolutely love the coven. What are we doing today?  Oh yes, Christmas.  Firstly, we have to make a Christmas swag thingy then we will have lots of lovely pressies.  I have made Carina a beautiful patchwork quilt - well, it's a bit dodgy in places and doesn't seem very square and the hearts aren't very well attached so they'll all fall off in a couple of years.  Ok, a rather tatty patchwork quilt.  I have bought Claudia some really stupid babushka boxes that she won't like but I do - there are billions of them.  Now I must rush and stir the cauldron so they have some enchanted cakes for elevenses and turn Mr Smith into a frog and put him in the garden whilst my friends are here.

Mrs Smith's Christmas hint

Now is not the best time of year to lose the sellotape.

Twinkle twinkle little swirl

Now I am all set to make things Christmassy regardless of being married to Britain's biggest bah Humbug.
I had difficulty erecting the plastic swirl, that passes as our tree, as I couldn't quite reach and had to ask Mr Tall who sighed and begrudgingly attached loop to hook. It really does look like someone nicked our tree but left the lights. I have now added a few bobbles to give it a bit more twinkle.

Two cakes have already been eaten in this house.  One was a huge panattone - not any more.  I am now looking into how to make one.  The other was a Christmas cake; Mr Smith scraped all the icing and marzipan off his slices rendering them less festive.  I have another one of those on which I have just got to finish piping boring scrolls and dots for the final unit in Module 4 .... yeah, boring boring ... for my C&G Confectionery course.  Then I can shove on Father Christmas complete with calcified pieces of icing from cakes past and add his side kick, a three legged reindeer who might be older than both my children.

I need to know when Mrs Smith Mother of Mr Smith will be arriving and leaving for her Christmas with us.  I have bought her hyacinths which have gone beserk and grown far too big too soon.  I talk to them slowly and am threatening them with the nasty cold outside; much as I do with my boys.  I have just heard Mr Smith talking to his mother on the phone.  When is she coming?  Oh he did ask her but didn't listen to the answer; he was too busy boasting how he put up the tree single handedly.

Jingle bells Batman smells

There are a couple of chaps at the seaside who tend to hang around together who I call Batman and Robin.  Batman (Wayne) is OK, he is an ex-policeman who runs a detective agency which is apparently pretty useless as they have no business;  Gotham City doesn't seem to require his services.  Rob, his side kick, has become a nightmare.  I asked Mr Smith what I should do.  "Ho, ho, you've got a stalker."  Thanks for the magnificent support.  It's only mild stalking.  I have been investigating stalking - well, I spoke to a couple of chaps in the pub about it - and it is very common.  They had both been stalked by women, one for 4 months and one for 16 months.  If the stalker doesn't actually do anything but just appears wherever you are, you can't do much about it.  You simply have to wait for them to get bored and go away.  If their behaviour becomes aggressive you can take out an injunction or restraining order.  I think Robin will now fly away as I have had words.  I will, however, take the precaution of asking someone to walk me home; I wonder if Superman's available.

Hairdressers today.  I hate hairdressers.   But I want smart Christmas hair rather than grey birds' nest on top of head.  I then have friends to visit and calendars to deliver.  I will ask Designer Susan how to make my Christmas swag - she's brilliant at that sort of thing.  You tube showed me in 5 parts in real time which took about 2-3 hours and it was really really boring!  Alternatively, I could always ask Mr Smith to help.  Oh, silly me, Santa's Little Hater; I forgot.  Anyway, he broke my clippers last time he used them.

O Tannenbaum

Yesterday and today are being spent gently working my way through an enormous list of tasks.  I am doing quite well.  I can declare my Christmas shopping done ... tick.  I have wrapped up all the gifts and I would put them under the tree but our hall is decked with the contents of the Apprentice's car which he cleared out yesterday.  I think he just tipped the car upside down all over the hall floor.  He was thinking of arranging all the grotty bits of cable, screws, rusty tools and drill bits into a tree shaped structure.  If they're not cleared up by tomorrow I will put them in his bed.

I will start Christmas proper over the weekend.  I have completely given up with a real tree as Mr Smith's lecture on it being a waste of money and refusal to help decorate it on the grounds of "I didn't want a tree in the first place" just gets me down.  So we have an odd arrangement that looks like our tree has been stolen but they didn't take the lights. It's a spectacular spiral of luminescence that smells of plastic.  I sellotape glass balls to it and wish we had a real tree.  I'm making a swag this year or bough or festoon or garland or big bushy thing over the dining room door.  I looked up "how to" on Google.  The best help was really from how to make a wreath although I don't want to make a wreath as I already have one of those and Mr Smith never fails to be rude about it every year.  I will distract him with my bushy thing instead!

Tiring

Did you see that prog on the telly about the Japanese Tsunami?  It was a really good compilation of witness videos and people talking about their experience and why they recorded it.  Me, I would have run for the hills, but they just kept filming away.  Maybe they had the brilliant idea of "Oh no, I am going to lose everything so I will sell this piece of documentary evidence to secure my future." The chap who almost drowned in his car somehow managed to save his film - I don't know how because when I left my camera out in a slight shower that was the end of that.  I guess his was Japanese.

Cor what a blustery night and I was out in it performing a graveyard shift of market research for Michelin.  I didn't have to drive in the sheeting rain testing their special new super grippy tyres, though I so wished I had. A boring questionnaire of 76 dull repetitive statements went on and on until I could hardly keep my eyes open.  I got drenched in Oxford Street coming home in the middle of the night with no people around, afraid that the big Christmas lights might fall on my head.  I was then concerned that my train might be blown off its tracks so I carefully chose a route that didn't involve crossing over the river which was bound to rise up and engulf London - I went under it by tube then from Vauxhall on a fairly busy train - safety in numbers, we will all die together.  We didn't, but my phone did.  It had no signal which meant I couldn't get Mr Smith to collect me from the station but had to take a bus that could have been hit by a falling tree or be blown over.  Actually, it wasn't that bad but I would have been happier in my warm snug bed next to warm snug Mr Smith.  "You're late."  Yeah, I was out testing all weather tyres in a Tsunami.

Deck the halls and be jolly

Mr Smith and I spent the weekend at the seaside.  Mr Smith read his book, watched some telly and looked miserable.  I, on the other hand, went to the pub and saw a few mates, tacked a whole patchwork quilt, watched an excellent film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, walked the dog, ate something weird for dinner, gathered branches for my Christmas swags and the next morning went for a very rain swept walk along the beach before breakfast at the greasy spade.  We went house hunting - useless without a proper appointment as you can't see anything much from the road, in the rain, and you can't barge in when they're having their Sunday lunch with "We were just passing so thought we'd give your place the once over."  Mr Smith didn't see why not!

And now to make a Christmas swag.  I'm off to the dentist again this morning so I'll get Mr Smith to make a start - perhaps not.  My friends should be good at this - coven meeting with bits of wire and boughs of holly falalalalalalalalala.

Sock it to me baby

I am writing to you from the queue in M&S Kingston.  All men in Surrey will be receiving socks for Christmas this year; I have first hand knowledge of this fact.  If I die in this line it was not without noble endeavour.  The madness is truly with us.  I want to yell "STOP, good people, Christmas is yet two weeks away and the shops will not run out of tangerines or crackers or chocolates or socks, honestly."  But, I do feel rather smug knowing that I have done my Christmas shopping but for a plant and a cracker.  Plants for aunts and crackers for everyone so we can wear nasty little paper hats, read out groany old jokes and fiddle with  little metal puzzles or dollies' screwdriver sets throughout lunch.  Actually, I might deputise the cracker buying to Supermarket man.  On second thoughts I'm not sure I can face Mr Smith's "waste of money" lecture.  Oh to live with a Santa's little hater is such a joy.

Today it's Christmas Cards

Mr Bah Humbug is being worse than ever.  He is desperately trying to get out of sending Christmas cards by being a poo.  All he has to do is put his name on them then place each one in its envelope.  Last year he attached the stamps ... bolshily.  The year before that he addressed three of them in extra bad handwriting so I had to take over.  We tried me writing and him reading me the addresses but I couldn't keep up; he shouted the postcodes at me so loudly I cried.  He won't even post them.  But he did buy the stamps and if you've seen the queue at the post office I'd say that was probably the worst bit of the whole procedure.

Yesterday evening he went to a wine and cheese eating contest/tasting.  He came back very late with a lovely party bag of cheese, biscuits and chutney.  These things were all prepacked; Mr Smith did not just fill his pockets with cheese and chutney having imbibed much wine though he was rather well oiled on his return.

It's 25% off at M&S til Sunday.  I'm off to get Mr Smith some darlek socks so he can exterminate his feet.  In fact I am going to finish my Christmas shopping today.  Then I can wrap everything up - I love wrapping up presents, don't you?  Mr Smith thinks it's a waste of paper.

Christmas teeeeeeth

It's Tanya the Terrifying Hygenist this morning.  Tanya is very nice but she has a droany voice and I can't bear her awful painful instruments. It all makes me feel quite unwell.  I have to slog up to Harley Street by train, plane and automobile, actually I mean bus, train and tube.  It takes ages and will be crowded.  I am tired.  I want to sleep some more and not go to Terrifying Tanya.  Needs must.

I really must stop buying presents for myself and get some for other people; it's socks for boys today.  They will be pairs of socks which is something novel for them.  Maybe I'll get some nice tights for me too, I deserve a present after being good at the dentist and my resolve is low.

Mr Smith is being extra bah humbuggy these days.  'Tis the season.

Mrs Smith goes to Costco

"Don't buy any food" said Mr Smith as I departed early this morning for one of my favouritest shopping expeditions in the whole wide world; the Lovely Claudia took me to Costco.  Oh how I love Costco.  Sadly, so does the rest of the world and it was very busy which was annoying as we didn't get a great deal on fake snow or extra long tinsel.  I think all that had already been purchased.  There was only one thing for it really - buy food.  I did buy sensible things like fairy liquid and shower gel too.  Oh heck, I forgot the ketchup.  I'll tell Mr Smith they didn't have any left.  Oh well I really don't know where I would have stored it anyway - we are full.

I finished the cupcakes and cupcake calendar and delivered the first one to the Lovely Claudia.   I then sat down and ate the blue one, the pink one, the orange one and that bruised looking one that looked a bit sad. Well, I was hungry after that foray to Costco - I wasn't allowed to buy any food, remember.

Hercules had nothing on me

The dentist yesterday was just ghastly.  And I have to have more.  And I had to pay £500!  And my teeth are in a shite state.  Of course most of this is my fault for not going to see Terrifying Tanya - the ghastly mad hygenist.  I thought I could do it myself with lots of inbetweeny things but then I got a bit lazy, then we went to France, then Mr Smith lost his job, then it is now which means Christmas.  She will see me for a good torture on Thursday.  Oh goody I can hardly wait.  Oh this is so horrible and so expensive.

I vowed to take things easier after my brain tumour last week that M-C had to remove in class.  It's all building up again.  Not the headache but all the tasks. And now for cakes and calendars and christmas shopping and carrots for the dog - we're trying to turn him into a rabbit by giving him carrot sticks instead of constant gravy bone biscuits.  Oh, and Christmas cards;  perhaps Mr Smith could get us some.  On second thoughts perhaps not as I found him trying to recycle last years'.  He has refused to buy any on the grounds that he doesn't want to send any because he's too mean.  The odd thing is he takes great pride in receiving them: "Look I've got more friends than you."  But I have real friends who I see all the time who don't feel the need to send me pictures of robins once a year rather than meet me.

Director's cut

He's back from Poland.  The Best Boy, that is.  It's a bit like having Roman Polanski living in your house ... in a not particularly great way ... unless you are really into art films that is.  I am now watching one with him - quality time.  However, we have so far been interrupted by a dog walk, three telephone calls, Supermarket man with an enormous load of shopping to unpack and the return of the Apprentice.after his long day of electrical apprentiship.  At least one person in this family is employed.  Oh sorry, must stop chatting and pay attention to the arty wierd little vignettes of the film and be so happy I don't have to be young or pseud ever again.

Pet's corner

I went to the seaside and had a lovely time.  All my troubles melt away there; as do my aches and pains.  Marvelous Marylin showed me how to make pot holders properly and Adam the Dreadful Printer printed my calendars - badly.  No, he's not particularly cheap and he keeps up a consistently poor standard but he's local and does the job quickly and they're done now.  The fuzzy things are cupcakes.  I am going to print the front covers myself and I have just had a brilliant idea ... bear with me.  Firstly, I need a batch of nice flat topped cupcakes.

Later: Alfreda Cakesmith here.  Cakes rose up in Vesuvian fashion with crusts of magma on the top.  I left them in a bit too long in too hot an oven.  I was busy reading the dog's letter to him from Harrod's pet spa.  The £199 luxury pet spa experience is on special offer at £99.  I've decided we are quite happy with our dog looking like a compost heap and smelling accordingly and I will cut the tops off the cupcakes and ice them flat.

My nice C&G Confectionery teacher says it doesn't matter a jot that the top of my royal iced cake looks like the surface of the moon; the second coat will make it all ok.  That is the second coat.  Oh well, stand by for coats 3-36.  Mr Smith wants to know what's for lunch.  I am delighted to say I have no idea as I am on the "weekend off" diet which means I don't do weekend cooking; I just stuff my face all day long with whatever I want including cupcakes and lots of royal icing.  

Dentist tomorrow .. groan.  I will have to buy myself a really nice "I was good at the dentist" present.  A nice little Ipad would suit me well.  The Apprentice says he's getting me one for Christmas - bet he doesn't.

Charity begins over the road

You know those really slim elegant women who dive into the water with hardly a trace of a splash then swim 20 really quick lengths of sleek front crawl in a graceful manner then effortlessly hop out over the side and still manage neat hair?  I want to be one of those instead of a wallowing hippopotamus who lumbers up and down the pool puffing and panting then hauls her massive arse up the steps that she feels will give way any moment then tries to wrap her wobbly bits in a silly little towel.  Actually, the towels at the club are quite generous. Unfortunately, so's my bum.

Somehow Thursday has become Friday and the week has disappeared and I haven't taken the calendars to the printers or the car to the garage or the teeth to the dentist or the dog to the vet or the cakes to the church.  Oh who cares?  Everything will come fine in the end.  I try to delegate tasks to Mr Smith but I think he just prefers being bored.

I took the dog for a walk through the council estate with the crunch of syringes under foot to take my Christmas donation round to the local yoof charity.  I asked directions from a woman who looked like she had a crack cocaine addiction whilst coming down from her latest heroin fix  I have to own up to the reason I support this charity is a sort of insurance policy for keeping the little sods off my car and my property. Also, I like what they do. They take kids to Africa like pop stars doing rednose projects.  They give them a place to hang out, things to do that aren't criminal and get them off drugs and/or drug running.  They are actually totally brilliant. Keep up the good work. www.regenerateuk.co.uk.

Destress distress

I was supposed to be going to the seaside today to run away from Mr Smith and relax but I have work.  I will go for a gentle fat swim which means slow laps in a meditative manner rather than an aqua marathon at war with the water.  I still have a slight headache.

I finished my calendars and they are just tickety boo.  Here's December.

I thought I'd take all these cakes to our church Xmas fair but I think some of them are now so yesteryear they aren't quite as good as they look.  I'll try a couple and if they are actually mouldy I'll rebake - just nice simple ones.  The Christmas trees have cocktail sticks through the middle holding them up - a nice surprise as you bite into it!

Relax ... ommmm

When your ship is sinking you cling to the nearest thing.  Mr Smith and I do a lot of clinging these days.

My headache was partially alleviated by M-C, my brilliant sewing teacher, who assured me it wasn't a brain tumour but tension.  The muscles in my neck were getting tighter and tighter until I there was a danger they might snap and my head would roll off.  You will all be pleased to know this will not now happen thanks to M-C's brilliant neck massage and a general calming down by me.

Mr Smith will have to do things for himself as I will be staring into space for the foreseeable future with light knitting and Corrie for mental stimulation.

Questioning one's faith

Sneaky weaky Mr Smith is out all day but he didn't warn me so I haven't been able to get excited.  I have a billion nice things to do today including staring into space and finishing off October and February on my cupcake calendar.  I also have the next module of very tricky cake decoration for my City & Guilds.  I have absolutely no idea why I signed up for this course as I have always been happy with chucking the icing on, flicking it about a bit, shoving tat on top and calling it Christmas - ditto Birthday, Wedding, Christening, Bah Mitzvah etc.  Do I really want to be a master confectioner/ idiot housewife who enjoys wasting time and money making stupid cakes?  Actually, today I am being an idiot housewife who makes patchwork quilts.  I have my class in Clapham this morning - nearly forgot and I cancelled the dentist for that.  And I still have this awful headache.  Mr Smith has the perfect cure; he is going to cut my head off.  Here's the axe ... up a bit, down a bit.

Dieting for December

As Chris Evans told me over the ironing this morning, there are only three days to slim down for December.  So Mr Smith and I have made a start.  I found an old diet book entitled The Weekend Off Diet.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy - you follow it all week then scoff whatever you like over the weekend.  Jolly good.  Steak for dins. I cooked some cauliflower for Mr Smith as he would never understand watermelon, feta cheese and rocket salad.  It was most exotic.  I am going to call this the melon cauli deit (melancholy) although I feel quite cheery.

I was a super busy little bee today.  I buzzed round the bathrooms with my mop and bucket including that frightful gents we refer to as the latrine - I never use it unless absolutely desperado.  I did all the horrible tasks I've been meaning to do for ages - gardening, ironing, shopping, making a useless pot holder.  Mr Smith helps with his whip and clipboard and some pacing.

I thought I deserved a present and sure enough the Lovely Claudia sent me an on-line advent calendar.  This is so so exciting.  I can't wait to open the first window but I haven't lost enough weight yet.

By the way, I have now had a headache since Friday.  It's definitely a brain tumour.  I have had no wine for at least a day.

Dear Mary

Last night Sensible Alison and her husband, Presuming Ed, came to dinner.  It is lovely having your oldest and bestest mates round because you can be relaxed ... except we never are because I always aim to serve them a ridiculously over the top dinner with all the whistles and flutes.  This simply means I cook a medley of impossible things that push me to the limit and I am always absolutely exhausted by the time they arrive. Then I have a sip of something lovely like g&t or champagne and weehee I am up and running again. If only one had staff. There was a bit before dinner when I sat down and just said "I don't think I can be bothered with dinner, it's cremating away in the oven but I am just going to sit here and chat for a bit" but the billows of black smoke came issuing forth from the kitchen so I had to go and see what the staff were up to.  They'd gone home. Mr Smith did the vegetables.

The menu: Just to make your mouth water and be grateful you didn't have to cook it:-
Fish filo parcels with creamy wine sauce;
Duck breast in red wine sauce with potatoes, sprouts and green beans;
Profiteroles.

Dear Mary Berry,
In your cookery book you state 1lb of salmon and 8oz prawns are required for 8 little 7" parcels.  Have you actually cooked this you stupid old bat?  I went all the way to Asda to get more fish as Supermarketman had only bought a minnow's worth of salmon which, actually, would have been quite sufficient.  I hate you now and am going to tell Delia and I don't want your book The Great British Bakeoff for Christmas any more.  Please find enclosed all the extra fish.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs Smith

P.S. You say serve the profiteroles with chocolate sauce but give no recipe .... anywhere in the book.  I made  something up which was far too rich and gooey. Mmmm ..... Oh I mean horrid.  No, don't wash up the plate.

I am waiting for the imaginary staff to come and clear up.  Such a long wait that I dozed off whilst doing the crossword and woke up with biro scribble all over the duvet.  Now they'll have to launder the sheets as well.

He's out

Mr Smith is playing golf all day in Kent.  This is blissikins, heaven, my home to myself, my life to myself, no monitoring for a whole day.  Tempting though it is to stay in bed all day reading the paper and enjoying little naps, he will be back this evening and I can't face a "Nothing's done; what have you been doing all day,  lounging in bed as usual?"  Oh, I don't know, it's almost worth it.  

The Best Boy's trip to a film festival in Poland hasn't got off to a great start as the girlfriend was ill and had to get off the plane at Stansted.  She has a stomach ulcer and shouldn't have gone abroad in the first place let alone expect the idiot BB to look after her.  I do feel sorry for her but she isn't much fun always being ill.  So he's on his own in a foreign country trying to figure out zlotys and where to get a beer.  I think he met some other people attending the same film festival on the plane and they will look after him.  He does 'pathetically incapable' quite well.

I am desperately endeavouring to get my calendar cupcakes made.  January is looking good but all other months are going hideously wrong and we are drowning in hideous cupcakes.  October's pumpkin is mighty tricky and I am going to have to cancel December altogether.  I am hoping our church might be having a Christmas Fair where I can offload some of the excess.  They don't look all that edible!

I have a headache, a dog to walk, a load of shopping to do and a dinner party.  I thought an afternoon with a bit of knitting in front of Corrie catch-up would be just the thing.  Well, if I buzz about like a mad thing all morning I might manage it.  Mr Smith isn't here to monitor me after all.

Living with Mr Smith - an olympic event

At an arty thing recently I was asked "Are you doing anything in the Olympics?"  I was so worried about what awful lies I must have told to make me sound like a world class athlete; should I lie and say I was considering the long jump but had finally plumped for the decathlon?  I then remembered there was an Olympic art project thing with globes that we were going to do but it got shelved as the damned things were so big and heavy, transport was nightmarish and they'd all have to be painted at a specific site.  It was also all a bit too worthy.  It was whilst Charlie, my boss, was in his muesli eating save the planet phase.  He must have spent heaps of money having these damned things made.  They couldn't be fibreglass as that is very planet unfriendly so they were made in some sort of grass matting or linen and linseed oil and weighed an absolute ton. The idea was there would be an avenue of these at the Olympic village.  Not any more, unless they've gone ahead without me.  I don't mind; I've got Mr Smith to look after these days.  He's taking me for a walk this afternoon which I wouldn't mind but I went for a marathon swim this morning.  Oh well, it's good for me.  I know this because he told me.

Yesterday Mr Smith was extraordinarily nice.  He drove me all the way to a cake decorating supplies warehouse in Cricklewood.  Mr Smith hasn't stopped moaning about this nose to tail sojourn around the North Circular ever since.  He was so annoying at breakfast I decorated his newspaper with yoghurt.  Well, he was carping at me as usual about my failure to do something or other and the state of the A406 and, as I'd had a very trying night with a stomach ache from overindulgence and a spot of indigestion, I was a bit crotchety.  I'm better now.  The newspaper isn't.

The Best Boy has gone to Poland - yippee.  He nearly left his passport behind then forgot his suitcase.  I have no idea how this was my fault but he made it so.  I did not take him to Stansted .... I am collecting him.  He is away for quite a long time - oh bliss - with a girlfriend he doesn't like.  Serves him right.

Mrs Smith's new favourite thing: instant snow in a tin - oh wow.  1 tsp snow powder plus 100ml water and you can ski round your kitchen.

I lost the special Christmas tree icing nozzle I bought yesterday and searched high and low.  I then held my nose and rifled through the bin - outside - oh yuk.  But say not the struggle nought availeth for I found it in the bag that I had thrown away.  Well done moi.  Oh please don't tell Mr Smith after all he struggled through two hours of traffic for that.  He'll tell you all about it if you're lucky enough to see him.

Anyone for Bright Lights and Tennis?

The ATP tennis was really good.  It was just as well I didn't take my knitting as it was so quick I would hardly have had time to cast on and it was dark in the cheap seats.   I was just beginning to get a bit bored, despite the bright lights, loud music and razmatazz (It wasn't Wimbledon) when it was all over.  We were sitting up in the Gods somewhere so it was a white ant versus a black ant and the white ant won.  David Ferrer beat Novak Djokavic and now I will have to watch the rest of the tournament on the telly to see who wins.  There were a few witty wags who shouted "Come on Tim" and a "Come on Andy", who is injured so didn't play.  I do like the O2. Perhaps I'll just go there one day to something like a Take That concert.  Mr Smith looked pained at the exciting music and swishy lights between the tennis games so I think I'd leave him at home.

I spent most of yesterday making a christmas tree cupcake for December's calender entry. It went wrong. Attempt no 1 looked like a cactus and attempt no 2 looked like a messy bush. Mr Smith was there with his bloody clipboard and stopwatch.  On Saturday he will be at golf - hooray!  I need some more kit but I don't really want to spend any more money as it is fast becoming more expensive than a Pirelli calendar.   Also it has just dawned on me I need twelve pictures and I haven't done one yet.  I'd better get on with it before Mr Smith with his time and motion study reappears.

I have just looked at the instant snow in a can and it tells you to carefully read the manual before attempting to make snow .... oh....there is no manual.  Oh well, when have I ever let a lack of "structions" stop me?  I'll consult Mr Smith - ha ha ha.

Have your cake but DON'T eat it

Mr Smith is taking me out today to the O2 to watch some tennis.  It was supposed to be Murray versus Federer or something like that but Murray is injured and Federer played yesterday so I am sitting for 5 bum numbing hours of incandescent boredom watching two completely unknown Russians pat a ball backwards and forwards over the net.  I will take my knitting.  All my questions so far have been "Do we get drinks?", "Where will be having dinner" and "Do we have to stay til the end?"   Perhaps I should take big knitting.

Now what do I have to do today?  Ah, cooking.  Lots and lots of cooking.  I am hoping to get my cupcakes made for December and January's entries on my 2012 calendar.  This not only involves making the cakes but also making little theatre sets for the photographs.  I know diddlysquat about photography but I will consult one of the eighty books I have on the subject.  I want in-focus foreground and fuzzy background - any ideas?
Under the Apprentice's bed the other day, along with an old sandwich and loads of smelly socks, I found a "Blizzard in a Can" left over from many a Christmas ago.  Oh how brilliant.  I can use the snow to create the background for my snowmen cupcakes.  I knew it would come in handy.

Part Four of my C&G Confectionary course has just arrived.  "Royal icing". OMG.  Plenty tricky.  I am going to have to do this very methodically and not go all off piste as I usually do.  Let me tell you, there's none of that 'try to get it flat, fail completely so do spikes all over instead'.  There is no mention of bunging on your ancient plastic Father Christmas with calcified icing from cakes past all over the bottom; ditto sad tree and three legged reindeer.  It looks serious.  All the decorating of these cakes is academic exercises so actually what you end up is not anything you could pass off as festive.  I suppose you could scrape it all off and re-ice the top. No, I'm far too exhausted from all these exercises to produce an actual Christmas cake.

Mine will be more exciting and much scarier!

Swamp fever

Starting the week on Tuesday rather than Monday is wonderful.  I would like to adopt this forever.  It works like this:  Mr Smith hits little white balls round green areas on Saturday morning then we set off for the seaside in the afternoon enjoying a play or short story on the radio on the way.  We then wallow in seaside loveliness until Monday afternoon when we mosie back to the smoke at our leisure ready to start our excellently reduced week.

My friend, Hotel Gwen who has taken over as manager of the hotel I frequent in the West Indies, is having a horrible time.  She has contracted Dengue Fever and is dying in a darkened room in the stifling heat of the tropics. She did manage to send me an e-mail so perhaps she isn't too bad.  But Dengue is a killer.  She has fired/retired the old retainers (big mistake) and Big Black Sarah, the world's bolshiest cow of a receptionist, has gone on holiday for three weeks.  Oh, I so hope they have no guests.  Oh Gwen please recover.  I will be there in about 8 weeks.

It's my sewing class today.  I didn't go to Gay Virginio's fat gay birthday party but I did get him a present.  I got him a lovely book on patchwork but I've just remembered when I asked him last year what he'd like he said anything but a book on patchwork as he just had too many.  Oh well, I can look forward to the look of disappointment on his face.

Seaside shuffle

Mr Smith and I had a spiffingly good time at the sea. We went for a splendid walk up on the Downs and down on the ups.  We picked sloes, saw a wild deer and had tea at a superb pub called the Partridge in Singleton.  The weather was lovely and, as Mr Smith is currently unencumbered by work, we stayed til Monday and spent the morning pottering around the village visiting the butcher, baker and candlestick maker after a fabulous cooked breakfast at the greasy spade.

I feel really refreshed by the sea air and ready for some serious trouser alteration as I messed it up last week and have absolutely promised Mr Smith his trousers, at a proper length, by tomorrow.

Sensible Alison just rang to invite me to eat mermaid or something equally expensive her husband caught or shot on one of his safaris to Scotland.  I know she has a whole deer in her freezer.  Oooh mind the antlers.  Anyway, I thought it was my turn to have them to dinner so I'll send Super(market)man out then open a tin of something on Saturday.

Lefty tendencies

I knew it wouldn't last.  I felt hideously sick in the night (too much lovely dinner) and couldn't sleep so I went to the spare room to read.  Mr Smith had kidnapped the bedside light so I could only lie in the dark willing morning to come.  I groped around for my laptop and sent the Lovely Claudia a thank you message for my tulips that read "DFhsutnglsagial, 6xpvwskirnpamvkh akvna0p[';, AAAAA i can touch zype in the bark."

"Occupy London" - I am not a political animal but they've got a point. Bank building empty - people evicted from their homes as unable to make mortgage repayments as unemployed due to financial crisis caused primarily by banks - people move into empty bank building.  Squatting by any other name would smell as sweet. Well done with the banner - very good people with keys. Has UBS left the electricity on?  If so I'll pop round with a telly and we can all watch Corrie.  Nobody lets me see it here.  I'll even let that horrid chap who says recession is his favourite thing (Alessio Rastani) have a space on the sofa - well that is what's left of him if he actually turns up for a "session" as it's reported.  A bit of advice dear ... We all say stupid things sometimes but then we wish we hadn't.  Adopt the "It wasn't me" attitude and lie low for a bit.

Oooh, I just ate a lovely tangerine.  It was so sweet and juicy.  It's never a tangerine these days is it? I'm probably sounding all radiogram and twinset. Tangerine is a colour.  It's satsuma, clementine or mandarine (if tinned).  I can imagine my boys saying "Wow, we found some really amazing new satsumas called tangerines."

And now Mr Smith, the dog and I are going to the seaside to check nobody has moved into my unoccupied flat whilst I've been away.


 

Happy Days

You know when you have an amazingly wonderful day and you just don't want it to end because tomorrow just can't be half as good?  Well, I haven't had one of those days at all today.  Actually, I have.  It is now coming to an end and I am very full of fabulously good food and have just had a particularly delicious sneeze following a chocolate from a box given to me by a nice lady at my sewing class.  I am looking back over my day and realise absolutely nothing went apeshitbananas all day.  (ape-shit-bananas, ok, got it now?)

Lovely lovely friends visited and imparted pearls of wisdom and a gift.  Ooooh I absolutely love presents.  I got some teeny tulip bulbs that come in their own little coffin; you just bury the whole thing - brilliant,  Mad Carina was singularly less mad and made us roar with laughter. The Lovely Claudia sorted out my cupcake calendars for 2012.  Oh hooray, that's everyone's Christmas presents taken care of.  I was looking at calendar printing at £29 per calendar - not any more.  It's all free if you look properly - except for making all the cupcakes, setting up all the photo shoots and printing off and binding all the sodding calendars!  I've done one.  No not one calendar - one cupcake.  It's got a snowman on it.  That's January.  Maybe I can just find some naked firemen or something for the other eleven months.  Actually, Mr Smith is at home doing nothing ... on second thoughts perhaps not.

Anyway, the rest of my day went splendidly.  The sun shone. I did my C&G homework. Mr Smith again became Super(market)Man and did his thing.  Our fridge once again groaneth - it must dread Supermarket Man.  I had a lovely afternoon walk with the dog. We met our friend Nigel in a bar in Wimbledon for drinks and I cooked Osso Bucco and a yummy pud for dins.  That's about as good as it gets for us Smiths.  Sad, I know!

And now, said Zeberdee, it's time for bed.

I wonder if there are any of those chocolates left.

Mr and Mrs Smith's domestic bliss

Sadly gone are the days when one used to run one's finger o'er the print on the invitation to check whether satisfactorily raised from the page before deigning to attend the party.  Some send a missive, some by e-mail  but Virginio just asked me if I'd be attending his birthday bash on Saturday when I saw him.  I said I would consider it but how to rsvp?  I think I have a telephone number somewhere so I can call and utter pathetically lame excuses as to why I won't be able to make it.  I don't want to come because you didn't send me a proper invitation sounds a little churlish and Mr Smith would rather die than go all the way to W11 for a gathering of gay men and fat women which seem to make up the majority of Virginio's friends (my fav people).  Anyway I think Mr Smith is planning to take me to the seaside.

The Best Boy has gone to Bournemouth sporting a skinhead haircut and a snotty attitude.  He is SO rude to us we are elated he has gone to annoy someone else.

Task of the day:  Put up Mr Smith's trousers - properly.  I had a bash but I've done it all wrong and now have to take them down and start again.  Perhaps he'd like shorts?

Mr Smith is in rather a good mood.  He has sold his wine for loads of dosh despite many of the labels having been munched off the bottles by beetles in his wine cellar.  The posh wine merchants didn't seem to mind at all.  This means he can afford next year's golf club sub and even pushed the boat out and bought us a curry for dinner which we accompanied with a bottle of Bollinger.  How gloriously decadent.  Sometimes I really like being married to Mr Smith even if I do still  have to alter his trousers.

Harley Street or Hell?

Ow, ow, owch that really hurt. Do you think Hell is where dentists go when they die and bad people have to be their patients forever?  I am going to be so good from now on.  I am going to go swimming and put up Mr Smith's trousers.  Oh, how I hate root canals.  However, I am now pain free so all that subterranean drilling paid off.  The Lovely Claudia's dentistry is even worse than mine.  We speak in tongues to one another using words like maxillo facial surgery and sub gingeval cementum. Although I feel for her I am delighted to have a painometer.  We can swap notes on exactly how drastically vile the treatment was and how much it cost.  Oh my God.  At least I don't have to spend my entire inheritance on my teeth.  Oh, actually, I already did that.  "I've had a root canal, nothing to it" boasts Mr Smith.  I'll tell his dentist he prefers it without anaesthetic.

The latest cupcake invention - Banoffee Cupcakes.  These are banana cakes with toffee in the middle, butter icing swirled on top and a dash of digestive biscuit crumb sprinkled o'er the top.  And, yes they are absolutely gorgeously sickly and lovely.

And why are there only three?  Well, I ate the other nine.

Use your loaf

I had the whole compliment home last night - my entire family - so I made more bread.  I didn't have time to see if it was any less soggy than the previous loaf as my gannets ate the whole thing with their curry (that I also made myself). "Mmmm Naaan" they said as they hacked off slices of my nutty seedy multigrain loaf.  Now what's for breakfast? - not bread; it's all gone. Next time I will make proper naan ... and serve it to them with marmalade and strawberry jam.

To whom it may concern, I do not want a bread baking book for Christmas; I want an IPad.

I didn't alter Mr Smith's trousers, clear up my desk or the shed but I did clean the shower panels and they look much smearier than they did before.  Round of applause for me.  Oh well, you unappreciative gits I will not let you get me down; I will bake more bread. It's rolls next when I have a spare two and half hours.

Designer Susan got married very young and had no idea how to cook anything except the raised pie she had learnt in Domestic Science at school.  After feeding her husband many a pork pie she went to cookery evening classes.  She still isn't sure if she signed up for the wrong one.  The teacher was an enormously fat Polish woman and all they ever made was endless loaves of bread.  At the end of the class when she thought nobody was looking she sat down with a large pat of butter and ate slice after slice of bread.  So I will be careful in my bread consumption; I don't want to become Polish.

Dentist today - groan.  However, it will be nice to no longer have raging toothache and a cracked front tooth and a dodgy bit at the bottom left.  Ooooh I got my left and right all muddled up then. I do sometimes.  I couldn't remember how to drive the other day.  I also forgot the dog's birthday and my mother in law's postcode.  It's OK, Mr Smith kindly shouted it at me.

Quiltabella Zigzag

I ache a lot these days.  I am also horribly fat.  The aching makes me reluctant to exercise as it all hurts which in turn makes me sluggish and fatter and more achy.  I want to sit in a very squidgy chair or lie in a memory foam bed.  I think I will design a foam suit for people who ache.  It comes in three thicknesses - comfy, super comfy or vastly cumbersome.  The last one is designed for people who don't really want to move at all - like me.  Your every moment could be cushioned.  I bet I'd still ache.  In the meantime I will make an effort to drink more water and do some stretching.

Mr Smith sets me tasks.  Today I have to put up his trousers and scrub the shower panels in the boys' (currently dismantled) bathroom.  Hang on a minute ... you're here all day why don't you do it?  "I'm not good at that sort of thing."  Oh what a brilliant excuse from an Olympian shirker.  We'll do it together in heavenly marital bliss then I'll show you how to alter your trousers; I'll do one leg then you can do the other.  That should be fun.

I imagine I have this wonderful shop called Quiltabella Zigzag.  We are not a quilt supplies shop but a shop where you can buy quilts and quilted things.  My shop is somewhere prestigious like the Kings Road or Marylebone High Street and we do mail order too.  You should see the catalogue - it's amazing.  We print all our own fabrics and have all our quilts made in the UK.  Of course the shop costs heaps to run and the bank are on my back all the time so maybe I will have to close down which is a shame really because it was such a good idea.  Mr Smith looks relieved.

The bread I made yesterday was a bit soggy inside... shame, but room for improvement.  Next time I'll buy some from Greggs, pretend I made it and enjoy the raptuous applause.
 

Bread of heaven

When I was in Wimbledon with the Best Boy earlier this week, getting my annual Burger King fix, I chanced upon an IPad.  Oh how I want one!  I really do.  Really.  A lot.  But have you seen the price of the things?  Oh my goodness me.  Do you think if I nagged really hard I could get one?  Oh.  Maybe not.  Mr Smith is someone I would not even dare mention this to.  I don't want a poxy cookery book and a jar of mustard for Christmas ... I want an IPad.  OK.  Time to start an IPad fund. What can I sell on Ebay?

I have just made two loaves of bread and they are perfecto.  I am amazed.  My bread in the past has always been a bit of a disaster.  Even the five thousand would declare themselves suddenly full or on the Atkins diet at the sight of my hefty little bricks but today I've cracked it.  It's all in the kneeding action.  I gave it some wellie and it has risen properly like real bread.  Oh Greggs eat your heart out.  I am now wondering if it is economical to make your own bread.  The electricity is probably a bit steep unless you are doing 5 loaves at once. Despite this I would consider making bread again - it's rolls next.   Feed me til I want no more ... feeeed meeee til I want no moooooore.  Sing a long.

I spent much of yesterday and a bit of today making lavender bag houses.  There is a fine line between things looking charmingly home-made and special needs.  I am redesigning them now before Mr Smith passes judgement.

Rooting around

Enough of all that healthy business.  Today I sensibly had a bagel for my breakfast; a toasted bagel dripping in butter and strawberry jam.  Quite delicious.

Mrs Smith has toothache.  Mrs Smith has to go to the dentist .... but not til Tuesday.  I have found strong alcohol applied directly to the nervy tooth works a treat.  I am working my way through the liqueurs and getting a bit squiffy.  I'll need a new liver by Tuesday.  Mr Smith tells me to apply oil of cloves and pull myself together.  Have you ever tried oil of cloves?  It's absolutely ghastly and burns your whole mouth to the point where toothache seems minor.  I'll apply a bit of Bon Jovi then go back to the drinks cupboard.  La la Living on a Prayer yeah yeah la la la la - do join in... oh sorry, got a bit carried away there.

I have written a list of awful tasks to be performed over the weekend and I am delighted to report I have done three of them already; getting up wasn't actually one of them.  I have cleared out our linen cupboard and sent all the old towels to a dogs' home (for extra muddy dogs).  Then I did the blanket box which was just like having a birthday it was full of such exciting things I didn't know I had, such as a whole box of mothballs, a packet of plastic squeakers and a sheep outfit.  Oh sorry, half a sheep outfit, I wonder where the other half is(?)  I found lots of half made things ... oooh goody.  This has side tracked me from the tasks on the list.  Never mind, I couldn't really be bothered to do them anyway.   I'll put on the sheep trousers and do some grazing, knitting and make a few more lavender bags ... that squeak.

Trying times

Trying to be healthy:  I ate bran Flakes for breakfast.   I think they may have been there for some time as they taste rather stale.  According to Mr Smith  that is how they are supposed to taste.  I am sure I've eaten tastier cardboard. Oh well, they are good for me.

Trying to be fit: I went swimming - a great big long swim, but I am so fat and heavy it was like a small tug pulling the Queen Mary through treacle.  And now I ache.

Trying to be clever: I couldn't do the crossword - even a bit.  Difficult day or just thick?

Trying to finish something:  I started a little fabric box in my class on Tuesday and I tried to finish it.  Oh no.  Not one side is the same size as I have trimmed a bit here and there, so now it won't go together.  I'll push and wrangle it into shape.  You'll see.

Trying to be a good wife and mother:  I cooked a fabulous dinner - roast chicken with all the extras including bacon rolls, followed by apple pie.  They all went out.  The Best Boy was home as he is trying to avoid his horribly demanding girlfriend. I could have just opened a tin of beans for him.  I will resurrect it into something else tomorrow.

Trying to be a good student: My C&G tutor has written.  Why have I abandoned my course?  Oh I haven't.  I tried to cover the cake and do the embossing but it all went horribly wrong so I am going to have to do it again.  Also being observed by Mr Smith is no fun at all.  "You've missed at bit.  Where's my lunch? You must try harder."

Ironing in the shower

We have builders.  It's a bit like having flu - very inconvenient but you know it will go eventually. They are taking out the leaking shower in the boys' bathroom, drinking endless cups of tea, discussing football loudly over a crappy radio and then going home.  The boys are using my bathroom - a joy!

I would have done very well with Carina's quilt had I not stopped to make the endless cups of tea for the builders and a lavender bag in the shape of a dacshund for my mother in law.  I did finish the top part of the quilt and gave it a quick press whereupon brown stuff came out of the iron all over the quilt and I couldn't shift it.  I despair.  Mr Smith despairs too "Why didn't you clean the iron out like you're supposed to; there are clear instructions on blah blah blah."  OK.  So he's right.  He's always right.  Sometimes I'd like to be right.  I cleaned out the iron in the shower; it's one of those ones with a tank.  I left it there to dry.  The Apprentice came in and had a shower .... on top of it.

Whilst I was searching for the Argos guarantee for the iron I came across one for my portable DVD player that keeps skipping.  This makes the films most confusing as you get the plot into a complete mess and not just the Da Vinci code.  The guarantee runs out at the end of the month and I've had the thing for three years. Oh goody, I can get a new one. I might take the iron back too but I have a feeling Mr Smith bought that and he's not really Guarantee Man as you have to pay extra and he doesn't do that.

Super(market)man has got his little red cape on again.  Oh I must go out so I am not here to unpack all those  billions of bags of groceries.  Honestly, I just got our fridge to how I like it ... a couple of yoghurts, a pint of milk and some pasta.  It was fine.  It was all organised.  I'm probably wrong, because I usually am, but I think those promotions of "Get £5 off your weekly (?) shop" are just a way of making you buy more stuff.  Mr Smith loves them and is doing Sainsbury's this morning.  He still has Tesco, Waitrose and Morrisons to get round yet.

More bits

My fabric arrived for Mad Carina's Quilt.  I know the idea of a patchwork quilt is you just sew together lots of scraps but actually, unless you don't mind the finished article being absolutely hideous, it's a good idea to buy some co-ordinating fabrics.  So I did.  I had a happy cutting day yesterday and laid the pieces out like a puzzle.  Now comes the tricky bit of sewing them all together neatly and not squiffily.

I am now worried it's really boring ... oh well I'll tart it up with a few hearts or something.  It looks quite Cath Kidson meets Rachel's mother's skirt (something green and spotty).

"And what about the other 5 unfinished quilts?" asks Mr Smith. Oh yes, I'd forgotten about those.  Something to do when it's cold.

Tiresome Tuesday

It's grey and miserable, my computer won't work properly and my family are driving me insane.  How's your day?

Horse and Carriage

What shall I do today?  I'm supposed to be clearing up the shed where I dumped everything when I cleared up the playroom to make some space for Mr Smith's home office.  This was great in theory except he works in the dining room and now I can't find anything or serve any meals.  The shed could make a perfect work space for me but I seem to have got over that desire to toil my life away.  I have more interesting things to do and whilst Mr Smith is safely on the golf course it is definitely time to do some of them.

Firstly, there is my C& G cake decorating homework to get on with.  It looked a bit tricky so I gave up about 3 months ago and I really must get back to it.  I also made my cakes without boiling the jam so it will probably have gone mouldy.  Thank goodness it is a correspondence course so nobody has to mark me on taste; I'll feed it to my family.  They always moan about everything as they ladle an extra helping onto their plates so I have grown immune ... sometimes I throw it at them.  Hard fruit cake will do very well for this purpose.

I also have to redesign Carina's quilt for the fifth time.  I just don't know what I am going to do but I'm sure it'll come to me once the fabric arrives.  The only criteria is bright and cheery as she is having a very rough time with her very difficult husband.  I'm sure they'll work it out as I carefully adopt a Madame Defarge approach to this and incorporate the letters D I V O R C E into the design; failing that there's always beheading.

Nigel told me a great story about a friend of his parents who thought things on the marital front were trogging along as usual when he received a solicitors' letter from his wife demanding a divorce.  As she was sitting opposite him at the breakfast table as usual he was a little taken aback.  She'd just had enough but couldn't quite bring herself to tell him.  Actually, my mother-in-law received the news of her divorce in the much the same out-of-the-blue way.  She thought nothing much was wrong but whilst they were abroad he suddenly announced "I'm leaving you" and off he went.  Mind you everybody else in the world knew about his string of affairs - she just thought he was a bit tired.

I hope Mr Smith really is playing golf.... with really boring people.

Is it a bird, is it a plane?

Mr Smith also seems to have cottoned on to Retail Therapy.  He seems to use shopping to keep him bright, merry and busy instead of moping around at home without a job.  As a result our fridge is groaning it is so full;  Super(market)man has been out again.  We are drowning in food.  The freezers are full to the brim and there aren't enough days of our lives left to eat all these dead animal parts and pasta, bread and vegetables.  Last night I made a rabbit stew out of the 4 rabbits he'd bought - Hazel, Fiver, Thumper and Peter.  I opted out of that meal, not so much on ethical grounds but I was full from all the day's eating performed in a bid to make space in our fridge.  I had managed the best part of an excellent Victoria sponge cake stuffed with cream that I had made earlier in case we should feel peckish.  I can't fit it in the fridge which still contains enough for a forthcoming seven years of famine.  This of course coincides with my weight bouncing out of control and an imminent diet of reduced portions of sensible low fat food - yeah!

What are your favourite films?  Mine are probably: North by Northwest (Hitchcock starring Cary Grant), The Sound of Music because it's just so kitsch and singing along to My Favourite Things is one of my favourite things and Men in Black for the fabulousness of Will Smith, the visual jokes and all those monsters.  I am also partial to Muppet Treasure Island, Coming to America and Pretty Woman or Notting Hill - I'll watch either any afternoon of the week. Throw in Liaisons Dangereuses, The Duchess and almost any version of Pride & Prejudice for swishy skirts and I'm happy.  I hate Westerns, big adventure movies with too much blood and anything political where I'm supposed to pay attention and figure something out.  Ditto war films except escape from POW camps which I quite enjoy - Chicken Run is the best.   And now I wonder what's on for me to knit to this afternoon.  Oh, the rugby.

Shoppy woppy doodah yeah

Gripe of the day, there usually is one: I took my car to be serviced by Mercedes.  There was nothing wrong with it except an irritating picture of a spanner that had appeared on the dashboard.  It cost £600 to have removed like an unloved tattoo.  I then found they'd done something to the handbrake; what exactly I am not quite sure but it felt all flaccid and not like my car at all.  They didn't understand and said ridiculous things implying it was like that when I brought it in.  "I think you'll find it wasn't" I said in strained tones.  I drove away in a bate which is still festering.

I went to the hairdressers whilst my car was having its medical and found I had £20 off as I had recommended a friend.  Oh how nice.  Then with my smart hair I went shopping.  I bought lovely things: dresses and cardies and knickers and tights and toothpaste and crochet cotton and a jersey thing or two and I was so so happy.  Retail therapy is real.

I returned to London to meet my husband and a friend at a bar in Wimbledon.  He was drunk.  Oh well Mr Smith is such a sensible chap I suppose he should be allowed to let his hairs down occasionally.  I drove him back home with him doing awful drunk backseat driving at me.  I very nearly dropped him off at the bus stop.

Did you see Life in a Day?  Wow!  Are you going to take part in 12th November?  I have some great ideas.
http://www.youtube.com/britaininaday

Where's the dog?

The problem of going shopping with your husband is that you can't really.  Unless he's a cross dresser or a man of ridiculous patience you are never going to get him to take an interest in dresses and shoes - underwear maybe but not big knickers and tights which is what I actually need.  Anyway, on my last outing to Kingston with Mr Smith I had to become Memory Woman noting where I saw what so I can go back and buy it.  My car is going to Chichester for a service tomorrow so I will spend the day shopping there.  I'm sure the shops will be much the same as in Kingston; I've forgotten most of the things anyway.

Well done Lakeland for having a "healthy cooking" section which includes apple pie makers (I'm thinking yummy buttery sweet pastry) and butter ball makers and biscuit cutters.  My kind of healthy!

The dog exploded yesterday during our coven meeting.  I think one of our hexes went a bit wrong.  It was either that or the Lovely Claudia was trying to turn him into a cat.  He ate a lighter under the table which exploded with a mighty boom.  The dog seems fine, he smells of lighter fuel which actually is an improvement on his usual pongy dog breath, but luckily seems to be in one piece and totally unfazed by the whole incident.

I am going to make a patchwork quilt for Mad Carina for Christmas.  She wants it bright and jolly.  I have redesigned it three times this morning already and had to call M-C for advice.  I then realised I had forgotten to go to class yesterday.  Oh silly me.  Too much witchery.  Mr Smith rolls his eyes ... not more little bits of fabric.  I'm afraid so and pins and bits of thread- don't forget those.    Oooooh I so love being messy.

Trick or .......?

In a bid to curb child obesity, and save all the chocolate for us, I thought I'd give out fruit to the nasty little trick or treat beggers at my door. Oh all right, I didn't really.  I gave them all tooth rotting sugar packed crap ... carefully saving all the Crunchies and Chocolate Buttons for us - "We're running a bit low so you'll have to share".  Our dog loves Halloween, a pat and sticky stroke every five minutes.  He's sitting by the door waiting for next year.  He can get that Poppy Man next week if he's clever.

Coven sub-committee meeting today - goody.  I have decreed that Mr Smith be elsewhere; we three don't want to reveal any enchantments or other snippets of witchy gossip.

Yesterday we bought our new duvet.   Mr Smith steered me away from snowgoose, swansdown and mulberry silk at £500 and made me plump for duck feather which as we all know just ain't the foie gras of duvets.  Actually, it's jolly nice and as I am writing to you from under it I am happy to report it's all new and pristine and doesn't smell ... yet.  No no no Mr Smith control yourself; I am not doing that sort of thing under our lovely crisp new bedding.

I thought I might not throw away our old one but try to wash it ... it's a bit big. I have now found an online forum all about washing duvets. Apparently, what you do is spend two days with a lot of coins at the big drum machines in your local laundrette.  I'll send Mr Smith; he's never been to a laundrette.


"Not very money saving I know but I got mine cleaned by a local firm who collected it, washed and dried it and delivered it when convenient to me.
It came up lovely and fresh and cheaper than buying a new one."


Oh good, we'll do that AND have a new one.

Time and tide ... wait for me!

BST, GMT, Daylight saving, Spring Forward, Fall Back - God, I don't know; it's all horribly confusing. I know I can be a bit slow going downstairs as I stop to chat to the houseplants, giving them a little prune and a sip of water, but I'm sure it doesn't take a whole hour.  I suppose we'll get synchronised eventually.  The dog is permanently hungry - well nothing new there - and I am constantly tired except in the morning when I am rearing to go.  Also when's elevenses?  Is it the new elevenses at tensies or is it twelvsies which puts out my lunch.  Add permanently hungry to my other jet lag symptoms.  Isn't the whole thing designed simply to annoy the Scots and keep them in the dark?  It's certainly confusing me.  I think the only solution is to hibernate until they change the clocks back again.  I am taking Mr Smith to John Lewis today to buy a new duvet for this very purpose.

I've had some very odd dreams lately.  On Saturday night I had to dig the long jump pitch for the Olympics; I did quite a good job actually.  On Friday night I won X Factor and married Simon Cowell which made Gary Barlow jealous. Last night I had to finish the chocolate cake - that was a nightmare.

The recipe: Masses and masses of chocolate, eggs, butter, sugar, double cream, condensed milk, golden syrup, more sugar, more chocolate, more butter, icing sugar, cocoa powder, chocolate flakes, chocolate buttons and a birthday candle. Cook some of it then combine all remaining ingredients in an interesting way and eat.  I feel so sick.

Chocolate construction

Mr Smith took me and the dog to golf.  We went to a course by the seaside and I had a go at hitting.  Actually, it's not as difficult as I had imagined.  Of course Mr Smith didn't give me the right tool; I had a spindly little iron but I did the best I could.  He then took out something that looked like a weapon of mass destruction and whacked the ball into the totosphere.  That was the end of my golf.  Luckily he had a friend to play with.

We then went to Sissinghurst where I proudly waved my National Trust card and went in for free whilst Mr Smith had to pay an absolute fortune.  He then pointed out that, as this is the only National Trust property I have visited this year, I actually paid three times what he paid.  Oh well, I will have to quickly whizz round all the ones that are still open.  This will be a busy day as they mostly close at the end of October.

It's the BB's birthday.  He is 22.  I have made him a chocolate cake.  It involved making a chocolate cake, cutting it up and pouring toffee all over it then some chocolate icing.  However, it didn't go quite as smoothly as that.  It got stuck in the tin; I extracted cake bits and goo but it is a bit of a mess.  I'm sure nobody will notice once I've tarted it up with chocolate icing, buttons and flakes.  After all it is chocolate; so is the kitchen.

And here it is.

Go go gorilla

You would think with Mr Smith constantly at home I would be rushing out of the house every minute of the day but I don't much.  This is probably due to extreme idleness.  Today, I did get out.  I went to the V&A to meet M-C at the coathanger gorilla.  Oh my goodness.

We had lunch and decided half term should be abolished - all those horrible children!

There is a pudding that Mr Smith particularly hates, lemon meringue pie. Last night I made him plum clafoutis which was a right fag but he kept on and on about these damned plums he had bought so I thought I'd better magic them into something before he exterminated me.  "This is like lemon meringue pie" he said after eating a large helping.  I nearly threw it at him.  It's nothing like l.m.p. you unappreciative goat.  I am not cooking for him any more.  I eat mouthfuls of the clafoutis every time I go into the kitchen - it is delicious ... a bit like lemon meringue pie.

Secret stitches

I have come across several "How to Make a Quilt in a Weekend" articles.  Firstly, kill your family then eat no food and do not move from your sewing machine, even to go to the loo, for two days.  What they should say is How to Make a Quilt Surreptitiously without Your Husband Noticing.  I am working on this.  Mr Smith has given me a very bright yellow pair of golfing trousers to alter.  I am really sewing the edges of my latest quilt but whenever he appears I pick up Banana Man's yellow trousers and make it look as though it's an absolute bugger of a job.  He then leaves me alone.  This can also be adopted for things like making a lavish cake when it's nobody's birthday.  Just have a stew on the go at the same time.

I have developed a terrible pain in my thumb.  I know what it's from; it's knitting strain.  I looked it up on line and read about carpel tunnel syndrome which apparently affects menopausal women who are overweight and like a drink and type.  Mmmm, doesn't sound a bit like me.  I'll give my knitting a miss for a bit.  The pattern I am working on is in a very hard aran and it's big and hefty with loads of stitches.  No wonder I have thumb strain.

Oh no, now I've done his trousers wrong.  Oh well, at least I haven't actually cut anything.  I have two pairs of my own trousers to put up but when I tried them on for length ... um er there seemed to be something wrong with the middle section ... it didn't meet.  Oh dietus maximus I hear you calling.  I hate diets.  I am always hungry and I do like cakes.  Do I have to go on a diet?  Oh no, I can just die.  Oh well, put like that I had better get out the scales and celery.

Dilemmas du jour:  What is Shabby Chic - Granny's curtains?
The only way isn't really Essex is it?  Unless you're visiting Suffolk.
What do you buy a bolshy spoilt brat for it's birthday?  The Best Boy will be 22 at the weekend.  

She sells sea shells - oh no she doesn't.

What's that for?
It's for my seaside house where we need some quilts.
But you're going to sell your seaside house.
That's what you think.

TV dinners

Dinner was fine; I distracted them with University Challenge and permitted food infront of the telly with ketchup to cover the burnt bits.  My friend Callista told me she is such a dreadful cook her children used to love school dinners.  She is the shape of a teensy skinny stick and I don't think she ever eats.

By the way dear Best Boy, singing Petula Clark's Downtown very loudly does mar the enjoyment of my costume drama, especially when everyone else joins in, even the dog.  Maggie Smith raised her eyebrows and lowered the edges of her mouth in an even more horrified manner than usual ... and now I've got it stuck on my brain.  Downtown where all the lights are bright Downtown, Downtown.  I had to get the butler to change the channel.

It's the Grannies' birthdays this week.  I made some pretty lavender bags for mother-in-law but by the time I'd bought her a card, packed the things and paid for the postage I may as well have bought her a really expensive gift!  Then there's my mother.  I sent her a book via Amazon which they gift wrapped - far more economical.

Food glorious food

What is the most revolting thing you have ever eaten?  Sweet pasta, salted porridge, a dog biscuit (a bit boring actually), liver, snails (they're ok if you wrap them up in enough french bread) or pigs' trotters.  They are at the top of my list but I have a nasty feeling tonight's dinner might be there too.  I can smell it burning but I just can't be bothered to deal with it.  I'm fairly sure there's little chance of salvation so I'll just prepare the scaffold shall I?

Stubborn trousers

I have a pair of jeans for sale on ebay.  They are very smart jeans purchased years ago in a thin moment but I was a bit overoptimistic.  I never actually managed to cram my fat backside into them and the legs were stupidly tight.  I was going to take them back to Selfridges but the girl was a bit snotty so I never summoned up the courage to go back for fear I might burst into tears with "My bum's too big and I can't fit it into your stupid trousers and it's all your fault for frightening me and making me buy them."  I just left them in my wardrobe to grow.  Three years later I have put them on ebay as never worn, brand spanking new jeans.  Nobody likes them.  I now feel sorry for them sitting there all unbid for with only a day to go.  Maybe I'll get Designer Susan to bid them up a bit for me - they're even less likely to fit her!

I went to a party with Mr Smith last night.  I had avoided the previous two on the grounds of ill health or some other such lame excuse.  I really had to go to this one for fear of people thinking it might be terminal.  It was dull except the brilliant Callista was there and she's great fun.  I did have a jolly time - I think.  I certainly had a hangover this morning but not too awful.  There was a horrid woman there who I hated with a vengeance when my children were babes and I remembered why.  She was bossy, snotty and horribly good at games, particularly tennis and was extraordinarily mean to me when I turned up to my first (and last) ladies tennis morning with my old school dunlop maxply racquet - they all had titanium ones ... several.  She looks a hundred years old but can't be a lot older than me - must be all that rushing about the tennis court.  I'd rather be fat jolly me with not an inkling of bat and ball sense whatsoever.  I flirted with her husband.

Ships that pass in the night

The view of the Isle of Wight was fabulously clear and at night it twinkled like a sparkly necklace with the passing ships hanging off it like gleaming jewels.

I did the pub quiz at which I was fabulously swotty, saw friends and made new friends and ate the remains of a Chinese takeaway I had in my freezer and was then sick all night long.  This morning I felt much better so I took a little sea air as one does, bought a loaf of bread that looks like a hedgehog and went to visit the Flower Boys who did me a good deal on their friday flowers - end of week special or something.  I love our seaside village as it's very 'butcher baker candlestick maker' and you can take your time pottering around each shop or you can always go to Tesco if you can't be arsed like Mr Smith.

I met my neighbour, Bossy Cow June, who was sporting a jersey of such hideousness I wanted to scream.  I then realised it was the exact pattern I had just knitted for a washcloth.  I had been wondering how it would translate into a garment - now I know.  Admittedly it was in tangerine acrylic and not cream soft cotton.  Each to their own.

I have an admirer!  He is a van driver for the local greengrocers.  Gosh, I don't half pull em.  I am thinking of having an I'm Not Interested T-shirt printed.  I'm not actually sure it would make much difference; I think there's something in the beer in West Sussex and it ain't bromide.