Luxury Items

Maybe my contribution of £12.80 gleaned so far on my internet auction of rubbish handbags isn't quite enough to secure our future even though the bidding isn't yet over.  I am going to the seaside today to make monumental decisions.  I need to make my seaside flat pay for itself as it costs a fortune to keep (service charges and council tax and heating bills).  I am meeting the agent - which sounds frightfully grown up but in reality means getting pissed with Clamydia Lydia down the pub then making some rash decision which she will then sort out the next day.

"Change the sheets, clean the bathroom, make mushroom soup, see the plumber and walk the dog" demands Mr Smith. Oh God, he must be a captain of industry again or at least rehearsing for the role.  I haven't got time to do all those things before I drive to Sussex to sell my beloved little bolt hole so he can lie in the lap of luxury for the rest of his life.  "Well, you need to get up earlier then."  Yes master.

Sunny days are here again

I am still not brilliantly well but I am brilliantly well compared to how I was a couple of days ago.  The diphtheria has cleared up but I now have consumption.  However, it is another beautiful sunny day and I cannot bear to waste a sunny day so I am in bed with the window wide open enjoying it.  I will get up shortly but I won't be running any marathons; my throat is sore and my chest hurts.

I have made a list of ghastly tasks that I thought Mr Smith could perform now that he is unemployed.  That has sent him running to the Job Centre or at least to meet a mate in town to have lunch and have a look at his prospects.  I am disheartened.  I will have to dig the garden myself.

This is so exciting - Ebayers have bid for my handbags ...  99p, but it's a start.  Now I have to look every hour to see if there is any more interest.  I hope Mr Smith appreciates my noble endeavour.

 

Surfing

Since I have been stuck in bed feeling sorry for myself I have been doing a bit of internet searching, as one does, and here is what I gleaned yesterday:-

I don't have prostate cancer.
A pair of ski boots will only fetch about £20 max on Ebay but cost hundreds to buy.
There is a website dedicated to people who like watching boils/absesses being popped: (www.popthatzit.com).  It's disgusting.
Antonia Rolls interviewed a Romanian wrestler as a lodger for her spare room.
How to knit bunting - I am starting today.
There is an agency that can sell your stuff for you on Ebay (www.stuffusell.co.uk).
If I buy a ticket for The Knitting & Stitching Show in advance it's cheaper.
Dukeshill Ham are offering a deal on pork tenderloin.
Tiffins Biology Department are having a car boot sale on Sunday.
You can't Freecycle your kids however irritating they may be.

I wonder what I will find out today.

Poor AND ill

I have a slight throat infection but in the night I decided I was definitely suffering from diphtheria, throat cancer, lung cancer and a heart attack.  This morning you can add gum disease to that as well due to a little over zealousness with the toothbrush.  Anyway, I am dying though Mr Smith says it's nothing a swig of Benylin won't put right in a trice.  We don't have any Benylin as he tipped the last dregs down his sore throat for his monstrous cough last week.  There was another bottle but it had a date on it not long after the Jurassic Age so I binned that a while ago.  Oh how I wish I hadn't.  It would have matured by now like a good wine and I could have added vomitting to my list of ailments.

Ebay isn't my best get rich quick scheme ever as you aren't allowed to ebay more than 10 items or make more than £350.  I dug out a few old handbags and put them up but when I looked at other, similar, handbags I realised they weren't exactly going to pay my bills or even get any bids at all.  I am now looking at car boot sales but the prospect of standing in the rain all day for £50 doesn't fill me with glee. There's Amazon and Gumtree next.  Someone must bid for the kids, surely, even if only one of them is vaguely useful.  I'm keeping the dog.

Are you absolutely sure I don't have diphtheria?

Ostrich banking

Right, Get-Rich-Quick schemes are urgently required.  I thought I could happily survive this little setback of no dosh for a bit but I then got a bill or two.  I forgot you can't put things on your credit card and have them all for free.  I have taken financial advice, from Mr Smith, and he has made one big fat bill disappear already.  He has buried it under a load of papers to be dealt with sometime in the future.  Oh this is so sensible - why didn't I think of that?  Maybe because I am not hiding things from him any more.

My throat is even worse than yesterday and I am sipping lemsip feeling grim.  I have so much to do but zero energy with which to do it.  This germ has got me good and proper.  But enough moaning.  I will internet search for car boot sales and set up an e-bay selling account.  Then I will get the boys to find anything saleable we can find and try to sell it.  I am not very good at this but I am willing to learn.

Ahem, hem hem hack hack

Last week Mr Smith had a stinking cold.  In fact he is still a bit irritatingly throat cleary.  I was so smug thinking I had escaped this nasty germ but I now have the sorest sore throat and the most splitting of headaches and I feel grim.  At least I don't have to drive half way across France.  I can stay in my nice warm bed with my nice warm tea and my nice warm dog.

The dog has grown a funny little quiff recently.  He looks like Tintin having failed the audition for the part of Snowy.  He is missing some of his tail and has regrown these bits on his head.  Not knowing his arse from his elbow? - yup that's our dog.

So far, since the royal sacking, Mr Smith has only been at home for one day and I really enjoyed having him around. I did have to tell him not to police me (i.e. What are you doing?  Aren't you going swimming/to the gym?) but this taste of retirement wasn't as insufferable as I thought.  He did horrible tasks like washing up and rubbish emptying and we went shopping together.  I'd like him to dig the garden, clean the silver, bath the dog and shout at that horrible BB (our younger son).  I was quite looking forward to his early retirement but he is busy being very golfy and very job hunty. Whilst this gives me space to watch Corrie catch-ups and cake programmes during the afternoon, I don't actually mind if he's here during the week.  It makes every day a weekend or a holiday.  Sadly, he doesn't see it quite like that.

Frugality

I am somewhat inexperienced when it comes to being frugal but I am catching on fast.  We are now officially poor, except we're not.  To be honest it's really just how you think about things.  Anyway, with this belt tightening in mind Mr and Mrs Smith mooched around the supermarket wondering if we really should be in Lidl or Aldi rather than Sainsbums.  We bought all the cheap stuff, buying quite a few things we didn't want because they were only a pound.  Well, they were a bargain and we're on the hunt for bargains.  So satisfied with our excellent economy buys we then popped into PC World next door and purchased a computer.  This is my gift to Mr Smith as I am so sorry for him losing his job; this is to cheer him up and keep him off my laptop.  The saintly Apprentice spent the whole evening setting it up which wasn't easy as it fought him at every turn but Mr Smith is now on the internet with a printer and an antivirus and Word.  He just doesn't know how to turn it on!

I had an e-mail from the Beeman who is a bonkers old friend from the Caribbean currently visiting Britain.  He went out to Nevis about 30 years ago with VSO to teach beekeeping and just never came back.  So really he's a bit of an overgrown student.  Anyway, he's in England and e-mailed me yesterday saying he has had a terrible time trying to get e-mail access as the friend he was staying with is a born again lesbian and won't let any man touch her laptop (oh, I know just how she feels) and his old Scottish uncle has such an old cranky model he couldn't make it work.  Eventually he managed to get to Pollockshields public library and wrote inviting me to the East Kent Ploughing Match Championship in Faversham next Wednesday.  Oh no, I think I might have to decline.  However, it does sound quite fun in a very obscure kind of way.  People have to invent or use very old ploughing machines - John Doe are not invited. I might, just might, go along.  I'll think about it whilst I sing "One man went to mow...." to Mr Smith, loudly.

Times are a changing

Yesterday something truly ghastly happened; Mr Smith was fired from his job.  This means I will no longer be able to enjoy Murder She Wrote and Stannah stair lift ads in the afternoons, oh shit.  Oh God No, we're going to be poor.  No we're not because Mrs Smith will come up with a brilliant get rich quick scheme and anyway he'll get quite a good payout that should keep things groovy for a bit.

Everyone deals with a crisis differently and I chose a bottle of wine and a million cigarettes to see me through this.  Today I want to die.  I have the worst hangover imaginable - well deserved.

Exclusive report

This is really exciting.  Well, actually, it's only quite exciting.  That is, it's really exciting for me and nobody else which makes it really boring but I'm going to tell you anyway.  In a bid to ditch this awful holiday baggage I seem to have added around my tum I dug out a few Lighter Life potions.  I had quite a few left from my previous effort, being someone who never finishes anything except every meal (according to Mr Smith).  So for the past two days I have exclusively Lighter Lifed, gagging away on revolting milkshakes and soups that smell like B.O. along with the odd sawdust and floor wax brunch bar whilst yearning for a cheese sandwich with a vengeance.  Ghastly.  This stuff is not food.  However, it works.  It really does.  I have lost 7 pounds in two days.  I know this is not healthy and yes, I do have a headache worse than a hangover but Holy Cupcakes, Batman, that's a damned good result.

I will now drink lots of water and put it all back on again.

Big Fat Moan

I just don't understand why I can't eat whatever I want whenever I want and stay the same weight.  Well not this weight obviously.  I don't want to waddle about in a post holiday giant fatso body for the rest of my life.  I want to be svelt and elegant.  Well maybe that's a bit ambitious; I'd just like at least some of my clothes to fit me.  I had a bank statement and I can't afford new ones.  I need to come up with some get rich quick scheme.  My brilliant scam of market research backfired on me as my kids now get all the work and I'm left with a bloody sofa company wanting to come round to inspect my non-existent new sofa.

I thought I'd skip dinner and sit down to some nice stomach churning Embarrassing Bodies but no - Mr Smith and the Apprentice came in and turned it over to Fartingly Boring Castles of the Queen.  I have discovered why; that bitch cow Fiona Bruce was presenting it.  She's the one Mr Smith lusts after - "Oh Fifi".  She was wearing a stupid white coat which was so impractical for poking about in dusty dungeon passages - I bet it got dirty. tee hee.

Today I am going to M-C's patchwork class in a desperate bid to sort out my projects that have gone wrong.  I bet she just adds to the pile by showing me something new and brilliant that I just have to try.  I am so excited - I love learning new things and listening to Mr Smith "Why don't you ever finish anything before you start something new?"  Don't know really.

Monday morning

I just did a terrifying thing.  I got on the bathroom scales.

They must be faulty.

a little something I ate in France

Le fin

Cor, look what the chickens live in here.

chateau des poulets

With the wind and the rain (a complete contrast to scorching Saturday) the walnuts and apples descend from the trees like hailstones all over Mr Smith's car.  He gathers them up like a squirrel.  The squirrels here are red, a deep beautiful red.  (Ecureuil - word du jour) I quite fancy a squirrel coat.

Wednesday, September 14th
We're bored.  Yesterday we went to a charming town, Charite sur Loire, where we had a delicious lunch served by a lady in a bate - I think it was just her french manoir. We then Carrefoured and bought nutcrackers which is an easier way of getting into your walnut rather than pulverising it underfoot.

We are fed up because nothing works in our house and it smells of pee so we decided to have an adventure.  I am going to dress up as Joan of Arc and we are going to Orleans where Mr Smith is going to burn me at the stake.  Actually, they did that in Rouen so we should be OK.


Thursday 15th September
Happy Wedding Anniversary us.  We had a totally brill time in Orleans where there are real shops full of real things, less now that I've been there.

 I came up with an ingenious way to mend the oven door that wouldn't close when it was warm; I tied it up with a bit of tapestry wool from my Bayeux Tapestry.  However, the smoke alarm was working.
We went out.

The last day was spent quietly at Granny's house with Mr Smith having caught a streaming cold and me finishing the Bayeux tapestry.  I was torn between "Oh poor lamb with that long drive back to Calais and beyond" and "Gosh, I hope I don't catch it trapped in a car with him snuffling all the way to Calais and beyond."  He packed lots of walnuts.  I packed a spare loo roll;  I wasn't putting up with his confounded sniffing all through the tunnel.

And now we're home trying to ram jars of mustard into our already bursting cupboards and boring our uninterested boys with our photos.

We did have a lovely time.

Week Two

We travelled across Burgundy to start part two of our vacance on the other side of the Morvan, a national park where people go to do outdoor pursuits (not us).  It's a bit like the Peak District without the dry stone walls or Chatsworth; so um er nothing like the Peak District really.  We're near a place called Nevers (pronounced Ne-Vaire).  But let me fill you in what we've been up to for the past few days.

On Friday we went on a long journey to Cluny to see the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries which are actually in the Musee Cluny in Paris; yes, ok, I know now!  The remains of the abbey were pretty spectac and it's always good to know a bit of history and I can now tell you that Cluny was pretty damned mighty in the Middle Ages.

We then went to a chateau where I got lost in the maze - now there's as surprise!  Mr Smith keeps gathering walnuts, opening them and saying "Hello, Mrs Smith's brain." which I don't think is a bit funny.  Anyway, who speaks the lingo round these parts?  Hint: Not Mr Shout It Louder In English.

Saturday 11th September 2011
With a new word every day I am really brushing up my plume de ma tante french.  Today's word is passoir (colander/sieve).

Question: Did Mrs Smith
A) spend all her money on day one of her holiday on absolute rubbish;
B) spend some of her money, carefully saving the rest for later;
C) spend no money, carefully keeping her cash in case of emergency.

Those of you who guessed B or C - Duh, get a life.
Those of you who guessed A go to the top of the class and proceed to the nearest shop with your Barclaycard like Mrs Smith.  I've really got the hang of Euros now, they're just like pounds.  I just get some from Mr Smith then hand them over to the shop assistant and all the jolie things are mine.


Sunday
Yesterday was a scorcher; we sat in our hot car and drove hotly across Burgundy stopping at Autun for lunch where I bought some very expensive chocolates that melted on the journey.  Our new abode is rather splondide.  It's an old converted cow shed or stables next to a manor house dating from 1010.  It's the sort of house that one's grandmother might have moved into when she no longer occupied the family seat.  Monsieur et Madame Terribly Old But Wonderfully Game live in the manor house.  They were having a bit of a contretemps when we arrived with him up a ladder (escabeau - word du jour) having a go at mending a light which he completely bogged up and had to call an electrician.  He talks lots of very fast french at me; I do the best I can and talk to his dog, a Jack Russell called Bob.

We went to Nevers for an evening stroll along the Loire.  Monsieur Long Pantelons Smith warned me not to walk too close to the grass or I would get bitten by midges but I didn't obey him despite vowing to 27 years ago.  I found a blue line on a pavement and followed it through Nevers to the cathedral.  Actually, there were several blue lines and without a map you could easily get lost - well I could.  It was yesterday's maze all over again with midge bites.

We returned to Granny's house for dinner and no electricity.  Do you a fancy a chocolate?  One great big one?

Today il pleut and Granny's house smells.

The last part of part one

It's nearing the end of week 1 of our fabulous Burgundian holiday.  What is so exciting is we get to start all over again for week 2 somewhere else.  The internet connection is plenty dodgy here so you sort of have to make hay whilst the solleil brille.  My next post will be when we are ensconced in our new abode.

We found patisseries various so I have now partaken of quite a few little delicacies.  Oh, they are so yummy.  Today I have a cake shaped like a cat to look forward to - I don't know what's inside but he's chocolate on the outside.

We chateaued today, Santenay and Rocheport.  Quite beautiful.  We didn't do interiors but just mooched round the outside a bit and did the wine cellars of Santenay and a bit of degustationing.  I found white Santenay rather sharp in the same way that I found our swimming pool rather fresh,  (i.e. sour as hell).

We had a burning curiosity to see if the gigantic Carrefour supermarket at Beaune is any bigger than the gargantuan one at Challon sur Saone.  Well, we don't really know as we were side tracked by all the wonderful things to buy and we only ever make it half way round these places anyway.  (Apparently, the one at Autan is even bigger - oh goody we go there next.)  Mr Smith bought loads of wine - cases and cases.  I bought a big tray of cheese.  We'll never eat it all but it looked too good to pass up.

Honestly, this is such a typical french gite with three corkscrews and no colander.  The loo is raised on a sort of mountain of cement wrapped in gaffer tape so you need to be 6ft tall to use it.  My legs dangle as I sit on it - there is a little wooden stool that I find reassuring on the way down.  On the plus side there is a kettle, a state of the art coffee maker (too complicated for me) and a very good gas cooker.  There are only two saucepans one of which is teeny wee and neither have lids but then there is a superb le Creuset in which I casseroled our rabbit last night.  However, overall the place is brilliant; very peaceful - even the cows nearby are quiet.  There are lovely views, great walks and superb foraging - walnuts abound as do pears, grapes, blackberries, apples, almonds and quinces.   I'm sure the neighbours clocked Mr Smith returning with a load of walnuts.  "Not content with looking through our bin, zay are now collecting ze fruits from ze trees.  Les pauvres anglais."  There are nutcrackers here which is a bonus and saves our teeth.

Dijon mustard and chocolate

Whilst it is heaven to holiday in a country with no bossy notices everywhere it is also a bit annoying not knowing when the rubbish is emptied and where we should put our bin.  Mr Smith opens the neighbours' bin occasionally to see of it's been emptied.  They must think we are a couple of starving tramps looking for some scraps for dinner.  The sole source of information is the visitors' book and we decipher even the most obscure handwriting to find out where things are and that there didn't used to be a loo seat - there is now.

I was right about the festival only it wasn't beetroot; it was blackcurrants.  I am dead cheesed off to find we missed last week's patisserie festival in the next door village.  There has been a sad lack of little cakes so far on my holiday as the patisseries seem to be closed for their hols- exhausted after their festival(?)  We will try Chagny today where we saw some eye wateringly beautiful little must haves on our last trip there.

In Dijon market we procured a rabbit and a tablecloth.  We went to a chocolatier and spent ages selecting one of those and one of those and one that looks like a little shell etc.  Unfortuntely when we got home and ate them we found them woefully disappointing - a bit stale tasting and nothing like we had imagined. However, there was a fabulous mustard shop where they pump the amount you require into a pot of your choosing.  They actually sell exactly the same mustard in all the supermarkets at half the price! Dijon is big on owls - I had tea in owl street from a cup with an owl on it.  So now I can add the french for owl (chouette) to my list of useless vocabulary but still not know the words for seive or colander which are notably absent in our gite.  We improvise.  I used a vegetable basket but most of the pasta fell through it into the sink. Mr Smith can cook our rabbit stew tonight when he will discover there is no oven.

Dijon mustards

Beautiful Beaune

We visited Beaune about 25 years ago and it was just as lovely as we remembered.  I had a light salad for lunch and felt much better for it.  I ambled around the town happily. Well actually, I was hoping to have a wonderful little cake in a patisserie but we didn't find one that was open.  You had to pay 50c to use the loo which Mr Smith resented giving me.  In fact, my wees cost him dear as I had to go again later so ran up a whole Euro's debt.

I bought a jigsaw puzzle of this scene, without me in it, but it is impossibly difficult as all the bits of roof look the same and somehow it got mixed up with bits of croissant so I just gave up and put it back in its box. I will torture Mr Smith with it at Christmas.

Mr Smith is being quite well behaved on his holiday;  he only shouts at me about once a day which is usually about my directions either to or in a town - well maps and I just don't really get on.  I take the happy go lucky approach and find you usually end up at the cathedral/town hall/bar.

We are off to the marvellous market at Dijon today where I will buy overpriced mustard in fancy jars and something really exciting for our dinner.  Yesterday, being Monday, most things in Beaune were closed.  Today, being Tuesday, most things in Dijon are closed except the market and the shops.  Oh good, no boring old museums - lots of shopping.  I know it's one of the greatest galleries in France but we did the Ducal Palace last time we came here.  I'm sure the Duke won't mind if we give him a miss today especially as he is closed.  I will visit the mustard museum instead.

France Vacance

Well, eventually we found our way and we have settled in nicely in Burgundy/Bourgogne/ That place where the wine comes from.  Our house is in a gorgeous setting and has a freezing cold swimming pool.  I know because I swam while Monsieur Smith watched me freeze my tits off.

We have been good tourists and good shoppers.  Well, actually we have been excellent shoppers especially in the Sunday market where I had to be forcibly restrained from buying an enormous string of garlic when we only need one clove, and a very odd pair of scissors that cut up everything into zillions of little strips.  However, after a fabulous lunch we decided to give the art gallery a miss and wander round the town and stare at the River Saone instead and take in a few cake shops.

Not a whore house - a bakery!

I absolutely love Carrefours where we went suitably beserk.  Our trolley groaned with all the wines and other goodies we loaded into it.  Bearing in mind we had done our big market shop earlier for cheeses and hams and fruits & veg, we really had overdone it.

In the night the fridge broke down.  Eat up!

en frogland

No not that way
But you said
Well I thought that's what the map said.
Now we're lost
Maybe we should turn round
Oh look there's a sign
Toutes directions
And en y va

Feet froids

My packing for France consists of the Bayeux Tapestry and some clean knickers.  Oh that'll do, we can buy everything else when we get there.  After all, when in doubt the Smiths go shopping.

Mr Smith made me ring and speak, in o-level french, to a lady, by myself, on the phone, giving our arrival time  and it was oh so scary.  Je have forgotten all the words for everything and it was tres tricky.  I hope I got it right.  She was a very nice french lady.  Bon.  Jamais again.  Why don't they just use the internet comme normal persons?

I have often found when visiting rural parts of the Continent one arrives on some festival day or other so all the shops are shut and all the restaurants are full.  It's bound to be the Fete de Beteraves (Beetroot Festival) or something so I am going to take the precaution of stopping at a Heepermarshay on the way.  I like Carrefours best but Monsieur Smith prefers E Leclerk.  I always get carried away in french supermarkets and buy ridiculous things like pretty china and pencils with things written on them in french like "crayon rouge".  I also like things you never see in Sainsburys like fresh ripe apricots, prunes by the kilo and star anise sold loose. However, I don't like horse or frog and I don't want a pet lobster.

I now have to take the dog to his five star hotel for his holiday followed by a million tasks before packing the tea bags.  Oh why can't we just stay here and pretend we went to France.  I'm not sure about holidays; they can quickly become experiences of doing it all the same, somewhere else, in another language, with inadequate equipment and funny money.  I want to go home already and we haven't even left yet.

CPZ

Mr Smith is cross with me.  Do you think he's going to keep up this strop throughout our entire holiday?  I so hope not.  I do foresee a slight contretemps over my map reading.  I remember last time we went to Burgundy the map flew out of the car window in a windy moment and we had to guess our route through France from then on.  We managed and we actually had less fights about the way from then on.  Anyway, we haven't started our holiday yet. I thought we were going on Friday (i.e. tomorrow) but actually it's Saturday.

Our street has now been declared a CPZ - a one hour CPZ.  Yes, I didn't know what it was either but I think it means Car Parking Zone.  Mr Smith is annoyed with me because I bought visitors' parking permits.  They were very expensive and, as far as he's concerned, totally unnecessary.  We are not allowed visitors; if anyone should descend upon us during the restricted parking hour they can park around the corner (bloody miles away) and walk to our house.  Anyway, just think how furious he is going to be when the magic card bill arrives.  Actually, I have also booked a holiday on that card - a real one without him to somewhere hot with friends.  I am dreading its confiscation but so looking forward to the holiday - next January.

I had to buy the parking token thingies from a man in Putney Library who was sporting a badge proclaiming himself a Reading Development Officer.  He was seated behind a sign that was misspelt and incorrectly punctuated about "residants tradesmens and visitors parking permits".  It smarted.  I commented.... loudly.  I was in a bad mood anyway as I didn't want to get these things as I have a parking permit on my car already. I was really only getting them for the BB so his girlfriend can come and stay without acquiring an expensive parking ticket attached decoratively to her car.  I am so nice despite being riled by the blatant bad use of English in a public library.  Eats, shoots and leaves carnage all over the library with not an apostrophe in sight.