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.