Tricky one this.....

Reblogged from Tripping over Pebbles in the dark:

Blogging, as I mentioned when I first carried this on from my fmp is, I believe, a bit egotistical. To assume that anyone would want to read your thoughts, ideas and rantings - hhhmm, hardly writing on a level with Mark Twain now is it?

Following on from a comment made yesterday by someone who's opinion I value I've been questioning again why I do this.

Read more… 361 more words

This is a repost from some time ago. 2009 to be exact. The feelings expressed in it are just as relevant today.

What am I full of?

Munki was on top form today. Cute, funny and highly entertaining she’s a natural comedienne.

The funniest part of all was when she wasn’t even trying to be funny.

“Guess what I’m full of, Nanny. It begins with B.”

That started a guessing game: “Baubles, bears, buns, bananas, bees, bunions, bikes?”

“No, no, no. It’s B.S. I’m full of B.S.”

Well, every adult in the room fell about laughing but obviously Munki, being four years old didn’t get the joke so we played the game and carried on guessing.

“Balloons, books, beds, bandits, beer, bonkers?”

Munki screamed out laughing. “No, Nanny, no. It’s bu – sketti!”

Hahaaaaaaaa. What?

“You know. Bu…sketti!”

Of course, why didn’t we get it? It’s obvious!  Obvious to a four your old who can’t say the word ‘spaghetti.

Still on the subject of Munki. She and Lashes are big fans of McFly. Last week the decided to sing their favourite McFly song together. It’s just so darned  cuuuuuuuuuute.

Hello or ow? I’m not sure which.

Being an observer of things in general and people in particular I notice things that others may not. It’s my job to see things – and I’m an exceptionally nosy person.

It’s great being an observer. Can there be anything better than sitting in a cafe with a posh coffee and your significant other/sister/son/daughter/bezzie and just watching the world go by? I could spent hours doing that.

Anyway.

Last week I noticed that the  attempt to keep current and ‘dahn wiv da kids’ in soap operas is to have all the actors end every sentence with ‘Yeah?’

Most of the time I’m not sure if they’re asking me or telling me, yeah (?).

Do people really do that in real life, yeah? In case you’re wondering, that was a real question, yeah?

See my point? Yeah? Confuzzling.

Walking down the road yesterday, as is my wont, I saw a woman holding her hand up to her face as if the had severe toothache. Then I saw someone else doing exactly the same thing and wondered if we had a  toothache epidemic.

After I’d seen several other people holding their faces in the same similarly afflicted way I realised that some of them didn’t appear to have toothache but earache as they were holding their faces higher up.  Of course they weren’t really afflicted by anything except modern society and the need to keep in touch and connected at all times. They were all attached to their umbilical cords, aka their mobile phones.

Funny isn’t it how technology has modified our behaviour.

Boofuls nearly has a blue fit if he forgets to take his phone out with him. I don’t get it. What is this need to be connected all the time?  I’m not saying they aren’t useful but actually, it’s quite nice to be out and not at everyone’s beck and call all the time.

While we are on the subject of behaviour, I’ve noticed our little cat, Cooking Fat, has been behaving strangely lately. Eating like food is going out of fashion and drinking water at any opportunity. Yes,  Pebbles, the very Pebbles that this blog is named after and who I regularly trip over in the dark, being as how she’s as black as coal, has developed diabetes.  That’s in addition to her deafness, blindness, toothlessness, senility and arthritis. A visit to the vet yesterday confirmed my suspicions.

Oh crap crappity crap. We’ve never been able to get tablets into her so now we have to make a decision.

Are we going to let her condition take its course and let her see out her days in peace or are we going to cause her upset and distress by trying to get medication into her on a regular basis? At twenty years old she’s  definitely past her sell by date and our inclination is to let her live her last days peacefully.  What are your views?

 

A few photographs

Not a collection of photographs, just a few random ones, most of which have been taken on my phone. Enjoy.

Just in case you’re wondering; the big shoe chair is one of the new props for the studio. Fab, innit?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s just nuts!

I read this story on the news earlier about how a store had to recall all its packets of nuts after failing to state on the packet that it may contain nuts. What? That’s just nuts!

Excuse me if I’m being a bit thick and missing something but if I was allergic to nuts I might have noticed that the packet with the word  ’nuts’ and  the picture of nuts on said packet might have spoilt the surprise, or indeed the (anaphylactic)  shock of discovering that there’d  be nuts inside it. I probably wouldn’t need the teeny tiny warning on the back of the pack telling me that the pack of nuts might contain actual nuts. Or is that just me?

My baby boy’s growing up.

That cute little puppy with the triangle eyes has grown into a handsome and loving big hairy slobber monster of a dog. This Thursday he was clever enough to pass his Kennel Club good citizen exam. He had to demonstrate that he was fully in control of his owner and knows how to behave in public.  Part way through the test, as all we middle aged, middle class dog owners  were all stood in a line being asked questions on the care and welfare of our dogs it struck me that we weren’t the ones that really need it.

The people putting their dogs through the test were all responsible dog owners in the first place. I’d have been far happier to have seen a few of the chavvier types with the assorted collection of staffies, bulldogs, mastiffs or some of the other breeds favoured and paraded round the local streets by the local tough guys. Far from wanting to paint them all with the same brush I can’t help but think that you’d  never see them walking round with a Papillon, Chinese Crested or Bichon Frise dog. You can’t look tough with one of those in tow, can you?

There has to be a lot of truth in the myth that people look like their dogs. I think it’s more often a case of people being attracted to dogs that appear reflect their own personalities. Take me for instance. I know I look like my dog. Blonde, inclined to get fat, fun loving, gregarious,  enjoys long walks in the country, cuddles and food. If I was a dog I’d definitely be a golden retriever.

I’m also a big fan of  dancing. Well, fancy that! So’s Velcrodog!  This dog has rhythm. So much so that he’s doing his first exhibition in June at a country fair in Yorkshire. We’ll be dancing to Caro Emerald’s That Man. We’d better get practising!

See what I have to deal with?

Here’s an enquiry that dropped into my inbox earlier:

Hi, I am looking for any style of photography, I would love a traditional style but also with an edgy style too.

What? So let me get this right. You have no preference to style as long as it’s both traditional and edgy? Super.

Have you missed me? I haven’t just been being tardy with the blog, I’ve been trying to get to you to tell you everything that’s been going on but there’s just been so much of it. Life is anything but dull these days.

A couple that Boofuls and I know quite well phoned and asked us if we’d do them a huge favour and go on a hotel break for them. Huh? Hotel break? Do my ears deceive me?

It seems they’d bought a voucher for a hotel break, found themselves unable  to go and would lose the money of they cancelled so decided they’d like to give it to us. Fab!

The hotel was in the East Midlands. A very grand stately home. “Well, go on then, it’ll be tough but we’ll take it off your hands”, we told them. That’s the nearest thing we’ll be getting to a holiday for a few months.  I was really looking forward to it. Do you want to see where we stayed?  It’s here. Not too shabby, eh?

 

Source: teachers.org.uk

A few days before we were due to go we got a phone call from Boofuls sister telling us that his brother was seriously ill. Boofuls went down to see him immediately and we decided that we’d tag another trip to see him onto the end of our hotel break.

Talk about zigzagging around! We left the north west to go east and then left there to go south west as far as we could get without falling off the end of the country.

Cripes! That was a lot of driving.

I’m going to gloss over a lot of stuff now *gloss gloss gloss*  suffice to say that we were glad we went.

What did I learn from this trip? We have some nice friends. Families matter. Boofuls and me don’t spend enough time alone together. The whole trip was a roller coaster of emotions ranging from elation to devastation – sometimes in the space of a few minutes.

What else did I learn? That we need to visit Devon far more often than we do. I used to live there as a child and I’d forgotten how much I liked it. Tell me again why we live here when we could live there?

An a totally different note: Boofuls sent me this link to a Steve Martin sketch, I laughed so much the dog came in to see what was going on. Enjoy.

http://rubytooth.com/link/45516

Reasons to be cheerful one, two, three

You may or may not have noticed but in the last few months my normal cheery disposition has been taking a bit of a knock and fallen victim to some nasty but thankfully short lived bouts of depression.  Living on a financial knife edge for years took it’s toll, all I could think about was the worst case scenario – on any subject. The future looked bleak no matter how I looked at it.

Tears, palpitations, headaches and an inability to cope with anything more complex than writing my name had all become every day occurrences. I hadn’t realised how bad it had got until one of the staff caught me crying in the office. “I always used to think you were high on drugs, you are always so cheerful. I’m not used to you being upset.”  It made me smile through my tears to think that the staff have me pegged as a nutcase who’s as high as a kite on drugs most of the time.

Just high on life, baby. High on life. Most of the time, anyway.

That was a couple of weeks ago and since then things have got much better. While I was out walking with Velcrodog the other day I was enjoying the warmth (yes, actual warmth!) of the sun on my face, the view across to the coast which was spectacular, the sky was a clear, bright azure blue, the birds were singing and for the first time in ages I felt like I didn’t have a care in the world.

Ok, all the usual worries were still there but somehow they’d become much less significant. In their place was a profound sense of gratitude for all of the good things I have in my life.

I suppose it was a bit of a spiritual moment. It was certainly intense.  As I walked the tears began to well again but this time  it was because  of the feeling of gratitude I felt when I realised all of the things I have to be grateful for.  Here are just some of them:

I have a husband who still loves me and is still my best friend after all these years

A family who drive me mad, make me laugh and of which I am immensely proud.

Velcrodog.

A roof over our heads and food in our stomachs.

Enough money to live on – I preferred being rich but hey ho, we have enough.

We live in a beautiful place with amazing countryside literally on our doorstep.

Good neighbours – apart from ‘Screamer’ who screams at her dogs and can be heard a quarter of a mile away.

Employment.

Good health (ish in Boofuls’ case).

Good and loyal friends.

There, that’s not a bad list to be going on with, is it?

Excuse me now, I have to go and do the gratitude dance.

A few chicks and bad manners

It’s colder than a cold thing here in Blighty at the mo. The cold snap has turned into a cold month. The spring daffs have poked their heads out of the ground and then done  a quick about turn and poked them back under it again, telling us they’ll come back when we turn the heating up a bit. Spring?  It’s more like an Arctic winter with it’s sub zero temperatures and bitterly cold easterly winds.  At this rate we’ll be seeing the daffodils in July or maybe even August.

Since the clingons are off school this week, Lashes and I decided to take them to a local -ish farm shop / cafe/ boutique / ice cream parlour.

It’s a place where the farmer, instead of lying down and taking the demise of farming in this country as the end of his livelihood, decided instead to diversify into other things – and a damn fine job he’s done of it too. The plan for today was to let the clingons feed the lambs ( at £3 per child. I think we should invest in a few lambs, hay bales and formula milk – the place was mobbed!), stroke the chicks and join in the Easter egg hunt which cleverly took us to every single department in the shop with the exception of the wine shop which I suppose wouldn’t be totally appropriate.

At the end of the hunt the kids got to enjoy a lovely rice krispie cake and Lashes and me treated ourselves to a well earned coffee. Three excited kids running, until we called out for them to stop,  through an antique shop full of collectables and vintage glass is exhausting, not to mention nerve wracking.

At one point, we were about to exit the food hall, following the clue to the next egg, when we stopped to let a middle aged woman step through before us. Without a word and with a dirty look to the clingons, she walked through the door we were holding for her. “People complain that kids have no manners but she could learn a thing or two,’ I said as Lashes and me stepped through the door at exactly the same moment, elbowing each other out of the way to get through first. Heh. Funny. You needed to be there.

Munki and Dangerous wanted to go and take another look at the chicks while Batty, who hates birds of any kind unless they’re roasted and served with mash and veg, preferred to stay and look at jewellery. Ten minutes later Lashes returned laughing her head off. It seems that Munki was holding a chick and then suddenly let out an ear splitting scream which brought the whole place to a halt. The chick had only been and gone and done a poo on her.  Munki was mortified and in her own inimitable way decided to let everyone know how mortified. The staff must have thought she’s chopped her arm off in a combine harvester for the racket she made. Lashes, being her Mother’s daughter, decided that the best course of action was to laugh out loud at the situation.

Oh, it’s fun going out with the clingons. I wonder what we can do tomorrow?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baa Baa Black sheep

Minding our own business and driving down a road we don’t drive down very often, through the country side towards Bigtown.

Suddenly, Boofuls and I spotted a trio of young boys chasing a few sheep up the road. “Aye aye” we thought, “What’s going on here then?’ But working on the basis that the boys didn’t have any look of anticipation on their faces and weren’t wearing wellies we decided it was probably innocent.

Innocent it might have been but it sure didn’t look like fun. The older boy was red fadedly, arm wavingly and desperately trying to get these sheep to go in a direction in which they most definitely didn’t want to go. The two younger boys just ran around and shouted a lot, making matters far worse but they were trying their best to help and that’s what counts, I suppose.

As it’s quite a busy and winding road I could see huge and looming potential for disaster in the situation so I thought we’d better stop and help. Boofuls pulled over and I jumped out of the car.

“What’s going on, lads?” I said with my most authoritative voice.  I soooo should have been in the police.

“These sheep have escaped from the top field and we’re trying to get them back but they keep running away.”

It turned out that these poor lads had been trying to get these sheep back in their field for about 20 minutes but in actual fact had inadvertently driven them down the hill and onto the road. By this time both the boys and the sheep were in a state of sheer terror.

Sigh. Nothing else for it then, let’s get my sheep herder’s head on and start herding. Did you know that sheep are incredibly stupid?

Arms outstretched, I walked towards then while the elder of the boys did the same from a different direction to try and herd them towards the gate. ‘Piece of cake, this’, I thought. How wrong could I be?

One of the sheep made a bolt for the road and of course the others followed. How I wished for a sheepdog at that very moment – and to my surprise I kind of got one. Boofuls swung the car across the road to block their path and sent them all scurrying back towards us. Well done, Shep, er, I mean, Boofuls.

After a few minutes of herding and cooing, we managed to get them off the road and down a farm track. “Open the gate! Open the gate!” I was shouting to the two younger boys who just stood there looking at me like I was speaking martian. I think they were traumatised. “OPEN THAT GATE!!!!” I bellowed at them and finally they responded and the sheep all ran through it right on cue. It was just like ‘One Man and His Dog’ as the gate was swung shut behind them and we all cheered.

I have no idea who’s land we put them on. I could just imagine the home owner’s face when they saw a small flock of sheep they don’t own grazing away on their land.  That, however was not my problem nor that of the boys who’s public spirited actions and determination to get those sheep to a safe place is to be much admired. The oldest boy was almost on his knees, partly out of breathlessness but mostly out of gratitude. He must have thanked me two dozen times for my help.

Our country of the future needs more kids like these. Whoever their parents are,  particularly the older boy, they’re  an absolute credit to them.

Well done lads!

As for me and Boofuls, we carried on with our journey and I spent the rest of the day talking like a farmer. Ooohaaaaarrr.

Going Nowhere Fast

That isn’t some deep and meaningful title for the lack of house sale (although it could be but let’s not talk about that) it’s more literal.

It’s no secret that I love snow. Snow makes me happy. Snow brings out the inner child in me. But, come on, enough’s enough. Now the heavens are taking the piss. ENOUGH WITH THE SNOW ALREADY!

But I’m getting ahead of myself, I have a whole weeks worth of news for you so go and make yourself a coffee, grab a pack of one dips, sit back and read on.

Last Saturday. Little Sis and partner came to visit. Yay! We took them to a local eatery, the one where the local farmers tend to frequent so the food has to be both cheap and plentiful so as not to get the local yokels complaining. I have no issue with cheap and plentiful, in fact, they are two of my favourite words, another one is ‘tasty’ and this eaterie fits the criteria on all three.

The reason for Li’l Sis’s visit was to help celebrate my *gulp* 53rd birthday.

I know, I know, I can hear you saying it now. ” FIFTY THIRD BIRTHDAY?!? You don’t loook a day over 35, you must have the numbers the wrong way round. ” *Blushes modestly* It’s all in the genes you know.

Moving quickly on before anyone has a chance to say anything…

Halfway through our ginormous meal I managed to lift my face out of the trough where I was choffing like a good ‘un and was surprised  to see Len, Lashes and Munki all stood there grinning at us – and bearing a huge bunch of flowers. How lovely. Ok, birthdays aren’t that bad after all, are they?

We spent a pleasant hour in their company and then set off on the 5 minute journey home, getting there just as it started to snow. And snow. And snow. Oh no!

“I’ve got 30 people coming round for brunch tomorrow, it can’t snow. I’ve bought mountains of sausages, not to mention all the croissants, juice and all the other necessary items for a posh brunch for shed loads of folks. Gggaaaahhhhh!

Sunday morning dawned. The snow situation wasn’t too bad, not bad enough to stop people arriving if they wanted to. I  (note the use of the word ‘I’ ) took the dog out for a walk, baked some scones, prepared all the food, cleaned the house, fed the animals, laid the table……right. Listen to me you Americans. Laid the table doesn’t mean what you think it does so stop laughing this minute! (admittedly it does make a funny picture in the mind). It means to put plates and cutlery on the table. Tsk. Dirty minds!

People began to arrive exactly at the appointed time and just about everyone came who was supposed to. How lovely. People who didn’t know each other sat and chatted happily together, the kids played, the Bucks Fizz flowed and the sausages sizzled.  What a lovely day.  I loved it. When most of the guests had gone and it only immediate family were left, Munki  suggested that we all play musical statues. That was truly inspired. What a hoot.

So that was birthday day. Not too disastrous after all and I didn’t spend the entire day crying in a corner mourning  my lost youth.

Then followed a so so week. I can deal with so so after the dramas of the last few weeks.

A few days after my birthday it was Dangerous’ birthday.  Still young enough to look forward to her birthdays rather than dread them, the plan was to go for an Indian. Meal, that is, not an actual Indian. I’m sure there are laws against that kind of thing these days.

Easy enough plan. Till the snow started again. It snowed solidly for about 36 hours. That combined with gale force winds has made some spectacular 5 foot snowdrifts – which have rendered us completely incapable of going anywhere that involves a car. Even a snow plough won’t  do us a lot of good as there is a car abandoned across the road. Taking the dog out this morning I literally had to climb over some of these drifts. Oh well, might as well get on with a few jobs, read a few books and watch a bit of telly, we’re going nowhere for a few days. It’s bloody spring for God’s sake! Let’s have some sunshine!

Poor old Dangerous didn’t get to celebrate her birthday. I don’t know what to say really, except that I know how disappointed she must be. The only consolation prize is that she’s had half of her presents and still has half to come AND is still owed a birthday party. That will effectively make two birthdays for the price of one!!  Every cloud, as they say.

Here are a few pictures of our little hamlet in the snow.