Fun Monday

I don't do these very often, but this one sort of tickled me.

Jan has asked us to explain what type of TV viewer we are. Well, truthfully I don't watch much on TV but there are two programmes I never miss, always record and have seen gazillions of times over.

The first is one everyone will know - NCIS, standing for Naval Criminal Investigative Service. It is a drama series revolving around a fictional team of special agents who conduct criminal investigations involving the US Navy and Marine Corps. I love it. Actually, I love Leroy Jethro Gibbs. And Anthony DiNozzo. And Judy loves Ducky :-)

Second is a programme in the UK called Come Dine with Me. The show has four amateur chefs competing against each other by hosting a dinner party for the other contestants. Each competitor then rates the host's performance with the winner winning a £1,000 cash prize.

Some of the cooks are a complete and utter disaster, like the woman who made six (I kid you not) pavlovas before getting one right, or the one who fell asleep and her guests had to cook their own main course! And the mix of competitors is always good; veggies mixed with butchers type things.

But the absolutely best bit is the element of comedy which is added to the show through the narrator, who provides a dry and "bitingly sarcastic" narration throughout.

Seasons

I am sitting at my new desk in my new position in the 'nook' on the upstairs landing of the house listening to the rain blattering off the roof and the wind blowing the tree branches into the windows. This is going to be a long, long winter :-(

Happy Birthday bro!

Subtle insults

My brother bought a new car this week. He need it because the number of children in his family is going to be doubled from two to four in January.

Anyway, he bought a new car, a couple of years old but in excellent nick. When questioned he explained that the previous owner had been an old man. 'Oh' laughed mum 'someone my age then, ha ha ha'. 'No' said brother, 'he's not that old, he must have been about 50'.

That would be just eight years older than me then. Old, eh.

I was wrong

when I said it had all gone pear-shaped

wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Poetry

As part of the major rearrangement of rooms that is taking place at home currently, I have been bunging out cupboards and today I came across a box of my kids old school notebooks. The work has made interesting reading, like the following poem penned by my son.

My Mum

You're as smashing as a red rose in a garden

You're as tasty as chicken

You're as cool as a can of Coke

You're as soft as silk

You're as excellent as rock music

You're as cheerful as happyness

You're as lovely as presents

I've done it again

Much to the embarrassment of my kids, I have just accosted a strange man in Tescos. Not that the man I accosted was strange in himself. I'm sure he was perfectly normal in most ways. It's just that it was a man I didn't know from Adam.

It all started innocently enough, my son thought he had seen one of his teachers and decided he would go and say hello. Having already paid for my groceries, I proceeded to go back into the store with him, laden down with full grocery bags, risking being arrested for shoplifting.

When we caught up with the man, my son got cold feet, and knowing the longer I hung around with my bags of shopping the more likely it would be that I would be arrested for shoplifting, I decided enough was enough and grabbed the man by the elbow.

'Well, hello!' I chirped, to which the stranger turned round , looked me up and down, turned beetroot (yes, it does happen!) red and started to back away from the mad woman.

Of course, any normal person would apologise and maybe explain. Not me.. oh no, I started to giggle nervously. Which only made the poor man go even redder (yes, it is possible!)

At this stage the kids have run off in total humiliation leaving me to eventually apologise and let the poor man go on with buying his haemorrhoid cream.

How to decorate a room round a Stade Francais nudey calendar

By the power of the internet

In 1997 we went to visit friends we had met on honeymoon who lived in Boston. Whilst we were visiting them, they took us on a trip up to New Hampshire to a little place called North Conway. North Conway was lovely, with little old fashioned general merchant shops and old inns and a lovely hand-made quilt shop.

At that stage in my life I still had time to do a bit of quilting, but when I saw the specimens in this store I decided I just had to have one. So I selected one (tough job - they were all so nice!) to bring home for our downstairs bedroom.

As I was paying, the lady at the counter told me she had made the quilt herself, and showed me where she had signed and dated the quilt on the reverse side.

I never really thought another thing about it. Until yesterday. I had stripped the bed and was washing the bedlinen and decided that I would also give the quilt a wash. Usually I got it dry cleaned, but I didn't have time for that so looked to see if there were any care instructions before popping it into the washing machine. Well, there weren't, but I did find the lady's signature.

So I thought, I'll google her, which I did, to discover she still runs a little quilt shop in Conway, NH. Then I thought I'll see if she's on Facebook, after all everyone's on Facebook these days. So I typed her name in and lo and behold there she was again.

The long and short of it is that I have been able to contact the lady who made my quilt and send her a long overdue photo of her handicraft in situ in my bedroom.

Isn't the internet wonderful??!

60 minute makeover

I am blogging from the iPhone because the desktop is currently packed
away whilst a major transformation is undertaken with study
arrangements. It may or may not be successful - and that could refer
equally to the blogging from the iPhone and the transformation progress.

As I type the painter is slapping on new dulux and as usual it bears
no resemblance to the colour on the sample card when it's on the wall.
On top of that, I feel like I've been six rounds with Barry McGuigan
having spent the afternoon assembling IKEA furniture.

And in about ten seconds when I push send, the phones gonna tell me
I'm trying to send this email update to an invalid address.

BTW, were already well over the 60 minute mark - even the 60 hour
mark. Why, oh why .....

:-)

Sent from my iPhone

Fairy sleepover tonight

Bollywood

There's a community festival going on round these parts. The kids are
loving signing up to new activities on offer, especially Dolly as
there are no more than three types of dance workshops. After much
deliberation, bollywood dancing was selected from the three.

So I duly took her to the first session last night, fully intending to
drop and go. But would she stay on her own? Would she heck as like!
So it became bollywood dancing for mummies.

Today she was full of me dropping her off and her being on her own, up
until the point we got to the venue when she stuck to me like glue and
it became bollywood for mummies part two.

Now don't get me wrong, it's been great fun but tonight I have to say
I'm completely bollywood bolloxed. How bad can it be? you say. Bad
enough that I physically had to use my two hands to lift my legs into
bed tonight, and whether or not I manage to get them lifted back out
again in the morning is anyones guess. I wouldn't go laying bets...

Sent from my iPhone

Crap

With nothing but rain in prospect for the days ahead, I just wondered if anyone could remember the last day it didn't rain? How utterly depressing is the weather in Northern Ireland. I think I was born in the wrong country.