Author: Sarah

No time to lose. No, time to lose. Make time to stand and stare.... Did you see that?

Halfway between Christmas and New Year

Half between Christmas and New Year and more than half the contents of the fridge are used up, with some waiting to be used as leftovers. It is a bit of a juggling act, balancing the nutritional needs of the family and occasional special dietary requirements, against other commitments and time factors dictated by ‘use by’ dates!
Today I checked all the dates, and promptly made trifle to use up the special custard I had bought for the purpose. We haven’t yet needed the gammon (but it will be used on Friday).

I haven’t been food shopping for a week, unless you count the dash for milk yesterday. My current guest left this morning and new ones arrive tomorrow. Today I have a long list of things to do. Bed linen changeover will be tight. A new menu plan needs to be devised and shopped for.

Why am I blogging?

Until yesterday we hadn’t seen sunshine for days: then about 3pm a slant of sunshine slipped in, to light up my front door – via a reflection in my neighbour’s window. How strange. The sun goes down behind the house and the front door only usually sees the sun early in the morning. I was lucky to see it. I just popped out to collect something from the car.

House guest

It’s strange isn’t it, how an additional person in the home can change the whole dynamic of the household? And in this household we have two additional personalities at the moment…. Pippi Long Stocking (the kitten’s screen name) and Milly (Mother-in-Law’s pseudonym)

Pippi is climbing curtains/ investigating everything/ catching mouse wires / being totally endearing and Milly is being Milly, advising, in her own specific way on how we should be dealing with these and various other issues /helping to decide on the viewing schedules and various other aspects of household management. And like any good daughter-in-law/ wife / mother/ etc I’m doing my best to keep the balance in the household by accommodating what I can and only standing up to what I feel it is necessary to stand up to.

So it is, we have had to have Eastenders on for the last few nights.

Eastenders, for the uninitiated, is a soap opera of the lowest order. And as Milly is a woman of the highest order, I simply can not understand how she could be so addicted to this violent program where no one is nice to anyone else, everyone has a foul, loud mouth and the relationships are fickle and adulterous. I can’t bear it.

Last night was OK. I found things to do in the kitchen. Any minute now I may have to find more things to do in the kitchen… having missed it on TV she’s watching it on her laptop!!!

I have, however found a good treatment for the curtain climbing cat. I have filled a hand held sprayer with water. Scout has been very anxious to use it, but Pippi avoided the curtains until just now, and just now he’s gone up to his room, so when Pippi climbed the curtains – it was up to me….. and let me tell you, the water spray had just the right effect.
Very satisfying.

I have decided on tomorrow’s evening meal (gingered beef) and I plan to put it in the new slow cooker in the morning. But perhaps I can save morning time by a little judicious preparation now? At least until Eastenders is over?

Window (Short story competition)

It took a few moments for her to realise that the man she thought had been waving at her through the window was in fact cleaning it. In readiness for a response she had already subconsciously improved her posture, moved her face into a smile and was just on the point waving back when she simultaneously realised her mistake – it wasn’t Alasdair – and felt a shop assistant observing her with an amused expression.

“In which aisle would I find eggs?” she said turning the ghost of the smile on the girl, determined that she should stay in control and suppress the deep heat of a flush that had already started, “And crystallised ginger?” She turned the trolley in anticipation, “I can’t seem to find anything since you had a change around in here.”

Later, after she had piled all the bags into the car boot she returned to the store’s cafe with The Guardian to have a latte, an almond croissant and two paracetamol. She pulled her glasses and an A5 notepad out of her hand bag and flipped over a few pages of lists to find today’s scrawl and started ticking and adding until she come across something, in her own handwriting that she couldn’t remember adding, and it was completely indecipherable. It seemed to say jumper bernies. She sat and stared at it for some while, but nothing clicked and in the end she put he notepad away and returned to her coffee and croissant. God, she thought, am I going completely mad? She picked up the newspaper and glanced at the front page before opening it at the crossword.

The first clue she glanced at was 1 Down:  What can a sticking plaster sing at Yuletide? (2, 4, 4, 3, 9). She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Shut her eyes and leaned back to think.

“Well I never! Hello, Vicky,” said a man’s voice.

She looked up to find a tall, elegant man smiling at her. She frowned lightly,

“I’m sorry?” Continue reading “Window (Short story competition)”

People’s Poet, Roger McGough

I have for a long time enjoyed listening to ‘Poetry Please’ on Radio 4. I particularly love listening in the garden, whilst working on the borders in the Summer months, for example.
Not all the poetry is to my taste and a big chunk of it is ‘poetry learned at school’ as requested by members of the listening public – but it is all read so beautifully and there’s a wide choice, so get to hear poets and poems that I have haven’t yet read. There are numerous publications – I googled and discovered there’s now a CD which was released for an anniversary, which may just slip onto my Amazon Wish List!

‘Poetry Please’ is not currently on the schedules, (so I can’t send you to a ‘listen again’ link) but then presenter, Roger McGough, he of Lily the Pink and Scaffold fame, is busy taking on a new responsibility. Continue reading “People’s Poet, Roger McGough”

Talking of fan clubs

The little tyke won’t leave me alone at the computer, and tries to catch the cursor as it moves around the screen. My eldest is calling me ‘mad cat woman’ as I talk to the cat gently about what it is allowed and not allowed to do…

So what I really need now, to distract from the cat is a good caption competition. Does anyone have a good photo for a quick-fire round?

 

 

 

Smitten by a kitten

Well, considering I wasn’t too bothered about a new cat, not yet anyway, I have been knocked sideways by this little bundle. Here she is (no we still are not sure, but I seem to feel she is a she) on our previous, much missed cat’s chair, quite bold now, though a little out of focus!

and five minutes later asleep

Continue reading “Smitten by a kitten”

Results of the Revolting Rhymes competition

A good, but short selection of ‘Revolting Rhymes’ for this revival of the poetry competition. Very hard to judge….

Bearsy’s poem (here) was a well told tale of the ‘King’s New Clothes’ with an excellent delayed rhyme scheme and with overtones, to my mind of AA Milne as well and Dahl!

Low Wattage gave us a new version of ‘The Owl and the Pussy Cat’ (here) capturing their grief after the wedding excellently, with a couple of ‘in-house’ references, cleverly placed!

Janus made an excellent go of ‘The Tin Soldier’ (here) – though from the comments I read afterwards he had to sort out formatting and do a little post-post- editing, helped in the end by Bearsy! I hate that stanza thing disappearing when pasting in from word! What’s the answer, Old Bear?

John Mackie’s contribution tells the tale of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ (here) with a lovely twist – the addition of Stockholm Syndrome!!! Hilarious.

After thought and consideration I hereby nominate Low Wattage as the winner this time and hand the honour of setting the next competition to him.