kick boxing

herself has ordered some new shoes. these are no ordinary shoes. these are shoes that will turn her into a masai warrior. i am not sure she needs to get any more warrior-like. she is already quite stroppy enough. when she answered a few questions on the internet to see what sort of weather she was the answer was: "you are wind, strong and overpowering, a force to be reckoned with - no one dares cross you. you have the power to change everything around you.
you are best known for: your wrath. your dominant state: commanding." i think maybe a pair of fluffy pink mules would be a better bet.

this shoe thing all started with the pilates teacher. pilates is nothing to do with flying planes. i don't think the captain would like it at all. it is to do with trying to make your stomach look thinner. my own view is that herself would have more chance of a thinner stomach if she gave up having fried eggs for breakfast. anyway, herself goes off every tuesday to flex her stomach muscles in the vain hope that people will stop asking her when the baby is due.

last week the pilates teacher gave herself and the other baggy stomached people a leaflet about the shoes that she wears. herself had already noticed these shoes. they looked comfy and springy. since herself snapped her achilles tendon doing taekwondo (a whole nother story) she has been finding it hard to find comfy shoes.

as soon as she got home she got on the net. it seems that not only are these masai warrior shoes comfy and springy but they also exercise your legs and stomach just by wearing them. this is because they are unstable. i don't like to speak out of turn but herself is quite unstable enough without wearing dodgy shoes.

it seems that these shoes are worn by all the film stars and models that you see on the telly. so they will make you look like madonna. madonna is quite a cool lady, even to my untutored eye. but frankly, to make herself look like madonna would take more than a pair of shoes. one thing is for sure, they will be good for doing what herself and her colleagues seem to do a fair bit of, kicking ass.

fish

regular readers will remember the new pond. herself planned for it to be zen. she resisted my boy's suggestion that they get a shark to live in it. himself wanted a water lily. but herself decided it should be wonderful in its simplicity. not long after it was formally opened, herself noticed that the water was beginning to turn green. mrs captain came up with a solution. "what you need is chemicals!" she said and brought round a bag with various noxious-looking chemicals and a floating mushroom to put them in.

the peeps were a little alarmed at the idea of chemicals. they have not used any chemicals of any sort in the garden for 9 years. this has led to an abundance of wildlife, some more welcome than others. there is a grass snake, for example, that swims in the other pond and occasionally eats a frog. herself does not take too kindly to this as the frogs apparently eat the slugs, of which there are a multitude. she came up with an idea about the slugs, which had himself and my boy laughing like drains.

"we are going to adopt a hedgehog!" she announced, "it will eat the slugs. it has to be a disabled hedgehog as hedgehogs are a protected species so the only ones you are allowed to adopt are those which won't survive in the wild."

"will it have a wheelchair?" asked my boy, "how will it catch slugs if it is disabled?"

"we will have to collect them for it," said herself, "hopefully it will catch some for itself. its not as though slugs move very fast."

i have to say i was less keen on the idea of the hedgehog once i had seen on the net what hedgehogs looked like. my hopes of a nice morsel between a couple of slices of brown bread were dashed. i will eat most things, including (in a crisis) lettuce, but not things covered in prickles.

anyway, as usual, i digress. the chemicals got rid of the green water. but a couple of days later herself noticed a lot of little wriggly bugs in the pond. these were mosquito larvae. they were clearly immune to the chemicals. herself is plagued by mosquitoes. they love her.

"we'll have to do something about them!" she squealed, "the place will be swarming with them soon!"

it was decided that the answer was to get some fish. it seems fish eat mosquito larvae. but first the pond had to be cleared of chemicals, which took a few days. by then there were millions of mosquito larvae. himself went out and came back with a plastic bag containing 6 fish. he also snuck in some plants, including a water lily.

"they are called ghost koi" he explained. they were pretty little fellas. in they went. they were not seen again for some time. it seems they are not called ghost koi for nothing. as the mosquito larvae were at the top of the pond and the ghost koi were lurking in the depths, too embarrassed to emerge, the mosquito larvae continued to multiply.

my boy suggested they got a trout. this did not meet with much enthusiasm. himself went out a few days later and came back with more fish. these were ordinary goldfish. thankfully they were braver than the ghost koi and made a start on the mosquito larvae.

at the weekend some friends came to visit. they peered into the pond.

"do you want some fish?" they asked. the fish were hiding. the peeps explained the problem. it seems the friends have a huge number of fish which need a home. they are breeding like, well fish, and are eating newts and things. so about 40 new fish are going to move in. i would imagine eventually there will be standing room only at the bottom of the pond so some of the fish will have to be brave and come to the surface. the only trouble is, if they keep breeding, the peeps will need to dig another pond...

swiss night

last night i was lucky enough to be invited to a swiss meal. the captain and mrs captain used to live in switzerland and picked up all sorts of useful kit there. they have a little gadget that you screw into the middle of lemons to pour juice out, and another little gadget like a bit of garden hose that takes the skin off garlic cloves. but the most impressive bit of kit is undoubtedly the racklette machine.

this is a sort of hotplate that you plug in. it heats up and you put loads of stuff on the top to cook. but the cleverest bit is that you put little shovels underneath the heater with slices of cheese on them. the cheese melts and bubbles and when it starts to sing you pull it out and pour it over the food. you have to get special cheese for this. funnily enough it is called racklette cheese. i am not sure if the cheese was named first or the machine.

the peeps were invited round to partake in this feast. mrs captain is on a diet which only allows her to eat special soup and drink pink milkshake so it is very noble of her to keep feeding other people. as the peeps got ready it was not clear whether i was invited or not. so to be on the safe side i rushed around wailing about how lonely i would be if they left me at home. luckily they took pity on me.

as soon as the machine was set up i could see opportunities for gleaning some grub. with a little nifty footwork i could wrap myself in the cable and thus tug the machine down to a more acceptable level. this ploy failed dismally. in the picture you can see me trying to persuade himself that i should be allowed to smell the racklette cheese. in reality you could smell this cheese from up the road but i pretended i wanted to savour its finer qualities. unfortunately himself is wise to my old lurcher tricks.

but i managed to taste some of the goodies. the wild girl had loaded her plate up with bockwurst, potatoes, prawns, gherkins and of course cheese. i could see she was grinding to a halt so i emerged from under the table with my cheeriest smile and was promised the leftovers after the peeps had finished. and my was it worth the wait!

i am thinking of applying for a job in switzerland as a st bernard. these are dogs that dig people out of snowdrifts. they wear little barrels of brandy round their necks. the only snag might be that i am a little lean to be taken for a st bernard. they are hefty chaps. maybe i can persuade herself to doctor a photo of me to make me look chunkier. or maybe if i just keep on eating the racklette....

a tidy ship

herself came home tonight with the news that she and her colleagues have to tidy the office. it seems that captain chaos is to visit. herself's office is a bit tight for space. there are a whole bunch of them in there. it seems that an instruction has come from on high that the office must appear to be organised. they have to get rid of the drugs and the guns. i hasten to add that these are not drugs and guns used by herself and her colleagues but drugs and guns which have been removed from the bad people and are on their way to being destroyed. they are allowed to keep the plastic gun that they shoot at the plastic cans on the plastic log. it works by infra red and makes a very convincing ricochet noise. the battery operated noo-noo should be ok as it has to be switched on before it wanders round the floor making a rather scary sucking noise. it is just a shame that it does not actually clean the floor.

they also have to clear up the microbe farms. these have become popular because they are not allowed to bring their pets into the office. instead they carefully grow cultures of interesting furry moulds in cups and bowls. while these are nice to stroke they do not give a great impression. herself decided recently to introduce a 'slut of the week' award for the most revolting desk. she is looking for a rubber glove to form a trophy. i feel that the rubber gloves may be needed in the clear up.

as for the flying monkeys, they are allowed to stay so long as they are not too obvious and so long as they do not scream while captain chaos is around. this latter requirement could be tricky as they have the habit of going off every time you slam a drawer shut.

the 'quote of the week' from mr mad-and-bad can stay. this is a mugshot of a rather tricky customer which every week has a different philosophical quote underneath. at the moment it has something about truth, a concept which mr mad-and-bad would not understand if it fell out of the sky and hit him on the head.

there is also the problem of health and safety. the office was re-arranged after herself's assistant hurt her back but it has slid back into something you might find in a health and safety video. if you manage to negotiate the floor without tripping over a stab vest you are likely to become entangled in the telephone extension cable that herself has stretched from the cupboard so she can have the fax on her desk. this helps with keeping on top of urgent things. not that she does anything with faxes but she likes to know they are there so she can worry about them.

at least they no longer have the door dosher keeping the fire door open. this was an iron cylinder filled with concrete that is used for opening doors when the occupants of premises are not very welcoming. herself got sick of stubbing her toe on it so she was very glad when it went off to pastures new.

at least when i went to work with her i was able to make sure she kept a tidy ship...

lunch

today herself went to lunch with a famous author. he is interested in all sorts of shady stuff. he is planning to write a book about dodgy people. as herself and her colleagues come across quite a lot of dodgy people they may be able to help.

regular readers will recall that herself wrote a book while she was on holiday. the original plan was that the book would be a joint venture, with each person writing their bit from the point of view of a character they had invented. however none of the fellow holiday-makers had the slightest intention of getting involved in this hair-brained scheme so herself knuckled down and wrote the book on her own.

the fellow holiday-makers did not escape entirely. every time one of them opened their mouth herself piped up "that'll be fantastic for the book!" so at the beginning, while most books have a little bit saying "any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental", herself's book has a little bit at the beginning saying "any resemblance to any person or dog is entirely deliberate. the author is too lazy to waste time inventing characters." i suppose people are used to being blog-fodder. book-fodder is just more of the same.

i managed to persuade her to take me along to meet the famous author. i told her that i was interested in seeing east sussex and that we could go for a walk before lunch. but this was just a ruse. i was hoping that if i was charming enough i might get a bit part in a book. herself has put me in her book but to be honest no-one will ever read it so it doesn't count. i have made it clear that she is not to give up the day job.

we went for a walk around the grounds of a big posh house and then went into the pub where we were meeting the famous author. at this point herself realised that she did not know what the famous author looked like. it would have been straightforward for her to purchase a red rose to wear in her buttonhole, or carry one of the famous author's books, or indeed for her to have mentioned that she would have a hairy companion. but that might have required thinking ahead which is not something herself engages in. luckily the bar person knew the famous author so all was well.

we sat outside, next to 3 very fat labradors whose panting did nothing to help with the clamminess. later a very sweet puppy arrived. she can be seen in the picture above. the conversation turned to how proper authors develop characters in their books. (herself had confessed that she had stolen the souls of her friends and family for her book). it seems proper authors sometimes base characters on folks they know too. the famous author explained that he would, for example, perhaps use someone's physical description but then give them a different job. "i might make you a brain surgeon, or a police officer or something."

"you'd have to make me thinner!" said herself. i was more concerned about the thought of someone as easily distracted as she is being allowed anywhere near an operating theatre. i could just see her wandering off to put up a shelf in the middle of a tricky procedure.

the famous author asked herself about a typical day. regular readers will know that these are few and far between. herself tried to describe what she gets up to at work. but she wandered off the point and told the famous author about the flying monkeys instead. herself has persuaded her colleagues that it is a good idea to have flying monkey battles in the office. they have 6 of these little chaps. the trouble is at any one time someone will be on the phone, or on the radio to someone. a lot of the conversations are about serious stuff. suddenly a flying monkey will land on their head, making them want to laugh. it can be a bit tricky explaining what the noise is. one of the colleagues was heard to say on the telephone the other day, "oh, its just a flying monkey. so, anyway, back to the machete incident..."

when we got home, himself asked about lunch. "did you tell him how you have been glued to one or other of his books for the past month and we haven't been able to get any sense out of you?" "oh no," said herself, "famous authors must get sick of people raving about their books. i didn't want to sound like a starstruck groupie!"

it seems the famous author may be visiting the office in the autumn. herself failed to mention the other toys. wait till he sees the battery operated noo-noo...

dog pimps

we have had a whale of a time today. this morning we went to an event called 'reach the beach' which was for rescued hounds. there must have been 200 or more dogs, mostly greyhounds, on the beach at west wittering, together with a motley crew of people. my peeps were, needless to say, more motley than most.

my boy and himself did not want to reach the beach. this is not because they dislike beaches. in fact we spend a lot of time on beaches. nor because they dislike greyhounds. they love all types of dog. what put them off was the thought of the people that of necessity came with the greyhounds. herself told them they were a pair of trolls and that they never did anything as a family. she said my boy could have marbles if he was good (marbles are saved up to buy things) and she told himself that if he didn't behave he would get pegs put in his beard. i think my boy came off best from this.

we arrived at west wittering and were given a doggy bag (for once a real doggy bag with a pigs ear and some home made cookie for me!) and then made our way to join the hounds. there were loads of them! and they were all much bigger and much less hairy than me. i felt a bit of a gatecrasher to be honest, although there were other lurchers too. but i was by far the hairiest.

there were competitions - the bonio and spoon, the best dressed dog, the dog that could wade furthest into the sea (herself went in up to her waist getting her trousers and t shirt soaked but i feel i let the side down a bit by swimming - i like swimming but it doesn't count as wading). there was also a race which was most impressive. the owners had to keep the dogs on the lead. most of the dogs there were ex-racing greyhounds. you don't need a phd to realise that greyhounds run a lot faster than people, especially when they are racing. people fell like ninepins. luckily for my peeps the only one who would remotely be able to race was my boy and he had fallen off a climbing frame yesterday so was excused. herself was mighty relieved once she saw the race that she had not coerced him into entering.

we all lined up for a picture. we were in the back row so i had to undergo the ignominy of being picked up. i quite like being hugged but being picked up in front of all those people was a bit embarrassing.

later on some people came to visit. they are thinking of adopting a lurcher from the kennels where i go for my holidays. he is called ronnie (the lurcher that is). they sat in the garden with the peeps and had some stuff called pimms out of a jug. herself started telling them about how they had found my breeder and they knew when my birthday was and stuff like that. she did this from my tattoo in my ear.

just then my boy piped up. "is a breeder like a dog pimp?" "er, lovey," said herself, "can i explain dog breeding to you later?" "so how does the breeder make the dogs have sex?" said my boy. "can we talk about this a bit later, sweetie?" said herself, rather nervously. they have not known these people all that long and herself was not sure how they would take the dog pimp thing. "i mean, do they shut them in a room and force them to have sex?" "lovey, can we talk about this later?" said herself, now through rather gritted teeth. "do they give them bits of cheese if they have sex?" carried on my boy. "i think the dogs quite like having sex" said herself, relenting a bit, "but i will explain it all later."

luckily at that point i realised intervention was needed and rolled on my back to be tickled. alas my days of having sex are over. they have chopped off my bits. admittedly this was after the bit of trouble with my prostate which led to me peeing on the sofa. i have worked out that if i make enough fuss about being groomed i get a bit of cheese for that. its not quite the same but still...

i'm blogging this

dear readers, i am not sure where to start with this weeks fun and games. since we got back from our respective holidays it has been all go. the most blogworthy day was undoubtedly wednesday so i will confine this missive to that.

on wednesday herself had a lot to do at work. there was to be a meeting in the afternoon about all the nasty people. everyone is supposed to have written an update for the meeting. needless to say, herself had not done an update. she had been too busy taking the nasty people to court to write about which nasty people she had taken to court. she was therefore not exactly looking forward to the meeting. she is not good in meetings anyway. she hates sitting still, hates having to keep quiet and is in the habit of saying what she thinks which does not always go down well. her notebook is full of pictures and little notes to her colleagues saying things like "losing the will to live!"

so when the barbie queen rang her up and said "i am a bit worried about some bad people. i think they might hurt someone!" herself had offered to rush off to court before you could say "key partnership working". the barbie queen is one of herself's colleagues. she is called the barbie queen because she has a collection of barbies, including one called 'slut barbie' who has a cigarette and an indecently short skirt.

because herself had not planned on going to court she was dressed even less like a lawyer than usual. she had her red sandals on and a black t-shirt that says "i'm blogging this". i think this is to warn anyone that herself comes across that they are blog-fodder. clearly the judge would not be impressed at being blog-fodder. usually herself has a spare black t-shirt in the car but on this occasion none could be found. "i know," she said, "i'll turn it inside out!" the one problem with this was that the label then stuck out. herself persuaded a friendly youth worker to snip off the label and off she and the barbie queen went to court.

the judge agreed that the bad people needed to be stopped and made court orders to that effect. herself and the barbie queen waited for the office to type them and then roared off to meet sgt goose who was going to come along to keep the bad people in line. sometimes bad people get a bit annoyed when they are told they have to be nice.

sgt goose collected together some other police officers as these were particularly nasty bad people and they all went off to hand over the papers. by now herself had put her t-shirt back on the right way round so she had to fold her arms across her chest so the nasty people didn't find out they were blog-fodder. the paper-handing-over went without a hitch, not least because of the presence of the bunch of police officers. you would have to be not only bad but also very stupid to attack a lawyer in front of a bunch of police officers. they all went back to the office.

as herself got out of her car she noticed several trucks parked in the road, loaded to the top with rubbish. there is a man over the road to the office who seems to think he can run a waste disposal business from his house. he has trucks loaded with fridges which he dumps around in lay-bys and at beauty spots. this man is on the list of "people who need to be dealt with".

in order to kill two birds with one stone (relax bird-lovers - its a saying) herself got out her camera and took some shots of the trucks to use in court. the man was not keen on this. herself told him she was from the council and went indoors for a cuppa. when she eventually emerged to go home, the rubbish man was berating sgt goose about his human rights. qt, another police officer, appraised herself of the situation. "he's not happy" he said. this was glaringly obvious.

herself started walking towards her car, accompanied by qt. the man saw her. she explained that she was entitled to take pictures in the street as it was a public place. the man said "so you don't mind me taking pictures of you then?" "not at all!" said herself. a picture was duly taken. qt wheeled her off to her car before she could cause any more trouble.

herself had forgotten to fold her arms. the picture taken by the man has herself in her t-shirt which says "i'm blogging this". the rubbish man cannot complain that i have shared this with my readers. he was warned...