another saturday night

now that herself has finished cleaning the blood off the walls i have cornered her and sat her down to write about last night, before she goes off and starts getting out her toolbox or something.  last night provided some good blog-fodder.  it all started when my boy came home from school on thursday with an invitation to a party.  my boy finds parties tricky.   well, not so much all parties.  more the children's/teenagers type of parties.  the invitation had a phone number on it.

"you'll have to let him know you aren't going," said herself, "it's rude not to."

"i already have," said my boy, "i said i thought you had invited a load of people round."

"but we haven't!" said herself, "you mustn't tell lies - its a rubbish way to treat your friends!"

"we'll just have to invite some people round then," said my boy, with his indefatigable logic, "then what i said will be fulfilled and it won't be a lie any more."

herself is never one to pass up the chance of a social event so she pinged off a few texts and e-mails, and made a couple of calls.  himself said he would make the grub.   this is a sound move, given herself's record in the kitchen.  it was going to be curries.

because the peeps had left it very late to invite people, on account of not knowing they were going to be inviting people rather than the usual disorganisation, many of the invitees had already made plans for saturday night.   one of himself's colleagues was thoughtlessly getting married and therefore a number of other colleagues were going to that as well, some other friends were building some patio doors and others had a special memorial picnic to go to.  when herself counted how many people could actually make it the numbers were rather small.  it boiled down to the snake-charmers and the next-doors.  and the next-doors had someone staying so they said might not want feeding.

"it will be like one of those parties where you put all your teddies round the table and pretend to give them cups of tea!" said my boy, causing herself to get rather anxious.   himself had arranged to make rather a lot of curries.  mind you, curry is something that will keep, provided it is placed out of my reach, so it would feed the peeps in the coming months.

as it happened all was well.  it is not the quantity of guests that makes for a nice evening, but the quality.  and boy, were these guests quality!  the snake-charmer and her dad arrived first.  the snake-charmer was put to work making naan bread to cook on the dalek.   this is a nifty little charcoal cooker that comes camping with us.  the snake-charmer is a great cook.  while the dough was doing what dough does it came to the notice of the grown ups that her hair was shinier than usual.

"that's the cream," she said.  it transpired that this cream was not what the hair-slayer calls a hair product.  it was the sort of cream you eat.   now i know it is easy to make mistakes when your eyes are full of shampoo.  i have seen my boy try to wash his hair in shower gel on more than one occasion.   but surely no-one has the eating sort of cream in their bathroom?  

soon all became clear.  the snake-charmer is a cook much in the mould of herself.  the cream had been part of making a cake.   unfortunately the snake-charmer had looked at the wrong recipe and had made a huge amount of icing.  at some point she will have to make a cake to go under it.  anyway, somehow quite a lot of cream had got in her hair.   shortly afterwards her mum arrived, having had to work till late, and commented on the increasingly ripe smell from the hair.  i have to say, i rather liked it, but no-one asked me what i thought.

then the next-doors arrived. they have had a visitor who has been going through a tough patch so they had been up talking a lot of the night and were mighty tired.  however they rose to the occasion, as all good guests do.  after a little persuading they went next door and collected ruby the puppy.  young ruby was so excited she forgot herself and made a large puddle the minute she came through the door.  then she ran at very high speed around the house, causing all sorts of malarky.  it all got a bit too much when she bounced onto my sore tail and i felt the need to teach her some manners.   i was removed in a rather undignified fashion when herself got hold of the scruff of my neck but i think i made my point.  young ruby went home while the peeps ate which was probably just as well, especially for my tail.

after the grub mr next-door was persuaded to fetch his guitar.   he is a fine musician.  the peeps could not believe their luck when they discovered they had moved in next door to someone who could coax such notes from a guitar.  he has a funny glass thing that goes over one finger to make the guitar sing.   the snake-charmer had a go.  you can just about see her in this picture.   you may wonder why her hair is wet.  this was because the hair smell was getting a little too high for her mum so herself washed the snake-charmer's hair over the sink.   this averted the need for the snake-charmer to get the hose out (regular readers will recall her affinity with water) as well as rendering her rather more fragrant.

anyway, some singing and playing and eating of chocolates went on for a while.  the blues are wonderful.  or possibly the blues is wonderful.  various songs were made up to fit the conversation.   the one thing that seemed not to lend itself to this treatment was the 'we've got problems with our boiler so we have to use the immersion heater' blues, which just would not scan.  but the 'i lost my snake once and was broken-hearted until i found her behind some furniture' blues were a great success.  

eventually the guests started to flag and the evening wound up.  herself looked around at the devastation and decided to leave it for the morning.   i tried to help during the night but drew rather more attention to my efforts than i planned when a plate took a tumble onto the kitchen floor.  unfortunately the one bit of clearing up herself had managed was to secrete the curries in the fridge.   mind you, last time i ate too much curry there was a rather unfortunate incident with a pale carpet and a large luminous yellow stain, so this may have been for the best.

and today we are off to a dog show!  i will not be able to enter the waggiest tail contest as my tail is too sore.   i am off to the evil vet tomorrow to have it seen to.  it has to be sorted out, if only for the sake of the paintwork...

snakes alive!

well readers, what can i say? yet again a hiatus in my musings, for which i can only apologise profusely. herself has been rushing about like a mad thing. the good news is that she now has 3 days a week at work which will help keep the wolf from the door on the financial front (to those readers who take things literally i should point out that this is a saying - there are no wolves where we live, at least i hope not...)

anyway, enough groveling. my news this week will more than make up for the silence. the peeps have made friends with a snake! this snake is called perky and is rather pretty, as you can see from the picture. perky the snake lives with the people who like swimming in ponds. more accurately, she belongs to the young lady pictured above, who, as regular readers will recall, wants to be an evil vet when she reaches adulthood. my lady friend and i were not invited, so i can only recount what i was told. it is probably as well that we did not go. my lady friend is of a somewhat nervous disposition. were she to be faced with a snake i fear she would throw her huge paws up in the air and cry "oh, lawdy joker, i do declare! it is a serpent! we are being judged!" or something equally foolish. myself, i am rather partial to any smallish creature between a couple of bits of nice brown bread. at least a lot of photographs were taken so we got to see what we had missed.

the peeps were treated to wonderful food. they are not an easy bunch to feed. herself likes everything except meat and vinegar. himself has a complicated diet on account of his dicky kidneys. he can only eat unhealthy things and a lot of meat. my boy tends to have one thing that he will eat for months and then suddenly go off with a loud cry of "but you know i hate noodles!", leaving a cupboard full of noodles, or whatever the foodstuff is. but the hosts had every possibility covered.

first, there were nibbles. perky the snake tried to stop anyone eating them:



but the peeps are not easily deterred. then there was a delicious starter of prawns and ham and things. herself has made a habit of having her prawns peeled for her. luckily himself is good at this task. it appeals to his tidy nature. soon himself had a pile of shells on his plate and herself was grinning like a cheshire cat. the man host caught on very quickly to herself's ruse.

"you are just being a helpless girlie about the prawns!" he said. it was obvious herself was bang to rights (a saying, dear readers. it means found out in a subterfuge, or possibly a whimsy). luckily himself took his prawn-peeling in good heart and peeled some more. meanwhile, perky the snake sat quietly, awaiting her moment.



then there were stews. one stew was squid and the other one lamb. both were, i hear, delicious. the young folks at this point got a bit bored with chatting. my boy invented a game which involved climbing a tree and getting the young host to pass up a number of housebricks which he arranged in a rather precarious structure. after being told to bring them back down again the young folks turned to a rather odd game which involved the young lady host standing with her eyes shut while my boy snuck up on her and poured water over her. in this photograph she is pouring water over herself. i suppose at least then she knew when it would happen.


i feel that the young lady host has a bit of a magnetism for water, what with the pond incident. later perky's husband, pinky, had to have his tea. i will not describe this in any detail, save to say that it was small and furry and frozen. herself did not look, but my boy found it very interesting. he is something of the ghoul.

later still my boy was treated to a show of the host's knife collection. my boy is very keen on weapons of all types. edible knives are even better:


there was even pudding - which i am told was strawberries and cream. eventually the peeps wended their way home, on account of it being work and school the following day. himself was less keen on wending than the other peeps on account of it being in the middle of the footie on the telly by the time they left - the man host is also a footie maniac.

my lady friend and i were very pleased to see them, so much so that my wayward tail managed to whack itself on the wall. this triggered the usual blood-letting that tails seem to go in for. the new kitchen floor, and a fair bit of the walls, took on an interesting polka dot appearance.
that will teach them to leave us at home when there are snakes to be chased...

a line from the author

dear readers, what can i say? i have been remiss in the extreme in my reports of life in our neck of the woods. some readers have asked me if mrs deb kidnapped me and whisked me off to the arctic wastes of canada.

but no, all it is, as usual, is my inability to get herself seated in front of the keyboard with her mind on the job. part of the problem is that she seems to be sleeping better. i used to collar her to do my typing for me in the small hours when she was up laptopping because she couldn't sleep. but now she seems to be able to sleep all night with hardly a break. i suppose this is a good thing from the point of view of her health but it is a tad inconvenient.

added to the sleeping thing we have had the builders in. our builders had pretty much rebuilt our old house and no doubt thought that was the last they would see of us. but no. herself was paid a sum of money when she left her old job. it is called redundancy money. it seems that herself's job was no longer needed. i don't know if this was because all the bad people had suddenly seen the light and stopped selling crack and beating each other up. somehow i doubt it. but anyway, herself had money in the bank for the first time in years. she had to open a savings account to put it in so it didn't disappear into the void of the household finances. but the redundancy money has been burning a hole in the savings account.

herself was determined to have something to show for all the grief and stress she had been through. so she decided to spend the redundancy money on work to the new house. undoubtedly some things needed doing. about a week after moving into the new house some rather spectacular mushrooms appeared on the back door. after examining them the peeps deemed them unfit to have on toast. the back door had to go.

and while they were at it the peeps decided to have some french windows (i understand these are more commonly known as fenetres) put in the living room too. french windows are a bit of an essential for our house. all of us like the great outdoors. the fact that we now have a small outdoors has not detered us. my lady friend and i have to answer the calls of nature on a regular basis, my boy has to pretend to shoot pretend soldiers behind the pond and herself is something of a fresh air fiend. himself, although not so perky at the moment, enjoys a little chat with the fish.

"the fish are looking hungry!" he will say, putting a pinch of fish food into the pond. it seems to me that fish have no choice but to look hungry. they have to have their mouths open in order to breathe, or burble, or however it is they stay alive.

i digress. the fenetres were to be fitted. and while the builders were at it, a deck was planned as well. and of course, the new back doors, also fenetres. and then while they were here they rather unsportingly built a wall to keep my lady friend and i in and the local felines out. as you might imagine this all caused a bit of chaos. here you can see me trying to get a bit of shut-eye amongst it all.


while they were here herself said she would design them a website. so we had our poor builders up to their eyes in cement discussing the finer points of hexadecimal colour values and cascading style sheets with herself. as you might imagine the laptop has been red hot, but not with my blog.

while the builders are here, herself is in the habit of getting them to do little jobs that she has made a mess of, or can't manage for one reason or another. one such was the washing line. the old washing line used to be fixed to the fence. once the pond was built it ceased to be such a clever idea. quite a bit of the washing would be dangling over the pond. given the peeps penchant for disaster it was only a matter of time before they were pulling goldfish out of wet duvet covers. once the fence came down and the wall went up it was the ideal opportunity to put up an alternative means of drying clothes. a rotary airer was purchased.

"i'll put that in for you," said mick the builder, "let me know where you want it to go."

herself disappeared into the shed to get the airer. after a bit of a struggle it was opened up so the extent of its arms could be assessed. something was amiss. the airer was only 4 feet tall.

"all the clothes will drag on the ground," pointed out my boy, ever the scientist.

"there's another bit that goes on the bottom," explained herself, disappearing into the shed again to search for it. after some time she came out. she was not holding the other bit. she looked a bit crestfallen.

"you know when i was digging that trench and putting the wire to the fountain into conduit to stop us digging through it?"

"yes," said himself, expectantly.

"you know i said how fortunate it was that the people before us had left a metal hoover tube in the shed?"

"yes", said himself, rather more resignedly, knowing, i think, where this was heading.

"well, it wasn't a hoover tube. it was the bottom of the line." herself giggled nervously. the aforementioned tube, along with various bits of hollow curtain pole and other makeshift conduit had been carefully laid under the paving slabs, all the way to the house.

" i can't believe i did that!" laughed herself.

"i can." said himself. martin the builder looked as though he was with himself on this one, having known herself for some time.

a search was undertaken for an alternative. fortunately the parasol pole was exactly the right diameter. however it had one flaw. here you can see himself holding the line with the parasol pole attached.

have any of my readers spotted the problem? if i were a proper blogger i would offer a prize to the first person to write in with the answer. but i will put you out of your misery. the problem is that herself would need a ladder to put the washing out. and she is scared of heights.

after a debate about whether to cut the parasol pole to size (the peeps decided against this on the basis that they would then have to eat with their chins on the table due to the extra low parasol), and whether the shop could be persuaded to give them a new tube (this would have required a certain amount of subterfuge as to the whereabouts of the old tube so herself vetoed the plan) the airer was put away and the wet clothes were hung around on racks.

the following day, mick the builder returned to finish a few bits and bobs. being a nice builder he took pity on the peeps' predicament and fashioned a pole from the handle of his broom. so now the washing can flap in the breeze as nature intended.

and as for my blog, i now hope normal service will be resumed. herself has asked me to convey to my loyal readers her apologies for being such a poor secretary for me. i have told her in no uncertain terms that i will have to recruit someone else for the post if she carries on in this vein. watch this space...

a visitor from other shores...

dear readers, yesterday was a day of great portent. that is to say it was a very importent day. my lady friend and i, and of necessity herself, on account of us needing a driver, met mrs deb! herself has been corresponding with mrs deb for some time. she reads mrs deb's blog avidly, and unlike most other blogs, sometimes goes back and reads it again. so the meeting with mrs deb was eagerly awaited.

we did not get off to that good a start on the navigation front. herself is in the habit of driving to a place near to where she is aiming to end up and then phoning the person to ask to be talked in, rather like a pilot on a runway. this strategy is bound to fail when the person concerned comes from another country and therefore does not actually know where they are, other than that there are a lot of trees. not that herself actually managed to phone mrs deb. so we used google maps on herself's phone. this is a neat little program developed by a colleague of the extreme programmer which has tiny maps and even gives you directions. the downside is that if you need glasses to see your phone and they are not glasses you can drive in you will come unstuck unless you have a passenger to call out where to turn. while my lady friend and i were only too happy to assist, our paws just will not work the keypad.

so we ended up quite some way from our destination. but eventually we found mrs deb. she was walking up the road near the cottage where she and her mum are staying. herself did a double take and jammed on the brakes.

"are you deb?" she asked, hoping that she was right. a wild lady leaping out of a car containing two lurchers on a country road and accosting a passer-by might be cause for concern.

"yes!" replied the wonderful mrs deb. my lady friend and i took to her at once. she has lovely twinkly eyes and a smile that would melt the heart of anyone. here is a picture of her.



herself threw her arms around mrs deb for a hug. in my book this is a risky strategy. if you tried it with my lady friend you would get bitten. but mrs deb has much better manners and returned the hug. we went back to the house where mrs deb and her mum are staying and had a bowl of water and then headed off for an outing.

first stop was a place called battle. it is called battle because it is the site of a battle. luckily this happened some time ago so there were no dead bodies lying around. the plan was to visit an exhibition of photos including some by an internet friend of herselfs called loo. or maybe lou. we wandered along to the place where this was to happen. there did not seem to be anyone around so we went on up to the gallery. my lady friend has a little trouble with stairs and the stairs in question were made of wood. we must have sounded like a herd of elephants. the door was locked so herself and mrs deb decided to go for a coffee until it opened. the coffee turned into a little snack but eventually my lady friend and i were put in the car.

as herself and mrs deb headed off to the gallery, herself had a rare moment of common sense and decided to look at the leaflet. lo, the exhibition was open from tuesday to saturday. unfortunately our visit was on a monday. this is just so like herself. she has had the leaflet for weeks but had failed to read the crucial bit about when they might actually be able to get in.

after a swift tour of the sights of battle the ladies decided to take my lady friend and i for a walk on the beach. unfortunately they first had to get out of the car park. to get the barrier to lift you had to put money into a machine. the machine did not like herself's money. it spat out every coin several times. not to be deterred herself delivered a sound clout in a strategic spot on its front whereupon the barrier lifted obligingly. a passing old lady looked admiringly at herself and her magic fist.

eventually we found ourselves in a place called bexhill. we have been there before as the peeps are in the habit of going round a thing called the ickbillion. this was named by my boy and is a large white building where dogs are not allowed. mrs deb and herself went inside for a cup of hot chocolate. it seems that mrs deb is very similar to herself in her ability to provide blog-fodder at the drop of a hat. the ladies were sitting chatting over their hot chocolate. mrs deb was so engrossed that she failed to notice that she was carefully pouring her hot chocolate all over the table. herself did a bit of mopping up before whipping out the camera, all the while hooting with laughter.

then my lady friend and i were collected from the car and we wandered down to the beach. unfortunately bexhill had got wind of the visit and signs were strategically placed along the seafront, informing us that dogs were not allowed on the beach. it seems this included inflatable dogs.


so we watched while mrs deb had a wander on the stones. then the time came to navigate our way back to where mrs deb was staying. herself instructed mrs deb in the use of the map thing on the phone. it turned out not to be much help as you have to watch it carefully and the ladies were too busy chatting about interesting things like handcuffs. however, eventually we arrived at our destination. mrs deb was dropped off with more hugs.

then it was time to go and fetch my boy. herself told him all about her day and about how much she had liked mrs deb. my boy told her about his day at school. the conversation turned to the time when he had let slip in a spelling test that he had been watching a programme on telly where a person had a nine inch nail bashed through their head (this was in the middle of a spelling test where the children had to think of words which rhymed with snail). herself reminded him yet again that some subjects of conversation were not appropriate for school and that the teachers would think he had neglectful parents and might report them to the authorities.

"well they know i come from a good family so they can just piss off!" said my boy, demonstrating just how well brought up he is.

"are we a good family?" asked herself.

"yes, we're a pretty dysfunctional family, but in a good way." said my boy, emphatically. i suppose this is some sort of a compliment.

when we got home my boy looked at the pictures.

"she does have a lovely face!" he said of mrs deb, "what's her voice like?"

"a sort of soft canadian accent," said herself.

"does she say 'sockerrrrr' for football?"

"funnily enough, we didn't talk about football once," said herself, "we had much more important things to talk about, like blogs and life and stuff."

a saw point

dear readers, in the midst of all the chaos last night herself was hatching a plan. it involved a table. at our old house we had a large porch. in it was a large table. it had originally been a dining table but herself had cut the legs off it to make a coffee table. or more accurately a table for playing chess and monopoly on and for passing children to sit on the floor and draw at. when the legs had come off himself had been rather scathing and done impressions of a table rocking. but herself used the tape measure and amazingly all the legs were cut off at the same length.

anyway, the new house is a little smaller. a spot was found for the table but it has to be said it was not quite right. when the guests came yesterday the coffee table was brought out. the only trouble was it made it impossible for those of us of a furry persuasion to negotiate the living room. my lady friend found this especially difficult due to her poor reversing skills. i could see herself coming up with a devilish plan even as the dripping guests ate their cheese and biscuits.

no sooner had himself left for the footie than the saw came out. my boy is desperate to earn money to buy some bit of gadgetry so he was instructed to take the table to pieces. then herself set to work with the electric saw, cutting the various bits to size. the table is made of bits of wood glued together and is very hard to saw. herself gave up from one end and started on the other end. as you will see from the photo the ends did not meet up. they can build a tunnel under the english channel and get the ends to meet up but herself managed to arrived at entirely different places over a 3 foot span.

my boy was called. he does a subject called dt at school. this involves sawing, among other things. he set to in the way that only a true adhd person can and within a very short time had evened things out. he then sandpapered the rather wobbly edge until you would not have spotted the wobble unless you were a really picky person. herself then re-assembled the table.

when himself got home my boy and herself were lolling around nonchalantly.

"what have you been up to?" asked himself.

"just chilling out," replied herself, waiting for him to notice the vastly reduced table. quite a long conversation ensued before himself did a double take at the table.

it has to be said that it is reminiscent of the time he went to football when herself couldn't walk and came back to find she had pulled out the whole kitchen ready for the new one...

a big splash

last night the peeps had some friends round for a meal. preparations began with the purchase of a large salmon. poached salmon is one of herself's signature dishes. although given the carnage in the kitchen when herself is let loose it should perhaps be called a graffiti dish. wine was chilled and vegetables washed. himself made some very tasty-looking nibbles for starters. it was a very hot day and having the oven on did nothing for the ambient temperature but i had to station myself in front of the cooker in case of falling morsels.

at four the guests arrived. the man guest works with himself and is a bit of a cook by all accounts. the lady guest works with impatient babies. my boy was an impatient baby. babies are supposed to live in their cosy wombs for 9 months. my boy, in line with family tradition, does not do waiting. he put in an appearance 5 weeks early. it seems this level of impatience in a baby is not unique. the lady guest is in charge of keeping the impatient babies healthy in hospital until they are ready to go home. there was also a young lady guest who wants to be an evil vet when she grows up.

everything got off to a good start. the peeps and the guests sat by the pond, sipping fizzy wine and eating the little nibbles. then everyone went inside for the big fish. it is always interesting to hear herself dishing up a meal. she is full of reasons why the potatoes still have the skin on, why the carrots aren't chopped up, why the strawberries have their leaves on. herself tries to pass this off as in the interests of retaining flavour or some such nonsense. everyone knows it is because she has more interesting things to do than peeling and chopping things.

the evening wore on. much wine was taken. as darkness fell the peeps and the guests went to sit in the garden again. the lady guest sat on the side of the pond, saying how relaxing the fountain sounded. the peeps told the story of the time the pond caught fire. you would think this cautionary tale would have made the guests think twice about being in the same place as a pond and the peeps. but no. they simply laughed and carried on regardless.

at this point proceedings began to unravel. the girl guest came to her mother for a cuddle. nothing wrong with a cuddle in my book. as regular readers will know, i am something of a cuddle-monster myself. but the cuddlee approaching at speed when the cuddler is balanced somewhat precariously on the edge of a pond is not to be recommended. both female guests toppled backwards into the pond with a very loud splash.

when the remaining peeps had composed themselves enough to stand up they hauled the dripping lady guests out and stood them by the pond. both lady guests were drenched. i have no idea what our neighbours made of the hoots of laughter emanating from our garden at such a late hour.

herself took the lady guests up to the bathroom and furnished them with towels and fresh clothes. herself is a fan of large pants, a la bridget jones. in the film ms jones had big pants in order to tame her tummy region. herself tried out some of these tummy-taming pants once but pronounced them far too dominatrix for her liking. so her big pants are just big, rather than controlling. the girl guest was happy to wear a pair of these, although she had to turn the top down to see out. but the lady guest fell about laughing and opted for the t-shirt which said 'i'm blogging this' and some stretchy black trousers, leaving out any lingerie.

after this the peeps decided it was safer to sit inside. cheese and biscuits were brought out and things settled down again. eventually himself began to snore quietly on the sofa, as is his wont, and proceedings came to a close. the guests left and herself and my boy went up to bed, leaving the dishes for the morning. my lady friend and i did the canine pre-wash as best we could and turned in at just past midnight.

this morning my boy and herself were discussing what a hilarious evening it had been.

"did you take a picture of them in the pond?" asked my boy.

"no, i thought it would be a little tactless to leave them there with their feet sticking up and their knickers showing while i ran indoors for the camera!"

"you could have taken one in the bathroom of them soaking wet," said my boy.

"but they were both stark naked!" explained herself. it had not occurred to my boy that people might perhaps feel slightly disconcerted at having pictures of themselves in the altogether plastered around the internet. sometimes he forgets how just how worldwide my readership is...

keeping abreast of things

dear readers, her maamship is down for the weekend. a visit from her maamship often involves an adventure. this visit was no exception. herself has decided it is time she got a bra. a bra is a sort of bosom-bag. this sudden development is because herself has a new job where people dress smartly. while it is not obvious that her ladies prefer to go au natural when wearing a t-shirt which has 'i'm blogging this' written across the relevant area, it is all too obvious in a proper office-type top.

herself last wore a bra on a regular basis when she was a teenager. being a careless sort, she lost the habit fairly quickly. apart from a brief and unsuccessful foray into lingerie in honour of a formal dinner at which she had to wear a strapless dress (dear readers, pinning your strapless dress to your strapless bra will not hold up the dress. it will merely pull down the bra too. as herself found to her cost. she had to eat the posh meal with her elbows clamped to her sides to prevent the ladies falling into the soup...) herself has shunned the brassiere for several decades.

her maamship, however, is an experienced bra-wearer.

"we need to go to marks and spencers," she said, "they have a measuring service there." herself went pale.

"you mean i will have to be measured?" she squeaked.

"well you have probably grown a bit since you last had a bra," said her maamship, firmly. this is undoubtedly true. herself confirmed that her last bra had been a 28 double a. the 28 is how far round it is under the ladies, and by way of some complicated mathematical formula the double a is how big the ladies are.

preparations were made and her maamship and herself headed off in the tt. i was not allowed to go. nor was my boy. in my case it was because they do not allow lurchers, or indeed any dogs, into marks and spencers. in my boy's case it was because he is developing a fascination with breasts. it was felt that this would not be conducive to bra-purchasing as he would almost certainly be taking photographs on his phone of the other shoppers as they tried on bras, or of the life-size dummies wearing bras which are apparently scattered around the lingerie department. he has a photograph of a lady with improbably large breasts as the background on his phone which he snapped from page 3 of his taxi-driver's newspaper.

as it turned out we found out in all too much detail about the bra-buying adventure. it would appear that herself and her maamship caused a bit of a stir. herself started to panic at the sight of the lingerie department. there were acres of bras to choose from. there were bras with little signs on which said 'feel me'. her maamship had to explain that these peeled off before you wore the bra and were not an invitation to local weirdos to have a grope. eventually they found a measuring lady. herself was taken into a cubicle.

"strip down to your bra," said the measuring lady. herself went clammy.

"er, i don't actually have a bra," muttered herself, "can you measure me round my t-shirt?"

"what size do you normally take?" asked the measuring lady.

"i don't know," said herself, curling into an embarrassed ball, "i haven't worn a bra for at least 20 years." eventually the lady ascertained what size herself was and brought a selection of bras for her to try. she plumped for a black one. this is because she never buys any clothing that isn't black.

after paying for the bra herself and her maamship made a swift exit. herself confirmed that this was the most stressful thing she had done in years. given how stressful life has been lately this is saying something. her maamship had to lower the roof on the tt for the drive home to allow herself to cool down. when they got home there were friends visiting so we got the full story in glowing detail. my boy ran off upstairs shrieking that herself was creeping him out.

"but lots of mums have bras," she called after his departing form. this did not stop him from saying that his mum was a flasher for the rest of the day. a hint of double standards, i felt, given his newfound hobby.

later on herself took me and my lady friend for a walk along the river. as we rounded a bend a group of walkers came into view. every single one of them was wearing a t-shirt with a pink bra over the top. as we drew closer it became clear that the t-shirts in fact had pictures of pink bras on them. it seems the walkers were raising money for breast cancer research. herself felt somewhat chastened. while the ladies may not like being incarcerated in their bra when herself goes to work, at least they are healthy. as my lady friend can confirm, not everyone is so lucky.

bombs away!

this post is a little out of sync, dear readers. in my excitement to tell you about the cupboard i failed to tell you about the trip to the dump. i will have to keep this fairly short as herself is suffering a bit with her car-pull tunnel wrists. nothing to do with laying paving slabs of course. she has finally given up attempting to beat the wrists and is trying to get the wrist-mending op done before himself's transplant. this is because she can't drive for any length of time without her hands going numb and the op will happen in london, a 2 hour drive away.

anyway, back to the matter in hand, as it were. on saturday morning, the diy god needed wood to line the cupboard. as the diy superstore is next door to the dump, herself decided to kill 2 birds with one stone(relax dear readers, its a saying) and loaded up the trailer with a pile of things that have been ejected from the garden. the gypsy, the diy god and herself negotiated the narrow streets fairly successfully and arrived at the dump. at the gate was a policeman. the dump was closed. you could tell because the gates were shut.

"sorry, but the dump is closed," said the policeman, stating the obvious, as only policemen can (apologies to sgt goose, who i know will understand), "someone appears to have inadvertantly thrown away a hand grenade."

"how careless!" said herself, laughing, all the while thanking life for throwing up constant blog-fodder, "why you would have a hand grenade in the first place is puzzling, but how you could throw away your hand grenade by mistake is even more puzzling."

"you couldn't make it up," said the policeman, who obviously draws inspiration for his lines from inspector gadget's blog.

later that day the peeps were out in the town when two bomb disposal vehicles roared by, nee-naws blaring. it seems the policeman had indeed not been making it up...

neighbours

last night we had our new neighbours round. they are very nice people. they have a little dog called ruby and some children too. there is a girl who is 10 (the same age as me!) and a boy who is 13 - the same age as my boy. ruby is four months old and a bit of a live wire. as a precaution my lady friend had her face basket fitted before the neighbours arrived and i have to say this was a sound move. young ruby went round the room at breakneck speed, pausing only to sit on himself's shoulder like a parrot. glasses of wine splashed everywhere. luckily this was white wine. red wine would have been a problem for the pale carpets. eventually young ruby was taken home to practice her yoga so the peeps and the neighbours could get to know each other.

i do love a pup. they have such a zest for life. i have missed young rokit. i was looking forward to living over the road to him but he has moved to london to live with a greyhound called roland. this is because his peeps are having to move house. they say that this is nothing to do with us moving in over the road. i hope this is true. i know the peeps can be a bit eccentric but their hearts are in the right place.

anyway, back to the neighbours. their boy is mad into computer games too so he and my boy had a whale of a time changing the course of history with their battles. their girl was worried that young ruby would be lonely so she went home with her to watch recordings of crufts, which apparently young ruby likes. i can only assume that she is a little calmer at home as watching tv whilst roaring round the room at 90 mph would be dizzy-making.

the grown-up neighbours are just the right neighbours for the peeps. mr neighbour makes beautiful things with inlayed shells in a shed at the end of the garden. i suppose that it would not work too well trying to do delicate work in the house, what with ruby and all. he also plays the guitar rather well, with a nice bluesy style. mrs neighbour is just finishing her training as a hair slayer. they seemed to get on like a house on fire (relax readers, just a saying!) with the peeps.

you will notice that i have not put a photo of young ruby at the top of this post. she would not sit still long enough...

cupboard love

the peeps are chuffed to bits - they have somewhere to keep their clothes! the gypsy, her husband the diy god and her son the miracle boy came to visit and left in their wake a wonderful cupboard! more accurately the diy god made the cupboard, whilst herself and the gypsy alternated between planting things in the garden and chatting over cups of tea. the miracle boy and my boy spent many happy hours playing on the computer, my boy discovering new and ever more gory methods of slaughtering digital people and the miracle boy looking up christmas tunes on youtube.

the miracle boy is so called for good reason. he was the first baby herself ever held. he has had a special place in her heart ever since. he has been decidedly unlucky on the medical front and has had more operations than are good for a person, leaving him covered in scars like train tracks. at one point his back had curved so much he was losing the use of his arms and legs and he had to have a metal back brace put in his spine. it looked like he might not walk or even play with his trains ever again. but the miracle boy's spirit was not to be crushed and on the day the gypsy and the diy god got married he twirled herself round on the dancefloor like a true professional, making her glow with pride.

anyway, back to the cupboard. the peeps did not have anywhere to keep their clothes in the new house. herself put up a rail for the hanging up sort of clothes which, while not entirely straight, is not so sloping that things slide down to one end. but the folding clothes have been in plastic boxes since the peeps moved in. the peeps have never been particularly adventurous dressers, but being unable to find anything has moved their sartorial conservatism to new heights. or perhaps depths.

in their bedroom is a cupboard. before it received the attentions of the diy god it was a sad affair, with crumbling walls and no shelves. but the diy god put and end to its misery. during the course of the afternoon my lady friend and i kept an eye on proceedings. my lady friend does not have a very effective reverse gear and can only move forwards, so it was a risky business for her to go into a room with a floor full of tools. each time we popped in for a gander she had to embark on a 37 point turn to get out again. but we lurchers take our duties seriously, and the diy god needed cheering on as he sawed and hammered.

and now the cupboard is a thing of beauty! it is lined with pine and has wonderful slatted shelves. no sooner had the diy god put away his drill than herself was playing with the new cupboard, putting things on the shelves and sniffing the wood. so we can now look forward to more varied messages on the t-shirts. as well as 'i'm blogging this' we may also see 'i never finish anyth'. thank goodness she didn't attempt to sort out the cupboard...