Wallah - M.I.A.

Have you seen this Wallah?

Something horrible has happened. Wallah has gone missing. He was there when Ellie went into surgery on Wednesday and was not there when she got out. Some of us are a bit suspicious about what actually happened to him and suspect that Pamela, Kai, Bernadine or some other finger stabbing, Wiggle fitting nurse has kidnapped him! We are managing to cope with only Zoinder the horse, Shona the Giraffe and the other 400 cuddly toys on the bed for company but it's a sair fecht.

Wallah has been with the family for a couple of years. He was a present from Jo's boss Steven and has been a much loved friend ever since. He's been through a lot with Ellie and frankly looked and smelled like it. Any replacement is going to have to be dragged along behind the car for a few miles, smeared in equal parts with marmite, hospital hand antiseptic, snot and guinea pig pee then licked clean by a Jack Russell just to become even halfway as individually aromatic as Wallah.

However, if perchance it was another small sick child who found Wallah and thought he looked like a good friend and excellent cuddling companion then please - keep him. If he brings you as much comfort as he brought Ellie in the dark days and scary nights then he is in the right place - maybe it was just time for him to move on?

Wallah, Ellie and Steve

Three Word Wednesday

Out on an icy Boxing Day walk through the woods with Holly (age 10 at the time) and Hannah (age 8) I thought it would be a good time to give my counselling skills a bit of an outing and find out how they were coping with their little sister's illness, impending teenageness, and life in generalness. "Fine." said Hannah and skipped off into the distance to look for interesting things to look at under her magnifying glass. "Oh, Okay." sighed Holly. This was a bit more promising! I put my arm around her as we walked and spoke wisely and empathetically of how difficult it could be when you weren't sure about things and sometimes it might be that it wasn't something you wanted to speak to your Mummy and Daddy about but if she had anything she wanted to talk about, she could talk to me and I would try and help her. It was a beautiful aunt/niece moment (well I was moved anyway). As she shuffled through the fallen leaves and I gently asked her "Is there anything you're worried about or want to ask me about just now darling?" there was a pause, then "As a matter of fact Aunty Les, there is something I've been wondering about..." Yes! I braced myself as she gathered her train of thought "... what is an Endowment Mortgage Shortfall?"

What?!?

Those children watch far too much daytime TV.

Three Word Wednesday

In response to this week's prompt - phone, stumbled, windy

Quiz for small children

1. You are sitting quietly watching Scooby Doo (again) and playing in an imaginative and creative way with your (naked) action figures whilst Mummy is hosing the kitchen down after breakfast. The phone rings, do you

(a) Answer it and make unintelligible conversation about having jam with your cheese string for breakfast whilst your aunt on the other end of the line progresses from "Hello darling, what a clever girl answering the phone, can I speak to Mummy?" to shrieking "LET ME SPEAK TO YOUR BLOODY MOTHER NOW!!!!" at the top of her voice in the hope that Mummy will hear and come and rescue her.
(b) Ignore the phone until Mummy answers it then interrupt the conversation every 30 seconds with demands for juice; Mummy to play Nintendogs with you; loud singing etc - until Mummy cracks and says that she will call the caller back and hangs up. Immediately start ignoring Mummy and resume Scooby Doo watching.
(c) Call "Mummy! The telephone is ringing, shall I bring it you?" and then sit quietly whilst Mummy has a lovely long chat.

2. It is the middle of the night and, after falling asleep at 6pm in spite of the cold wet facecloth treatment you got, you wake up. Do you:
(a) Get up and amble through to see Mummy and Daddy who are, shockingly, still sound asleep. Use your pointy little fingers to pry open Mummy or Daddy's eyelids and enquire if you can watch Scooby Doo now and while she's at it you wouldn't mind a cup of tea.
(b) Get out of bed and sprinkle a few bits of Lego and some Scooby Doo action figures around the floor of your previously tidy bedroom, move the toy box slightly so that it is now directly in a line from the door then shout "MUMMY!! I AM GOING TO BE VERY, VERY SICK RIGHT NOW!!". Wait until your mother has stumbled in through your bedroom door clutching your father's right shoe as an improvised sick bowl, stubbed her toe on the toy box and then hopped painfully on the Lego/action figure minefield, then tell her that you've changed your mind.
(c) Think "gosh, the stars are still studding the sky and the moon is still out - it must still be night time I think I'll go back to sleep so I wake refreshed and happy."

3. You are utterly at home on either potty or toilet seat these days but miss the drama and excitement of the first few heady days of grasping the whole going to the toilet malarkey. Today you are flower girl at the wedding of one of Mummy's pals. Do you:
(a) Announce loudly "I NEED A BIG JOBBIE!" then spend at least 15 minutes clutching yourself and hopping from foot to foot whilst you choose which of your many new friends will take you to the toilet.
(b) Go to the toilet with Mummy without putting up much of a fight then, while she is taking her turn, go from cubicle to cubicle peering underneath the door and having a bit of a chat with the occupants. On reemerging from the toilets to the wedding reception point to the immaculate and gracious mother of the bride and ask Mummy "Aye sure that's the lady who did really loud windy pops in the toilet Mummy eh?". Admire the way the lady's face turns a lovely pink colour.
(c) Quietly draw Mummy aside and ask if she will accompany you to the toilet, where you quietly and efficiently go about your business, so to speak.

Three Word Wednesday

My First ever TWW! I'm working up to something spanky!

A Cutting Reply

“Take care, my boy – expect the unexpected and keep your powder dry,” the barber
quipped and clipped and snipped.
Gaily the young man tossed his glossy mane of tousled locks
and laughed
“A little something for the weekend perhaps?” and kissed the barber’s lips.

Clothes made out of old curtains. Don't do it.

Scarlett O'Hara in her Curtains (I know it's a cookie jar, just use your imagination for goodness sake)

There are some people who can successfully wear clothes which once hung at a window. Actually - no, there aren't. There's Scarlett O'Hara and even she looks a bit ropey. One has the impression that her dress may smell of cheroots and whisky (I think they look like old pub curtains frankly) and may perhaps not be as fresh as one might like if one was hoping to meet one's fancy man.

Then there are the Von Trapp family. It doesn't surprise me one little bit that after a couple of minutes eyeing up the heavy brocade Maria whips up some nifty outfits for the kids - I know they were Austrian not German but it must be something about that neck of the woods. I lived in Germany for a while and if there's one thing I can say about German Fashion it is that no curtain is safe. There were times when I would catch my german assistant casting a speculative glance over the window dressing in our office, I would make her chant "Curtains are not clothes!" until the moment passed and she felt better.

German fashion - note the curtains just torn down from the pelmets and tossed casually over the shoulders.

Recently my sister Jo and Ellie, her 4 year old, went shopping in Asda. Ellie had dressed herself and was wearing her Fifi Flowertots swimsuit, some stripey socks belonging to her older sister, a pink fairy skirt and her mother's high heeled boots. It was a statement outfit. I'm not 100% sure that kind of statement should be allowed in supermarkets but it kept her 'roid rage at bay. I'm telling you this not because curtains were involved but to point out the difference in our childhoods - I was 15 before I was allowed to decide what to wear. My grandmother, Jessie, was a proficient seamstress but she had rubbish patterns. And taste. She would make me trousers that if you pulled them up so the crotch was somewhere near yours the waistband would chafe your armpits and the draught would whistle round your ankles. Put the waistband round your waist and the seam of the crotch would catch on your wellies. You get the idea. What she made however was not as bad as what she made them from. As well as recycling curtains she had special sources for other upholstery fabrics. Gill and I had hot pants made out of Pink and Lime Green Checked coarse tweed (Try having those seams on tender inner thighs; we walked funny for weeks). Then there were the Burgundy Corduroy Kick Flares (bus seats in a former life I think) that had purple flocked insets (possibly wallpaper at one time - who knows). You don't want to know what we had to put up with when she got an entire bolt of industrial super tough denim but I probably don't need to tell you that you could spot Gill and me from 3 miles away just by the way our arms stuck out at right angles from our sides.

None of these were anywhere near as bad as The Beach Dresses...

• They were made from yellow towelling. Fine.
• They were made from yellow towelling curtains. Not so fine.
• They were made from yellow towelling curtains that had once hung in the kitchen and were patterned with teapots and onions. ALL KINDS OF WRONG!!! They were beach dresses for heavens sake! You don't have onions and teapots on the beach! You have buckets and spades and other cute things - not vegetables and crockery.

And my mother made me wear it... what was she thinking of?!! Certainly not how scarred my 8 year psyche would be by the experience! I go all twitchy at the mere sight of an onion and as for teapots, suffice it to say I'm a coffee kind of person really.
Ellie has no idea how lucky she is but Jo has taken care to pick nice tasteful curtains for her house - just in case!

Aunty Molly

I was looking for the recipe for something the other day (Baked Egg Custard – was obviously feeling in need of comfort) and I came across a recipe for Spicy Peanut Liver (gagging noises here). The recipe book is The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. It’s generally an excellent cookbook but it does have the odd foray into slightly strange combinations which made me think of the Seventies when we Brits really began to get into experimenting with flavours and textures in food. No one was keener on experimenting with flavours and textures in food than my Great Aunt Molly. Can any of us forget the Salted peanuts in Raspberry jelly combo, or the Raisins in the Fish Pie? How about that timeless concoction “Cornflakes in Treacle Toffee”. You could always wash it down with a glass or two of “Pitbauchlie Special”, a blend of dusty orange squash and flat lemonade. Most memorable was the Mackerel, Egg and Spaghetti mash which prompted Uncle David to look at his plate and ask “Is this something we’re about to eat or something we already ate?”

It wasn’t only food that she mangled. G.A. Molly was someone who could just never leave well enough alone. Nice simple frock? Let’s add 4 yards of rickrack and perhaps some sequins. She was well ahead of her time with activities such as decorative paint finishes, or at least drawing twiddly bits on things that really just did not need twiddly things, light switches for example. She was very inventive in her problem solving. When she found her face was becoming spattered with cast off when creosoting her garage (the word slap-dash was invented for her painting technique) she solved the problem by wearing a pair of tights …on her head - one leg left dangling so she looked a bit like Isadora Duncan about to rob a bank.

Molly and her ex-naval husband, Frank, never had children and after he died there was no one to keep her eccentricities in check. Most of the time they were small idiosyncrasies – turning up at Susan and Tom’s wedding wearing a woolly bobble hat with a rose pinned to it with her Berketex suit; taking directions literally when you said “Go straight on at the Roundabout” and leaving tyre tracks across the municipal flowerbeds as a result. Would it surprise you to learn that she drove a Morris Minor with a split windscreen and sticky out indicators? Didn’t think it would. Of course, being Molly she had done a bit of improvement on it but using house gloss paint to do it, creating a subtle and intriguing effect not dissimilar to a crackle glaze. She was only trying to cover up the dunt in it that had left some of the paint flaking.

She wasn't actually barking mad - just potty and what concerns me most of all is that occasionally, usually when I find myself thinking about adding some tassels and beads to an unadorned jumper, I am struck with the realisation that I have some of her genes in me. As Jo said when I mentioned it "For god's sake - give them back!"

Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Look after your breasts & have that Mammogram!

Someone sent me this and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it!

MAMMOGRAMS

Many women are afraid of their first mammogram, but there is no need to worry. By taking a few minutes each day for a week preceding the exam and doing the following exercises, you will be totally prepared for the test and best of all, you can do these simple exercises in and around your home.

EXERCISE ONE

Open your refrigerator door and insert one breast in door. Shut the door as hard as possible and lean on the door for good measure. Hold that position for five seconds. Repeat again in case the first time wasn't effective enough.

EXERCISE TWO

Visit your garage at 3 am when the temperature of the cement floor is just perfect. Take off all your clothes and lie comfortably on the floor with one breast wedged under the rear tyre of the car. Ask a friend to slowly back the car up until your breast is sufficiently flattened and chilled. Turn over and repeat with the other breast.

EXERCISE THREE

Freeze two metal bookends overnight. Strip to the waist. Invite a stranger into the room. Press the book-ends against your breasts. Smash the book-ends together as hard as you can. Set up an appointment with the stranger to meet next year and do it again.You are now totally prepared.

Send this to all women to have a laugh AND, don't forget to have a mammogram!

First Job, Worst Job, Dream Job

My first job was working as a "Saturday girl" in Boots the Chemist. I worked on the chemist counter and had to wear a white overall with attractive flowery bits on it, which only slightly detracted from the I'm-a-person-you-can-trust-with-your-embarrassing-symptoms look we were all aiming for. It was a lie. Each Saturday Ronnie and I would choose a product, usually something that smelt really bad or turned your skin a funny colour, with the aim of selling as many as possible that day. The winner got nothing except the satisfaction of knowing that somewhere somebody was rubbing their chest with haemorrhoid cream. Old people were the easiest to convince - anything that smelt that bad has to do you good! My favourite selling technique was to let them sniff the embrocation or linctus - one whiff would have them choking and gagging "Aye hen, that's guid and strong - gies twa of they wans."

Condoms were an endless source of entertainment. This was in the days before condoms were on public view and so anyone who wanted them had to ask for them. I had some very bizarre conversations, usually held in a whisper, as a result. There were requests for Aspirin accompanied by a lot of nodding and twitchy winking. I liked to torture these people (invariably men) by asking if they wanted them soluble etc. My favourite condom customer though was a slightly scatty looking woman I remember asking me "How much is it for a pack of 3 durex?" "39p madam" I replied perkily

"Acht, I'll just have a Caramac instead..."

I was 15. I thought that there was some fail safe way of using a Caramac as a contraceptive. Luckily I didn't try it out.

My worst job was working in a vegetable packing factory. In winter. Night shift. I had to watch Brussels sprouts going past on a conveyor belt and pick out the mushy ones. There were 4 of us and we were all students working in the holidays. We used to play eye-spy (Something beginning with B.S.!) and take the mickey out of the full time workers and their enthusiasm for the veg they happened to be packing. No wonder they hated us. I used to wear so many clothes I couldn't get my arms down to my sides but it didn't help, I was still freezing. Not only that but I smelt of Brussels Sprouts.

My dream job is to do something that made everyone I came into contact with have a better day, some extra joy in their life. Maybe to be the person who hands over the winners lottery cheque? That has the benefit of being very part time and I could carry on with my faffing around with other stuff for the rest of the time! Actually - thinking about it my new job as a Civil Ceremonies Celebrant has all the hallmarks of being a fab day out as well as a way to earn a crust!