Betty's Bag is Angie's Bag!

Have no idea what's happening at Wimbledon, too busy recovering from my stint in hospital.
Good news on the birthday front though, was given a fabulous designer handbag, a Betty Jackson beauty now sits upon my dressing table. I wonder if it'll be lucky...

On other fronts, looks like being a corker weather wise, sunshine set to continue, at least until Wednesday, then expecting a downpour.
Made a glorious choccie cake yesterday, it's glossy and moist and just what a middle aged woman needs as she stares down at her streaky brown legs.

Have a million things to do this morning, but I expect I'll only manage one or two.

Vicky With Attitude

I do not like television cooks, particularly the loud ghastly show-offy type ones like Ramsay.
I used to like Delia Smith, got most of her books, but I think she's gone a bit bonkers.
There are so many cooks/chefs on tv now that I can't bear to watch any of them, except the divine Nigel Slater. His programme currently showing on BBC2, where he talks with actors and people like that about their food memories, is an oasis of sweetness in the violent troubled desert of tv cooking shows. As a presenter he's my dream. I recently bought a book of his, 'Real Fast Food'. I read it like it held the secret to life itself. An excellent writer and he even wears nice glasses. What is it about me and men with glasses?

But I digress.
I'm talking about tv cooks/chefs not my sexual fantasies.
My earliest memory of food on tv is, I think, 'The Galloping Gourmet', he gave me the creeps, he was a bit of a ladies man I think, the way he used to salivate over a plate of goulash made me glurk.
In the eighties I enjoyed watching Keith Floyd as he slurped his wine and threw prawns in woks and things, he was a delight.
I think cooking should be fun as well as practical, we have to gobble otherwise we'd get all skinny and die, but the preparation and cooking of our dinners and late night feasts should be a performance. And I can often be seen dancing as I bake yet another cake. I WAS NOT dancing when I made the above cake however, because it is a serious cake. The topping is my own recipe. Anyone who wants the recipe can have it, just ask.
I really must dash but before I do...


Here's a list of my favourite cook/writers.Past and Present. And why.
Delia (with reservations, she was my favourite for like years and years and her Minestrone Soup was the first soup I made, but I'm not sure about her now because she advocates the use of Frozen Mash)
Mary Berry (Straightforward, no nonsense chef, ALL my favourite cake recipes are hers.
Madhur Jaffrey (My first Indian recipe book and I discovered Sookhe Aloo)
Cas Clarke (Not on tv, but a good all round writer of recipes who I rely on constantly)
Nigel Slater (For his fabulous simple recipes and the poetic way he writes about sausages.

The picture above is my version of a simple Victoria Sponge, but with attitude. The creamy yet crunchy coconut topping is my own recipe.
Thank You.

An English Woman's Tuesday

Today.
It's warm and sunny, bits of cloud up there, nothing too threatening though.
Hope it stays dry for Royal Ascot. Looking forward to seeing what the Queen is wearing. Looking forward to cheering home dad's horses. Just looking forward to seeing something very English.

On the work front.
The staking of tomato plants.
The making of a dozen Lemon and Poppy Seed Muffins for freezer.
The making of a Beef and Vegetable Pie for tomorrow.
The re-arranging of ceramic birds bought yesterday.

And in between the Queen, the gee gees, the grub making and other gentle woman's activities, there'll be several pots of tea made in my newest tea pot.

Late Night Poetry

Like I was laying my best baby boy in his cot
I carefully set down small brave young flowers
into the moistness of my fertile garden
their weakness
their innocence
making my empty breasts
heave

I then watered them
from my love filled eyes
and fed them meat
from the angry plains between my fuck fine thighs.


********************************************************


I heard his voice
and sucked it in
like the dying gasping fish

His words
lay on my tongue
and then opening up
I swallowed them whole
one by one
Till I couldn't take no more
but I could
So here's my mouth
fill it.

**********************************************************

Anyone Got A Bird They Don't Want?

The conservatory, or, as I prefer to call it, my giant window box, is coming on a treat. The glass is proving a bugger to clean though, likewise the flooring, but I've had an awful lot of fun stacking a bookshelf with ceramic birdies accrued over twenty years.
Now all I need is someone to sit in there with!

I've positioned a chair in the window box, so that, when I'm bringing myself to a nice rolling boil on a warm day, I'll be able to watch the kitchen telly. I should, I know, do things with wires and extension thingies to enable me to watch the telly actually IN the conservatory, but I'm such an idiot when it comes to electrical things that tomorrow I'm going to have to join in with the hoorah Henrys at Royal Ascot from a distance of twenty feet!

What else?
Oh yes, I need a small table in the giant window box for my pots of tea so....I was on my hands and knees in the loft a little while ago looking for an old skinny legged table, you know one of those awful things from a nest of tables. Anyway I found the little horror, dusty, chipped and out of sorts laying with its wonky legs stuck in the air, on top of an old Fortnum and Mason food hamper! The aforementioned table is now wedged between two disgraceful old plastic garden chairs which have been made better by the addition of odd old cushions and cat hairs.
Home Sweet Home.
(The hamper is now home to frail bathroom towels)

I'm still searching cupboards and drawers for beautiful essential ceramic budgies to add to the already over stocked conservatory.
'Don't overdo it' cried Monsieur Horsehound last night.
'What? I laughed, as I seriously injured him with an old chicken (See pic above)

Glued to the tip of my conk is a scrap of paper which reads:
GOTTA GET MORE BIRDS!
Gotta Fly......

Lagoons, The Moon, Icebergs and The Angel of The North

Desert Island Essentials

Camera
English Pigeons
Knife
Pen/Paper
Bombay Mix
David Davis for in depth debate


Interplanetary Expedition

Camera
Pen/Paper
Monty in a Helmet
Casio Organ to compose mind blowing music because I'll be inspired by the beauty of God's Universe.
Lace Nightgown because I'm a woman
Horlicks because I'm old and boring
Colin Brazier (Sky Newsreader) because he's intelligent...

Antarctic Trip

My Best Vest
Camera
Pen/Paper
Concealer Stick for Red Nose
Picture of Ernest Shackelton pinned to my bra
Motivational Quotes to keep me going when the seal meat runs out
Rafa Nadal because he can pull me sledge

Road Trip T'up North

The Ghost of Norman Evans (see pic above) to help me with the lingo
My Stories of Living in Doncaster to ward off possible attacks from Hard Northerners
Pen/Paper
Protective Clothing just in case of hostilities against Southern Softies
Delicate Essex/London jokes to make people warm to me
No jokes about Whippets/Coal/Flat Caps or Margaret Thatcher
David Cameron because I know he will fit right in.

The Spaniard, The Pork and The Other Bloke

On the Horsehound menu for today:
Pork, glazed carrots, roast tatties, sage and onion stuffing and broad beans. For pud, baked bananas with a marshmallow and chocolate sauce.
On the telly: Him up there, the gorgeous Spanish kid Rafa, against Novak Djokovic, him over there, the quite alright Serb.
Will no doubt be mesmerized by the muscular and talented Spaniard, will therefore need copious amounts of tea and the remaining bits of a chocolate Easter egg.
I know, GROSS!

Mum wasn't herself today, she looked distant and pale. Dad told me things in confidence when she was out of the room, I panicked and wanted to cover and protect her with my tiny self. But I didn't of course, I continued talking about football, tennis, the smashing microwaved risotto and David Davis Then we went to the shops, our arms linked.
Got home just now, ate a piece of quiche and a spoonful of salad, want to do something tonight but I don't know what. And I don't know what to do the weekend.
Got down on my knees to Monty and tickled him because it comforted me.
Mr Horsehound is reading in the kitchen, the remnants of our boring supper littering the table, while his awful jacket and shoes are left willy nilly in the hall.
I want a new handbag, a notebook and reassurance.
Monty is at my bare feet as the night keeps coming.

New Born Day

With the night time animals fed and silent, I remove the blue plate from behind the Rosemary bush and breathe in the tender air of a bright new born day.

Armed with a fearsome handbag, a ten shilling note and a bucketful of cakes I'm orf on a jolly jaunt to London.
Will no doubt arrive rattled but excited, will no doubt be force fed microwaved Risotto and will no doubt be overjoyed to see my most favourite people on earth, Mum and Dad.
If and it's an awfully huge if, if I have the energy I'll post a few lines about it tonight.
Toodle Pip!

Zzzzzzzzzz Buttercup Dreams

And there he is...waiting for me.
Large Hursute and Magnificent. No, not Monty.....Morpheus. Lingering against my lingerie the mighty dream god waits. What I'm trying to say is, I'm going to bed now with a nice mug of Horlicks. ...........

.......So into his arms I fall awash with perfect dreams about what life would be like in his light
but my room with its drunken disorder
casts purple shadows on my buttercup dreams...

Monty, Dave and Grumpy

It's all go at Westminster, what with all the hoo ha over the 42 day detention issue and now the resignation of shadow Home Secretary David Davis, it's all very exciting.

I see that stinker Andy Murray won today at Queens, he stropped about the court, falling over, moaning about drips of rain and just looking like a thoroughly bad egg. I dread to think how the little lanky upstart will perform at Wimbledon, it just doesn't bare thinking about.
Will rattle on about Wimbledon at a later date I dare say, can't see me going blogless during those two fab weeks.

Absolutely got to dash now, plants need a drenching, I need a drenching and got to find that no good tyke of a cat Monty! See above

Poem

Simmering, you watch me,
coming to my boil
Rolling round you pull me,
in movements quick and bold
Blazing, you inflame me,
so effortlessly I take you in

Intensely then you grind me,
with your favoured rocking lilt
Slowing down, you take me,
to that great and saintly place
Roaring quietly just love me,
till the aubergine sky turns blue

Generously now you gave me,
light diamonds for my darkness
Silently, you saved me,
risking shouts, risking fall, risking all
Gloriously strong you held me
together from cracking self.

Oh To Be In The House Of Commons....

Getting up at 4:30 is playing havoc with me so I don't have the energy to do a proper post. Just a scattering of sentences.
*Big day for Gordon Brown.
*Lunchtime in the Horsehound house will ring to the sound of PMQ's.
*It's clouding over.
*Summer was nice this week wasn't it?
* A chum was taken aback by one of yesterdays poems, the one about the Mother sparrow. He said it was fabulous. Thank you.
* Am still going through my vast collection of poems to try and find one or ten to take to the Poetry Society. Going through it all made me realize just how much I've needed to say these past couple of years. I wrote something, can't remember when, about how emotion makes poets of us all. I'll try and find it and post it.
*Mowed the back garden last night wearing a vest and slippers. All I needed was a pipe.

Tickling Stuff

My Very Own Lonely Hearts Ads

Tall muscular Christian male builder, 55, would like to meet small muscular non-Christian lady hod-carrier, 40-70, for conversion.

Blue-eyed male 40, into boating would like to meet lady with own compass and rubber trousers.

Jim, 60, likes darts and has recently come out of hospital after a leg operation would like to meet attractive loving female with patience and decent set of arrows.

Jake, The Fox And The Sparrow

Looks like another very fine day.
Will pop out for bird seed and a card then stroll back to tend to my tomatoes.
Here are a couple of 'pastoral' poems I tend not to write much about Mother Nature because I stay indoors a lot.

Impudent Jake, the cat from over the way
lazily stares at my peeling frontage
and
without moving even one eyelid
dismisses me
Another silly human trying her best.

********************************

The lone fox, his nostrils ripped wide open
scurries to the flowered bountiful plate left out by the quiet widow.
His slot of a mouth
with lapping tongue stuck out
gallops up the ladies cat food.

**************************

Mother sparrow
fills baby sparrow
with bits left out by
the childless woman.
The woman hoists herself up and balancing on
her steel sink sups her tears
as her feathered baby's yelling gaping mouth puts all the children in all the world to shame.

********************************************************************************

Yeah Baby!

It's Sunny!
I'm Hot!
Let's Rock!

Hold on a minute what about me back?

All On A Sunday And All...

Is summer fluttering its eyelashes at us. I'm a bit warm.
Daintily pencilled in my kitchen diary for today:
Attending to a hem.
The pressing of some flowers.
Crying over my lack of beer.
A poetic piece about foxes.
The baking of a Carrot Cake.
The making of gin from cabbage leaves.
Doing something with a two foot piece of broken trellis.
Politics.
The downing of many cups of tea.
Trying to disguise the rings under my eyes by covering them with wedges of Cheddar.
The application of Polyfiller. And not to walls.
Looking forward to watching a programme about Gordon Brown tomorrow evening.
Looking forward to writing about it.
Rafael Nadal v Federer this afternoon. Yummy Spaniard for elderly English woman.

Here's a silly thing I wrote after I'd eaten too much Bombay Mix

I saw a silly dog today
its tail was stuck right up
he walked a funny crooked way
he was a stupid mutt.

Thank You.

Poem

Pet Love

Love is a selfish vicious pet, who doesn’t give a damn about you.
Not really.

It is nothing unless It’s being spiteful and painting you with sweetheart bruises.
It’s being untrue to Itself if It’s not scratching your eyes out.
It isn’t doing Its job unless you’re in pain.
It is not a flowery fluffy creature.
Love doesn’t care.

It’s wild and vitriolic.
Love is a beast.
It is spoilt and demanding It is a vomit making creature that turns Mummies and Daddies into Princesses and Pimps.
Love chuckles as another drunken head hits the floor.
It goes beserk with joy as the bullet rests bloodily comfortably in your silly sad head.
It jumps up and down with joy as the angry little girl hurtles down towards her concrete heaven. How love loves that.

Love didn’t go to any kind of school, It’s an imbecile.
All love knows is what It wants.
Love knows no manners, being brought up by pigs.
It steals, wallows in filth and It expects you to clean it up.
Love is a bad pet.

It acts without thinking because It just has to have you.
It cares little for etiquette or rules because you are the world to It.
It doesn’t waste time with niceties It just wants to do you.
It’s inflamed, swollen with blood and has to pump you because you are so beautiful.
And It’s jealous of anyone who comes near.
And It’s true.
And try as you might, you can’t ignore It can you?

This dirty intruder has you pinned against all walls.
It’s broken the glass and is tiptoeing Its nasty way to your special secret places, your damaged heart and frantic mind.
We see the big monster cat coming and we know Its intentions, even in the dark.
Its aim is to ruin us, It jumps us and we’re enjoying every bloody wicked moment.
We’re being taken.

We don’t kick and lash out as we should.
We open wide for the little fucker and enjoy being taken for the best ride of our life.
Ever.
Because we want It really.

I Love The Theatre!

*Brown v Cameron yesterday? I think C. came off best, might be because he resorted to bad language in the house. The speaker Mr Martin gently reminded him to stick to asking questions. Hearing the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition use the word 'crap' was refreshing, especially when used in relation to what Brown was spewing out. So my jimjams come off to Mr C.

*I saw snippets of Mayor Johnson's press conference and he shone like a man getting is own way. His plan to put police officers on buses to deter rowdy behaviour is a great idea but how will it work in practice. Will the number 36, which my elderly parents use, be able to squeeze one more soul on board an already jam packed bus? He or she might be able to sit on Dad's knee if it gets chock-a-block. I think policemen and women on public transport is a wonderful idea I just hope there are enough coppers to go round. But well done Boris. By the way, he's standing down as M.P. for Henley, another By-Election on the cards. No probs for the Conservatives though, because Henley-on-Thames is bluer than the blue cheese.

*Going back to David Cameron for a moment, his hair looked a bit funny yesterday, he had an unusual parting which made him look like a fellow in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.

*Lib dem leader Nick Clegg always seems in a temper to me. He got jeered yesterday when he went off at a tangent the speaker had to grab him by his coiffure and remind him to behave.

*The House of Commons at midday on Wednesday is theatre at it's very best, there are a few dullards of course, but when I see a good performer like the Tory's Stephen Pound (see picture above)and Labour's Beast of Bolsover, Dennis Skinner, it's worth letting me omelettte get cold.

On my agenda this afternoon is the erecting of a shelf type apparatus to house some plants. Bricks will be stolen and with the addition of a couple of lengths of dodgy white melamine, I hope to make a nice little place for my tomatoes. I hope.

Just popping in to wish you goodnight.
I hope Morpheus looks down on me kindly tonight, because I want to sleep, preferably forever.

Simple Pleasures

*Leapt for joy when the metal skewer went clean through an old Tupperware cake box because now I could plant on a couple of tomato plants. I'd been pushing stuff out of the way in my disgraceful garage in order to find some plant pots, found a few, but not nearly enough, so not being one to give up easily I left the garage and headed to the kitchen. Nothing in there but an old tupperware box.

*Stood stock still when a strange tabby cat leapt over my already damaged garden gate. We eyed each other. He was unsure and so was I, so we stared at each other, our eyes fixed, mine on his beautiful head, his on my appalling outfit. He legged it. I said 'cheerio pussy' and lifted my soiled hands to my shorn head and thanked the gardening gods for this sweet moment.

*I found a shoot of a long dead Clematis straining to keep erect, being a romantic fool I looked at it wistfully and thought Mother Natures a determined old girl, but I'll lend her a hand to so I got a tie-back and er....tied it back to the drainpipe. I'll be watching it.

*By this time I'd had two cups of tea.
*Monty growled at a pigeon on the ariel.
*He then got on my lap and I ran my fingers through his long black and grey hair. I wanted to eat him. But that would be cruel. So I let him smell my scent and dig his claws into my thighs. Happy puss.
*I've been thinking about things today and not all domestic.
*Am listening to music as I write this and feel like standing on the chair and whooshing my skirt about.
*Monty is asleep.
*Here's something I wrote for lady gardeners everywhere

Gather your skirt into simple folds
and tuck them between your aching knees
swish a soiled hand around your face
feel the falling dirt land upon your nose
taste it as it lays upon your lips
And do not resist the urge to remove your clothes and run in and out of the bushes
Give in to the desire to dance around the Japanese Maple
feeling the weight of your wonderful unbound breasts
you'll stretch with secateurs
hop with the how
and laugh as you wield your lopper
Enjoy your work...

Earthworm

Sliding into the slimmest of cracks
the fattest earth worms slithers
Admiring its dexterity
and empathising with its need to slip away
I try to do the same.
But pounds and pounds of human flesh
and feet and feet of bone
deny me.
So here I sit cross legged on the stone
lip bitten in cold rage.

Comment ça va?

Ed Balls wants us to change our drinking culture.
He wants us to adopt the French way whereby beautiful families sit around the dining table sipping wine discussing Jacques Derrida. He also wants to see and end to mullered teenagers laying on park benches guzzling cheap supermarket lager. Methinks he's going to wait a long time, because not many working class families even share a meal together yet alone share the joy of good wine and conversation.
The middle classes however might allow Tristram a glass of a decent Chardonnay whilst talking about his violin lessons. He wants sober, well-reasoned parents to instill into their offspring the right and true way to guzzle beer.
The disinterested parents won't be listening to the government, and consequently will have nothing to say to their children.
The only chance of saving our bright youngsters from liver damage is to lock them up forever.
Ed Balls and this utterly incompetent government is drifting, is ambling about grabbing onto anything which makes them look a bit capable and caring.
They are failing.

Smiler and Grumpy

England v Trinidad and Tobago
BBC1
Tonight 10:20 p.m.
It's another friendly, you know like our match against the States. That game however was soporific, dull and quite disappointing, even though England won 2-0.
I'm hoping for fireworks from the boys tonight.

Talking of combustibles.
Fabio Capello will have to a word with Wayne Rooney, because although Rooney is undoubtedly talented, his temper is in need of some kind of training though. I don't know what's in store for the lad but if he can keep his slate clean and his rages under control he should do well.
The never ending story about who's fit for the captaincy is sending me bonkers. Davey B. he of the unquestionable skill and fabulous smile has the armband for tonights match but who'll be wearing it in future is anyones guess.

Euro 2008 starts on Saturday 7th June and we're not in it. It's unbelievable. I suppose being a football lover I'll have to support someone so I'm plumping for er...Spain or Italy. Can't support the Germans likewise the Dutch, anyway I think both those teams have had enough glory.
But what about Croatia, Romania and the bloody French?
Oh, I wish we were in it. because I want to be able to dress up in my shorts and footie shirt and throw missiles around the room.

Oh well, Wimbledon's just around the corner, that'll give me something to cheer about. But.
Who will represent us, the English?
Nobody.
Nobody who has any chance of even getting through the first round yet alone to the finals. The Scots have the lanky very Scottish misery guts Andy Murray, and he's made it quite clear thank you very much that he'll always be playing for Scotland and not England. Wow! I'm devastated, how will we cope?

Never in the history of first class tennis has anyone been as sour faced and ungracious as the kid from the top bit of Britain. I know he's in the top ten and all that but he should take a few lessons from some of the brighter more grown up tennis players, i.e. be consistent, be nice and smile a bit more, he knows nothing about how to work an audience and knows even less about making people like you. So I wish he'd go back to whatever it is they do in Scotland, shoot haggis or something isn't it?

Oh, I don't care.
My money will be on Rafael Nadal as it was last year and it might help Murray if he studied Nadal very closely, because the Spaniard is not only a first class player, he's a first class entertainer. People look forward to watching him walk out on court, they gasp and dribble over his bright clothes and fantastic muscles, he thrills with his exciting passionate game and he knows how to please the paying crowd.
Murray on the other hand reminds me of Tim Henman, couldn't care less about the public, doesn't give a hoot about his image or what tennis fans think, all in all he's a bad egg.

When real stars come out to play, the crowd not only witness great skill they get treated to a performance too.
Murray glowers and shuffles around like a schoolboy then spits in the publics face, especially the English.
Nadal however just gets on with winning the game, he is a supreme tennis player and a great showman and most tennis fans adore him. Andy Murray? Nah on all counts.

So to sum up.
Football, tennis, screaming, hurling abuse at referees, umpires and lack lustre players. Wishing I could be there. Sucking on strawberries and slurping beer. Looks like I'm in for a cracking noisy summer. Oh, Goody.