If It's Not One Thing It's Something Else

I won't be sorry to see the back of January, it's been a stinker. I won't list the rotten things that have happened suffice to say I'm doing everything in my power to keep on top.

According to the weather people we're in for a right smacking from the weather gods, freezing temperatures and even snow is forecast. Well that's just great:( I'm sure my arthritic joints are curling up with joy at the prospect of stiffening up even more! Let me tell you a little secret...As I type this epic post my right hand resembles a beast from the deep, fingers fat, gnarled and hot and my left knee has taken on the appearance of a perfect football ball. Bugger it.

I'm not going out today on account of several things.

1. Am car-less because John is working today and therefore my minty Honda is in the station car-park. And there isn't any way I can shuffle to the shops with my left knee.

2. I'm having a major cook-in. Trying a new recipe for tonight, Sesame Chicken. Will make some sweet and sour veg to go with it and a few pancake rolls. After that I'll make a trifle for tomorrow and a scone pizza for Sunday tea. Talking of scone pizza, I hope both my hands can get a good grip on the rolling pin because it's heavy and a sod of pin. Pure Marble you know!

3. A sausage sandwich for lunch whilst watching 'Football Focus' on BBC1 with the slightly out of place Manish Bhasin. (see pic) Because not only do I like the footie I also admire the way the pundits sit.

On that queer, faintly double entendred note I'll say cheeriio.
Cheerio!

Off to the Smoke today carrying:
A jiggling jelly, a glass bowl for mum's bananas and a bottle of Amami setting lotion for her hair.
I hope to see a much improved old girl and after 'enjoying' a microwaved something I'll be back home.
Which reminds me, my nearest town is Rochford and every Tuesday there's a market in the town square, this market was dreamt up by Sir Guy de Rochefort in 1247 and is one of the oldest in existence. I rather like that. I wonder what Sir Guy would think if he knew an old Queen like me was writing about it. Probably be chuffed and say 'Well done me dear'.

Toodle pip!

Great Green Grapes

I usually take cakes to Mum and Dad, but tomorrow I'm taking a Grape Infested Lime Jelly.

Nuns, Hats and Incompetant Line Managers

Feeling low I tend to lose myself in the past so...

As a follow on from yesterday's post here are pictures of moi taken, I think in 1972 and 1973, I was 16 and 17. The clothes were bought as they are now, from a charity shop. First pic:The jacket was light blue faux velvet, the gloves real black leather, the woollen beret candy pink and the octagonal glasses had olive green lenses. Looked cool in the July, idiotic in December. But I was a fun colourful kid!

The other picture and I'm in a silky smooth silver two piece suit which comprised of a sleeveless calf length dress and a waist length jacket with a nipped in waist. I think it was 50p. I remember wearing this with white sling back sandals and red tights. The hat was deep red and the jumper pale blue angora. Again quite colourful. I remember feeling quite warm also. To accessorize perfectly I always always used huge handbags and these were bought mostly from jumble sales. One bag I had was so huge it was ridiculous, it was black and as stiff as a board and looked like a legless table. But I thought I looked chic as I walked down Talbot Road to buy doughnuts from the little dairy.

I still love large bags, and occasionally use small ones but I do get in an awful flap when I can't find me keys. So I tend to stick with big ones.
I'll write about handbags one day and you won't believe any of it.

I thought I was to be on my own again today but due to yet another major cock-up in John's hastily re-arranged work schedule (don't ask...) I've got to have a hot dinner on the table by eight. So I'll be making storecupboard Spaghetti Carbonnara with garlic bread and sweetcorn, a useful standby when one is at the behest of incompetent line managers.

I also have to pick up my arthritic prescription today otherwise I won't be able to bend over.

Now interior design.
I've redded up the kitchen by the addition of a red checked tablecloth, various red cushions and red flowered coasters. Looks very welcoming, bit like a brothel run by Doris Day. The living room has been freshened up by the elimination of autumnal colours and the addition of a bit of summery white. White floral cushions, white doilies and two seven inch candles. A bit churchy but I like it.

That reminds me, when I was a kid I was frightened by the nuns of The Poor Clares, they seemed very authoritative to a nine year old and always appeared ten feet tall when standing by huge wooden tables selling daffodils in large tin pails. The clip clop of their dull shoes in the cobbled courtyard of their convent was not unlike the clip clop of Miss Poppins shoes.

What is it about me and women in black?

After Nine Poems

I saw you
your face gold and rich and without pain
without a tear
I saw you and I wept

You saw me
my face bleached dry by endless pain
by truth
You saw me and left

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


When the fantasy child slid down the slide
it was my screams of joy you heard
When the fantasy child drew a flower
it was my smile you saw
And when the fantasy baby bellowed
it was my heart which broke

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

Martin stood alone in his room
around him his money well spent
his spotless possessions a sign of perfection
he hasn't done badly at all.

When Martin lay in bed
alone but with someone by his side
his fears doubled
like the whiskey drink in his glass

As Martin drove his car to places he must go
his exhaustion told

So later Martin stood alone in his room
around him his money well spent
his homely set up
stifling him
he's hasn't done anything at all.

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

Bohemian Raptures

I bought a necklace last Thursday (see above) and it brought back to me feelings I had when I was 17. I didn't dress the way I dress now which is a cross between dear Miss Poppins, Miss Marple and Miss Whiplash. I was a Bohemian back in the 1970's and would always be found in long skirts often velvet or embroidered, lacy blouses done up right to my chin and cowboy boots! My accessories were chunky silvery necklaces, fake topaz bracelets and rosaries often picked up for a few pence on a stall by the convent in Portobello Road. In those days the only person I swung with was Jesus. God knows what the sisters thought.

At any rate I dressed the part of a placid lonesome poet whose wild wavy hair was often held up with chop sticks. But that was a long time ago, but every so often I buy or see something which transports me back to those sublime innocent and peaceful days just like I was transported last Thursday.
And so last Thursday as I arthritised my way along to Somerfields wearing a camel coat and sensible shoes but with my boho necklace tucked inside my handbag I said to myself "Ang be true to yourself and go boho again" so I have.

The picture was taken last Saturday as I was preparing yet another Indian meal, and as I listened to some nonsense on the telly I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of stepping around the kitchen dressed like my Muse. I'm sure she approved.

Not much on the menu today as I'm on my own till midnight!
Will graze erratically on entirely inappropriate stuff. Stuff like Jaffa Cakes, bacon sandwiches and bananas.
Have an idea to do something with the living room bookcases, possibly dropping one of them in the kitchen. Somewhere.

Glue, Wax and Bananas

Here we go...another drizzly grey January morning but...things are looking up.
Mum fried a couple of lamb chops yesterday, dad watched the telly and I stayed in bed till lunch time only venturing from under the covers to make a bacon sandwich.Great!

When mum told me she'd managed to cook something and wash her own hair I felt relieved, the tablets she's taking must be doing some good, and that's good. So when I visit later in the week I hope to see a fresh, better fed, clean haired girl with a pinny on microwaving a chicken korma for her only child!



On the agenda today:

Hide the piece of the car which came off as I got stuck against a pillar on my drive last Thursday. John hasn't spotted it yet so when the time is right I'll super glue it back on. It'll be alright..

Have a banana.

Start writing shopping list which will include super glue.

Change curtains in front room because the current drapes have been attacked by the cat. I bought them from Bid Up t.v five years ago. Well worth the £9 I paid for them.

Look in drawers and gasp. General apparel has become mixed with erotic apparel and I might pull the wrong thing out and accidentally wear it to the wrong place.

Make some fairy cakes with pink icing imagining I'm Mary Poppins. No that's not right. She wouldn't wear a g-string.

Wonder about wax.