Another Break

I am going to be taking a break away from blogging for a few days. I don't know how many days exactly, I haven't decided. I don't want you to be concerned about the lack of stories (I have plenty of posts saved up for when I come back).

On Tuesday evening, one of my grandads passed away. It is very sad, and I think it would be appropriate for me to show some respect by not behaving like a muppet on the internet for a few days.

Here is a picture of my Grandad H. I am sure I have a nicer picture somewhere, but I can only find group shots on the laptop and it would take far too long to explain to you which one he is.

Anyway, bye Grandad H and a huge hug to all my family (none of whom will be reading this, but never mind).

PS. If you are now thinking that I am some kind of bad luck charm, you would probably be right.

PSS. If you are one of my remaining grandparents, or I am close to you in any way, I would like to pass on an additional message: This year's quota has most definitely been filled. So pack it in and don't get any ideas!!!!!

A Post About Nothing

Well, I have been absent again. You probably didn't even notice. I was busy having a social life (which basically translates to: I had to do other things instead of playing on the internet). Anyway, the important thing is that I have returned ... with a post about nothing.

One of my old university friends came to visit this weekend. In classic style, none of us could decide what to do for the weekend, so we planned to make plans over drinks at happy hour. There are two major flaws with the plan to make plans during happy hour: firstly, it is always far too noisy to have any kind of conversation, and secondly, you are far too busy trying to drink as many cheap drinks as humanly possible to think about anything other than drinking. As it was, I decided to drink Archers and lemonade, a drink which has the lowest alcohol content of any drink known to mankind, except water. Probably.

Following an unsuccessful attempt to plan something during happy hour we headed back to another friend's flat to eat pizza and begin phase two of the grand plan for the weekend. We decided to start this stage by looking at funny pictures on Fail Blog and watching You Tube videos. (As an aside, if you haven't seen the "Bacon is good for me" kid, you should watch this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2T_obaO46Bo -it's quite amusing). Stage two lasted several hours until Mr B and I decided that it was way past our bed time and we were going home. We still did not have a plan, so decided on the very cultural combination of fish and chips followed by bowling.

The fish and chips (from Marshalls in Tynemouth)were yummy and went down very well. The bowling went less well. Partly because I lost, by an embarrassingly large margin, but mainly because I managed to aggravate the repetitive strain injury in my wrist. This is because I tried to do a fast bowl, but at the crucial moment, forgot to let go of the ball and almost ended up skidding down the lane with it in true comedy style. As it was, I merely stumbled and pulled my wrist out of place, much to the concern of Mr B and some of my friends. However, being stupid (and also desperate to close the points gap), I decided that as I could no longer feel my wrist, I should just find a lighter ball and continue playing. The only ball they had lighter that the one I was already using was a kids ball. Yes, I played out the rest of the game (right to my humiliating defeat) with a kids ball. You will be pleased to know that I stopped short of putting the bumpers on and getting the ramp.

'Fruit Is Bad For You' : A Tale Of Stupidity

News Flash Kids : Fruit is bad for you. You must stop eating it. Immediately. I'm not even kidding.

Today I had to go to the dentist. Not for anything sinister, just a scale and polish. I've never had a scale and polish before. I expected it to be something very sinister. It wasn't. At least until the point where the dentist poked me (very) hard in the gum with his drill-bit. It hurt, a lot. So I pulled away and sulked. My gum was bleeding. The dentist did not see this as any kind of issue, and carried on with the rest of the scale and polish. Following this, he decided to lecture me because it isn't "normal" for a person's teeth to hurt *that* much during a standard scale and polish. I resisted the urge to tell him that the scaling and polishing was fine. It was the drilling of my gum that was causing the problem. He decided to tell me that the cause of the problem was acid erosion and was most likely caused by eating too much fruit. And here's the priceless part : he said fruit is bad for you, you should only have it in moderation. So, there you go. Don't eat fruit. I celebrated this by having a large glass of fizzy ginger beer when I got home, safe in the knowledge that it wasn't fruit juice (ergo, it must be okay for my teeth).

This isn't the first time I have been informed that eating fruit is bad for you. A colleague of mine forwarded an email that she had received about drinking water and eating fruit. It basically said that you should never eat fruit after a meal, only as a snack between meals (a tooth-destroying snack ... better to have a biscuit perhaps??) and that you should never, ever drink cold water. The reason for this? Because both of these things cause chemicals in your body which give you cancer. Yes, you read that right. It's official: eating fruit and drinking water is bad for you. Don't do it.

Why Multi-Tasking Is Not A Good Idea

Today I have been trying my hand at multi-tasking. I thought that I was quite good at this. It turns out I was wrong. Very wrong.

Mr B had very kindly made me roasted tomato soup for lunch and left it by the cooker for me to heat through at lunch time. When lunch time arrived, I put the soup on to heat and promptly got distracted by some rather lovely looking clusters of purple crocuses in the front garden. So off I trotted with my camera to take a few "artistic" (and I use the word 'artistic' very loosely here) shots. As it was such a lovely sunny day, I had opened the front room window to let some fresh air into the house. It was not long before I got a whiff of something strange coming out of the living room window. It took several seconds for me to make the connection between the rather disturbing smell coming from the window and the soup which I had left heating on the cooker. I had managed to burn my soup to the pan. It was completely inedible.

In desperation I hunted around the house for something else to eat (no easy task given that Monday is shopping day and we had hardly any food in the cupboards). I settled on making macaroni cheese for one. I ended up with macaroni cheese for one small army. Being the persevering kind of person that I am, I did my very best to eat as much of the macaroni cheese as I could. I am now feeling rather like a (very large) Beluga whale.

The moral of the story is that you should not attempt to multi-task, especially not whilst cooking lunch.

On the plus side, I did get a couple of decent snaps of the flowers. So it wasn't a total disaster (although I think Mr B may disagree).

The Furious

This morning, I had the Furious. The Furious is what happens when you are already in a not-so-brilliant mood (for any number of reasons) and something comes along that puts you in an even less brilliant mood. Today, the cause of the Furious was Mr B.

We had nothing in the house for dinner, and I was starving. I'd even begun eyeing up the guinea-pigs as a mid-morning snack. Then Mr B uttered the magic words: "Let's go and get some dinner". 'Yippee' I thought, getting the impression that I was being taken out somewhere most lovely for dinner. I skipped up the stairs, my bad mood lifting with every step, and got dressed for an outing. I even did my hair and make-up so as not to frighten any small children I may encounter on my outing. Having beautified myself I came bounding downstairs.

Me: Where are we going for dinner Mr B?

Mr B: To Morrisons

Me: WHAT??? (in a slightly angry voice, feeling the bad mood descending)

Mr B: To Morrisons. To get things to make toasties.

Me: (in slightly demonic voice) TOASTIES? I've got all dressed up to go out ... for TOASTIES???

Mr B: Err.... yes. You don't seem very happy about that.

Me: I'm not very happy about it. I'm very unhappy about it. In fact, I have The Furious.

Mr B: The Furious? What are you on about?

Me: You'll see.

And so we headed off to Morrisons for things to make toasties with for lunch, and the Furious came with us. Every time Mr B spoke, I did my very best furious face. It helped a little: I got a cream cake for pudding. The Furious enjoyed the cream cake, and has gone into hibernation .... for now.

Walking With The Heretic

Today we went walking with The Heretic. The Heretic is the latest nickname for the formerly named Adorable Freya A-B. She has been nicknamed this because she has turned into some kind of demon dog.

We took her on a walk to a place called Plessey Woods near to where we live. At first she seemed like a perfectly normal and incredibly cute puppy, as the pictures below would suggest.

Somewhere between the starting point and the river, she transformed into demon dog: chasing around and tearing up the sand as though trying to murder it. Of course, it could have been a side effect from passively smoking a joint. Not my joint, I hasten to add (nor was it Mr B's or CA's).

During our walk we bumped into a rather odd looking couple with a number of dogs, one being some kind of Boxer breed which vaguely resembled a pony. Boxer-pony bounded over to teeny tiny Freya, who sat looking at him with a great amount of confusion. Boxer-pony was followed by his owner, insistent that his dog was harmless. As he got closer, we all got a whiff of something a little out of the ordinary ... the owner of the dog was smoking a joint. In the woods. Whilst walking his dog.

You just can't make this stuff up!