Wot's yr addy?

It's a simple enough question, but in a world obsessed with 24/7 accessibility, it's a tricky one to answer. No longer will it suffice to give the number, street and postcode of one's humble abode, as was the norm back in the 'olden days'. My kids use that term to refer to the era of my childhood. I think they do it to humour me, or at least I hope they do. On the surface things don't appear to have changed that much in 20 years, it's the pace of life which has turned from a relaxed meander into a jog on the treadmill.

These days we're in too much of a hurry to wait for things to arrive through the letterbox. We're too busy to go shopping but need a new jacket. The shops may be closed by the time you've finished work - no problem - you can browse all your favourite fashion stores' websites 24 hours a day.

How many of you have been sick with worry when you have been unable to contact a loved one for more than few hours? Who'll admit to annoyed and frustrated when calls to a friend, phone company, bank's local branch have gone unanswered? I will, but I wouldn't have said that 20 years ago.

Now, when someone asks me for my addy (text-speak will appear in a future what grinds my gears style blog)I'd be most likely to give them my e-mail address. Well, one of them. Over the years I've acquired a few in the way some women seem to accumulate shoes. I sometimes wonder if it's a status thing. Like having lots of addresses makes me some kind of property tycoon; landed gentry even. I don't understand the shoe hoarding thing though.

If you've ever been in a chatroom, you'll know that 'wot's yr addy?' is a question usually designed to obtain your MSN/Yahoo username. I'm sure the anonymity that web based (e.g. Hotmail) addresses bring has been a factor in the huge growth of the companies which provide them. Instant messaging may have its benefits but they are outweighed by the frustration caused by the misinterpretation that can occur.

So, up to now, we have found 3 variations to go on the list of definitions of addy. At this point, I feel Twitter worthy of a mention. In just 11 characters I can direct someone to my profile. From there, they can leave me a message, link to my e-mail via a link to my blog.

Add Facebook to the equation and we're up to 5. I'm sure it won't be long before someone comes up with the idea of combining all these contact points in to one URN. A unique reference number for each and every one of us. We could have our codes tattooed onto our forearms, thus negating the need to ever ask the question again. 'Wot's yr addy?' will one day become the kind of thing your nana would've said.

A Slice of Turkey without Cranberry.

It's 11 o' clock on a humid, mid-August night and I'm having my first taste of Turkey. At 31 degrees it's pleasingly warm and smells, if I'm honest, a bit like chicken with a sprinkling of cumin. The aroma from the kebab shop in the airport foyer welcomes a plane load of hungry Geordies. After 4 hours of being forced to sit and drink the beverages trolley dry, they're ready for something to soak up the alcohol. It's not unlike the Bigg Market on a Saturday night but here there are more Trolley Dollies than trollied dollies.

That was almost two weeks ago now and the flavour's fading as fast as my tan. Short summer vacations are one of the perks of Pots' job. Conversely I have 7 consecutive weeks of 'holiday' this year giving me precious extra hours for cooking & cleaning, washing & ironing, picking kids up & dropping them off, negotiating & mediating........ a job in the education sector is great - just make sure you don't have your own kids!

Oh dear, that makes me sound all bitter and twisted. It's not that I wish I was childless. I quite like my kids really. Especially when they are asleep. That's the only time the effort:domestic tasks ratio decreases unless, of course, you're in a 5* hotel. This year we decided to throw sand in the face of anyone daring to suggest: '' a change is as good as a rest.'' Sure, food shopping in a foreign market is a welcome change from trudging Asda's neon-lit aisles but you still have to prepare and cook it, before clearing up, washing up and putting away. For a single week, the first this year, we were holidaying abroad as a family and I was determined to have change AND rest.

Goldcity Tourism Complex stood majestically on the Alanyan hillside, it's lights (I think they were trying for golden, but orange is a fairer description) twinkled proudly to greet us as we wound our way up the steep road towards it. The next seven days were going to be spent indulging in luxury and I wasn't going to feel guilty about it.


Thanks to the stunning views, delicious food, sublime spa, amazing architechtural detail and the staff's attention to detail, my mission was accomplished. Total relaxation. I usually measure this in brpw (books read per week). This year's score is a healthy 3.

I won't bore you with a descriptive list of the resort's amenities because its snazzy website can paint that picture far better than I. What it fails to do however, is project the personalities of the people that make the whole experience; the fellow tourists with whom new bonds and friendships are formed; the attentive staff whose individualism remains unstifled by corporatism. Our favourite bartender, Dolly Dimple as we affectionately called her, had such an infectious smile that you couldn't help but grin as she skipped around the bar, on tip-toes, messing up everyone's drinks orders: ''Oh, so sorry. No cranberry for vodka so I bring you beer instead. Is Ok?''

Bearing in mind that we didn't venture further than the slick rooftop bar on the sixteenth floor or the outdoor massage tents in the Spa's gardens at lower basement level, it would be ambitious to claim that we'd seen a real slice of Turkey. I may need to wait til Christmas before I can have it with cranberry, but after my summer taster, I'm ready to book again for autumn. Join me.

Lazy Cow

I suppose this blog's title does apply to me, as far as updating my online ramblings go anyway. I temporarily abandoned Mad Cow Patter in favour of indulging myself in other social networking activites.

Yes, I discovered Twitter. No-one I know is following me so it makes my updates seem pretty futile, but I've been Tweeting away regardless. More fun though, is reading the Tweets of others - snippets of the lives and opinions of people from all around the world. Compared with the likes of Facebook and Myspace, this phenomenon seems to have attracted an older crowd which makes me feel more at home. I was quite excited to see I had some followers of my own, but the early flushes of pride soon drained away when I realized that the majority were bots. The first 'person' to request updates of my random ramblings was an oriental girl with her very own sex-cam. That'll teach me to mention lubricants in my updates. When I said 'smearing myself in Vaseline', I was referring to my feet, in preparation for the Moonwalk!

Actually I haven't been that lazy when I come to think of it. The Spring months were spent training for the charity walk ( I don't do running) I'd somehow volunteered myself for. A balmy Edinburgh night, surrounded by women (and men) in bras and trainers pounding 26 miles of scottish pavement in aid of Breast Cancer. Quite an uplifting (pun intended) experience. We even saw Lorraine Kelly who's actually a lot less caviidaeic* in real life. Best part of the weekend was when our taxi driver showed his support by giving us £10 for the charity. And we still had our t-shirts on at that point.

On the home front, there's a new addition to the family. She's 4 months old now and has already quadrupled in size since we adopted her. After being pestered for months by the kids, I finally succumbed and started researching dog breeds. I trawled the internet for weeks to find the ideal pet. A soft coated wheaten terrier. All my fears about mess, noise, dirt, smell and general hassle are forgotten when I come home to her enthusiastic waggy tailed greeting.

One the second home front, we will, by tomorrow, be the owners of a new house. I say new, but it's 30 or so years old . We won't be moving into it. I could never sell this house. I don't think I would ever find one I loved as much, even if it could do with a bit of work. No, our recent purchase will be let out. I've already found 3 lots of interested potential tenants. Guess where I found them............................via Facebook and Gumtree. Seems time spent on the internet isn't always wasted.

Watching Over Me

I feel a bit guilty for neglecting my blog but I've been busying myself with a few practical tasks lately. There's nothing like an early spring overhaul to keep your mind off emotional issues!

When the traces of sawdust have been vacuumed up and the paintbrushes cleaned, my eternally questioning brain wanders back to same old circles of thought. It's then I resort to my annonymous blog. Strangely, the posts I publish there attract more readers than Mad Cow Patter's AND more comments.

I've never needed a large audience; it's enough just knowing that the important few are interested enough to visit and revisit my pages of patter. I know who you are, and I thank you whilst apologetically admitting I'm not the best at replying to e-mails and texts. x

Crash, Bang, Moral Dilemma

A few lessons have been learned lately:

1. If you feed metallic holographic wrapping paper through a shredding machine, it buggers the cutting blades. ( I was trying to make cheerleader style pom-poms for Thing 2.)


2. My daughter has stronger moral fibre than my son.


3. Honesty generates good karma.

I'm 5 days into single-mummydom and, rather than lamenting my husband's absence, I've been embracing my temporary independence. When the alarm buzzed on Monday morning I felt a sense of self-satisfaction along with the usual irritation at being awoken from my peaceful slumber. That annoying little sound proved that I am still capable of setting an alarm clock.

I wanted to prove I was a decent Mum too, by enjoying some quality time with the chiddlers; hence the pom-pom experiment. I asked their advice on which type of sandpaper we should buy in B & Q, to help us with our DIY project. Back home, I put Pinky in charge of finding the sander in the shed, and his sister was given a screwdriver and pointed in the direction of the handles to be removed. With all plans for the proposed extension on hold, I decided to make the most of what we've got.

Sanding is hard work, but there's something quite therapeutic about rubbing away years of stains, varnish and grime. Stripping the wood back to it's bare beauty, revealing the grain which tells its life story. The final result will be all the more rewarding, knowing that I have helped create it. I say helped, because it was my friend Lucy who motivated me to start the task AND put her fair share of elbow grease into it too. Her positivity rubs off on me and that's a good thing, although I wonder what her reaction would have been, to the moral dilemma I faced tonight.

It's 7pm and the Hollyoaks credits are rolling. It's 1/2 hour since the kids finished their chili and now they want pudding. They won't be fobbed off with apples, and I could do with some cake to see me through the night, so we head off for the Co-op. Walking = exercise, fresh air, environmental friendliness, economy......but........as Pinky slams the front door behind him, wearing only a polo shirt, my mind shouts, 'car= warmth, speed, comfort, convenience.'

I've driven 50 metres from my gate and I'm trying to manoeuvre my Chelsea Tractor past a Yaris, parked 2 metres from a junction and obstructing more than half of the already narrow lane. Crash, bang, 'shit'. Did that lady, loading something into a nearby car, hear that sickening sound of metal against metal. Should I stop and report it? Try and get away with it? Thing 2 urges me to do the former, Pinky the latter.

In the end, I was compelled to side with my daughter, when she posed the question: 'How would you feel if someone had done that to your car?' , right after berating me for using a swear word. I'd been torn between the satisfaction of doing the honest thing and the desire to keep my no-claims bonus intact. Pinky, I fear, may turn out to be one of the 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' types, but for now at least, he's still intent on beating them above all else. I have to admire his competitive nature. On Sunday, in an attempt to prove he was as good a chef as his dad, he rustled up a fantastic cooked breakfast. who cares if his ulterior motive is to gain Brownie points towards the skateboard he wants? I intend to get a bit more mileage out of his current willingness to cooperate - I've always preferred the carrot to the stick method.

I duly placed on note under the windscreen wiper and awaited the call. I 'felt the fear and did it anyway'. At worst, I could expect an irate driver shouting abuse down the phone at me and an increased premium on my motor insurance. As it turned out, the caller was perfectly reasonable and polite and even thanked me for leaving the note. Sometimes, all it takes is for someone to acknowledge on act of honesty to reinforce my faith in karma.

Pool Rules

This inabilty to post photos on here is becoming very frustrating. I wanted to insert the vintage swimming pool poster, 'Would patrons kindly refrain from..........'. You know the one. White background, red headline and 9 cartoon pics of swimmers enjoying forbidden activities such as smoking (?!?), running, pushing and, ahem, petting. Its purpose was to demonstrate the inanity of some of those rules. The one I'd expected to see was, 'no swimming soon after eating' but alas, it wasn't there. I did however come across an up to date version featuring thongs, bling, games consoles and mobiles as banned items.

Still no mention of swimming on a full stomach. Perhaps there was some truth in the discussion tonight on QI , where Stephen Fry claimed there was no evidence to show that this was dangerous. It didn't stop my parents using it as an excuse for avoiding an afternoon at the local baths, not does it prevent me using it as a pretext for staying home. I have quite a few excuses come to think of it. If a recent waxing means I can't use the 'spiders' legs' get-out, I promise to take the chiddlers just as soon as they've tidied their rooms, confident in the knowledge that it will never happen. I like safe bets.

I wish there'd been a few sensible rules posted poolside in our Florida holiday let. 'Don't push mobile carrying friends into water' would have saved Pots' phone and, 'Don't fire party poppers in around the pool' would have helped us avoid declaring war, armed with litres of industrial strength bleach and scrubbing brush, on the white painted patio. Not what you need on New Years Day with a raging hangover, but Aggie did a great job! I think she'd been having withdrawal symptoms. Four days without Domestos! The fumes, which made my eyes stream, acted like hair of the dog for her and by lunchtime, she was ready to hit the malls.

I, on the other hand, was left home alone with my 'dying' husband. I say dying, because he was convinced that his heart would stop beating if he fell asleep. I spent the afternoon lying there, watching the rise and fall of his chest, trying to convince him (and myself) that it WAS just a hangover resulting from his share of a 2 litre bottle of Vodka, 4 cans of Red Bull and 2 bottles of red. The infamous energy drink didn't give him wings that day.

Maybe we should have observed the rule about 'No alcohol in the jacuzzi area'. Perchance then my party shoe wouldn't have ended up in the filter.

Get your t**s out for the girls!

It's official. This year I'll be donning my customised bra (there's a job for the 19th June), lacing up my Adidas trainers (kindly donated by my friend in the marketing department there - snail mail is so slooooooooooooooow; let's hope they arrive in time for me to break them in ;-0) and joining a herd of other mad cows on the Moonwalk. Twenty six miles around Edinburgh in the dead of night.

I have to say I'm quite excited because the scottish capital is one of my favourite cities. Many moons ago, I almost took a place at college there but instead, I opted for the Lancastrian fields of gold. To think , for three years I endured being surrounded by Prestonian babble, when I could have been serenaded by the gentle tones of the Edinburgers. Rather than chomping on Umberto's fish and chips, I'd have been munching deep fried Mars Bars on the way home from the Student Union drinks promo night.

I consoled myself in the knowledge that I was closer to my boyfriend of 2 years and able to live the Manchester scene every other weekend. It was a pretty cool place to be in the early 90s and anyway, Edinburgh would still be there when I graduated, even if my boyfriend wasn't.

I didn't return until I was married and pregnant. Eight months into it in fact, at the end of a long, hot summer pregnancy. The idea was to enjoy our last romantic weekend of peace and tranquility before Pinky (or Felix as he was then known) arrived. Not that waddling up the City's hilly streets, bloated and out of breath was very romantic. Nor was developing heartburn as my meal arrived or falling asleep as soon as my head hit the tartan pillowcase.

I can assure my sponsors (go on - dig deep, it's all in aid of Breast Cancer) that'll I'll have more stamina this year. I reckon that if I fill up my Camelbak with Red Bull and keep up my blood sugar levels with deep fried Mars, I should walk it!

Does asking for 'monkey's blood' on my ice-cream make me racist?

A friend of mine was recently berated by an ice-cream man for requesting 'monkey's blood' on his 99. 'That's offensive now, mate', he was told, 'you have to call it raspberry sauce'. There were no monkeys within earshot at the time, so who exactly was likely to get upset? I could understand if he'd been in Hartlepool at the time, where the locals are endearingly referred to as Monkeys.

Hartlepool is famous for allegedly executing a monkey during the Napoleonic Wars. According to legend, fishermen from Hartlepool watched a French warship founder off the coast, and the only survivor was a monkey, which was dressed in French military uniform, presumably to amuse the officers on the ship. The unsophisticated fishermen assumed that this must be what Frenchmen looked like, and after a brief trial, summarily executed the monkey. (ref: Wikipedia)

I'm more a chocolate sauce and chopped nuts kinda girl myself, but I remember the days of being sent out into the street, with a Tupperware bowl and 50p, to buy the family's pudding from Mr Softee. Sometimes my dad would tell me to ask for a squirt of 'beetle's blood' . Given that I had ( and still have) an aversion to all things anthropodic and haematologic, this ensured that he got my share of the ice-cream. He used to use a similar trick on my gullible young cousin, telling her that the raisins in McVities Shorties, were in fact dead flies. Oh, and the old 'Butterscotch Angel Delight contains curry powder' line was always a favourite. No wonder I was a faddy eater.

Anyway, back to the red sauce. To call it raspberry would, I feel, breach the Misrepresentation Act. That sticky stream of chemicals has probably never seen a soft fruit. Crushed up beetle bits is closer to the mark. Or so I thought until today................

Cochineal, the red food additive, is derived from insects although not from the shiny black beetles I had imagined:

the stuff we call cochineal is a chemical extract of carminic acid from the bodies of squished female scale insects.

The fact that they are 'scales' and therefore legless creatures, makes them slightly more palatable However, as the blood isn't technically from beetles, we are now left with one less name for the nation's favourite ice-cream topping.

Any suggestions?

An Apple a day

Thanks to Jamie, The Pompomist for bringing this to my attention.


http://www.thepompomist.com/magazine/2009/1/7/apple-introduces-the-new-macbook-wheel.html

Some ideas for my next holiday accommodation........

I love it that people source photos like this and share them with us all. Check out the kettle house - a definite inspiration for Fenella the Witch's gaff in Chorlton and the Wheelies!

50 Strange Buildings of the World

Stumbling upon Alphainventions

I'm turning into a bit of an internet geek. Not content with blogging my heart out into cyberspace, I began my quest to herd a few readers into the fold. Although my ramblings are serving their purpose as a means of creative therapy for me, it would be satisfying to think that my prose was being deliberated, cogitated and digested by someone else.

I ploughed my way through blogs and gadgets, googled my way to web sites on increasing traffic and pondered over help manuals. Naturally, I got distracted along the way but that all adds to the fun. It's amazing the things you can find on t'internet. When I work out how to turn off my pop-up blocker, I'll add some pics and links to my discoveries for you to peruse.

Eventually I Stumbled upon Alphainventions who have united my words with readers from around the globe. Their ways and means of doing it all sound a bit too technical for me, but I'm happy for that to remain one of life's little mysteries.

What's your type? According to the Keirsey Temperment Sorter, I'm an................

When I first took this test a few years ago, in the days when I still had delusions of being a career woman, my results outed me as an INTJ. These four letters are pretty good ones to have after your name if you're looking for a job at Nissan. Allegedly, these Japanese car makers look for this personality profile when employing new staff. Don't ask me why. Sales companies, however, prefer the E (extrovert) personalities to the I (introvert) types like me. My acronym was as different to my colleagues' as my sales technique. I felt quite silly sitting there, in the training room, a lonely I drowning in a sea of Es. Maybe that's when I began to question my vocation.

I managed to avoid making any decisions on the career front when Nature deemed that I was to indulge my maternal instincts for a while. After a break of 12 months from the pressure and money driven world of sales, I realised that I didn't miss it. Since making the decision not to go back, I've tried my hand at a few things. The last 10 years have provided me with a number of firsts and new experiences. My body has been stretched out of shape by babies and kept supple with yoga, it's balanced on skis, danced around (and fallen off) a pole, scaled a climbing wall and parascended over the Mediterranean but other than a few more lines and the occasional grey hair, I don't really look that different on the outside.

I've suspected for some time that things are different on the inside. I'd always assumed that by my late 20s, I had become who I was going to be. Not what........WHO. I thought I knew myself and that I wouldn't change, but the results of my most recent Keirsey test seem to suggest otherwise.

Cluttterbye. 'A tidy house a tidy mind' - ok, I'll do the housework just as soon as I've decluttered my mind.

Whoever said, 'a tidy house a tidy mind' may have had a point. I mouthed this mantra as I lay, belly down, dusting the wooden floor under the sofa with my hands. I retrieved a significant handful of fluff along with a random Pinky sized sock , some loose change, a AAA battery and a bull sized toenail clipping. Now I had a pocket full of clutter with a mind to match. Corner to corner, room to room, my pockets slowly filled up with miscellaneous objects. Fragments of bigger things lost and destroyed by little Things. My little Things. Pinky, Thing 1, who isn't actually that little at all, and his skin and blister, Thing 2. As I picked a Connect Four disc out of the fruit bowl, the mantra became a loud whisper.

Ferbreezing the curtains helped to take my thoughts away from the pending drudgery. You know I'm a sucker for smells. They're on a parr with music for having the ability to take me to another time and place. If I close my eyes and inhale the scent of fresh wildflower meadows, I can trick myself into believing this sweet smelling house must be tidy as well as clean. Pop a bit of Vivaldi onto the i-Pod and replace the Proctor and Gamble chemicals with Sanctuary linen spray and I could be in one of the suites at Lumley Castle. If I'd been there on a Monday morning, instead of chez Moo, I doubt I'd have been fretting over reuniting a piece of plastic with its yellow brothers and sisters.

I don't have a problem with cleaning. It's the tidying that has to be done first which causes me to procrastinate. So far this morning, I've made a bacon sandwich, smoked 2 cigarettes (one with each cup of tea), chatted on Facebook and pondered over this blog. Anything to avoid the dreaded housework. Perhaps I over exerted myself yesterday and feel I need to be rewarded for the trio of charity bags I managed to fill and drop off at Oxfam this morning. It's good to know that my daughter's clutter will be converted into something more useful. The clear floor in her bedroom is a bonus too. Now I'll be able to vacuum without running the risk of blocking up the Dyson with hair bands, Barbie shoes and pennies. One room down, only 10 more to go!

Pots (Mr Moo) keeps urging me to pay one of our old cleaners to come back and 'help me keep on top of things'. If I were just a teensy bit paranoid, I could take that as an insult to my housekeeping abilities. I usually rebuff these suggestions on the basis that I've never had much success in employing people to declutter and clean. A few years ago, when my business was thriving, I decided I could justify hiring a cleaner. Enter Fizz.

Larger than life with a mouth to match, she came armed with a pair of slippers and a 2 litre bottle of coke. She claimed to be gifted (she did appear to be a little....erm....special) and often pointed out my typical Gemini traits. Actually, I think she did read my mind once as I stashed her FULL FAT pop in the fridge because she started a monologue about how her large frame was the result of a gland problem. Nothing to do with the 6-packet of chocolate Hobnobs she polished off at my friend's house then? The fact that she'd taken them without asking was a little worrying, as was the way she used our CD/DVD collection as a free library and spent two out of the four hours I paid her for on our phone, sorting out her disability/spf/housing benefits. Maybe it was my fault for telling her I was laid back. A few months in, her chubby feet were so far under our table that it began to hinder her performance. Ironically though, it was then that she decided to announce a 20% increase in her hourly rate. Exit Fizz.

Enter Daphne. If you're imagining a french au-pair type or Scooby Doo's blonde friend, think again. Think more Mrs Doubtfire meets Deidre Barlow. A good all rounder and was game for occasional babysitting jobs too, however she insisted on spending most of her time ironing. Sadly, Daph couldn't master the steam function so I often resorted to doing the pile again, cursing her through gritted teeth. I think she preferred this task to all the ones I'd hinted at, politely asked her to do, then finally WRITTEN IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS ON A NOTE, which I placed under her wages. Despite several pleas, she would not do the windows or under the toilet seat. After a few months of good work (in between month long holidays of visiting her globally spread children) she too seemed to lose interest. I arrived home early from work a few times to find her long gone, or on her way out. Rather than challenging her, I started working from home while she was there so she wouldn't take advantage. During that time I realised why my house seemed clean. It was the smell. A quarter litre of bleach tickled around the loos with a toilet brush, Zoflora mixed with water and squirted from a plant mister, a cup full (I think she misread CAP full) of Pledge wooden floor cleaner in the mop bucket and Mr Sheen polish. I know he's meant to 'shine umpteen things clean', but not, surely, the dining room floor? Although, it did provide a great comedy moment when Pinky decided to rugby tackle Thing 2. The sock/polish combo produced a slide tackle John Terry would've been proud of. The table put up a strong defence, much to the intended target's delight. Anyway, soon after I found my key posted through the door. Another mind reader!

This term I'm taking on an extra day a week at work. I've come to the conclusion that increasing the amount of time I'm working to deadlines, rules and bells will make me more productive. Following a Year 8 history lesson with an autistic adolescent certainly makes me focus so much that I have to mentally sweep the clutter into the corners of my mind. Watching Hitler's abominations on the class TV helps me forget about the mini-warfare going on inside my own head.

I'll leave you with some wise words I saw recently on a cross stitch sampler:

"A tidy house is a sign of a wasted life"