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"