Oh, My Days!

 I hate it when the ingredients list of a recipe ends with ‘a little bit of milk.’ What’s that supposed to mean, eh? Why, after being very precise with the measures of the other ingredients, does it have to go rogue with the vague amount of ‘little bit of milk’? You know precisely what’s going to happen when you start making whatever it is your are making, in this case ‘Soul Cakes.’ You mix all the ingredients together and then you tackle the ‘little bit of milk’ part. And find your ‘little bit of milk’ is at first too little and then not little enough, so you add a smidge of something dry to absorb the excess milk, which renders the mix too dry again, so you have another go at a ‘little bit of milk’ and it all gets out of hand, and you end up with a massive dollop of something that you just KNOW will resemble either a) a rock b) a vat of porridge or c) an alien cast member from ‘Quatermass’ by the time it emerges from the oven.  Luckily, I have been baking for well over 45 ye...

 This is where we ended up today for my pre-birthday outing - Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire!  It is a fascinating and rather marvellous wibbly-wobbly house of some 500 years in age. There has been a house on the site since the early 1200s, but the building of this particular one started in the very early 1500s and continued for around 100 years with various bits being added to it over that period, culminating in the Long Gallery at the top of the house, which, because it was soooooo heavy, nearly did for the floors beneath it and caused a majority of the wibbly-wobbliness. However, it is STILL standing which I think is marvellous testament to the risks one can take in building things - faith over building regulations hurrah!!  It’s the kind of house I’d like to live in. All built around a central courtyard and with a series of rooms running off one another in glorious rabbit warren style, no space wasted by the inclusion of corridors.  The Great Hall. The house con...

I’ve been pondering the coming celebrations of Samhain - the time of the year when the veil between this Earth plane and the Spirit plane is at its thinnest - and what I can do to honour the memories of my loved ones who are no longer here. And when I say ‘here’ I mean they are not physically able to pop round for a cup of tea and a biscuit. Of course, they are still ‘here’ because energy never dies, but they’re not as instantly available as once they were. For example, I can still sense Flora Bijou Mybug around the house, but she is no longer available to personally check my oral hygiene as once she did. Nor attempt to murder me on the stairs. Anyway, All Hallow’s Eve, All Souls’ Day and All Saints’ Day are fast approaching and a little ceremony is called for.  Traditionally, one lights a bonfire, not only in remembrance but to scare away the demonic forces of Winter. To be honest, I think this is a bit harsh on Winter - it’s not my favourite season but I can appreciate the chance...

  Here we are again, once more entered into the astrological sign of Scorpio, which means another birthday is imminent for me. Every year I think, ‘THIS year will be the year I do something really lovely to celebrate my birthday,’ and every year it sort of passes by in a mostly pleasant ‘presents and cake’ kind of way, but with nothing of any significance happening. This is my own fault, of course, because I am basically a quiet person who is happy to stay at home, read books and make jigsaw puzzles. Party animal I am not. I find it very hard to gee myself up, celebratory-wise. The thought puts me in a tizz.  Not this year though. Because the planning and execution of birthday celebrations has been taken out of my wishy-washy incompetent hands. This is, in part, because my son-in-law, Ollie, celebrates his own Scorpio birthday exactly a week before I celebrate mine, and now that he and Heather are living less than 20 miles away, this means ‘double birthday celebrations’ are no...

  Now, when I say, ‘Am I missing something?’ I don’t mean it in an actual ‘I am missing something - like my own horse/ dance studio space/ two acre field/ companion raven to sit on my shoulder’ kind of way. I mean it in a figurative way, like, ‘I’ve read it but I don’t get it because it’s not making sense in my brain.’  Go back a couple of months or so, when I was on the hunt for some new polo shirts for His Lordship Malarkey. His Lordship Malarkey does not like shopping for clothes so, in order that he doesn’t end up looking like Mahatma Gandhi  because he has only a bedsheet to wear, I do clothes shopping for him, usually when I’m ironing and see his clothes looking more than a little shabby and beyond even my skilful repair. The only clothes shop Andy shows any remote excitement in is FatFace. He does like a FatFace hoodie. With pockets.  Polo shirts then. This is the fault of Bambino Bobble Wilson because in the mornings he insists Andy picks him up by the armpit...

 I had plans to redecorate my writing room as soon as I decided it was going to be my permanent workspace a couple of months ago. I checked out wallpapers, mostly flamboyant ones - well, you know me and my interior design fancies. But then I reminded myself that although my writing room isn’t a teeny box room (i.e small - not a room for teeny boxes) it isn’t that huge either and wallpaper with vibrant cerise flamingoes travelling in hot air balloons over fields of hippos enjoying picnics MIGHT be a tad on the overwhelming side. How about posters or art prints, then? Found a few of those I liked, got as far as putting them in my online basket, then panicked at the cost and emptied my online basket, like someone having a flip-out in the supermarket and abandoning a full trolley. Remember, I had just left my job and was still in the throes of worrying about destitution and repossessions, because I can be irrational like that.  Or some handcrafted inspirational collage stuff? Moti...

 Today, I present to you, my learned friends, pictorial evidence of an incident that occurred yesterday as I was leaving the car park in town at approximately 10.27 a.m. I drew it myself and it is a fair representation of the event, although some licence may have been taken with the colours of the cars. Except my car, which I know to be red. Fact. Evidence for the Prosecution:  I returned to my car, parked in the car park of Lidl, having just nipped into aforementioned grocery emporium to purchase cheese, bananas, two varieties of oatcakes (with seeds, with cracked black pepper), eggs, shortbread fingers. As I approached my car, an enormous van of very large proportions drove into the car park and parked next to my car. This van is represented in black. It was not a black van, it was a white van but this was difficult to tell underneath ALL THE DIRT AND MUCK. The van driver alighted from the van and headed towards Lidl. And yes, he did have an orange head.  As you can see...

Pass me some smelling salts and a goodly dollop of cake, will you? After running some quick errands in town this morning (note to self : remember not to go into town on a Saturday morning, not if you want to remain serene) I came home and thought, I know! I’ll start a bit of business planning towards my new business. Well, you know what it’s like when the urge grabs you to crack on with these things, eh?  I planned to spend a mere couple of hours getting some ideas down on paper and rearranging them a bit so they looked practical and manageable. And pretty. You know, coloured felt tip pens and the like. Six hours later, I was immersed in more detailed planning than I thought was possible. My head was spinning, my eyes were fuzzy and my brain was smoking out through my ears. That’s what it felt like, anyway. This is what happens when I become engrossed in something - the excitement and the passion for what I am doing runs away with me. I knew I needed to stop and have a break but I ...

  Let me tell you- what’s happening in this cartoon NEVER happens in real life. You have your own team of spirit companions, they are ALWAYS there with you, by your side, watching your back, waiting to help out when requested. They are never off doing something else. The issue is that if you THINK they’ve cleared off, the real reason you can’t hear them is because you aren’t listening. It’s taken me 30+ years to realise this, but, as Jane Austen once wrote, ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged.’ But it’s hard work listening to spirit guidance and all the infinite wisdom therein. Quite often you are told things you might not want to hear. It’s easy to shut down, then, when the going gets a bit bouncy and you’d rather take the easy route rather than the road less travelled. Of course it is. We are stuck in human form, after all, with an innate lazy streak seeking out the short cut, the route that will keep the mud off our lovely shoes. Yet when you really start tuning in, really s...

 My over-the-ocean blog chum, KJ, and I have been sharing a few back and forth emails covering various Highly Important topics such as decluttering, jam, stocking up for Winter (NOT hoarding - this is something entirely different and far less sensible) and The Vicar of Dibley. This was on the back of my previous blogpost about NOT wanting ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ played at my funeral and KJ saying it always reminded her of The Vicar of Dibley on account of it being the programme’s theme tune.  Anyway, I said, ‘Have you seen the comedy series ‘Ghosts’? It’s The Best Thing EVER!’ (I’m never sure, when discussing TV with my not-living-in-Britain friends, what is available to them in their part of the world. Of course, given we live in a technologically superior age - pah!- everything should be available to everyone wherever they live, but I suspect it is not.) KJ returned that no, she had not seen ‘Ghosts.’ I also recommended ‘Mortimer and Whitehouse Go Fishing.’ And then I type...

 When I flick through the papers online I try to find the happy stories amongst all the doom and gloom that seems to make up 95% of the news these days. This often makes for speed reading because I ignore all the grim and depressing stuff, and fun stuff is a rare egg indeed. Bravo to all the neighbours in a street in Nottinghamshire, then, who have created a very long hedgehog run by making holes in all their fences so hedgehogs can generally frolic amok and socialise with each other freely and with gay abandon, which is something that is GOOD for hedgehogs.  Another story that caught my eye this morning, and triggered an interesting breakfast time conversation ‘twixt me and Lord Malarkey, was that Dame Mary Berry, baker and cook without compare, has chosen the hymns for her funeral. Quite right, too, I thought. I would be thoroughly vexed if ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ was chosen for MY funeral, for example. Very vexed indeed. So cliché.  ‘I don’t want hymns at my funeral,...

 His Lordship Malarkey made some red hot chilli jam this week using some of the red hot chilli peppers grown this year in our greenhouse. As you can see, we still have a fair few red hot chillis peppers to go, but they freeze well, so no rush. Also, our son-in-law, Ollie, is partial to a chilli pepper, so we can share the crop and all the heat that goes with it. In fact, Ollie decided to try eating one WHOLE…and then thought perhaps he shouldn’t have. It’s the sort of thing Andy does, too. What is it with men and eating whole chilli peppers? Eh? The chilli jam is very hot, too. Only a smidge needed for lovely chilli effect. Last year, as the Winter drew on, I decided to heed government advice and take a daily Vitamin D supplement. Well, I thought, I’m not getting any younger, my eggs have left the building and there’s all the hoo-ha about ladies of a certain age being more susceptible to bone breaks and the suchlike, and an extra dose of Vitamin D is supposed to be a protective mea...

  27th July : Heather and Ollie move to Shropshire to start a new life. Hurrah! Plusnet, their internet provider, puts their contract line ‘on hold’ for a few weeks until it is needed in their new home. They do this by re-routing it to Damson Cottage by some form of woo-woo hocus pouch magic that doesn’t interfere with the incumbent Damson Cottage internet connection courtesy of BT. 16th August : Heather and Ollie are successful in bid for their new house. Hurrah! Call is made to Plusnet requesting internet service is re-routed for moving day of 20th August. Minor irritation occurs as Plusnet attempt to adjust terms of contract but it is agreed that connection will be rerouted. But then it can’t. An engineer appointment is needed as new house is currently connected to Virgin and so ‘stuff’ needs to be done before Plusnet can be connected. This will take between 4-6 weeks. Because of shortage of appropriate engineers and various covid/ Brexit/ new government/ wars/ mad Russian presi...

 On Friday morning, I said to His Lordship Malarkey, ‘If I buy a new light fitting for the dining room, would you be able to fit it, please?’ And he said, ‘Yes, of course, no problems,’ which, in hindsight, because Mercury is in retrograde, was probably NOT the best thing to declare in a joyful, blasé, easy peasy kind of way.  ‘I’ve found a suitable light in Argos,’ said I, because I am classy like that when it comes to home furnishings. ‘And they have one in stock at our local branch.’ Hurrah! So far, so good. Mercury still retrograde though. Probably explains, too, why the curtains I ordered for the dining room still haven’t arrived despite the delivery date being yesterday. Ah well… We tried to order and pay online, so we could just whizz in and collect the order quick sticks, like an efficient Ninja warrior, but both my attempt to do this, and then Andy’s, were rejected as ‘Oops, something went wrong! Please try again or pop into your local store.’ This often happens when ...

 Bloody Kate the Resident Shrew has eaten a hole in my Winter hat! And she’s run off with the magnificent bobble, too. I discovered this a couple of days ago when I was giving the laundry a post-‘swallow have now flown’ sweep and tidy, and almost, but not quite, lost my unbending tolerance of the Annoying Habits Sometimes Displayed by Nature’s Creatures. Of course, the hat vandalism is my fault completely because a) I know Kate the Shrew is resident in the laundry and b) I shouldn’t, therefore, have left my Winter bobble hat in there. The combination was never going to be good.  After perusing all sorts of lovely replacement hats on t’internet (widening my search into other areas after  a ‘what would you like for your birthday?’ request from Lord Malarkey) I decided, in the spirit of reuse, recycle, re-whatever else one is encouraged to do in these stricken times, to make a second Winter Bobble Hat. After all, I had made the first. It wouldn’t take long. And I had a scarf...