Oh, My Days!

  Today is the celebration of Samhain, or New Year for us witchy types. This particular witchy type a.k.a moi has enjoyed a lovely day celebrating this festival. I have made soul cakes, and leek, potato and rosemary soup. I’ve had a long walk in Nature, spoiled only marginally by the presence of a lot of children and very bored looking adults, because it is half-term. Despite it being too peoply out there, the trees looked stunning in their Autumn colours and I was treated to a vibrant double rainbow for a brief while during a rain shower. On the way home from our long walk, Nell and I called in at her favourite pet shop to purchase a new split antler because her old one has been reduced to a mere sliver. Nell has also been practising barking at sheep, which arrived in the field surrounding our house yesterday. I’ve told her she is to leave the sheep alone because she risks being shot at if she doesn’t.  Once home, and replete with soup ‘n’ soul cakes, I set about doing myself...

It is half past ten on Sunday morning and I am ready for my Sunday dinner. It should be half past eleven in old money time, but because some deranged, interfering half-wit of a busybody thought it would be a good idea to meddle with time just over a hundred years ago, it is now an hour previous to the time it should be. ‘Aaah,’ I hear you say. ‘But you got an extra hour of sleep this morning. Isn’t that great?’ No, I didn’t. And no, it wasn’t. And I shall tell you for why. Because Bambino the Cat and Nell the Dog do not know about this faffing around with clocks business and therefore were ready at their usual time for wanting to be fed, and for performing pees and poos, and for racing around the house in a zoomie fashion because ‘Yay and Hurrah!! It’s a brand new day!!!’ I was up and dressed and ready for action at my usual time, then, which is half past six except it wasn’t half past six, it was half past five, and so, two hours later (half past seven, should have been half past eigh...

 Today is National Black Cat Day. I don’t know, but there seem to be several national days a year celebrating black cats, which is fine because black cats are amazing and need celebrating because they often get undeserved bad press from dim-witted weirdos. Especially at this time of year with their traditional association with witchcraft. But as I am a witch, a black cat is an essential sidekick, even though mine would say he was in charge and the sidekick is, in fact, me. I might sack him for a toad. Or an owl. I thought, then, today would be a good day to give an update on Bambino Bobble Wilson, black cat of this parish, who’s been having a bit of a rough time health wise, in a ‘touch and go’ sort of way. Here is the photo I took of him on our landing ten minutes ago. He is looking wild-eyed because he has just produced an ENORMOUS poo which necessitated a celebratory zoomie gallop. Think yourselves lucky I didn’t take a photo of the poo. I almost did, because it was a mighty fin...

 Back in June, I contributed to a crowd funding project. I’ve never done this before, not being a speculative type of person. However, the person I was helping to crowd fund is a particularly talented artist called Hayley and she was working hard towards achieving a dream of hers, which was to publish a diary based around the phases of the Moon. And as I love the Moon, astrology, and her art, as I say, is amazing, I made a pre-purchase of the diary launch bundle which consisted of the diary (obvs), a poster wall calendar, a bookmark, a sticker and this rather snazzy tote bag: Hayley’s website is www.moonphasestudios.com  The crowd funder was successful and my bundle duly arrive at the beginning of October. The diary is lovely! It’s nice and weighty, beautiful to hold, printed on good quality paper, and is set out very well inside. Packed with lovely stuff, it is, and it will be a pleasure to use. It starts on 12th December and covers the following 13 moon phases across 2024. I...

 When you are a person, such as me, who used to be considerably larger in size than you are now, the habit of buying clothing in bigger sizes tends to sit with you because you sometimes can’t quite believe you are a significantly smaller person. Somehow you seem programmed to hit the XL button when you are internet shopping because in your mind you always see yourself as enormous.  This week, then, when I decided to add to my collection of brightly coloured Winter woolly tights (because there is nothing like cheerful hosiery to keep one feeling chipper during the cold dark months) I ordered six pairs - black, navy, plum, burgundy, red and mustard - all in size XL. Well, you have to be careful with thick tights because they don’t have the stretch of their finer denier companions. And a straining gusset flying at half mast can be a very debilitating thing when one is out walking in public and there’s no discreet corner where one can hide and have a surreptitious yank up and rear...

 Before I start on the main topic of the day, I have an important question. How does one wash waterproof socks? I ask only because when I was out and about the other day, I saw waterproof socks for sale and I thought, ‘Surely that makes the washing of them difficult?’ It was one of those ‘conundrums wrapped in an enigma and packaged in a parcel’ moments. I didn’t buy any waterproof socks, but the washing of them has played on my mind. Surely one wouldn’t send socks for dry-cleaning? Surely?  Today, I was thrown into a mini-panic moment, and it was because of this: This is the field next to our kitchen window. And see that blue pole in the centre of the photo? That’s part of the electric fence that the farmer set up around the edge of the field this very afternoon. And that means one thing - that sheep are on their way, which no doubt Nell will find quite thrilling.  But this installation of the electric fence happens at the beginning of December and has done so for the la...

 Today, I left Facebook. And Instagram. I’ve been thinking about doing so for a while. In fact, I had got as far as deactivating both accounts, but only because I use Messenger quite a bit and if you delete rather than deactivate, then Messenger is deleted, too.  Today, I deleted it. And goodness me, was that an effort! Facebook does not want you to leave. It takes grit, patience and determination to delete a Facebook account. You have to follow a tricky path through the incomprehensible layers of your account. It’s not a case of simply pressing a delete button, job done. Even now, I have 30 days remaining until the account is deleted properly, in case I change my mind. Pah! I’ve made a note in my diary to have a little Facebook divorce party on the 30th day. I’ve had enough of social media. Or should that be ‘anti-social’ media? It seems to me it does more harm than good these days. But, because I have a handful of family and friends that I have Messenger chats with on a regu...

 I went into Morrison’s because I am running low on this, and I can’t quite bring myself to try the Aldi version even though it is cheaper and my brother informs me you get used to the taste after a while: Proper Marmite. No arguments. And whilst I was there I had a mooch around, like you do, and picked up some seeded wraps for His Lordship Malarkey’s packed lunches this week, and a lipstick for me. I want to say, also, that I hadn’t gone specifically into town for the purchase of Marmite only, but that I’d taken some clothes to the Sally Army clothes bank in Morrison’s car park, and dropped some spent batteries into their battery collection point because it is BAD to chuck a spent battery into your general household waste on account of it being a potential and very dangerous fire hazard to the waste collection lorry, and I have NEVER done this before…EVER…ahem… Anyway, there I was at the self-service tills with my three items (the wraps and lipstick were impulse buys - I know, sho...

  Bambino Bobble Wilson has been going through a period of poor health. The above photo is of him scooched up on my lap. I am trying to type on my laptop, he is resting over my arm and making it go dead. But he doesn’t care about these things, and besides, he hasn’t been well.  It started with a bout of cystitis which knocked his appetite for six. He started refusing food and in a short period of time lost a considerable amount of weight. He went into hospital, twice, and had a raft of tests which showed he had developed a type of liver disease and that his immune system was below par. And that, unless his appetite improved, well, things would only deteriorate further. And you can guess the rest.  It turns out that Bambino is a very bad patient which surprised me for such a cheerful and confident cat. He was angry and disagreeable during his hospital appointments, and trying to wrestle medication down him was impossible. Literally, impossible. Spitting, fighting, wrestlin...

Once upon a time (about two years ago) there used to be branch of my bank in my local town. A local branch for local people. It was a nice branch staffed by nice people and although I didn’t frequent it very often because I am down wiv da kidz and mostly do internet banking, when I did go in there, I always emerged a happy customer.  One day, however, I received a letter saying that because the bank branch wasn’t used by many of the local people, it would be closing. The letter kindly offered old fogies like me the chance to have some free computer lessons in order to learn how to access their on-line banking app and systems. If I remember correctly, I used the letter as kindling to start a fire in the wood-burner that year.  The bank branch duly closed. The biggest irritation for me was that its cash machine closed with it, so I now have to go elsewhere to get cash as and when I need it. Usually Morrisons which is a miserable place to visit these days, so I don’t go very ofte...

 I had a vaguely surreal conversation with my neighbours over the fence yesterday regarding Lady Boothby. Now, the dedicated gardeners amongst you (I’m looking at you, Mrs Duck!) will immediately know that Lady Boothby is a hardy, rampant climbing fuchsia. We have one living outside our back door, to the right-hand side. This is what Lady Boothby looks like: This is NOT a photo of our actual Lady Boothby because I am writing this at a quarter past eight in the evening and outside it is dark and raining and therefore not conducive for good quality photo-taking. I took this photo from t’internet. But I can sure you, it is a fair likeness and our Lady Boothby is currently around 7 feet tall and smothered in flowers.  I only discovered the fuchsia was called Lady Boothby yesterday because my neighbour, Gill, pointed at it as we were chatting over the fence and said, ‘Lady Boothby is looking well.’ Apparently, the cutting of our Lady Boothby came from her Lady Boothby. It was given...

 Clipping by stealth seems to be the order of the day now we’ve decided to tackle Nell’s grooming regime ourselves. A few days ago, for example, I had a little go with the scissors around her face and by the time I’d finished, she could see where she was going and her ears were a little shorter, as was the fur on the top of her head, which was rather like trimming a pompom. I’m an old hand at trimming pompoms (from my arty crafty days) - just not pompoms that wriggle and jiggle around. I also managed to trim her nose fur, although somewhat unevenly. Sort of a rustic look. A couple of days later, we stood her on her grooming table (pink) and used the clippers with the longest clipper guard to go over her body. That was okay. We bribed her with a variety of doggy biscuit treats and all was well.  And this morning, we had a go with the shorter blades on the clippers and secured enough excess fur so that I could, if I was inclined (which I am not), spin and knit into a set of egg ...

 Do you ever wear a jegging? A jegging is a cross between a jean and a legging. Jegging. See what they did there? I had a couple of pairs of jeggings, because I was seduced into buying them in a sale. They’re all very well as an item of snug clothing when you pull them on in the mornings, but they’re a different war against fashion when you’re trying to take them off at night after a long and wearisome day and you find you can’t get your foot to fit back up the leg without one hell of a (sometimes tearful) struggle.  The thing is, as you grow older in years and wisdom, you find you cannot be bothered with certain items of fashion. For example, I gave up wearing any sort of shoe or boot with a heel over two inches high about 5 years ago now. And two inches is a challenge, to be honest. And pants? What I want is a pair of full ‘n’ comfy plain cotton knickers, not some little scanty bit of synthetic fabric nothing that rides up where the sun doesn’t shine and chafes where the sun...

  Went to see Jenny Eclair on tour at the Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury on Sunday evening. Heather came with me, and we had a lovely posh Italian dinner before heading to the theatre. I’ve recently read, ‘Still Life’ by Sarah Winman (cracking story) which is set mostly in Italy, and by the time I’d finished it, I had the urge to download the DuoLingo app and learn Italian. I rather fancy to flounce around, ranting in Italian. I think it’s a language that lends itself well to a good rant. Learning a language in late middle age is supposed to be good for keeping the old brain cells lubricated and firing, too. Really, it all depends on whether I can be arsed.  Now, I listen to Jenny Eclair’s podcast ‘Older and Wider’ which she shares with producer/editor/writer Judith Holder. I think Judith is only there to provide a raucous cackling backing track for Jenny’s maniacal running banter, because Jenny is very much centre of the podcast content. And if the content strays towards Judith...

 Sometimes you have to try things to see if they work. And the point comes when you realise they don’t work and you backtrack and end up on familiar ground again which makes you feel all cosy and warm, like you’ve come home after a particularly bumpy journey. That’s what’s been happening. And that is why I am returned to ‘Oh, My Days!’ If anyone is still here…they might not be…in which case I am shouting into the lone void. But it’ll be a lone void that keeps me entertained. And I’ll be able to say what I like because I shan’t be offended. Anyway, last Wednesday his Lordship Malarkey and I took Nellibobs the Cockapoo to the Pets At Home Groom Room for an all over spruce up and full clip. Now she has her adult coat we need to have her clipped every 8-10 weeks or she’ll turn into a felted door mat of a creature, which won’t be nice at all. We dropped her off at lunchtime for her 2 hour appointment, and hied ourselves off for a spot of lunch. So far, so good. Half an hour later, we re...