Not suitable for people with irony deficiency and
cannot guarantee nut-free

Monday 28 March 2011

Getting back in Touch

Who knew Blighty was a National Humorous Weekly for only  6 pence?

Dahlings, so sorry to have neglected you for so long but life has been busy and filled with glamour.

Like this.

Mr B: the hairdresser won't do Boy 1's hair - he has Nits!
Mrs B: at least Boy 2 hasn't got them.  Oh, yikes!


And this.

1.30am: Mummmmmeeeeee. I feel icky-sicky
Mrs B: just don't throw up on the new carpet, there's a dear

Then Lovely B came to stay (cousin to Mr Blighty, partner in retail crime to Mrs Blighty) and Things Went Rapidly Downhill.  We shopped for England.  Our timetable went something like this:
Day 1: trip to picturesque Old Amersham, coffee and shopping ( more about this later)
Day 2: trip to Bicester Village (retail outlet and my spiritual home), coffee, shopping, lunch, more shopping
Day 3: trip to Eden Shopping Centre, High Wycombe, shopping, coffee, lunch, shopping
Day 4: no shopping,  dvd of "Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" (brilliantly summarised by Faux Fuchsia as "I have a big tattoo, I have been abused, I want revenge").
Day 5: no shopping whatsoever
Day 6: Lovely B departs and credit cards cool down


So obviously I have had No Time for blogging.

On Day1 Lovely B and I popped into a brilliant shop in Old Amersham called Touch*, which belongs to Annette,  a very pretty and stylish mother of one of Boy 1's schoolmates.  Lovely B and I had the best time chatting to Annette and perusing grabbing and poking at all the fab stuff in the shop:  new and vintage clothes, jewellery, shoes, gifts...the pictures will give you an idea of the retail temptations that are available:

* did you see how I worked that into the title of this post? good eh?
Note from Mr B: no, not good, really a bit painful to be honest




70s glam rock type dress next to Mick

Should I buy this hat for The Wedding even if just watching it on TV?

70s peasant number (yes B, I am talking about the dress)

Vintage Cerruti

I loved this




Serious shoe lust for these

I pounced on unsuspecting customer and made her model the hat, sorry Annette if I have so traumatised this nice lady that she never comes back again....
My precious!


I came away from Touch with this silky tunic, the material is lovely and the details are nice, like the turned back cuffs and the brown leopardlike trim; Lovely B has advised leggings to go with.

 

Top  - pic taken from Touch website

 
So if you live near, go visit Touch.  Old Amersham is a great place for some light shopping, coffee and lunch!  But give those Blighty Boys a wide berth.  At least until they stop scratching.

No rewards or inducements or stuff were given to me for writing about Touch but I am hoping that if Annette's son gets nits too, she will think twice before running me over in the school carpark

Wednesday 16 March 2011

The Planned Post Is Now Toast

Dahlings, I had such a lovely post planned for today.  It was going to be so elegant, so stylish, so sophisticated, so so so...er...

It was going to involve a delicious discussion of eye shadow.  Should I embrace the new eye shadow shape or will I just look like a demented panda let loose on a paintbox?

Very mauve eye shadow look from Harpers
Gwyneth on cover of March's Harpers with
lots of blue eye shadow
Also from Harpers, some complicated stuff with eyeliner  going on here

I was also going to touch on scarves and discuss the fun I have been having trying to learn to tie them a la MaiTai.  MaiTai is the Goddess of Scarves, actually she is quite simply a Goddess, and she has these great how to videos on her blog. http://www.maitaispicturebook.com/  I have decided that remembering to arrange your scarf into the basic bias fold is Key.  It makes all scarves look better, even non-Hermes ones (sigh - note to Mr B: I have been terribly good recently in all sorts of saintly ways I can't quite recall at the moment, surely a Hermes scarflet would be deserved??  NO  - I DON'T CARE WE JUST HAD THE RADIATOR HOUSING THERMOSTAT MCWHATSIT ON THE CAR FIXED FOR THE PRICE OF A HERMES SCARF, IT'S NOT THE SAME..) 

I was going to show you recent scarf purchases. (Note to Mr B: sourced at my spiritual home, Bicester Retail Village and thus heavily discounted (FF 2011) and so begging to be bought, crime not to etc etc)
Fendi scarf from Bicester Village



Dior scarf also from Bicester Village

Lots to look at on scarf
Even a bit of leopard print



I was also planning on a little light discussion of brooches, with which I have become ever so slightly obsessed, ever since I first clapped eyes on Faux Fuchsia's bee and Chanel numbers.  And then a new blogger I have discovered, Mrs Exeter, posted a picture of her recently acquired Chanel brooch. http://dressingmrsexeter.blogspot.com/

I have sourced a few brooches but must admit to having technical difficulties re secure attachment and so things drop off me now and again, at my age I am just thankful it's only a brooch and not teeth or  support garments.


Bee brooch from Butler and Wilson, £28



BUT NO, ALAS, the whole elegant swellegant post has been DERAILED.
Instead of glamour, I bring you:

MRS BLIGHTY JUMPING UP AND DOWN ON A LOAF OF BREAD

 It's all the fault of the bl**dy bread.


I bought Kingsmill Secretly Seeded, seduced by its stealth health claims and the jolly little arrow proclaiming "no bits".

Ha! No way was Boy 1 falling for this: there was much muttering along  the lines of " most disgusting  ....killing me....poison.....toxic....bits...revolting"

This morning for breakfast he requested cheese on toast, which I lovingly made.  Since I had an entire loaf to get rid of, I gambled on him not noticing the Health Bread under 1kg of melted cheese. Big mistake:  howls of anguish from Boy 1. All this with minus 5 minutes to school run.

Suddenly I found myself picking up the whole loaf in its plastic bag and throwing it at him, while ranting about spoilt children; Boy1 deftly parried the incoming loaf missile and burst into tears.  I then grabbed the bread and proceeded to jump up and down on it, at the same time shouting incoherently about starving children in Africa, aware even as I did so this was not very logical behaviour.

Reenactment
Boy 2 then burst into tears.

 Suddenly I was overcome with Maternal Guilt.  I had reduced both boys to tears, even innocent bystander Boy 2,who was no doubt traumatised by sight of mother losing the plot; I had damaged his delicate little psyche. Forever. He would never recover. He was Scarred for Life.

"Sorry darlings, sorry, Mummy is soooooo sorry" I grovelled as I cuddled Boy 2.

Boy 2 sobbed a bit more and then explained that he was NOT crying  because of his mother's nutsy behaviour.  Oh no, our sensitive little soul was wailing for another reason altogether: the biscuit accompaniment to his Muller Crunch Corner was soggy and thus not providing him with the comestible enjoyment to which he has become accustomed..in other words if his brother was going to throw a hissy fit about the breakfast offering, he was sure as hell not going to be left out..
Balls indeed

If you need me, I'll be in the bread aisle of our local supermarket, testing the texture of the bread.  With my feet.

Update-gate- Mrs B Speaks Out

Dahlings - the horrid 'puter won't let me comment on my own blog!  Mr B was Fiddling with it (and with the computer) last night muttering about Updating to Incontinet Expender 9  which to me means hassle, loss of data and general pain in the arsal region.  And, he has wiped off my Favourites.  Mr B,  back in the Spare Room!

But you can't silence Blighty (as Mr B has found out over the years, poor man).

So here are my replies to your lovely comments ( I am always sooo thrilled and flattered to get them, and please don't think if I don't reply I have not read them, I have, I sometimes do not have time to reply as  often trapped under the vaccum cleaner or fighting with the over 70s in the reduced item section of the supermarket, I do have a life you know, tosses head in prima donna fashion..)


Dear All, thank you for your lovely wishes for Grandma W, she is now out of hospital and at home with me, getting better quietly.  We never saw Nurse Poo again, obviously realised there was nothing doing at that end...of the ward..
Linda - well done on the pea incident, that must have alarmed your poor mum, can you now whistle Stars and Stripes through your nose? Useful at parties. Twice daily delivery of post?!! That went about 10 years ago, we get one delivery a day, anytime between midday and 4pm, if they feel up to it, by highly trained post office operative skilled in dropping those red elastic bands all over the drive/pavement and with a commitment to all year round shorts wearing not equalled by aesthetic quality of legs.  And we get very excited if someone gets something we posted, really feels as if we have beaten the system.
Dear SSG, thank you for your kind wishes for  the Big G, very nice of you
Deb - the bins are such a worry, I can never get to sleep the night before bin collection, I am sooo excited..
LPC - hello, thank you for calling by
Kate - the whole bin collection issue is a terrible worry! I did not make up Pippa Poppins, it does exist, or did when Boy 1 was tiny, I got the brochure and thought about sending him there 24/7 till he was ready for school as he was Such A Nightmare but then I saw the prices - and there was a bit about collecting your kid from the airport, heartbreaking..I know the children's A&E in Chelsea well, it was our local, we almost got a loyalty card..
Anne-Marie - every time Boy 1 did something particularly daft, I took a photo, it gave me time to calm down and I think perhaps also I was compiling a dossier to be used when they hauled me in front of the Bad Mothers Tribunal. Bet the flour was a treat!
Hostess - good point, I think they may be a natural selection thing here - either head stuck in things or things stuck up nose? we never did the nose, thank goodness. But maybe some kids do both??
Town and Country - thank you that's kind of you, I would love to prattle on everyday but then no one would get fed etc
Kitty Cat - yes, bannisters and railings, thank you for reminding me, I will set up a separate division in PippaPopOffs for these, will need cutting gear and some hunky firemen...oh my...
Sally - told your joke to Boys 1 and 2 who laughed and then informed me that Lady GG is so not cool, who knew?
Louise - G loved the idea of pizza challenge but I sprang her out of there before she could put it into practice...what had your handcuffed guys been doing????
Legend - you are spot on about hospital being no place for the sick!
Tabitha - if I couldn't have a laugh, I would just give up, what is the point otherwise?
Alison - the Royal Wedding bin thing is priceless, you couldn't make this stuff up! love local council newsletters!
Suzanne - thank you so much for that lovely compliment, you know that encouraging me will only make me show off even more?


STOP PRESS: just had call from Mr B - upon which I interrogated him in menacing fashion about Update-gate and my missing favourites...he claims there is some Icon somewhere that will help.  Only Icon I can think of at the moment is Audrey Hepburn ......

Sunday 13 March 2011

Bin There, Done That

A worrying few days.  My mother (aka Grandma Whacker or the Big G) is in hospital.  Now she is feeling a bit better we are able to laugh a bit about the past few days. Highlights include:
  •  The long, long wait in A&E where we saw a guy go past handcuffed and chained to a policeman; he seemed to have been fast-tracked, so next time I am whacking the handcuffs onto G, which should also make her more cooperative generally;
  • A chap in a baseball cap with a bandaged foot, whose cheery girlfriend said to him, " I don't wanna worry you or nuffin Craig but they keep us waiting much longer, all the tendons in your foot are gonna die..."  He took this in a very resigned fashion. Probably used to Mrs DoomPants;
  • A junior doctor who I swear was about 12 years old;
  • The complete absence of child with saucepan on head.  You know in those old films they always have a kid in the waiting room with a saucepan jammed on its head?  Well I have yet to see this in Real Life. Why?  Have heads and/or saucepans been made a different shape for Elf and Safety reasons?  Or do kids have more exciting things to do these days like hacking into the CIA database or playing poker? (I joke not about the latter, today I found Boys 1 and 2 happily teaching themselves Seven Card Stud ; it is my fault, I picked up a set including a "how to" book from a charity shop and now they want to know what "ante" means; I am a terrible mother but I did once sit next to a woman at a dinner who said her son was a professional poker player and when I asked if he managed to make a living, she said he had just taken delivery of a Ferrari...so really I am paving the way for their future financial security).

G and I decided that there must be a Special Treatment Centre for kids with stuff stuck on their heads and that's why you never saw them in A&E.  I then had a brilliant idea for a new business ( Brilliant Business Idea 509).  In London there is a deluxe nursery called PippaPoppins - like a hotel for kids, they will even collect your 4 year old from the airport and take them straight back to PippaPoppins so you don't have to worry about them getting sticky fingers on your Bentley.  My idea: PippaPopOffs (TM) - deluxe removal of any items stuck on toddlers' heads (but not nits or anything live, too much admin and heavy duty chemicals required).  I am already working on the ads: "PippaPopOffs - Make the Bin a Has Bin" or "Don't Lose Your Head - Receptacle Removal with 100% Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil".  I have some experience in this field.  With Boy 1. Just after this was taken there was a Panic followed by Successful Application of  Oil to Head of Boy 1, and Emergency Application of Stiff Drink to Mouth of Mummy.

  • The scary Nurse Poo (our nickname, not her real name) who was very insistent about G providing, ahem, a stool sample; G explained she had already obliged in Ward 10; but Nurse Poo said Ward 5 needed its very own sample, they were not about to start sharing sh*t with Ward 10; we reckoned there was some sort of sinister inter-ward poop competition going on, and Ward 5 were trailing behind, as it were...
Thank goodness, G seems to have perked up and happily spends her days filling in all the paperwork to order her next meal. In fact she finds my visits really disrupt this important activity.  She has also been reading up a storm.  And wants me to tell Faux Fuchsia that there is a new biography coming out about Edith Sitwell which G thinks FF will like.    Poor Edith, she was made to wear leg braces and some sort of horrid contraption on her nose when she was a child..
I leave you with some important Royal Wedding news.  In Buckinghamshire, where Blighty HQ is situated, the Royal Wedding is raising some serious concerns.


I look forward to the headline in the Bucks Examiner: "Royal Wedding: Bucks does not give two fu hoots about Royal Wedding but bin disruption causes riot."

Tuesday 8 March 2011

Making It Up As I Go Along



The nice Illamasqua lady sent me a press release the other day for their new Spring/Summer make up collection, called Toxic Nature.  They must have seen my garden. *

It got me thinking about how make up can be such a morale booster. Well, it is for me.  Probably not such a comfort if you come home early one day to find your husband in Mac lipstick and Nars Orgasm (it's a blusher, ok) wearing a nice little frock and fishnets, but heck, it takes all sorts.

A trillion years ago when I was a trainee lawyer in a big City law firm,  6pm was the witching hour. This was when predatory qualified  lawyers would prowl around picking off any stray trainees who had not been fleet of foot enough to skedaddle, and drag them into their lair to proof read a few hundred pages of some bond documentation.  Now and again,  I would get caught, and then a long,  fun-packed evening of typo spotting and trying not to fall asleep while another trainee droned their way through section 138, default by bondholders etc., lay ahead.  

If we were really lucky, we might be released for 20 mins to go have supper in the staff canteen before returning to our task.  The canteen in the evenings was scary - just a few solitary pale young men stoking up on hamburger and chips before putting in another 98 hours at their desks.  Actually that's where Mr B used to eat every night.. 

One such evening when I was sulking at my desk, a very beautiful Chinese lawyer dropped by for a chat.  She was working late too.  She was terribly glamorous, with long silky black hair, wore elegant suits and silk blouses and her lipstick was a soft pink.  And she mentioned how, when she had to stay late, she always put on some lipstick and perfume, because it lifted her morale. I have always remembered that.   And I do find a bit of slap application is curiously relaxing, a bit of escapism. Just taking time out and feeling that you and your face can face the world again, afterwards.

Mind you, not sure the  insects in the hair look would go down too well in the City.  Or at the school gates.


The one thing I don't like about make up is what happened to me recently.  I looked in the mirror and saw a washed out, tired middle aged woman. Oh well, I thought to myself, I will look much better once I've got my make up on. 

Dahlings - I ALREADY HAD MY MAKE UP ON! AAAAAAGH!


On the subject of make up, I have discovered  (through Hestia's Larder which I love and is on my blogroll)  a blog called Facegoop.  This is a beguiling mix of humour and make up/beauty reviews, in the form of a dialogue between 2 friends.  Do go visit, it's fun and informative. http://www.facegoop.com/

So, Illamasqua. I am still loving my red lipstick in Box.



I might be tempted by one of their Toxic Nature lipsticks or lipglosses.  They have a Flagship Store in Beak St, Mayfair. They may want to bolt down the testers in readiness for a Blighty visit.


Even cars look better with a bit of cosmetic enhancement.  Saw this one yesterday.  How cute!

*Please note that no payment or products were received by me from Illamasqua for this post.  Not even the teeniest weeniest sample. The meanies.  But hey, I live in hope.

Tuesday 1 March 2011

One Of Those Days

It's One of Those Days when:

  • I oversleep; on waking I hear Mr B saying to Boy 2:
"Don't pull it anymore, it'll come off."
Whatever he was doing, and to be honest I would rather not know, it can't be good, can't it?

  • The living room floor has gone:

Dear FF, please send your Daddy or the Penguin as a matter of urgency, the cushion situation is out of hand here

  • I waste time watching an interview with Charlie Sheen, reading up on his antics and wondering whether I would like to come back as Sheen in my next life - he seems to know how to party, whereas me and Mr B get all tired at about 10.30pm and have to pretend we need to go home as it is getting too late for the babysitter.
My favourite Charlie S quotes:

"I couldn't keep up with him" says porn star after 36 hour cocaine bender with Charlie Sheen".

"Sheen is now out of hospital having suffered a hernia".  Not entirely surprised.  *             



*Blighty in no way endorses substance abuse or romping about with porn stars; a cup of tea is a nice way to unwind and if feeling a bit like pushing the boat out, a rich tea biscuit.             

    Pic of Mr Sheen from Daily Mail website. His publicist has just quit. Guess the job got dull.
  • Realise I am absolutely freezing and heating not working; ring Mr B at his work who kindly informs me that after our colossal gas bill he has put heating onto timer setting, which can be summarised as follows: Boys and Mr B at home - heating on; Boys and Mr B out - heating off.  Yes, I have put on an extra jumper, in fact I am wearing 3 jumpers and I am STILL COLD.  Take by revenge on Mr B who has left me note asking me to pick up book for him from library - write at bottom "Sorry cannot do it, legs frozen."  Re-jig heating and set it to tropical and play Bob Marley CD very loudly.    


Mrs B's kitchen chairs under new daytime heating regime

  • 2 ladies come to the door and ask me if I am interested in the word of God. They look as if they are settling in for the full doorstop conversion but I tell them Mr B is an atheist; one of them says "That must be hard for you."  I consider breaking down in tears and saying, "Yes, and he doesn't let me have any heating on in the day" but feel that might be overdoing it. They give me pamphlet  entitled "Would you like to know the Truth?"  I want to ask why there is such poor mobile phone reception round here.  Feel sure God has moved with the times and is a whizz at IT and texting etc.  He can't still be doing the stone tablets and writing on the wall can he?


  • Derek the painter phones up to find out what paint we want in Boy 2's room; discover have sent email to Derek (Boy 1's teacher from last year) instructing him to do room in Dulux Orchid White, trade paint.  Wonder if Derek the teacher has bought the paint yet. And will school add it to fees at usual uplift?  Better switch the heating off, just in case.