GUB GUB GUB

Need your windows cleaned, love? Pic from Vogue on-line

WARNING: THIS IS ME WHINGEING ABOUT FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS FOR A LAUGH, I DO REALISE HOW LUCKY I AM TO BE ABLE TO DO SO!


Things are not going smoothly at Blighty HQ and I am officially Grumped Up Bigtime (GUB).  Details as follows:

Gary and his very pretty wife, from TNT magazine

  

1. My idyll with Gary Barlow is Over.  He has just announced he is expecting his 4th child with his very pretty, slim, blonde wife.  Wail - he told me he was sleeping in the spare room!  Linda in Chile - I need Daniel Craig back now, just dust him down and post him to me.  Note to Gary's lawyers:  I have never actually even met Gary, these are just the musings of a woman suffering from a midlife crisis, and I can produce a medical certificate to prove it (receipt from TopShop for leatherette leggings).  On the bright side, Gary is still working really well as punishment for Boys 1 and 2 - after a violent, sweary tussle over a hockey stick, I played Gary's very lovely rendition of "A Million Love Songs" in the car this morning and Boy 1 moaned piteously that his ears were bleeding.  By the way, why do Daphnes4Boyz think hockey is a good idea, surely arming them with wooden sticks is an incitement to riot?  Have we learnt nothing from the Peasants' Revolt?
2. Grandma Whacker is in residence again and has been continuing what can only be described as a vendetta against my window cleaners.  A few months ago during a previous Blighty HQ minibreak, Grandma Whacker sacked the cleaners while I was out.  This led to Domestic Tension: Mr B saying to me testily, " Will you please ask YOUR mother to stop sacking MY window cleaners. And you can tell her to get up on the roof herself and clean the skylight." (The last bit was really unfair as Grandma is over 80 and  not as agile as she was and so I would have to give her a leg up, which would strain my back..)  I managed to get the cleaners back by grovelling and having to hear for the 100th time that they clean Sophie Dahl's windows.  Well, history has repeated itself - a couple of days ago while I was out, the window guys came and the Big G "supervised" them. They have also put their prices up. They have not been back to get paid so I assume they have Got the Hump and I will no doubt have to grovel/hear about Sophie D.  But just yesterday Madame Whacker mentioned they did not have their hose attachment thingie...further enquiries have now revealved that these guys were not actually my window cleaners at all, which explains the unexpected price hike...it transpires that the Whacker has surpassed herself, she is now sacking window cleaners who aren't even my window cleaners.  Final score:  The Association of Fenestration Hygiene Technicians - 0; Grandma Whacker - 2.
3. Before Christmas, with guests coming, I went full speed into decluttering, re-purposing and minimalism - I read a lot of those blogs!!  Now every time anyone goes in the garage there is an almighty crash as they fall over all the stuff I have stashed away there, and in the house no one, including me, can find a darn thing.  Grandma has taken it as a personal affront, she suspects I am trying to pull off a Fanny By Gaslight number to make her think she is getting a bit vague with age...
4. Boy 2 was strongly advised not to take his brand new Warhammer figues to school as he would lose them. Boy 2 took his Warhammer figues to school.  Boy 2 has now lost his Warhammer figures.  Last night I found myself deep undercover SAS style dressed all in black including balaclava in the boys changing rooms searching for the missing Warhammer, without success.  Parents are strictly forbidden from entering the changing rooms for child protection reasons so now I will probably be on some sort of register. Super.  In my view, boys should be strictly forbidden from taking Warhammer to school for child protection reasons.
5. Boy 1 came home from Dahpnes4Boyz yesterday and informed me he has lost his trousers and his games shorts.  Is loss of garments from these regions a worrying sign? Don't worry, he still had his white PE shorts which he came home in.
6. Boys 1 and 2 have given me to understand in no uncertain terms (by wailing and shouting) that Daphnes4Boyz is putting them under unbearable academic pressure and that the homework demands are excessive.  They have also told me I do nothing at all all day except think about Gary Barlow and nail varnish and have loads of fun prancing about the supermarket. I find this a bit dismissive of my contribution to Blighty Inc, as there is lipstick to think about too.  But when I suggest that perhaps I might get a job OUTSIDE THE HOME Boy 2 bursts into floods of tears and has to be consoled by his (lazy, stay at home doing nothing) mother...
7. Boy 1's  Science homework is getting too biological for my liking.  I can cope with plant cells but his homework last night seemed to focus rather a lot on, ahem, sperm.  Boy 1 said he would love to see some sperm with their wiggly tails - I was sooo tempted to quip about "wait till you are fourteen and then ....
8. I just managed to delete this entire post and have just re-typed it...aaaaaaaaaaaaggggggh!

GUB GUB GUB!!!

From Wikipedia.  Government Health Warning: this sort of thing can cause excessive expenditure on Warhammer

I leave you with action replay of Grandma cleaning the windows.

Letting Go

I knew the time would come when I would have to let go of my blue-eyed boy, he has to move on with his life...

Whoops! Wrong blue-eyed boy. ( According to The Daily Mail, Tabloid to the Stars and Grandma Whacker), old Danny Boy has just married Rachel Weisz, but only because I am already married and am always too busy cleaning the floor of the downstairs loo to give him the attention he needs, as a Top Thespian).


I really meant I have to learn to let go of Boy 1 who is growing up fast and who has gone on his first residential trip with the school, for 3 days and 2 nights. Somewhere mysterious called PGL which Boy 1 unreliably informs me stands for Parents Get Lost. The trip involves lots of outdoor activities like abseiling, trip wire malarkey, den building and not opening washbags to use toothpaste or soap.

Boy 1 has been away from home before but only for one night at a time, on sleepovers with friends.  And sleepovers work like this:
6pm You drop off Boy 1 and hover nervously in kitchen of host family before being persuaded to leave
9pm Back at home you walk past Boy 1's empty bedroom and go all teary and sentimental before happily settling down to watch a romcom without being disturbed by Boy 1 shouting from his room that he has a sore/throat/arm/foot/toe/unmentionables*  and could he have some ointment/Calpol/soothing drink/herbal sleep drops/ lavender oil sprinkled on tissue/ mallet to head?*

*delete as appropriate

Next morning -
6am You wake Mr B and ask him if it is too early to go collect Boy 1; Mr B asks "why, where is he?" and goes back to sleep
8am You arrive at host's house to find host parents bleary eyed and in pjs, assuring you it went really well, the boys got to sleep by 11.30pm after having been told to be quiet for only the 54th time and they did not get up until 5.30am when they woke the whole household while playing a newly invented game of Toilet Cricket Ball Torpedo but were really good and watched a DVD till 6.07am when they demanded pancakes, egg and bacon and popcorn...you quickly remove Boy 1, thanking host parents profusely and handing over bottles of wine, self-help books on Post Traumatic Stress and the phone number of a good plumber
8.10am In the car on the way home Boy 1 informs you he hates his family and would like to be adopted by the host family and he would like Boy 2 to be sent away either to boarding school or preferably for adoption as he is ruining his life etc etc
10am Mrs B has to be put back to bed as overtired and fractious due to sleepover- related lack of sleep...

Boy 1 took packing for the school trip very seriously and started assembling the essentials.

I was glad these were the teddies selected for the minibreak.

Earlier Boy 1 had announced he was taking the imaginatively named Big Bear.

When I pointed out that Big Bear took up  the entire suitcase, Boy 1 then suggested he take Domino Dawg instead (fancy, a child of mine not taking things seriously!)

When I came to pack, I did notice a certain bulkiness in the front pocket.

This is the infamous Bertie, Boy 1's beloved sheepskin (in fact he has 3, all of which get dragged to bed with him but for travel purposes he has decided just to go with one.)  From lying on the sheepskin in his Moses basket as a baby, Boy 1 progressed to cuddling it, coveting baby Boy 2's sheepskin (there was a worrying moment when Boy 1 tried to pull it out from under newborn Boy 2) and now he is Lord and Master of no less than 3 Berties...

And he going to kill me if he finds out I have blogged about Bertie, as a man's Bertie is a private matter...

All seems to be going ok so far - I dropped Boy 1 off at school (Mummies have been banned from hanging around waving the boys off in their coach to avoid unnecessary tears and wailing, no one wants a lot of soppy, soggy mothers hanging around..).  Then I dropped off the suitcase which Boy 1 had forgotten...

Meanwhile Boy 2, who is tremendously cheerful now Boy 1 is Out of the Way so leaving Boy 2 as Top Dog, had his own excitement: his English Speaking Board Exam( reading chosen passage from book; talk on interesting hobby; say a poem by heart) . Final prep went quite smoothly - Boy 2 found he had lost his copy of the book excerpt; reverted to calling Chess "CHEST" throughout his talk; poem now recited at breakneck speed and final word fatally mispronounced so does not rhyme..

After all this I tried to do some much needed and therapeutic de-cluttering, FF style.  Now the charity shop bag full of de-cluttered clutter sits looking at me accusingly.

Think I am having trouble letting go of that as well...

Mrs Blighty's Important Award and Important Blogger Meet Up

Dahlings, exciting news, I have been nominated for a Stylish Blogger Award by the very kind SoFrenchyChic, http://sofrenchy-sochic.blogspot.com/
A condition of the award is to tell you 7 things about me. So here goes:

1. I am an Olympic standard figure skater and synchronised swimmer, but rarely perform the two sports simultaneously;
Rumours that Blights cheated in the synchronised swimming are completely unfounded
2. I have been having a torrid affair with Daniel Craig for the last 3 years, managing to keep it secret from the world's Press, my husband and indeed from Mr Craig himself;
3. Prince William actually asked me to marry him before he settled on that Middleton girl,but Mr Blighty pointed out that the planned wedding date clashed with our annual caravanning holiday in Bognor Regis, so I had to decline;
4. One of my son's paintings ("Mad Axeman Vomits Blue Paint on a Dalek") is currently on display at the Royal Academy and rumour has it that that Saatchi chap wants to buy it;
5. I play a mean electric guitar and Mick and Keef used to come round to ours for jamming sessions, till Mr B banned them, as Keef was always falling over and getting cigarette ash everywhere;
6. I am not bad at Maths and Professor Stephen Hawkins regularly consults me on tricky problems, the near fail I got for O level Maths was quite frankly a travesty;
Here's me lending a helping hand/paw with the Maths
7. I am a complete fantasist and topclass gobshite, but very occasionally I tell the truth.

Now I have to tell you all about 15 recently discovered great bloggers. Oof, it's hard to limit it to 15 but here we go, in no particular order, so don't get huffy if you are not first:
http://www.elegancemaison.com/
http://amidprivilege.com/
http://sydneyshopgirl.blogspot.com/
http://carlyfindlay.blogspot.com/
http://ratherthanfacebook.blogspot.com/
http://thatsnotmyage.blogspot.com/
http://thegardenerscottage.blogspot.com/
http://nottinghillgirl.blogspot.com/
http://misskitty-catgoestotown.blogspot.com/
http://mrstrefusis.blogspot.com/
http://hostessofthehumblebungalow.blogspot.com/
http://forbesbell.blogspot.com/
http://millafoxshops.blogspot.com/
http://notwavingbutironing.wordpress.com/
http://fromnorthqld.wordpress.com/
So guys, over to you and below is the smallprint. Have fun!


The conditions of receiving the Stylish Blogger award are:
* Thank and link back to the person(s) who gave me this award.
* Share 7 things about myself.
* Pay it forward to 15 recently discovered great bloggers.
* Contact those bloggers and tell them about the award.

Apart from awards, I am dead excited to be meeting Louise from North of Q, hopefully tomorrow. Stay posted for the next episode of When Blogger Met Blogger!
Must go now, as in the never ending home improvement quest and accompanying project management failings, Ron and Ron, builders by Royal Appointment, are coming tomorrow to demolish wardrobes in Boy 2's room. This means I have to move Boy 2, 3005 pieces of Lego, 15 puffles and his collection of twiddly hankies (don't ask) plus furniture, into another room, or possibly the garage. After a nice cup of tea of course. No point rushing into things, without proper sustenance.

Colour Me Beautiful and Other Things I find Worrying about my Wife

Good evening, Mr Blighty here. I have been entrusted with the drafting of this post under the Bloggers Spousal Delegation Act 2010. I trust you will find this post clear and easy to follow. I can assure you that it is compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights (I have been taking extra care in that respect following the controversial Clamping of People Walking Too Slowly in Urban City Centres Act).

Very occasionally (when she has been reading one of those women's magazines at the hairdressers) Mrs Blighty will ask me if after 11 years of marriage the mystery has gone from our relationship. I can quite confidently say that on the contrary, the mystery only deepens. Particularly the mystery of what on earth is going on in Mrs B's head.

As I am currently on holiday from my highly demanding and important job of keeping my semi-colons under control, I have been able to observe Mrs B's activities from close quarter. I have come to the following conclusions:

a) she is as nutty as a fruit cake with a side order of extra nuts;
b) she spends a lot of time talking about ironing but never actually doing it; and
c) she still has no real understanding of the best way to load the dishwasher.
When I pointed out her shortcomings on this latter point, her response further revealed her lack of expertise in this area - even if I could get it up there, it would not lead to cleaner dishes and would definitely breach Elf and Safety legislation.
Let me illustrate further the mystery that is Mrs B.
The other day I was sitting at the computer checking developments on my latest exciting piece of drafting, The Recycling of Dentures for Old Age Pensioners Act, when Mrs B rushed in from the library waving a book at me and shouting, "Come on Blighty, help me do my colours, I can't work out whether I'm light and warm or soft and clear!"

At that precise moment she looked quite pink and over-excited but I felt it would not be in my best interests to point that out.

Mrs B explained it was all to do with skin tone and she needed to decide what her's was. There were pictures of various celebrities illustrating the different types. "But don't you dare say I am like Judy B***dy Dench!" warned Mrs B. ( Mrs B always refers to the ubiquitous Miss Dench in these terms, on the grounds that Miss Dench is in every single film ever made and is always the same; personally I think Mrs B is jealous that Judy gets to play M in the Bond films and so meet that Craig bloke Mrs B seems to find so personable).

After prancing around with different coloured scarves and demanding whether they lit up her face and brought out her eyes (on stalks??), to which I answered "I suppose so" each time, she stumped off upstairs "to do the ironing". After about 10 mins she reappeared, waving her paws at me and trilling: "Look, I've painted my nails and they match my necklace and this vase". I dutifully took a picture before pointing out she was going to find it a real pain carrying the vase round all day. Mrs B then announced that I did not know anything about fashion and swept off further to contemplate the ironing. Another thing which mystifies me about Mrs B is her approach to gardening; her lack of enthusiasm ("But I did gardening last year, surely it's not time to do it again?") is matched only by her lack of success. She was disgusted to find something had been eating the leaves of her hosta. There were dark mutterings about "those damn deer". Any deer better steer clear of Mrs B for a while. Unless it wants to end up in one of her "nourishing" stews.

Meanwhile anything Mrs B hasn't planted or "nurtured" (I use "nurture" in the loosest possible sense) flourishes with amazing, unstoppable vigour.

Mrs B got very very cross when this Miracle Gro thingie would not work. I found her in the most dreadful pickle trying to attach it to the hosepipe. I tried to calm her down by pointing out that the blue matched her nail varnish. She gave me a withering look. I thought about suggesting she tried spraying it on her chest, but she had the secateurs in her hand at the time.

I suggested a look at the trees at the bottom of the garden might calm her down. The beauty and majesty of nature and whatnot.

But what really did the trick was a little drink of this very fine wine. Mrs B and I drink only the best.

During her latest library visit Mrs B also sourced a couple of relaxation tapes for Boy 1. For some time now he has been doing the Dance of the Seven Bedtimes, coming downstairs to complain he can't get to sleep as he has been lying there for all of 3 mins/ it's too light/dark/the thread count in his sheets is not high enough, he needs silk pjs/his pillow needs spraying with lavender water etc.

"Rest and Sleep" is particularly hilarious. Each evening the house now echoes with a hypnotherapist lady saying in a monotone " Do you know how many muscles there are in your eyelids?" Sometimes you can catch Boy 1's abrupt reply of "Who cares!". The tape is doing the trick, however: he apparently lies in bed constructing unhealthy fantasies about how she is a serial killer before falling peacefully asleep.

Finally can someone please explain why Mrs B keeps leaving this brochure where ever I look? I have promised to buy her a leaf blower, what more could she want? Ah, the mystery that is Mrs B!

Note from the real Mr Blighty, this post was in fact drafted by Mrs Blighty masquerading as me. Further proof that she is nuts.

Further note - the above note was in fact drafted by Mrs B masquerading as......oh shut up

Glamour at All Times

It is so important to make an effort to look glam, even when hard at work at your computer keyboard. This is a little outfit I just pulled together, I love the way the orange gives that "pop" of colour against the turquoise of my necklace.

Some people have commented that they don't think I really look like this. Well spotted! I admit I am wearing coloured contact lenses, my eyes are not really this Daniel Craigesque shade of blue.

Do you see what I have on my paws? Yes, the oh so hard to find Chanel Particuliere, and ever one to overdo things, I have also applied it to my face. Fab!

I think I'll go hang round TopShop Oxford Street now in the hope I'll get photographed by The Sartorialist. Just as soon as someone brings me a stepladder to get down from this chair.