Donner und Blitzen and Expert Dog Training

Hello Dahlings!

Sunday afternoon here so have sneaked off to update you all on life at Blighty HQ.

We have had a mini heatwave here and then tremendous thunderstorms and lightning - Donner und Blitzen.  No, not the reindeer Mr B.  Ha ha, Mr B, ha ha.

So my cheapo Primark dress appeared on its annual, one day outing.

I may have mentioned I contracted serious Scarf Fever but this hot weather makes wearing a scarf impossible.  Finally I understand the lamenting of the ladies on the Purse Forum about this, yes Mr B there is such a thing as a Purse Forum and yes Mr B, First World Problem par excellence.

I can't even wear this scarf which would really be appropriate.

I confess I saw Faux Fuchsia looking divine in it on her blog so when I saw it in a different colourway on Evil Bay I snapped it up.  

I had to buy it, it has not only zebras but also giraffes on it.

Here's Faux Fuchsia modelling her scarf, see it's all her fault!  Dear FF, sorry to be a copy parrot, hope this is not too Single White Female!! Please don't tell Mrs Danvers.

Meanwhile both boys are now on hols, Boy 1 had to endure 2 more weeks at his school, while Boy 2 already on hols lived the dream of the Single Child.  He set himself a personal challenge to eat a ham and cheese toastie at Costa Coffee every day for a week.  Here he is on day 4 going for broke with 2 of them.  After this I am afraid I called time on this ruinously expensive carry on and suggested he did the summer reading challenge instead like all the other kids.

I know it's only early on in the summer hols but I am quite tempted to try trading one or both of the boys in,  in return for this brand new tiptop executive home on sale in our road.  

But don't worry, I am keeping the Monty Dog.  We are in advanced preparation for our debut in the Commonwealth Games, high jump.  Next thing you know, I will have made a top dog training video, Training for Success.  Cesar Milan, eat your heart out!

Better go, we are now experiencing a slight domestic hiccup: Mr B has run over the dog stake out line (complete with corkscrew stake thingie) with the mower - all of the line/corkscrew metal thing is now wrapped around the blades, it is probs curtains for the mower.  And for the line.

  Mr B tentatively suggested, to look on the bright side, that it was a good job the dog was not attached to it at the time.  I may have said something like "You and that bl**dy mower."  As you do.

Mrs Blighty is a Twit and Other Unsurprising Things

Hi Dahlings!  Hope you are all well.
Still sulking about not getting that Pope gig?
 Get a grip, just having a pair of red shoes and a working knowledge of The Da Vinci Code was never going to be enough!

Here it is cold. Snow is still lying on the ground and small boys are still being forced to wear vests..

Melusine has started a blog http://idbedarling.blogspot.co.uk/ and did a lovely post here -so appropriate for this weather.

pic blatantly stolen from her post - to whet your appetite and send you over there, her blog is visually sumptuous...

This polish is still available - a Classic! I have it. Inspired by Melusine's post, I applied it to my paws. It lasted 6 mins before it chipped while I was doing some light welding making an omelette.

pic from Amazon UK

( In urgent Nail Polish News, I have decided classic reds and pinks are the Way Forward for a woman of my age...tune in next week to Nail Polish News when I announce that ombre nails, lime green and gold and turquoise stripes are the Way Forward..)

In other news I have become Completely Obsessed with Twitter; not the real celeb accounts but the spoof ones.

Here are some more I really like (apologies if you know these already).

https://twitter.com/Queen_UK



https://twitter.com/HonestToddler




Dahlings, let me know if you have any favourite funny Tweeters.
Really important I waste even more of my time laughing at incredibly rude tweets by fake Bill Clinton.  WARNING VERY RUDE DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU
https://twitter.com/PimpBillClinton


Slight problem is that I have them all mixed in with Serious Tweets - updates from Boy 1 or Boy 2's schools, the real newspapers, the hockey club, book blogs, and it's sometimes hard to tell which are which... like this one

schools emergency classroom threat list



Finished this book.

 Mr B read it before me and really liked it.  Took me a while to get into it.  Realised Mr B liked it because there were a few references to winter tyres.   Mr B likes a winter tyre angle in his literature.  He is a hopeless dreamer is ole Mr B.  In the end I liked book as very unflashy and well put together with interesting characters and a twist in the plot; quite a bit on legal procedure which I like (yep, I am a hopeless dreamer too).

I leave you with some fantastic pictures of Paris in the snow, taken by my French friend Monsieur
OM.  Paris always looks better than anywhere else, whatever the weather, n'est-ce pas? By the way, still loving Spiral 4 and Juge Roban...wonder if he tweets?  Wonder if he wears a vest?

Blighty's Winter of Discontent and Shovelgate

Dahlings, how are we all? No, calm down, that one ready made lasagne you had back in 2010 probably wasn't 100% horse...and almost certainly wasn't Shergar, he can't still be doing the rounds, he wasn't that fat...now back away from the Linda McCartney cookbook right now..*

I am (sobs) suffering a Winter of Discontent.  By which I mean I am bl**dy grumpy:  It has snowed again, Mr B is work stresssed, Boy 2 has lost his school trousers, his fountain pen and his rugby socks, Boy 1 has lost his rugby top and a mobile phone and left his entire games kit in the back of the car, Boy 2 has developed something nasty on his nose (impetigo?), Boy 1 smells of sausages and refuses to have his hair cut even though he is starting to look feral, and I can't even begin to understand how to do Boy 2's Maths homework, also I am being stalked by a man from Subaru as Mr B once looked at their website...meanwhile Boy 1 tells me I don't work hard like Mr B, I just stay at home and look at my iPad.  Cutting.  And untrue.  I've been spending a lot of time putting cream on Boy 2's nose and avoiding phone calls and emails from Jim at Subaru, for example. It's hard work I can tell you.  No matter, I am not taking Boy 1's accusation seriously as it was prompted by me "encouraging" him to put some plates in the dishwasher.  After taking him through 21st century socio-economic factors and the shared earning power of men and women,  I ended up shouting that if he did not load the dishwasher when he was grown up HIS WIFE WOULD LEAVE HIM.

I think it was Richard III that went on about this Winter of Discontent in the old Shakespeare play?  That just makes me even more grumpy about my recent parking ticket incident:  the other day they dug up old Dicky in a car park in Leicester.  And did he get a parking ticket? Even though he'd been there since 1485 and the Battle of Bosworth, which MUST mean he exceeded his parking ticket time? No.  See, it's one rule for the Royals and another rule for plebs like me....

And today we had Shovelgate:   the drive was covered in snow this morning so I decided to clear it before driving on it.  Where are the snow shovels? (Boy 2 bless him was keen to "help" which involved standing in the way and building a snowman). No sign. Not in the garage.  Not at the side of the house.  I check and double check and do a lot of muttering.  There may have been some bad words involved.  I become convinced that our shovels have been stolen, dark conspiracy theories swirl around.  Eventually I ring up Mr B.   Who has craftily  made an early exit to work this morning on foot.  "Oh " says he, " I put them in the shed, they were getting in the way..."

I tramp through deep snow in the back garden to retrieve shovels from shed.

Dahlings, I cleared that drive in record time, such was the head of steam I had built up...snow and gravel were flung aside without mercy...

It is only now I realise the utter brilliance of Mr B's ruse....
hide shovels
enrage wife
drive cleared....



Feeling a bit better now.

 

 

 

 

And don't worry, Mr B won't escape unscathed: why do we have a broken printer popped on top of here??? Is it to become an interior design accent Mr B or are you expecting  a flood and feel it important to preserve defunct electricals?  Please explain....otherwise you will get the socio-economic dishwasher talk too...and you won't like the ending at all....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I ate horse in France as a kid. They told me it was steak.  Sorry Dobbin.

Summer Washout

After tantalising us with one week of tropical goodness (sunburnt shoulders from coffee date at garden centre, I live on the edge) the weather here has gone completely to pot - cold, rainy, windy....blaaaaah.

The pond has returned to the road, but this time I have to report that Mrs Mallard , single mother, is no longer in residence.  She valiantly sat on her eggs day and night for about 4 weeks, only leaving occasionally to eat out (she spurned my offerings of water and lettuce which is apparently what you should give ducks - I had a lovely chat with the Protection of Birds lady).  I had cardboard boxes ready to transport Mama Duck and chicks to local pond.   A bit like having your bag ready for the hospital.

Then one morning Ma and the eggs were gone - they appeared to have hatched - so I guess she marched them off in the early hours herself.  I really hope they got there safely.  Mama Duck had plenty of time to observe my skills at getting Boys 1 and 2 out of the door, so probably decided she had better get on with it herself, without letting an amateur in troop movements intervene. Wise old bird.

I do miss her, I got used to peeking at her every time I left and returned to the house.  Should I be worried that my most important emotional attachment recently was to a duck? Don't answer that.

Here's video of a duck rescue.

In other news, before I went to Paris (did I mention I went to Paris?) I had a little scoot round the old Happy Valleys Shoppe Centre .

Silk dress by  French Connection, made me feel cold just looking at it

French Connection

Brrrrr, not warm enough for these

Loved the navy sequined jumper - Whistles

Whistles

Hobbs - loved this on the mannequin

NW3 - younger sister brand of Hobbs

NW3

 Snuck into changing rooms to play dress up. Noooo,  I look like a deckchair

Hobbs

NW3

NW3

All about NW3 here.  I liked these dresses but with the navy one priced at £99 I resisted temptation, back in the day you could get that sort of look at TopShop for a lot less, of course now Toppers has gone all micro mini and frilly...
Anyway, enough of dresses, the only sensible attire right now is raincoat and wellies..and possibly waders for visiting ducks..

Raining Cats and Ducks

Oh me poor pansies!

Dahlings, as those of you in the UK know only too well, it has been raining and raining here.  A Lot.
We had the highest rainfall in April since records began in 1068* and May is no less damp.

Do you remember Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow, where it mentions that the Inuits have numerous distinct words for different kinds of snow?




I wonder whether we shouldn't come up with similar, for rain.  How about:

•  piffdown
•  damplateral
•  drenchlette
•  moistler
•  blurge

No, I give up, it's too depressing.  What do you suggest? Bet you can come up with better! Come on Linda in Chile, you are brilliant at this kind of thing!

All this rain is confusing the local flora and fauna:  a temporary pond develops now and again on the road opposite our house and ducks have been swimming in it, happily oblivious to the schoolrun mothers in their 4x4s hurtling by.

The other day in a fit of "bad conscience" gardening I was hacking away at the overgrown shrubs outside our front door and found a nest, with big white eggs in it. The next day I peered in at the nest to find a Mama Duck peering out at me.

Mama

I must admit to feeling rather anxious about it all - I checked up the old interweb (ha, ha) : Mr Mallard leaves Mrs Mallard once she is sitting on the eggs and goes off to find a new mate.  I just knew he was a cad and a bounder, with his green silken cravat, very flash. 




Cad and bounder

So poor single mother, coping all on her own.  She has to sit there for 28 days, and she is very steadfast, I have only seen the nest left once...(in fact I was a bit upset, I thought she had abandoned the nest and there was no sign of the eggs - does anyone know if she would have buried the eggs deep within the nest?? or do I have a tragic phantom egg situation?)

My biggest worry is what will happen when/if the eggs hatch.  She needs to get the ducklings to water but there is no pond nearby at all...surely she can't have been fooled by the temporary road puddle??

Anyone out there who can advise - that would be most welcome.  From my research it seems one either interferes completely or leaves it alone and lets nature take its course - I am going for the latter, as I am sure Mama Duck knows better than me how to look after her offspring..

Anyway, I am hoping to hear the patter of tiny webbed feet soon.
I'll keep you posted.




*ok, I completely made that up. But it's my blog, so there.

Snow Fun Anymore

Yet another photo of the garden in the snow, so lovely that all the weeds are covered up

We have been having a bit of snow here recently.  The Daily Mail on-line (top internet resource of celebs and Grandma Whacker) keeps quoting a town in Buckinghamshire near here as the coldest place in Britain - minus 18 degrees last night, says the Daily Mail excitedly, even colder than Moscow. No other news sites award this town the lowest temp, so I guess someone at the Mail has an auntie living out there with a thermometer in her freezer garden....

Mr Blighty is a very happy man.  He is overcome with a powerful sense of vindication.  Back in August last year he talked through at length the pros and cons of having winter tyres fitted to the car.  This was following Drivegate, when for 3 years in a row it snowed heavily and we couldn't get our car up the drive...and we were down to our last 22 tins of soup and 52 packets of biscuits so things were getting pretty desperate. I did suggest we ate Boy 2 but he wasn't keen, the youth of today have no sense of self-sacrifice or duty.

In August I must admit I did not engage fully in the discussion as it was hot and I was trying to remember whether I had put suntan lotion on  Boys 1 and 2 before their cricket matches..

But Mr B forged onwards, got the tyres fitted in October and then sat back and had the rip taken out of him as we experienced the mildest of winters. But now snow is here, and we are able effortlessly to drive out onto the road without shovelling snow...I was enjoying a smugfest just the other day as I drove the boys to school, overtaking my neighbour who was trudging on foot throught the snow, Russian peasant style...(I am not uncaring though, I did stop and tell her how good my tyres were and how warm it was in the car...).   Smugfest of course brought to abrupt end by arrival back at home after school drop to discover Boy 1's games bag still sitting on the back seat...

Mr B has succeeded where even Napoleon failed - For wont of a horseshoe - fascinating piece about how Napoleon's horses in the Russian campaign did not have winter horseshoes, I am always interested in descriptions of disastrous military campaigns, particularly since many similar debacles during my years attempting to arrive at and then withdraw from toddler singsong playgroups with my own ill-disciplined troops and logistical shortcomings ("If only the Blighty Army had had strait jackets instead of flimsy infant car seats, the Holland Park Mother and Toddler Campaign would have ended very differently..")


So we have snow.  Which to me means happy games in the snow, and some gentle sledging.

Like this.

Snow angel - parentally-approved snow-based activity (Elf and Safety Directive Winter Games 2006874/11)

Yah, Klosters is really fun

Er, steady on, this is not sledging, this looks a bit risky..

Boys 1 and 2 had different ideas.  They managed to find a sheer drop to go down.

Tremendous fun: early on in descent, boy and sledge would part company, boy would shoot down slope ahead of sledge, sledge would then join boy at bottom, clonking him on head...excellent..
Soon, possibly because their heads were getting sore, the boys dispensed with the sledges and just hurled themselves down the slopes..


And imagine my delight when I found there was barbed wire at the top which they were crawling under to get to the edge of the precipice...

Anyone know if you can fit winter tyres to kids?  Or straitjackets to mothers?*


*Think we know the answer to that last question...doctor, doctor, can I come out now?? 

Greece is the Word

Dahlings, I am back from the beach and keen to share with you my latest deranged ramblings my recipe for a successful holiday.

First, it's worth travelling a little bit out of London to ensure better weather,

 Somewhere with blue skies and sand is good.

But you have to take sun protection seriously.  Take enough to sink a small battleship, to be on the safe side.  You can always hide behind it if you don't want to be photo'd in your swimcossie.

A hat is important, and also serves to underline the fact that you are a mad old trout.

There is no point these days in loading yourself down with piles of books.  Go hi-tech and get yourself a Kindle.

 Be sure just to eat salad, veg and fruit, to avoid tummy bloat and swimsuit over-stretch...

Keep your exercise regime going.

And avoid puddings with dubious names. (And next time try not to fall about laughing in v childish way...)

Get to know the area by taking a stroll.

Keep your brain ticking over by being ritually humiliated at chess by an 8 year old.

Failure to follow hotel rules could be painful.

Try not to cry upon reentry into Real Life (and English Weather).

This was a Public Service Announcement brought to you by the Elf and Safety Directorate of Blighty Inc.