Noel Here we Go

So tomorrow it's December.

GULP.

I haven't actually given much in the way of thought to Christmas yet. I do know that I put all Christmas Decorations in one box when we moved and wrote XMAS DECS on the side but I haven't seen them since. Could be interesting.....

Not to worry - my family will supply the food and the entertainment.....(if you wonder quite what type of entertainment this is, then lets just say it won't be charades).

I suppose I'd better get my finger out - we don't want want a repeat of the Great Peg Bag Debacle (also known as The Great Dining Room Curtain Massacre).

You see as a young teenager I decided to do the worthy thing and MAKE my mother's Christmas present (Ok it wasn't just worthy - it was also free - especially if you made use of fabric she owned which you pilfered from her chest of drawers and used her sewing machine. Teenagers - don't you just love 'em?).

I knew that she needed a new peg bag for her washing line (the previous one got blown into the pond and drowned) and she likes chickens so - VOILA! I would fashion her a chicken-themed peg bag! With the vast amounts of skill and crafty-creativity that I don't possess....... Now come on - you KNOW you want one.....

Of course I left it until the last minute which didn't help - especially when I opened the fabric drawer to find:

- an old pair of my dad's pyjamas in a jaunty gingham check.
- some felt.
- lots and lots of very thick embossed floral fabric in dark green and reds.

Hmmm.

Ok here goes.

I made the bag bit of the bag out of the floral fabric.
I made the strap out of one leg of the pyjama trousers.
I made a cockerel's head (not unlike the one on the front of the Kellog's cornflakes box) out of the red felt.
I stuck on some white felt for his eye (this subsequently fell off on the peg bag's virgin voyage so the cockerel ended up blind - but that was, to be frank, the least of his problems).

It looked......? Well it looked different. I would give it that at least.

It was certainly unique.

However, even through the eyes of a child, it was utterly sh1t.

I quickly wrapped it up (lest it give me nightmares) and stuck it under the tree.

Christmas day dawned and the family watched as my mother ripped off the festive wrapping paper and it's psychedelic glory was revealed........

My brother collapsed in a fit of mirth.

My father bellowed 'WHAT IS THAT!?'.

And my mother?

My mother shrieked 'IT'S MY DINING ROOM CURTAINS!'.

Oh. Dear. God.

Yes - it would appear that I had actually come across a carefully stored pair of fully lined Sanderson-print dining room curtains waiting to be hung and, erm, cut them up to make the world's most uniquely hideous peg bag.

My mother loyally hung the peg bag on the utility room door and I'm sure that every time she walked past it she felt a stab of rage but, hey, it's the thought that counts!

Right?

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Crossed Wires

My mum was on the phone to my Granny.

This is her mother - not my Grandma who sadly passed away a few months ago (my mum may possess the ability to make wonderful jam, identify bird's by their song and fold clothes in 'just the right way', but she can not, as yet, conduct telephone calls with the dead).

Granny has always been slightly confused by our side of the family (even before she got old). She used to flap around our kitchen in a right old state shouting that the 'fowls are in! The fowls are in the kitchen! THE FOWLS ARE IN!' whenever the chickens appeared at the doorstep. Nobody ever did anything about the 'fowls' but each time she would try to elicit some kind of suitable response from us and get in a right old state about it. The only response she actually did manage to raise was that my brother and I made up a rap about her and her fowl obsession....... I would share it with you but I think it's best not to for reasons of anominity.

However I can tell you it's up there in terms of greatness with the marvelous dirge like song we composed about a guinea pig we had called (imaginatively) Guinea.

Here are the lyrics (concentrate now - they're complex. Note the emphasis on the word 'guinea'. I think you'll find it's complex and multi-faceted use give the song a depth and myriad of tones beyond it's initial appearance.....):

I bought a GUINEA pig called GUINEA for a GUINEA in GUINEA.
I bought a GUINEA pig called GUINEA for a GUINEA in GUINEA.
I bought a GUINEA pig called GUINEA for a GUINEA in GUINEA.
I bought a GUINEA pig called GUINEA for a GUINEA in GUINEA.
(repeat on into infinity or until the point that your mother is beating her head off the cooker and begging you to PLEASE STOP RIGHT THIS MINUTE. At this point you will stop but your younger brother won't and will chant your special guinea pig song on into the night and the following morning to the point that 20 odd years later it's STILL ringing round your head.........God I thought my kids were annoying).

Jeez I bet my mum regretted the naming of that guinea pig long and hard.

Anyway - my family confuses my granny (funny that) but after the phone conversation today I'm sure she's probably even more confused.

I could hear my mum giving my granny a phone number with a local code - which is odd as she lives on the other side of the country and couldn't think WHY she'd need to call anybody in our local town. My mum kept having to repeat this number and shout it down the phone so it was clearly important.

When my mum got off the phone I asked her what number it was that Granny needed.

'Yours' replied my mother.

'Erm, mum, that's not my number'.

'Oh'.

'It's nothing LIKE my number'.

'Oh dear'.

'Well aren't you going to call her back?'.

'Maybe later, I'd better walk the dogs........'.

'Have you given that number (whatever number it is) to anybody else!?'.

'I don't know'.

'Well can you make sure you don't!'.

'Come along WALKIES!'.

Sigh.

Maybe this is her passive aggressive way of getting me back for composing that song about Guinea?

Altogether now......

I BOUGHT A GUINEA PIG CALLED GUINEA.......

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A Rainbow of Fruit Flavours...

...or Fruits of the Loon more like.

Last week I decided I needed to truly immerse myself in the culture of my home town and go back to my roots.

So where did I go?

Farmers Market?
No.

Fancy boutiquey shops near the river?
No.

Out in the wilds of the hills?
No.

Historical town area?
No.

I, did in fact, go to Asda.

In Asda all of life's rich tapestery is laid before you (OK I haven't actually heard of anyone dying in there but I'm sure I read in Take a Break that someone once had a baby in the toilets). If you want the taste of an area avoid the tourist spots and go to Asda.

It was just before Children in Need day and whilst browing the CDs, I overheard a conversation which reminded me that I was back where I belonged (names changed to protect the identity of the afflicted - oh and because I don't know what they are):

Donna: There is, like, pink in the rainbow, ain't there?

Trixie: (highly unlikely to be her real name) Pink?

Donna: Yeah pink - in the rainbow, like?

Trixie: Errrrrrrr, I dunno, yeah. Why?

Donna: Well I gotta dress up for Children in Need - you know Pudsey Day - as a colour of the rainbow and I wanna wear pink, like.
(sorry but WHAT kind of crap concept is that for a fancy dress event!? 'Come dressed as a colour so we can make a rainbow!'. What if nobody comes in orange or some other vital component? Or 30 people come as a red and one as blue? Pretty crap rainbow that would be).

Trixie: Oh yeah, right, get ya, yeah pink. That'll be good.

Donna: Yeah but IS IT IN THE RAINBOW?

Trixie: Yeah - a dark pink, like.
(I think you'll find that is actually violet - as in a shade of purple - but hey, I have a feeling the rainbow's doomed anyway so what's a dash of an unofficial shade between friends!? Hell yeah - if the rest of the participants take after Donna they'll probably have people rocking up in brown, black and various shades of taupe. It will be less 'rainbow', more 'dodgy pub carpet after 20 years hard service').

Donna: BRILLIANT! I knew it was.

Trixie: Steve's got us a new rabbit.
(Seemingly random and somewhat unexpected turn in the conversation there).

Donna: Yeah?

Trixie: It's eyes are PINK.
(Are you sure Trixie? Or could they in fact be violet?).

Donna: I don't like them rabbits.
(Tact is clearly not her forte).

Trixie: No?

Donna: No - them pink eyed ones are evil. They looked possessed.

Trixie: Possessed?

Donna: Yeah by demons. Like.
(As I said, tact is not her forte).

Trixie: Oh I don't think it's that. It's white.

At this point I had to move on before I actually laughed out load and risked being possessed by a pink-eyed-rabbit but if anyone out there did take part in a 'Pudsey Bear Day Rainbow' (incorporated unauthorised shades) then do let me know how it all turned out in the end.....

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Hot Fuzz

So the deal at the moment with this here new life is that my OH goes up to London on a Wednesday night and comes back late on a Friday.

Now many many years ago when I was a student we had a long distance relationship for 2 years - I was in Leeds and he was in London. He would regularly trundle his way northwards on the dreaded National Express Coach late on a Friday night and I would great him in an enthusiastic fashion armed with good food and beer looking seductive and sultry (please bear in mind this was pre-kids - I used to spend an ENTIRE Friday afternoon getting ready. That life now twinkles in the darkness, far far away, like a parallel universe).

So this 'being reunited on a Friday night' is like a blast from the past and in anticipation of the great moment of his return (after, erm, 48 hours apart....) I decided I should at least have a shower and make myself look semi-groomed (moving house with 2 small children doesn't give you a lot of time for tending to the finer details).

And thus it was that I realised I needed to de-fuzz (I was, it appears, rapidly returning to a sort of Planet of the Apes Yeti-like status).

No problem - just need to grab my razor.

Oh.

The razor was last seen in my old house and could be at the bottom of one of approximately 70 unpacked boxes.

No worries.

I will 'borrow' my OH's razor (I know men get very upset about this - I'm not actually sure why. Surely shaving your legs ONCE with their razor can't do that much damage? It's not like your borrowing it to whittle a tree trunk into matchsticks or something? Then again....).

Small catch with this plan.

OH's razor is in London with OH.

Darn.

I scouted round in vain for something else that could remove several square feet of hair and I finally came across a can of spray-on hair removal cream which someone gave me as a free 'trial' about 6 years ago.

Now the last time I used hair removal cream (circa 12 years ago) it a) stank b) burnt like hell and c) didn't even remove the hair properly.

I can now confirm that 6 years on hair removal cream a) stinks b) burns like hell and c) doesn't remove the hair properly.

Obviously it may have improved in the 6 years since the can I own was made but I wouldn't bet on it.

Anyway, ever hopeful it would actually 'do what it said on the tin', I put the kids to bed, made sure they were asleep, stripped naked and doused myself liberally with the noxious ointment.

Unfortunately the nozzle was rather over-enthusiastic in the rate it emitted the foam and I managed to jet it across the bedroom, coating the cobalt blue shagpile in our bedroom with it (did i tell you this house has 'interesting' decor?). At this point I noticed a warning notice on the can 'DO NOT USE ON CARPETED SURFACES'.

Interesting.

I was unsure what was about to happen. Was the carpet about to be denuded? Or perhaps melt into a toxic soup?

I wasn't able to ponder this long as at around this point my legs began to burn.

Now I'm unsure of the science behind hair removal cream but surely it must work by basically chemically dissolving/burning the hair off?! And skin has a very similar make up to hair.....Something tells me long term prolonged use it best avoided. Sod the shagpile - what about my bodily coating!

Anyway alarmed by the burning I tried to redistribute the thicker bits of cream (due to the exteme power of the nozzle it was inches thick in places) around my body a bit and generally just spread it everywhere (even though most of my body is not covered in hair).

At the point son number two started to cry.

Naked, covered in toxic foam, stinking and alive with the sensation of mild chemical burning I contemplated my options.

As I thought through my choice of actions, I ran my hands through my hair.......

MY HAIR!

Well that narrowed down my options.

Narrowed them down to sprinting into the shower as fast as my legs would carry me......

The combination of the shower and a kind of plastic scraping device (not unlike one of those things you use to deice car windscreens) did get rid of most of the unwanted hair and (thank god!) the hair on my head was unaffected.

However, on leaving the shower I realised something slightly alarming.

The floor of the bathroom was covered in what looked like clumps of fur. In fact it looked like a small rat (possibly a mouse) has been killed and plucked by some kind of bird of prey.

I looked left, I looked right, I looked up, I looked down......

Oh.

Where I had redistributed the cream I had taken it right to the top of my legs and, erm (there's no dignified way of saying this) bits of cream had got into 'the lady area'. But only bits. And they hadn't been there long enough to effectively remove the hair they had touched. So tangled, partially chemically disintegrated looking clumps were falling out, leaving other patches totally untouched and further patches just slightly damaged looking.

You've heard of the Brazilian?
The Hollywood?
Now meet the 'Dog with Mange' look.

Jeez.

Less of the Playboy look, more 'Veterinary Weekly'.

My options were limited. The toddler was still crying so I couldn't reapply the cream and go again (plus the way the cream burnt told me that reapplying it to 'that' area would result in more than patchy pubic hair) so I decided to give the area a good buffing with a towel and make sure the lights were off at bedtime.

Slight problem. As time went on more and more bits kept sort of disintegrating and coming away. There was a helpline number on the can but you can be darned if you think I'm going to phone a complete stranger and say 'oh hello, sorry to bother you but I've accidentally just coated my pubic region with a 6 year old can of your product and now I look like I've got some kind of disease - I don't have access to a razor - advice please?' so, having sorted the toddler I phoned a friend (as you do).

Once she'd finished rolling about on the floor laughing she pointed out that some women leave a trail of rose petals leading to the bedroom door......... Only I could leave a trail of chemically damaged pubic hair.......

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A Glorious Cock

WOOOOOO HOOOOOOOO!!!

Look who's back!

As of about 10 minutes ago my new house has working Internet access and I am back amongst you - blogging from my new abode in Somerset and I am VERY happy about this.

And how is it!?

Well put it this way - despite the chaos, the boxes, the fact we can't open the back door (actually we can open it, we just can't shut it again), the mouldy walls (nice!) and the toddler's 5am rise and shine call - we feel more at home and more rested than we have done in years.

I knew I was truly home when I opened the local free paper.

The Classifieds are just fabulous - in fact they now rival Take a Breaks' Brainwaves Roadshow as my top source of entertainment.

The first thing my eyes fell upon was a glorious cock (well - they would wouldn't they. Come on now - don't tell me you could see the words glorious cock in bold type and not read on?).

And, not just any glorious cock but a glorious RED cock.

Ow.

Here's the ad in all its uncensored glory:

GLORIOUS RED COCK:
Beautiful boy. Bit gawky at present but will thicken out. Glossy. Deep red in colour. Much more striking than a cross bred Rhodie. Should grow into a handsome breeder.
£10.

Wow - bargain or what! Although personally the words 'glossy' and 'deep red' would be ringing a few alarm bells.......at least he's due to thicken though (snort snort).

Sorry - every time I feel a bit overwhelmed by all the change and slightly lost I just have to read about that glorious cock and I know I'm truly home.

Other ads that had me pondering the sanity of humankind and knowing I was home included:

Coffee Table - can also be used without top - £20.

Erm, what? So you've got a coffee table - to like put hot drinks on and you can TAKE THE TOP OFF? What are you left with? 4 ornamental wooden sticks rising up out of your shagpile? Where do your drinks go? In the void that's left? More to the point - WHAT IS THE POINT!?! Interesting. I'm tempted to phone up and ask a few probing questions but I fear it could be a long and perplexing conversation that I'm not yet up to.

And then there's this gem:

Warming Device - does the exact same job as a hostess trolley but no wheels - £15.

Right so you have a hostess trolley, the point of which is that you can WHEEL THE FOOD TO THE TABLE and then you have (allegedly) the 'same thing' only with no wheels. So presumably you can put food in it to keep it warm (that will be like an oven then?) and then you can wheel it ...........nowhere. So you have to take it and carry it.......... I hate to point out the flaw in their use of the word 'exact' but can you see my issue with this? Hmmmm. I guess you could tie a rope to it and haul you dinner to the table but that would only work if you had well polished wood floors . Try it on a deep carpet and you'd be doomed. Chicken Chasseur all over the shag pile.

Anyway - I shall keep my eye out for other such gems and keep you updated.

And did I mention it's good to be back!

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Off Grid

Apologies for the lack of blogging action - we have moved into our new house - YAY - but have no internet access and won't have until at least Friday - booooo. I am at my mum's and have circa 3 minutes to update you on my life and all it's insanity so I'll keep it brief.

10 things I've learned since we got our keys:

1. One of our neighbours is called Dave. So I leave the land of Dave to move next to....Dave. I feel at home already. However he did bring us round a bottle of champagne - result! Although it does make me feel all the more guilty for my howling, running, jumping, yelping children. He doesn't have kids.......

2. Curry's (as in the electronics store - not the spiced dish from the sub-continent) have not improved since my last experience of them around 10 years ago. Order a gas cooker and the deliver.......AN ELECTRIC ONE! Not what you need after several days with no means of cooking and your life in boxes.

3. If you leave your husband in charge of receiving deliveries he will look at the above mentioned electric cooker and sign it off as 'as ordered'. He clearly doesn't realise that halogen hobs and gas rings are not one and the same. Correction - he didn't - he does now.

4. 2 year olds don't really cotton on to this moving lark terribly quickly. He keeps getting up at 5am taking my hand and saying 'home? Go home?'. You are home sonny. And you'd better get your head round it sharpish.

5. Getting up at 5am with 2 year olds is even less fun if you only have 4 TV channels. Teletext ain't that entertaining.

6. 5 year olds - if moved from a double to a single bed - fall out of their single bed approximately 19 times a night. I'm not sure when they learn?

7. If you fall out of bed 19 times a night onto a sea of lego bricks you get strange marks on your arse - kind of like warts. I don't recommend it.

8. If you are packing to move house don't pack (in the very bottom of a box surrounded by plastic bags) a bag of shallots (why dear god? WHY!? All I'm saying is it wasn't me). My very own home composting......

9. If you have junk in your old garden that was destined for the tip make sure you tell someone or else it will be transported 200 miles across the country and dumped in your new garden.....

10. The family at the end of our row live out their entire life with the curtains wide open and lights fully on. A life that includes at least 4 small boys (many of whom are naked or partially naked), a jiggered looking woman in a dressing gown (been there, done that, got the sick stained dressing gown) and a huge amount of chaos. It makes me feel better about my lot anyway. I went past yesterday and she was on her knees amidst what appeared to be 30 loads of washing. I felt slightly less put upon.

Right - must fly - 'see' you all soon when I (hopefully!) get my very own internet back!

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Taxing

98% of my life is the back of two (rather dubious) looking white vans awaiting the keys to our new house (which, incidently, we get at some point tomorrow). My husband is 200 miles away (as is my father – ahhhh the blessed peace). I’ve driven 500 miles in the last 48 hours. I’ve run out of money and can’t get my hands on any more for 48 hours which isn’t great when you’ve got not petrol……I could go on (and on). What you DON’T need to find in the middle of all this ‘no fixed abode’ business is that your tax disc has fallen off the front windscreen of your car and DISAPPEARED.

They are pretty hot on tax discs these day. Don’t display one and you could get thousands of pounds of fine or even worse, your car towed away and crushed.

Crushing my car wouldn’t really help me right now. Especially as the 2% of my life that’s not in the removal vans is in the boot……

So when I realised it was no longer stuck to the window I somewhat freaked.

First I took the car apart looking for it.

No luck (I found 'other things', things I would rather have not have found, but alas no tax disc).

Second I interrogated the children:

‘Now listen, mummy has a really really REALLY important question for you. You know that little bit of round paper stuck to the front of the car windscreen? The one with the shiny bits on? Have you seen it at all? I PROMISE YOU YOU WON’T GET TOLD OFF but it is very very important you tell mummy if you have played with it/eaten it/posted it down a siblings earhole/rolled it into a ball and thrown it out the window? No? ARE YOU SURE? Promise me that’s the truth? If you know where it is and you’re not telling me the car could be CRUSHED! DO YOU HEAR ME CRUUUUUUUUUUUSED!!!!'.

(Que tears and deep distress. I've gone too far).

Next I rang the vehicle licensing people (in a rather desperate state as I have no proper registered address and no money to pay for anything). I got to speak (at length) to a machine. I was not happy and I was none the wiser.

So that just left?

Becoming very foul tempered and ranting a lot. And I mean A LOT.

Shortly after this low point my mother walked in to the kitchen:

Mother: Darling I thought you said you’d lost your tax disc?

Me: YES! AND!?

Mother: It’s stuck to the windscreen..

Me: (in a very sarcastic voice): Errr, what!? I don’t think it is! Thus why I’ve just wasted several hours trying to obtain a new one.

Mother: No it is. I’ve just seen it. It’s just that it’s not at the bottom, it’s at the top. It’s stuck on up by the interior mirror.........

Oh.

Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh.

Obviously this is good news. Very good news but yet….but yet it somehow smarts a bit.

In fact it reminds me of the time I drove the whole way from London to Somerset with windscreen wipers that wouldn’t spray water (getting out of the car at every service station to wash them by hand. BY HAND I TELL YOU) and then took the ‘fault’ to be investigated only to find? To find that I’d been pressing the wrong button all along……

So there we are - it's just not the kids or the parents - I can easily embarrass myself.....

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Mr Mussel

So, being a diligent and helpful daughter, I agreed to go and fetch my dad’s dry cleaning from Morrisons (it’s all rock and roll and champagne lifestyle here I tell thee).

This being a ‘very helpful thing to do’ I wasn’t expecting my mother to go all bulgy eyed and twitchy and start making odd jerking movements. Movements which indicated ‘stop talking and come outside’ (either that or she was suffering withdrawal from the Chardonnay).

I went outside (slightly intrigued I have to say – Morrisons doesn’t normally provoke quite such fervent excitement).

It appeared there was a problem.

My mother (who refuses to put her glasses on unless she’s fulfilling her daily Suduko fix) had thrown away the dry cleaning ticket. She hadn’t (technically) lost it because she knew exactly where it was. She had mistaken it for a redundant receipt and tossed into the kitchen bin.

Unfortunately, shortly after this, we’d had mussels for dinner and thus approximately 105 mussel shells and various other fishy detritus were sitting on top of it. She was sure she could retrieve it (given time, rubber gloves and, presumably, a strong stomach) but she needed to do so without ‘father’ noticing – or else there would be a rumpus. A large one. Mainly focusing on her lack of eye-glass wearing and general ineptitude at life, the universe and everything. This ‘rumpus’ would run and run and in fact probably become part of family legend (under the heading ‘the day your bloody mother threw away the dry cleaning receipt because she refuses to acknowledge she needs glasses’). We could do without such drama.

And so it was that my mother smuggled the kitchen bin bag out into the street, concealed herself behind some conifers and ferreted around until she found it.

This is what 30 years of marriage (can) do for you.

Crisis averted.

All I had to do was hand the fishy offering to the dry cleaning shop, smile and pray.

Lovely.

So you see it’s not just my kids that cause me embarrassment. It’s also my parents.

Sandwiched between the two you can kind of see how it's all ended up the way it has.......

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Covert Blogging from the Home of the Olds

So I've made it West.

And I have to say it's wonderful.

Even if, for the moment, I don't actually have access to our new house, my OH is on the otherside of the country and I'm living with my parents.

Now before I go on I have to say my parents have been absolutely wonderful and beyond helpful and generous. I feel like I'm having (finally!) some respite from the last few months. Lovely food, loads of space, laundry done (LAUNDRY DONE!) - it is marvellous. Well the toddler taking off his nappy, filling the travel cot with icy piss (my parents don't believe in central heating and it appears wee cools pretty quickly under such conditions - take note) at 1am and then spending the next 3 hours wide awake and crying, wasn't a high point - but other than that I'm loving it.

However, living with my parents does make blogging pretty damn hard. They like to know what's going on and for reasons I am sure you understand I don't really want them becoming avid fans of this blog. My father doesn't need to know about my piles......Or the fact that half the internet have read about the needle through his testicle incident......

He spends a lot of time on the internet (avidly checking the weather forecast 90% of the time - 'MOTHER!' he bellow, 'FROST BY MONDAY NIGHT!'. 'Oh' she responds. Ten minutes later - 'MOTHER!', 'WINDS OF 50MPH IN NORTHERN IRELAND'. Crucial. Obviously) and he uses it in a way which means that anything you have EVER typed into Google or the address box will come up when you start typing that first letter of the word. So even accessing this blog was hard - I had to find another way in. I couldn't type the address and I couldn't Google 'Slightly South of Sanity'. He would get curious. Even it wasn't about the weather.

So I had to find a back door in, so to speak.

And then I recalled that large numbers of (unfortunate) people find this blog by Googling 'Iggle Piggle Birthday Cake' and, in fact, this blog comes up on page 1 of Google if you type those magical words. Who would have thought it? Famous in baking spheres...... It must have been the RegalIce Placenta that did it.

Having found a way in, I still couldn't type anything as my father's security settings were a tad extreme (well you never know WHAT might come up if you Google 'BBC 7 day forecast, do you?') so I've had to, erm, change them. Don't tell him. Ever.

But other than that it's going swimmingly. As long as you tread carefully and don't antagonise him.

This can take a lot of strategic planning.

For example this morning he was coming downstairs when my mother noticed a large brown rat dangling off the bird table.

Large brown rats tend to antagonise him greatly (this is, after all, the man who ran through the house on the morning of my brother's wedding shouting 'FETCH A GUN! There's a rat on the f'cking nuts!' Put a whole new spin on 'shot-gun wedding' that one did).

And for some reason their raiding of the bird food is my mother's fault.

I had to therefore provide a strategic distraction until the rat had passed.

And then there was the incident of the dry cleaning receipt and the Mussel shells - but that will have to wait until tomorrow - he's coming down the stairs so I must flee and leave no evidence. Let's just hope he's not planning on baking an Iggle Piggle birthday cake......

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Woooo hoooooooooooooooo!!!!!

WE'VE DONE IT!

WE'VE DONE IT!!

Well November is already a hundred million times better than September and October.

Just took the call - all the contracts are exchanged - there is no going back. The house move is ON!

Goodbye Land of Dave.

Hello Somerset.

Oh. My. God.

I'M GOING HOME!

I go to stay at my mum's tomorrow night (my eldest starts his new school down there on Wednesday - talk about making it by the skin of your teeth!) and then I come back here at the weekend and then the lorry comes on Tuesday 10th November and off we go for the whole next chapter in our lives......

See you there!

(I can't stop grinning, need to calm down, might just need to crack open some cider......).

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