Half a Boiled Potato Will Not Save Us

Dear Mother,

I know I've raised this issue before, but keeping that 'half a boiled potato' on the wire shelf of your fridge will not save us in the event of global lockdown, outbreak of war or famine.

Every week, after the Sunday roast, it appears.

And there is stays.

For a week.

I don't know where it goes in the end but I'm guessing it isn't anywhere exciting?

No sooner than it's gone - it's back! Our little friend.... going slightly dry and grey and beginning to crumble..... Not once have I ever been tempted to do anything with it which it involve digesting it afterwards. And neither has anyone else.

That and a mysterious tea cup with something that looks like toxic sludge in it. I think it's 'dripping' but nobody is about to start spreading it on Yorkshire Puddings and dipping them in sugar so just give up, yeah? Unless you have a plan for this dripping then I'd suggest you accept it's no longer 1952 in Chesterfield and if we want a 'sweet snack' we'll opt for a chocolate finger.

We'll leave aside the homemade coleslaw which was last seen fizzing wildly and presumably turning itself into some kind of 'cabbage wine with a mayo finish' as I don't want to embarass you too much....but..

....whilst we're on the fridge, lets be bold and move to the freezer.

Ahhhh the freezer.

In that freezer there are many many 'freezer bags' containing odd items.

These freezer bags have special label bits you can write on. The idea is that you write on what is in the bag and when it was put in there. You seem to have missed this point?

Week after week after month goes by and nobody EVER defrosts ANY of them. It's a lucky dip too far.

Do you think it's not now time to bite the bullet and accept that it's highly unlikely we are ever going to ask for any of the following for tea:

- the cockerel (who may or may not have been gay) who was like a pet but you got killed due to 'over population of cocks' and then nobody could bear to eat (or it appears throw away) so lives his life in some kind of cryogenic suspension, year after year, in the freezer. I think he's been in there a decade now. Look, even if there are big jumps forward in science and technology it's highly unlikely they will be able to ressurect him and undo your guilt. For a start he's missing his entire head. And legs. And I should imagine his innards. Let him go.... just let him go.... and NOT into a Coq au Vin.

- the 'trout' which your friend Colin caught and kindly gave to you, but with a warning that it came from a 'pond' and would therefore be 'very muddy' and possibly 'highly unpleasant'. I would hazard a guess here that you are NEVER going to be hungry enough to eat a 'muddy and highly unpleasant' ancient old frozen trout? And frankly, neither am I. Once again, let it go....

- the pheasant (which may actually be another cockerel or possibly a duck) that has been in there SO long that it probably needs carbon dating in order to work out just when it should have been thrown away..... Apparently you didn't eat it because you were worried it would be dry and a bit tough. Well I should think that's no longer a worry, more of a dead cert.

- the potted shrimps. Potted sometime shortly after the 2nd World War I think....

- the alcoholic homemade icecream that I have now eaten twice and been violently sick afterwards, errr, twice. How many more times are you going to poison house guests? You claim throwing it away will be messy. Here's an idea! Let it melt and then pour it into the hedge or something. I've cleaned up worse.


I mean I'm all for 'thrift' and 'waste not want not' but it's time to now accept I'm never going to sit down to a meal of fizzing coleslaw, dripping, muddy trout and 20 year old frozen cock with toxic ice cream.

OK?

Yours, not hungry for once,

Your Daughter

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The Wrath of the Ancients

I have previously spoken via this blog about the 'very old line dancers' who rule, sorry 'rent', the village hall where I also happen to 'hire' (or should that be 'am begrudgingly allowed into') a room to do my stuff.

Well I have been back at that hall recently and boy oh boy are the line dancers not happy about my 'invasion'.

The class started well. Namely as there was no sign of them.

Then, at around 7.30pm, the fire exit flew open (how DID she open the fire exit from the outside?) and a very elderly lady dragging a suitcase on wheels (dare we ask what was in this suitcase? Her stetson, a pair of diamante studded chaps and not a lot else?) began to plod back and forth through the center of my class.

We all looked on somewhat aghast.

The hall has several other doors yet she had opted to use the only one that would mean she got to stomp stomp stomp all over my diagrams of fetal rotation

'Don't mind me - I've got to bring my stuff' in she grunted a manner I could only describe as a 'warning shot'.


And then there were two.

An elderly gentleman joined her. This wasn't the same elderly gent who previously threatened one of my clients (for making a joke about dolphins of all things) with the line 'you might want to think about it very carefully before you make any more smart remarks sonny' (gulp - he was clearly missing his 'fighting days' but really - picking on bemused expectant fathers? Wrong - just wrong!), but he did look rather sinister. In a sort of 'be he alive or be he dead?' kind of way.

Up and down they went.

A while later the music started up. It's not the traditional Country and Western I'm used to associating with line dancing. It's something to do with an accordion and rather gloomy. Actually is the kind of music you might sacrifice bats to. If you're into that kind of thing.

I took the chance to glance into their hall. Turnout was disappointingly low this week - there were 5 of them (always an awkward number I find) and even more disappointing, the raffle prize, keenly displayed on the top table, had fallen from the heady highs of 'Pack of Orange Club Biscuits' which it was at before Christmas to 'Pack of Bachelors Instant Rice'. I can only imagine the euphoria that would produce in the lucky ticket holder.

Now if they just stayed in there and danced (or shuffled, or snorted instant-rice flavouring, or practised getting a good tune out of Jerry's organ or whatever it is they do actually do in there) I'd live with it and stop moaning - but no. They share use of the kitchen and boy do they like boiling that kettle and 'plating up biscuits'.

They spend inordinate amounts of time arranging custard creams and Digestive half-coats on plates. Stacks of them. Mountains. Lofty peaks of fondant cream and crumbly stuff. This a silent and serious task so you never know they're in there. You nip in for a cuppa and find them all, huddled, beady eyed, round a Family Pack of malted milks, dividing them up and stacking them. You get 'the look'. The look that says 'this is private business. Turn around and walk away. Pretend you saw nothing. Speak to nobody of this'. That kind of look.

I've tried to be friendly. A cheery 'hello!' or 'they look tasty!'. But no. The most I get is a grunt.

It is clear.

They have been using that hall since sometime shortly after the First World War and I, with my out of control balls and knitted breasts (well truthfully I don't actually have knitted breasts, I have enough trouble controlling my real ones, but I know a woman who does.....) am not only an intruder but as I don't live in the village I'm also an outsider.

All the same I was slightly shocked on Tuesday night when they tried to actually smoke us out.

Yup - huddled in the kitchen - over their hordes of shimmering cheap baked goods - they lit up.

Not literally (as in their skin started glow and one by one the emitted a neon glow - though I should imagine it might be possible) but as in they started smoking cigarettes.

Sigh.

I could hardly let this aggressive tactic pass. Apart from fumigating a room full of pregnant women they were also about to set off the fire alarms.

I (reluctantly) went into their lair. 'I'm really sorry' I mumbled 'but could you not smoke in here, its blowing straight into the room and anyway it's not allowed'.

5 pairs of ancient eyes stared back at me. The message they transmitted was 'not allowed? There is no such thing as not allowed'.

'Edith' bellowed the very old man standing next to Edith, 'they can smell our smoke'.

'Humph I'll open the fire door then' she shouted back.

And with that they all moved about 3 foot further towards the door.

Riiighhhht.

And with that awkward stand off I retreated back to my room (wondering why on earth smoking hadn't killed them yet).

Eventually I finished and left. Only to realise I'd left some very important things behind (namely my biscuits) so back I went.

On arrival they'd locked all the doors so I had to peer through the window and try to locate them so I could be let in.

They had moved into the area we had been using.

They were sitting on our chairs.

Head's tilted back they were laughing raucously.

Hands poised they were eating..... they were EATING MY BISCUITS!

I banged on the window. Hard.

Eventually one of them moved in my direction and broodingly let me in.

'Ive come for my refreshments' I said'.

'Ohhhh they're yours are they? We thought you'd finished with them' said Edith.

'Err no, I need to take them thanks'.

Edith stopped and looked me up and down. Head to toe and toe to head and then back down again. I wondered if in a past life she'd worked auctioning cattle.

''Hmm' she pondered 'that is a VERY pretty outfit you're wearing'.

'Errr thank you' I said, utterly disarmed and somewhat floored by this turn in events.

'Yes' she pondered 'and it must be EVER SO hard finding pretty things, you know, at YOUR size'.

Kerrching.

Round 1 to Edith.

When I pick myself back off the floor I shall plan my sweet revenge.....

Edith - mess with my fig rolls one more time and you're going down my love. Do you hear me DOWN!

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Slowly, Very Slowly...

This posting is brought to you somewhat painfully as I've managed to fry the end of my one of my fingers. I was frying eggs (that immensely complex and intricate culinary task) and one of the eggs seemed to turn to dust in my hand and my hand plunged mercilessly into the boiling oil.... I had to resort to spending the entire evening and most of the night with my hand in a glass of iced water and then turn to cider in an effort to limit the suffering. Cider is to burns what gas and air is to childbirth - it's not actually going to do anything about the pain but if you have enough you won't be able to string enough of a sentence together to make a coherent fuss about it.

Anyway so here we are in good old Half Term. Again. And it's pouring with rain. Again.

More on the Half Term activities (other than wall to wall Scooby Do watching and way too much Malted Milk eating) later, lets first turn our attention to the end of Term itself and that great bastion of parental pride - Parents' Evening.

I kind of dread this anyway because it feels as if you, as a parent, are being somewhat scrutinised too and you don't have to study my departures and arrivals at the school too hard to see that, at times, I'm not getting an A+ in the 'wondrous parenting and organisation of small people stakes'.

As we know there was the time where I had to stand in the playground wearing one welly and a sheepskin boot.

There was also the time I smashed the teacher's wine all over the front seat of the car.

Or the time I took the children back to school on a day it wasn't actually open.

To this I could add a multitude of other failings.

The football boots forgotten six Fridays in a row so that in the end I only had to rock up at 2pm on a Friday afternoon and shout 'it's me' through the intercom to be let in.

The forgotten packed lunches meaning I had to speed to the nearest shop (several miles drive away) and resort to a jumbo hot dog, Fruit Shoot and Freddo the Frog (these were the days I lived in fear that Jamie Oliver would rock up with a full Channel Four film crew and make a documentary sobbing over the contents of my child's locker. I would then appear on page 5 of the Daily Mail wearing ill fitting leggings and shouting at the camera in a angry fashion beneath the banner of 'The Mums that Just Don't Care Enough').

My comments in the 'Reading at Home' folder ('I notice that on page one of this epistle mum has the wine out. Well she had the right idea as by the end of trudging through this lot I'd had to sink half a bottle').

The Valentine's Disco where I broke all the rules and took an 'under 4 year old' only for him to disgrace me utterly by hurling a ketchup adorned hotdog onto the lap of the PTA Chair before crawling round the dancefloor and causing a pile up which I can only compare to some kind of outlandish contemporary dance performance designed to represent the 'inner torment of the forgotten soul'.

Or in fact the day my son returned home from the 'Welly Walk' to inform me that he'd enjoyed the outing but found it rather painful as I'd sent him in with one of his wellies and one of his three year old brother's...... He didn't say anything. Just scrunched up his foot and hobbled across the fields......mile after painful mile. In my defence - both wellies were green. There's nothing more I can say.

So I was nervous before I even sat down but if the general comments on Facebook, internet message boards and 'typical mummy blogs' are anything to go by, every other small child in the world has a parents evening which roughly goes along the lines of 'your child is the most gifted, able and wondrous being that has ever graced my classroom and every time I stare upon them I am beholden to their captivating intelligence, beauty, wit and manners'.

Every child it appears but mine.

For mine the teacher greeted me with a sigh. Her shoulders slumped in a fashion which indicated just too many years at the coal face of trying to persuade 4-6 year old to put their own knickers back on after PE, try not to take eachothers eyes out with the sharp ends of pencils and work out what to do with a magic 'e'.

'Your son' she stated 'has to be probably the most frustrating child I have ever taught. One of the kindest and most tolerant but boy oh boy is he hard to get going!'.

'I know' I replied 'I live with him'.

'It's not that he can't do it - he's clearly highly intelligent - it's just that, well to get him to actually DO anything, other than immensely detailed drawings and run around outside, it takes superhuman amounts of time and energy'.

I nodded.

I know.

Its this superhuman effort which means that by the time I have 'persuaded' him each morning to get dressed, eat, put his shoes on, close the car door etc etc etc I manage to forget his lunch, his PE kit, 2 matching wellies or his spelling list.

Well that's my excuse anyway.

And yet you put him outside (or in Asda, any large DIY store, long institutionalised corridor or cemetery) and you can't blimmin stop him!

Go figure.

I think he needs to go a forest school.

However, his teacher said, when he does click into 'go' mode he does come out with some lovely work.

She pressed his Topic book in front of me.

There was a beautiful drawing of what was clearly our bathroom, the two kittens and his brother. And there were all the bottles of beer filling up the bathtub (long story involving home brew). And there was 'mummy' in the doorway. With a face like the 'Scream' painting.

Beneath it was written:

'Last nite my bruver took the kittens and frew them in the bath on top of all the beer bowtles. Mummy went mad and towld him off and frew the kittens out and then we had to watch tele all nite long'.

Marvellous.

So now as well as thoroughly disorganised with a son like a Sloth with chronic fatigue, I'll also be down as the woman who keeps a bath filled with beer and allows her children to torture kittens before staying up all night to watch TV.

And the youngest one hasn't even started school yet.......and there my people's lies real trouble....

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The Facker at the Window - and other childhood tales...

So my Original Son is now in Year 1.

This means he's basically in proper school and is his day involves him needing to sit at a table with a pencil in his hand and create something other than a detailed map of the South Eastern Rail Network (he is perhaps the only child in the country who steals packets of biscuits from the cupboard so that he can build a replica freight yard on the living room carpet).

This is not a popular move.

If it's indoors and it doesn't involve trains, tornadoes (and other fearful enemies of Japan) or chocolate then basically it's not worth the effort.

The problem is added to because his intermittent loss of being able to hear anything much at all (glue ear) means that he's either oblivious as to what is going on or just fills in the gaps and makes up a totally different reality.

This can be summed up by me telling you that a recent spate of watching Scooby Doo and the Abominable Snowman 15 times a day was reinterpreted by him as Scooby Doo and the Vulnerable Snowman.

Well yes I guess all snowmen ARE vulnerable. Mainly to dogs cocking their legs on them, drunk people knocking their heads off and daytime temperature above 0 degrees Celsius. However running around screaming 'waaaaa RUN, it's a Vulnerable Snowman!' was somewhat confusing to onlookers and other children in the park. Especially when it hasn't snowed for weeks.

Then there are the spelling tests where he can't make out the sounds in the word let alone spell it correctly. Preparing for these is much loathed by all - I have better things to do at 8am on a Friday morning than bellow 'not SPUNK, I said SPANK, A, A, AAAAAAAAA - CAN YOU HEAR THIS!? SPANK - yes? Like this (slamming my hand down hard on my thigh). He blinks back, somewhat befuddled and carefully writes 's p a n g' across the pages.

Sigh.

God knows what the neighbours think but as they frequently see me loading a female pelvis, replica placenta and a variety of balls into my car, probably not much different than they did already.

His first official attempt at the school spelling test started with the word CROP. He made a good stab at it but summed up his feelings by replacing the O with an A.

The teacher put a polite cross next to it and moved on.

And then we have reading.

Off he cracks 'Biff and Chip are at the castle. Biff looks up. There is a...... what's this word mummy?'.

The world is face. F.A.C.E.

'Sound it out. SOUND IT OUT!' I bellow, forgetting that face isn't really that phonetic. Something to do with a magic E.

FFFFFFF

AHHHHHH

KKKKKKK

ERRRRR

Facker! It says Facker!

Oh dear god.

'There is a facker at the window'.

I start to laugh.

I can't stop.

Pleased that he's actually pleased me, he continues.

'Kipper looks up. 'I can't see a facker' he says'.

'They go into the castle to look for the facker'.

By this point I'm laughing so hard I can't breath and both kids, ultra-happy, that for once I'm not gritting my teeth and sighing, start to rush around the house screeching FACKER FACKER FACKER. FIND THE FACKER!'.

Oh crop I think, here we go again.....

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The Dog Days are Over

So here we are at the end of January. I intended to blog much more than this but once again life overtook me and I seemed to spend most of the month dealing with other people's insanity (it's saying something when I find myself the sanest person in my immediate surroundings), tax returns (more on that when I summon the super human strength required to speak the words Unique Tax Reference Number without suffering palpitations) and arranging to have my mum's dog killed.

Let me explain (and before I do this please note that this blog post, whilst humorous, talks about a dog dying, I think we've already established that. So if you're not in the frame of mind to cope with Canine Loss, then log out now).

Anyhow, this was a dog, well known on this blog, that should have died long, long, LONG ago. It was the dog that after 16 joy filled happy years (well more like 15 actually) now spent every moment of its conscious life either trying to rip my children limb from limb (fortunately it could only detect them if they moved so if I shouted FREEZE and they obeyed it would stumble, confused, into a kitchen cupboard) or spraying the world's MOST PUNGENT AND FETID URINE everywhere.

There are no words for the smell of this dog. Visitors to the house were sometimes caught standing in a corner, facing the wall, panting shallowly, because in trying to escape the smell they had ended up pinned there and couldn't face walking back through the fug to truly escape.

At one point my mum actually took it to the vets about the smell and they just shrugged their shoulders and said it was probably hormonal.

Hormonal?! Cripes. I mean I get pretty hormonal at times but I can hand on heart state now that I have NEVER smelt like that. I've never smelt anything like that. Anywhere. Anyplace. Anytime.

I think by hormonal they meant 'rotting from the inside out and covered in wee soaked fur' but were too polite to say it.

The dog was very very well loved and had a very very happy life but if things had been different it would have gone to the big dog basket in the sky about a year ago as its Happy Days were well and truly over (as were those of anyone spending time within about 50 foot of it). However what with my dad being ill and dying and my mum trying to come to terms with the big hole in her house she couldn't really be coping with the dog dying too. She couldn't be coping with the dog's stench or increased violence either but sometimes it's easier to live with a problem than deal with it.

The rest of us though were at breaking point and, having skidded in reeking dog piss one morning too often, I told mum that if she couldn't do it then I would take it all from her hands and call the vet.

She thanked me profusely and promptly rushed out to the washing line (which I think is where she goes for little secret cries).

So there we had it. I was now the Official Dog Executioner. My life's just one feelgood happy-trip after another....

I called the vet's and made an appointment for the next day.

At this point I thought it best to mention to the children that the dog was going to be 'going on'. Fore warned is fore armed.

'Children, I think the time has come where this here dog is very very very very old and I don't think it will be here for much longer'.

'Why mummy?'

'Because I'm taking it into the town in the car and arranging for it to be pumped full of deadly poison so that I never again have to choke back my own bile every time I enter this house' (no not really, that would kind of mess with their heads. Especially as they aren't guaranteed continent themselves).

'Well because she's had such a long and happy life but now she's so poorly and she doesn't like this life any more so she wants to go and have a really big rest'.

'Oh right, Ok. So like she's going to live with with God then?'.

'Errr yes' (whilst thinking, crikey, I presume the whole gist of God is that he's not that picky but surely there is no place in Heaven for anything that smells THAT bad?).

'Can I have a Mini Roll?'.

And that was that.

Until we went to leave.

'Say goodbye to Grandma'.

'Goodbye Grandma. Oh and hello Dog. Do you know what? You haven't got many days left now until you die! Now isn't that interesting?'.

Gulp.

For once the dog didn't attack.

And so the day came and I ensured the dog had a very dignified, peaceful end. Which she did.

The vet then turned to me and asked me if I wanted to take the body home with me.

'Good heavens NO!' I recoiled, 'errr I mean sorry but no, I think it's best I don't'.

('Hi mum! I'm home! Could you just get me a chemical protection suit so I can wrestle the dead dog out the boot of your car?').

'Ok then, well we will just leave you in here with her for a while then, so you can have some time alone together'.

I blinked, confused, at the vet as she backed out of the room (and presumably straight out the back door into the cool, fresh, sweet smelling air).

And then there I was. Standing under a strip light with the corpse of a stinking dog (dead of alive, it still stunk) which I had just carried to its death. With nothing but a small box of tissues and it's collar in my hand.

I mean how is one supposed to act in these situations? 'Time alone together' with a dead dog is not a relationship I have ever explored before.

All I wanted to do was run, very fast, after the vet. But that somehow didn't seem 'right' and so I felt it wise to spend some time, alone, with the, now defunct, dog.

But how much time? What is the right thing to do in these situations? How long do other people stay? What is respectful? 5 minutes? 10? 20? On into the night before having to be carried wailing to the car?

And how do they spend this time? I mean I wasn't really in the frame of mind of falling to my knees and sobbing into her fur, and there was no one there to read a poem to or reminisce about the 'good old days when she could chase a squirrel straight up a tree and clear a gate with a single bound'.

So I settled for as long as I could safely hold my breath, muttered, 'well done old girl, must be getting on' and retreated to the reception area, where I was handed another box of tissues, a sympathetic look and a bill for £118.......

So there we go.

There's a lot of money in dead dogs.

My mum was sad but relieved all at once and for the time being she still has one other very old (but very kindly) dog living with her. However this dog seems to have decided to take up the mantle of making my life that bit more unpleasant already. Yesterday I knelt on the carpet to pick up some toys only to find both my knees extremely wet.

'Mum' I shouted 'I think the dog's weed on the carpet!'.

'No darling' she trilled 'I think it's actually been a little bit sick'.

So that's alright then......

Dog Number 2, be warned, I have contacts and I'm not afraid to use them.....

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I'm Spinning Around..

....I'm outta control...

Makes a change then?

Anyway things are still going great guns at the gym. The influx of new blood for the new year, who in the main look significantly less fit than me (which is going some), means that, hopefully, some of my latest embarrassing incidents won't have been too obvious.

Firstly there was the time I found myself pinned beneath circa 18 stone of sweating flesh. I wish I could say that this was by choice or in fact, even if it wasn't, that I'd found it at least mildly thrilling, but no.

No.

There was I lying on the crash mat things, breathing (I was supposed to be doing something strong with my 'core' but at this point I was just lying back and thinking about having scampi and chips for tea) when I heard a loud grunt, felt a thud and a large man, who'd got rather over exuberant astride a gym ball, came over the top and landed across my torso.

Thanks but errr no thanks. He nearly ruptured something.

Acutally I've never seen him since.

I was perhaps his first, and last, experience of getting a sweat on?

Then there was the time I was on the step machine, tugged my sweatshirt off over my head and put my fist straight through a polystyrene ceiling tile... People stared but I just carried on as if punching holes in the ceiling was an every day part of my life.

And who knows maybe it should be?

Anyway, last but not least, there are my experiences of 'spinning'.

Spinning, if you're not 'up with the fitness vibe', is basically sitting on a stationary bike listening to pounding music whilst a sadist in Lycra shouts phrases like 'turn up THAT RESISTANCE I WANT TO SEE YOUR PAIN'.

You can see my pain, resistance or not because the seats are like flaming concrete and 30 seconds after positioning my arse on one I can assure you that you CAN SEE MY PAIN.

I've been told to buy a special gel seat covering but I've noticed they are normally only carried by elderly ladies who've had some kind of prolapse and I'm not there. Yet.

Anyway the thing about Spinning is that unlike a lot of aerobics classes, Spinning is popular with men. Fit, cycling men. Lots of very fit cycling men, glistening with sweat and working hard to keep grinding those pedals round and round......

So you don't want to go making a fool of yourself in front of them.

Howver, last week, there I was Spinning away, when I noticed a rather nauseating aroma. It appeared that one of the men was wearing somekind of horrid aftershave. Sort of sweet and sickly and spicy and musky and just wrong, really really wrong. Even more wrong than Lynx. And that's going some.

And then I realised.

Realised that having made a giant vegetable curry in the slow cooker I had spent the last 3 days eating it. Morning, noon and night. Nothing but curry.

And thus I was sweating the sweet (or rather stale) scent of curry.

And the more I sweated the more I stank.

I'm telling you now, people were looking around wondering who'd fired up the Balti pot.

Hmmmm.

However as my friend pointed out last night, smelling of curry is not necessarily a bad thing.

Men like curry.

Men like women.

Put them together and you've got two for the price of one.

'Good sense of humour, likes a good time and cider, can cook (but not clean) and tastes like an onion bhaji'.

Form and orderly queue gents, form an orderly queue......

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You're Fired

Well we all made it to 2011 then?

Just.

Resolutions for 2011?

Getting to the end of it, sane. That'll do.

Dare I even begin to wonder what this year holds in store for me? In a word 'no' but I'm sure it will entertain us all, one way or another.

I ended 2010 by piercing my right nipple with a staple gun.

This wasn't actually a desperate act of self-harm aimed at releasing my inner torment.

No.

It was more a desperate attempt to try and at least pretend that I was in possession of crafty-goddess-like-abilities at creating a family home.

I should have known it was doomed. Just like the time I tried to replicate the dog's head in cross-stitch. (The irony of that crafty creation is that it's still half-done in my drawers and has been transported across the country in this state. Meanwhile the man it was intended for has actually died and the dog it replicates actually HAS had a stroke. So at least if I ever finish it it will be that tiny bit more life-like - what with the eyes being out of kilter and all that.....).

Anyway - back to my nipple.

Basically I wanted a big noticeboard for my house but found that none were quite big enough so decided that with a large amount of MDF, some ribbon, fabric and good flocking I'd create my own.

I bought these items and then left them lying round on the floor for somewhere near 9 months (well you don't want to rush your creative urges do you?).

Then, 24 hours after being released from hospital with my youngest child I decided that shortly before painting my entire kitchen scarlet, I would make the noticeboard.

There's nothing like a week of being locked in a bile coloured room with a 3 year old child to send you off on a slightly wild tangent once you achieve freedom....

But large sheets of MDF are somewhat unweildy and you need a good bit of purchase on them if you're firing staples into them.

Voila - my bosom - the perfect counter-balance......

BANG.

Oh. Dear. God. I think I've been stung by a hornet.

No dear, that'll be the staple traveling through your dressing gown, flannelet PJs and straight into your tender flesh.

On the brightside - it could have been summer and then I'd been wearing far less and probably needed to attend A&E and have the offending article dug out by a Junior Doctor on his first rotation.

And for such small mercies I intend to remain grateful.....and stay away from anything labeled 'crafty'.

Here's to a good 2011 my lovely people!

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