How to be Successfully Single or How to be Single Successfully

There are those who have chosen, of their own volition, to be single. Those people who enjoy a sunset stroll along the beach holding their own hands, an evening in front of the fire with nothing more to caress but a faux-fur cushion from ASDA, to tuck themselves up in bed with a hot water bottle cunningly disguised as a bunny-rabbit. These people are either lucky, sad, or seriously deluding themselves.

Then there are those whom the entire population of the opposite (or in some cases same) sex have decided that they should be single. This is an example of an unusual, but possibly encouraging, world-wide collaboration seldom seen in the fields of politics, religion or taste.

Here are a few handy tips for the unwilling, unwitting and unwary single person:

Get rid of all forms of communication such as telephones, the internet, letter boxes, and carrier pigeon roosts. If they can’t get in touch you can work on the joyful assumption that they would if only they could.

Dispense with of all types of media such as televisions, radios, the internet, books and windows. If you can’t see other people enjoying relationships then you won’t miss having one yourself.

Don’t go to clubs, pubs, evening classes, supermarkets, street corners or anywhere past your front door. If you can’t meet anyone then, again, you can work on the joyful assumption that if you did then you would surely meet your perfect mate.

Get a cat. These feline friends obviate many of the more awkward aspects of singledom such as having nothing to cuddle, having no one’s sick/faeces to clean up, and the natural proclivity to talk to oneself.

Should you find yourself still struggling with appreciating the joys of singledom then get another cat, or a few more, or possibly a dozen.

The above tips surely show that you don’t have to be sad to be single and you don’t have to be sad to be single. Life is still full of fun, joy and lots of things to do. Such as talk to the cats.

The One with the Pigeon

There’s a pigeon by the car. It’s big. A Wood Pigeon I strongly suspect, although I haven’t asked it. Mostly because it’s dead.

I’m not one of those people who object to pigeons per se. Indeed I believe that they are fine upstanding members of the bird community. Their gentle cooing can get a tad annoying if directly outside an open window on a day with a hangover, but nevertheless, pigeons are ok.

Should the aforementioned pigeon have been a bit more alive I would have greeted it with a cheery ‘Greetings pigeon!!!!!!!’. Maybe or maybe not with that number of exclamation marks. It was neither mine nor the pigeon’s fault that in fact I greeted it with a resounding ergggggggg and a slight shiver followed by a meandering feeling of nausea.

I have a bit of a difficulty with dead things. It is perhaps inexplicable or possibly rooted in a deep psychological problem that stemmed from an incident in my childhood that I have erased from my memory (a wise move).

My attempts to erase the pigeon from my memory have so far failed. One might not think that one dead and silent pigeon would be a major obstacle to my day. One might think very wrongly.

It is by the car. Dead. On it’s back. Probably to illustrate just how very dead it is. I therefore cannot get into the car. It is causing an obstruction.

‘Why the hell don’t you just move the sodding pigeon?’ I hear you ask. Although you may not have sworn.

I have a bit of a problem with dead things.

Even small dead things are not good. From woodlice up I start to be quite irrational. Mammals are the worst but birds come a short second. It is very lucky that I have never had to move a human corpse. Even the sight (previous) of the Beloved (previous) asleep could be quite disturbing. Thus at least the world can be assured that it is unlikely that I would murder anyone as the impossibility of moving the body, tying concrete triangles to their feet and throwing them into Hudson Bay is, essentially, an overwhelming obstacle. When the detectives begin their in-depth investigation re the murderer of whoever the first person they always eliminate is me. Because of this obstacle.

Like the pigeon.

I can’t get in the car. So I can’t go to the Coop to get milk. Or bread. We are going to starve to death. Thirst to death.

But I am not a woman without initiative. I have a plan. I will text the Beloved ‘Help! Dead pigeon!!!’ Using exactly that number of exclamation marks. He will leap out of the arms of his new Beloved and rescue me. Or I will starve to death and he will have to move my body, tie concrete triangles to my feet and throw me into Hudson Bay. But prior to that he will have to move the pigeon. In order to get to the car. So, either way, I win.

How Not to Use Words

I thought I should write a blogpost. Because my listeners might be missing me. But I don’t know what to say.

We are all truly bored of my dire love life (especially me). My listeners have probably all heard about my new website (www.leafbooks.co.uk if you haven’t). The physicist is still in Oxford so is supplying no inspiration. The Lawyer is studying and thus not amusing. The Beloved is not here for me to comment upon (let alone do anything else upon). The fact that I have modelled naked for our latest book cover is too embarrassing to mention.

So I read Matt’s blog http://hedgedefender.blogspot.com/ for some inspiration. He’s an inspiring sort of chap. It turns out that he’s run out of words. Us writers have no end of problems really. He has no words, I have nothing to say but I have lots of words.

Here are some of them:

Dishcloth
Mango
Aplomb (I just lent that one to Matt)
Gorge
Archipelago
Gusset
Nave
Brassica
Mud
Splice
Gasket
Obverse
Taupe
Redirect
Plenary
Individualism
Cat

I hope you enjoyed them.

Oh and another one –
Coherence.

Not Crème Brulee

I’ve had my first request for a blog post. This is exciting. It happened last night in the pub. The request I mean. ‘It’ could be construed as something far more exciting which is generally not happening in my life. Thus a request for a blog post leaps up the rankings of generally exciting events with all the alacrity and enthusiasm displayed by a flea when it catches sight of a piece of naked flesh. Which is probably similar to my alacrity and enthusiasm at the same sight.

So, a blog post. The request.

Crème brulee.

Now, my requestee claims to be a reader of my blog. But somehow I wonder. What, I’m asking myself does crème brulee have to do with thinly disguised analogies for sex? Or thickly disguised analogies for sex? Or sex?

However I realise after a smidge of further wondering where crème brulee fits into the scheme of things – it’s like custard. Ah ha!!!

I begin to prepare some cunning experiments to test the properties of c.b. Things like swimming pools full of the stuff to test the old sink or swim non-newtonian liquid thingy. Large bowls on vibrating plates to enact the spooky wobbly wibbly thingys. Huge vats with ginormous weights balanced on top to apply however many g’s it takes to rule the world.

I am slightly flummoxed by the lack of this particular culinary delight with which to experiment. I am, I discover, much to my chagrin and mild surprise, crème brulee –less. The cupboards are empty of the stuff. The fridge contains no crème, no brulee. The wardrobes, similarly are rich-desert-less. As is even the shed. Although the camels may have eaten it.

I am left with no choice but to create my own large quantities of crème brulee on which to experiment. I am in no way defeated by the fact that I have very few of the ingredients and specialised tools required for the creation of crème. I can substitute along with the best of them.

Here is the recipe I found on a well know encyclopaedia site:

3 pints heavy cream
¾ cup granulated sugar
¾ tsp salt
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
12 egg yolks

Here is the recipe I used:

3,000 pints of heavy water
340 cups of granulated dust (found under kitchen cabinets)
No salt (as it’s bad for you and I ate it all on my dinner earlier)
150 tps extract of tumble dryer
I thought the eggs were probably not important

This is what I discovered using scientific methods (stirring):

Crème brulee is not a non-newtonian liquid.
I can swim.
Crème brulee when vibrated does not get excited.
I do.
Crème brulee when put under pressure doesn’t flinch in the slightest.
I do.
Cardiff City Council do not offer a free crème brulee disposal service.
Camels do not eat crème brulee.

A special thanks to my requestee for involving me in this evening’s entertainment. If anyone else has any blog requests I ask only this – please supply the correct ingredients. Otherwise fuck off.

Does anyone know what camels eat?

How Not to Improvise

I’ve been going to improvisation classes. To learn to improvise. Yes, yes, I know, I already am fully cognisant of methods to improvise my way through life’s hair-pin bends – I can whip up a meal from only a tin of paint and a small aubergine, I can fix a leaking water main using a pair of stripy tights soaked in mulligatawny soup and I am well known for my skills in shed-creation/restoration equipped only with a couple of old doors, some slightly mouldy flat-packed furniture and a rotting marrow.

This is comedy improvisation. It’s supposed to make people laugh. It mostly makes me laugh aside from when I cry or bang my frontal lobes on the nearest trapeze.

But last night things went seriously awry. This is what happened:

Our instructor (an experienced, wise, thoughtful sort of person who is mostly a clown but mostly isn’t) instructed his class (that’s me and another disparate dozen of desperate fools. Sorry – aspiring fools) to imagine taking something off a shelf. The important thing about this exercise was not to think what was on the shelf until it was in our hands. To have a blank and empty mind with no preconceived idea as to what might be lurking on a dozen imaginary shelves scattered around the space.

You see already what fun this class is. I’ve mangled my way through many types of education and thus it is refreshingly refreshing to be told to not think. This, I thought, I could do (although that actually countered the not-thinking thing). I applied my mind to not thinking.

After a few moments of bringing strange objects off imaginary shelves I began to be slightly troubled by who had actually stacked these shelves and the high level of irresponsibility involved. Frankly the managers of the Coop, Waterstones, even ToysRus would have been appalled. I was appalled and I’m quite open-minded when it comes to shelves, cupboards and general storage devices.

This is what they had put on the shelves:
A hippo with a flower in its mouth
A green rubber ball that smelt of wet wool
Half a red stilettoed boot with teeth-marks on
A man
A pair of cats-eye marbles fused together humming ABBA songs
A small box of kittens (assorted)
An enormous statue of a turkey
A wet sponge in the shape of a woman’s breast
A wet sponge in the shape of a man’s breast
Twelve yellow African camels
…. It went on….

But this wasn’t the end of my problems. It was one thing for the anonymous shelf stacker to load this imaginary shelf but it was an entirely different issue as what the fuck I was supposed to do with all this stuff.

I began by neatly stacking it around me – the hippo was balanced on the ball which in turn was balanced on the boot. The box of kittens I shoved under the statue of the turkey. The marbles I fed to the man. But when the bloody camels turned up I just had to say something.

‘Oh noble instructor,’ I said, feeling some sort of deference was probably due to the arranger of such an exercise, ‘I have been most successful at emptying my mind,’ I continued, just so he felt I understood, ‘but now I don’t know what the fuck to do with all these things I have gotten off the shelf. The room is becoming most crowded and as you can see these camels are chaffing.’

‘Just discard the stuff once you know what it is,’ he answered, ‘throw it over your shoulder.’

I stared in disbelieving disbelief. ‘No! What?! Just throw all these things away? No! What!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?’

He raised his eyebrows. I raised my eyebrows.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, and I was, ‘I just can’t do that.’ I led my camels, men, hippos, kittens etc out of the building keeping my eyebrows aloft.

Lucky my improvisational skills at shed mending are better than my comedy. Does anyone know what to feed camels?

How Not to Find the Man of Your Dreams

Things must be getting desperate here. I’ve just joined some bizarre dating site called facespin or spinface or something. It’s like one of those games where you identify inkblots only more revealing. By the time I’d finished my whole personality, inner most longings and hair-do preferences were revealed in a starkly startling revelation.

This is what happened:

Somehow I found myself clicking ‘try it out’. I think maybe I was trying to click ‘close’ but my finger juddered (probably from the shakes I’ve been suffering due to lack of sex and chocolate). There, on the screen (after a small amount of dizzy-making spinning effect which was for no good reason aside from making me feel slightly nauseous) a man’s picture appeared. Underneath were three buttons entitled ‘yes,’ ‘no,’ and ‘mayB.’ I did take exception to the fact that they couldn’t spell but nevertheless given such a simple selection of choices and a picture of a man that was so obviously a ‘yes’ I was drawn in as a fly is drawn to its death on the internet or as a recently confused woman is drawn away from what she is supposed to be doing.

After a few more yes, no or mayB sort of things they said I had to register. What else could I do? I filled out the form. I thought of a ridiculous on-screen name. I puzzled over the five things I was supposed to say about myself. I am another victim of the web. A dating site addict. A judger of men.

Moments later (or maybe hours later)(I’m still having problems with time distortion) I was the proud and embarrassed owner of a spinny ‘black book’ complete with all the men I had said yes or maybe to. Sorry, mayB to.

It turned out that I said yes to four. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And one of them was a Coastguard which I thought was quite sexy.

It also turned out that I said mayB to 18. For no other good reason than that they didn’t put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do.

I said no to about a thousand because they all put ‘watching football’ as one of their favourite things to do. And, frankly some of them looked a bit scary. Especially in their football shorts.

However, on closer examination I discovered a disturbing theme. Every man that had posted a picture of themselves with a small child I chose. Without a moment’s hesitation I clicked ‘yes, mayB, yes, yes’ totally forgetting the spelling issue.

This leads me to the revealing conclusion that I don’t want a man at all. I want a small child. I am broody. Rorschach eat your heart out.

How Not to Not WIN the Pub Quiz

Yes, a double negative. There are aspects to use of the double negative that, I feel, are almost positive. And this was very much the experience in the pub. This is what happened:

We have a pub. It has a quiz. Every Tuesday night. In the spirit of glasnost, openness and a deep desire to get out of the house I decided that this was THE thing that would revive my sagging social life, lift my flabby spirits and generally possibly and on the very off-chance if I actually left the house I might meet the man of my dreams. Since he didn’t seem to be knocking on my door. Which is strange and slightly inexplicable. Surely the world and his handsome brother/uncle/nephew/cousin/male-relation-of-any sort-whatsoever now knows that I am single. So where are they? This is a question I asked myself. The only answer I could come up with (aside from generally hiding from slightly mad blog-writers in case they are discovered and written about) was maybe they were in the pub.

So, the pub quiz. The first week (we’ll call that week 1 for the sake of clarity) my team consisted of me, my friend who knows a lot about small-boy culture since she has a five-year-old, the Lawyer and the Lawyer’s friend who knows a lot about quite a lot for someone who has lived so very few years (compared to me). We came 2nd. Out of 3 teams. We were very proud.

The next week (week 2) the Lawyer and the Lawyer friend were absent. I suggested we cheat. My friend disagreed. We lost.

The following week (week 3) (don’t worry this story only goes up to week 4) I wander in to discover my team isn’t there. A couple to whom we have previously waved, waves. I wave back and try not to look teamless. I look teamless. They take pity.

This was one of the most cunning things that has ever happened to me. This couple turn out to be the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of the pub quiz world. The waltzed through the questions with the grace of a well-oiled pair of dancing shoes that had done this sort of thing before. I nodded and pretended to be clever. My friend smiled and answered any questions re 5-year-old culture. We won.

What I have failed to explain here is that every team that wins the quiz is entered for a GRAND PRIZE DRAW every 4 weeks. You see now why we are counting weeks.

Week 4 – The tension is mounting. The man of my dreams still hasn’t turned up. My new and glorified team has. And so has an old friend. Old friend offers me a drink. I am torn – old friend vs quiz team. I pick old friend thinking I would catch up with my team in a moment. The old friend and I get deep into a discussion about celestial bodies of great interest. We go out for a fag and to look at a passing comet. We return. I notice that there seems to be a pub quiz going on. I remember about my team.

They have answered all the questions except one. ‘What was Suzi Quatro’s hit from some-year-or-another?’ Now Suzi and I have a lot in common. We are both American, of small stature, she dresses in tight leather trousers and I would should I own such a garment. We, essentially are like two peas in the proverbial pod. Thus I know everything about her. Or at least I know the answer to this question. We win. By one point. That very point that I gave them by my intimate knowledge of Suzi.

The prize draw draws ME!!!!! Mostly because the landlady knows my name and not Fred and Gingers’.

The man of my dreams still hasn’t shown. So – man, I’ll be there next Tuesday, I’m the one not wearing the tight leather trousers.

How Not to Shop Local

I’ve just been to the Coop. Local shops are dangerous places for the recently dumped. Not only does excessive chocolate, beer and Pritt Stick (there are worse ways of sticking a relationship back together) buying go on, but you meet people. Who know. Who ask how you are. Who sympathise with sympathetic faces.

Now, mostly, I’m fine. I have done the hiding in the cupboard thing, I have had many a romantic evening in by myself. I have slept. A lot. I have vowed to give up lusting after lost loves, longing for babies, missing cats and wondering why the house is so tidy.

The problem comes only when some bastard person sympathises. Then I crack. In the Coop. The staff of the Coop are definitely on the verge of banning me from the premises. Frankly, I’m giving a bad impression of local shopping. A great deal of expense, time and poor planning have just gone into refurbishing this enchanting emporium. The shoppers should now skip around the newly-narrowed and confusingly laid-out retail outlet in veritable paroxysms of delight. Which they would. If it weren’t for the middle-aged women sobbing on relative strangers’ shoulders in the aisles.

I do, however, have a solution. I’m going to get a tattoo. This is a very cunning plan as a tattoo will achieve a number of necessary goals in one fell swoop, or one fell tattoo:
Fulfil the need for self-harm that many a rejected soul feels the need to accomplish.
Fulfil the need for improved body image that many a rejected soul needs.
Fill at least an hour of time where thinking about anything else aside from pain will be unnecessary.
Fulfil the need for something (anything) that actually lasts a life time.
Be green.
Stop people sympathising with me as it is going to read ‘DON’T TALK TO ME’ in large letters across my forehead.

Cunning eh?

How to Love Yourself

Now that you have successfully fallen out of love (and into the second person narrative style)(if you missed previous post here’s a quick recap: you are now squatting in a cupboard with your eyes, ears and mouth covered) it is time to reconnect with your inner being. Oh, done that in the cupboard, ok, good.

They say that in order to be loveable you must first love yourself. This is sometimes a challenge to the recently dumped. Self-esteem, self-worth and self-abuse can be at an all-time low. Not only that but hours spent in a cupboard can lead to awkward cramps and a general fear of light, air and iridescent cockroaches.

Fret not. Here are a few handy tips to self-love:

Remember that you are beautiful – when you pass mirrors (if you haven’t smashed them all) smile. Say ‘Hey gorgeous, you are looking wonderful tonight.’ ‘My God who is that attractive person?’ or, if you feel that is going too far, simply stick to ‘Good, ok, still alive.’

Treat yourself as you would like to be treated by someone who loves you (that’s you). Buy yourself flowers, chocolate, more chocolate, and many small figurines of Jean-Luc Picard. Ha, how clever, only someone who REALLY loves you would know to buy you that.

Take yourself out for a romantic evening. Many a dumpee finds it difficult to get out, go out, go. Here’s the solution - simply simulate a romantic evening in the comfort of your own home (if you still have one):

Eat a meal with your loved one - a carefully placed mirror (if you haven’t smashed them all) or photograph of yourself (choose one from ten years ago) on the seat opposite will enhance that couple effect.

Take your loved one dancing – put your mp3 player on high volume, turn the lights down low, and if you are a disco type, blink a lot to simulate a strobe effect.

Go for a romantic walk by the riverside – fill the washing-up bowl with water and a few unidentifiable bits of debris and place on floor, open the windows for that fresh-air feel, and open the bin for that romantic river smell.

Whisk your loved one off to bed – undress slowly (here is where loving yourself really comes into its own because it suddenly doesn’t matter that you have forgotten to put clean knickers on, shave or remove those stray pubes that think that the pubic area extends to the upper (and/or lower) thighs). Mutter sweet nothings (again yay, it doesn’t matter if you are actually incanting tomorrow’s shopping list or yesterday’s suduko numbers because only you can hear). If you are not now feeling truly hot - turn on the electric blanket. And, just like a real relationship, or in fact better (because you know that is going to happen), fall asleep.

When you wake in the morning and discover that you have slept blissfully with your loved one all night without them even disturbing you with incessant snoring, terrifying sleep apnoea, or twitching like a person being given electric shocks direct from the local power station then you know. It’s love.

How Not to Fall Out of Love

There comes a time in many people’s relationships that’s called ‘The End’. It seldom causes the same sense of satisfaction as those mystical words rolling up as a classic film finishes, nor does one get the opportunity to discover who it was that actually played the leading roles, directed or who the mysterious man that looked like your father’s uncle was. Sometimes, often the better times, the end of a relationship is of one’s own volition. Oft as not though it is because one has been dumped, rejected and generally thrown out into the world of singledom without a by-your-leave, an excuse-me or even a darling-would-you-mind-if-I-just….

This leads to a key question many a dumpee has been forced to ask – ‘How do I fall out of love?’ Here are a few top tips:

Do not think about the object of your affections. At all. A tall order indeed but there are a number of practical aids around the house that may help –

Remove all evidence of the Beloved, including:

Photographs (especially photographs).

Items belonging to the Beloved that may have been accidentally left behind including socks, CDs, books, and pubic hair adhering to household surfaces.

Items belonging to the Beloved that may have been purposefully left behind including uncomfortable chairs, CDs of embarrassing seventies groups, books so trashy that even the Beloved thinks he doesn’t own them, and pubic hair adhering to household surfaces.

Anything that may remind one of the Beloved such as ashtrays he made for you in pottery class in 1978 when pottery classes were de rigueur, cupboard doors he may have smashed in a fit of pique, and walls he painted colours you really never liked.

Anything that may look like the Beloved such as muddy boots, life-sized models of Arnold Schwarzenegger (or possibly Woody Allen), and the Beloved’s children. Ok, perhaps not his children as they are also your children. So best simply disguise them using false beards, face-paint and gorilla costumes. Assure them that Halloween has been extended to an all-year event.

Now you have thoroughly cleansed your house all that remains is to cleanse your mind. As your mind is smaller than your house (unless you live in a world even more bizarre than the one I live in) this shouldn’t be too difficult. Perhaps. Or not. A few top tips on self-brainwashing include:

Never use any words that start with the same letter as your Beloved’s name.

Don’t, under any circumstances, watch, listen to, or read anything that is to do with love. This boils down to essentially not watching, listening to or reading anything at all. Ever.

Avoid places that you have ever made love. Hence going to bed is definitely out, as is laying the table, having a bath, taking a shower, the sofa, building a nice fire, driving, canoeing, ice skating, and bungee jumping.

At this point I can hear you asking ‘But what’s left if I avoid all of the above, good and excellent advice as it is?’

Fret not. There is still a life after being dumped. Don’t imagine that there is nowhere to go and nothing to do.

If you have a toilet that is not in the bathroom that will prove a good place to hang out. Failing that any convenient cupboard large enough to squat in will prove excellent. Then, simply cover your ears in case anyone should try and play love songs in your vicinity. Cover your eyes in case you see any stray pubic hairs that you failed to notice in your house-cleansing ritual. Close your mouth firmly lest you utter any words that begin (or for that matter, contain) any letters that are in your Beloved’s name. And voila! Out of love. Fucking sorted. Oh, but don’t use the word ‘fucking’.

How Not to Cure a Broken Heart

They say that time cures all things. I can see how that applies to hams, hangovers and the flu.

But, the problem with time, as many of us know, it that it’s a tricky bugger. On any given day there is both not enough of it and far too much of it. As previously discussed I have a Things to Do list as long as a very long-armed person’s arm, in fact both their arms, and there is never enough time to do all the Things to Do. On the other hand I’m busily waiting for time to cure all. And whilst I’m busily waiting for time to cure all I’m finding it tricky to do the Things to Do because I’m busy. Waiting for time. To cure all.

Now, Einstein had a theory about time. He claimed (although I believe he never actually tested this) that if one was to move very quickly, I mean very very quickly, like quicker than a van driver on a roundabout, quicker than Superman on a trampoline, even quicker than the time it takes for a Beloved to break a heart, then time would slow down. Even go backwards.

But, in my case, since I am waiting for time to cure all, I want time to go faster. Being a bit of a scientist (the other bits of me are strictly bits of artists) I’m thinking that if I go very very slowly, slower than the slugs that enjoy my lettuces, slower than a van driver on the M25, even slower than a Beloved takes to mow a lawn, then time would speed up. And thus cure all quicker.

So this is my cunning plan:
Only move in slow motion (this will also help time to cure my broken foot)
Only drive in first gear (and again, since I won’t have to change gear that should help the foot)
Sleep – a lot (yay, another foot cure too).

Should this plan not work (although I see no reason, scientifically speaking, that it wouldn’t) I have another plan to make time pass without me actually noticing it doing so. And thus cure all.

I have got the entire 10 series of Friends on DVD. The Lawyer, being a kind-hearted self-sacrificing sort of girl, has agreed to join me in this scientific experiment into the nature of time.

I’ll see you all in 2009 when I will surely be cured.

How Probably Not to Get a Life

Today I joined Facebook. Mostly due to peer pressure. Peer pressure is a powerful tool when used in the right way. When used in the wrong way it is about as useful as a broken drill, a lawnmower that won’t start or a strimmer that has run out of petrol. All of which I have, so I know just how useful they are when it comes to using them.

This is what happened:

I got an email. From my sister. It said

I've requested to add you as a friend on Facebook. You can use Facebook to see the profiles of the people around you, share photos, and connect with friends.Thanks,Andrea

You’ll note no kisses or anything. And just a friend. Not a sister. Don’t they have sisters on Facebook? However I liked the idea of connecting with friends and seeing their profiles (I’d have preferred to see them front-on but beggars can’t be choosers or whatever) so I made myself a Facebook for this express purpose. And connecting with sisters.

This is really where the problems started. They kept asking me difficult questions. Like those fucking machines in the gym. They ask difficult questions too. Things like how old I am, how much I weigh, what exactly am I intending to do on this machine, why exercise machines aren’t oranges, what is the meaning of life and is there any point to it. ‘Come on machine!’ I cry, ‘You asked me all this only yesterday! Have you no memory? What is the meaning of life? Is there any point to it?’ The machine generally whirrs gently and smells of a previous occupant’s sweat. This, I feel, is no answer to anything.

So, Facebook. Questions. Questions that made me stop and examine the meaning of life and if there was any point to it. It started ok; I aced ‘basic’ because I knew some pretty tricky stuff like my birthday, that my political views were definitely ‘other’ and that my religion was blank. I even coped with the ‘contact’ page by leaving most of it blank and then listing far too many websites for a decent and legal human being to be involved in. It was the ‘relationships’ page that left me completely flummoxed.

First it asked if I was interested in men or women. I ticked both.

Then it asked if my relationship status was;
Single
In a relationship
Engaged
Married
It’s complicated
or
In an open relationship
Ok, fine, but I WAS ONLY ALLOWED TO CHOOSE 1 OPTION.
I would have of course been able to rule out ‘engaged’ but would have put myself down as single, in a relationship, married, it’s complicated AND in an open relationship.
I opted for ‘single’. See how my life has simplified itself beyond the bounds of reason and sexual gratification?

Finally it asked what I was looking for –
Friendship
Dating
A relationship
Random play
or
Whatever I can get

Luckily (and thank you all deities for this luck) I was allowed to choose all of them. So I did. I don’t think that sounds too desperate does it?

How Not to Sympathetically Restore an Historic Vernacular Building

I visited the Beloved in his swanky new flat today. So we could sign the Separation Agreement. I imagined an event rather like the signing of the Magna Carta, or the Declaration of Independence. You know, a lot of serious men in beards, quill pens, strange hats, trousers that have little flappy bits and button up at the front.

Sadly it was not to be on this historic day. But don’t worry, something historic did happen (that comes later). The Separation Agreement that I had driven through the long and windy night (or rush hour traffic depending on how you look at it) to retrieve from Spicketts & Battrick (I kid you not) in deepest Splott transpired not so much to be a Separation Agreement as an Agreement to make an Agreement. And to pay the aforementioned Spicketts & Battrick a phat load of cash.

Undeterred and only slightly tearful I determine to make light conversation:
‘Flat’s looking nice. I like your red kettle and florescent pink sheets’
‘I chose them for the colour’ Nice to see that good taste still plays a leading role in his life.
‘New trousers?’
‘Yes, M&S, but the fluff from the new carpet keeps sticking to them.’ I nod sympathetically. I understand that he too has his problems.
‘And nice new flat-screen TV.’
‘Yes, and I can use it as a monitor too.’
I am reassured that at least he has overcome his lack of sports-viewing.
‘I’ve been trying to mend the shed.’
The blank look on his face leads me to believe that he may have forgotten the shed. That, somehow, the shed no longer plays a leading role in his life. Undeterred I continue, ‘it needs new felt for the walls.’
‘I don’t think we can afford that at the moment, it’s been an expensive month.’

Still undeterred I return home. And go into the garden to reclaim the lawn from it’s status as a meadow. Whilst hard at strimming my neighbour approaches:

‘Big storm forecast for tomorrow,’ he declares in a sage-like manner.
‘Oh my God! The shed!’ I declare in a non-sage-like manner. ‘It’s still all leaky! What about my precious slightly mouldy flat-packed furniture that I’m going to sell on ebay and thus support myself and my children on for the foreseeable future?!?!!!’

My neighbour, unlike the Beloved, totally sees the crisis in the situation. He appreciates that the shed is not only a shed housing much precious belongings, but an iconic building in itself. After all, his grandfather built this magnificent edifice with his own hands. It has stood through storm, disaster, famine, various hunger pangs, and numerous light rain showers for the last 50 years. Or so. The shed is an emblem of sheddiness. Nothing, not even single-parent impecuniousness should stand in the way of the restoration of this historic piece of vernacular architecture.

‘I have some plastic,’ he offers kindly.
‘And I have some old vinyl flooring,’ I add, just to sound like I’m not totally scrounging, ‘and a staple-gun.’

This is what happened:

The plastic was bright green. The vinyl flooring was fake cork. They made a stunning combination. All my combined experience of half a degree in Architecture, years of crap DIY and a qualification in quilt-making blended seamlessly into one great work of Restoration. I think it puts previous efforts of The National Trust, World Heritage and Cadw into the shade. It even outstrips the magnificence of my Greenham Common Bender and that was almost waterproof.

This is it:

When I showed it proudly to the lawyer, and reassured her that should worse come to worst we could always live in this magnificent building she smiled. Or perhaps it was wind.

How Not to Just Fucking Sort It

Well, Just Fucking Sort It September is over. And it’s time to take stock of just how very sorted everything is now. My world should be as sorted as an immaculate filing system, an accountant’s underwear drawer, a tube of Smarties after it has been sorted into different colours and then eaten in just the right order. Whatever order that is. Blues last I think.

So this is what happened:

At the beginning of Just Fucking Sort It September it was September 1st. Good start I feel. It was a Saturday, again an auspicious day. It wasn’t raining, or not much anyway, well, not enough to make the shed roof leak.

There were things that needed sorting-
The leaking shed
My underwear drawer
The flowerbed
The thousand other flowerbeds that inhabit my garden
The garden
The cupboard under the stairs
All the other cupboards
The house
My relationship with the Beloved
My life

On September 1st this didn’t seem un-ambitious. On October 6th, which happens to be today, I realise that maybe I was just a tad over-optimistic.

This is what happened:

The shed is still leaking. I fixed the roof. But then it turned out that all the walls were leaking too. Which isn’t a problem as long as all rain in the next foreseeable future remains strictly vertical. Could happen. I will therefore classify this in ‘Just Fucking Sorted’

I have given a great deal of attention to the garden. Mostly by removing most of its contents including trees, shrubs, grass, children, lost items belonging to the Beloved, small unknowable grey things, and large knowable brown things. It is now not so much a garden as a wasteland that abuts the house. Again, fucking sorted.

I have also given a great deal of attention to the house. Mostly by removing most of its contents including the most of the cupboards, my underwear drawer, furniture, spiders’ webs, walls, doors, ceilings, lost items belonging to the Beloved, small unknowable grey things and large knowable brown things. The house now resembles not so much a house but a handy building site, which could attract attractive builders. Perhaps. So, fucking sorted.

The Lawyer removed herself to her bedroom. The physicist removed herself to Uni. The snotty cat removed himself to the after-life. The Beloved removed himself to swanky flat in Radyr to cavort with his new beloved therefore ameliorating the necessity to sort my relationship with him. Tick that one off my iGoogle Things To Do List.

So, really the only item that is still left outstanding at the end of Just Fucking Sort It September is my Life.

Buy hey, given how successful I’ve been sorting everything else out, surely a life can’t be that hard?

How Not to Have a Successful Relationship

They say that the most important part of a successful relationship is communication.

It’s been my ambition for quite a long time now to be ‘they’ because then people would believe me. And heed my wise words. However I have singularly failed to be plural and stalwartly remain ‘she’, which, frankly doesn’t have the same ring about it.

They say that the most important part of a successful relationship is communication.
I realise now that my communication skills have obviously been lacking. I’ve had 25 years to impart important information and yet the Beloved is still unaware of many important facts.

I also realise now, since he is moving out on Friday, that there is stuff he will probably never know. I am deeply concerned about this. It could affect his future in a profound, deep and dramatic way. He is launching into the unknown (or at least a swanky flat in Radyr) unequipped with some of the most basic knowledge that leads to a successful life.

I didn’t realise just how poor my communication skills were until this afternoon. This is what happened:

The Beloved decided that he would clean the inside of the car. I advised the hoover as a expedient, effective and moderately jolly way to remove five years of crisp crumbs, chocolate dust and unknowable little grey bits from interior car surfaces. Unusually and quite unexpectedly he agrees with me. I reel in surprise. He reels in surprise. When we have finished reeling he asks,

‘Where is the hoover?’

You see what I mean? Important information. Not communicated. No wonder he is leaving. This is such a basic and unforgivable mistake that how he never left before is slightly unimaginable.

The hoover, in case anyone is now wondering, is in the same cupboard as it has been for the last 15 years. I told the Beloved this. He looked puzzled. I drew a map (he has a degree in Geography and I thought this was the sort of thing he might relate to).

It set me thinking. What else haven’t I told him? Loads. Oops. Damn. Bother. Blast. To remedy the situation I have compiled a handy list entitled ‘What I always meant to tell you but, sorry, somehow, in the hurly-burly of family life I somehow, quite without meaning to, and with no malice of forethought or intention to do harm I forgot’.

This is the List:
Where the hoover lives
Why pans in the cupboard are stacked with the largest on the bottom and the smallest on the top
Where your glasses are (although I have mentioned this, he tends to outwit me on this one by moving them)
Why it is polite to shower
Where your keys are (although I have mentioned this, he tends to outwit me on this one by moving them)
Why precious pieces of slightly mouldy flat-packed furniture are better stored inside rather than outside the shed
What the machine with the big round window is for (he has one of those in his swanky new flat and I don’t want him trying to store milk in it)
Why it is polite to use a condom
Where your wallet is (although I have mentioned this, he tends to outwit me on this one by moving it)
Why that isn’t very nice
What women want.

I’m sure there are more. But I can always email him.
Ah, yes, that’s one – How to connect to the internet. I’ll send a letter instead.

How Not to Mend the Shed Part II

Just Fucking Sort It September continues. The Save Our Shed campaign is well and truly underway. This is what happened:

As you may recall the shed is now not covered in most of the crops of middle France.
So I can now access the exterior. I thought that a peep at the roof from the outside might be helpful. After having found the ladder, which the Beloved had handily stored under some brambles, I propped it against the end of the shed. With Health and Safety in mind I measured the angle at which I had propped the ladder (20 degrees) with my school protractor. Satisfied that this fell into the recommended parameters of Health and Safety as recommended by those wise Health and Safety bods (well, only just out of the parameters anyway) I began my ascent.

I had expected to find a few loose screws (of the exterior-head variety) (already familiar with the interior-head variety), perhaps some slightly worn edges, and possibly a magpie preening its feathers. Wrong. I found a landscape akin to a deforested, storm-tossed and post apocalyptic middle France after having had all its vines removed. There were valleys filled with water, valleys filled with brown unknowable smelly stuff, a multitude of screws so loose that I’m surprised that the preening magpies hadn’t picked them up and used them as combs and toothpicks for the entire magpie population of middle Wales. There were holes of the smaller variety which could be plugged with chewing gum (am chewing that now), there were holes of the middle-sized variety, large enough for a preening magpie to use as a handy entrance. AND THERE WAS A HOLE.

This is what it looked like:

The obvious question was obviously what I was asking myself – ‘How the fuck did I miss that?’

I have a theory:
The HOLE had several attributes –
It was previously obscured by most of the foliage of middle France
It is over where the Beloved keeps his bike
The Beloved’s bike is always wet
I had assumed that the Beloved’s bike was always wet because –
He rides it in the rain
He sweats a lot
Ergo, the wetness of the bike and surrounding area was due to Beloved-related activity.

Wrong. Or somewhat wrong.

I am, however, undaunted. I examined the problem from every angle (including 20 degrees). And came up with a cunning plan:
The shed needs a new roof to protect my precious, slightly mouldy, flat-packed furniture that I’m going to sell on ebay to obviate my singe-parent impecuniousness.
A roof is made of big flat things.
I have big flat things inside the shed (my precious, slightly mouldy, flat-packed furniture that I’m going to sell on ebay to obviate my singe-parent impecuniousness).

The obvious solution comes to mind. Fucking Sorted.

How Not to Write a ‘Things To Do’ List

I’ve been making a Google ipage. In the spirit of Just Fucking Sort It September. The two events may seem unrelated. It may appear that an ordinary Google homepage is already quite tidy, sorted and generally acceptable. The excitement of occasionally having the bods at Google add a few little festive seasonal thingys might seem sufficient. But this wasn’t the point. The point was my ‘Things To Do’ list.

I have always had an endearing fondness for a ‘Things To Do’ list. This is mostly because I always seem to have a lot of Things To Do but my memory seems incapable of remembering more than three things at a time. Thus, if my ‘Things To Do’ list comprises of:
Wash Kitchen Floor
Write Novel
Start Strange and Obscure New Business Involving Thailand Bhats
and
Pick Lawyer Up From School
things can go seriously awry. In my eargerness to do the things to do on the list I may spend over a year writing a novel and starting a strange and obscure new business involving Thailand bhats and the poor Lawyer waits at the school gates and essentially starves to death.

So, to my great joy I discovered that one can put a ‘Things To Do’ list on a Google ipage. So every time I go on the internet my list appears, there, before my eyes, in front of my face and generally writ large in a comfortingly inescapable manner. Starvation of my loved ones no longer is an issue.

So, I have been making a Google ipage. This is what happened:

I put up a ‘Things To Do’ list. Good. Then I’m offered more. More sounds good. Perhaps with even more than a ‘Things To Do’ list my life will be even more fucking sorted. Hooray. There isn’t just more, there is lots more. How exciting. So I choose –

A fortune cookie – handy for predicting the future and doubles as a starvation prevention.

A clock – useful in case the billion other clocks I’m surrounded by suddenly implode.

A sticky note – in case my ‘Things To Do’ list is not sufficiently yellow or sticky.

A currency converter – you never know when you might need the price of a loaf a bread in Thailand Bhats.

Freebie o’the day – an obvious essential for the impoverished single mother, today I can get free shampoo, a poster of Eminem and 15,000 kitchen-tested recipes. How fine is that?

A water tracker – which I’d hoped was going to tell me about the leaks in the shed roof, or maybe why the upstairs tank was so determined to store its water downstairs. Disappointingly it was to keep track of how many glasses of water I’d drunk today. I already have a gadget for that called a bladder.

A Shakespearian insulter – today’s insult is ‘Thou bootless dizzy-eyed malcontent!’ Have already used that a number of times, mostly to address the leaking shed.

A Google technology newsfeed – mostly because I felt sorry for it because it had less than 1000 useres.

Chat in Chinese – well it could be useful.

A spider – just to keep all the ones in the house company.

A new body – don’t need to tell you what that’s for.

A hunky man – ok, desperation has hit in a serious way.

So, my ipage was looking pretty damn exhilarating. What with insulting translations in Chinese, hunky men playing in Shakespearian with my new body, and sticky notes telling my fortune in Thailand Bhats I discovered that my ‘Things To Do’ list was really quite unimportant. I deleted it with a jolly cry of ‘Hence rotten thing! Or I shall shake thy bones out of thy garments.’

How Not to Mend the Shed – Or the French Vine Conspiracy

It rained today. Not much, but enough. Enough to make the shed roof leak. As you may recall I have just put my precious junk into (or rather back into) the shed. For safekeeping. Against the elements. Only the elements are also putting themselves into the shed. Possibly for safekeeping, or maybe for fun, but I suspect a certain amount of malicious intent. Because frankly, the places where the elements have discovered to get in are pretty small and obscure. I feel that the elements have probably gone to a lot of trouble to discover these small cracks and orifices. And if penetrating my shed was just for fun, then why the hours of dedicated research? Ipso facto, malicious intent. A prejudice against soon-to-be impoverished single mothers.

However, in the spirit of Just Fucking Sort It September I was undaunted. Elements pshaw! I declared. I will not let a few malicious elements defeat my cunning plan of making millions out of dismantled, slightly rotten ex-flat-packed cheap furniture. So I set to to mend the shed. This is what happened:

Firstly I assessed the damage by carefully examining puddles and small drippy bits on the floor and sides of the shed. I traced the aforementioned puddles and small drippy bits to their associated holes in the roof and walls. This was most revealing. Because there appeared to be an escaped vineyard attempting to enter the shed along with the elements. Could it be that most of the crops of middle France were also prejudiced against soon-to-be impoverished single mothers? It appeared so. This smacked of a conspiracy.

Undaunted I decided to eliminate the escaped crops of middle France. Hours later, stained with mouldy grape juice and feeling slightly sticky I surveyed my work. A pile the size of your traditional EU wine lake of mouldy grapes, vicious vines and unknowable tendrils adorned not only my precious slightly rotten ex-flat-packed cheap furniture, but the exterior of the shed, the rest of the garden and most of the outskirts of Cardiff.

‘Ha!’ I declared to the French escapee. ‘That showed you!’ The pile grinned knowingly. It had started raining again. The elements had taken on a new vigour. A vigour that only elements can achieve when they discover that not only that they can enter a woman’s shed through previous cracks and orifices, but that now, due to the lack of most of the crops of middle France, the cracks and orifices were larger and more welcoming than they were before I had started welding my trusty loppers.

‘Ha!’ declared the conspiratorial elements. ‘Fucking Sorted.’

How Not to Save Oneself from Pecuniary Disadvantage

The ‘Just Fucking Sort It September’ story continues. Because I’m still sorting. Or trying to sort. I’m certainly not, much to my profound disappointment, fucking. And according to various reliable sources (the internet, the small thingy on the bottom of my computer screen, and the feeling in my bones, spleen and unsightly spot on my forehead just below the hairline that luckily I can cover it up) it is still September.

There are some things that are easier to sort than others. For example I have just completed a large and appealingly categorised database of all the authors in the Leaf Anthologies for our spanking new website (not literally spanking obviously, and not up yet so don’t rush to go and look). Should I so desire, at the click of a button I can make the authors all fall into alphabetical order. This is not painful for them and yet strangely pleasing for me. If only all of life were so easy. And obliging. And lacking in pain. And in neat little boxes that line themselves up and can be turned into lots of colours.

But, in the spirit of Just Fucking Sort It September I am obliged to tackle heftier tasks than spreadsheets. So, undaunted, back to the shed I go.

This is what happened:

Before I even managed to enter the shed I was arrested by a thought. The thought in question, was ‘The outside shed is very full.’
I was then arrested by a follow-on thought. ‘What the fuck am I going to do with all this stuff?’
I was then arrested by a follow-on follow-on thought. ‘I might need it.’

This double follow-on thought was of great significance. Because, you see, previously, when the outdoor shed was first invented by the Beloved, and a canny thought it was too, we were rich. And so the contents (is that the right word for a collection of articles that is bounded by no more than fresh air?) was junk.

Now, however I am about to be poor. Life has been cunningly redefined. Thus junk is now redefined. As useful stuff. As valuable goods. As items that could be cleverly dismantled into their constituent parts of mdf, nails, screws, small unknowable metal things and little plastic contraptions to stop doors slamming and sold on ebay for what I hope will be a small fortune. I have unwittingly come across the solution to single motherhood poverty.

I look at the skies. I think it might rain. I heft the contents of the outdoor shed back into the indoor shed to protect my valuable assets from the dangers of corrosion, rust and bird-shit.

Just Fucking Sorted.

Beginning to suspect that this may take more than September. Perhaps October as well. But since ‘Just Fucking Sort It October’ doesn’t have the same ring about it I may have to consider ‘Just Fucking Organise it October’. Still, always nice to have something to look forward to, that’s what I say.

How Not to Sort The Shed – or The Tent Trapeze Triumph

I’m having ‘Just Fucking Sort It’ September. This month (or what’s left of it) is when I’m taking control of my life. This is a big task. Especially with my life. Some people have lives that are already sorted. They are the type of people whose CD collections are in alphabetical order, with the right CDs in the right boxes and not being used to prop wobbly tables, place toast upon or cover parts of the roof that are leaking.
They are the type of people who can open cupboards without the entire contents falling on the floor, breaking one’s foot, spilling over the room, sliding out the door, and engulfing the earth and a small asteroid that happens to be passing.
They are the type of people whose garden sheds contain space to swing a cat, do a small hula dance and put a not-broken lawnmower in.

So today I started with the shed. Which conveniently enough had already been mostly emptied into the al fresco shed. This is what happened:

I fought my way past the jungle and the outdoor shed contents and entered the shed. For a shed that had already been emptied it was quite full. Undaunted I examined the contents. What I notice first was that everything was covered in some sort of fabric. Images of Mrs Haversham’s abode crossed my mind. I wondered if perhaps a foresightful person had covered all my precious belongings in order to protect them from fading in the bright light or possibly getting dusty. But as it turned out not. It was the Lawyer’s tent. That she had taken camping a number of weeks, or possibly months, ago, and we had spread in order to allow it to dry and for a great deal of sand to work its way off.

Undaunted I begin to gather the tent. And fold it. Whist enjoying that satisfying scrunch of sand on wooden floor. When I was a child, or at least a person of lesser years than I am now, tents were tent shaped and thus could be folded into appealing rectangle shapes. Not this one. It refused in any way, shape, form or manner to be tidied. In fact it fought back with the vigour only a mysteriously shaped and highly recalcitrant tent could. Think alligators and blond Australians.

Undaunted I stuffed it bodily into a number of bin-bags and wondered how it had ever possibly emerged from the small zipped object that was its real home. ‘Ha!’ I exclaimed. ‘Fucking sorted.’

I then discovered that there was an empty cupboard in the shed. ‘Ha!’ I exclaimed and stuffed the bin bags containing the parts of tent into the cupboard. ‘Ha!’ I exclaimed. ‘Fucking sorted.’

I took a large marker pen and wrote on the cupboard ‘Big Tent’ in broad and significant letters.

There was still some room in the cupboard. I gazed around the three and a half million other objects in the shed to decide what should join the tent in it’s handy hidaway. My eye settled on a metal bar mostly wrapped in rope. The physicist’s trapeze. I stuffed it into the cupboard and wrote ‘Trapeze’ in broad and significant letters.

I gazed lovingly at the cupboard. ‘Ha!’ I exclaimed. ‘Fucking sorted’.

So satisfied was I at this that I decided to sort the rest of the three million other objects as well as the two and a half million exterior objects tomorrow.

Well, frankly, if one can so cunningly store a tent and a trapeze, and even label the tent and trapeze receptacle with broad and significant letters, it puts those CD alphabetisers to shame. Completely.

How Not to File

You know filing? That thing we mostly hate that involves having to put bits of unknown and difficult to understand paper into some form of paper-shaped receptacle. Cardboard is often involved. And sometimes paperclips. And always a great deal of mess, piles of paper on the floor and that gesture where one grabs one’s hair and attempts to pull oneself into another dimension by unsuspecting follicles whilst scrunching one’s features like a strange and expensive dog.

Filers deserve respect. It isn’t an easy job. A lot of thinking and reading and categorising is involved. The categorising is the worst part. This is because sometimes things just refuse out of sheer bloody-mindedness to fall into just one category. Take, for example, peanut butter and jam sandwiches. You have a peanut butter and jam sandwich. You have three files – peanut butter, jam, and bread. But what you really want to do is file it under butter. The only thing left to do is eat the sandwich thus obviating the need for any filing at all. It works with food, but after eating one’s fifteenth piece of paper, despite the variety of flavours, such as bank statement, receipt from the unicycle repair shop, gas company final demand (which is quite nice because it’s red) and (my personal favourite) yet another letter from the endowment company telling you that you have fuck all chance of ever paying off your mortgage even if you are stupid enough to pay them more money after they have already spent all your money by investing it in peanut butter companies with shit filing systems, you start to feel quite sick.

Anyway, filing. This is what happened:

I needed to find a piece of paper. And important piece of paper. Which told me just how much money we still owe to mortgage company. Mostly because if we could somehow magic away the mortgage then the Beloved could go live in a swanky flat with bells and whistles and peace and quiet (aside from the whistles) and no Lawyers and Physicists and lunatic blog writers. The thing about magicing things away, I always find, is that you have to know what it is you have to magic away. Thus my search.

The particular paper-shaped receptacle I was searching through was one of those concertina-style filing thingys you buy especially for filing those piles of paper that accumulate with the relentlessness of an oncoming migraine in piles on the kitchen dresser. It (the filing thingy) has handy categories already printed in it. Things like ‘bills’, ‘receipts’ and (oh good, I thought when I saw this one) ‘mortgage’. I looked in the slot entitled ‘mortgage’ in the naive hope of finding my important piece of paper. No. I looked in some more slots. No. Eventually I realised. The papers had not so much been filed as dealt. Playing card-style. After having been shuffled with the expertise of a croupier on crack.

Still, much to my delight I found a peanut butter and jam sandwich handily filed under ‘butter’.

Tomorrow I am looking forward to the Alliance and Leicester helpline. Just praying that their filing system is better than ours.

How Not to Sort Out Your Life

The Beloved has a plan. To sort everything out. Or not.

The thing about plans is that sometimes they are great, think of lunar landings, recipes by Nigella Lawson and inventing chocolate. And oft as not, they are ill-conceived, think Apollo 13, recipes by Dr Crippen, World War I.

On the scale of plans the Beloved’s is somewhere between The Charge of the Light Brigade and The Millennium Dome. Sort of not quite rounded and rather chaotic. This is what happened:

Beloved: I have a plan.
Me: Good, that’s nice dear.
Beloved: Sign this piece of paper
Me: Good, that’s nice dear
Beloved hands me pen. I inspect piece of paper, as my father always told me not to sign anything without reading it first. This can be tricky when it comes to crowds wanting autographs in a hurry but since that situation is yet to arise I decide to read the piece of paper.
It is not so much a piece of paper as a form. Entitled ‘How to remove yourself from your life, home and not-marriage.’

The essence of the form is fairly straightforward. The usual gubbins, boxes, words, nicely shaded areas that indicate you don’t have to do anything in nicely shaded areas and that a designer has been hard at work choosing just that shade of pukey green to put in the nicely shaded areas.

The gist of the form is ‘Please sign away any rights to the last quarter of a century of your life, including any Physicists, Lawyers, decorative but slightly decrepit houses and decorative but slightly decrepit Beloveds.’

I fiddle with the pen. I think. Hard. This is a hard decision on par with very hard decisions one has known. Worse than deciding on what colour to paint the sitting room, what to name the cat or even how many dining room chairs we might need should we ever invite someone to dinner. I think some more. I fiddle with the pen some more. I look across the table at the beloved. He morphs strangely into one of those evil baddies from a 1950s horror movie. I can hear a strange ‘Ha ha ha ha’ in ever descending tones.

‘I’ll get back to you on this one.’ I say handing him the pen.

I think I handled the whole situation quite well. I always was rather good at forms.

How to Prepare for Uni

Sorry to all my loyal readers for my absence. I was away. You noticed that. And also I was here working. You may not have noticed that.

So what’s been occurring? The Physicist is preparing to be on her way out. Snotty cat is on his way out. The Beloved is out. The Lawyer has a new blue coat. The aforementioned have been awarded capital letters for their titles.

Re the Physicist, she is off to Uni, to continue her life as a physicist, mostly to do physics. Of all forms I imagine. However, it transpires that even scientists need to eat when they have arrived at their chosen venue of study.

‘Can we go buy stuff I need for Uni?’ came the cry from the kitchen.
‘And a coat?’ came the cry from the sitting room.
Now, having already taken out a second mortgage to pay for the Amazon bill I wondered just what it was that was needed for uni. Surely textbooks the size of small hadron colliders and a new pen was sufficient? It transpires not. So we went shopping. This is what happened:

We went to Tesco Extra Large and Very Difficult to Park. I grabbed a basket. I was informed that a basket was too small. I grabbed a trolley and trollied off after the physicist who was heading in a determined and scientific way into the deepest bowels of Tesco Extra Large and Very Difficult to Park. The Lawyer was hot in pursuit.

It started easily enough-
a hole punch, yes students need those;
a diary, again I could see the reasoning;
some glue, ok yes, even physicists may need to stick things with powers other than gravitational pull or electromagnetic force.

But then things started to get out of control, before I knew it our trolley, now steered by the lawyer (as I was busy holding my hands up in a gesture of incredulity) contained:
A toaster
A kettle
Duvet covers
Pillows
Sharp knives
Mugs
Bowls
Cork screws
And entire canteen of cutlery
Champagne flutes
A fridge
A bicycle (ok, she’s going to Oxford so that’s fair enough)
12 crates of champagne (to fill the flutes I guess)
A tin of baked beans (this I understood).

As we reached the checkout I asked
‘So, can you afford all this on your student loan?’
‘No,’ she said, looking at me as if I were from another planet ‘my loan is for stuff I need for uni’.
‘Ah,’ I said, extracting my credit card from my purse.
‘And don’t forget my coat,’ the lawyer added.
I’m glad that, compared to physics, the law is such a cheap thing to pursue.

A Good Bra is Hard to Find – Or How to Look Gorgeous for only £14

Bras are the bane of my life. Oh, hang on, sorry, men – look away now, this is a post about the real world of breasts. Not at all about the things that men think about breasts.

Bras are the bane of my life (did I mention that?). They have always been troublesome creatures. I understand what they are for. To hold tits. That’s fine. And especially for someone like me whose tits do need holding. So, failing having a nice lover to constantly follow me round holding my breasts in their cupped hands, I need a bra.

Now I’m wondering if one should choose one’s lover according to the size of their hands and whether or not their cupped hands are the correct cup size. If the cup fits, wear it. I can see a lot of the woes of the world might be solved if this were the case. After all, how many of us (all plus about ten) would like to know from the very outset of a relationship just whether we are compatible or not? Well, should this theory prove correct then the answer is before us all. Or at least attached to our chests. One simple test, which frankly could probably be done on the first date, or possibly anonymously, would tell us whether to bother or simply move on to a different-handed man.

I can’t believe no one has thought of this before. Just think of all the crap that’s talked about compatibility, shared interests, mutual trust, common culture, similar fetishes, and the love of architecture and/or kittens. Think of all the years of getting to know someone only to find out that you are completely mismatched. When all we had to do was say ‘grab my tits, there’s a dear.’ And all would be revealed.

Bras are the bane of my life (did I mention that?). The thing is – they just don’t fit. I don’t have those nice organised tits that are round and the nipples point semi-skyward. Never have. I have those sort of breasts that are more triangular and my nipples tend to like the view of my stomach more than my chin. So no matter which way I wadge them into a bra it’s all wrong. No longer. I have, after only a lifetime of searching, found the bra. It’s fantastic. It understands me. It understands that gravity exists. It understands my breasts, my breasts understand it. They are as mutually compatible as the aforementioned large-handed man and I are. I am in love. I look fantastic. My breasts, supported by this most magnificent piece of clothing, are no longer triangular but enormous and round.

The lawyer said ‘Mum, see, I told you you needed on of those bras.’ (hooray for the good advice of lawyers). The physicist said ‘Mum, your breasts look huge in that bra.’
The cat said ‘meow’. The beloved said ‘What are we talking about?’ The new lover with the large hands said ‘Take off that brassiere my dear’. Or was that Barry White?

What Never to Feed Your Cat

There didn’t seem to be much wrong with snotty cat. In fact he wasn’t even snotty. He was obviously just on a diet. For he eschewed the usual offerings of Tesco ever-so-nice little sachets of food that to me looked so disgusting that for once I actually agreed with the cat on something.

Usually, you understand, cat and I are polar opposites when it comes to topics like: Politics - he believes in a dictatorship (him) whereas I tend towards pure anarchy. Religion – he believes in one god (him) whereas I tend towards a more agnostic point of view. Obviously when he proves once and for all that he is God I will acknowledge his deityness with all the usual show of bowing and prostration but until then I will attempt to remain simply respectful.
Childrearing – he believes children are for the provision of laps and extra food whereas I tend towards the provision of laptops and extra food.
Death – he is of the let’s only live 9 times school of thought whereas I have yet to decide.
And finally Food – he believes that food is the god-given right of every cat. You can see how his reasoning is flawed here because if he is God then he should be providing his own food. Yet I provide the food, ergo, I am God.

That small point of philosophy cleared up back to the cat’s diet. This is what happened:
Cat refuses Tesco food. I am surprised. Usually he eats anything.
Cat refuses food for a second time. I am more surprised
Cat refuses food for quite a long time. I assume he is on diet in preparation for his summer holiday next door.
Physicist comes back from holiday and comments ‘cat looking very thin.’ I nod knowingly. Yet small corner of doubt beginning to show. Physicist concerned re cat’s welfare.
I resort to buying Kitekat, whose slogan is ‘as good as it looks’. Shit then. Yet… cat eats it. Or rather the first meal of it. Then cat refuses even Kitekat.
Sister and nephew come to visit ‘cat looking very thin’ they comment. I nod knowingly. Some concern that the cat is going to die of starvation. I explain about possible forthcoming holiday and possible need to wear speedo and impress all the cats next door. Nephew explains that they feed their cat Whiskas.

Well, it is a well known fact that once you go down the slippery Whiskas slope there is no turning back. Once a cat has tasted Whiskas it will eat nothing else. They put something addictive in it (possibly cocaine, heroine or chocolate).

‘Yes,’ pipes up the physicist, ‘he likes Whiskas.’
‘WHAT?’ I exclaim ‘Who has been feeding him Whiskas?’
It transpires that whilst I was stranded by floods the beloved did. Judas. Finally I bow to the pressure of all members of family thinking cat is going to die.

He eats the Whiskas.
He eats more Whiskas.
He eats more and more Whiskas.
The bank balance plummets.
He has in fact starved himself to the point of near death in order to get his fix of Whiskas.

Never, never, never knowingly feed your cat Whiskas if you don’t want to starve yourself to near death by the whole of your grocery budget being taken up by expensive and addictive cat food.

In grateful thanks for all the Whiskas the cat shits on the bathroom floor. I may yet resort back to the going on holiday theory.

Order from Chaos – A Man’s Way

The beloved has decided to clear out the shed. The reason for this unprecedented move is yet to be revealed. It could be that he is following my good example, or that due to imminent divorce he intends to live in it (or that I should live in it), or that he has lost his glasses and suspects they may be in the far end of the shed. The aforementioned glasses are on his face but I hesitate to mention this as he doesn’t take kindly to my helpful suggestions.

So, the shed. Let me set the scene. It is a large shed in the world of shedness. It contains the detritus of many years of life. Most of the contents of the shed have arrived there at the end of a conversation that went like this:

‘What shall we do with this old cupboard/desk/unidentifiable object of unidentifiable purpose?’

‘Dunno’

‘It might come in handy one day.’

‘I’ll put it in the shed.’

And thus many items, now even less identifiable, reside in this bijoux little residence.
The beloved has decided to clear out the shed (did I mention that?). This is what happened:

Beloved goes, equipped with nothing whatsoever, up the steps, to the shed. He begins to extract objects from the shed. These objects include:
Cupboards that were one day going to come in handy
Bookshelves that were one day going to come in handy
Surf boards that were one day going to come in handy
Wasp’s nests that were one day going to come in handy
The lawn mower that one day might get fixed
The cat
The neighbour’s cat
The garden shredder which one day might get used
A hermit (or that could have been the beloved)
Bits of wood that were one day going to come in handy
Bits of plastic that were one day going to come in handy
Old electrical equipment that was one day going to come in handy
Bicycles
Things that I have no idea what they are and therefore could one day come in handy.

But this is the really cunning thing. What he decides to do with the above items. He has invented an outdoor shed that craftily surrounds the usual shed and has stored everything there. He has a degree in Planning and it really shows how there is no substitute for a good education.

I have taken some pictures of the new outdoor shed as the sheer innovation of the idea is bound to take off and I don’t want anyone asserting that they were the first when he might claim such accolades for himself.

handy new storage areasthe lawnmower's new home (note the ineffectualness of this device)

I’m thinking that I have a lot to yet learn in the mystic arts of chaos combat.

How to Fight Chaos in a More Outdoors Sort of Way

I decided enough was enough. I had to sort the garden. When I say garden I really mean jungle. It had reached the point where I could no longer reach any points whatsoever. Not even the patio two feet outside the door. More importantly, the physicist needed to sunbathe. And there is no sun in a jungle. Or sufficient jungle floor on which to lay out a sun-lounger. This is a big problem with the jungle and probably a contributory factor in why so many of our rainforests have been de-rainforested. To make way for crops of sun-loungers.

This is what happened:

I put on a pair of stout walking boots to protect broken foot which is still a bit broken. I put on a stout pair of trousers to protect against brambles, nettles and unknown dangers lurking in the jungle (I suspected there could be snakes, moose and possibly yet-to-be-discovered species of yet-to-be-discovered species). I put on a stout expression and set off welding a stout machete, a stout pair of heavy-duty loppers, and a stout wish that I had a JCB.

Five minutes later, having cleared the first few feet of foliage such that I could actually see a bit of sky I discovered that it was a nice day out. I exchanged the stout trousers for a small pair of pink shorts (the lawyer exclaimed ‘what are you wearing?’), the stout walking boots for a large bandage and some ancient sandals (the lawyer exclaimed ‘what are you wearing?’ again, just for emphasis I suspect), and the stout expression for some sunglasses and an MP3 player.

Thus I danced through the day, singing out of tune in a jolly manner, hacking, sawing, chopping and discovering things. These included:
A patio (I thought there used to be one)
A patio table sporting some rather stylishly mouldy coffee cups
A lot of weeds
A fallen tree
The cat
A pond (I’m not sure if we used to have that)
A number of the beloved’s discarded pieces of clothing (he knew they were somewhere)
The beloved’s glasses (he thought he used to have those)
Some slightly slug-eaten physics notes (she thought she used to have those)
The washing line sporting what used to be clean clothes that I had hung out before I broke my foot
The cat (again)
A lost and bewildered mountaineer (he stopped for a rest some eight weeks ago but couldn’t find his way out of the jungle)
A tiger (or that could have been the neighbour’s cat)
A large monkey (or that could have been the beloved)
A native (or that could have been the lawyer)
A native’s boyfriend
The cat (again)

Nine hours later I stood back to admire my work. What used to be a jungle was now a patio covered in:
A number of sun-loungers covered in:
A tiger (or that could have been the neighbour’s cat)
A large monkey (or that could have been the beloved)
A native (or that could have been the lawyer)
A native’s boyfriend
A lost and bewildered mountaineer (now enjoying a cup of tea)
A paddling pool containing the physicist (investigating classic Archimedean displacement)
A patio table sporting some rather stylish soon-to-be mouldy coffee cups
A number of the beloved’s discarded pieces of clothing
A number of the lawyer’s discarded pieces of clothing
A number of the lawyer’s boyfriends discarded pieces of clothing
A number of the physicist’s discarded pieces of clothing
A number of discarded pieces of clothing that were hard to attribute an owner to
The beloved’s glasses
The cat

A day well spent creating order from chaos I think.

How to Fight Chaos, Space-time Continuums and Stuff and Almost Win

I’ve been fighting chaos. This is what happened:

I woke up bright and early, or at least early, or earlyish. I donned by superhero attire of knickers and cape. The cape kept tangling in my knickers so I took that off. Then I didn’t feel it was appropriate to wander the house in just superhero knickers (nice as they are) as there were young men present. So I put on some superhero jeans and t-shirt. And went forth to fight chaos.

The chaos was lurking in an evil and mostly scary way in a small room we call the ‘den’. Possibly we call it this because it is where evil chaos hangs out. Or possibly we call it this because it is so small that it resembles a structure created with spare bedlinen by a child aged approximately five. In fact I have no idea why it is called ‘the den’.

So, chaos, lurking in the den. Imagine the scene if you will – a small room with a small bed and a small desk. Lurking under, over, betwixt, on, in-between, amongst, throughout, amidst and amid the small bed, desk and room is stuff. Serious amounts of stuff. A very very a lot of stuff. The sort of stuff that can only accumulate after fifteen years of putting stuff in a very small room with a desk and a bed. This is the sort of stuff that was there –

Photographs of babies, children and people one no longer recognises
Bank statements from bank accounts one probably never held
Dust
Paintings painted by small children who may or may not be one’s own children but are definitely not the children of Michelangelo
Files of hand-written college notes for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten and anyway the notes are totally illegible
Certificates for qualifications one never used and therefore have forgotten but now engender a brief feeling of pride at being so well qualified
Dust
Unrecognisable sticky things
Tents one has bought to go camping only it never stopped raining so the tents are still sealed in their original cellophane wrapping
More dust
Scrunched up old bedding that smells as if the cat has pissed on it
Cats pissing on scrunched up old bedding
Dusty unrecognisable sticky things

And more. Much much more. It is a miracle of space that all this stuff was in this very small room. I brought the physicist in to explain exactly how there could be more stuff in a room than the actual volume of the room. She muttered something about compression and space-time continuums and went back to her room where the amount of space and the amount of stuff actually make sense.

I took my best superhero deep breath and started. And continued. And finished only twelve hours, sixteen recycling bags, seventeen bin bags, and eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with later. I shall now have to rearrange all the other rooms in the house in order to accommodate all the very useful stuff (see above list) that I have rescued. But that’s ok because I have lots of time as I am now prisoner in my own home because I can’t get past the desk, the bed, the sixteen recycling bags, the seventeen bin bags, and the eleven boxes that I don’t know what the hell to do with that are blocking the road.

How Six-year-olds Know Things that Grown-Up Men Don’t

My nephew has been visiting. He is six, and wise beyond his years. He loves the physicist and daughter the younger (who henceforth shall be called the lawyer as this is her ambition and I feel it unfair that she should be referred to as daughter the younger when daughter the older gets to be called by her ambition). The nephew (as I don’t know his ambition he shall just remain the nephew until he reveals his life plan to me) wanted to play with the aforementioned professionals. This is what happened:

The nephew rose bright and early as is the wont of six-year-olds. It is one of life’s great mysteries why the very young should want to rise at six in the morning. Have they not discovered that no one else is up? That no one wants to play football, sofa-destroying, peanut butter-face smearing or extravagant nose-picking before the hour or seven? Thus the very young are left in the position of poking the not-so-very-young with footballs, sofas, peanut butter and snotty noses for hours on end before eliciting any response resembling foot-twitching, cushion launching, nut-based-product facials or nasal excrement rearranging. Why has natural selection not led to only the late-rising child surviving? Especially considering that the worst offenders of the early-rise seldom survive past the age of six since their loving parents have either killed them, or they have been taken in by social services as their parents have been driven to an early grave by lack of sleep and thus they lead a life of parentlessness which drives them to drink and drugs and an early death due to lack of sleep.

So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with physicist and lawyer, whom, we must remember, are teenagers. It is the other great mystery of life why teenagers are totally incapable of rising before noon. What happened to those bouncy six-year-olds who rose a good six hours earlier? And yet another great mystery of life – surely in the transition between six and teen there must have been an era of total sense, when the child rose at a decent hour? Yet, no parent can ever remember that. No child can ever remember that. The only explanation it is that getting up at a proper time, say nine, actually erases people’s memories. This technique is often used in war-time situations. Simply by allowing generals, government ministers and senior civil servants to rise at nine they fail to remember that there is a war on and therefore actually win the war by not making the stupid decisions that their early-rising enemies are making between the hours of six and nine when their small children have poked snot in their faces.

So, nephew, six o’clock, wants to play with daughters. Sets up board game on kitchen table and sits down to wait.

Nephew, three minutes past six, has run out of patience. He decides to write aforementioned daughters a note. It reads –

‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium’ He writes two notes, one for each sleeping teenager. The notes are clear and concise and I am impressed by the use of apostrophes, the voice, point of view and how he can even write in his London accent.
He places the notes outside the appropriate bedrooms.

So, nephew, ten minutes past six, wants to play with daughters, and thinking that he has been waiting a very long time. He takes his pen and goes upstairs to amend the notes. They now read –

‘I’m waitin’ for you to come an’ play Cranium. You must come now!’ The exclamation mark is quite explicit. The teenagers sleep on despite the noisy use of a ball-point pen just outside their rooms. As well as the nephew reading the notes loudly out loud, thus impressing me further with his reading skills.

So, nephew, twenty past six, wants to play with daughters. Daughters sleep on oblivious to six-year-old suffering. By eight o’clock I finally take pity on the poor boy who by now has written a four thousand word treatise on how the physicist and the lawyer should really get up and play Cranium with him without further ado.

I am too kind to point out to the nephew that if he had only risen an hour earlier he could have played Cranium with the girls as they got back from town at five and probably would have been in the mood for a good board game.

‘Shall I play Cranium with you?’ I ask kindly.

‘No,’ he answers very firmly. For a moment I am upset and insulted. That is until he adds ‘because you are always right.’

It is a delight to discover that a man finally understands me. I make him several pieces of toast and offer to publish his life’s work.

How Not to Travel

I haven’t written anything here for a while. Sorry. I’ve been travelling. They say it broadens the mind. It seems more to broaden the arse. This is a small portion of what happened:

I went to Liverpool. To pretend to be intellectual. At a conference. I took the train. It was raining. Hard.

I should really have guessed when my very first of a long line of illustrious trains was held up by flooding on the line. Flooding, as we now know, can be a more serious business than a brief puddle.

But I persevered with my journey. I was determined, against all odds, to arrive and pretend to be intellectual. Nothing, not rain, nor flood, nor the hen party partying behind me, nor the lack of movement, nor the lack of air, nor the lack of any comfortable way to sit on an overcrowded overheated train was going to stop me. The hen party continued to party. I accepted the offer of a vodka and coke and a natty headband with two small pink plastic erect penises (or is the plural of penis peni?) on the end of wobbly springs. I began to feel better. I think I probably looked great and very intellectual.

I got there. I pretended. I think they were fooled. But I didn’t get home. I got stuck in Crewe. No trains were running to Cardiff. No cars, buses, bicycles, rickshaws or fake-intellectual carrying creatures or any sort. Not even a handy woodlouse with a golden carriage attached volunteered to carry me homewards. In fact the woodlouse was quite rude and told me that the golden carriage was only for people without plastic peni on their heads. Snob.

I stood outside Crewe station and rang the beloved. ‘I’m stuck in Crewe.’ He told me about Crewe’s great railway heritage and what a wonderful place it must be to be stuck in. ‘But I want to go home.’ He advised that the Crewe railway museum would be a good way to keep my mind off my homesickness. He also said that I might amuse myself by watching trainspotters. I was briefly amused by wondering if by watching people do something immensely boring one might somehow transcend boredom itself and reach a higher level of consciousness. Then I went to find a hotel.

So there I was. Alone. In the only room in the hotel that didn’t exist. The room didn’t exist. The hotel was very existing and solid and British. It was called the Crewe Railway Hotel. The beloved would have approved. Mine was room number 320. Dotted conveniently around the maze of corridors and stairs were handy signs pointing the lost trainspotters to their rooms. 320 was never mentioned. At all. There was plenty of arrows announcing the delights of 120-150, or 212-222, and climbing a narrow winding staircase announcing 310-319 I discovered those very rooms. Or at least their locked doors. By this time I was definitely in the attic. Amongst the broken furniture and store rooms. I spied the fire-escape and was on the verge of throwing myself down it in the hope of being caught by a well-upholstered trainspotter when miraculously there was a door. 320.

Upon entering the room I was delighted by the view of the railway tracks, the single bed whose headboard consisted of a small hatch leading to the underworld, and the TV which showed nothing but snow. But snow was a nice change from rain. So I watched that for a while. Then I fixed it by plugging the aerial in. And was further delighted to discover that I had eight channels. Two of which were free porn of a very amateurish and charming nature in an icky kind of way.

And thus I spent the evening. Wasting a perfectly good hotel room by being on my own. Sitting in bed, drinking Newcastle Brown (Crewe Brown being unavailable at the bar), eating minty aero balls by carefully biting them in half along the green-brown divide and licking out the bubbly bit in the middle and watching lesbian porn. The girls on the TV mostly just said ‘fuck’. I mostly just said ‘fuck’.

How Not to Garden – or Tools We Have Known

The lawnmower broke. This isn’t news. It happened two years ago. But don’t worry (well why would you? It isn’t your lawn) we have overcome this problem in a multitude of ingenious ways.

This is what happened:

The lawnmower broke. Did I mention that? Yes, I can hear you asking ‘But how did the lawnmower break? What exactly was wrong with it?’ God you lot can be quite geeky can’t you? Well I’ll tell you. It was the starting handle thingy. You know, that long piece of string you have to pull in order to start the engine that turns some thing that turns the blades that cut the grass. Explanation enough? But it wasn’t actually the string per se it was a big springy thing inside that pulls the string back in. Yes, I know. Why does the string have to be pulled back in? Anyone who has ever owned such an exciting machine as a petrol lawnmower will know that they NEVER start on the first pull. If they ever did start on the first pull it would be so very exciting that the lawnmoweree would be so happy they would rush to the shops, buy champagne, drink the whole bottle sitting on the stripy deckchair next to the mower and by this time of course the mower will have stopped. Therefore the string would have to be pulled again. So technically you still wouldn’t be actually mowing after the first pull.

So, the spring. The lawnmower part, not the season, although actually it was spring.
‘I can fix that!’ I say to the beloved in a confident manner engendered by years of experience in dismantling machinery. Remantling machinery I’m not so good at but this has no effect on my self-assurance.

I weald my handy screwdriver. The spring, which transpires to be a very long piece of metal strip wound in a tight coil (you wanted to know that didn’t you?), leaps out, uncoils itself with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. So lawnmower not quite totally incapable of grass cutting even it its disabled state.

‘Ah!’ I say. Having discovered the nub of the problem. ‘The spring appears to be unsprung.’ I then spend many amusing and dangerous hours trying to recoil the spring and insert it neatly back into its casing. However just as I press the last portion home it leaps out again with a resounding ‘ping whiz ziggle ziggle’ decapitating several plants, giving the cat a long-needed tail trim and neatly scything the surrounding grass. I have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to keep moving around the lawn such that each ziggle cuts a new section. I don’t however have the sense and phenomenal ingeniousity to actually fix the bloody thing. Eventually I admit defeat.

‘You will have to take it to the lawnmower repair man,’ I inform the beloved. But sadly the beloved is a busy man so he doesn’t. Nor do I.

Still, it’s near the end of the year and maybe the lawn won’t need mowing again. But it does. So the beloved, being a man of many resources, decides that since the lawnmower shop is a long way away (a whole half and hour drive) perhaps a cheap strimmer will do the trick. After all it was only £12.99 and surely a lawn doesn’t really need a mower.

And so I strimmed. It had its appeal. Mostly the appeal was that it sort of cut the grass. And sort of mangled the grass. Really what it did was make dreadlock grass. Which has its appeal.

That was last year. The dreadlock grass grew under our feet.

Then it was this year. The lawn grew. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer found itself incapable of any more strimming as dreadlocks were hard to cut and, as it transpired, the strimmer was a Rastafarian and actually refused to do any dreadlock cutting on moral and religious grounds. Fair enough. I have released the strimmer into the wild to go find its fortune and homeland.

A quick aside – I have emailed B&Q and commended them on their multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious garden tool policy. Go them.

So - dreadlock grass. The lawnmower was broken. The lawnmower shop still half and hour’s drive away. The strimmer gone to pastures new. But don’t worry. The beloved had a solution. The garden shears.

Hours and hours he spent on his hands and knees shearing the garden. The lawnmower shop is still half and hour’s drive away.

How to Choose a New Computer

I’ve been to PC World. It is a secret why I went, let it just be said that someone’s birthday is soon. And it isn’t the cat’s. So don’t tell daughter the younger any of the following. This is what happened:

A great deal of people were standing bemusedly in front of computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. Luckily the aforementioned computer emporium had a display beneath each computer to enlighten the customer. Or not.

Computers, as you may well have noticed, have a great deal of mysterious attributes that are seldom explained in layperson terms. This is probably my opportunity to do so. So I will do so:

Operating System – essentially the belief system for the machine. Most computers are agnostics. They are waiting for indisputable evidence before they will believe in a god. This is diametrically opposed to most computer users who are forced by believe in a god because prayer has been proven the most effective method of computer management.

Computer Processor- like any other processor really. For example a food processor – you put perfectly good food in and mush comes out. Or a person – you put perfectly good food in and shit comes out. In the case of a computer you put perfectly good food in and nothing comes out. Constipation is common complaint of computers.

Hard Drive – strangely this is another word for memory. They called it that when they couldn’t remember the word for memory. That’s why it’s hard. The drive bit was simply an afterthought to make is sound sexy and a bit like a car. Specifically the sort of memory computer geeks have, you know, that remembers facts and figures and very little of interest unless you actually put something interesting in. Then you can seldom find it. This is where RAM comes in to play

RAM – the sort of memory that works things out. So not like memory at all. Although it does stand for Random Access Memory. It’s the word Random that is important. RAM is like real human memory. You try and remember where you have left your car keys and end up remembering obscure bits of poetry from the latter half of the sixteenth century.

USB – Universal Series Bus is what it stands for. No, not even I, understand what the hell that is. The closest one might guess at is that it was named after an incident where a double decker met quantum physics several times. In fact it is just a thingy that you put in a slot. There are more terms for this particular activity than any other known to humankind and I feel USB is really one of the worst.

Monitor – the bit you look at. But we all know it’s really the bit that looks at you. The only computer part that was named after what it actually does.

So, people in PC World. Looking at computers. Trying to decide which one to buy. They run their fingers slowly over the helpful labels and try and think profoundly about RAM and USBs and the meaning of the universe. This boggles their brains but they try not to looked boggled as then surely they would not be deserving of a brand new computer if they can’t even grasp the basics. Well of course they can’t. Because I hadn’t yet written the above useful information. So what do they do? Lacking in a time machine to bring them forward to this blog that would make everything clear (the time machines are in the store next door in a different multiverse) they are forced to judge the computer on other criteria. Here are the criteria they appeared to be using-

How many times they can randomly press keys before getting bored
Smell
If their toddler was about to have a tantrum
Colour
Whether or not touching the computer sets off the security alarms
Feel
How many times they could randomly click the mouse before getting bored
How many pretty lights it had
Whether the desktop was a sunset or a picture of a dog with a very unlikely hat (the latter seemed more popular)
Taste

Finally, after much deliberation, slapping of screaming toddlers, setting off of alarms and nibbling cables they choose the computer of their dreams. Hooray. Clutching their credit cards they then set off to find a charming salesperson to deal with their request. Several hours later they leave the store running. It seems that the only way to get a computer out of PC World was to steal one.