How Not to Cure a Broken Foot

I’ve been to have my foot scanned.

They were looking for something starting with a neur.

You may remember the age-old story of my purple foot, what not to do in the sauna and why metatarsal slippers are sexy. This is the continuation.

This is what happened:

After many years of waiting I arrived at the hospital.
After not so long of waiting I was ushered into the ultrasound room.
The ultrasound operative was not there but there was a kindly sort of nurse sort of woman who was folding pieces of paper towel in two. An important job I could see.

We had an in-depth conversation about ultrasound which mostly consisted of reminiscing about the days of pre-natal examinations and the pain of the full bladders. I was glad it was only my foot and not my foetus that was being ultrasounded considering the fact that the ultrasound operative was still AWOL and if I had been in a pre-natal pre-urinatal state during such a wait I would have been very much not pissing myself. As was required.

We continued to reminisce about daughters, universities, and the nature of holidays. We wiled away the time in that sort of way that hospital time works. Finally much to my excitement the ultrasound operative arrived. She was wearing a stripy jumper.

Dutifully she put the goo on my foot. Painfully (to me) (she didn’t appear to be in pain but on the other hand who am I to judge?) (her previous absence may, for all I know, have been to do with pain) (or maybe lunch) (which we hope isn’t the same at all) she applied her ultrasoundy thingy to my foot. The left. It’s always been the left.

She said that my foot was very easy to scan due to its slender nature. Was that a compliment? I took it as one. And compliments to a minor degree can assuage pain. To a minor degree. She reported that if there was a thing beginning with a neur then she would find it due to the apparent transparency of my foot. In ultrasound terms.

It looked remarkably like an alien landscape. Much as it feels really.

She didn’t find the thing beginning with a neur. But she did find an anomaly. Hope was on the horizon.

In a moment of technical wizardry, or witchery, (if that’s the feminine equivalent) she compared the ultrasound to the previously achieved x-rays.

It turns out I had broken my foot some time in the past.

How Not to Grapple

I made two New Year’s Resolutions.

To find my lost memory
To write the rest of my novel.

The problem with my New Years Resolutions is that the second is dependent upon the first. As is the first. Should I fail at the first then a cascade effect cascades in a downward manner such that all resolution is lost.

This is very much what happened.

So instead I’ve been grappling. With trees. This is what happened:

I peered out of the window to discover that a large tree-shaped blob of ivy hung where hitherto there was only a large tree-shaped blob of air. This was curious. The air had been transparent in a way the leafy protuberance wasn’t. I could no longer enjoy my view of the extensive area of weeds I had been cultivating at the bottom of my garden. I was, to say the least, disappointed.

Not being a woman to bear disappointment lightly I set forth armed with my slightly rusty trusty bow-saw (that, I assume, is its moniker as it certainly isn’t a hacksaw, a backsaw, a hammersaw, a reciprocating saw (sounds quite painful so I was particularly pleased not to be armed with that), a circular saw, a table saw or a Japanese submarine) and a deal of determination unto the offending area.

The initial felling took but a matter of minutes. Well, perhaps a bit longer as there was a batch of cutting, scary creaking noises, running away, cutting, scary creaking noises, running away, cutting, scary creaking noises, and running away.

It was disposing of the body that afforded the unexpected challenge.

You know how that’s always the problem in these detective thingies. Well those detective thingy writers are spot on. The murder is a piece of cherry cake compared to the hard crust of evidence disposal.

For a start when the victim is perpendicular they appear to take up a lot less legroom then when suddenly manoeuvred into the prone position. The addition of a great deal of covering, in this instance ivy, in other instances usually great coats or minor minks, further encumbers the whole encumbrance.

There are choices, as there always are. Chop into viable pieces and put in the boot of the car? The bin? The nearest lake? An abandoned woodland?

I chose option four. The abandoned woodland. I felt the body would blend in well there. Seeing as it was abandoned wood. The missing land bit was a quandary but I thought that the addition of the ivy would cover for any missing terrain.

And thus, after only three days of grappling, four plastered fingers and an assortment of pulled muscles I can now look out of the window to enjoy my view of the extensive area of weeds cunningly reconfigured as an abandoned woodland.

How Not to Cope With Empty-Nest Syndrome

The Physicist and the Lawyer have left for Uni in order to actually qualify for the aforementioned titles. I realise that perhaps I have left them ill-equipped for this adventure. Important things have not been passed from mother to daughter in the proper way.

The Lawyer, although adept in her field, has discovered that she doesn’t know proper cutlery etiquette for high table, why gowns have shoulders like American footballers and how to deal with impenetrable forms from government bodies. The Physicist, despite being an old hand at gowns, carnations and massive equations is still lacking in basic Tesco skills.

Meanwhile I, left to my own devices on my own, have had a minor revelation. Major revelations can be a tad painful so I’m sticking to minor ones. I can now do whatever I want.

So far I have:
Worn a mini-skirt
Turned the music up far too loud
Watched inappropriate videos
Changed my clothes up to seventeen times a day
Had strange men (or at least the Unknowable Man) round the house
Despaired of strange men
Despaired
Not got a job
Forgotten to go to bed
Smoked
Drinked
Not tidied up
Slept with the cats on my bed
And not eaten a proper meal.

Who needs teenagers?

Every Girl’s Dream

Good news. I’ve finally, after many years and days of searching, found someone who wants to be with me. Someone, even better, of the male gender.

This is what happened:

The Physicist had broken the very most important part of her (or rather ex-Beloved’s but please mention none of this to him) car. The cigarette lighter. No, she doesn’t smoke. It’s where her iPod adapter plugs in. She cannot drive now. It’s fairly tragic.

I was in the aforementioned vehicle trying to save the situation by suggesting the use of matches when I heard a voice.

‘Ceci’ it said.

Blue eyes, curly blond hair, Wellington boots. He was even holding out a flower to me. The boy next door. Every girl’s dream. He is a man of few words but what does say holds great significance in an almost philosophical way. I was, frankly, spellbound. Our conversation went thus:

Every girl’s dream: Ceci!
Me: Ben! (for I knew his name)
Every girl’s dream: Flower (he handed me the flower)
Me: Thank you (polite as ever despite my racing heart)
Every girl’s dream: House (he pointed in the direction of my door, I got the message)
Me: Ok (easy to the last)

He held out his hand. I held out my hand. We walked slowly to the house. The sun was setting, the birds were singing, it was hailing slightly.

Every girl’s dream: Door (obviously an expert on architecture)
Me: Yes
We enter the house.
Every girl’s dream: Cat (obviously an expert on animals)
Me: Yes
Every girl’s dream: Girl (obviously an expert on girls)
Me: Yes (obviously an expert on conversation).

We spent many happy moments together mostly admiring the frogs on his Wellington boots and discussing the merits of the local JCB (whom, because he’s an expert on diggers, he called ‘Bob’).

He even cried when it was time for him to go home.

How Not to Talk to the Birds – Or Mother’s Day Revisited

Today was Mother’s Day. I expect you noticed. I am a mother so it was my day.

The sun was shining, God was in her usual abode, all was as right in the world as it ever is.

I was conducting a scientific experiment. For it is the duty of us mothers to discover things and thus pass wisdom unto our offspring, the world, the scientific community in general and anyone who would care to listen (that anyone is yet to be discovered).

It was an experiment in linguistics and biology. To settle a question long questioned (well since the other night). A question that effects us all in our day-to-day dealings with the natural world.

This was the question:

Can we talk to birds?

The sub-questions were –

If so, should we talk in English, Welsh or Bird? (we take as a given that I am addressing Welsh Birds) (Obviously if I was addressing birds of another denomination the corresponding denominative would apply)

And should we find ourselves actually communicating, what are the favourite topics that birds like to discuss?

And why?

And wherefore?

Never mind the whys and wherefores we must also ask is talking to birds morally correct.

This is what happened:

I went into the garden to find a bird. I detected a singular lack of feathered creatures. Almost simultaneously I noticed a plethora of furred friends. I am a scientist. I can recognise cause and effect when they are purring around my ankles.

I sent Cause and Effect back indoors with a sharp word or two about interfering with cutting edge science.

I sat and tweeted and said ‘hello birds’ and ‘bora da Robin/Blue Tit/Sparrow/etc’ (I didn’t know the Welsh for ‘bird’).

And this is what I discovered:

Birds never speak English.

If birds speak Welsh they do it in a heavy Bird accent.

They like to talk about strange women who think they are birds.

They like to talk about strange women who think they are birds because they are bored of talking about the bloody cat problem.

I never answered the wherefore problem. No one ever has.

And finally yes, it is morally correct to talk to birds as long as your six-year-old neighbour doesn’t see you. Because when she does see you it leads her to believe that you are very brave and should now rescue her from a plague of wasps (3) that are infesting her play house.

Today was Mother’s Day. I expect you noticed us talking to the birds.

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 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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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.

Who Actually Buys Stuff from Those Catalogues?

One of the big questions that face the world today is ‘Who the hell actually buys anything from those insane catalogues that come through the door, fall out of every magazine, arrive by matter transport on the kitchen table, and omisisify by the loo?’

You know the ones. They have handy items like electric ear cleaners, amazing widgets to clean parts of your house you didn’t know you had and over 1000 different cunning devices of removing hair you hope you will never have.

Well now I know. It’s people who have broken their feet.

‘My God yes!!!’ I found myself exclaiming. ‘That is exactly what I need!!!’ You can see how exclaiming I felt from the masses of exclamation marks.

Soothing stockings, shower stools, deluxe toilet safety supports, infra red joint supports, folding walking sticks, matter-transport devices and small models of Captain Picard. To name but a few of the more obvious items that I merrily jotted on the order form.

These things will really make my life so much more enjoyable. But I didn’t stop there. Once I got the hang of it I discovered that actually I needed more.

A cat repellent. Why did I never think of buying that before? I could repel snotty cat and thus through his disgust he could begin to empathise with my disgust of his snottyness.

A sheet suspender. No more sleeping on a lumpy mattress once my sheets were suspended. Fantastic. I could deploy my small Captain Picard here too.

A companion table. Who needs men when one can have a meaningful relationship with a piece of furniture? And truly it looked very sexy. Well, compared to some men.

No rinse dog shampoo. Ok, I don’t have a dog, but really, now I wouldn’t have to rinse one either. Stunning.

Then and now music centre. Don’t know what that means but the picture looked like it was a wooden bus. What could be more useful?

I’m now awaiting the postman with more than eager anticipation of a better life.

Not only that, but by the time I have finished paying for my better life my foot will be better and I will be able to do something more useful than browse catalogues and play with small figurines of Captain Picard. No, actually sorry, that is useful.

How to Turn Disablement to Your Advantage and the Mysteries of Casts

I think I’m getting the hang of this disablement thing now. It is simply a question of role reversal. The trick is to use everyday ordinary phrases that usually come out of others’ mouths and make them come out of mine. And substitute the word ‘Mum’ for ‘daughter’ or ‘daughter’s boyfriend’. Here are a few successful examples that occurred today:

Daughter, can I have a bagel please, and some orange juice and can you bring it to my room?

Daughter, we have run out of milk, can you go to the coop, and whilst you’re there get some bread and croissants and smoothies and biscuits and cake and a weeks shopping and a small kitchen sink?

Daughter’s boyfriend, my computer is broken can you come and fix it and install some programs and bring me a cup of coffee, and wash the car too?

Daughter, where are my favourite jeans and my blue t-shirt? If they are in the wash can you get them clean by an hour ago?

See, easy. Just a matter of mindset. Why didn’t I think of breaking my foot years ago? The house is running like a well oiled machine, without the mess of the oil or the noise of a machine. And I am sitting in bed. Doing fuck all. It is my intention never to have this cast removed. Ever.

The cast is still a bit of a mystery to me though. On one level it is familiar as an old, hot, heavy and stupidly large sock. On another level I can’t help but think - why? Is this not severe overkill? I have broken a bone in my foot. I saw the x-ray: 4th metatarsal. I have a cast that covers most of the western hemisphere. And weighs as much as the eastern hemisphere. And is as hot as the upper hemisphere. And as itchy as the lower hemisphere. By my calculations now this cast covers two earths.

And here’s another mysterious thing. (look away now if you are a bit squeamish). The two ends of the bones had managed to separate themselves rather in the fashion of Tower Bridge. Without the towers and the tourists. Well there might have been tourists but they are invisible to NHS x-ray. Probably Japanese and therefore quite nano and compact. So how is it supposed to work that by encasing most of my body in plaster of Paris these bones magically realign themselves? Out of protest? Because they have read the reports of famous footballers’ injuries and are followers of celeb fashion? Because they empathise with the plight of Japanese tourists unable to cross bridges?

Meanwhile, due to the highly technologically advanced nature of this thing adhering to my leg I am leaving white smudges all around the house. I’m like snotty-cat on a very bad shedding day. Visitors proffering chocolates have been able to discover my location by following the trail of plaster debris. Scientists looking for the answer to the missing matter in the universe have been crowding the house taking samples. NHS managers have been out in force with dustpans and brushes collecting the stuff in order to recycle it for the next unfortunate sauna accidentee.

And I have a confession, but please don’t tell anyone at the hospital, or my family, or anyone really – I’ve broken the world’s largest cast already. The bit that is under my foot, probably the crucial bit that is actually attempting to do something for the divorced metatarsal. Oops.

How to Survive of Disablement with a Modicum of Sanity

So that’s it. I’m officially, albeit temporarily, disabled. Why did no one warn me that this might happen? Why didn’t my horoscope yesterday tell me to beware of small saunas containing naked people? I would have taken heed. Honestly. Why didn’t my horoscope last month warn me to install such handy features in my house as a Stannah Stairlift, those big rails around the toilet, a bungalow, a nurse, a stasis chamber?

All I can be grateful for is that my horoscope of about six months ago warned me against returning the NHS crutches to the relevant NHS establishment after Daughter the Younger put pitch fork through her foot. So, I have crutches. And beer. Perhaps not a good combination. But since I haven’t been warned I shall continue to mix the two.

Adaptation, as Darwin put it so well, is the name of the game. Life as a temporarily disabled person simply requires a modicum of adjustment. Should your find yourself in this position (possibly also due to lack of correct astral readings) here are some handy tips:

Crutches can be used for more than just crutching. You can use them –
As giant chopsticks to pick up sundry items from the floor
As mops by simply putting a damp rag underneath
As removers of cobwebs from unlikely places
As weapons of mass destruction in the case of severe anger. Which may happen. Life with crutches tends to develop those tendencies.

If you are on crutches you cannot –
Carry things upstairs
Carry things downstairs
Go upstairs
Go downstairs
Dance tango

If you are on crutches allow that little bit of extra time for –
Moving from one location to another
Going to the toilet (remember, disentangle before sitting)
Washing of any part of the body
Everything

You may discover that being temporarily disabled alters your relationship with people. This can be telling and perhaps it is worth making a note of. This is my personal experience –
Physicist comes over very helpful and drives to coop for emergency croissants
Daughter the Younger finds situation most amusing and demonstrates tricks to do on crutches that she perfected after the pitch-fork incident
Friends send cyber-hugs via email and MSN (thank you)
Sauna builders come round to apologise
Sauna builder’s dog comes round to apologise and eat anything she finds on the floor
Beloved becomes extremely grumpy and offers no hugs at all
Cat doesn’t notice and remains as hungry as ever

A final word of advice – beware false horoscopes, small saunas and remember, we are all just a slip away from purple feet that look like balloons.

What Not to do in the Sauna

My friends have a sauna in their garden. Which turns out to be very dangerous. Not usually. Just tonight. Usually it’s just hot. But tonight it was out to get me.

It is an usual sauna, as saunas go. Because it used to be the outside toilet. Then it was a chicken shed. Then my friend thought ‘now what could be handier than an outside toilet or a chicken shed? I know - a sauna.’ So he dedicated himself to sauna building. All summer he toiled, avoiding irate chickens and indignant cisterns. Until, lo and behold the small brick edifice located half way up their steep and unlikely garden was a haven for naked people getting hot and sweaty.

There was a problem though. As saunas go it is small. Very small. Well, the original designers of the Welsh outhouse had failed to understand that in days to come people might require such a building to fulfil a function that only lesser known Swedes had heard of. Hard to believe I know. But there you go.

And, for reasons unfathomable to mortals of a lesser intellect and lesser clothing the bench is very high up. So the aforementioned naked folk have to do a certain amount of technical climbing in order to perch themselves.

Now my foot is mostly broken. This is what happened:

There were four of us. That’s a lot for an ex-shithouse. I was the last one in. There was a small space. I went for it. I failed to take the usual safety precautions of ropes, hardhats and those little round clampy things. I fell. I attempted to grab onto naked form of friend. She tried to save me. I wasn’t saved.

So now I have a dramatic sauna injury consisting of a very swollen foot and very hurt pride and very cursing myself as this could put pay to my tango career that was looking so very promising.

Luckily one of the naked bodies (and the very person responsible for high bench design fault) was a casualty nurse in another lifetime (prior to becoming sauna builder). I showed him my foot. He said I would live and offered me a beer. NHS training is a wonderful thing.

How You Probably Shouldn’t Write a CV

I’ve applied for a job. Not, you understand, that I don’t already have a job. I have several. But this was a special kind of job. With the circus. With a company that is not run by me. I believe this will make a refreshing change. I have every intention of letting someone else tell me what to do and saying ‘yes sure’ and doing their bidding as I am bid. I may even say ‘yes, sure, boss.’ But that might be getting carried away. Should I get the job that is. Otherwise it will not be a refreshing change. Obviously. Things will carry on as normal with me telling people what to do and them saying ‘yes, sure.’ And then a completely random selection of doings will happen. Some better than I asked.

So, I had to write a CV. Now, being a person of an organised nature I of course already had a CV more or less to hand. I read it. I was not impressed. Improvements were needed:

I started at the beginning. As one does. Generally. There was an old photo of me which I cunningly replaced with a new photo of me which I had equally cunningly photoshopped out many of the wrinkles. How I expect to fool the recipients of this CV with that I have no idea since they saw me in person with the requisite amount of facial distortions only days ago. But maybe they forgot. Or didn’t look very closely.

Then I attempted to conceal my age by not mentioning it and simply describing myself as ‘of a certain age’. This again, is unlikely to fool people who know that I have a daughter who is about to embark on the high life of physics at a certain well-know academic institution of higher learning and quads. (who, by the way, don’t have normal autumn spring and summer terms but have Michaelmas, Hilary and something else odd that I have forgotten terms. Who the fuck is Hilary and why does she get her own academic term?)

Instead of enumerating chronologically my life’s works, (which would frankly take so long to read the poor recipients of my CV would die of old age, be buried, go to heaven, reincarnate as a better life form (probably a lava lamp or possibly the London Eye) and lead a lengthy and successful life as an inanimate object before they had got up to the part when I was aged 30), I made a sort of list-style CV.

I listed achievements, which included being nearly able to tango.
I listed key skills, which included writing lists.
I listed IT skills, which included being able to type quite quickly.

I mentioned a few good reasons that they might like to hire me, such as me being slightly financially embarrassed, me liking them and me being jolly interested in the circus.

CV writing is tricky stuff. I hope I get the job.