Hubby woke up this morning and his very first words were, “Let’s go to Ikea.”

I checked his temperature and heartbeat, but he seemed okay.  Apparently he wanted to get new blinds to go with our new (orange) wallpaper.  I’ve clearly stoked up his motivation a bit too much.

Ikea was berluddy packed, couldn’t even find a parking space in the car park it was that busy.  I immediately dived into a pit of misery when I saw the hoards pouring through the doors, but Hubby was full of enthusiasm.

His enthusiasm was only mildly hindered by the constant sound of some child or other screaming blue murder – you can’t think Ikea without hearing the joyous sound of toddlers throwing a strop.

We got to the blinds section, having picked up four cushions and a cork board along the way – I’m sure Ikea have subliminal messages in their tannoyed music, Buy cushions and You MUST have that, and than, and that, and …

We pithered over white blinds or – and Hubby got quite animated over this, I’m starting to worry – yellow blinds.  Bright yellow, as yellow as the paint in our toilet which has a line of sunglasses on the outside for unsuspecting visitors (who are often heard to scream, “Farkin’ hell, that’s yellow!”).

And scream is what they do!

As I had, by now, lost the will to live, I found myself nodding when he picked two up. I didn’t have the strength for another loud Yorkshire hissing fit.

We’re now the proud owners of orange wallpaper and bright yellow blinds.

Oh God.

[Couldn’t find a copy of my usual Sunday paper today – I won’t mention the name as AndrewM gets all snobby and literary on me.  Ended up with The Independent.  Inside the magazine was an article called “Confessions of a Gold Digger” which had this quote from a 32 year old single woman:

“Ideally I’d hope to meet someone who’s on a minimum of £150k to £200k who probably works in the financial sector or has their own business.  My dream is to live in a big house in the country.  I want children, and we’d have lots of dogs, tennis courts, a swimming pool and maybe a little gym.  And possibly a bijou flat in Chelsea too.  I have expensive tastes – my usual drink is champagne.  I like having my hair done in good salons and I love designer labels … I’d like to meet a man who felt relaxed about me spending my own money, but even better would be him buying things for me.  In return I’d offer love, commitment and partnership.”

Love?  You can’t buy love.  You can’t buy happiness.  Reading this article just made me want to scream with frustration.  How incredibly, unutterably shallow.  I could well understand why she’s still single and hasn’t yet met Mr Right.  God help her when she does.

Is it just me or is this woman – and many like her – missing out on something really rather nice and far more precious than designer clothes and champagne?

Don’t say it’s just me!]

Monday 2

I’m currently in the throes of stripping the bedroom … oh the joy, the joy.  I’ve become quite adept and thought I would share a few tips with you because I don’t think I should suffer the agony alone.

Wallpaper stripping – Gordon Ramsey style

1. Take a bucket of water, 1 sponge (or cloth), 1 binliner and I sharp wallpaper scraper.

Make sure scraper is sharp enough to cut through paper but not slice through fingers or take off half your face if you slip.

2. Prepare.

Empty room or, if you prefer, as I do, just shift things around so you’re always tripping over objects and swearing a lot.

3. Strip.

Pull off all the loose bits of wallpaper – this is hugely satisfying, like picking scabs off your knee when you were young … spend an inordinate amount of time doing this.

4. Score

No, not that score, the walls!   Scratch wallpaper with corner of sharp scraper, backwards and forwards, crisscrossing and doing some strange and exotic dance in front of the wall that all the neighbours will laugh at if they catch sight of you.  Music helps this process, something fast and energetic.  Sing along, just to increase the amusement of the neighbours.

5. Wipe.

Soak wall with sponge.  Remember not to start at the top of the wall with the freshly soaked sponge, as I do, to avoid cascades of water dribbling irritably down into your armpits.

6. Marinate.

Leave to soak, the longer the better.  Go off and make a cup of coffee (or alcoholic drink depending on the time of day, although there’s every chance you won’t be bothered to go back after a nip or two).  Or, as I do, check see if there’s any work come in to distract you (and hence give you the perfect excuse not to strip wallpaper any more).  Or, if you’re of the enthusiastic variety, utilise the time to score and soak another section of wall.

7. Repeat.

Wipe wall with wet sponge again, enough to make your clothes all wet and itchy.  And one more time, just for good luck.  If you find you start to throw the sponge or the bucket of water at the wall whilst laughing hysterically and twitching a lot, place an emergency call to your local decorator.

8. Scrape.

If the wallpaper doesn’t come off easily, like a knife through butter, soak again, and keep soaking.  If you get bored with the whole water dribbling down arms and wet clothes sticking to you process, drag the hosepipe in from the garden and just drench the entire room until the wallpaper flops off.

9. Clean.

Haul paper mache off floor into bin liner.  Or if, like me, you’re pretty bloody knackered by now, go all girly and get some man-type to do it for you, and vac while he’s at it – try to time it for when Hubby/partner gets home from work.

10. Stripping – done!

HANDY TIP

If you have anaglypta or woodchip wallpaper, save your sanity and just move house.  Or invest in a flamethrower and several extinguishers, and possibly a team of firemen on standby just in case it all gets out of hand – or have the firemen on standby anyway, just outside your house, or even sitting inside your house partaking of a cup of tea or two, whether you’re furnacing anaglypta or not.

I've met a real, live Brummie Blogs fan face to face!

God it was weird, he knew more about me than I did!

Tell you all about it later.

[HELLO TO IRELAND!]

Wednesday 4

Well, what happened was this.  The blokes we went to Gambia with came round late on Monday night.  They brought a friend with them.  The friend came through the door and just stared at me with a big smile.  “I read your site,” he said, planting a kiss on my cheek. 

My brain ran at about a million miles an hour trying to figure out if I’d written anything incriminating and decided that pretty much everything I've ever written is incriminating.  Anonymity is very freeing, and very scary to lose.

The friend said I had a brilliant sense of humour (I’m currently undergoing medical treatment to reduce the size of my cranium).  He asked me about ‘my neighbours from hell’ (who’ve been much better since the drugs bust) and which awful legal firm I’d worked for. 

It was odd having someone I’d never met know so much about me. 

Hopefully he didn’t leave thinking I was a huge disappointment – Hubby and I had spent the evening slobbing to the nth degree; I was wearing comfortable scruffs and Hubby had a hole in his sock. 

Vowed to never be seen without full makeup and designer clothes ever again for the sake of my public image.

Thursday 5

There’s something wrong with my laptop.  It keeps freezing and little messages keep popping up on screen saying my memory’s low (I just thought it was my age).

This is worrying since I do all my work on the laptop.  I simply cannot live (financially or emotionally) without my little machine.

I need it!!!!

The hard disk is 37GB.  When I looked, the free space on it was 5GB, which is odd since I don’t store many photos or hefty stuff on it.  I deleted all photos and anything remotely hefty.  Free space now 6GB.

Argh!

Couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  Hubby came home from work and found me fretting and sighing and ‘bugger’ing a lot.

“Let me take a look,” he said, all man-like.

“I’ve looked!” I snapped/frothed/eye-bulged, “I can’t find what’s taking up so much space!  It’s my work tool!  I need it to work properly!  It’s not working properly!  Argh!”

He gently prised the laptop from my white-knuckled fingers.

Hubby has about 89% more patience than I do.  He’s methodical, whereas I just tend to be fast.  He's diligent, whereas I expect problems to be answerable within minutes.  And have I mentioned that he's mind-bogglingly patient?  After a while of calmly clicking while I 'bugger'ed a bit more, he turned the screen towards me.

“There,” he declared, “That’s what’s taking up all your space.”

Audio files.  Digital dictations from my outsourcing companies.  Loads of them, some as big as half a gig each.  They were all there, every single one I’d done in the last three months.

“But I delete them all once I’ve typed them up,” said I, relieved and confused and by now holding a rather stiff whisky, “Why are they still there?”

After a bit more investigation we discovered that the transcribing software I use (Express Scribe – brilliant) actually has a setting on it that deletes all digital audio files after a certain number of days.  Except, if you don’t put in the number of days, it assumes you want to keep them all, so it diligently puts them in a special folder on the hard drive.

Deleted en masse.

Free space now 28GB and my beloved machine is working properly again.

Phew.

[Undying love and eternal gratitude to Hubby xxx]

Friday 6

I did a terrible thing today.  Really, I’m a horrible person who doesn’t deserve to have any friends.

Planned to meet some mates in the city for lunch, all sit together in Brindleyplace and have a damn good yak.  I haven’t seen them for weeks, we had so much to catch up with.

I got ready, making sure I didn’t look like some down and out who had turned into a complete slob whilst working at home (as opposed to the semi slob I was in the city).

When I was ready, I looked outside at the perpetual rain and the howling wind.  It was grey and dark, wet and horrible.  Water lashed against my windows (as it has done for weeks).

And I suddenly thought, ‘I don’t want to go.’  I didn’t want to get wet and cold or hang around for girlies who probably wouldn’t want to leave their offices anyway (fair weather friends?).

But mostly, I didn’t want to get on a bus and go into the city.

So I rang them all up and said, “Wouldn’t it be better to sit in Brindleyplace in the sunshine?”

Fortunately, they all agreed and another date was made.  But I felt bad afterwards.  I should make the effort.  I’m terrible at staying in touch (typing emails in between work is a bit of a busman’s holiday, and my mobile battery ran out about five weeks ago and I haven't bothered to charge it since I don't use it any more).

My sister has friends she’s known since schooldays.  She makes the effort to stay in touch, to phone, to visit.  She has loads that have lasted for years.  My sister would walk naked across the Antarctic to make sure she never loses a single friend.

Me, I can’t be bothered to get on a bus.

So, like I say, I’m a horrible person who will one day think ‘Where did all those fabulous friends go?’

One day it will just be me and the budgies … and that’s a frightening thought.

Saturday 7

Something miraculous happened today.  Something really strange and unusual.

I woke to the sound of silence.  No rain lashing against the window.  No howling of wind.  And ….

… the sun blazed in a bright blue sky.

Proper daylight hasn’t been seen since … oooh, about April 30?  We’ve spent weeks languishing in grey, wet weather.  Thousands of people the country over have been flooded.  It’s been more like winter than summer.  I’ve had my gas fire on in July!

But today, sunshine.  Yay!

What a difference a bit of good weather makes to the dampened soul.  When I went out into the garden in my dressing gown with a coffee this morning (I always feel distinctly continental and decadent doing this) all I could hear was the sound of lawnmowers and hedge trimmers echoing across the entire neighbourhood.

I surveyed my neglected garden, which has been left to its own devices for more than a month.  Far from things thriving and running amok (amok amok), everything’s halted in its tracks.  Hardly anything’s grown at all, the plants were just fighting to survive the appalling weather.

Fortunately, having bought two industrial sized tubs of slug pellets and turning my entire garden blue prior to the monsoon, all I found were dead ones.  Lots of them.  I mean absolutely bloody loads in varying stages of decay.

Slug pellets.  Use ‘em.  They work.

So did we join the hoards of hedge trimmers and lawn mowers and make like enthusiastic gardeners?

We did not.  Why go with the crowds.  Hubby had other ideas.  Strange ideas.

Like Ikea the weekend before, Hubby decided … he wanted to look at sofas.  I don’t know what’s the matter with him lately, anyone would think he was pregnant and nesting or something.  He’s gone all domestic on me.  Suddenly he had the urge to look at sofas.

I’m not a great shopper and I don’t go in much for the ‘house proud’ look, I just want everything to look vaguely tidy and, above all, comfortable.  My home is a shrine to sheer comfort.  The sofa we have may be getting on in years (at least 15 to be precise) but it’s still functional, if a little scruffy.  A bit like me, really.

But I was hauled off to DFS.  God, furniture is boring.  They all looked the same.  Pretty dire.  I usually shop using the wow! principle.  If something doesn’t jump out and me and make me feel I can’t live my life fully without it, I buy it.

Nothing jumped out at me.  They were all just deadly dull.  Not a patch on the sofa we already have.

Refusing to give in to my chronic lack of enthusiasm, Hubby dragged me into the shop next door.  Leather World or something.  It was very plush.  It had ornaments that cost more than my sons education combined, including university.

Found a sofa that didn’t make me roll my eyes.  Hubby was dead keen on it.  Why?  Because it had electronic recliners in it.  I’d never see him in the evenings, he’d be asleep in joyous comfort all the time.

“How much?” I asked the super-keen salesman.

“Three seater plus a two seater … £1,700,” he replied.  “Plus extra for the electronic recliners.”

It’s a testament to my age (seen it, done it, bombproof) that I remain composed and didn’t instantly snort, “How effing much?”  Maturity is a wunnerful thang.  Instead, I said, “Oh, that’s not too bad” (while my brain screamed ‘How effing much?’).  “I’m not sure it would fit, though,” I added, as Hubby rocked backwards and forwards on the electronic recliner.  “We’ll have to go home and measure.”  Translation = No chance in hell I’m paying that much for a couple of sofas, mate, get a grip and don't expect to see us ever again.

Made Hubby buy me an ice cream to boost my flagging energy (complete with a flake, syrup and those multicoloured bits, I can be such a child at times).  Then I was dragged kicking and screaming into World of Leather, where the salesmen are clearly overdosing on Red Bull – they were like chirpy Redcoats at a Butlins holiday camp.

We looked around, dodging the hyperactive salesmen.  My boredom level bottomed out and just sat in a dark puddle of apathy.  They were just sofas, they weren’t going to change my life in any way, they’d just leave a massive hole in my anorexic bank account.  Did we really need one?

“What about this one?” Hubby kept asking, getting more and more desperate. 

“It’s not as nice as the one at home,” I sighed miserably.

We left without buying one, without even picking one, and with no plans to get one in the foreseeable future.

Phew.

Sunday 8

Took budgies out into the garden in the sunshine today (in their cage, of course, I haven’t been driven to set them free just yet, although its been a pretty close call a couple of times).  I can’t bear to be parted from them.  If I don’t hear the constant sound of screeching in the background I think there’s something wrong or I’ve suddenly gone deaf.

They sat on the table whilst I gardened to within an inch of my life.  A cat sidled up to the cage trying to look nonchalant.  Brave cat, since Hubby usually launches himself out of the house upon sight of a feline on our property and they normally only cross our lawn doing about 90mph.  The budgies went all quiet.  Why, since they’ve never seen a cat before?

The cat had a bit of a sniff, a bit of a calculation (could he get them before the mad man came bursting out of the house?), then it sauntered off.  The budgies resumed their screeching.  I resisted the temptation to shove a Magpie in with them.

I love passion flowers (and they love the soil in my garden) – they always look like eyeballs popping open to watch you walk passed.  I once convinced hubby that one was about to open and he sat there for ages, staring at it, really ages.

Garden looks nice now.  

I’d just like to point out I was doing my Bette Davis walk at this point, I don’t normally look all bendy like this!  No idea what that enormous plant is on the left, it’s either a Triffid that's going to be banging on the back door asking for sandwiches soon or something from the Triassic period – the pond (aka buried bucket) is underneath.

Hope the weather lasts.

UPDATE: 5pm, the sun was beaten out of the sky by clouds as dark as coal.  It's currently bucketing down.  And thundering. Sigh.

Someone else who's joining my list of straight-talking, sarcastic and irreverent heroes after watching two complete series is Dylan Moran in Black Books.  I'm quarter Irish (which accounts for the cheekbones) so he appeals to me on a genetic level anyway, but combined with that drunken say-it-as-it-is humour makes him virtually irresistible.  If anyone comes across a pic of Dylan wearing nothing but a teacup do let me know (pst, don't tell Hubby).

Monday 9

Comparisons

Tuesday 10

People keep asking me, in hushed, horrified tones, what I think of the smoking ban.  Yes, I smoke - expensive habit but it is rather pleasurable.

What do I think of the ban?  Not a lot.  Has it changed my life/smoking habit in any way?  No.

“But you can’t smoke in pubs now!” people gasp.  Since the only place you could smoke in a pub in recent years is the dark, dingy corner that’s never decorated and is the furthest away from the bar, I can’t say I miss it.  And besides, pubs don’t want to lose that must custom from smoking clientele and provide seats with heaters outside, which is jolly nice of them.

“You can’t smoke in restaurants any more!”  I can’t actually remember the last time I smoked in a restaurant – even when you could smoke, I didn’t like to because people were eating … smokers aren’t totally without consideration. 

“You can’t smoke in your workplace!”  I’ve spent years trailing down stairs and lifts to get to the designated smoking area (usually uncovered, so us smokers are a pretty hardy bunch).  Most of my best friends (the ones I still have!) I met in the smoking area.  And it’s a good excuse to have a break from the computer/workload/incessant demands of bosses for a few minutes.  Some people complain that smokers shouldn’t be given time off to go for a fag, I complain about the length of time some women/secretaries spend in the toilet faffing with their hair and makeup or gossiping around the photocopier/coffee machine or drinking so much tea they have to pee every half an hour or leave for lunch early and return late.

I work at home (have I mentioned that?).  Does that mean I can’t smoke at home?  And, if I’m not supposed to, who is going to check up on that?  Am I going to have men in uniforms banging on my front door?  Will they be handsome?

“You can’t smoke in enclosed public spaces!”  Surrounding every enclosed public space is an outside public space, no problem, its no big deal.  Smokers have slowly been ostracised over the years, we expect to be treated like lepers now.

So, what do I think of the smoking ban, as a smoker?  It doesn’t bother me and I’m actually in favour of it.  Why should other people be bothered by my smoking habit?  I don’t want to irritate anyone, and if that means going outside then so be it.  I’m used to it.

Have I considered giving up?  Oh yes, every single day - its expensive, unhealthy and (nowadays) anti-social.  But I’ll do it tomorrow.  Tomorrow is another day.

Wednesday 11

I couldn’t put it off any longer.  I rang my local opticians and said, “I’m almost blind, I work on a laptop which is now perched on the end of my knee and I still can’t see it, I need an emergency appointment.”

“21 July is our next available slot,” they said.

I doubt I’d even be able to find my way there by then without the aid of a stick and a dog.

Rang Vision Express in Harborne.  “Help!” I cried.  “11am,” they said.

Now that’s what I call service!

It’s the first time I’ve been on a bus since I abandoned the rat race three months ago.  It felt strange going down that familiar route again.  I thought, ‘Thank God I don’t have to do this any more.’  I was just awash with relief.

Had air blasted into my eyeballs (which always makes me yelp).  As I waited to be tested, I watched a woman trying on glasses in the shop.  She put on a pair and then looked in the mirror whilst lifting her hair.  Now, I can understand if you’re buying a dress or even a necklace that you’d want to see how it would look with your hair up, but a pair of spectacles?  She turned to ask an assistant his opinion.  The assistant, young bloke, visibly flinched (he clearly needs Hubby’s Little Book of Men’s Answers).

Into the test room to have a bright light shone into my brain matter whilst the optometrist breathed heavily into my ear.  He said, “Why do you think your eyesight has changed?”

“Because I was talking to my husband the other night and realised I couldn’t see him, he was just a blur.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” he laughed.

“Oh definitely bad, my husband’s very handsome, I’d like to see him.”

New lenses were prescribed, stronger lenses, lenses that will probably look like the bottom of milk bottles.  I went to choose some frames.

“Which of these,” I couldn’t resist asking the young assistant, putting on a couple of pairs, “Makes me look less like a secretary?”

“Less like a secretary?” he flinched.

“Yes, which pair just makes me look intelligent?”  Well that threw him.  He got all flustered and picked up a pair that, quite honestly, made me look like a cross between a serial killer and a drag queen.  I chose those.

£200!  Flop! 

I dashed outside for a nerve calming cigarette (tsk).  Now that was weird.  With the smoking ban in full effect it seemed like every single person in Harborne glared at me reproachfully - 'What's that woman doing?  Oh!  She's smoking!'.  I dramatically I stubbed it out really well on a litter bin, Marcel Marceau would have been proud - ‘Look, I’m stubbing it out properly and putting it in this bin like a good citizen’.  I bought mints in case my breath offended anyone.  It’s the first time I’ve ever actually felt like a total leper on the streets.

Pub on the night to celebrate the impending return of my eyesight and to dampen the shock of forking out all that hard earned cash in order to get it.  As we sat outside the Green Man in Harborne (again), a woman approached, laden down with Tesco shopping bags.

“Mommy!” I cried, as she dumped all the bags on our table (outside, where we could smoke, in fact at that precise table there with the snazzy umbrella), “You’ve been shopping.  At Tescos.  Again.”  Therapy is definitely required.

Hubby bought her half a pint of bitter shandy which, because mom never drinks, went straight to her head.  She’s nice, my mom, and dead funny when she’s drunk!

Gave her and her Tesco shopping bags a lift home.

HELP! 

I work on a laptop.  I can’t work on the Mother Computer upstairs primarily because it’s not fine tuned for work purposes, specifically autocorrect.  If my laptop ever goes down I’m stuffed.  I’ve tried to figure out how I can transfer autotext from my laptop to Mother Computer, but its clearly beyond my capabilities (see brain cell death above).  Can anyone explain in words a three year old could understand how to do it?  I’m offering a Brummie Blogs fridge magnet in return (incentive!).

[I'd ask genius computer guru Middle Son to do it, but he (sniff) never comes home (sniff) any more (sniff)]

Thursday 12

Work.  Work.  More work.  Just oodles and poodles of work.  Have to collect spectacles, they called and said they’re ready, but no time, I can't stop typing, there's so much to do!

Hubby comes home.  I’m still working (a deadline project, I hate those last minute blinders that strike just as you’re clicking on the Close down and thank God for that button). 

Afterwards, mind racing, fingers still twitching (and partially blind from staring at the computer screen with weak spectacles for almost 10 straight hours) I dive into the bath and just veg.  I am but a carrot floating in the water (okay, more like a deformed potatoe languishing at the bottom of the tub … no, I still have my tan, I’m a carrot, definitely a carrot).

Spend rest of night watching the fabulous, brilliant House series, Part II (if you haven’t seen it yet, watch this).  Rivetting, except they’ve changed the introduction music so now I find I have to (have to) whistle along to it to make it sound like it used to. 

Have I mentioned my whistling?  I’m a whistler.  My nan use to breathe, “Oooh, you know what they say about women who whistle, don’t you?”  I didn’t.  I still don’t.  She never told me.  It’s haunted me all my life … I’m a woman and I whistle, what does that mean?

It’s all my dad’s fault.  My childhood was filled with the sound of my mother (screaming from the kitchen), “[Husband], will you please stop whistling!”  Used to drive her bonkers.  He’d whistle all the time, all the time.  So it’s only natural (and probably genetic) that I whistle too.  Constantly.  In the bath, in the garden, in the loo (good acoustics in the loo). 

With whistling I can reach those high notes that my crappy vocal chords can’t reach.  I can hold a note and make it wobble and do all kinds of interesting things with it.  I feel good when I whistle.

It’s my only musical talent. 

Friday 13

Argh! Friday the 13th!  Pah, I'm too busy to care.

Finally pick up my spectacles.  The young assistant measures me up and obsessively cleans the lenses – he brings them out and cleans them, he takes them off my face and cleans them, over and over again.  I go home and put the semi-worn glasses on.

And the world is transformed!

I kid you not, I can see things I wasn’t previously aware of.  Words on a computer screen have spaces in them! (how annoying is that!)  I can see the bristles on my husband’s face (previously a blur of greyness).

I can read without holding everything at arms length!  I can see the small print on everything, sell by dates, the bottom line of Brummie Blogs fridge magnets (have you entered the comp for one yet? See below).

It’s great. 

I CAN SEE!!!

I'm now going round the house all the time saying, "Oh look, I can read it.  Oh look, I can see what that is now.  Oh look, budgie feathers ... coffee granules ... wallpaper texture (not sure I like it now)."

So far Hubby has managed not to throttle me to shut me up ... but I suspect its only a matter of time until he cracks (oh look, argh! Wrinkles!).

Saturday 14

MY FRIDGE DOOR - Spot the difference (click for bigger)

 
Before (boring)                                                      After (bit spooky, actually)

And one of these spooky fridge magnets can be yours to keep forever!  See below.

[You'll notice my fridge magnets are not 'straight'.  Visitors keep straightening them up and putting them in neat lines, which annoys me intensely.  The big Australian ad is ripped from a newspaper because I thought it was funny - makes us say 'So where the berluddy 'ell are ya?' in a really bad Ozzie accent every time we go near it.]

Sunday 15

Hubby had yet another attack of domesticity today.  Very worrying.  First it was Ikea.  Then sofa hunting.  Today, he painted the bedroom ceiling and then declared, “Right, we’re going to B&Q for one of those fan lights."

Oh, okay, don't know where that came from but okay!

There’s a sort of fever that hits you when you enter B&Q.  It offers all kinds of comforts and lovely things to transform your home into a veritable palace of gorgeousness.  You want everything.  Hubby drools over the power tools, I gaze wide eyed at the kitchen units and light fittings.  Then we come together to see what each of us can’t resist.

Hubby got his fanlight.  I got a cooker hood – yeah, exciting, eh?

Except the cooker hood didn't fit.  The instructions say some models come with two outlets and ours only has one, and wouldn’t you know it, it’s the wrong one.

So we took it back to B&Q, where the manager blatantly lied through his back teeth telling us that all cooker hoods only come with one outlet while I bit my tongue and tried not to call him an idiot.  They gave us a refund.  We dashed into Homebase, but they don’t keep cooker hoods in stock. 

“We can order one for you,” said the enthusiastic assistant who obviously hadn’t seen a customer in her kitchen  department for a very long time. 

“How long will that take?” I asked. 

“28 days,” she said. 

“I have a hole in my kitchen wall,” I told her, “I need one today.”

I have never seen such deep disappointment on a woman’s face before.

Dashed into Comet.  “They won’t do cooker hoods here,” I scoffed.

They did.  £20 cheaper than B&Q too, so Hubby, in a mad (and uncharacteristic) fit of impulse buying, grabbed a sandwich maker on his way to the check out – he didn’t choose it, he just grabbed it randomly.

I’m wondering if maybe he’s pregnant.  Or 'going through the change' (no, you're not irritable, you're just irritating, darling).

Monday 16

Rang Hubby up at work this morning.  “As you’re not at home,” I said, “I’m assuming it’s not the weekend, but could you just tell me what day it is?”

Honestly, it’s weird, not knowing what day it is any more.  There’s no distinction between them.  No highs (Friday!), no lows (Monday!), just a consistent level of happiness and contentment.

How much do you hate me?

Had to ring Hubby again this afternoon (no, I don’t do it just to check if my vocal chords are still working).  A stranger answered his mobile.

“Is Hubby there?” I asked, thinking he’d left his phone on his desk and wandered off or something.

There was a long, ominous pause.  As Hubby works in a steel factory with lots of nasty, heavy metal everywhere, visions of ambulances are never far from my consciousness.

A male voice said, “It’s come up on my phone as ‘Home’.”

“Well yes it would do,” I said, rolling my eyes, “Since this is home calling.  Who is this, and what have you done with my husband, tall bloke, good looking, big gob on him?”

“He’s not here any more,” said the man, and I could actually hear the ambulance siren wailing as I prepared to grab paper and pen to take down the name of the hospital, “He’s moved on.”

“Moved on?”  To where?  Another room?  Another plane of existence? 

“He’s gone to another company.”

The sound of the penny dropping was loud and reverberating.  I’d rung Hubby’s old number, which meant I was talking to the man who was trying to replace him (and, by all accounts, doing a very bad job of it, which is deeply satisfying).

“Oh don’t worry,” I said, trying not to sound like a complete dipstick, “This is his [dippy] wife, I’ve [dippily] rang his old number [because I’m a dipstick], I’ll try his other number [if I can manage it].”

Tuesday 17

Middle Son rang me this afternoon (my whole existence revolves around telephones these days, I answer therefore I exist).  “Are you at work?” I asked him casually.

“No,” he said, “I’m at home.”

I can’t help this.  When you become a mother Nature gives you all these extra endorphins and huge dollops of adrenaline to use for your children in emergency situations.  I clearly have loads left over.

“WHY ARE YOU AT HOME?” I screeched, endorphins kicking in big time, “ARE YOU ILL? WHAT’S WRONG? TELL ME!”

“I’ve just passed my driving test,” he said.

I heaped praise upon him whilst my mass of endorphins tutted miserably and shuffled back into their Hysterical Mommy cave (where they picked up their Idiots Guide to Hysteria for Endorphins books and watched Jerry Springer on tv … I must get out more).

  Well done.

DON'T DO THIS (Small Son on Bristol Road))

Of course, being a mommy with aspirations to be a Jewish mamma, I twittered on about immediately buying a car and coming down to see his poor lonely mother occasionally.  I don’t have any control over this so, Middle Son, if this gets on your nerves let me know and I’ll send you a book called ‘Coping With Jewish Momma Syndrome’ which might help.

He also sent me some photo’s from Glastonbury (where he looks decidedly muddy and very fuzzy faced – mother syndrome again). 

Two Irish flag bearers feel their football team is worth obscuring the view of 5000 Killers fans ... Middle Son © 2007

And this one is just crying out for a caption … any ideas? (there's a tin of SPAM in there).  Guess what, the best one in the comments box gets ... yes, a Brummie Blogs fridge magnet!

Wednesday 18

Last year I pinched a seed pod from a flower display in an office.  This year, I planted the seeds from the pod.  They grew.  And very nice they were too.

I was reading the Sunday paper on Sunday (as you do – again, no mention of title in case AndrewM rolls his eyes in literary disgust).  I read an article about the UK growing opium in fields for the NHS.  Interesting.  Even more interesting, the article had a colour photo of the opium fields.

I blinked and stared and rearranged my (fabulous) spectacles.  Then I went outside.  Into my garden.  Where the exact same poppies as shown in the colour picture were growing.  From the pod I’d nicked from work.

What do you think?  Opium poppies?!

On t'right - they are, aren't they! 
Any handsome policemen in full uniform, get in touch.

THE GREAT BRUMMIE BLOGS GIVEAWAY

Okay, gather round now, Brummie Blogs is giving away freebies.  FREE STUFF.  Fridge magnets!  Not just one but ten of them!

Shown larger than actual size

Adorn your dowdy fridge and bring it to joyous life with a Brummie Blogs exclusive fridge magnet.  They’re all the rage!  Everyone wants one.  Get one now before they’re all gone.  Just leave a comment below and this much sought after item could be yours, all yours. 

There’s a catch (of course there is).  For survey purposes, tell me what it is you like about Brummie Blogs and (more importantly) if you think it’s changed since I’ve given up the stresses and strains of city life, for better or worse.

The 10 best answers will be announced next Friday, 20 July and the winners will receive this splendid Brummie Blogs fridge magnet to keep forever.

What are you waiting for?  Vent your spleeeeeeeeeen! 

Thursday 19

Today I lived the dream, my dream of ‘working from home’.  There was a gap in the slashing monsoon weather that epitomises our summer and the sun came out so, with laptop under one arm and footpedals in the other, I dashed outside to type in the garden with the birds twittering and sun shining and all that.  It takes me longer to do things outside because I look around and sigh a lot.

I was one line away from completing a big report when the computer crashed on me, corrupting the whole file (and I suspect the template too).  Every time I tried to open it to put in this one line, it froze.  Determined not to type the whole thing out again from scratch, I sent it to the outsourcing supervisor with an email that started “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”  She put the last line in for me.

Small Son’s birthday today.  Scary to think that I had three children by the time I was his age.  10 minutes ago I was taking them to the park to play on the swings, now I’m taking their children to the park.

Where does the time go?

Friday 20

Got up this morning and felt a bit ill.  Not having worked in an office for three months (and therefore not being exposed to the billions of bugs that descend from the air conditioning systems), I haven’t been ill in all that time. 

So why now?  I don’t see anyone!  I’m not exposed to anything, germs or people.  I suspect Hubby’s brought it home for me as a present (I’d have much prefer flowers or chocolates to be honest).

Anyway, not exactly a dream moment, but I got up this morning feeling all grotty and crap.  Outside was grey and windy and absolutely pelting down with rain.  And I thought, I don’t have to go out there, fighting with umbrellas or standing damp and miserable at bus stops for a bus that’s late.  Instead, I shuffled, sniffing and sneezing, into the study, turned on my computer, and started work wearing my big dressing gown and wrapped in a duvet.  Duvet Day!

This is the life.  No struggling to work in appalling weather even when you feel ill because it’ll look bad if you don’t turn up on a Friday (everybody whispering, “Sick my bottom, she’s skiving.”).

So, ill and with rain pelting against the study windows, I started work without any effort whatsoever.

Saturday 21

Ugh!  Everything aches.  Everything hurts.  Barely moved today.  Hubby actually went out on the night without me to a pre-planned event.  I went to bed ea