Lost marbles: 45%  Discovered Utopia: 50%   Not sure: 1.75%   Not bovvered: 3.25%
 

Ever wondered how I met Hubby?  Bearing in mind that he lived in Bradford, Yorkshire, and I live in Birmingham, West Midlands?

Shall I tell you, or do you want to guess?

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

And I always knew I had more testosterone than the average femme (I did, after all, used to ride a motorbike and I loathe shopping).

You Are 50% Boyish and 50% Girlish

You are pretty evenly split down the middle - a total eunuch. Okay, kidding about the eunuch part. But you do get along with both sexes. You reject traditional gender roles. However, you don't actively fight them. You're just you. You don't try to be what people expect you to be.

A PRIZE!

Roll up, roll up, Brummie Blogs is giving stuff away! 

Here we have a fan-tas-tic, unique, just simply amazing prize.  A metal cast replica of the bull statue that stands proudly outside the famous Bullring Shopping Centre in Birmingham, the very same bull featured in Da Brummie Code (Chapter Four).  

It comes in its own box with ‘Bullring Birmingham’ printed on it and it’s roughly 5.5cm high x 7cm long.  It’s also heavy! 

You won’t get this anywhere else, only in Birmingham, and I’m offering it to the person who can guess or comes close to guessing the answer to this question:

How did me and Hubby meet? (bearing in mind he comes from t’Bradford in t’Yorkshire, t’lass).  There’s even a clue to help you out … I ‘knew’ him before I met him.  Leave your answers in the comments box, just let your imagination run riot.

No family members (that’s you, Middle Son!) or friends may enter.  Competition closes …. ooooh, say Friday 22 June.  Winner announced on Monday 25 June.

Saturday 2

Okay, the sun is out, the sky is blue, there’s not a cloud to spoil the view.

We’re going out!

Yes, the bedroom has waited nearly eight years to be decorated and is now so dark I’ve started calling it the mausoleum.  Yes, the stairway could do with a coat of paint (but I like the worn and lived in look, and hell, there’s a lot of that around here).  And yes, the kitchen needs a damn good seeing to, but bugger it, we’re off.

“Where?” said Hubby, as we sat in the car in the driveway.

“Dunno,” I said, “Just head south.”

So we headed south, down towards Tewkesbury, and I indulged in one of my favourite pastimes – gazing out of the windows with bulging eyes, chin hanging on my chest, little hands pressed against the glass, gasping “Who lives in a house like that?” 

Honestly, gob-smacking just isn’t the word, huge black and white mansions set in the middle of landscaped acres, loads of them.  It’s a different world.

We saw eagles and grouse and rabbits and a falcon skimming sideways in front of us like a Lancaster Bomber coming in to land.  We saw a pub and stopped.  The pub looked like this …

… wouldn’t you stop! {That's me on the bridge, by the way, just in case you were wondering why that woman was standing there like that.]

A nice pint, a nice meal, a nice yak on the river bank, on a summer’s day, in the middle of the English countryside, watching eagles and house martins lazily swoop across the sky.

Sometimes you just have to stop and think ‘perfect’.

Absolutely perfect.

Drove through Great Malvern afterwards, where I’ve never actually been before (shame on me).  It’s a picturesque village built up the side of a mountain, a very steep mountain.  I thought the car was going to flip backwards at one point and clutched onto the dashboard.  But the views were just breathtaking once you got passed the vertical adrenaline rush.

Just a really lovely day.

Sunday 3

I have seen her.  The One.  The person who makes my one molecule of inner rage shake its fists and froth at the mouth like a rabid zombie.

We watched a film tonight.  Six Days Seven Nights with Harrison Ford. We like Harrison Ford (he looks a bit like Hubby).

But Ann Heche … well, I could barely contain myself.  Every single thing about her just infuriated me.  Such shiny hair.  Such shiny flicked hair (ugh).  Seven days on an island and her hair still looked clean and shiny and flicky.  And half way through the film she’d clearly had it cut, so it was shinier and flickier and just infinitely more annoying.  And she had shiny eyes that she wobbled around to catch the light.  She really really got on my nerves.  Even her voice was like Minnie Mouse on helium being rubbed up and down a cheese grater.

Seven days on an island and her makeup was never smudged, her flicky hair was never flat, her lipstick was always perfect.  Yeah, right, like that’s realistic!  I’d search for a photo to show you how yukky she is but I just can’t bring myself to do it.  Everything about this woman aggravates me to the core of my soul, even the way she bouncily walks, so you’ll have to look her up yourself.

They climbed to the top of a mountain (yeah, like she has the strength to lift a fork to her mouth).  “Push her!” I screamed from the sofa.

She strutted into a pond with her hands flicked up (I so hate that) and got a snake in her pants.  “Leave it there!” I cried, “Let her die a horrible death!  Or push her head under!”

She got all gooey and shiny and eye wobbly with Harrison Ford, and I yelled, “Just smack her one!  Go on!  Just one really big smack across the face!” as I fiercely pummeled a cushion.

She tossed impossibly heavy logs underneath a plane and then gave Harrison Ford one of those “See, I can do it” looks that makes me want to tear my own face off.

Some people just affect you like that, don’t they.

I was exhausted by the end of the film (she didn’t die!  Damn!)

Monday 4

Hubby’s first day at his brand new job.

“Excited?” I asked him this morning before he left.

“No.”

“Nervous?”

“No.”

“You’ve gotta be a bit nervous.”

“No,” he said, smiling.

He’s not normal.

I waved him off from the front door as he ventured off to his new workplace.  Honestly, I felt like I was seeing my kids off to school for the first time (sniff).  I was dying to phone him and see how he was getting on, but resisted magnificently.  He finally rang me mid morning.  “Guess what?” he said, excited, “They’ve given me a phone.”

It’s the first time in years he hasn’t rang me to wail, “Oh they’re bloody idiots!  It’s chaos here!  I’m sick of it.”  A refreshing change for both of us.

He really likes it.  No stress, no pressure, just a small, family run steel company where people actually know what they’re doing (again, a refreshing change).

His old workplace is apparently going down the tubes at a vast rate of knots.

Tuesday 5

I worked in the garden today – an hour on the bottom bench where the sun is but the electricity supply isn’t, an hour on the patio table where the sun isn’t but the electricity is.  I’m up and down that path like a pedal dragging, earphone studded yoyo.

Typed up an interview which involved children.  Small children.  Children who clearly hadn’t mastered the English language yet.  And they were from Newcastle.

“And what do you think of this?” the interviewer asked, to which the small children replied, “Nugga fengu ipka du ronda.”

Yes, quite.  I wonder if back pedalling can be considered a form of exercise (I’ll have a slim and toned right foot at least).

So there I am, sitting at the bottom of the garden in the sunshine, with my laptop and earphones, screaming out loud every time a leaf falls on me from the tree above (they’re shockingly heavy leaves!).  And I’m laughing my face off at these kids because they kept fighting and arguing (in some foreign language with a Jordie accent).

As if my neighbours don’t already think I’m slightly nuts.

Wednesday 6

A couple of weeks ago (or it could have been three) a researcher from a BBC local radio station rang to say she’d read on my site that I’m anosmic (no sense of smell) and would I mind being interviewed about it.  No, said I.  She said a BBC reporter would be in touch to arrange a meeting. 

And then I forgot about it.  I don’t get excited about these things any more (oh blasé me!).  I’ve had the face to face meeting with an Evening Mail reporter over a coffee, and nothing came of that.  I’ve had the email from a Cosmopolitan writer asking to do a piece on Brummie Blogs, never heard from her again.  I take it all with a pinch of salt.  Fame and fortune doesn’t seem to like me very much.

Today, a BBC reporter from a local radio station actually arrived at my house, complete with a big microphone like they use on news reports (impressive).  Very nice lady, very chatty, made sure I was comfortable before she pushed the microphone in my face.

Nervous?  OH GOD YES!  As soon as she pressed the On button my voice went all wobbly and my mind was like a blank canvas of nothingness, my brain scrunching itself up in a foetal ball and hiding behind my spinal chord. 

She interviewed me in the kitchen.  “My least favourite place,” said I, “Nothing I cook ever turns out right because I can’t smell it burning until its too late.  Fortunately my husband, who used to be a chef in the navy [bit of a plug for Hubs there], is a magnificent cook and he’d much prefer I stay out of the kitchen altogether, which suits me fine.”

She recorded me filling up the kettle for ‘background’ noise, and then asked me to turn on the gas hob.  “Are you sure you want me to do that when I’ve just told you about gas explosions?” I asked.  She said she was.  Brave lady.  So I turned on the gas, waited a few seconds, then pressed the ignition button so it went POOOOF! for the microphone.  “But when it’s a giant gas ball coming at you out of the oven, its sounds a lot louder than that!” I laughed.

“Have you lost facial hair?” she asked.

“Oh yes.  Eyebrows.  Eyelashes.  Burnt hair around the face.  There’s nothing scarier than an exploding gas ball coming straight at you and crackling across the kitchen, you tend to think I’m Going To Die.”  Oh, the memories!

She took me out in the garden.  Oh yeah, lets get the neighbours in on this, bit more than slightly nuts now, eh?  “Now, you like your garden, don’t you,” said the reporter.

“Aesthetically yes, but of course I can’t smell any of it, I don’t buy plants for their scent,  just their looks.  Although I’m quite good at tossing down manure since I can’t smell it.”  Yes, life in the city is tough.

And the mouth babbled on.  And on.  I can’t remember half the things I said, I’m sure I mentioned something about the ex making me change all smelly baby nappies when the boys were little because I couldn’t smell it (“No, but I can see it!”) so he’s going to lurve me for that (not!).

I don’t know if I came across as Intelligent Articulate Anosmic Woman (which I was aiming for) or Dopey Cow Who Can’t Smell.  I suspect it was probably the latter, but hey ho (WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!).

She played a bit back to me when we’d finished.  “Oh my God!” I cried, “I sound so Brummie!”

“Nobody likes the their own voice,” she said, packing away the recording equipment.

“Can we do it all again only with me talking a bit posher maybe?”

“No.”

I’m taking elocution lessons at the earliest possible opportunity.  I want to sound like Joanna Lumley.   The rayne in Spayne falls maynlee on thu playne.

So all very interesting.  Be on the radio in about two weeks, she said, she’d let me know (so I can leave the country). 

And here it is!

I quite like the idea of some green alien with bug eyes reading this and thinking (in a really posh accent because I'm into really posh accents at the moment, having heard my own), "Tsk, millions of years to evolve and the sapiens are still stumbling around in a scruffy, not quite sure what's happening kind of way talking to budgies and screaming in the garden."

Any aliens reading this, I'll be out in said garden tonight at 10 o'clock tonight if you fancy a bit of a chin wag about earthly stuff, bring your own tea bags because we've run out.

To everyone else, if this is my last ever post, could you let SETI know, and tell David Duchovny he's welcome to wander around my garden with a big torch (or a tea cup!) any time.

EVEN MORE!  Oooh, I've just found an interesting and well written blog - I love it when that happens.  Random Burblings.  S'good, go take a look (and Alan Sharp is rather dishy too!).

Thursday 7

Congenital Anosmia (no sense of smell, not now, not ever)

As I said to the BBC woman (brag brag), I really don’t understand how, every time you breathe in, you can smell something.  Doesn’t that drive you round the bend?  Walking down New Street, say, you breathe in and smell bread, next breath pizza, next breath the smell of someone who hasn’t washed properly walking passed?  How can you process all these different smells and not go insane?  When I breathe in all I get is fresh air, whether I’m in the middle of a cow field or a flower shop, s’all the same to me.

At school, the chemistry teacher used to hunt me down in another class sometimes and say, “Fastfingers, the boys have let off stink bombs again, can you come to the chemistry room and open up the windows so the class can collect their bags?”  I found it very embarrassing to walk into a room that no one else would enter with an entire class waiting by the door watching me.  Fortunately, the stink bomb phase was brief.

Also at school, I'd be alarmed to be walking down the corridor between classes sometimes and everyone around me would suddenly pull faces and waves their hands in front of their noses (sometimes they'd wretch and cry out) and I'd be like, "What?  What is it?  What's the matter?"

A friend once refused to believe I couldn't smell and shoved a small bottle under my nose.  "Smell this," she sneered, and I took a big 'sniff'.  Smelling salts!  Like a cricket bat to the brain, but I couldn't 'smell' it, I could just sense the 'fumes' (like I can with vinegar).

The extraordinary flatulence of Hubby (before he took over the cooking) never bothered me.  "Doesn't smell!" he'll say.  "You're right," I'll reply, "It doesn't."

And in rush hour traffic, when I get on a bus that's packed to the rafters, I'm can quite happily take the only available seat next to the passenger who 'hasn't washed for quite a while'.  But I can never check if my own armpits or breath stinks either.

Taste is also affected.  I like strong flavours, and Hubby always cooks 'strong stuff' specially for me (the star).  Garlic has no taste, so its obviously just a smell thing (I don't know if I've eaten garlic until people start avoiding me).  All wine tastes of diesel so that must be a smell thing too, which is a shame because I think its terribly civilised and sophisticated to have a bottle of wine in an ice cooler and two tall glasses in a pub or in the garden - the fact that it tastes so awful kind of hinders this image.  And as far as I'm concerned there's absolutely no point to 'mild cheese', and Victoria Sponge is just textured fluff, a holder for jam.

My defunct smelling system consists of four things:

Memory

I try to remember what things smell and what doesn’t, so I know (because I’ve been told) that boiled eggs stink so I never took egg sandwiches for lunch in an office.  I did once splash out and buy a Superb Soup (or thouper thoup) from Philpotts once and a boss cried, “What’s that smell?” so I just added that to my list of Things That Smell (and promptly scuttled out of the office with my offending thoup).  It’s a pretty comprehensive list, but I can’t remember everything and so sometimes I do gasp, “Paper smells?  Who knew!  Oh, you knew, and most of the world, just not me, again.”

Reliance on other people. 

I obviously can’t smell when foodstuff is off so, unless it’s covered in green fur and moving around the fridge of its own accord, I have to rely on other people to avoid food poisoning.   I’m forever thrusting milk cartons and clingfilmed meat into Hubby’s startled face and crying, “Has that gone off?”  Hubby came into the kitchen once when I was making a ham sandwich and screamed, “Jesus, that stinks to high heaven, you’re not going to eat that are you?” as he snatched it from me and tossed it in the bin.

I can’t smell in shops (which accounts for the fact that I tend to touch everything, and I mean everything – Sis once walloped me and hissed, “Will you bloody well stop touching things, you’re like a bloody child!”).  Because I’m so obsessed with bathing I’m forever choosing bubble bath purely by colour – I’ll then interrogate fellow shoppers, asking, “Does this smell nice?”  Of course they look at me oddly and back away, so I add, “I have a cold, which one of these smells best?”  So I bathe in bubble bath that other people like the smell of, which I’m not entirely convinced is a good thing.

I can’t smell perfume but occasionally I like to wear it for Hubby’s benefit (incidentally, Hubby saves an absolute fortune on aftershave because he says if I can’t smell it there’s no point wearing it … of course, if he ever has an affair with a woman who reeks of garlic, Channel No.5 and cigar smoke I’d never know).  Anyway, perfume buying is always fun.  I drag long-suffering Hubby into a shop and then choose the nicest bottle or the nicest colour, spray a bit on myself and thrust it under Hubby’s nose.  I do this several times, spraying my front wrist, back wrist, palm, back of hand, all 10 fingers and finally, running out of skin space, up each arm (so he often has to sniff my elbow, again eliciting odd looks but I’m used to that now).  Only problem with this is that Hubby will suddenly say, “Oh I like the smell of that one now it’s ‘gone off’” as he sniffs my thumb, but we can’t remember which one it is. 

Sometimes I get perfume as a gift and liberally spray it all over myself, then Hubby will say, “What the hell is that pong?” and I have to go shower.  (Incidentally, to the people who consistently buy me Aromatherapy Sets for Christmas and birthdays, can you please stop doing it, they’re wasted on me).  I have to be nice to my sister and mother so they don’t buy me Eau De Poo.

I’m constantly on high alert for dangerous smells.  Someone casually mentioning in an office that they can smell fire will have me leaping out of my chair and heading for the nearest exit doors screaming, “Fire?  You can smell fire?  Where?  How strong?  In here or outside?  Tell me, god damn it!”  I try not to wave my hands in the air at the same time shouting, “We’re all going to die!” as I’ve found this tends to upset people a bit.

Vision

I can see the tiniest wisp of smoke.  I go rigid, my eyes widen to twice their normal size, I stop breathing, I grab onto the nearest person (Hubby, a son, sometimes a boss-type), shake them fiercely and hiss, “Can you smell smoke?  Tell me!  Tell me now.”  It gets quite annoying in summer when we’re sitting peacefully in the garden and I suddenly yell, “I CAN SEE SMOKE!  WHERE’S IT COMING FROM?  WHAT’S ON FIRE?”  Barbecues are the bane of my life.


I’m paranoid about gas appliances (perversely, I won’t have electric, I clearly like to live dangerously).  I’ve had so many gas balls coming at me from the cooker over the years that I now stand there holding the ignition button for about 20 clicks, then check the oven’s lit, then click again in case closing the door has blown out the flame, and peek in again, just to make sure. 

And I’ve lost count of the number of times the boys have come home from school or someone has come into my house and said, “I can smell gas!” (the worst four words anyone can utter in my book).  Now, every single time I go in the kitchen I check that all the hob nobs (isn’t that a biscuit?) are in an upright and OFF position, it’s almost an obsessive compulsive disorder, check and check again and once more just in case.

Colours

In an effort to get an idea of what smells smell like, Hubby has devised a little smelling system.  I’ll ask him, “What colour is that smell then?” and he’ll say green or pale mauve and such like.  So a grass smell is, obviously, green, some perfume is purple (heavy and thick) or pink (flowery and subtle), plants are varying shades of yellow, nasty smells are dark (black, brown or grey).

There’s only one teensy, weensy flaw in this.  Hubby is colour blind. 

I don’t miss having a sense of smell at all – what you’ve never had you never miss – and I think if I suddenly developed a sense of smell after forty thirty odd years I really would go mad.  But I’d quite like to have it for an hour or two so I could run around smelling everything, just once, just to see what its like.

Friday 8

Hubby likes his new job, REALLY likes it.  Instead of coming home knackered and stressed with a hangdog expression muttering expletives about incompetent management and falling asleep at 8pm, he now bounces into the house with a smile and proceeds to tell me all about his day.

I’m pleased for him, really I am.  But after five days of constant euphoria, of him saying “It’s great, I really like it, what a great job, what good management, what a good place to work,” roughly every five minutes, it can get a bit wearing.

To celebrate his first week (and to get me out of the house for the first time in five whole days twitch twitch dribble), we drove over to the Country Girl pub (which is in the middle of the city) for a drinkypoos. 

As we were a mere stones throw from where Small Son works, we rang him up and said, “Come for a drinkypoos after work.”  Which he did.  Which was great.

We sat outside in the glorious sunshine surrounded by people drinking wine from ice coolers, me with my two stunningly handsome men, just chatting.

These are the moments.

Saturday 9

There was a house party tonight.  Not here, somewhere else.  We live at the bottom of a hill and the party was in a house at the top of the hill (although we did initially think it was next door it was so loud).  Sound travels downwards so we got the full effect.  It was quite interesting actually.

They had a ‘professional’ DJ who introduced … KARAOKE!  At full blast, so most of south Birmingham was ‘party to this party’.  We went outside into the garden to listen and had a bit of a dance beside the foxgloves. 

At 11am the 18 year old ‘birthday boy’ sang You’re Beautiful in a way I’d never heard before – obviously he was at that stage of intoxication where you’re impervious to your own strangled vocal chords (oh yeah, we’ve all been there).  At 11.30, the mother was introduced to the mic, opera style.  Madam Butterfly after 15 brandies and several buckets of champagne isn’t really something I’d take on myself, but again, interesting.

People don’t seem to have house parties any more, do they (or maybe they do and we’re just not invited!).  In my youth, when The Osmonds were all the rage and I fancied the lead singer of The Rubettes with a teenage passion, everybody had parties all the time, weekends were filled with them.  There was never a silent Saturday night without the throbbing of someone’s stereo (and the obligatory fist fight on the pavement outside). 

The long cheesecloth skirts and flared trousers and ‘blow-flicked’ hair and bloody enormous blouse collars and platform shoes and puffy sleeves and tank tops and long hair on the boys and long necklaces on the girls (a lot of which I still wear now!).  And they had those enormous cans of Party Beer didn’t they, you’d turn up at a party and take a giant can of party beer and a bottle of Leibramuck that nobody ever drank (but you felt rather grown-up taking it).  And there’d always be somebody throwing up in the bathroom, and someone else crying in the bedroom, and a bit of an argument about who was going out with who in the living room.  And my god, the hangovers afterwards – those were the days when you really did want to die and you really didn’t drink again … until the next party the following week.

We used to have loads of house parties in the 80s too, one every couple or three months, just invite everybody over and then wriggle round the packed living room.  Ex would turn Meatloaf up to full blast and make everybody headbang, I’d be with the groups around the home-made grub in the kitchen chatting away and probably flirting a bit (because you’re allowed to do that at parties). 

Ah, those were the days.  Everybody seems to go out for meals these days (maybe it’s our age!), its much too civilised.

I can feel a party coming on, 70s style.

Bring your own giant cans beer.

Sunday 10

A pictorial day out at Dudley Zoo.

Granddaughter does breakdancing while I practice my Ann Heche walk, oh yeah!
Isn't she dinky!

Dudley Castle, or what's left of it.  One of my sons nearly fell off the
rampart when he was little - didn't take Granddaughter up there.

Hubby does the manly thing of checking the walls for faults
(he's not posing, really he's not)

Exactly what I'm looking for to work in the back garden

FREEDOM!  Just seriously too cute for words

Hubby said we could do with a sign like this in our kitchen ... for me!

About the size of a tennis ball, it didn't seem real

Take a picture of me!  Go on!  Photograph me! 
I'm so much better looking that the others

Monday 11

The Berluddy Budgies were driving me mad this morning as I was trying to work.  Squawk squawk squawk, flapping around the room, dive bombing my head, just sitting there, side by side, all in a row, screaming their little heads off.  I had my headphones on so high I swear the neighbours could hear it.

I had another attack of budgie rage.   I’m so ashamed.

I chased them round the room until they finally all got back in their cage.  I shut their cage up, picked it up, and took it outside.

Deposited them on the garden table, much to the interest of neighbouring magpies and the cats next door.

Got on with my typing. 

[Panic not you budgie lovers, I did keep going out to check on them and they weren’t out all day, just until I got my work done.  If any budgie lovers would like to adopt four cute but seriously gobby birds during daytime hours, please let me know.]

Tuesday 12

It has now been exactly two months, nine whole weeks, since I left the city in a huff and decided I’d had enough (and each day that I don’t have to board a bus is an absolute delight).

And in all that time I haven’t ironed.  Anything.  Not for nine whole weeks.  Well, once I did a few things, but once in nine weeks is pretty good going I think!  Out of scientific interest I’m calculating exactly how long I can go without dragging out the ironing board (and before I’m forced to walk around naked).

Of course, I’m now down to wearing things that haven’t seen the light of day for eons and tee shirts with logos (a red number I’m wearing today reads WANTED: A MAN WHO GETS WHAT I WANT – I must marker in YAY! FOUND HIM! underneath).

To celebrate my new found freedom, I’m finally going to Remove The Office Suits From The Wardrobe.  It’s going to be a momentous moment.  Not sure if I’m brave enough to throw them away just yet, but they’re certainly not going on my body ever again.  Might put them in the loft and then in 20 years time I can get them out and cry, "Oh my God did I ever wear these?"

Wednesday 13

Hubby leaves for work before I get up in the morning so I don’t see him, I’m just vaguely aware of a kiss on the cheek and the sound of a glass of pop being put down on the bedside table (he brings me a drink every morning, how fab is that?)

He came home from work last night and walked through the door.  I just looked at him, astonished.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Is there something you’ve neglected to tell me?” I asked.

“No.  Why?”

“Do you not look at yourself in the conveniently situated mirror in the hallway before you leave the house in the morning?”

He’d been hot the day before so he’d gone to work in shorts.  A t-shirt, toecapped boots complete with socks, and shorts.  Teeny weeny shorts.  I mean, there were really short shorts.

“You look totally gay,” I said.  “Did nobody at work say anything?”

“Well a few of the lads were sniggering a bit?”

“I bet they were saying you look totally gay!”

He huffed off to change and returned coughing deeply and displaying his biceps and all but beating his manly chest.  I said to him, “Do you fancy watching a DVD tonight?”

“Yeah, which one?”

“How about Priscilla Queen of the Desert?  Or The Birdcage?  Or Flawless?  Or Torch Song? Or TransAmerica”

Took me ages to get him to speak to me again.

HAVE YOU ENTERED THE BIRMINGHAM BULL CONTEST YET?

How did me and hubby meet?  Answers in the comments box.
<<< Winner gets this fan-tas-tic Birmingham Bullring Brass Bull. 

Comp closes Friday 22 June, winner announced Monday 25 June.

Go for it! 

Thursday 14

There’s some minor downsides to working at home (apart from the fact that I never get to listen to music any more which I really miss).

Sales people continue to knock on my front door despite me having a sign reading No Salespeople.  I have to stop what I’m doing (usually something with a deadline), pull out my earphones (if I remember, sometimes I don’t and get whiplash), put my laptop to one side and unlock the front door.  To be then met with a salesperson who thinks he’s being a bit clever (ie not admit they’re selling anything) does not put me in the best of moods.

 I had one yesterday who claimed he was a building surveyor and did I want my fascias doing?  As I’ve worked (and still work) for surveyors,  I said to him, “Since when have building surveyors worked door to door?  Do you have an RICS card that I can see?  No?  Would you like me to tell you what I want you to do with my fascias?”  That got rid of him like real fast. 

 I used to have an A4 size bright yellow sign which read: NO SALES, NO JEHOVAS, NO EXCEPTIONS.  I might print that out again, along with a huge banner for the top of the porch reading: I DO NOT BUY FROM THE DOOR, or perhaps: SALESPEOPLE WILL BE GIVEN A SEVERE BEATING.  And then maybe a smaller poster for them to read just before they dare knock the door along the lines of:: THINK AGAIN.  DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOCK ON THIS DOOR?

Or maybe just a sign that reads: F**K OFF!!

Then there’s the phonecalls. 

Again, I have to ‘unplug’ myself from the computer to get to the phone.  The silent ones are bad enough, but even worse is when they start talking.  “We’re not selling anything,” they say, and I raise a sceptical eyebrow, “We’re just doing a survey in your area and – “

“A survey of what?” I snap.

“Double glazing/kitchen/roofs.”

“Just had it done,” I’ll say, “If only you’d rang a month ago!  You’ve missed out there.”
You vill buy my products!

Or, “Can I speak to Mrs Fastfingers, please?” and thinking its actually someone who knows me I’ll say, “Speaking.”  And they’ll then launch into their blurb about loans, which I interrupt with, “I’m unemployed, I’m up to my eyeballs in debt [I’m not], my husband’s just left me [he hasn’t] and my house is about to be repossessed [it’s not].”  They get off that line with almost obscene haste I can tell you.

Oh God, it's Fastfingers

And then there's the pitherers, the ones who simply will not get to the point, who think you haven’t already guessed that they’re trying to flog you something.  “What are you selling?” I snarl, and they ramble on and on until my patience drains away and I yell, “Do you think I have time to listen to this?  Do you?  Do you think I have nothing better to do with my life than to listen to you?  Either get to the point or hang up.”  Sometimes they hang up.  Mostly I do.

Once I was just so fed up (before I got the TPS thingy, which is about 95% effective) I played the caller up.  “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you,” I kept saying, “Can you repeat that please?  I’m sorry, say that again?  What was that?  Pardon?  What?”  That makes them hang up too.

I’ve decided that the next salesperson who rings up and asks for Mrs or Mrs F, I’m going to say, “Just a minute, I’ll get them.”  And then I’ll leave the phone hanging there.  Will be interesting to see how long they wait.  I might play some background music, just to keep them amused.

A very Happy Birthday to Middle Son (who is not only older than I would like any child of mine to be, but I have another one even older ... oh God, I'm ancient and decrepit, shoot me now). 

And better luck next time. J

In the meantime, you've only got two more days left to enter the fabulous Bullring bull contest ... don't let this opportunity slip you by, enter now and you could be the proud owner of a little brass bull.  Go on, don't miss out, have a go.

WHERE DID HUBBY AND I MEET? (he's from Bradford, I'm from Birmingham, hmmmm, how did that come about then?)  Go mad, go wild, go leave your answers in the comments box.

Saturday 16

Its Father’s Day tomorrow but Sis and I are busy so we took dad and his wife out for a meal at Wing Wah’s on the Wolverhampton Road this afternoon.  I rang them up and booked a table for 2pm for eight people.  They said it was fine.

Got there.  Yakked, had a gathering up of the food, sat, yakked, ate.  Anticipated spending all afternoon there, the whole family together (including brother, who is sighted less often that the Yeti).  All very nice and pleasant.

Until we got up to get more food and found they were pulling the trays out and cleaning the counters down.  Strange.  Okay, deserts then.  Except there weren’t any, they’d all been cleared away too.

“What time do you shut?” we asked a passing waitress.

“3 o’clock,” she said.

What?

Enraged, I stormed up the reception desk and starting whinging.  The woman at the counter clearly wasn’t much for whinging and called the manager over. 

“I booked a table for 2 o’clock,” I told him, “But I wasn’t told that you close at 3 o’clock.  If I’d have known I would have booked it earlier!”

“You were told,” the manager said, not looking at me.

“I wasn’t!”

“It was me who took the call,” he said, still not looking at me, “I told you we close at 3.”

“No you didn’t!”

“And opening times are there on the door.”  He pointed firmly at the door, still refusing to look at me.

I nearly lunged for his scrawny little neck, the lying, cheating little git.  But dad’s a quiet person and it was his special meal and I didn’t want to spoil it by making a scene (and I was so ready for a scene).  So I went back to our table, just us left in an empty restaurant, and quietly seethed.

We hadn’t finished eating.  They were clearing away all the tables around us.  We felt rushed and unwelcome and it spoiled the occasion.  Everyone took it with good grace, except me.

We didn’t leave a tip (in fact, if it had been left to me, I wouldn’t have paid the full whack since I didn’t get a full meal).  I won’t be going back there again.

WING WAH’S, WOLVERHAMPTON ROAD

BOOOO!  HISSSSSSSS!

The day was saved when we all went back to dad’s house and sat around having a damn good yak for the rest of the afternoon. 

Sunday 17

A Day Out At The Black Country Museum

All girls together!  Just look at that little face, doesn't it make you want to burst.

Hubby's not averse to pushing a pushchair, oh no, not he.
It was Father's Day and his t-shirt reads "When the going gets tough, call dad."
Message to Hubby's children: Call dad, he'd like that.

Hubs doing what he does best, looking in mirrors and taking photographs
He looks like a little teletubby

Actually, this is the one and only time I've ever said, "Go on, take a picture for my blog."  I made him pay 50p to go in the fairground mirrors at The Black Country Museum (especially for Maria).

Very psychedelic- Hubby with a big head (I'm not saying anything, no, I'm not, I'm not)

Monday 18

I’m getting so much junk email lately, just tons of the stuff.  Can I help some African get loads of money out of the country (just supply my bank details, yeah, right).  I’ve won some lottery (please provide bank details).  A sale on Viagra, begging emails, you name it, it’s in my inbox.

I’m forever deleting the bloody things.  So today, when I discovered I'd had 30 odd spam overnight, I hatched a cunning plan.

I’m declaring war on junk emails.

Now, whenever I get them, I don’t think ‘£$%^&*(*&^%$£!’, I think ‘Oh good, some more.’

Why?  Because I reply to them.  I set up an anonymous Hotmail account and reply to them several dozen times (including filling the CC and BCC boxes) with ‘STOP SENDING JUNK EMAIL’ in large red letters.  I keep sending them until I get bored, and then move onto the next one (this is during brief periods of not working you understand, kind of a hobby thing).

It’s quite therapeutic.  If everyone did it I think the spam people would get rather fed up of all the junk mail coming their way – let’s see how they like it.

Tuesday 19

I had someone respond to my business advertising yesterday (and you wouldn’t believe some of the requests I get from that!).  This one was a proper person, a surveyor who’s secretary was going on holiday and would I type up some surveys for them.

Of course I would.

He said he’d sent me a sample file to ‘see how I get on’.  I got on fine, it was a doddle (he’s on the coast and it’s the only time I’ve ever heard seagulls in a dictation).  I duly sent back the finished document.

Today, he rang me.  He said things like, ‘absolutely brilliant’, ‘just what we wanted’, ‘exceptionally good’, ‘really pleased’ and ‘I’ve told everyone I know about the standard of your work and they’re all going to buy digital dictating machines, so expect a lot of work heading your way’.

Music to my ears.

Working at home is going rather well.  Actually, it’s not going rather well at all, I'm lying, its going absolutely bloody brilliantly.

I’ve cracked it!  Fingers crossed, this month I’ll be invoicing for (and get this) more that I earned in the city!

It’s all so possible (if you’re willing to put the work in).  I love it.

[Middle Son, should you survive Glastonbury, you will get your driving test money eventually, I promise].

Wednesday 20

I love greens.  Spring cabbage and sprouts and mange tout and more cabbage and green tomatoes (yes, green tomatoes).  I’m not big on chocolate or cake, and fruit is just tooth rot in a skin.  Greens do it for me in a big way.  I actually dream about them.  I get the most enormous cravings for them (“Must Eat Cabbage!”).  

Hubby and I were forced to go shopping the other night because we’d run out of loo roll.  Drooling and resisting the urge to kiss the packaging, I bought a deep green cabbage.  Raced around shop, raced home, raced to put everything away in cupboards.

“You’re in a bit of a rush, aren’t you?” Hubby noted.

I frantically lunged across the kitchen at him, cabbage in hand.  “How fast can you get this,” I gasped, wriggling the leaves in his face, “Into my mouth?”

So yeah, I’m big on greens.  Including avocados.  I just love advocados.  But they’re a bit of a pain, aren’t they.  You buy them and they’re rock hard, honestly a bus could run over it and it would be the bus that got damaged.

I buy one and put it in the middle of the kitchen table, all solid and hard.  I look at it longingly, and then I wait. 

And wait.

Every time I walk passed it, I prod it.  Not ripe yet.  Every day I pick it up and give it a little squeeze.  It doesn’t yield.

Days pass with this advocado sitting solidly in the middle of the table, me looking at it, checking it every hour on the hour, waiting for the glorious moment when I can eat it.

It starts to go a teeny bit soft, and I wait, patiently, hungrily, desperately.  I check it more regularly, anticipating the great event.

There’s a ten minute window of opportunity with advocados I’ve found.  You wait days and then you’re forced to leave the house for some reason, water the greenhouse or dare venture into the outside world.  You’re gone ten minutes, tops.  You leave a semi-hard advocado and come back to mush.

That’s it.  It’s hard, it tempts you with a bit of ripening, and then, when you’re not in the vicinity, it goes off.  Just like that.

So I don’t buy advocados very often.  Life’s too short for all that disappointment.

Thursday 21

It’s been exactly ten weeks since I left the city, and I still haven’t ironed anything in all that time.  My wardrobe is now empty.  No, honestly, there’s nothing left in it to wear.  I’m down to my dressing gown and a bikini.

I can’t put it off any longer.

Emailed both my outsourcing companies, “Can’t work today, I have to do the ironing.”

And then I started.  Well, actually I didn’t start straight away, I procrastinated as much as I could beforehand cleaning out budgies and dusting and sorting out my sock drawer and wondering vaguely about stripping the bedroom. 

When I found myself standing in the middle of the living room with Nothing Left To Do, I had to admit defeat and drag the ironing board out.

I started at 10.30am.  I thought I’d go wild and watch a bit of daytime television to keep me company, but turned that off after 10 minutes because it was so depressing and I was depressed enough as it was.  Put an old video series on I hadn’t watched for a while and that kept me going for three hours.  Then I began to flag.

One of the outsourcing companies asked me to do some work for them, but I was firm, “Sorry, but if I don’t get this ironing done I’m going to be typing completely naked tomorrow, which will severely traumatise anyone walking down my driveway.”

The other outsourcing company emailed me an hour later, sending work, but I resisted.

I ironed.  I listened to the radio.  I tried not to scald the flying budgies.  My house resembled a clothes factory.  I ironed everything in the bulging ironing basket.  Everything!

And, when I was finished, a full FIVE hours later, I collapsed on the sofa.

And did some typing to recover from the trauma. 

I now have a wardrobe full of freshly ironed clothes.  Too full in fact.  With Hubby witnessing The Big Event, I ceremonially removed my work suits.  I took them out (didn’t realise I had so many) and deposited them firmly in the spare room wardrobe (which sagged alarmingly).

Yet another door closes on city life.

Friday 22

Okay, time to catch up on missed work.  I was on a roll.  I actually looked at my fingers on the keyboard at one point and thought, ‘They’re just a blur!’

The budgies, however, seem to be affected by digital dictation.  When I put my foot on the pedal, they start screaming.  When I take my foot off, they shut up.  Scream, quiet, scream, quiet, all day long.

After yesterday’s marathon stand at the ironing board I didn’t have the energy to chase them round the room into their cage, so I picked up my laptop and went upstairs.  To the study.  To work in the rather comfortable Ikea chair instead of at the desk (which hurts my wrists and the keyboard’s clacky).

I Am An