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the little bit that hurts
There is always a teeny weeny bit of me that hurts. Ever so slightly. It serves to remind me how fine I am actually feeling and what it could be like if I wasn’t. Otherwise I might forget that I don’t have ‘flu, toothache, unmentionable lady ailments, etc.
Last week it was a swollen taste bud. Right on the tip of my tongue. It spent a few days with me and then it was replaced by a slightly bruised nail bed.
Just now I had a little reminder of what it would be like if nobody had invented optical assistance or if I had no access to it (as many people don’t). I am indeed fortunate that just by placing a couple of bits of plastic in my eyes, or suspended quite close to them, I can see my computer and the TV and read a book and know who is at the door.
One thing I should always remember though is… to make sure I know where my glasses are before taking my lenses out and putting them in liquid that they must not be removed from for 6 hours or they will make my eyes sting intolerably.
My friend Yeh (sim, es tu meu amigo) pointed out that if I always did this in the same place and put my glasses/lenses in the same place I wouldn’t have this problem.
Occasionally though things do go wrong. Today for instance I had knocked my glasses on to the floor which was enough to make them invisible for half an hour. Eventually I solved the problem by shining my quartz halogen strap-it-round-the-head (like a miner) lamp all around until they made the shiny bits twinkle. Hurray! Just a little reminder of how it would be if I didn’t have any.
Maisie
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How to replace a lightbulb
OK, so nobody came to put the lightbulbs in for me. It’s getting very dark round here. I can’t reach the one on the stairs or the one over my bed so guess what? I have ordered a ladder online. It is a special one you can use on the stairs and also it will make a platform over the bed like a sort of table to stand on. Last time I tried standing on the bed I was not quite tall enough and fell off. I don’t want to lose my life over a lightbulb.
I have also ordered a couple of standard lamps so I won’t even have to replace the ceiling ones straight away. Being short can be expensive.
Sainsbury’s delivery came today. Lots of fruit. Also, two Bollywood films in the post. I have watched both of them. I am goggle eyed.
Maisie |
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Let there be light
How about… someone come and put some lightbulbs in for me? I’m a couple of lights down.
Cheers
Maisie |
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mincepies give you nightmares
I had loooaaadddsss of mini nightmares last night. Nothing too dreadful but I’ve got ‘a bit of a head on’ as they say up here. One of them was actually quite useful. I was dreaming about having to walk down a dark path in the dark night and I was using a torch I’ve got that you can stick on your head or wrap round your wrist.
Then I woke up and went downstairs for something. On my way back I switched on a light which went ‘ping’. When this happens, my magic fuse box helpfully flips a switch which makes all the lights in the house not work. To fix it I have have go under the stairs and flip the switch on again. This requires a torch. I have been using the torch upstairs to locate hidden snails.
I couldn’t find the wretched torch anywhere and then I thought ‘!’ I can use the one in the dream. It was in my coat pocket because I do use it to light my way down dark streets and it was very good for locating the fuse box.
This sort of thing happens to me quite often. if I dream odd things it is usually worth having a think to see if there is a message there somewhere. Like when I dreamt there were pills all over the floor and my kitten was eating them and when I woke up there were pills all over the floor but I was able to put them away before the kitten got any ideas about eating them. (Which I don’t think he would have but maybe some old dead aunt was worried?)
So the things to look out for today are… I dreamt the snails got out and multiplied and were stuck all over the ceiling and had turned vicious. My elder brother burned his arm with chip fat. Now think think what else? I could be missing something vital. Do you think I should ring my brother?
Maisie |
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Thanks Bert.
There are better ways of being woken up on Christmas morning than your neighbour’s cat weeing on your duvet four inches from your face.
But that’s OK because I needed to get up at 6 a.m. anyway.
Maisie |
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Their first time.
Kwezi and Mohommed have entered a new phase in their relationship. I found them under the cuttlefish bone looking very pleased with themselves.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/82642502@N00/77029389/
I think that is a link to my photos on Flicr.com
Check it out!
Maisie |
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The Abandonment of Lord Oswald
Yes, can you believe it. I am the only one that has turned up to work. The honorouble Lord Oswald has to wait in with his broadband engineer. Oswaldo has already blown up his Mac and lost all the music on his iPod (not backed up anywhere). If I were that engineer I would get out quick before it’s too late.
Guess what my feline community is getting for Yuletide? The ultimate in cool, an electric disperser of pheromones for that ‘feel good factor’. If it works I might one day not have to find wee wherever I step. You never know. I keep thinking it can’t get any worse and then boom! A new place to wee! Last night I left the fridge door open for a few seconds and Bert weed into the fridge! Cheers for that Bert. (Remember he’s not mine.) The day before it was my pillow that got struck. I didn’t notice it until I had been asleep on it for some time. Nearly everything I own has been attacked; my book collection, my paintings, my post (nearly every day), my kitchen worktop surface, my sink drainer, most of my clothes, my pretend real flame gas fire, my brand new sewing machine, my iron (OK so I don’t actually use those last two items but you know, I might have wanted to at some point!). I don’t even get cross. I will solve this with psychology. ‘Hello Bert [remember he's not mine], do you think you could possibly do me a favour and keep your wee up your bottom while you are in the house? Thanks mate. Appreciate it’.
I haven’t plugged the gadget in yet. They get it for Yuletide Day (which I suppose was actually yesterday come to think of it). I have been gently warming them up to the experience by spraying the feel good factor spray around the house. The first time I did it Douglas panicked and hid under the bed. I think it was the noise of the squirter though not the smell. When will manufacturors learn that cats don’t particularly like the sound of hissing snakes?
By the way, I am not the only mad cat lady in my neighbourhood. The contest is high. One of my neighbours has her husband read poetry to her cat at bedtime. This same cat (the lovely Fred) recently had to have his leg off (the whole of his leg right off). He’s absolutely fine and bouncing around more than ever before, climbing up on to people’s bedroom window sills to stare in and freak them out etc. Guess what he and his brother Barney are getting for Christmas this year (they get Christmas, mine get Yuletide, different family values)? Rocking chairs! I can’t actually see them wanting to sit on a chair that keeps moving about and I am not sure if this means the chairs are miniature cat sized ones or not (I think probably yes). Last year they each got a cat summer house in the back yard for those days when they want to be out but want to be in.
Of course, my lot are getting a water fountain and a spa activity centre (it includes lots of different surfaces to roll about on and get massaged). I bet Fred and Barney will be jealous about that!
Maisie Paws |
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exhausting night and what’s with this new hugging fashion?
Bert kept me awake most of the night. He went through the whole mummy can I have a drink of water routine. I am not his mummy. yes I got him some water. Then Benjy from the working men’s club had a row with him. Then Scooby from next door starting torturing Ellie the mad russian blue by looking at her (she can’t bear him looking at her). It was a very noisy night.
Anyway, I was thinking… what’s all this hugging business all of a sudden? How come a whole load of women I hardly know suddenly want to hug me hello and goodbye? They are not Brazilian. I can cope with Brazilian women wanting to hug and kiss me but these women are very definitely english. What is going on? Have they been seeing it on telly or something? Is this what everyone does on the soaps now? They must be getting it from somewhere. Well I think it’s weird. I don’t actually think I like it very much really. No, I’ll rephrase that. I can’t stand it! It’s always people i hardly know. It’s never people I have known for years. Or relatives. I mean, I don’t even hug my mother for goodness sake! The last time she attempted to hug me was just because my sister and I were seeing her off on a platform and my sister was doing it so she thought perhaps she ought to do it with me too. I sort of yelped and jumped backwards. She looked very relieved. Please can we stop it now. Incidentally, when I visit the mormon church it’s a million handshakes. I only really want to touch furry animals or slimy snails. No more people thanks. Well not unless it is in their normal established over hundreds of years culture anyway.
Maisie
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I am being brainwashed
Right. So that’s it then. Bert is training me. I am about to start sitting up and begging.
I just had a nightmare which involved someone bashing my door in and then me finding they hadn’t stolen anything but had moved all sorts of things around in my house and put stuff in silly places – all this in great detail.
There was even a woman delivering a giant Thomson directory and I was a bit rude to her I am afraid but I apologised and she was half way through telling me that a neighbour had received a suspicious visit from three men dressed in blue boiler suits pretending to deliver a Thomson’s directory, but it was a fake!
I thought that was a bit far fetched so I woke up and found it was a combination of a) heating too high and b) Bert bashing the door down. So I went down to let him out and guess what? he didn’t want to go out, he wanted some breakfast! So I gave him breakfast and came back to bed.
Thought I would tell you lot about it and then he started bashing on the door again. So I went down to show him the CAT FLAP and he said no, he didn’t want to go out, he wanted me to escort him upstairs to his appropriated fluffy cat basket because Tiffy was sitting guarding the landing and he was too frightened to go past her.
I am well awake now. I have got a headache. I will probably go to sleep in about an hour and then wake up really late and everyone will ring me up or visit or something and have a go at me for being in bed all the time and not doing anything.
I’m not in bed all the time. Sometimes I am by the front door.
Maisie |
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office christmas lunch
well I nearly fell asleep.
two people ended up in tears. Which is quite a high percentage considering there were only five of us there and the majority drinking soft drinks.
We had it in the Harrogate Brasserie. It was very slightly better than last year because I told the waiter we didn’t need to sit at the same table he usually offers (the lovely spot by the freezing door), and I got to snooze on a pile of cushions. It was very dark in there, which is what I like. It went quite well with my festive vampiric outfit. The conversation, until I stopped listening, was about car crashes and other worrying things that could easily happen. The food was boring though, as usual. I forgot to take some sauce to put on the cauliflour which they insist on serving with everything. Plain white cauliflour with nothing on it at all. I chose steak because it had a #3 (I still don’t know where the pound sign is) surcharge on it. It came absolutely plain with a few chips and cost about #16. That is in contrast with the one I had tonight from the local chinese takeaway which was absolutely delicious and came with gravy, tomato, mushrooms, chopped chilli (my own special request) which I chummed up with noodles and some pineapple and banana fritters soaked in golden syrup – all for a tenner, and the prawn crackers and chopsticks thrown in for free. Yum. And, I got to eat that in bed listening to Bollywood music radio.
Hang on a minute, just got to let Bert in the door. I’m back now. I just found out today (on my way to the chinese takeaway) from my neighbour that when I couldn’t be arsed to get out of bed to go downstairs and let him in the other night (he can’t use the cat flap because that belongs to Benjy from the working men’s club) he managed to get in to the house next door. They have no idea how he got in there but heard him trying to get into their bedroom in the middle of the night. They got up and found he had weed all over their sofa. Poor old Bert. He is the local juvenile feline delinquent. He is even known at the local hairdresser’s. I hope you remember he isn’t mine. The only house he doesn’t manage to get in is his own. Never mind Bert. Come in and widdle on my book collection.
I went to Leeds today. My mates took me in a car. I always have to consider carefully before I go whether it will be worth the feeling car sick. Every time I get almost there, I think ‘I will never come to Leeds in a car again’. Then I spend the whole time there dreading having to get back in the car for the return journey. It’s usually not so bad on the way back. Not sure why. Something to do with going uphill maybe. Anyway, we went to a German market. It was exactly the same as when I went to one in actual Germany. They brought the little wooden huts with them and the people inside were German and the prices had commas in like euros. I thought the fried potatoes were 45p but they were #4.50 – they tasted good but you know we had already had garlic bread and the potatoes had garlic and the mushrooms had garlic oh I regretted it a bit. garlic and cars. eeeeeeuuuuurrrrrrgggg. I had to grit my teeth.
I chose my own christmas present and now I will have to forget about it until christmas day when i will actually be given it. HeeHee. it’s a 4 disc set of jazz music. very mellow. don’t have to be clever to understand it. gerry mulligan, ben webster, that sort of thing. It was just sitting next to a set of head phones and all you have to do is stick the bar code under the scanner and you can hear a snippet of every track. By the time I had done all the tracks on all four of the CDs I had to have it. I wanted to sit in an armchair with my slippers on. In reality I was in Virgin records and it was quite difficult to hear the tracks as the music blaring out in the shop was louder and it was something grotesquely christmassy. something about soldiers? you probably know it.
I have been listening to an audio book I downloaded from iTunes (I love iTunes). It’s by Alan Watts – do you know his stuff? In this case he was actually being Alan W. Watts for some reason. The book is called Man, Nature, and the Nature of Man. It’s eastern philosophical and funny. Admittedly I did find I had snoozed through quite a lot of it but it was very pleasant. Some good bits about yin/yang and not being able to enjoy things if you haven’t got something horrible to compare it with. Sorry, I should rephrase that. If you haven’t got something horrible with which to compare it. No, that still doesn’t work does it. No, I don’t think I am supposed to leave a sentence with it at the end. Well, I know I have also been told not to start sentences with but. But sometimes that is just what is needed. And anyway, Charles Dickens did it. it. and.
Oswald (that’s Nigel, he prefers it) said my blogs are fading out, getting too sparse and short so this is to remedy that situation though you may be regretting it. it. The man in Bijoux, who goth dresses me, thought Oswald was my son. It could have been worse I suppose. So that’s now two children I have managed to spawn since I came to Harrogate. This never happened in London. I think oop here you are supposed to have grown up kids when you are fify. You are not supposed to be eating dinner in bed surrounded by other people’s cats and throwing the red cellophane wrappers of cherry liquer chocolates on your bedroom floor. And keeping tubes of jaffa cakes within arm’s distance. Or reading five books at once. Or letting your favourite snail slither all over your teashirt leaving a sticky trail. Anything else you think I shouldn’t be doing please let me know so I can try and fit it in.
I just had a thought… how come Bert manages to mysteriously get into every house without a cat flap, but I have to go down to open the door for him when I have got a cat flap? Do my readers think there might be some sort of manipulation game going on here?
Maisie |
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back where I started
I thought I would have another go at searching online for a restaurant not too far away where I could get a good masala dhosa. I ended up being directed to my own blog! Oh well, never mind.
Maisie |
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another tip
fish finger sandwiches are bleeerrrr! don’t do it.
maisie |
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the prophet spoke
well this weekend I mostly slept and tried to think about doing my college assignment and then slept some more and then ate a kipper and then slept some more and then I went to hear the prophet speak.
yes, I got out of my pyjamas, donned some gothic garb (thanks to the man in Bijoux, Harrogate) and spent a happy hour with my mormon missionary friends at the local church of the latter day saints where we all sat in a hall and watched a satelite tv viewing of ‘the prophet speaking’ for christmas. I shook five hands and a remarkable number of people remembered my name is Michele and then I went home and now I am back to bed and still not doing my assignment.
I am thinking about a variation of putting my school book under my pillow to help me memorise it only this time it will be my computer and I am hoping the assignment will get written while I get some more sleep.
Maisie |
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anonymous doner
Thanks to whoever it is that has let me log on to their wireless network while I am at work. It certainly isn’t a work one as we don’t have it. So, whoever it belongs to. Thanks.
Here’s another tip. Don’t try having mash potato for breakfast. Yeugh.
Maisie |
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another good tip
There are some things you shouldn’t try to do in bed.
For instance, don’t try to change the earth from your snailarium ON the bed as some of the earth will end up IN the bed. You might also lose some of your precious snail poo collection so it will take extra long to save up enough to make a snail poo painting.
It’s going to take ME extra long because I have only just thought of this tip. Pity I didn’t think of it an hour ago.
Maisie
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not getting out of bed and being dead
I have been out of bed for about half an hour. I have during this time, cleaned the loo, cleaned the cat loo, washed the sink with ‘mighty muscle bathroom thingy’ and… well I think that might be it. But not bad! I was inspired by reading about inactivity on raving adolescent whatsisname’s blog and, realising I was not the only one, i decided it would be ok to do something else. Just for a bit anyway because I have to come in and tell you all about it now. I even got dressed. I have been in my pyjamas since I got home on Friday but I am now d r e s s e d. Very good.
It’s not the most fantastic idea to lie in bed for two days because it makes your back hurt.
My hair is damp (because I washed it in the bath) and it will take ages to dry because it is mostly made of wool. I could use the hairdryer but I can’t bear the noise.
I spent 8 years living with someone in one room. I then spent two years living with someone else in that same room. A very small room. We had a platform bed made out of scaffolding. It didn’t matter because all my stuff was at my parents’ flat a couple of tube stops away. Now I have a whole house. 4 rooms. So I have just spent the last day and a half using just 5′ x 2″ foot of it. Never mind that art installation bed, mine has plenty of interesting stuff in it. I could say I have to be here because I am supposed to be doing an assignment for college and my computer is here but a} it is a laptop with wireless internet connection and therefore works in any room including the garden and b} I haven’t done a stroke of work on my assignment this weekend so far.
Also in my bed are things I might need like books, DVDs, a pen, a wooly scarf, a pair of fingerless gloves, a couple of bags, a crate of wet laundry that has been here since yesterday because there are not enough heaters to hang it all out on. There is probably a cat somewhere but I can’t see it at the moment. I have all my telecommunication hardware here but for some reason I keep using the mobile phone, which costs money, rather than the landline, which is totally free for all national calls (or not free but it goes with my internet connection on a monthly all in charge). That’s because I can’t find it. I know it is here because I rang it with the mobile and it sounded quite close and a bit muffled. I have probably taken laziness about as far as it can go for a while. I might as well get up. It’s sunny outside.
My father used to wake me up by saying ‘It’s a beautiful day’. He would quickly put me off though by adding ‘There’s lots of housework to be done’. If I didn’t get up he would go on to point out that I was ‘missing the best part of the day’ and this went with his philosophy that if you didn’t get up to do things at 6 a.m. it just wouldn’t be worthwhile. Which is why I have to stay in bed. Incidentally, although he did get up at around 6 a.m. every morning, he also went for a siesta every afternoon. We had to creep around the flat for about 2 hours so as not to disturb him. Very irritating.
I trained him eventually to say things like ‘It’s a wonderful day’ and ‘I am bringing you your cup of tea’. This worked better. He even stopped moaning about my messy bedroom and we made a deal. All I had to do was to ‘make a path from the door to my bed’ so he could bring me my cup of tea without having to climb over anything. Wonderful. We stopped arguing from that day on. It was a golden age.
I have weird dreams about my dad. He died about 8 years ago. Actually it’s probably more by now but I can’t remember exactly when it was. That’s because he is sort of still here. My parents flat looks just the same only there are just more objects in it. My mom has a million audio tapes of conversations we had with him round the table and she listens to them while she eats. His chair still carries that aura about it so if you sit on it you have to smooth out the table cloth while you talk just as he did.
In these dreams that I have, it turns out that actually he didn’t die that day and he is still there and the worrying thing is that he keeps saying he is thinking about agreeing to do a theatre run. Now this is very worrying because when he was ill he got quite feeble and if he really does intend to sign a contract to do a pantomime or something then I am not at all sure he will be able to do the cartwheels and things the company might be expecting. He hasn’t told them he is dead.
A new development happened about a year ago. It turned out that not only did he not die eight years ago but he was already dead because he had died in the sixties in a car crash. What happened was that the other bloke, who was driving the car, agreed not to tell anyone because he might get into trouble for causing the accident. Then, when we were in a pub somewhere, someone suddenly had that ‘I recognise you’ face on, but, unlike the usual person having ’seen him on telly but got confused and thought he was a relative’ type scenario, this one actually did know him and not only that but knew he was dead. Quite a worry, because if he had told anyone it could have been very embarrassing and maybe messed up his contract and jeopardised any future work.
After all, every actor knows, if you are ill you must make sure nobody finds out because years later they might decide not to call you for a job because you are ill, even if you only had ‘flu for a couple of weeks. Even playing someone ill can be dangerous. A friend in america saw him in an old re-run of a tv show where he had played a ‘farmer with a cough’ who had to get the James Herriot vet man out to look at his cow. I don’t know why the farmer had a cough but it wasn’t because my dad had a cough because he didn’t. However, the friend in america was so concerned about the cough that she immediately wrote a letter to say how sorry she was to see he had such a terrible cough and hoped he would get better soon. Even though the programme had been filmed about two years previously. Incidentally, every now and again my mom receives royalty payments for that episode, about one pound 20p (my pound sign has gone missing) per sale to various countries. It is weird to know that people in places like Saudi Arabia are sitting in their whatever rooms watching my dad coughing. My mom was sitting in a bar on a greek island once and noticed him on the tv. She thought about saying, ‘that’s my late husband by the way’ but decided better of it. Especially having to explain it in Greek.
So, here he is, in my bedroom saying ‘It’s a beautiful day outside’, ‘jump about a bit’. And just to say thanks for all those cups of tea and the rest, I am going to make another attempt to get up and go downstairs. I am hungry anyway.
Maisie |
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where’s my photo
How come everyone seems to know how to put pictures and fancy typefaces and pink fluffy things on their blogs but me? I kind of think I don’t care but just one little pic of me might jolly things up a bit I thought. I could even show you pics of my snails if you like.
I know there is a whole ‘add image’ section but every time I try it I only get as far as a message warning me that it could take a long time. This would be OK but there is no sign of any activity. No whirring and no spinning circle or egg timer or anything so I seriously think nothing is happening there and I must have missed something.
Can anybody help me please?
Maisie |
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a couple of tips
1. don’t try walking around my house with bare feet.
2. remember to dry the plate before you put the toast on it.
Maisie |
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self disposal
Ellie the mad russian grey cat nearly chopped her own head off just now. She was leaning on the laptop. Had a little stretch and hit the eject DVD button. The DVD shot out into her neck nearly slicing her head off. OK I exagerate but it was quite dramatic to witness.
Maisie |
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he’s still there
You would have thought wouldn’t you that by now that bloke would have got tired of knocking on my neighbours door/window. But no, he is still there. It’s like a giant woodpecker or something. I mean, this is like ALL DAY. I don’t think she’s interested mate. Work it out.
A couple of years ago I had a bloke sitting on a motorbike opposite my house for a night and a day. He thought his girlfriend was in here. She wasn’t. He could have just knocked on the door and asked me. Eventually I asked him if he would like to come in for a cup of tea or something. He declined. I had to ring his girlfriend and ask her to come and take him away.
It’s a funny old neighbourhood this.
Maisie |
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The ‘Thunk’ exlained
I found out what the Thunk! was.
Now there is a Bleep.
If it’s not one thing it’s another.
The ‘THUNK!’ turned out to be Skype telling me someone on my contacts list had gone in or gone out. As I add everyone on to my list on request there are quite a number and thus quite a number of thunks. Well at least I know what it is now.
The ‘BLEEP!’ is new. It’s not on my computer. It is trying to tell me something. I don’t know what. I know it is downstairs. Somewhere between the sitting room and the dining room (OK I mean two of the junk rooms). It goes ‘BLEEP!’ about once every 15 minutes. It’s something electronic. It needs attention. I wish someone would invent something to make it not go bleep but maybe say who it is and where it is and what it wants.
My computer can speak now. It’s very helpful. It says what the problem is and greets me very nicely by calling me things like “Mrs Georgous’ or ‘My lovely one’. Very nice. Worth letting the battery run down just to hear it tell me.
My friend came to pick me up yesterday while I was settling my sister down with the computer so she could print yet more almost identical baby pictures (new grandson for her). I couldn’t bear to sit and watch so I agreed to go off for an indian meal and leave her to it. Slight problems with selecting the correct printer (I had selected the one in London and I am in Harrogate at the moment). My friend thought it was very strange that every time something went wrong I fell about laughing. This is a whole subject which I will try to explain in the next paragraph.
Firstly, I was brought up to laugh at things going wrong. Great idea. My father laughed at my sister when she came to see him on his deathbed. He said ‘Have you come to watch your father’s demise?’. I don’t think my sister thought it was very funny, but then she had left home much earlier than me so had less exposure to this philosophy. In the last week of his life I asked him if he would like some more heating in his room as it was really cold. He declined the offer and pointed out ‘It’s the C H I L L OF DEATH!’. OK fine that’s ok then. Righto. So at his funeral I did my best to be as jolly as possible and my speech was a sort of confused stand up comic routine (only the words came out a bit jumbled) and I handed out conkers because they had fallen on my head on the way to the funeral and I thought maybe he had done that for a laugh. He didn’t want a funeral in the first place so the least I could do was behave as though it was actually a pantomime. He was an actor so I had been brought up to join in enthusiastically with any audience participation type activities.
Anyway, that’s why I was laughing at the computer. It is also why I have been laughing my head off at the boss all week. Luckily she is bonkers enough herself to be able to understand that I can react this way when trouble is afoot. And oh dear is there trouble afoot… It’s not me that is in trouble this time so that’s ok but it’ll be me next time if she doesn’t exhaust herself over the current problem so I had better make sure I don’t have any sort of ‘backlog’ (I can’t stand that word, it makes it sound like it’s my fault instead of a work overload because half the staff have left through stress and depression).
Anyway, the more angry, depressed, despairing my boss becomes the more I fall about laughing and as soon as she perks up and starts laughing I get depressed and lose all incentive. I know it is a bit strange. Last year I got into trouble at a conference for being depressed and not wearing the ‘right’ clothes (whatever they were supposed to be, they never told me) and various vague accusations about ‘not being helpful’ and ‘avoiding work’. i got frogmarched off by two important boss type people who were in serious moods with me and I said chirpily ‘And what can I do for you today gentlemen?’ and grinned through the whole ghastly episode. Somebody else cried for me by proxy that day but now, I am still having PTSD over it all and haven’t been to a conference since. Don’t tell anybody that though please.
Oh and not only have I solved the ‘THUNK!’ mystery but I have also got my boiler fixed. I knew that the pilot light was probably going out due to the low pressure. Somebody, I think it was Jetcat, posted me an encouraging comment and said she thought it might be the pressure. So then I remembered something about a white knob I was supposed to turn every now and then. I couldn’t remember the details so I rang my lovely brother-in-law up to ask him if he could remember this happening when he lived with me here. Of course he did and described the whole thing to me on the phone. So I found the white knob but I couldn’t turn it. I am hopeless at turning taps, unscrewing jars etc. I could see my neighbour in his kitchen and i wanted to ask him if he could turn the knob but he was on his mobile so I couldn’t. So I gave up the idea for the day.
Then, miraculously, half an hour later there was a bang on the door and when I opened it, there he was just standing on my doorstep. He hasn’t been on my doorstep since the last time it was warm weather. I said ‘Hello, well whatever it is you are here for I am very glad because I would really like you to have a look at my boiler please.’ So he turned the knob for me and all is fine and I don’t have to get up three times a night to relight the pilot light any more.
In case you would like to know what he had actually come for, he was wondering if I had seen his cat (Scooby) as he hadn’t been home for 8 days. I had seen him of course. In fact, I had seen him scoot off when he heard the knock on the door and he was now nowhere to be found. Nice to have my boiler working again!
I still haven’t unpacked my bag since I came back from London. I have been working too hard and getting home too tired. Now I think today might be the day of the big ‘tidy up’. Or maybe not as it is nearly half past one and I am still in my pajamas. It’s bad though. The whole house is in chaos and I can hardly walk around some areas for stuff on the floor. There have obviously been a few cat parties while I have been at work and the floor is littered with CDs and Books and PIctures and all sorts of stuff.
Douglas didn’t look too happy with himself yesterday. Then my sister came and he farted really pongily. I wasn’t going to mention it but she did. I didn’t think that was fair. I mean, you wouldn’t if it was a person would you. Well not at someone else’s house anyway. I just said ‘oh well, he is old you know’.
Later on, when I got back from my friend’s house, I found he had sicked up something I still can’t identify. (I know it was him because it involved a blonde furball). It was a piece of cotton netting in red and white. It was about the size of a handkerchief rolled into a sausage. I can’t believe he ate it. He is after all not a dog. I know dogs do this sort of thing. On the corner of my road there was a large dog poo and it was there for days and days. Eventually, after a lot of rainy days, it turned into a pair of stockings. Which reminds me of something else…
When I lived in Notting Hill Gate I used to frequent a ‘fast-food’ indian cafe staffed by Brazilians. There weren’t many actual paying customers though it was usually packed with friends. The one regular paying customer was a local old lady who lived in doorways. She was absolutely lovely though she did admittedly have a bit of a pong but you know, not her fault, and she did talk in a confused manner quite often though she was very knowledgeable and read all the newspapers so was very up to date with world events.
On this particular occasion, she ate a rather hot spicy dish and it set her off in a bit of a manic phase for a while. The interesting thing though, which is why I mention it now, is that she got fixated on a particular sentence and it was this:
‘She ate her knickers and they got all tangled up in her intenstines’.
She said this repeatedly in a panicky voice until the effect of the hot spice wore off and then she was fine. This phrase has sort of stuck in my head and quite often pops up in my quiet moments so that when I saw the dog poo gradually turn into a pair of stockings it felt sort of like her saying hello. I haven’t seen her for years and I think she may have died.
That’s a whole other subject. Local Bayswater/Notting Hill Gate characters some of whom have now died. I’ll tell you about that in another blog. I would like to make a tribute to some of them. They deserve it. Especially Eric.
Maisie
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Stop banging please
my neighbour is either:
not in
asleep
doesn’t want to let him in.
So I wish he would take the hint and STOP BANGING ON HER DOOR! and the window.
I had a look and he seems like he can take care of himself. If not, I would have invited him in here by now.
However, there is a house between mine and hers and I can hear that the neighbours in between have been woken up by the banging and are getting quite cross about it. So they can do something about it can’t they. I feel better for sharing this with you.
can I go back to sleep now please.
Actually, no. Because Bert wants to go out the front door please. Because Benji won’t let him use the cat flap. He only came in a few minutes ago. He was making nearly as much noise banging on my door as the bloke down the road. Who seems to have stopped. I am wide awake now. thanks.
Maisie |
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I enjoyed the flu jab
I did. It was the best part of today. You can imagine what the rest of it was like!
Come back Norman all is forgiven!
Maisie |
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ehre r my glasses?
the bilr statyeed n myt now u cabt fud mt gkasers. where are your friends when yiyu need tgen?
Maidiee |
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My pilot light… tempurature drops dangerously
It’s very important I keep warm. I am 50 now. I could get hyperthermia. I don’t want a cough yet – once I get it that’ll be about 10 weeks and I am a ‘Tena lady’ now. Yes, every time I cough. Please let me get through this winter without a cough.
Getting out of bed, going downstairs and climbing on a chair to play with gas buttons when I am asleep is not wise. I’d only just dropped off as it was – must remember to have a word with the bloke next door about the repetitive music from his computer game. I used to think he came home and had a couple of hours hypnotic trance nightclub Ibiza style dancing until his little girl explained it’s the background noise from his computer game. If he gets stuck on a level the music sticks with him. He got quite stuck last night. Maybe I could get him some headphones for Christmas. Oh yeh, I just remembered, I don’t do Christmas. Yuletide though, I can do that. That involved food and wassailing and present giving. Maybe it would be easier to ask the little girl to sort it out. She sorts everything out. She really wants to do things like washing up and asked me to demonstrate the exact way to tie up the bin bags. Weird.
That was a sneeze. I don’t know if the heater has gone cold or net yet warmed up. if it’s gone cold that means I have to go down and climb on the chair. I have to get out of bed though to test it and I don’t want to do that. I wish the cats would keep me informed. They keep me informed of the weather. If it is raining they come in and find me in my bed so I can feel for myself how wet it must be outside.
I have one day to do my college assignment (which has four components) and a pre-interview assessment for the teaching English course. All this and just tomorrow left as a full day. The assignment is due on Wednesday but I have to go to work and the other one I have to send on Monday. I will wake up early tomorrow and then spend hours ‘coming to’. My ex will then invite me over for lunch and off I will go and not get around to doing any of it. i have one half day I can take as leave until April. And that’s only because I earned it by working yesterday. OK too much moaning. There must be a funny side somewhere.
Let me know if you find it;
Maisie |
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Why does my laptop mac keep saying ‘Thunk!’ ?
I am really getting a bit curious about this now. It must mean something. I have no idea what. just every now and then it says ‘Thunk!’. I am at a loss. It’s similar to one of my cats. This cat is very small and he is black and white and he is called Mole by some and Micky by others. He has just spent the last half hour going around the top half of the house sort of ‘moaning’. He does this quite often but I have never been able to get to the bottom of it. I think on this occasion it might have meant ‘I’m too cold and I can’t get comfortable anywhere’ but I am not sure. It usually seems to help a bit if I make comments for each mew. Just shows I am interested at least.
I know this sounds sad but I have just discovered that my computer can speak. Yes, I can choose which voice (I have chosen Vicki who is american with a sultry voice, especially as I have set it v e r y s l o w), Vicki can tell me the time as often as I would like her to (currently every half hour just to check I am still awake). The fun bit is that she alerts me to problems by saying ‘[program name e.g. Mail] wants your attention’ and the reaallllyyy good bit is that I have asked Vicki to pick randomly from a list of remarks I have composed to say before she tells me what the alert is. So every now and again she says something like ‘Hello Mrs Lovely’ or ‘Bom Dia. Como esta Michelllyy?’. Well, it makes me smile…
I don’t switch my computer off, I just close the lid and put it next to me in the bed where it sort of breathes. It has a slowly pulsating blueish light that makes it look like it is breathing next to me in the bed. No really! I do like living on my own! I’m not a bit lonely. I have a computer that breathes and calls me Mrs Lovely and I have 8 cats in the house most of the time.
About the cats (so miss this bit out if you can’t stand furry bundles of strangeness): There’s Tiffy (so huge that people stop their cars in the street outside to get a better look) on the bed with me at the moment. Mole (teeny wee) has snuggled himself into the cupboard. Bert (famous locally for his habit of weeing in other people’s houses [and the hairdressing salon], therefore not actually allowed in his own house) is in the ’spare’ room (or ‘Library’ as I secretly and pretentiously like to call it) rolled up in a fleece cat bed (he is supposed to live across the road). Ellie the mad Russian Grey (absolutely bonkers honestly, which is the main reason I was asked by my nephew to take her on) is downstairs sitting on my wooly witches hat. Scooby from next door is guarding everyone’s (including all male visitors for some reason) favourite, wicker, chair. I’m not sure where Douglas is (probably trying to get someone to brush him, he is obsessed). Mole’s mum, Emily (an ex-feral farm cat with yes, a very similar name to the mad grey, it can get confusing) is probably under the bed. Benjy, the absolutely huge b+w cat from the local working men’s club is out having a prowl. He will be back soon to check on what Bert is up to. There is a great rivalry between these two non-resident cats as to who has the strongest claim to my house. Who am I to point anything out?
The computer just said ‘Thunk!’ again. Why?
Maisie |
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The pilot light went out… again
and my snails are cold.
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My pilot light
Does anybody know why my pilot light keeps going out?
I wouldn’t mind but I have been using my heating all year round with no problems at all and now that the weather is daaangerously cold, the pilot light keeps going out and I have to go downstairs, climb on a chair and doing pushing and clicking things to my boiler to start it up again.
At least it is in my kitchen, unlike the one i had in London which served a whole house and was therefore housed in a shed in the garden. Every time the wind blew a bit the pilot light went out and it was the scariest thing ever to relight as it was a huge great thing and necessitated sticking your arm in to light it manually. horrors!
Being in the nearest flat it was my job to do it. It was on the other side of my bedroom wall and i kept thinking it would blow up one day in middle of the night.
Mind you, I also spent every night thinking i was on a couchette because there was a railway line at the bottom of the garden. That was another nightmare. Especially the day that I had to go walking on the track looking for my missing cat and then another one fell down the wall and I had to get the police to rescue him, it’s ok he’s fine now, I’ve just had a chat with him in the kitchen and anyway we moved and we live in yorkshire now, no the other cat didn’t turn up, well there are 8 in the house at this hour of the night and i have spoken to the neighbour without a cat flap because if he goes in her house he wees and i have said not to worry because Bert is welcome to kip in mine as i don’t care if he wees because i am the only human here and it’s all part of my freedom life to make antihumansocial decisions.
I think it’s time to go to bed. I have got to get up early tomorrow to go and open the office door to people coming to a meeting and cut the sandwiches in half. They will all have dodgy tummies anyway because they mostly overate at the indian restaurant last night and anyway the sandwiches are very old as they were bought from M&S yesterday, which means they would have been made the night before and we aren’t serving them until lunchtime today (or tomorrow if the day starts after i have been to sleep).
I set the waiter off in the restaurant. He was ‘a bit of a one’ because he was the owner’s son (she is on holiday in India and he is therefore running it on his own in her absence and quite pleased about it). I made a drama because masala dhosa is on the menu but never actually available when i try to order it. Even though i rang at the beginning of the week to check it would be. He ended up getting it made for me anyway (he said he felt inspired by my enthusiasm) and it all got quite jolly. He ended up telling the whole group of us all about what he managed to sneak through customs after his trip to India in terms of bootleg CDs and DVDs. This was particularly amusing as the group of people are all forensic scientists and Crime Scene managers working for the police etc. The magistrate sitting opposite me had an ‘I am not hearing any of this’ face on. We heard all about his brother’s wedding in India and the jollity of shooting guns in the air – something to do with testosterone release or something he said.
He was interested to hear about my learning Hindi and we could have talked all night but you know, inappropriate moments etc. Think I will have to drop him a line. I took everybody’s leftovers home in a doggy bag. I’ve just had some peshwari nan to cushion the headache pills. Well the bloke in the chemist did say it was important to eat something when taking them (as I was buying my regular bumper pack the other day).
You may think I am just aimlessly waffling but I think it verges on kerouacinesque myself.
I bet Nigel (that’s my colleague under a pseudonymn) wishes he had decided to come with us to the dinner after all… we missed him of course. No, really, we did!
Maisie
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My head hurts
Oh my head hurts |
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Pizazz all dampened down
Back at work. Tired. Bored. Uninspired. damp weather. dark streets. running out of spice tea.
Something new though in the afternoon! my colleague told me about a TEFL/CELTA thingy course to be ‘delivered’ in our town. It’s about learning to teach English as a foreign language. This is something I have been interested in for ages.
Our local college (which I have tried and tested and rejected) is putting (if they actually do it) on the course that I thought I would have to go to Leeds for and take 4 weeks off work to do. As it is to be local I would be able to do it the long way, this means going 2 nights a week for several months as opposed to intensively for four weeks. This is very good news.
I am somewhat dubious that it will actually take place in our town. Last time I enrolled on a course it changed venue 3 times and ended up in Leeds. In fact, that is where I will be going tomorrow morning. It means getting up extra early and leaving the house at around 7 if I want to sit on a comfortable fast train with a table to myself and the option of a bacon sandwich on the way, or… if I don’t manage that I can leave the house at 8 and sit on a crowded train with my arms squashed in and hoping I won’t have to do anything irritating to my passenger neighbour like coughing. I can stop off on the way for a breakfast bagel if I don’t mind being late and getting in trouble with Teacher.
I am already somewhat in trouble as I completely forgot to tell anyone I would not being going to class last week as I would be in London working. I was too focussed on the London job to be worrying about my empty seat at Leeds Met. Now I will have to apologise. I did get a nice email from Teach and the handouts in the post – they were a bit yucky by the time I got them though as one of the affiliate members of the cat club that meets at my house had weed all over them (this is the equivalent of signing in the visitor book). If I have time before tomorrow, which I won’t, I will scan them into my computer and print them out again (the originals being a bit pongy).
The reason I won’t have time is because I have an application form to fill in for the TEFL/CELTA course. The closing date for applications being Thursday, so I need to get it in the post tomorrow. As part of the application I need to do a ‘pre-interview task’. Basically this is a questionnaire/test of my suitability as a teacher of English.
I am a dreadful student. I complain about absolutely everything. I would rather study with a robot than a real live person. Correspondence courses are OK if I don’t meet the teacher. The minute I meet the teacher I either absolutely can’t stand being in the same room or I fall passionately in love to the point of obsession. For best results the latter is usually preferable as I try extra hard and also lose weight (a six month course would be about what I could do with losing at the moment).
My colleague and I would both be able to go to the college together if we are both accepted on the course. It could be a supportive relationship or we could end up being competitive perhaps, or I might give up if he gets better marks than me. I could end up sobbing at my desk on a frequent basis. Or, it could be jolly good fun. None of this is likely to happen though if I don’t fill in the application form. So that is what I am going to do right now. Or in a minute when I have fed the snails and maybe watched a hindi film or eaten something or washed my hair (which is made of wool by the way in case I haven’t mentioned it).
p.s. I really want to put Beachhutman on as one of my favourite bloggers but I don’t know how to do it. I see I have managed to put Hi Diddly Dee on but have no recollection of how I did it. I have skills when I am on holiday that disappear once I get back to my office job. |
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The snails did not eat my sister
However, they did go into hibernation. They went right inside their shells and sealed them up with something that looks a bit like ricepaper. This was a protest of course. I have woken them both up with a water squirter (it’s OK they quite enjoy that). Then they had a hearty dinner involving spinach leaves, raspberry, sweet corn and red pepper. It’s fun to be back.
I didn’t do a very good job of getting back actually. My mother had a million things to tell me about while I was getting packed and I subsequently remembered most things (I am excellent at not listening), like the phone and the phone charger, the laptop, the scanner, the camera, the camera to computer lead, the door keys, all my socks, my new books and Indian DVDs. But… I didn’t remember about the train ticket.
I realised this half way up the road but couldn’t bear the thought of going back and starting the goodbye ceremony again so decided to play things by ear. As i entered the station a man dressed in a multicoloured balloon design print waistcoat walked past me with a black box containing a white rabbit. I think he was probably a magic man. That’s a normal sort of occupation for people living around South Hampstead you know.
When I got to the ticket barrier I found my oyster ticket had just run out so i stuck some credit on that. On with the journey. No problem. When I got to King’s Cross I fondly hoped that being able to produce my confirmation email for my online booking might mean a replacement ticket. No. Oh dear. So the cheapest ticket back home then. £71.90! Oh well, still better than going back and starting again. i will try to do something about it in yorkshire (they’re very nice there you know).
Pleasant journey, watched a hindi film until it started to visually disintegrate. I got a message from a bluetooth device called ‘Snoop Dog’ saying it wanted to pair with my computer. I wasn’t sure what that was about. Then it started sending me a file called sex.gip – I quickly closed the lid. I wasn’t sure I actually needed whatever that was! I asked the girl sitting next to me if maybe her mobile phone (which she was playing with) might be called Snoop Dog but she confirmed it was not. Most strange. My computer has it’s own friends it would seem.
I got chatting to the girl next to me as she was curious to know if I had just been watching my film in hindi as there were no subtitles and I had the headphones on. Yes, I had picked up abouy 25% of the plot. Some significant missing bits though, like ‘why did her husband leave her and the baby?’ and ‘who was that other woman?’ but apart from that not too bad. I have found the subtitles since I got home and it turns out i got most of it right (congratulations to myself).
So, I got off he train with my new friend and we went to our separate platforms. I decided to ring a great mate of mine to see if she might take pity on me and pick me up at my station in about half an hour. As she answered the phone I thought. ‘Why have I not got a big luggage bag on wheels with me?’. Whoops. I said I would ring her back in a bit. Well, actually it was more like her saying ‘why don’t you ring me back in a bit’ as she is the sensible one.
I rushed back to the train, which was fortunately still in the station. No bag. The train cleaner was there. She said there had been a big drama over my bag and they had nearly called the police to get it destroyed but she thought they might have changed their mind and done something else with it. I went to ask the staff she had pointed to. I explained about leaving my bag on the train. They asked me what colour it was. They knew which one it was. Apparently they had all been very worried about it and, understandably, didn’t want to go near it etc. It had ended up at the left luggage office and I went off there to collect it (you have to pay a fine to get things back). When I got there I had to wait a little bit as there was someone in the queue before me, being served by a young man at the counter. Under the counter was another man doing something I coudn’t see. It became clear though when he suddenly cried out my mother’s name, which he had found written on something. Oh dear again.
I made myself known and said ‘I think it’s my bag you are looking in there’. I was not able to put to the back of my mind the ghastly rememberance of this morning’s method of packing (I was under duress you must remember). I had stuffed all my clothes and other stuff in the bag any old way, dresses, toothbrush, knickers and socks (worn ones, yes) all in a pile and just squashed the lid down. It’s true what parents tell you about always being ready for an accident you know. I was relieved to get the bag back for £3.50 and even, with the help of the x-ray picture they had taken, locate the front door key so i wouldn’t have to unpack my bag in the front garden (on the front path which I share with the neighbour to be exact, as usually happens). I was told to put the key straight in my pocket. Which I did.
When I went back through the barrier to the platforms area (concourse?) the ticket checker helpfully pointed out that what I was showing him was not actually my newly acquired expensive £71.90 ticket but merely a receipt for one. And therefore of course not valid for travel.
OK.
He kindly allowed me through anyway but said I must have a ticket to go on the train. I went for my train. The train driver said he wasn’t going my way but another one was only he had just taken his train and left. Not to worry though because there would be another on the same platform in exactly an hour. There was even a seat to wait on. he suggested I go back through the barrier and get a cup of tea. I decided I had better not, the way things were going.
A few minutes later the train driver ran over to me to say he had just noticed on the monitor that a previous train had been delayed so if I went to platform 9b (as opposed to 5c) I could still maybe get it. This was the platform I had been on when I rang my friend. There are a lot of stairs and escalators at Leeds. Actually I am not very good at getting on the right train at Leeds (I went to York instead of Huddesfield the other day) though I do manage to hang on to my bags as a rule.
The train arrived. The now huge crowd milled around its doors. The doors stayed closed.
The train separated into two and opened its doors. I amazingly managed to pick the right half to occupy.
The conductor was rushing about all over the place in a very important manner ‘excuse me excuse me’ and pressing buttons and unlocking things with keys and making sure nobody was trying to Sheffield. One family didn’t notice and had to get off at the next stop and go back.
With all this commotion I had hoped he might be so busily happy he would not bother to look at our tickets. So he asked to look at my ticket… Before I showed him my not ticket I told him a jolly way what an extraordinary day i had been having so far. He thought it was funny too and charged me £5.50 as I didn’t have a ticket.
This has to be the most expensive trip to London I ever made. Not even including the two lovely Israeli girls on separate days who managed to convince me I needed beauty products made with minerals from the dead sea for £20 a go (originally £50 of course but a special deal for that day only and for me being a very special lady, how nice). One of these items was for acheiving beautifully shiny nails, which considering I have spent the last fifty years chewing mine to the bone would seem to be a bit of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted but you know, they made me feel so special…
My friend rescued me in her car at the station and guess what? I didn’t leave any bags in the car park. I remembered to put them all in the car and even remembered to take them out again at my house. (Like I did with her handbag once. she had asked me to hold it for a minute while she got in the car and I found it still in my hand in the kitchen 15 minutes later and her on her way to the shops without it). So maybe I am a bit absent minded. Still, the cats and snails were pleased to see me. At least they made an effort to look like they were anyway! Back to work tomorrow. Just as well!
Maisie |
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Has my sister been eaten by my snails yet?
Well, I had to leave someone in charge didn’t I? It’s just a pity my sister didn’t manage to find the two page cat and snail feeding / care instructions I left pinned to the noticeboard just inside the front door…
After several days of not being able to make contact with each other she told me that it would have been helpful if I had left a note as she had had to work out for herself how to feed the snails. She knew I had said something about ‘take the lid of the hamster cage off slowly in case one of the snails is stuck to the lid’. Now apparently she is an expert snail handler (I’ve only been gone half a week).
The 5 resident cats and 3 affiliate members all seem to have changed their usual behaviour to incorporate my sister’s unpredictable cat feeding techniques. Emily has not bothered with her usual routine of choosing a different location for her food bowl at each sitting (e.g. under the sofa, behind a chair or occasionally ‘al fresco’). She has decided to eat with the other cats in the kitchen. This apparently includes brushing round my sister’s legs to show how keen she is to eat. This is in contrast to her behaviour with me. Because she knows I aware of her feral history she displays such behaviour as not being able to eat in public, not being touchable, etc. It’s all rather a game of communication and training me. She has even managed to let me know which particular flavour of cat food she prefers. There are never enough packets of that flavour in the multipack box so I have to keep going out at ridiculous times of the day in inclement weather to get it. No point being precious with my sister though so she has obviously decided to drop the persona for the week and will no doubt delight in putting it back on the minute I return.
You may be wondering where I am and how my poor sister ended up with all these chores. You will be pleased to know that I did helpfully prepare 6 plates of delicately chopped variety choice of organic fruit and vegetables for the giant snails before I left (apparently they will immediately kick the bucket if anyone gives them a ’sprayed’ lettuce leaf). My sister says one of the snails is nowhere to be seen. I told her not to worry. I thought this might happen. It’s because I was unable to get hold of any organic strawberries. If there is an absence of these on his dinner plate he just starts hibernating as a protest. Quite effective. No use having a pet that has sealed itself inside it’s shell for the winter.
Well, I have gone to London. I am from London so it is a bit confusing as I am never quite sure whether I have actually gone home or whether that is what I will being doing at the end of the trip. I am a very confused person. When I am here, in my own bedroom where I grew up, surrounded by all sorts of old junk I have refused to throw away, I feel totally normal. When I am at home in Yorkshire in my own house surrounded by all sorts of other junk, I also feel totally normal. What I have difficulty doing is imagining being in one place while I am in the other. Now I am in London it feels as if I have invented the other place. How could I possibly live up there? When I get back however, I will be unable to remember what it was like to be here. The only link is the animals. Because I have left all those cats and snails behind it is a sort of link to remind me that I have to go back. When I am up there I know that I have left a potty elderly mother behind. At least I know she can look after herself though. At 78 she is full of boundless energy and leaves me at 50 exhausted and needing her to bring me apple juice in bed etc She goes to bed at about 3 in the morning and turns my light out if I was too tired to bother.
It’s a bit like camping here though. London is supposed to be warmer than Yorkshire. In Yorkshire though, I have heating. It’s not like that here. You have to go to bed wearing socks and slippers, woolly jumpers and a hat. Even so, by the morning you can’t remember your name. The duvet I introduced (what’s wrong with army blankets?) is fine while you are under it but how to convince yourself that there is any reason to get out of it? This means it is very very difficult to get started on the day. This explains why I could never get to school on time.
Having a bath is a nightmare. ‘don’t run the hot water tap and the cold water tap at the same time or there will be an air lock and we’ll have to get the plumber in and it costs a fortune’. Not only does it cost a fortune but workmen coming here usually find they can not only talk my mother into buying expensive things she doesn’t need but there is also a rich source of original vicorian fittings they can helpfully disconnect and remove at no extra charge. If I am around of course I just pick these items back out of the workmen’s toolboxes when they are not looking. When I got home on this occasion I found the door knocker was missing. ‘What happened to the door knocker?’ ‘Oh I could never hear when people knocked on it so a workmen helfpully took it off for me’ ‘Well where is it then?’ ‘Well how should I know? What on earth could you possibly want it for?’ – Useless to try to explain why I would want a door knocker that I had got used to using since where moved there in 1967. Yes, I know she couldn’t hear it but I always used it anyway, just before getting my key out. I also ring a cow bell just inside the front door just to warn her I have arrived. She never hears that either so that when I eventually arrive in her studio at the end of the long corridor she is not aware I am in the building. She can’t see out of one eye. The eye near the studio door. So I have to walk all around the room until I am facing her at the other side of her work desk. She then gets a huge shock ‘gracious! how long have you been here?!’
Sometimes I catch her out completely as she has fallen asleep over her drawing board. Paintbrush in hand, picture half done, head dropped forward. Still, she is 78 after all. |
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