Bumpkinsville Bank Holiday

It’s a bit late, but I thought I’d show you a few bank-holiday-in-Bumpkinsville photos…

There seemed to be a Quadrophenia type meet we stumbled on…

 

And then there was the Morris dancer in the phone box.  Obviously…

some miserable person has smashed some of the glass :o(

And I was going to take photos at the Country fair we were going to.  Only we got lost, asked for directions, forgot the directions, got lost again, found it and…it had been cancelled!

So there you go.  There was (a bit) more than just rain in Bumpkinsville this weekend!  :o)

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Fore Balls

When I was at school I was bad at sport.  Really bad.  After three years of trying to teach me to hit the ball in tennis, the PE teachers gave up and let me sunbathe through the lessons instead (this was back in the days when we had summers).

Sister 1 and 2 were not afflicted with the same total lack of hand / eye coordination.  Neither, it seems, was TTB.  In among the list of sport he plays is golf – the one sport I’ve always been really scornful of.  On the basis that you shouldn’t knock it til you’ve tried it though, when TTB suggested taking me to the driving range I decided to give it a go.  My theory was that once he saw how bad I was he’d never ask again (for the record, this theory also works for ironing shirts – do it REALLY badly once and you’re never asked again ;o)  )

Anyway, we went.  I broke the tee machine thingy by hitting it rather than the ball on my first attempt.  We took it all apart, fixed it and…amazingly, I got the hang of it.  Sort of.  Ish. 

Apparently it’s not that normal to cheer when you hit a ball and there wasn’t much laughing other than from our end of the place,  but (I’m almost ashamed to admit this) I kind of enjoyed it!

TTB ‘kindly’ took a video of without me realising but when I discovered that I actually hit the ball a few times in it, I made Sister 1 and 2 watch.  Sister 2 laughed when TTB cheered me.  Well, I thought it was a cheer.  It turns out it was ‘Fore!’ he was shouting and I have discovered since that it’s a warning a rouge ball may be about to hit players or spectators.

Humph.  Well, at least I hit the ball.  I almost want to contact the PE teachers of my younger years to let them know… :o)

here we go!

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Happy birthday boys!

Its my boys birthday today! They are a whole two years old which I think  makes them around 18 in furball years so we are talking big birthday. Norman celebrated early by capturing a rogue, (cooked) sausage on Tuesday night but we’ll gloss over that as I am pretty sure I have a slightly irate (hungry) neighbour nearby.

Of course, I sung happy birthday to them this morning. And they will get extra treats later. And, like anyone slightly obsessed, I had a quick flick through their kitten pictures…

It looks like Charlie is actually laughing to me…!

Norman had always been rather chilled out…

Ahhh…

now they’re bigger they take guarding Pog Towers very seriously

And while we are on the subject of cats, I saw this card a few weeks ago and described it to a friend.

“Don’t worry” he said “you’re still one cat short of desperate.”

Well that’s ok then…. :o)

A sausage? Me? Nah…I was here all night…

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Quotes from friends

In the last week or so I’ve heard some great quotes I thought it only fair to share…

First, from the stunningly good looking intern at work (who obviously paid me to call him that…)

‘The one thing I’ve learned in working here over the last nine months is that if you want to keep a bunch of 30-something women happy, bring them food.’

(We were going to disagree, then realised he was entirely correct as we munched through some cheese cake he’d kindly shared with us…)

Then from Sister 1 when talking to someone about a rather boring visitor that had to be entertained:

‘That’s the problem with people coming to your house…you can’t really leave.’

And Sister 2 on discovering the contents of the drawer under my wardrobe (which could be mistaken for a small branch of Boots):

‘Wow…it’s like a man drawer….but for ladies!’

And my personal favourite from a very clever colleague:

‘Never admit to being a fruitcake.  Just give it to them one sultana at a time…’

:o)

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‘That’ conversation

Well, we’ve had that conversation, TTB and me.  And whatever you’re thinking, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that…  It went something like this:

Me:  I’ve got something I need to talk to you about

TTB: umm….?

Me: Well, I write a blog

TTB:  You told me that already…

Me:  Yes, but I didn’t tell you that…um…you feature in it.  Quite a lot.

TTB: umm…?

(He doesn’t ‘umm’ that much for the record, but he did those sort of noises that are a combination of non committal and blind panic…)

I suggested he take a look.  I didn’t think through that doing this while I was next to him was perhaps not the best plan, but I have to say, he took it very well.

TTB:  TTB?

Me:  Ummm…that will be ‘The Toy Boy’…

I think I made him smile though.  Sort of. :o)

a bumpkinsville sunset

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Pillow of Power!

A week or so ago, one of my work mummy friends mentioned that her little boy was having nightmares and wondered if I could make something that could help.

The idea made me smiley, the making made me smiley and the outcome made me smiley.

This is what I sent (along with the goods) to work mummy’s little man yesterday:

This is a special pack that will help you stop having nightmares. 

Put the pillow at the end of your bed and you will find lots of things to help you in your special Pocket of Power!

There is a special pouch for fairy dust.  It has three stars in it that you can put on your bedroom floor to keep all scary things out of your bedroom. 

There is a Magic Hankie. If you put a magic hankie under your pillow it will stop any nightmares that have woken you up from coming back.

Best of all though, there is a sleepy bug! 

Sleepy bug will look after you aaaallllll night, and if you cuddle him, when he gets warm you will smell his very special smell which will help you feel all relaxed and sleepy.

I hope you like your pillow of power…and I really hope that it helps to stop your nasty nightmares.

Lots of Love,

xxx

And is the report I had back this morning:

 he loved it and this morning bounced into my room to say ‘it works mummy – I didn’t have any sleepmares!’

But this is the best picture ever:

That doesn't look like a nightmare filled sleep :o)

 Pog Power worked!  :o)

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Global Pog!

Someone asked me a while back who actually reads the pog blog (I can only assume that they were as stunned as I am that people want to read my ramblings…).

It turns out that people literally all over the world do!  I can now see where people are when they access my site and so I thought I’d show you…it’s quite amazing.  Actually, it’s very amazing.  Thank you for being one of those numbers :o)

These are the stats for the last 2 months:

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Another pair of eyes

Apart from a few stops in London, Geneva and the Canary Islands, I’ve lived in Bumpkinsville all my life.  Which is why it was weird driving through the local villages this weekend with TTB.  I really did get to see things though someone elses eyes.  And I rather liked it.

I’d never seen this in a local pub despite cycling and driving past repeatedly.

It's an Ostler (well, the dummy of one). They used to look after horses of customers at the pub...

Best though, was finding this…which I have driven past around four times a week for two years and never seen:

And this, I just liked…

It may be pouring with rain most of the time at the moment, but it’s nice to see spring is on the way :o)

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Language issues

Language is a tricky thing – I’m always announcing that I need to make a ‘whatsit with a thingy’ or similar.  It’s good to know it’s not just me though.  The two thingys below have happened in the last few weeks:

A while back I had a meeting-over-coffee with a colleague.

He is a lovely colleague who I’ve known for years, but never really spoken to.  As we sat down I started to ask non work question.  (I do like to find out about people).  But that is where it all went a bit weird.  Because I get in a pickle in these situations.  Don’t ask too much about him in case he thinks you’re starting a stalking campaign.  Don’t ask too much about his wife or he’ll just thing you’re odd.  Ask about children!  It’s the one subject people talk about for ages…

‘do you have any little people?’  I asked

‘no. you?’

‘no’ (this is not the conversation starter I anticipated) ‘I’m a spinster with two cats’.  That is my attempt at humour…it usually leads to some sort of comment anyway.  Not this time though.  No, Coffee Colleague looked a little sad and went very quiet before looking up and (bravely) saying:

‘I grew up outside of England and I’m don’t think I know the term ‘spinster’.  Is it the same as ‘widow’?

Oh lordy…that’s why the sad face!  I had to explain that no, I wasn’t a widow, I was just…and then I had to explain spinster…which actually is harder than you’d think. 

‘So you like cats more than men?’

Argh…how did this go so wrong?  I had to explain that no, definitely not, that would be something entirely different….

_____________________________________________________________

And then there was an incident with Sister  Two last week.  I’d been to a Mexican restaurant and mentioned a dish I’d had, but that I couldn’t  say its proper name in Spanish.

‘Why would you want to say it in Spanish?  You need to say it in Mexican!’ she laughed at me.

Hmmm…

It took a few days to discover that she genuinely thought there was a ‘Mexican’ and that she was really confused that if they didn’t speak it in Mexico, where was it used?.  Discovering that there is also no Argentinian, Brazilian, Chilean etc turned out to be quite a revalation.

On the upside, it’s great to learn new things whatever age you are.  I think… ;o)

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karma and chaos

Well I thought things were going rather too well.  I even thought I was showing signs of being a ‘grown up’ and not having too many disasters.  I should have known better….

Last night TTB asked if he could come round after playing football.  I thought I should feed him something more than toast so stopped off at Tesco on the way home for food.  It took three minutes to grab the items…and 15 to get through the queue to pay.  As this happens a lot I decided to grump (nicely) at the Customer Services man.  He looked like he may have just left primary school so I was gentle:

‘I know it isn’t your fault, but could you pass on to the appropriate manager that the queues here are becoming increasingly frustrating and…’

‘I am the manager’

‘you are?  Wow, but you’re SO young’ (child proudly flashed his ‘graduate management programme’ badge at me) ‘ok then, in that case I’ve just spent five times longer trying to pay than shopping and it is your fault.  Please sort it.’

Maybe it’s karma what happened next.  I should have just been British and queued quietly because:

As I opened my front door I was wondering if I should have a quick nap before I started cooking or go for a short bike ride.  One look at Charlie though and I realised we’d be going to the vets.  His eyes were all icky and one wouldn’t open properly.  I got an appointment.  Sister 2 came over to assist in ‘Operation Cat Basket’.  Charlie and I meowed at each other all the way to the vet. 

Half an hour later we left with drops, anti inflammatory and, in Charlies case, glowing green eyes (he’d had dye popped in them).  Nothing too serious happily, but now the evenings schedule was looking a little sick too.  Added to that, when I got home, it turned out that as part of Operation Cat Basket, Sister 2 had locked the cat flap and we’d inadvertently locked Norman in.  Norman, it seemed, had then tried to dig an escape route through the door mat and carpet…

I’d been advised to drink wine to keep calm.  I can see now that this was not great advice but it made complete sense at this point.  Half a bottle of wine later, as I skidded on an escaped piece of pepper and fell into the cat’s water bowl, the light bulb in my lamp went pop.  It turns out that right at the back of my kitchen cupboard I have every type of light bulb ever designed…except the one I needed.  And I needed it as I couldn’t turn the main light on when TTB was here as I didn’t have time too hoover and Norman had liberally spread his fur over the carpet, presumably in protest at not being able to get out the cat flap.

When I had the light bulb situation and dinner under control I thought I should probably get some of the anti inflammatory into Charlie cat.  I have no idea how but while attempting this I managed to spill my third glass of wine (which, in retrospect was a good thing) and get Charlie’s medicine in my eye…

I decided that there really was nothing more that could go wrong, poured another glass of wine and took a deep breath.  Just in time…TTB pulled up outside.  I attempted ‘sober’ failed at ‘serene domestic godess’ and opened the door drunkenly with a winking eye and a wet right trouser leg.

‘Could I have a quick shower? asked TTB

No problem…I retrieved my only spare towel from the airing cupboard and held it out to him.  At which point we both realised that I’d clearly used it in some sort of makingness as it was missing an interesting, almost bib like shape from one corner….

So yes, so much for having less disasters… :o)

grumpy Charlie...he wouldn't even look at me!

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