Up and rarin' to go

Well, if I can have a sit down every few minutes............

One of the things that has cheered me up a bit over the past couple of weeks is sorting through holiday photos taken over the past few years and I've now come up with this list of favourite places I've visited:

1. Turkey, which has a sub list of its own:
a) Ephesus
b) Cappadocia
c) Pumakale
d) Istanbul
2. Cuba
3. Montreal
4. Barcelona
5. Vancouver
6. Rome
7. Crete
8. Cyprus (particularly the North)
9. Corsica
10. The Gambia

Places I couldn't wait to come home from:

1. Malta
2. Tenerife
3. Alicante

Favourite places in Great Britain:

1. The Gower Peninsular
2. Bath
3. Chester
4. Wisley Gardens
5. Tunbridge Wells
6. Lake District
7. Peak District
8. Whitby
9. Hever Castle
10. Richmond Park

Next trip: long weekend in Avignon
Somewhere I've been wanting to go for years: Hampstead Heath

Oops....

This should have been in my last post:

Sexcercise

Not only but also....

An orgasm a day keeps the doctor away. - Mae West

It just keeps getting better!! If I now struggle to fit a visit to the gym into my daily routine where am I going to find someone to get between the sheets at 10 o'clock in the morning?

Come 'flu with me

If you rest, you rust. - Helen Hayes (1900-1993)

I think I have 'flu. I think it's not the avian variety. But.........I HATE being unwell!! I HATE sitting around not physically able to do anything much but totally fed up. No appetite so I can't indulge in those foods I've just discovered are now OK to eat. Boring, boring, boring..... Yes I am, so now I'll shut up.

We (the family that is) were going greyhound racing tonight at Wimbledon Stadium; they still are; I'm staying home. OK, now I WILL shut up.

I'm in the mood.............

It's gonna be a long hard drag, but we'll make it. - Janis Joplin

I have been trying, on and off, all day to put a flickr badge on my blog and have followed the instructions on their website to the letter but, so far, nix!! I know that it's probably all to do with HTML, which is a total mystery to me. However, I'll persevere.

Here's some cheery news: some of my favourite foods are recommended in an article in The Independent for helping to beat the winter blues and boost your mood.
According to the British Cheese Board, far from causing nightmares, eating cheese before bedtime may actually aid a good night's sleep, or so says Neil Stanley, director of research at Surrey University's Sleep Disorders Unit.
Bananas contain tryptophan, a mood enhancer.
Leafy greens are nature's antidepressants.
Vanilla ice cream can help boost a flagging sex life, which is bound to cheer you up.
And finally, a study in The Nursing Standard recommends moderate to light alcohol intake for better emotional wellbeing. Cheers!!

Fore!!!!

The real reason your pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can't see him laughing at you - Phyllis Diller

Started my day yesterday by having a 'quick' look at my emails before breakfast. Two hours later, after trying unsuccessfully to publish a really interesting blog about newspapers (it kept telling me that my html edits hadn't been opened properly), it occurred to me that I'd better get a move on as I was booked into a golf lesson with the Tuesday morning ladies' social group. Last week was great - only two of us there so almost one-to-one tuition for an hour. This week not so great - 6 people turned up so, at the most, 10 minutes undivided attention. Nonetheless it was good practise and I did learn something!!

Afterwards a visit to Painshill Park in Cobham, a walk through a truly 18th century landscape. The follies in the garden are wonderful (a Turkish Tent, grotto, hermit's retreat and many more). Until the end of February, if you can prove that you live in Surrey, you can get in for free. It was very cold and grey but well worth the visit. Will probably go again next week.

Just noticed that I've done it again - 9am not yet dressed and have to be out by 10.15 - must fly....

Housework can kill you if done right. (Erma Bombeck 1927-1996)

At last......I've found a quote that I can use to justify my non-commitment to all housework. This lady, Erma Bombeck, never spoke a truer word. I would like to assure anyone who may be interested that I DO housework - I just don't treat it like a career and if anything better comes along (and it usually does) then I do that instead.

Interestingly, there was an article in a magazine, written by someone who confessed to loathing ironing, that said ironing is all the rage, apparently, in swish social circles with female lawyers, bankers and executives boasting at dinner parties about how they "do their own ironing", the implication being that they are a cross between a real woman and a domestic godess. I'll stay unreal and a domestic devil if it's all the same to you!

To add to my guilt trip a book entitled Happy Housewives by Darla Shine is climbing up the US charts with its advice to bond with your home and get back into the kitchen. Let's lift our spatulas and start demanding some respect! Whoa.... I'm afraid that's not all I would want to do with my spatula if ever I met Ms Shine.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud, (Wordsworth)

A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.



This morning is lovely - sharp, clear blue sky and the sun shining. The daffodil bulbs are just beginning to appear and I feel the first stirrings of WANTING to be outside in the garden!!

Going soon to Cafe Piccolo in Weybridge to celebrate David's 67th birthday; have bought him a long weekend away for two in Avignon by rail (Eurostar to Lille and then TGV to Avignon) in March. Hope he decides to take me!!!

Last night took Thomas to see Sleeping Beauty pantomime in Pyrford Village Hall. It was what it was - grown-ups cross dressing in very over-the-top clothes, children dressing up as animals and stealing the show, out of tune (and worse) singing, corny jokes, everyone having a jolly good time. We enjoyed it immensely.

Tonight is rehearsal for the Ottershaw Players' very adult pantomime. Let's hope that everyone enjoys THAT immensely.

Simple Simon went a-fishing
For to catch a whale,
But all the water he had got
Was in his mother's pail.





He should have tried here then.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4631396.stm

No man is esteemed for gay garments but by fools and women (Sir Walter Raleigh)

I don't know what started this train of thought but here goes:

• Why is 'drag' called 'drag'?
• If a woman dresses in a men's clothes is it still called 'drag'? If not what? ('pull' perhaps?)
• Would she be a 'drag king'?
• Are there drag shows with only women cross dressing?
• Do people who get turned on by drag go to pantomimes just to get excited about the Dame? And if so shouldn't they be on some sort of sex offender list? (You can't get similarly excited about the Principal Boy as she/he ALWAYS looks like a woman.)
• Is the landlord of our 'local' a closet drag queen? (He certainly looked like one on New Year's Eve when he was The Lady in Red)

Please send your answers (if you can be bothered) to these important questions via 'comments' below. (Please note: there are no prizes on offer)

That's Life........

It's all MaryB's fault!!

There I was smug, self-satisfied, aren't I doing well sticking to my 'sensible' intake of food (I hate the word diet) THEN I read her blog Mid-January comfort food in which she tempts you to think of your favourite comfort foods. Well, that did it for me. Her list is bad enough (even those I've never tried sounded scrummy) but then I had to think of my own list which, of course, are readily available.

In the cold light of day it wasn't too much of a problem but then the cold, dark evening set in and that was me finished.....

Having a husband who can eat anything and still remain at approximately the same weight after 43 years and a 9 year-old grandson who is with me most days means that the fridge and cupboards have in them stuff which I should avoid; BUT unfortunately my willpower is a bit iffy at times and the other evening was one of those times. The cheese was first - just a small cube won't hurt (small turned into about 3 ounces and of course I had to have biscuits and butter with it). Then it was the biscuits - just one (oh yeahh!!). Oh, and a couple of glasses of red to go with it all. I did stop there because I was getting strange looks from my husband because of my frequent visits to the kitchen and then coming back with half-hidden food which I unsuccessfully tried to eat without him seeing (he's used to seeing the wine go down!)

Well, as Frank would have sung if these had been the words: You're riding high on Wednesday, shot down on Thursday, back on top, back on top on Friday.

I'll just have to stop being that girl who can't say 'no' but that's another blog!

All things come round to him who will but wait. (Longfellow)

Will I still be feeling this way at 4.55pm today? You see, I'm waiting in for an engineer to call from Dell Computers to fix the D drive. He can arrive any time between 9am and 5pm - this arrangement always puts me on edge because I believe that if I go to the loo or go outside to put the rubbish in the bin or even answer the phone he'll arrive at that precise moment, ring the bell, wait exactly 10 seconds then put a card through the door saying 'I called but you were out' and go (it has happened I can assure you).

This time it's worse because, dear reader, 2 days ago my patience was tried to its limit by Dell when I called them to arrange a visit from a computer vet who could cure my little electronic friend of its habit of swallowing discs and not giving them back. First off the friendly person who took my call (and guess what - I didn't have to go through hundreds of press 1 for this or 2 for that choices, only 2) said to me, in an accent I found difficult to interpret, "Yes, Mrs Moore, your warranty expired in August 2003 but how can we help you?". "No, no" said I, "I paid good money for a 'next day, home visit' extended warranty, it's not August yet." with which he eventually agreed. "Before I arrange a visit, I'd like you to just try some simple things. It'll only take 5 minutes or so."

OK - it's my own fault, I should have put a stop to it long before - but 1 HOUR LATER there I am crawling around on the floor (my computer isn't exactly easily accessible) having tried, failed, tried again and succeeded to remove the cover and jiggle around with the wiring. THEN to be nonchalantly told "Oh well, that didn't work, we'll send an engineer tomorrow." really was the last straw. I pointed out that when I was persuaded to take out my extended warranty one of the advantages that helped 'sell' it was the next day, home visit bit. However, Mr Jobsworth only responded that he was only following company policy, so there, and would I like to speak to his manager. He would arrange for someone to call me back as, currently, I was paying. Did I get the call? Is that a pink pig I see flying over?

Anyway, must go, I think I heard the doorbell.

Book Fest

Hoorah - the postman has just delivered my order from Amazon :

• The Meaning of Everything by Simon Winchester
• The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester
• The Google Story by David A. Vise

Haven't read a really good book for ages (well about 3 weeks) so I hope I've got some treats ahead of me!

PS When you spellcheck 'Google' it comes up with 'Googol' (definition: The number 10 raised to the power 100 (10100), written out as the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros), which apparently Brin and Page meant to call it in the first place but misspelt it.

Literary Gems

After reading a review in the Sunday paper about a new(ish) book telling the story of the rise and rise of Google (more to follow) I logged on to Amazon, so that I could get a copy in my hot little hands ASAP, and found that among my recommendations was Mr Brown Can Moo, Can You a Dr Seuss boardbook. Wow, I thought, they've at last got to grips with my taste in literature, I wonder what it was that helped them. It appears that the big clue for them was that I'd recently looked at The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester (thanks MaryB for your recommendation that led me to this). I can only assume that Mr Brown was a professor who looked up 'moo' in the dictionary, went mad and killed a cow!.........now I'll have to read it to find out.

Anyway, the book about Google........this is called The Google Story by David A.Vise and if the review is anything to go by would seem to be well worth reading. The bit that caught my attention initially was the description of employee working conditions and benefits:

'At the company's Silicon Valley headquarters, staff receive free massages at the end of the day. The lavatories have six levels of heat for the seat and an automated washing and drying system that does away with the need for loo paper. There's a free canteen that serves the kind of organic food that costs a fortune anywhere else, and you are even allowed to bring your dog to work. Oh, and 20 per cent of employees' time can be spent on research that is personal and has no obvious direct benefit to Google.'

It was the toilet facilities that grabbed me and together with the other perks could tempt me back to working life. However I think the commute would be a tad too much.

Florence Nightingale, eat your heart out

What a lovely afternoon I've had!!

Thomas (grandson, age 9) had to be collected from school at 11.30 because he was feeling sick and they didn't want him throwing up on the premises. By the time we got home he was feeling a bit better (going to the fridge to see what there was to eat after eating his packed lunch gave me a bit of a clue) but I insisted that he had to sit quietly for the afternoon because THAT gave me the excuse to sit quietly also! The downside to this was that he wanted to watch Kid's TV - payback time for me. Then I remembered that I had recently purchased Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits specifically for Thomas to watch in order to nourish his appreciation of the arts. I had forgotten what a great film this is!! Not as sophisticated as Harry Potter but just as enjoyable.

My favourite lines:

Evil: God isn't interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!

Robert: Slugs.

Evil: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can't hear. They can't speak. They can't operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?

I thoroughly enjoyed my afternoon ministering to the sick and am pleased to say he made a complete recovery.

Could be the start of something......

I read a comment from PT to MaryB where he claims to be among a select (depends what you're selecting them for) group of people who have invented a couple of new colloquiallisms, namely spoon (fool or idiot) and its antonym, lord (very clever).

This led me to consider printing out this correspondence just in case the Oxford English Dictionary will ever in the future want to research these words and their beginnings. You see I have been watching the very interesting and entertaining programme 'Balderdash & Piffle' (BBC2, Mondays) and it appears that the OED call on the general public to help them research their work and decide what to put in the book. For example, have you got any written evidence of the word 'minger' before 1995? Or can any cricketer out there tell them why an unplayable delivery is now known as a 'jaffa'? This is an example of a term that isn't yet in the OED. The earliest reference so far refers to Australian Shane Warne's delivery to Mike Gatting of England in 1993 but is there anything written before this?

Please go to www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/wordhunt where you will find all sorts of interesting words, their meanings and you never know you may be able to help in compiling the dictionary. I know that this is going to be another source of where my time goes!

However please be warned. If you gor the the OED's website in the hope of looking up a word or two, it will cost you: £23 ($30)/month or £230 ($295)/year.

I Have a Little List

Seven Reasons I'm not a true blogger
It takes me forever to think up a clever & witty title
I don't know how to insert links using key words & phrases
I don't know how to edit text when making a comment
I haven't yet worked out how to insert a picture in my profile
I don't know what a tag is
I don't know how to put slinking on to my page
I don't understand how to do almost anything related to blogging

Seven Books I've recently read
The Innocent by Harlan Coben (current)
Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett
Sight Unseen by Robert Goddard
Dark Horse by Tami Hoag
I Didn't Get Where I Am Today by David Nobbs
The Closers by Michael Connelly
The Crow Road by Iain Banks

Seven Artists I listen to on my ipod
Lemony Snicket
Aretha Franklin
Nigel Kennedy
Barry Manilow (sorry!)
Katie Melua
Chris Rea
Eddie Izzard

Seven Things to do before I die
Visit Costa Rica
Get my garden into proper shape
Get Pete's garden into proper shape
Learn to play Mah Jong
Say I love you more often
Get over Christmas
Travel first class on an aeroplane

Seven Things I cannot do
Confrontation
Climb higher than 3 feet
Perform on stage
Watch Big Brother or Celebrity
Most things involving boats or ships going long distances on water
Be cross with Thomas for any length of time
Totally believe in anything that a politician says

Seven Things that attract me to my spouse/partner
His tolerance
His fortitude in the face of the fact that I now dislike housework/cooking (not that he does it for me!)
His sense of humour
His willingness to help me out in any of my interests/projects without complaint
His patience
His acceptance of me and my many faults over the last 40+ years
Just him being himself

Seven Things I say most often
Bugger
Bollocks
Fuck (but I only say this in my head as I'm an old lady & don't approve!)
Thomas! (please note that I don't say any of the above out loud when Thomas is around)
Please
Thank you
Please yourself!

Seven Movies I could watch over & over
Chicago
The Shawshank Redemption
Airplane!
Strictly Ballroom
The Magnificent Seven
Grease
The Wrong Trousers (does this count?)

money, money, money

There's an article in today's paper about a couple who have won£12+ million on the lottery but have not given any to the woman's sister. They've given houses, money, etc to other members of the family but not to this sister (or her son), who apparently are living on benefits and don't think it's fair even though they haven't been speaking for a few years.

Well, so what. If I win the lottery there are all sorts of people that I won't be giving money to, including family members who I've lost touch with. Is it a condition of winning that you have to give some (or all) of it away to people you don't like?

Why does this national newspaper think this is 'news'? Why did I bother to read it and get upset about it?

It was only supposed to take 5 minutes

Well it's taken me about4 weeks! Now here I am with a blog which probably no-one in their right mind will want to read unless they want to be bored to death.

Another morning spent at my computer when I could have been doing really fun things like housework, ironing, gardening, shopping in Sainsbury's.

Here's something interesting - for the past 4 weeks the recycling bin collection team have been catching the neighbourhood out by coming at about 8.00 am instead of 10.30, thereby forcing people out on to the streets in their night attire or trying to finish their breakfasts whilst putting out the bottles. I personally either gave it a miss or put the bins out the night before and hoped it didn't rain. However, this morning I decided it was a good opportunity to get up early, get dressed and start my day bright and early. Guess what - nearly midday and they still haven't been. You see, if I think that's intesting you can tell what a sad person I am.