Winging it

Thank you so so so much Mr Smith for not making me go to the Golf club dinner and dance last night with all your horrid old cronies and their ghastly wives; even if this is because the tickets were £60 which you were too mean to pay.

Mr Smith has found a game larder shop in Kent and comes back with a haul that might make you think he was a full time poacher.  Last night we had wood pigeon which was OK but a bit pongy.  The night before it was rabbit stew and that was a bit on the high side too.  There is venison, partridge and something unidentified to go.  I just want baked beans on toast.  I am becoming increasingly unexcited by stinky bits of dead animals.  It's Romney Marsh lamb tonight; the stuff that has grazed in front of the nuclear power station and glows in the dark.  I will shove it around my plate.

I must away to my wings.  One is together ... shortly to be demoulded.  The other next.  Then major repairs then attachment. Oh God, please please make it go alright.  I am at the end of my tether here.

Later:  They went like a dream.  One is a bit fatter than the other but they are both wing shaped and the Apprentice admired them greatly.  Even Mr Smith raised an approving eyebrow.  I think he was dreading the floods of tears and "what am I going to do" wailing that was anticipated.  Now the next part of the saga ... attaching them. I fear it might rain tomorrow so it will be ... attaching them in the rain.  Mr Smith can hold the umbrella.

Who's Queen?

I nearly have wings. They are still in their casts but the two halves are bolted together and tomorrow morning I will aim to stick both bits together then get them out of their cases.  Then I will fly away. Except I have to work out how to attach the wings to the cow.  I think I will just not think about it and hope for the best.  I have had enough sleepless nights.  I have also had enough of fibreglass.  So have my poor family.

I took Mr Smith to B&Q to look at colours for (what is rapidly becoming his rather than our) flat in Kent.  He had his face on.  That is not a good start. We just got a matchpot of some pale yellow for the hall as my rather elegant grey has been ruled out.  I have given up all hope of this flat ever being mine.  I found some rather groovy spotty tiles but they were immediately disliked.  I thought they were just the thing for the kitchen.  I will put them up in the bathroom.  I will get a spotty blind .. aha. Then it will be a bit more Mrs Smith's bolt hole and a bit less Mr Smith's golf pad.

I don't actually like this pattern but I am getting a bit nosey spitey facey.

All things bright and beautiful

Ok now that I have eventually got this up and working I can't think of any burning issues I need to get off my chest.  Cow is now outside and the overpowering stink of resin has disappeared from our house. The really messy casts are off and I have done the first layer of fibreglass in the shed. God knows how I will get them together but that's the challenge for another day.  I have run out of catalyst - there is always something!  I have some other stuff that might do the trick but it gets very hot as it goes off and I don't want to burn the shed down.

Kent colours are proving tricky. Sedate grey is out.  I am now looking at shades of primrose with Mr Smith who I am convinced is colourblind.  Actually, no, he just has dreadful taste and picks yellows that would make traffic wardens feel excited.  It needs curbing.  I am aiming for something sunny and bright and seasidey.  Mr Smith is aiming for a migraine.

Prickly cow

Dilemma du jour ... There usually is one.  I have run out of fibreglass matting.  No bad thing in one respect as I have it stuck up my arms and I look like a cactus.  Every time I wear an item of clothing that too takes on cactus qualities which doesn't matter right now but if, in the distant future when I have stopped messing about with fibreglass, I should want to wear that item again ooooooh ow.  Anyway, off to see Ollie Pigeon for more fibreglass and more reassurance.  And then it's one step closer to finishing this vile thing.  I am ready to cast.  I just need a drill which the Apprentice has nicked and then I can make the appropriate holes and then with all my very most strength try to pull the moulds off the cows wings and chuck everything outside.  No more resinous pong.  I will remove myself to the shed to make the new wings for the other cow there.  I make it sound easy.  Watch this space.  I am either going to die of asphyxia or stress.  Yet to be decided.

Apart from cows there is the stress of decorating flat in Kent and preventing Mr Smith from putting traffic warden yellow on the bedroom walls and bright blue in the sitting room.  I think I have lost the sitting room battle and it will be sky blue.  However, I have chosen a rather sedate pale grey for the hallway which I know he hates.  Not sure I like it that much either but I am so anxious to avoid any shades of sludge.  Things are very mushroom there at the moment.  I want seaside crispness.

And now boys and girls I am going to make some Lovely Claudia bread from the flour milled by The Lovely Claudia's great grandfather; with bits of fibreglass or without?

You come knock knock knocking at my door

More things go wrong with the cow and now it's raining.  Oh dear.  I will never, ever take on a job like this again.  I bet I do.  I have "I've never met a girl like you before" stuck on my brain.  I only know two lines and they will be on loop in my head all day long. I will sing them to the cow until I download the song with fibreglass fingers and hear it on my iPad.

Now what?  Mmmm I have decided to go no alcohol for a week.  Easy peasy now but watch me climb up the wall on Friday.  Actually, I will still have a cow to wing so that will not happen as I need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed for every second of the day.

I was paid £75 for a job yesterday after which I took our balding dog to the vet.  We saw a new, rather thorough, vet who gave us new pills and a potion.  Cost: £75.  And I thought I would buy myself something nice with the money I had earned.  Oh well, if the dog ends up a bit hairier it will be worth it; I won't have to knit him a coat.

I am expecting great deliveries for Kent today.  It's the fire thingy and the lights.  Then I had better see what's happened to the bed.  Where is it?  Oh, and when can that builder start?  As soon as those cows are done I will go there.  Maybe just for the day but I would like to feel it is mine.  Then I can stop Mr Smith thinking it's his.

Who is George Foreman?

The cow client rang me last night.  Impending doom is back.  She is so nice and understanding; I told her everything has gone horribly wrong but I will do my best.  She was kind but she wants her cows back by the weekend with wings. oh ha ha ha ha.  Oh god, it looks like a few late nights and no Corrie for me.  I must get something that looks like a pair of wings out as soon as is humanly possible.  The latest horror is the two pieces have stuck together despite using mountains of release spray.  It appears not to work.  I will have to use something else on the other side.  I have been trying to cut them apart with a scalpel. Oh my goodness this is difficult.  Anyway, back to the shop today for more supplies.

I have been asked to do a bit of market research on electric grills.  I had no idea what an electric grill was until the Apprentice told me it's that thing endorsed by George Foreman who I don't think plays a ukulele. Wasn't he a boxer? Oh well I think the job is for Tefal so it doesn't matter who he is. Anyway, all I have to do is tip up for a bit of a chit chat and get £75.  Oh jolly deee. I was going that way anyway to get more supplies for the cow casting and they are just round the corner.

When the Lovely Claudia and I were at Earls Court Baking Show I bought some flour from a rather nice stand that had rows of milled flour in smart coloured packets displayed nicely. It was called Marriages.  It transpired that this was Claudia's great grandfather's family business.  So she and the girl on the stall ended up having a great chinwag working out how they were related.  It was positively Who do you think you are?  Last night I made bread from Claudia's bread flour and very good it was too.  I initially thought it wasn't as good as our usual but the whole load went in an evening so it can't be inedible.  Perhaps I should make a loaf for Claudia ....

When I have done the cow.

Have your cake and eat it ... All.

Ate the cake. Well, not every last mermaid scale.

This man, who I had never seen before, told me my cake was really good.  How nice was that!  He is Mary Berry's nasty sidekick on the Great British bakeoff which I will now watch with avid intent.

Paul Hollywood

The Rivals

There was competition, some of it serious.  The Great Big Cake looked rather splendid for about five minutes then I saw some really good ones.  Lend me a fork at once, I feel some stabbing coming on.

The fish and chips won though it wouldn't have been my choice.  rgere doesn't seem to be any actual cake although the fish and the chips are very realistic, and excellent newspaper.

Suddenly, I have this cosy blanket of relief that has engulfed me.  Oh me oh my, I am back to my normal self.  I can now get on with the cow without the feeling of impending doom I had hanging over me.  Of course I am very worried but nothing like I was.  I have had a serious look at Miss Cow and I think I will conquer the Problem of everything falling off ... A bit.  I have this week to finish making my casts then all hell breaks loose.

Anyway, on a good note I feel on top of the world but on a bad note I have my appetite back and haven't stopped eating.  I started yesterday with shortbread petticoat tails for breakfast.  I ate a whole circle and felt just fine.  It went gradually downhill from there until dinner time when I upset a glass of wine into a kitchen drawer and down me into my shoes which were rather squelchy. I just shut the drawer and kicked off my shoes. I will deal with it all another day.  Mr Smith just wanted to know why there is a pair of shoes in the middle of the kitchen floor that smell like an old wino's shoes.  He asks all sorts of stupid questions.

This morning I must cow then this afternoon meet the Lovely Claudia and Mary Berry at the Cake & Bake Show. Ooooh, it's fun being me.

Cake & Bake Show

I took my Great Big Cake along to Earls Court where I was greeted in style.  I was taken up in the lift to the display area where I met other cakeists.  I actually have to say mine, despite being a bit thrown together, held its head up.  It was the only early arrival in the amateur section.  By some miracle nothing fell off on the way despite Mr Smith's swervy driving and ManditheKiwi hitting a cyclist with the car door.  The cyclist wasn't too happy and I shouted and Mandi who then cried.  We were giving her a lift home on the way to deliver the cake. Anyway, it was very nice of Mr Smith to drive me there.  He sat in the car park listening to the cricket whilst I ponced about in cakeland feeling all happy.  When we got home I called ManditheKiwi and she perked up a bit despite being in her cups having drunk a whole bottle of wine.  It was the second cyclist with whom she had had an altercation in a day; Boris having nearly squashed her with his bicycle at lunch time.  She will have a headache today.  I have a headache today and I only had a few glasses of celebratory sauce.

Anyway, today I am off to the show for real, just for the morning to attend a lecture on painting on cakes.  You might think this is easy but let me tell you, my efforts have not exactly been Sistine Chapel ceiling ... More like that woman who bogged up the Jesus fresco in Spain. I am hoping to find out how to do it properly.

It was a great relief to get the cake finished and early too.  I wonder where all the other non professional entries had got to.  Claudia says they are all panicking madly and remaking their cakes for delivery tomorrow.. Badly!  Teehee.  On Sunday the Lovely Claudia and I are going to the show for the whole afternoon.  I am really taking advantage of my weekend pass.  I told her I had entered her for the live cake decorating contest where you have to decorate a dummy cake (a bit of cake shaped polystyrene) in an hour, being told the theme 30 mins previously.  Actually, it's the sort of thing I would be quite good at but enough is enough and I would probably get my knickers in a twist and if there is one thing I do not need it is any more pressure in my life.  I have a cow and Kent and Mr Smith to do that.

Grand Designs

Mr Smith rings me from John Lewis lighting department.  "Look on line at no 287". But I am up to my armpits in fibreglass in one room and in cake icing in the other.  Just buy the lights of your desires.  He wouldn't dare!  We checked out lights later together and he is going to buy them today.  Good heavens, I did two houses up completely by myself, in fact four.  I am not really sure how.  Maybe I didn't have such pressurised art projects looming over me at the time.  Anyway, I don't entirely resent the input of Mr Smith.  He is so excited about his poky little flat; I found him watching Kevin McCloud last night.

At the weekend I will be sending the Apprentice and Mr Smith off to Kent with the colour samples and light fittings.  They will also need a tea bag and a mug.  I shall pack them a little goody bag.

I found out that our flat belonged to two ladies with a preference for sensible shoes.  "So this is what lesbian bad taste looks like" says Gary our builder.  No, it's just naff.

Carry on screaming

Oh my goodness, these levels of angst are just too awful to live with.  The cows are just impossibly difficult but I have to do them - no choice.  The Great Big Cake is proving a bit of a challenge too.  The moulding paste got a bit too dry and cracked a bit making my mermaid look about 80 years old. Apparently you have to use vegetable fat to stop that happening.  Aha.  Now I know.

OK.  How to organise things:

1. Remove disastrous bit of cow wing and redo it properly.
2. Make items for cake off cake and glue them on.

1. Work on cake all morning.
2.  Drink a bottle of wine and forget all about the cows.

Oh I just need to calm down and never ever take on such difficult work ever again. The whole thing just makes me feel ill. I see how people end up having nervous breakdowns.

Mr Smith and I went to B&Q to choose a fire and some wall colours for Kent. Mr Smith chose traffic warden yellow for the bedroom.  Is the man colour blind?  I went seven shades lighter.  I then chose a particularly pale colour for the sitting room "atmosphere".  I will wear him down on that one. As regards the fire I told him I want anything except the Smeg.  He came home and ordered the Smeg on line.  I am now worrying about curtains and carpets. I just want a quiet life.  Get an interior designer.

Look, when those cows are done I can stop screaming.

Colour me beautiful

Well we are now the new proud owners of our pokey little seaside flat. What colour shall we paint the walls?  No idea.  I thought a very pale blue but they all look grey or white.  Mmmmm.  We don't agree.  In the end I will paint all four walls different colours and then we might at least like one of them.  I am giving our decorator screaming habjabs by making him paint bright red walls white and covering stripey walls.  Oh well at least I'm not doing it.  I am making cow's wings.

Today I have a very very busy day.  I absolutely have to decorate a cake and attend to those cows.  I might just do it all day long and see how well I get on.  Then tomorrow I can do some more.  Mr Smith wants me to investigate paint colours and buy a fireplace thingy.  I need a helper.  Not Mr Smith.

I have a knee.  It's giving me a bit of jip, especially at night.  I am trying to ignore it.  I thought it might be fuelled by alcohol but actually no.  I have been off the old sauce of late and it still hurts.
Mr Smith is most sympathetic - "They shoot horses" he says.

28 Years

Day off, yippee.  We are off to Kent to take possession of our new property.  Mr Smith is awfully excited and has a builder all lined up.  I am a bit indifferent.  Wish I had finished those cow's wings but I haven't.  It is a task so beyond me that I wake up screaming most nights.  I cannot sleep, I cannot eat and I cannot think about flats in Kent.

This week is primarily Great Big Cake week.  I made some brilliant pebbles and I am thinking about the shark and mermaid and I had a practice with the waves.  I have faith in this one although I am diving into the unknown.  It's quite good fun.

I love our days out to the seaside.  At last Mr Smith and I are doing something together.  It's taken us 28 years to find solidarity.

The late late show

My tummy hurts. This is because Mr Smith took me out for a delicious anniversary dinner and I thoroughly overdid it.  I feel so full.  I think it was the white chocolate and toasted pineapple tart that did me in.  The slight problem we had with our meal was the chronically slow service.  We didn't actually eat til 10 which gave us an hour and a half wait for our food. Too long. I was pretty pissed off but managed not to drink the whole bottle of wine before we ate.  I didn't want to drink without my food which meant getting through 3 jugs of water as an aperitif.  They were unusually busy and blamed the delay on two parties they had in.  They shouldn't have taken the bookings if they couldn't cope.  my dinner was fabulous  - just late.

The cow does not bode well.  Her wings are heavy and nothing sticks so it is all falling off.  I will try to stick things back today.  I have a cunning plan, Baldrick.

The cake is big and blue and high.  I see a few problems with that too.  Today I will make a shark and a mermaid and maybe an experimental wave.  Then I will work on shells.  Here's something tricky - a seagull made out of icing.  You try!  So far I have a penguin and a dodo and a bald eagle.

A relaxing day

Changed the sheets, bathed the dog, cleaned the kitchen, washed the floor, pegged out the laundry, made the Great Big Cake, put gel coat on cow wings which slid off in places, bought cake dec supplies, made cupcakes with ManditheKiwi and had a 28th Wedding Anniversary.  I'm shattered.

Didn't you go swimming?  No, Mr Smith, I didn't.  You lazy cow.

So many cooks

Today's blog reads exactly as yesterday's.  Put the stuff on the cow's wing and in the night it all slid off.  Add the momentous traffic jam I was stuck in all morning in the bus plus getting drunk with ManditheKiwi who came round for dinner, and that's my day.  I did meet up with Ollie Pigeon who explained the mysteries of casting a little more clearly.  I didn't expect him to be at the shop so it was a pleasant surprise to see him.  He says it always slides off but pay no attention.  Ah a Delia of a man. (I like her Don't worry if it goes a bit lumpy/curdles etc advice). He also sold me some thickener to make the stuff a bit more like toothpaste and a little less like glace icing.

We then concentrated on the Great Big Cake and how I was going to make little fish and shells from fimo then cast them and he had all the kit and a lovely little instrument to poke bits with.  I need to get some modelling paste and get cracking.  I feel a mermaid coming on at any moment.

Today is fish soup day.  Mr Smith demands Bouillebasse.  Mrs Smith and Anthony Warrell- Thompson will convene.  Soup will be made. I have found a nice Rick Stein recipe and there's a Jamie too. I have a better idea .... just buy some from Waitrose and chuck in a bit of extra prawn tails or something but annoyingly Mr Smith is at home today.  It's dalek Friday.  I don't want to be exterminated again like I was this morning for not getting out of bed super early and rushing off to the market before any of the stalls were set up!  If he sees me opening a can or packet of fish soup I may as well exterminate myself on the spot.

It is our wedding anniversary tomorrow.  I can't quite remember how many years but we got married somewhere back in the dark ages.

Messy Moo

OH NO.  I put the rubber solution on the cow's wing and it all slid off.  What a mess.  Start again. Back to Tiranti for more supplies and something to keep the rubber solution in place. I hate these fucking cows.

And now for something else I can mess up.  Mr Smith wants me to make Bouillebasse or however you spell it.  Fish soup.  Off to source some fish in North End Road market.  Not sure about mussels as I dont know if they have them in the market or how good they will be.  I might get those in a vacuum pack from Sainsburys.  Don't tell on me.

The Great Big Cake is all cooked and ready to be sculpted.  It is really fairly stress free .... Those cows are using every microbead of angst I can muster.  Tomorrow I will go to the cake decorating supplies shop - my heaven!

Oh look it is sunny.  Better go and make hay.

Melancholy mood

A better day for Mrs Smith although I am once again entering the competition to be Britain's oldest menstruating woman and got hit quite hard by pmt.  I was really down, still am a bit.  I just wanted to be quiet but my boys had loud football on telly and shouting.  I just wanted everyone to go away.  It is sunny today so I am perking up.

I took myself off to London town yesterday to visit Tiranti, the casting supplies shop, where I had a little refresher course on how to cast.  I took my not very trusty fold up shopping trolly that folds itself up at just the wrong moment and filled it with casting supplies.  My goodness it was heavy.  It only folded up its wheels once as I was getting on the bus and I had to drag it to my seat.  Embarrassing.  I kicked it a bit and locked its wheel back in place.  I think I was expecting rather great things of it.  Anyway, the chap at the shop was brilliant and explained everything so clearly and was so encouraging.  The client is paying for the stuff. Happy me.

Mr Smith has postponed the purchase of our flat til Monday. Perfect.  Sometimes he listens to me.  I just want to get the cows done then I can play at the seaside.

Reading interesting book The Beck Diet Solution.  This is not a diet but tells you how to stick to a diet and owns up to the fact that dieting is difficult, takes time and is like having a job.  It involves lots of sticky bits of paper and notes.  So if you see a woman carrying around lots of little bits of paper with little messages on them .. she's probably me.  I don't think Mr Smith is going to take kindly to awful little post-its everywhere.  I might skip that bit and stay fat.

Mrs Smith's day off

Yesterday I had a no cow day.  I needed to have a break as they are giving me a massive headache.   I did everything else instead.  I cleaned up our pigsty of a kitchen, baked the first section of the Great Big Cake, cleaned out the Dyson including washing some hidden parts.  Apparently you should do this monthly.  I have done it once in three years.  I then topped off my domestic achievements by cleaning the barbecue, a really disgusting job of unparalleled gunkiness.  Many pairs of rubber gloves and scouring things later it still looks greasy and vile.

I spent the rest of the day doing my, very difficult jigsaw puzzle.  I can't really moan as it was me who designed it.  The nice company are sending me a new board today without a bloody great ridge in the middle.  No charge.  Oh how kind, right and proper.  I don't even have to return the old one.

This morning I got up early, assessed the cows .... Mmmm.  Perhaps not as bad as I thought.  I then admired my squeaky clean kitchen and made two more layers of the Great Big Cake.  I made a bit of a botch turning out the top section but they all have to be sculpted into a giant mound so it'll be fine.
No cake crumbs allowed in my clean kitchen.  I told Mr Smith off for leaving his breakfast things on the side and standing messily. What a houseproud little fairy I am turning into.  Makes a change from a total slut I suppose.

Oh bullocks!

I am starting to panic.  Apparently we have only one day of nice weather left and I have to get the cows finished.  I sprayed one of them yesterday and all the spray just blew off like dust.  Oh blast.  I went and bought more spray paint but I am a bit afraid to try it.  The neighbours cough.  Spray paint is a bit ahem hack hack.  Mr Smith and I have moved the cows down to the vegetable garden.  He moaned.  I will cover the last of the beans in spray paint.  He will then moan more.

Then I have a set of wings to make.

Then I have to somehow attach a set of wings to a cow.

Then I can make my cake and do my jigsaw puzzle which is very tricky indeedy.  The expensive tray thing I bought to do it on has a nasty ridge in the middle.  I don't think it did when it came but I left in the hot sun so now it's all waffly so it's a bit like doing a puzzle on your bed.  I wrote to the people and moaned.  I suppose I will have to send it back but the Apprentice undid the parcel when it arrived and the packaging looks like a pack of wild animals have attacked it.

There is one blessing of the day, Mr Smith has gone to golf ... dressed like a stripey carrot.

Paying for the privelege

Mr Smith has offered me a lunch out at the golf club for our anniversary next week.  A bit dreary but I suppose so.  "Have you got any credit on your club card?" Yes thanks.  So I have to pay as well.  Stuff that.

We almost own our little Kent seaside retreat.  Next week I hand over all my money and we die poor.

I would have painted cows today but my jigsaw arrived.  I vowed to keep it for Christmas so I tore off the paper and made an immediate start and have done nothing else all day but sit in the sun piecing bits of monkeys together. It is very tricky.  The special mat thingy I bought is a bit waffly which makes the puzzle almost impossible.  I have complained.  I think it is because  I left it in the sun.  I woud send it back but the Apprentice opened the package tearing it to shreds.  Packing will be majorly tricky.

Day of Judgement

I love Fridays because Mr Smith does the housework and shopping and gardening.  I hate Fridays because Mr Smith is around all day and I feel I am being monitored.  I like staring into space, staying in bed and not doing much whilst he performs all the tasks.  It's what I do best.

Oh well, better get the old overalls on and out to the cows to prep their wings and mend and paint.  I am a little trooper, me.  Mad Carina is coming to visit later this morning and admire the cows.  I haven't seen her for ages and she's had a turn since our last when she was incarcerated in the loony bin and met a woman who was suffering from a conspiracy theory who showed Carina how to make a bomb.  I am looking forward to learning.  Maybe I could blow up the cows, ring the owner and explain there has been an awful accident.  Then I can make my cake.

Must get the dog's toenails clipped; they have grown into horrible talons that make a nasty clacking noise on the kitchen floor and make him rather lame.  Maybe the vet could do my toenails at the same time.

Oh for the wings of a cow

I went to the gym again today.  A personal trainer sat on me.  This is rather good actually; they stretch out your muscles and bend you and push your legs into uncomfortable positions then sit on you.  I must point out they are tiny little gymnastic looking girls not beefy men.

The cows are lowing.  I am idling .... waiting for materials to arrive.  I will paint the cows cream whilst I wait.  It is so lovely and sunny out and I feel rather well with my gymning and swimming.  I normally want to curl up on the sofa with a rerun of Corrie for mental stimulation of an afternooon but today I feel industrious.

Yesterday was my laundry day but I got a bit sidetracked along the way and forgot to peg out Mr Smith's clothes.  I did so later in the afternoon.  I then put mine on to tumble .... nobody will know.  Mr Smith came home whilst I was on the telephone to my mother.  "What time did you put these out?  Why is the tumble drier running on the hottest day of the year?"  9am like you asked me and the line was full so I thought I'd just get them done and out of the way.  A bird had pooed on his shirt.  Honestly you would have thought I had done it the way he went on.  He said it was because I had hung the shirt up late and the wrong way.  I thought a bit of subversive pegging out would go undetected; I didn't know we had grassy birds.  I ploughed through a mighty pile of ironing which he told me should have been done last week.  It was, it regenerated.  I noticed he was wearing his dalek socks.   I knew dinner was going to be a hoot.  The sauce wasn't quite right or something and it was the wrong kind of pasta.  He gave it to the dog who has had hiccups ever since. 

I wish I had a seaside abode.  The purchase of Kent has been delayed; our flat I mean, not the whole county.  I must cow.

Sweat sweat pants

I went for my Induction at the gym.  Can we stop now, I have really had enough?  That's just the warm up.  Oh.  Today I ache.

We bought a new dishwasher.  Well done.  It was not that easy actually; I won't bore you with every detail but just let you know you pay more for the thing to not have a front than a nice white one.  We want it to disguise itself as a kitchen cupboard so that's an extra £100 then we want them to install it and take the old one away, add another £100.  So really, the price is not the price and it is very expensive.  The alternative of washing up by hand is just not an option.  I hardly manage the saucepans.

I am waiting for my jigsaw puzzle to arrive.  This is very exciting.  My picture wasn't exactly the right dimensions and I couldn't sort it out because the customers wanted dinner and were starting to get tetchy and the Great British Bakeoff was on the telly.  Will they have cut off all the monkeys? Probably.

Today I will paint some cow's wings and design an amazing mermaid cake.  Sometimes it is mad being me.

Terrific Tuesday

What excitements do we have planned today then?  Oh yes, in a moment of desperation in pursuit of the ever elusive body beautiful, I joined the gym.  Today I get induced.  I think this induction involves some kind of assessment of my fitness levels which probably come in at a little below those of my sofa.  I hate gym.  I will give it a whirl and probably make an arse of myself then never go again.

I am beginning to hate the cows.  Don't tell them .... Please.  They are really difficult.  My friend Gordon Engineer rang me yesterday.  Oh what perfect timing.  He was kind and helpful and is going to give me lots of real advice on how to cast and attach new wings.  Ollie Pigeon was quite helpful but Gordon has lots of free kit for us.

Hooray, seaside flat purchase has been delayed by a few days, possibly a week.  May it stumble over many more legal problems.  I just need to get my cows out of the way.  Then the cake.  Then the next painting.  Then my holiday to the Caribbean.  Then Christmas.

Later this afternoon I am meeting Mr Smith in John Lewis to buy a new dishwasher.  Our current one is so awful it's time to throw in the tea towel.  I don't find this sort of purchase terribly exciting unlike shoes or dresses.  At least I don't have to try it on.

Gooey brains

Yesterday morning I zealously cowed but I didn't add enough hardener to the filler so it wouldn't set. Oh well, it probably will eventually.  I decided to eat chocolate in front of Cinderella whilst I waited.  It still didn't harden so I had a Magnum and watched the unbelievably beautiful Vivian Leigh as Anna Karenina - Kiera you really have your work cut out girl.  The filler was still sticky so I scraped it off and redid it.  I now need more kit and go for a swim to sort out my hideous weight gain and get some of the filler out of my hair.

It's a diet day today.  Whilst it's quite liberating not having to eat much of course all I do all day is obsess about food.  The forbidden biscuit becomes oh so desirable.  I will stay focused on my cows' wings which are supposed to look like smooth stone but actually look like moon.  They did look like mouldy cheese so there is a notable improvement.  I will just stay busy. I am trying to work out how to cast these wings and attach them to the other cow and design a big blue seaside cake whilst thinking of Claudia's garden.  You don't want to look inside my head, it's very strange.

I bought Mr Smith a device to help him cut straight slices of bread.  It looks a bit like a big toast rack.  The idea is you put your loaf into it and cut between the bars.  That bread slicer thing is useless, he says.  He's broken it.  Back to hunks and chunks for him then.  I will see if I can get a better one in Lakeland, if I can get past their obsequious over politeness.  I would love to find someone offhand in that shop - just for fun.

Fire fire - no really, there is a fire.

My cow mending went very well and the first cow will end up with beautiful smooth wings ..... in about a fortnight of constant sanding day and night until I ache. The second cow is outside in the garden eating grass.

I have worked out I am now busy every day til late November.  I have simply taken on too much work.  Never mind; I will do it and keep Mr Smith happy.  Yesterday the Apprentice did all the jobs on my task list - well, not the ironing or making a prize winning cake, painting Claudia's garden or making a picnic for Mr Smith's outing to Lords tomorrow.  But he did all my boring computing jobs including setting up my Internet banking and moving money from my account into his.  "No mother, you haven't got the hang of this at all, let me show you again with a bit more money."

 I was just settling down to the crossword at the end of a cow day when there was a loud bang outside my front door.  I nonchalantly looked up thinking a skip had fallen off a lorry or something.  Suddenly there was an explosion and huge flames poured out of the front end of a dark blue Mercedes.  Why did they have to park right outside my house?  Is this taxicab wars?  I stood mouth ajar for a bit as though this wasn't real then thought I had better summon a fire engine.  Please come quick before the rear end goes because that will blow out our windows for sure.  I have to hand it to them, the fire brigade were so speedy and arrived in a trice.  I admired firemen for a bit with the rest of the street then chatted to the car owner who looked a little shaken. He wasn't a taxi driver.  He was simply a rather posh man driving his rather posh car when he noticed his car getting a bit hot so pulled over and .... Kerpow.  Now his car is toast, very burnt toast, wet burnt toast with white foam.  Mrs Nosey made tea for the firemen and police which she brought out on a silver tray.  The Apprentice made a film on his phone that we played to Mr Smith and the Best Boy when they got home.  It was jolly exciting, if a little frightening.  No other cars were harmed in the making of this film.  

A grand day out

Having seen the particulars for a flat with a garden for sale in Kent, Mr Smith headed the scouting party, consisting of me, the Apprentice and the dog, off to the coast for the day.  It was a gorgeous sunny day so we ignored the cold wind and embraced the sea air.  The flat was too small and a bit studenty, the only redeeming feature being a little studio in the garden.  It made us quietly confident about the one we are about to buy.  I am happy and, more importantly, so is Mr Smith.

We went to Mr Smith's golf club for a dose of crustiness.  It makes me feel as though I am on the set of an Agatha Christie, Murder on the Links.  We had lunch at Dungeness; nuclear fish and chips which was just perfect.  After a trudge along the very hard work shingle we mooched off to Rye.  Mr Smith had his face on and was starting to whinge.  We paid no attention and set off to potter about the antique shops and cobbled streets preventing Mr Smith, who had cheered up a bit, from buying a butter churn.  We took him to an art exhib instead.  It was very good.  Even Mr Smith, who wanted to stay outside because it cost 50p, agreed it was enjoyable.  I paid.

We ended up at Ashford Retail Outlet which for me is a bit like heaven, even more so because I will pass it every time I visit the Kent coast.  I bought some Zara Phillips riding clothes for my goddaughter, Lizzie, so she can ride like Zara and get lots of medals.

I got home to two cows and an email "Congratulations, your cake has been selected as one of the winning entries to our Seaside Cake competition".  Oh bugger.