Oh so pretty, so pretty

So well and happy and kids all a ok and doggy woggy lovely and Mr Smith out hitting little white pellets into holes on greens.  I am baking today.  I have three cakes Delia, Mary and me and another Delia - I always want to give Delia a complimentary H at the end, don't you?  Here is how they are doing.  In no particular order - Delia's banana loaf - bloody perfect.  Mary's banana cake - slow ie not cooked in the time it said.  My almond and cherry, and all the leftover stuff in the cupboard short of chilli, cake - complete rubbish; it will burnt on the top before the middle cooks.  Delia's Dundee - this requires 2 - 2.5 hrs of cooking. I think half an hour is a huge time difference.  We will see.

This morning in that bit of morning before you are really awake, or before anyone else is awake, like on Christmas morning when you can sneak a look at your pressies so you know whether to feign surprise or not, I did something bad.  I accidentally ordered the iron of my dreams from America.  It is yellow, floats up and down in the air on magic legs and cost more than $200 due to stupid import duty.  I only know I bought this because I have just had an email confirming what I thought was a dream.  Oh well.  It will be lovely and very weird.

I have asked Mr Smith for two things for Christmas. One is a fancy mixer and the other a sports bag.  The impending introduction of these items into my life post has rendered all other bags and mixers awful and dreadful and inadequate.  The magimix is just no good and all bags wrong of handle or capacity.  Roll on Christmas.

Make me better

I have a stinking cold.  You know how you shouldn't ........but antibiotics really help.  I had some hanging about from a previous ailment.  I can't say I feel fine but I feel a lot better than I did and that is not just my cold clearing up.  I am full of it.

Now, I am being very makey these days.  I made a tea towel bag at a workshop last week which is superb and I have a big sewing bag on the go - instructions a bit wordy but I am getting there with much help from lovely neighboury person Who gave me the pattern.

On Wednesday at sewing group I got elected to be bookmaker - not taking bets but person who has to make a Christmas book then demo it to all and get them all to make Christmas books to hang on a tree.  Fun or nightmare?  Mine will be very arty. I want to get on with this but no chance with a stinking cold, a bouncy puppy, a bag to make and a Mr Smith demanding a meal.  I also want to make Donna a lovely bag for her birthday.  60.  Blimey we're all getting old.  How scarey!

And now back to bed with pills. 

House party

People are coming and the pudding has gone wrong.

We have slain a fatted lobster, hung temporary curtains as the new ones are still with the curtain lady and cleaned and spruced our house.  The boys have come home and messed it all up again.  I still have to finish the headboard I am making for the other spare room and trying to get the dog wee off the bedcover in the small bedroom. That damned puppy; he ate yew berries and had mammoth shits all over the kitchen floor.  He starts school on Monday.

On Thursday evening Glen the Good hosted a giant ice bucket challenge at the pub.  He rigged up plastic half barrels on a scaffold, stuck everyone underneath it and you can imagine the rest.  I watched from the safety of my nice dry house and popped round afterwards to congratulate some very wet people.  It was a brilliant event and raised over £500 for a local charity.  Well done everyone.

My weight stayed the same this week, yet again.  I really despair.  I might have to actually do the diet in order to shift some pounds.  I will this week but this weekend might be a bit tricky.  Actually, the pudding has gone wrong so I might be safe.

And now to be the hostess of the mostest despite Mr Smith's best efforts to scupper the weekend.  He has bought the tiniest leg of lamb to feed the five thousand.  It will be a case of Is that nice for you? as he serves each person a teeny slither of meat on their plate.  Oh well, they will have to eat lots of pudding - oh they can't, it's gone horribly wrong.  

Number Six

We went to the dog show.  He came sixth.  Our puppy who hadn't a clue what he was supposed to be doing, sat down and had a bit of a scratch then bounced about instead of walking nicely and tried to play with the other well behaved pups.  Useless.  But he won a rosette ... which he ate when he got home.  I now own the sixth best puppy in the world.  We are so proud.  There were only seven pups in the whole class.

I love things like that - local dog show.  It was fun and low key and all the dogs were nice and not growly and their owners were delightful.  We watched several events - puppies, seniors, young handlers (best dog with a child), greyhounds and we left at friendliest dog which looked a bit over subscribed.

And now he is exhausted.

Eaty Arty

We have been eating rather well of late.  Mr Smith is getting wonderful dinners every night. My new cook book arrived The Hairy Dieters.  We have followed their recipes to the letter and made some amazing meals.  The portions are rather on the large side as they are for big hungry hairy bikers rather than fat little artists so I get it for lunch next day.  Haven't lost an ounce.  Actually, this is because I went on the razzle on Tuesday and got slaughtered.  I still feel hungover and it's Saturday.

Hythe dog show today.  We are taking the puppy and putting him through his paces.  He is hopeless at anything that involves obedience and is totally thick so the agility course should be a hoot. He looks pretty.

Took the eldest fruit of my loins to a Folkestone for the day on Thurs where there was some dreadful art passed off as the Folkestone Triennial - the sort of thing that required a lot of words to describe its conceptuality.  We didn't see Yoko Ono's step ladder or Andy Goldworthy's stairs with cement chucked down them but fell in love with the ticket office, a giant seagull with a window in its wing.  Thank God Mr Smith wasn't with us.

My pompom shoulder injury nags on.  Much better but still apparent.

Is it a bird, is it a plane?

There are certain things I had rather stupidly overlooked when moving to the country such as the clanging of church bells and the smell of manure.  Then there are nice things such as tradesmen and practitioners being a lot less expensive, people in shops being cheery and polite and everyone knowing the names of birds and trees.  Mr Smith: Robin, horse chestnut.  Me: Blackbird, yes I know it's brown; it's Mrs Blackbird,
Christmas tree.  After that it's just bird, tree, let's go shopping ..... for a bird book and I spy trees.

The reason for all this: I found a dead bird, in my dog's mouth.  He didn't kill it but was so proud of his trophy and furious with me for prising his jaws apart to remove feather and maggot.  It was ringed so I looked online and reported it.  I am supposed to keep the ring.  But it is attached to putrid bird and I don't fancy cutting its little leg off.  Consider it reported, end of.  What type of bird?  Gawd, I dunno, one with wings, green wings.  So it must be a greenfinch.  Looks like a greenfinch to me.  Dead greenfinch.

I am repairing well.  I made a pompom sheep and some biscuits.

Rerotation

Arm still hurts like billio.  I even had to forego sewing group on Wednesday in favour of sitting around moaning.  I have been trying to do the treatment and exercises prescribed by the osteopath but, given the amount of pain they render, I suspect he was joking.  I am a fairy with one wing who can only fly in circles.  I have to admit it is a lot better this morning but don't tell Mr Smith.  I need the sympathy which is fast waning if it was ever there at all.  My injury is an inconvenience to him - no oats and he occasionally has to help me with an impossible task such as a zip.  So I think I will keep him as auxiliary nurse for a while longer and no, I will not go to his dull golf club picnic with wasps on Sunday.

And now I want to make pompoms. Am I mad?  No, of course I am not going to make pompoms; that's how I wrecked my rotator cuff in the first place.  I will finish off a quilt edging, apply moisturiser to my crusty ears, make a hair appointment and stick to a diet.

Mulberry, lovely pup, has learnt to lift his leg.  He still does girly wees too but we are so proud of him.  Perfect.

Rotation rotation

At the top of your arm there lies something called the rotator cuff.  This is a part of your body of which you can be blissfully unaware, rather like your liver or pancreas; that is until something goes wrong.  Oh my goodness me how it hurts.  I took it to an osteopath who was thoroughly thorough and good at the naming of parts but it still hurts and by hurt I don't mean gives me a little bit of gyp.  This is the full blown searing agony of a tendon strain that makes you want to scream for your mother temporarily forgetting she is not of the sympathetic tendency and doesn't care to be disturbed whilst on her latest caribbean holiday or flat buying spree in Chelsea.

The problem with lolling about on a sofa all day feeling sorry for yourself watching crappy films eating rubbish food is it makes you very fat.  Rock Hudson was SO good looking (ref to crappy films).  I tried to walk a bit but every step jolted my shoulder and made me want to cry.

Yesterday I took my eyes to the loveliest optician in all of Kent.  He declared my eyes spectacularly brilliant and just recommended sporting the reading lunettes whenever necessary.  No charge.  Must go to pound shop forthwith and stock up on more cheapy readers.  Can't drive due to stupid shoulder. Oh well, I will look at specs on line.  I remember one I loved years ago called Specky Four Eyes.

My puppy still has fleas.  I have waged war against the fleas with potions and sprays but I found one on him that looked in rude health ready to start a family.  Do these things actually work?  They are reassuringly expensive.

Mr Smith has been gardening.  I am impressed.  He is very destructive but it all looks very neat and tidy.  I think I quite liked it messy.  Oh well, it keeps him away from me and my shoulder.

Ow

Something ghastly has happened in my shoulder department.  I cannot move my arm without screaming in agony.  I think it is pompom makers arm as I made hundreds of pompoms and I think the repetitive tying has strained something or caused something to trap and my golly does it hurt.  It feels as though I have an arrow sticking through my shoulder joint.

I have spent two days in bed or in front of the telly motionless.  Pain killers really work and if I o.d. ridiculously I can then move a fraction of a inch.   Someone told me it might be a trapped bicep bit and it will take months to recover.

So all handicrafts are on hold.  I can't even read as I simply cannot concentrate.  Ow.

All things Mulberry

Mulberry has grown.  He is so so so sweet.  We are in love with our puppy and so is everyone else.

The pub had a beer festival.  It was loud.  We went and I got scowled at.  Glen the Good was once more good.  All seems to be forgiven.  But I am not gracing their portals again in a hurry.

Our Mulberry tree has fallen down.  Mr Smith puts on his mulberry gathering outfit and picks away furiously.  Once in a while you get a sweet one.  I made a Mulberry Mouse - amazing.  Just think blackcurrant.

We have redecorated our spare rooms and are awaiting elegant curtains.  We need them by Tuesday when we have a full house - Mr Smith's golfy friends.  I am running a B&B for free!

I seem to be enormously fat.  Oh dear.

Ironing out the kinks

I am barred from the pub.  Well, that is I barred myself.  After a frightful run in with Glen the Good, I am not entering the portals to be despised, slagged off or both.  They can do that without me.  I don't really like pubs that much anyway.  I feel uncomfortable amongst people I don't know and who, on the whole, seem a bit snooty towards me.  They are suspicious and jealous and seem to think speaking the queen's English is a nasty infection that might be catching.  I think it is time to start behaving appropriately and stop upsetting people.  I suppose I should be doing charitable works or something.  Just fancying David Cameron and being a bit loud aren't really great qualities for endearing yourself to man in the pub or anyone else.

Now I am concentrating on being nicer and getting thinner.  Mr Smith is away in France jouer au golf.  Je suis stuck at home scared to go out of my front door.  But I have done all the washing and ironing (which took me forever) and my darling boy has put Netflix on my iPad - though it isn't actually working.  I learnt how to fold fitted sheets on YouTube and found the lump on the back of my head is probably just a wart, not a cancerous melanoma.

Oh how I love our little dog.  

Puppy post

Two idiotic people stand out in the rain under a large umbrella trying to will a poo out of a small dog.  We are besotted.  He is adorable.  Starting my day at 6am is a bit like hard work as is carpet preservation.  Is he getting the hang of house training or is anything performed outside just coincidental.

We voted in the Euro elections and the man who nearly won my vote is a french bus driver who lives in Britain and calls himself the Roman Party, Ave.  His manifesto is Do as the Romans Do.  However, nobody could replace Dave in my heart.

Off to collect my free World Cup wall chart from Tesco - it might make me detest the whole foo'ball thing less.  Doubt it.  Do you think the ironing might do itself whilst I'm out?

Puppy patrol

I suddenly had an urge to have a dog.  Work done and last bits of visiting friends done.  Puppy has arrived.  Now time to play.  He is adorable.  Name: Mulberry, Occupation: Chewing things.

I am exhausted.

Post Easter

Easter was wonderful.  There I was carefully planning my post Easter diet when I won the pub Easter egg.  It was massive.  Now I am massive.  Mr Smith polices my eating like a dalek on patrol.  Oh for goodness sake, just exterminate me.  Our Easter egg hunt was a great success and we are still finding chocolate eggs around our garden.  It was so gloriously sunny some of the eggs melted - chocolate goo - good fun.

I started swimming at the local caravan holiday park.  The pool is lovely but you have to enter it through the amusement arcade which is very like the gates to hell.  It has got a bit busy of late so I went back to my lovely posh health club in Ashford where I had the pool to myself.  Delish.

I finished the Caribbean painting, sent it off and duly got paid.  Wheeehee.  I like the client now even if he did change the colour of the pillars when I had I finished.  I did a quick alteration and packed it in a billion layers of cardboard and seven rolls of parcel tape.

Off to stay with smelly Simon & Donna for the weekend.  I am being given a bedroom rather than sleeping in the cat litter.  They are my bezzi mates and are very kind but their immaculate standards of housekeeping are not exactly their best attributes.  I love them dearly and I am sure we will have a really lovely time in the Witterings and environs.  Donna and I are planning on mosying around the sheds and garages of the arty on an art trail through West Sussex.  We will guffaw at awful watercolours and dreadful pottery, rubbish beads and bad sewing but be still spend loads of money on silly things, as one does.  After all, that dalek will be trundling his wheels o'er the golf course in Kent.

Eggs is eggs ... Well, they were.

I ate too much and I might explode.  Stand well back.  Mr Smith did this really weird thing; he made Yorkshire pudding with roast pork.  Oh no no no what does he think he is doing, turning our dining room into a Toby Carvery?  I despair between Yorkshire puddings sky risen and perfect, slopping with gravy, piled upon the fork and rammed into gob.  Oh divinity sublimity.  And crackling.

Alexander and I then ate all the Easter eggs bought for the Easter egg hunt on Easter Monday.  We didn't think much of Daim but we liked all the others - must get more.

I am in the final throws of Caribbean painting.  I hate this painting.  I hate his house. I hate his pets and I hate him.  Well, actually I quite like him but he wants to see his painting and I haven't finished it.  Today should be the last day and I would do it but I have to write a list of ways to lose weight without leaving your bed.  I have got stuck at don't eat anything.  I then have to watch the carpenter bodge up more doors.  I may even take some exercise.  I will start another diet ... It's Monday.  I will eat only super foods whatever they are.  I will get out of bed.  I will paint.

A pound of flesh

The doorman is still bodging away costing us a fortune as he is so damned slow.  In fact Mr Smith was rather cross about it all and brought his anger with him on our shopping trip on Friday.  He got all crotchety in Poundland, dumping the basket in the middle of the aisle then coming to tell me my shopping was causing an obstruction.  I have to admit Poundland is perhaps not the place to go in the Easter holidays where unwashed small children steal mountains of cheap chocolate whilst their single parents ignore them.  It was loud and revolting.  However 24 scouring pads for a pound - wow.  Mr Smith bought two fly swats.  Beware flies he's in a mood.

Mr Smith golfs, I paint.  Mr Smith is getting rather good at golf, winning things which is very bad for him.  I am being chased by my client wanting to see a photograph of his painting.  But I haven't done it!  My lies will become inventive. I told him I just have to put in his car and his dog when in reality I have only just started and the thing is a total mess.  I can come up with non working camera and broken computer yet.  Anyway he doesn't want it til 26th April which is Ages yet.

Well better go and spread paint around.

On the other hand my procrastinating patchwork is coming along nicely.

I have a cold.  This makes the painting far harder work.

Doorman

An irritating man has come to mend our door.  It is worse than before now.  I wanted him to fix it then we could appraise his work and see if we wanted him to do some other things but Mr Smith decided to march him round the house showing him every last little carpentry need so he has now got several jobs on the go - all bodge ups.  I am quite cross.

I am hungry.  Maybe it's my diet working.  I have now lost a stone since February.  I feel I just have two more pounds to go then I am ready to start stone number two in earnest.

Yesterday I walked to Dymchurch and back.  20k steps registered on my dear little Fitbit. Why are people so aghast? It's only about an hour's walk and there is a lovely tea shop there that I just managed to still catch open and ram down a piece of scrumptious marmelade cake.  Though actually I like the tea shop here better.  The walk back was performed a bit more best foot forward so it was exactly an hour.  In the days of the costume drama everyone walked many a mile and Larkrise was eight miles from Candleford and Laura didn't have a horse.

I am painting.  It's coming along slowly.  I have decided two good hours are better than five rubbish ones so I commit myself to just two hours a day.  Any more is an added bonus.  Finished Bridget Jones Mad about the boy and sobbed throughout.  I now need another talking book.  They calm me down and make me paint nicely.  Painting needs to be done by 20th April which is probably a Sunday.  I then need to courier it to the client in Southampton.  It will be done.

My mother and other poisonous creatures

Having been summoned to the aid of the party by my mother with threats of refusing to look after my ailing father in a display of her usual selfishness, when I got there I actually found a woman who was very afraid of the future and man who was slightly losing the plot.  He is about 95% ok but there are gaps.  He is old and not terribly mobile, a bit deaf with memory lapses.  She is intolerant and doesn't like to be inconvenienced.  She is making some positive steps such as getting a psychologist to have a look at him though it is her who is certifiably insane.  She also calmed down when I was there and stopped being a total cow for about 5 minutes but she is not a particularly practical person making everything much harder work than necessary and bombarding my father with too much in one go.  She is so impatient and aggressive.  There was a lovely bit when she got locked out of the flat and we didn't hear the bell.  Her fault for forgetting her keys.  We had about half an hour of peace during which we cleared out some old files.  She is convinced we ignored the bell on purpose.  We were not particularly impressed when she got a chair and came to watch.  God she was annoying!

Anyway, I have done my daughterly duty and she will not dare to call upon me again in a hurry.  Phew!

My client emailed me giving me a date for the painting.  Hooray, deadline set.  I will get on with it now and with my mother out of the way I can be uninterrupted for two weeks and bash it out.  

Nodless

I am having a little problem in the sleep department.  I wake up very very early which makes me very tired at night so I go to bed absolutely shattered at 9pm then wake up very early or at repeated intervals through the night.  Last night I woke at 11pm ready to start my day ....before it had even become the next day.  That was my best yet.

I am also totally knackered all day.  I think a late night is required to break this dreadful cycle.

And then, of course, there is Mr Smith's dreadful snoring, gloating sleepy noises emphasising his perfect night's sleep and keeping me awake.

I am tired.  And crotchety.  I want to sleep through at least one whole night. 

There's no place like home

I don't like single beds or being mikes away from a bathroom.

I like my bed.

I am happy even if Mr Smith occupies the other side.

I am so dreading tomorrow.  I really dislike my mother intensely.  I know one shouldn't but she really is horrible.  She is a bully.  She doesn't want to look after my father because she is so selfish.  I want to fling her off the nearest cliff.  Why can't she just be nice?  I am so kind and lovely to my family.  It doesn't hurt to be kind.  I am being horrible to her giving her a taste of her own medicine.  She has to learn.  I am not just at her beck and call.... Oh but I am.

So tomorrow I am going all the way to London by train to empty one little cupboard because she can't inconvenience herself to help my father.  She is so mean.

I will do voodoo.  I wonder if it works.

Dorsetshire

I have been such a busy little bee.  Mr Smith went off golfing in Wales for a couple of days.  I was lonely but I did many a task and had a giant shouting match with my stupid mother.  She is driving me insane.  I really could do without her spoilt selfish manipulative behaviour right now.

I went up to London on Friday to the Savoy for cocktails and Jo Allen's for dinner.  It was an alcohol free evening to match my alcohol free Lent and it was fabulous.  If nobody else is drinking then you really don't feel the need to get sloshed.  However, I still managed a hangover the next day; just habit!
I stayed at my very odd brother in law's house which was extremely scummy.  I really don't think I can stay there again; it is just too uncomfortable.  I would have checked into the Renaissance hotel but it's £300 a night which is a bit steep.  I will find a nice hotel somewhere because I just cannot bear   that level of horror and discomfort for my London visits.  The bathroom is in a cupboard like on a boat, the bed is a horrible 1970s sofa bed with metal bits that dig into you and the furniture is a filing cabinet. The loo was broken and full of poo when I arrived (I had a fish around  in the cistern and got it to flush) and the main bathroom was absolutely disgusting.  The whole place stank.  Thank heavens a lovely Ukrainian cleaner with crap English but a handy loo brush attended the scene.  The house had a far lovelier aroma when I returned.

I am now in Dorset which is gorgeous.  My fat friend T has the most beautiful house in Dorchester.  Everything here is clean, comfortable and pretty.  I bought her a giant mushroom handbag which she absolutely loves.  Oh good because not everyone would want to carry round a toadstool with spots.

We went for a walk o'er the hills of Dorset and then around Portland on the Jurassic Coast - Amazing.  Oh the coastline - Portland Bill, Chesil Beach and the stunning cliff views just took my breath away.  Makes Kent look a bit dull.

The joy of staying with a fun friend.  We are wearing our onesies and making icing dogs for cupcakes today.  So gloriously untaxing and a million miles away from my mother, scuddy Geoffrey's flat, Mr Smith bollocking me for not putting out the rubbish properly which so isn't my job and all my nagging tasks.  A holiday!

Listless

The trouble of living by lists is they are never exhaustive.  Every task us simply replaced by another worse one.  I have done three outstanding monsters: finished off every bit of greenhouse, finished mending picture frames and picked up a load of junk I didn't want from my mother.

I have not got my cement mixer together, dug a herb bed, got the washing machine completely mended or started my painting.

I have booked my train ticket to go away next weekend.
I have cut strips for today's charity patchwork.
I have lost loads of weight.
I have started a new patchwork - bad me because I have so many half done ones.

Why can't I have simple things on my list like Get up.  Actually, that is often a mighty task. I love lolling around in bed reading the paper and messing up the crossword.  I feel a bit of that coming on now.

Spend spend spend

I won the lottery.  Well, I won £85 on the bonus ball pub sweepstake.  I was absolutely thrilled.  I feel rich now.  Viv Nicholson watch out.

I have bought a cement mixer to celebrate.  It arrives tomorrow and I am so excited.

I don't think it has rained for two weeks.  After the deluge we had day after day and everywhere being so flooded, including our cellar, this is a bit of a turn up.  Oh weather you are so strange.  I am actually having to water our plants.

I love my greenhouse.  New activity: pottering.

Hercules herself

I really am steaming through the tasks.

Greenhouse painted
Raised beds made, filled and planted
Sheets changed
Garage cleared
First batch of paving made
Emma's patchwork pieces and papers cut
3" lengths cut for charity project.

To be done
Picture frame
Hanging baskets
A painting.

You see it is all huge procrastination because I don't want to paint the picture.  I will do it one day.

I am going to stay with my fat friend T at the end of the month.  So exciting.

Tootie Frootie

Moth war waged.  Only one carpet threadbare round edges - others were like that when we bought them at grotty auctions - which is probably why we have moth.

Raspberries planted.  All very confusing but they look like dead sticks in the ground so I assume that's right.  I watched terrifying YouTube vids of terrible things that attack your raspberries like raspberry blight.  I would rather have sat through the exorcist and Alien several times.  Anyway, if they grow we will be amazed.  I have to buy them potash and manure.  Such hard work for two little squidgy fruits at the end of the summer.

Off to London today to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia - my heavenly pig trough.  Mr Smith will be on his own.  I so hope he doesn't do too much damage.  

Mothly crew

I have now painted the greenhouse.  Sistine chapel eat your heart out.  It is white and lovely although there are splodges where the boys came to help.  In fact it looks like a flock of seagulls held a shitting party on the roof.  Oh well, I will get my handy little scraper onto it.

I walked to the cafe on Monday and it was open.  I then went onto Hythe.  Total 15 jolly good miles.  Actually, a new tea shoppe has just opened in the village with flowery bunting and poncy china and a notice telling you to keep calm and do something.  Oh how pleased I will be when they become yesteryear.  So really my 15 miles were a bit unnecessary.  I walked just across the road and had a cream tea.  Wow.  Lovely.

T and I are writing a book.  You cannot diet with a Hangover ... we tried.  First stop photos of selves. Second stop diet.  I have lost 9lbs so far and have been off the booze for Lent.  It doesn't seem to have made much difference to size of self.  I have to believe it will.

The boys went off to their hovel.  Oh it is so nice without them.  They are coming back today - groan.

Other news: Mr Smith's red pyjamas that he had made in India have made our sheets pink.  Our washing machine is leaking.  We have lost all the instructions to all our household appliances.  We can hardly shut our back door it has gone so wrong.  I keep seeing puppies - very tempting.  Not til paintings are finished.  Trying to revamp a gone wrong patchwork quilt.  Rather hard work.
We have moths.  Moth kit arrived so will wage war against the little critters.  

Adam Smith

My adventure involved a long walk to a tea shop that was closed!  And when I say long .... I mean 6 miles.  I took the bus back. It was full of the certified insane so I felt quite at home. I spent the entire afternoon and evening in the pub and missed dinner and fav tv show.  Hopeless!  I temporarily forgot I was supposed to be on a diet and on the wagon.  Oh dear.

I cleaned my greenhouse.  It is lovely.  I have little things in little pots.  I am sort of anxious about missing the moment but equally it seems too early to be sowing seeds.  I will plan a herb garden next and organise a raspberry cage.  I have dug the raspberry bed - I delegated much if it to Mr Smith as I don't even like horrible raspberries.  The canes and kit should arrive this week so I am well prepared for once.  I hope to fit in a couple of raised beds for veg.  Mr Smith will be busy.

People

At a time when I am most determined to lose weight I filled my house with people and cooked wonderful meals.  I will be fat forever but I will have lots of friends.

Mulberry House, with its nine bedrooms, is designed to have guests.  We love entertaining.  Well, I do and Mr Smith likes the idea of it but he then shouts at me.  I think I have put a stop to that as it is an unattractive trait that makes our guests feel uncomfortable.  I shouted back.

And now I fancy an adventure.  

Thumbs up

We went to France for the day. We ate France and bought loads of lovely food so we can continue to eat more France.  Oh lovely teeny mini petit vacance.  What a lovely day.

Yesterday I was just settling down to a little snooze and something like doctors for mental stimulation when the Best Boy arrived at the back door pouring blood.  I rushed him to hospital where he had an X-ray and a smart bandage on his very minor injury to a thumb.  I was so stressed by the whole thing I had to go to the pub and exceed the dose.  We then had Chinese takeaway and I polished off a huge bar of french chocolate.  I may well explode.  It was gorgeous.

Mr Smith didn't really get my concern.  He had been at his nice cosy London office all day.  Actually, he is frightful in a crisis so just as well.  However, a bit of "there, there it's all better now" would not have gone amiss.  From him?  Silly me.

Wet wet wet

Our pump works a treat, non stop.  Mr Smith feeds it by sweeping tidal waves from the cellar floor towards it.  Tomorrow we are going to France for the day and we pray it doesn't rain for one whole day.

Mad Carina is coming to stay and I am SO excited.  I haven't actually told Mr Smith.  His friends are coming too.  A house party - such fun, except for the cooking and cleaning.  I have no idea what to cook.  Maybe we can buy it all in France.

Today I worked out my entire calorie intake for the day.  The sheer effort should burn off a million calories.  One day I will be thinner and my clothes will magically fit.

Fatty Birthday

He had a birthday then I had a birthday.  We went to Tenterden on his and Margate on mine. Oh how it rained.  I still had a magical day, ate a vast amount of birthday cake and got loads of wonderful pressies and cards.

I put on 2lbs in weight which wouldn't have mattered that much but it was the second week of my diet - useless!

 Our cellar is full of water.  I told Mr Smith to get a pump.  He did.  It doesn't work.  Time to bale again I fear.  Wellies on.

A relapse

I was better ... for a day.  So I had a drink and it hit me BAM.  I had a two day awful hangover with the headache from hell.  I was floored.  Day one was spent in bed and day two on the sofa.  I still have the remnants of the headache on Day 3.  I honestly thought I was recovering from the deadness of my beloved dog but I think it was one of those situations when your brain catches up.  People get migraines over Christmas when the stress of the build up stops.  It is as you destress that the headache catches you.  My god it was a corker.

So all in all I haven't been good for much since we got back from India.  We had one lovely day out in Canterbury when it was sunny. We found a lovely gallery and the cathedral was beautiful and we said prayers for our departed friend.  And that was the last time I felt sad.  Well, I am not ready to talk  about his death or look at too many photos but I am getting better.  The realisation that my dog was more popular than me on Facebook is a bit of an eye opener - need more friends?

I have joined Slimming World with a view to reducing size of backside.  We will see.  Nice friends.  I will give it my best shot.

Today my hairs are to be dressed - Levi Roots.  Party with Mr Smith in London tomorrow and we are staying with sensible Alison.  Ed is fishing.  I wish I wasn't so bloody fat.

The terrible void

Tried to pull myself together.  Went for a walk in the pouring rain with tears streaming down my face.  Met Alcoholic Andy (recovering) at the seaside who tells me his Alsation is on his last legs and was supposed to be put down yesterday but has made a sudden recovery ... temporarily.  Dogs do that.

I wrote a list of things to do: wash hair, moisturise suntanned body; deal with laundry; wash up; go for a walk; make juice; paint a painting.  I managed it all except the painting.  When I got out the book and the paints the energy dwindled and I just couldn't quite face it.  I will try again tomorrow.

I am still very very sad.  I need loving.  I miss my darling dog.  

Dear dog

What's a dog?  A bit of animated fluff on a string upon which you lavish love.  So much love.
Oh the void, the presence of death hanging in the atmosphere of this house.  I have to get out.  I am imprisoned in misery, engulfed in grief.  I cannot function properly.  My head aches as though it has an axe sticking through half my brain.  16 hours sleep a day still isn't enough.  I want my dog.  He has gone.  I loved him so much and he loved me back.  I cry all the time.  I need to do something else, go somewhere else.  I will walk to the sea.  I will walk back.  There will be no dog to greet me on my return.  There was a dead pigeon on the path.  How did it die? I was supposed to move it; I didn't.  Something has dragged it away in the night.  I now feel remiss for being unable to perform the most mundane task but I couldn't deal with any more death.  I think it was too much for me.  To be honest getting out of bed is too much for me.  I might stay here all day.  The duvet mops up the tears quite satisfactorily.  

Post India

We flew back business class.

Our dog is dead and right now so is a part of me.
Why do we have them, all they do is fart and then break your heart by dying.
RIP Basil.  I will never forget you my fluffy friend.

Run rabbit run

Not so much better today although the magic pill worked til 4am when it's marvellous properties suddenly wore off and Clare Balding and I were back on the bog.

I suggested Mr Smith might like to find a local pharmacy.  I know there are two down the road but you would have thought I had asked him to find an igloo on the beach.  He had his blank slightly batey face on so I decided to halt the expedition to the shops and get a top up from Glen the Good Magic Pill man.  He told us when we arrived that should we find ourselves in need of these during our holiday he would be happy to sell us one for the rest of our Indian money in the full knowledge that we would be happy to pay!  I thought he was joking.

Notes from the smallest room

The Goan Gallop is what they call it here.  Oooops the terrible trots.  I naively thought it wouldn't happen to me as I tipped more alcohol down my throat to help down my exotic curry in this heat.  This is where you are suddenly so grateful you are in a five star hotel and, better than that, the rest of your party have gone out on a boat trip .... without you.  Why I thought I would be immune I cannot imagine as I am the sort of traveller whose alimentary canal goes into spasm anywhere south of Brighton.  Anyway, Glen the Good produced a magic yellow pill that I am assured will sort me out.  Waiting for it to work whilst reading Clare Balding's autobiog on the bog in Goa will be a lasting memory.

By the way, Goa is incredibly beautiful but you will just have to excuse me from its splendours today.

Go go Goa

I cancelled the Nuclear Engineers and got on an aeroplane to Bombay.  Then the adventure got going.  Well, there had been an interesting bit at Heathrow when Mr Smith found he had left his bag at home.  Luckily I had the passports and his wallet was in his pocket.

Mumbai airport is probably much as you would imagine an airport to be .... Relaxed, calm, efficient .....yeah .... Not exactly!  Endless slow moving queues of thousands that, when you eventually get through, you discover are the wrong queue.  Thousands of people policed by zaggressive soldiers who won't let you through to the next bit of hell because you don't have the right paperwork.  Well, actually you did have the right paperwork but someone left it on the hall table in Kent!  At this point I felt travelling on my own through India would not be a  particularly dangerous or irresponsible thing to do.  I might even not get sent back to the start of the line again like an impossible computer game.

Well, when I thought we were finally through and stepping onto our plane to Goa, I still got sent back because my handbag wasn't wearing a stamped security tag.  It had been through security but I had to go all the way back to get a smudge on a tag, keeping the bus waiting and the aeroplane revving and, let me tell you, the Indians couldn't give a toss whether you miss your flight.  We are pleased to say we made it.

Glen the Good collected us and were we pleased to see him!

Goa is delicious.  It is the best holiday cocktail.  Even the old git with no paperwork is enjoying himself.    

Rooms vacant

Ooh goodness me, January came and I nearly missed it.  Off to India tomorrow and I am SO excited.

Last night I got a bit drunk in the pub and let all the rooms in our house to Nuclear Power Workers.  These are big burley Northern gits.  I don't think Mr Smith will be very pleased.  Well, it's loads of money so I might win him round. I have to evict the odd customer (my boys) but they have a house of their own so I don't see why they need rooms in mine.  Now to clean it all up for the new lodgers.

Apparently I have to transport big cheeses and bacon to India.  Our friends out there Naomi and Glen the Good must be having a party.