The Final Blow

I'd been winded. It seemed to throw me into a state of confusion. As I gasped for air I felt disoriented; dizzy. I staggered around. I felt weak. I didn't know how or where I would find the strength to continue. There was no more "fight" left in me.

Slowly, I straightened up and raised my head. My arms hung limp at my sides. I looked directly into his eyes. As he stared back at me, I knew there was only one thing left I could do. My survival depended on it.



"Mr Man, I'm going to have to go to Morrison's; we've run out of Shreddies" I whispered through my tears.

"Alright, settle down"

Two Blog Posts for the Price of One!

Yes I know; I don't update my blog for... ever, and then I post twice in one day! That's like "two for the price of one"! Or like "buy one get one free"! Don't you just love special offers? Well here's another one for you:

Tesco are selling packs of 12 bottles of J2O for £4.49! (Well, they are here anyway!) That's approximately 37p a bottle!

Don't forget to take the empty bottles to the bottle bank though - every little helps :)

Today's Top Tip

I know; I'm a very lazy, naughty blogger for not posting for so long. But to make up for it I'm going to share with you what is probably the most important advice I could ever give you:

If you have a dodgy tummy, don't sneeze on your way to the bathroom.

Thank goodness I wasn't in public!

Who Do You Think You Are?

The 4th and final single released from the Spice Girls’ 1st album “Spice” in March 1997 in the UK, and their 4th single to reach number one in the UK charts. It became the official Comic Relief single for 1997 and 2,200,000 copies were sold world wide.*


Who do these people think they are?

And they call the Police “Scum”?



*Please note: I am not a Spice Girls fan.

Stupidville UK

Oh yes, the town I live in contains the highest percentage of stupid people in the whole world. Unfortunately most of them drive.

Just the other day I pulled my car over to the right hand side of the road, ready to drive diagonally across the road to reverse my car into my drive. I saw a car approaching from the other direction, but seeing as the person had to stop at the crossing there was obviously no imminent danger of us having a head on collision. I have no idea what was going through the mind of this driver but as she passed she looked at me as if I was completely mad and muttered something under her breath. Did she think I was actually going to continue driving on the wrong side of the road for the whole length of the road? Has she never seen anyone park facing oncoming traffic before?

This isn’t the first time I have received funny looks when parking my car on my drive. I have no idea why but the whole “reversing car into drive” thing seems to completely confuse everyone in the vicinity. It’s like they’ve never seen it done before.

I seem to have the same problem when I’m parking in town. Today I was in a car park when I pulled diagonally across the “road” to reverse into a parking space, but the person in the car behind me pulled up right behind me! So naturally I shouted (as you do when you forget that your window is wound down) “Stop being so stupid! It’s obvious I’m reversing into a space! Why else would I drive diagonally across the road?” I don’t know if he heard me or not, but he backed off, and as he passed I gave him one of those “if looks could kill you would be dead right now” looks.

Sometimes people are a little overly patient though. Approaching crossroads on my way home there was a car sitting in the middle, facing me, waiting for me to pass so that he could turn. Now I make no exaggeration when I say I was still half way up the flamin’ road and a long way off from the junction – this person had all the time in the world to turn into the road, but I still had to flash him before he did.

Give me strength. It’s bad enough when pedestrians lack road sense, but other motorists?

You Are Now Entering… The Twilight Zone

I know; I’m a very naughty, lazy, blogger. I haven’t blogged in ages, but in truth, nothing very blog worthy has happened in my life of late. Of course, I still haven’t told you about the time I was hunted down by a police dog last summer, but I shall save that for another time now.

Today the most bizarre thing happened. I woke up and took out one of my ear plugs to see what time it was (I know; I still haven’t worked that one out yet either). It was 1pm on the dot. But when I went to return the ear plug, it had gone! I sat up, expecting to find that it had rolled under me (I know; I still haven’t figured out how something can roll under an immovable object, but it does sometimes). Still no ear plug. In fact, I virtually stripped the whole bed looking for it. It was nowhere. It had vanished.

Now, I’m familiar with the tooth fairy and the sock monster, but an ear plug taker? In front of my very eyes? (I know; I still haven’t figured out what “very eyes” are, but it sounds good)

Obviously by this time Mr Man had stirred.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m looking for my ear plug. I took it out to see what time it was (yeah, I still haven’t worked it out yet) and now I can’t find it”
“What is the time?” he asked out of interest.
“It’s one O’clock” I answered, as I looked at my watch again. I don’t know why I looked at my watch again because I already knew what the time was. I suppose it’s one of those pointless things that we do, like when old people look at their watches when you offer them a cup of tea. It seems that these little time keepers hold the answers to all of life’s important questions – like whether to have a cup of tea or not.

However, this time when I looked it was 12pm on the dot. Eh? How could I have misread that? I could understand it if it was 5 past 12 and in my bleary eyed state had mistaken it to be 1pm, but…

There was only one explanation for it – we had travelled back in time! Had The Ear Plug Taker reversed time so that I wouldn’t remember him/her/it taking my ear plug? And what do they do with them?

I suppose, for now at least, that will remain one of life’s unanswered questions…

Little Britain Abroad...

... Kenny Craig in Supermarket Sweep!

This is easily the funniest thing I have seen in the news for a long time.

“Police in Italy have issued footage of a man who is suspected of hypnotising supermarket checkout staff to hand over money from their cash registers.

In every case, the last thing staff reportedly remember is the thief leaning over and saying: "Look into my eyes", before finding the till empty.”
BBC News

I confess; the first thing I did when I read that last line is check the date to see if it was April the 1st!

I Have Piles

Yep, I have piles. Piles of washing, piles of dishes, piles of dust, piles of unopened mail…

Someone told me you could get a cream for it to soothe the itching. Is that the itching to run away? She didn’t say how or where to apply it though…

Shaken not Stirred

It seems Inspector Gadget was right – the public believe that every thing that goes wrong is the fault of the Police. Why else would so many people ring the Police to report that they felt a tremor last night and that it woke them up?

What do they expect the Police to do about it?

Crash and Burn

I finally have my new laptop up and running, which means I can now watch YouTube videos without my laptop over heating and exploding! So...

I was searching for the Sheryl Crow song "Crash and Burn" last night on YouTube, and came across this incredible singer by the name of Corinne Lucy. I strongly recommend that you check out all her YouTube videos here, and also her MySpace here where she has some full studio recordings of some of her own tracks. Apart from having a beautiful voice she also seems to be a bit of a... nutter, which I kind of like in people.

Ok, this is the moment of truth... can I figure out how to include a YouTube video in a blog post?



Some of my favourites include Songbird, Woman, and... well, most of them really.

A Commercial Break

I realise I haven’t updated this blog for quite a long time. View it as a commercial break; time to put the kettle on, nip to the loo, get the chocolate digestives out, or whatever else it is you do to avoid watching those annoying TV adverts.

For those of you who like to stay put and be entertained by the adverts…

Tesco have an amazingly special offer on Crunchy Nut Cornflakes at the moment. Buy one box for £2.58 or buy two boxes for £2.50! They’re paying you 8p to take a second box! That’s better than Buy One Get One Free!


Every little helps.

I See Stupid People

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I was in Subway’s the other week.

“Can I have a serviette please?” I asked the lad behind the counter.
“What’s one of those?” he asked, confused.
“You know, tissue to wipe my hands on”
It's only when someone else handed me one that he said:
“Oh, I call them napkins”

Yeah, same thing Einstein.


You think that’s bad. I was shopping for a frame today.

“Do you have any frames 50 x 60 cm?” I asked the shop assistant, who was probably in her 40’s.
“Let’s see… we have this one – 40 x 50 cm?” she offered.
“No, that’s too small” I said. Then she went on to offer me frames that were too big.
“What size did you say you wanted?” she asked eventually.
“50 x 60 cm” I confirmed.
“So that’s more of a square shape really isn’t it?”
“Umm, no, not really”

How can 50 x 60 cm be more of a square shape than 40 x 50 cm?


Changing the subject slightly (although maybe not completely) I thought I’d like to try my hand at knife throwing as a new hobby. I saw a lovely cleaver in town today…

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Here’s a question for you…

When I’m doing a turn in the road to reverse my car into my driveway, why do pedestrians on the pavement stop and look at me as if I’m aiming right for them and I’m going to mount the curb to run them over?

Seriously though; how many Irish Cream Truffles do you recon I could eat and still be under the driving limit? (Alcoholic Irish Cream silly, not dairy cream made from Irish cows!)

Just Another Day

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“Thirty Kenyans including many children have been burned to death in a church, after seeking refuge from the mounting violence over last week's elections.”


“A suicide bomber in Iraq has killed 30 people in an attack in the capital Baghdad, police reports say.”


“At least 13 people have been killed in attacks by gunmen on two police stations and a hotel in the Nigerian oil city of Port Harcourt.”


Happy New Year.



News headlines quoted from BBC News

Today's Top Worst Tip

Magic Knickers.

They're about as magic as Tesco's mushrooms. The value ones.

At £35 a pair I'd recommend that you save your money for... oh I dunno... a Betamax video maybe.

They didn’t suck me in one inch. Not even half an inch. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Diddly squat. Zip.

They did, however, give me an excellent workout trying to get into the bloomin’ things, and I concede that they would be useful in sub-zero temperatures seeing as they start somewhere near your armpits and end at your knee caps.

My final words on the subject:
Not attractive, and not practical in a toilet emergency.

Sigh. I guess I'll have to pass on the chocolate for a while.

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Good Neighbours?

After he had gone she played “their song” over and over again.

“Nobody gonna love me better, I must stick witu forever…”

She had already forgiven him for those hurtful words he had shouted at her before he walked out, slamming the door behind him. She regretted every hurtful word she shouted back at him. She just wanted him back, and wanted everything to be right again.

“A lover’s quarrel” I thought to myself. “He’ll be back when he’s cooled down”

These neighbours seemed different to the last ones. The neighbours we had previously were not much more than kids, and behaved as such. Loud friends, louder rave music, and shabby curtains that were never opened. They didn’t really have arguments as such; that would involve too much dialogue. But they had had fights.

When the new neighbours took the time to decorate the whole house before moving in, I took that as a good sign.

“It looks like they’ve finally moved in” I said to Mr Man one night. As I parked the car on our drive I had noticed people sitting in the living room by lamp light. There was a pram in the corner of the room, and a pretty lampshade hanging around the main light. They had obviously made a lot of effort to create a home for themselves, just in time for Christmas.

“They seem like a nice little family” I continued, and thought how reassuring it is to have a respectable family settled next door.

I was surprised to be woken up by their shouting on Boxing Day. But at least that’s all it was – shouting – not the smashing, banging, and cries of struggle we had become accustomed to with our previous neighbours. This argument was two sided too – she shouted as much as he did. I chose not to worry about her, although after he had left the sound of her heart breaking was audible to all as she played the same song over and over again.

“Nobody ever made me feel this way, I must stick witu”

But he returned, just as I predicted, and today was different.

Oh, the shouting continued, but this time it was interspersed with her sobs. There was more banging than yesterday, and eventually her sobs turned to howls of grief. Not the return I was hoping for - for her or for us.

And now, all is quiet.

I hate not knowing when to get involved, and when not to. The title question is really aimed at me. This year is the first time I have ever had this experience with neighbours.

No one really knows what goes on in the lives of their neighbours do they?

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Celebration Time!

Has it really been a week since I last updated this blog? In my defence I have been particularly unwell with what I thought was a vicious bout of Irritable Bowel, but what in fact turned out to be Viral Gastroenteritis.

After a week of passing watery poo and not being able to eat very much I feel quite tired and weak. But…

Today I have cause for celebration! Yes, it’s official…


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Today I did my first proper poo! I never thought I could feel so happy and excited about such a thing! I rushed off to the supermarket to buy the biggest parsnip I could find to go with the roast dinner I intend on eating tomorrow in celebration!

Not quite ready for cake or chocolate yet though… although if you’d like to send me some anyway I’m sure I’ll feel better by the time it arrives!

Trouble and Strife – Mr Man and his Wife

Mr Man and I have very different tastes in music. In fact it’s no understatement to say that I hate some of his favourite music (Aphex Twin?), and he definitely hates mine.

I was listening to a cassette this evening (remember those?) from 1995, and it is still possibly one of the best albums I have ever bought. It’s called “Together” and it’s a collection of 20 classic soul duets from 1966 through to 1992.

“I hate this song” Mr Man kept reminding me as I cheerfully sang along.
“But it makes me think of me and you!” I kept saying, and then sang louder and directly to him.

He was unimpressed.

I realise now that it may have been my singing ability that was the problem:

“Oh I love this next one” I said “but I know you hate it. Guess which one it is” I insisted, as I started singing the introductory music before the song had started.
“The A-Team?” he offered.

The song was actually “I knew you were waiting (for me)” by George Michael and Aretha Franklin. Does that sound like the A-Team? Ok, I suppose you had to be there, but I laughed and I laughed.
“Alright settle down” says Mr Man.



Track Listing:

Side One
I knew you were waiting (for me) – George Michael and Aretha Franklin
Sometimes love just ain’t enough – Patty Smyth and Don Henley
Where is the love – Mica Paris and Will Downing
Baby, come to me – Patti Austin and James Ingram
Don’t know much – Linda Ronstadt featuring Aaron Neville
We’ve got tonight – Kenny Rogers and Sheena Easton
If you were with me now – Kylie Minogue and Keith Washington
You are everything – Dianna Ross and Marvin Gaye
Ain’t nothing like the real thing – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
Up where we belong – Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes

Side Two
Endless love – Dianna Ross and Lionel Richie
With you I’m born again – Billy Preston and Syreeta
Tonight I celebrate my love – Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack
You’re all I need to get by – Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell
Stop, look, listen (to your heart) – Marvin Gaye and Dianna Ross
It takes two – Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
Too much, too little, too late – Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams
Reunited – Peaches and Herb
Solid – Ashford and Simpson
Teardrops – Womack and Womack

What Colour Crayon Are You?

I know, I know, I keep posting "lazy posts" at the moment. But at least I'm still posting! One of my other blogs hadn't been updated since August!

I came across this personality quiz in Helena's blog. So, this is me: (I would like to have been a green crayon or a brown crayon just because I like those colours, but there you are... life is like a box of crayons, and you never know what you're gonna get!)

You Are a Blue Crayon

Your world is colored in calm, understated, deep colors. You are a loyal person, and the truest friend anyone could hope to find. On the inside, you tend to be emotional and even a bit moody. However, you know that people depend on you. So you put on a strong front. Your color wheel opposite is orange. Orange people may be opinionated, but you feel they lack the depth to truly understand what they're saying.

What Color Crayon Are YOU?

Tell me what this says about you in the comments section.

Today’s Top Tip

Move somewhere with more day light hours in the winter months.