Unhappy hooters and roughed-up arses

So, yesterday was Blue Monday. What's today? Tragic Tuesday? Followed by Woeful Wednesday, Thoroughly shit Thursday, Fucking awful Friday, Self-hatred Saturday and Suicidal Sunday.

Fantastic!

Did anybody watch Sherlock on Sunday night? I was compelled to watch, influenced somewhat by the whole media fizz that seemed to erupt whenever ACD's annoying private dick was mentioned. It was the first time for me, and I think perhaps the last. I was only five minutes in when the springs on my preposterometre burst from their casings and scattered over the floor. Nice armchairs, great performances from that little Hobbit bloke and the Moriarty geezer, but apart from that.... I am looking forward to Birdsong next Sunday, I just hope it isn't set in a Nintendo game on planet Tharp.

Things are quiet and New Yeary here. We have just returned from the shops. We bought a large amount of recycled loo roll. Great if you have any furniture to sand down. Times are hard,obv.

Our resident owls in the giant poplars have begun hooting really early this year. I am concerned that they are not getting on and that an owl divorce may be on the cards. There is an undeniably sarcastic edge to some of the hoots (definitely his, not hers...typical). I could offer to mediate, but I don't want to ruffle any feathers.

I feel as if I am in a waiting room at the moment. Fortunately, this waiting room is not peopled with the sick, miserable or dejected...there is just myself and a pretty view out of the window to enjoy. I shall return when I have more to report.

Things I Won't Do In 2012

1.Pay off my credit card bill

2.Lose two stone

3.Look any younger

4.Invent something quite good

5.Understand the appeal of dried banana chips

6.Learn Mandarin

7.Marry a dwarf or Tom Cruise

8.Fully service a Briggs & Stratton lawn mower

9.Pay for sex

10. Feel inadequate for not-knowing what a Kardashian is

Oh and number 11...I won't give a toss about not doing it...

Merry New Year to all of my lovely reader. x


What won't you do?

Pre-stuffed

Usually, by this time in December we have locked up the house and departed for Blighty. But due to various literary commitments (Spouse, not me),the scarcity of escape travel routes out of France and general terminal flakiness (me, not snow or dandruff), we shall be departing in a few days. This rather pathetic late-in-the-day-ness means I will have zero time to Christmas shop.

Obviously, this comes as a huge relief. Christmas shopping this year has been completed by the fire, laptop on knee, glass in hand. I reckon I have saved money and sanity in equal measure. Not for me the scrum down on the high street amongst the sharp elbowed old bags, pick pockets, bomb scares, suffocating lighting, fainting episodes, shouty shriek-fests and losing it in Hamleys.

Yep. Better off by the fire.

Not in the spirit of Christmas, rather in the spirit of doing-as-little-as-possible, I have jumped into the slacker-mum camp. This year, Sprog is receiving a pre-stuffed Christmas stocking. This strategy carries with it some risk. The pre-stuffers in a windy Hitchin warehouse say this stocking is appropriate for an eight year old boy. It will be interesting to see what the little Prince fishes out on Christmas morning. If he produces a pair of rubber comedy tits then perhaps my view on delegating just about everything in my life may need adjustment.

Oooh, I just heard Joni Mitchell's song 'River' on the radio. Beautiful song. Admittedly, it was being performed by a third-rate singer in this instance, but it reminded me of the fine original version by Joni. I had never considered it a Christmas song, but I suppose the opening lyric 'It's coming on Christmas, they're cutting down trees, putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace, oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on' make it as topical as pretty much any Christmas song you care to mention. Don't let the fact the lyrics look pedestrian put you off, dressed in a languorous vocal and with exquisite phrasing they are transformed into pure poetry. Here, a Christmas present, just for you...enjoy.

The annual freezer de-frosting ceremony has been taking place. Using my Bear Grylls novelty ice-pick I have so far hacked out four plastic bags full of stale bread off-cuts. I clearly fully intended to use them for breadcrumbs in some un-named, unimagined and er uncooked recipe. They are now in the bin. Along with the vile sludgy brown soup that looks like frosted turd pudding. I rescued the raspberries, however. The very same raspberries I lovingly collected every day over the summer and placed into a tupperware for later use. Last night I cooked a raspberry pavlova. Being a meringue virgin, I approached the exercise with trepidation. But I must have been thinking of souffle, which is a complete bastard. Meringue turned out to be a doddle. Tasty too. We munched happily on the crunchy, chewy, sweet meringue combined with tart, mushy raspberries whilst watching Harry Judd get his champion's glitterball. Pavlova, Strictly, there was a pleasing and totally unintentional synchronicity to it all. We really do live on the edge out here, you know. It's that mental.

Back to the present. If I want to avoid my maternal credit rating being further downgraded I had better go now and fetch my child from his sleepover. I'm just rehearsing the conversation in my head now...'Oh, was it only one night? I must have misunderstood. Bloody French language.'

I hope you all get what you want for Christmas. Toaster, hair straighteners, peace, love, a stable economy and some Uggs.

Merry Christmas my lovelies!

Mya x

Lego Dreams

I am aware that whenever I blog these days, I seem to be repeating some or other drivel I have dumped on the blogosphere previously. As I complete another revolution, I pass by old, abandoned rants dumped carelessly like rusting fridges or gut-spilling sofas.

This time I am recycling the 'I'm too fucking skint for Christmas' rant. You know, the one about not asking people what they want for Christmas, because there isn't a chance in hell of being able to afford anything more than a pound shop gift selection.

The fact nothing ever changes year on year could be depressing.

Strangely, it isn't.

It's quite comforting in a way.This isn't a doom-dump.Far from it.

I am in fine fettle and so are my boys, and that is all that matters.

The sun is shining ridiculously outside and the air is crisp. I wore a T-shirt this morning out in the garden.

I digress. Skint Christmas. I'm not exactly the only person feeling this way, clearly. I have been having dark thoughts about mugging parents on their way out of toy shops to run off with their Lego purchases.

How expensive is Lego?

Unbelievably so. Ounce per ounce it's pushing gold.If I am to buy the Lego Star Wars vessel lusted after by my eight year old Wookie, I am going to have to make some sacrifices.

Note to Lego PR: If you want to send me any ludicrously over-priced Lego Star Wars merchandise, I promise I shall give it a glowing review, as long as I don't have to pay for it. And give me plenty of time to assemble it....next summer should be sufficient.

I have noticed a few of my favourite blogs have gone quiet lately. I'm a fine one to talk, how lax am I? The supreme Belgian Waffle has gone silent - possibly away with the capybaras or been adopted by an owl sanctuary. The Ugly Truth is also quiet, but I think he is working on his book, so that's acceptable. Same goes for Susie at No Damn Blog.Great news though, is that The Bad Librarian has sparked up again. For some reason, her blog updates weren't appearing on my blog roll. But she is still there. Still fascinating reading.

We are going for a walk in half an hour. I have to assemble my 'going for a walk' kit. This consists of, stick for whacking things with, tissues for cleaning up snot/shit/spit/other,pilfering bag and sunglasses.

What are the chances of me stumbling upon an abandoned Lego stash? Left there by a forgetful millionaire, obsessive Lego Star Wars collector? It could happen...

Time To Get My Chopper Out

It rains.

And rains.

It's damp outside. My shoulders ache.

But everything is OK. Because we have wood. Good wood. Goodly wood.

We have oak logs that 'ting' brightly when knocked together. To the expert's ear, this means it is goodly wood. Oak that has a high calorific content and low interior humidity will burn like the clappers, but in a slow, hot and uber-efficient way.

God, I'm a tedious fucker when it comes to firewood. Each year I blog about it. Forgive me. It is just so important, that's all. We don't have a central heating button we can simply press when it gets a bit chilly. Our heating needs are met in a far more high-maintenance, low-tech manner.

So anyway, we have a shitload of dry oak stacked and as such are slightly less worried by the apocalyptic winter weather forecasts.

Christmas looms.

I look forward to it, and once we get there it is always great fun. It's just the getting there. Now that the fucktards at Paddyair have seen fit to cull all the flight routes out of France, there is an unwanted added frisson to the pre-Christmas hysteria.

Halloween was excellent. I managed to do fuck all, again. Which is just how I like it. I sorted out Sproglet with a costume and he set off around the village with his chums and a couple of far more diligent mothers. Two hours later he was back with rosy cheeks and a tongue of Haribo blue.

I'm being sweary today. I seem to go in phases. One week I'm Julie Andrews, the next I'm Courtney Love. Go figure.

Pressure is being placed upon me to bake for the school art fair. I wish they would just spring these things on me, so that I don't have any time to think about it. About the possibilities. The temptations. The ingredients one could substitute, and the fun one could have. I have a good three weeks to consider the embellishments of my cake recipes...and the chaos caused by mass departmental sedation or diarrhoea. Clearly channelling Dennis the Menace right now.

So there you have it. A brief resume of the utter drivel swirling around the cess of my brain.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Mwah ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Halloween! I'm going to gorge myself on Haribo and probably vomit. How about you?

Grape Monsters of Wrath

Do you know what this is?

Let me enlighten you. Perhaps specialist agricultural machinery is not your personal fetish.

Not to say that I have an agricultural machinery based fetish - err...not that I'm consciously aware of, at any rate.

The reason I am breaking with my usual lazy habits and showing you a picture, is because otherwise you probably wouldn't grasp what I was on about. Not that you are stupid. It's just that my descriptive powers lack...er...power.

Around here right now you will spot machines similar to this tearing up and down the vineyards, divorcing plump grape from tough vine. Straddling the serried vines, they roar up and down sucking up the lifeblood of this region.

Forget the toothless, leather-skinned, poverty-stricken, arthritic but ecstatically happy Disney version of grape pickers. You've seen them...the misty-morninged, Renoir-rinsed, perfect peasantry hoisting wicker panniers across broad shoulders...breaking at midi for a crusty bastard and a hunk of brie.

Because they have all gone, now. Certainly on the larger vineyards, anyway. Human grape pickers are a dying breed. They have disappeared into the iron jaws of the grape-harvesting machine, pips and all...

Does the wine taste different when the grape has been humanely separated from the mother-vine by gentle, knowledgable hands? If the juicy little darlings are brutally torn away by raging machine, do they have a last second panic attack and flood with adrenalin? Does that add an interesting fruity augmentation to the final taste? Does a worse finish create a better one?

I'm not sure we'll ever know.

What really troubles me, is the way these massive grape-bots rattle around the quiet roads of the neighbourhood. It's hard to tell from the picture, but these machines are MASSIVE. For scale, think of an over-inflated combine harvester that's been at his big brother's growth hormone. When these things are rolling towards me like a pair of Sponge Bob's square pants in steel or an Arc de Triomphe on wheels, I am gripped by a terrible urge. They take up so much of the road, I find myself actually considering driving through the middle bit. I want to launch myself through this portal into another dimension. I can see road and sky through the advancing window...so why not?

Obviously, because my car is too wide and it would be a horrible, messy exit. Picked to death...sounds grim.

In short, I can't wait until these viticultural vandals are back under lock and key in their draughty hangars. My death wish urges seem weirdly heightened at the moment. I can't bear to think what is around the corner. Silage tank snorkeling? Blindfolded chainsaw juggling? Bull cuddling?