Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners

This is a great programme for making you feel normal when compared to
-people who use nine bottles of bleach a day annihilating imaginary germs
- people who allow goats to use their kitchen as a toilet

I love these programmes about extremes.  Like Supersize vs Superskinny.  Come on...you know you watch it so that you can say
-"I'll never be as disgustingly skinny as that person."
and
"I'll never be as fat as the other one.  If I wake up in the night I only eat two mars bars.  They eat three, the porker."

Oh, how righteous we feel.  How normal.  How well adjusted.  How SMUG!

And then .....isn't it a bit weird to watch these programmes at all? 

Weird guys with weird dolls

Did you see that programme on Tuesday night about men who have 'relationships' with life sized dolls made of foam, or rubber with 'real' pubic hair? The pubic hair comes from Sweden, apparently.  I'm not sure about the wigs.

I haven't seen anything so disturbing since Abi's year 4 Christmas show at school.  I spent most of the programme with my jaw hanging open.

Highlights - there really weren't any.  The whole thing was just shocking.

Lowlights - lots of these:
- watching one man take a bottle brush to his "partner's" lady garden, complaining that she was starting to smell a bit fishy down there.
- feeling so sorry for a lovely, normal, middle-aged woman who was attempting to have a proper relationship with a guy who insisted on inviting two dolls to his birthday party.  These two sat at the tea table in their tarty, slutty outfits, their legs splayed, their mouths gaping, their enormous fake breasts pointing bullet-like nipples aggressively at the ceiling.  (You can get three different kinds of tongue, and many different kinds of everything else...)  This woman was so nice about her fella, who has eight of these dolls.  But the credits at the end told us that the relationship had ended two weeks after the horrible tea party.
- the woman who lives with a guy who repairs the dolls as parts wear out.  I won't go into which parts he repairs most.   This woman admitted to feeling intimidated by the perfection of the dolls.  "They're not perfect!" I yelled at the telly.  "Because they're not women!  They don't have a personality!  They won't buy you a birthday present!  They don't care!  They won't TALK to you.  They can't touch you.  They're dolls!  They're not real!"  Eventually a daughter appeared and told me to calm down.
- the English guy who takes photos of his dolls doing realistic things, like reading a book, then fills photo albums with pictures and captions.  Lots of pictures of him in tiny shorts and slip on brown leather shoes and socks, and two tarty dolls.
- watching one guy hang his doll from the ceiling.  All dolls have a hook in their neck so you can hang them up.  They spin round, their legs wide, like they're in the middle of a game of leap frog.
- and the whole thing....that these guys aren't just treating the dolls as a sex toy.  Rather they consider themselves to be in real relationships.  A couple of them have been hurt in relationships with what they termed 'organic women.'  (I wonder if we should register with The Soil Association.)  Well, guess what!  We've all been hurt in 'organic' relationships.  It happens.  Get back in there and try again. 

You won't find any political correctness here, oh no!

But you won't find any nastiness either, I hope.  I am such a bad blogger; I'm very easily distracted.  I keep thinking of things for the blog, but I've been working hard on the novel and it's been such a busy summer and blah blah BLAH!

This blog is going to be a bit random.

When you go back to work after a period of absence there's always this little interchange:
-Hi, good holiday?
-Great, thanks. You?
-Lovely, thanks.
-What did you do?  (Said whilst parking in chair and starting to clear bottom desk drawer of rotten apples, cheese flavoured polystyrene snacks, mould growths.)
-We spent six weeks on an Argentinian cattle ranch castrating bullocks.
-Great.  We had a caravan in Cromer for three days.
Lovely
(Pause)
-Students look stroppy this year.
-Yeah.  And there's a load of new paperwork.
And then we settle contendedly into mild grumbling.

It's probably exacerbated for teachers as those of us who are paid term-time only are away for such a long time. 

The girls and I went to Anglesey for a week this summer.  People in Anglesey are very nice.  I made a lovely friend in the doctors' surgery where Olivia and I were having emergency treatment for matching ear infections.  One day the lovely beach was invaded by the population of Liverpool which arrived in groups of no fewer than 8.  The women were a strange orange colour with high peep toe sandals and black hair  and they guys were very bare and red.  One group lined up very close to our beach towels and pointed themselves at the sun, even though this meant turning their backs on the beautiful sea and their drowning children (Destiny, Paige and Tyler) and facing the road.  They were also facing us, which was disconcerting.  I found this very amusing and told the girls that I was going to sing a few songs and pass my sunhat round but they forbade me from doing any such thing.  Our lovely holiday cottage featured a fountain with pink and purple lights, gnomes, plaster hedgehogs and flamingoes. 

Interesting about names.  That Katie woman who was on The Apprentice has been getting into trouble for stating that you can judge class and parenting style from children's names.  She is hilarious.  I was reminded of her yesterday in church when I noticed that the three children up for baptism were Harrison, Tyler and Skylar.  If I were the vicar I would take Skylar's parents to one side before the service and have a chat with them....
'Seriously guys, are you really going to burden your lovely little girl with a name like Skylar?'
'We love it, vic, it's really unusual.'
'Yes.  It is.  She's going to spend her whole life having to spell it out, and being called "Skylark".  Or worse.'
'Well, OK.  We could change it to Shaneesha.'
'Bless you.  Handkerchief?'
'Or Looseee Mae Leee.  We liked that.  Or Shardonneigh.'
'Er, I'm begining to warm to Skylar...'

I hope I haven't offended anyone today....

Bad breath and hairy slippers

Imagine a big fish.  Imagine a great big fish.  Imagine a great big fish that died a while ago.  Imagine that it's been kept in a warm place in a sealed plastic bag with a pile of old, wet, black, slip-on school pumps that little kids wear.  Now imagine that this bag has been swallowed by an ancient walrus.  The bag bursts inside its belly and it does the biggest burp ever.  This burp clears the beach of all of his wives and children.

Now you may be getting an idea about Bertie's breath.

It's not his teeth.  His teeth have been cleaned by the vet under anaesthetic.  And I do them every day with liver flavoured toothpaste.  It's not his gums, which are healthy.  It's not his stomach, which is fine.  It's just Bertie's own unique thing.

We picked up the dogs from the kennel on our way back from Anglesey yesterday.  We were so excited about seeing them.  It had given us a lot of freedom, not having to constantly worry about whether they are too hot, too wet, going to kill other holiday-making dogs, eat the sea-birds, poo on the communal lawn, invade other people's tents, snatch ice creams out of toddlers hands etc etc.  But we were really looking forward to picking them up.  

After jumping around for a few minutes, Bonnie passed out on Olivia's feet in the front of the car.  She looked like she had a doggy hangover.  I suspect that Bertie had been keeping her awake at night.  Poor Abi had to squeeze Bertie onto her knee on the back seat, sandwiched between the cold box and the bag of dirty washing.  Within seconds his little black hairs were circulating round the car and the three of us were holding our breath and reaching for the window controls as his hot panting breath overwhelmed us.

"It's got worse!" I gasped.
"It's just that we're not used to it anymore," Olivia pointed out, holding her nose.

We bombed down the M6 with all of the windows down, bags and papers flying around the car in the near hurricane conditions.  Bertie talked to us in his high pitch whine all the way.  He told us that we must never leave him again, ever.  That he'd spent the whole week waiting for us, and shouting at the other dogs in the kennels.

Since we got home the dogs have attached themselves to me.  As I type I have Bertie's chin and hot breath on my left foot under the table.  Bonnie is stretched out over my right foot so that I can't move without disturbing her.  My feet are quite hot.  When I move the dogs follow me.  When I shut them out of a room, they press their noses underneath it and snort and sniff, checking that I'm not escaping out of the window.

Talk about guilt tripping!

The chickens were very excited to see me, especially as I'd brought them a huge lettuce.  This morning Delia laid an egg.  Is this the end of her broodiness?

Feeling broody? Off with your head!

These days my troubles are feathered.  Delia has gone broody.  Symptoms of broodiness include the following:
- making a weird, repetitative noise that is not at all hen-like
- pulling breast feathers out to keep the eggs warm.  (Not a good look.)
- sitting on the nest all day and night.  No little walks, no play, no pooing on the table, no dog-chasing.  Just sitting there, like a pudding.
- ceasing to lay.  This is a blow as she laid great big whoppers.
- resenting the other hens using the nesting box to the extent of sitting on their heads while they lay.  Polly, Daisy and Tracy do not like wearing Delia as a hat and make a lot of noise.  Worse, if they are disturbed when trying to lay they can retain their eggs, which go rotten inside them and make them really poorly.
- when forced to leave the nest by frustrated owner, making a nest in any odd corner of the pen and sitting on egg-sized stones
- not enjoying cuddles with me anymore.  Hissing at me and running away. (Sounds like my daughters.)
- neglecting her role as alpha female so that the other three are naughty and bewildered, like children when the teacher leaves the room.  However, their neck feathers are growing back without Delia's bullying.  There's always a silver lining.

So what do we do with a broody chicken?  (Pause for song).  Here are the suggestions I have received so far.
1. Get a cockerel and let her have some babies.  This means getting another hen coop as I already have 4 in my little capsule.  Good hen coops like mine (not wooden, so virtually mite-proof and easy to disinfect) don't come cheap.  Cheap!  LOL!  Like a pun.   It also means having a cockerel doing his thing wth all of the hens all of the time.  Like my own live sex show in the garden.  Hmm.  Not sure that floats my boat, but never say never.  Maybe I could charge an entrance fee. And then there's the crowing.  They don't just crow at dawn.  They crow all day.  And the eggs would be fertilised.  I know that there's nothing to see if they're not incubated and you eat them quickly but there's something a bit icky about eating a potential life.
2. Acquire some fertilised eggs for her to hatch.  But then I'll have more chickens and probably there'll be some uwanted males in the clutch and see 1. above.
3. Plunge her into icy water to snap her out of it.  Tip given to me by a mad friend.  Others assure me that it will just distress her more.
4. Since turning broody marks the end of her useful life I should ring her neck and serve her for lunch.

Regarding option 4 I have been giving myself some positive talk about this.  She is definitely not a happy bunny.  Or chicken.  I have made her a temporary home in the dog cage (minus dogs) with her own run.  It's a bit of penthouse actually.  But she hates it.  So maybe it would be kinder to just finish her off.  And why shouldn't she go in the pot?  She's had a happy life, up till now.  Much happier than your average Sunday roast which probably grew up in a barn where chickens are stacked three high  and fed growth hormones to get them to table quickly.  At least I know what Delia's been eating.  (Porridge with garlic and meal worms, layers pellets, corn, home grown lettuce.)  My dad, the son of a butcher, will happily finish her off, and tell me how to pluck and gut her and all of that.  But can we eat a friend who, until recently, was running around the garden, scaring the dogs and digging up my newly sown grass seed?  And she was always a cuddly girl.  Another sleepless night awaits......

Beautiful Delia, wearing white.

Delia's monster egg, next to Polly's.

Militaryish Fitness sort-of

Very few people can get me out of bed before 6a.m.  In fact, most people tend to avoid me until I've had at least 2 cups of tea.  Nevertheless, my very lovely, persuasive and charming neighbour is managing to get me to Military Fitness at 6.30 in the morning quite regularly.  Because she lives opposite she knows I'm here.  Once I tried hiding in my bedroom but she still found me. 

So there I was yesterday in my baggy sweatpants, saggy t-shirt and 2 bras because I couldn't find my sports bra.  The other early morning lunatics are about 20 years younger than me and wear t-shirts proclaiming '10K 2012' , tight lycra shorts and proper trainers (the soles are peeling off mine, which really doesn't help.)

There are about 20 different forms of torture, each lasting 60 long seconds.  Then we do it all again.  Some forms of torture involve a stepper.  Some involve sandbags or weights.  Some require mats.  Surprisingly, getting down onto the mat and then up again doesn't count as an exercise, even though it can take me nearly a minute to do either.

I have my own versions of the exercises: some I do properly but slowly; some I do partially; some I just point in the same direction as my peers, and wave a limb in a vague parody of the true exercise.  I keep a very tight control on my inner giggler; I don't want to be lynched, especially by such strong, fit people.  Sometimes I laugh for quite a while after I get home.

My various injuries shout at me during each session.  My left ankle (torn ligaments, sixth form ball, 1984) tells me to ease off.  My left wrist (sprain, roller skating at a house party incident 1990 - the sprain barely noticed at the time as it was overshadowed by the rather serious concussion) won't tolerate any kind of push-up activity.  My right foot (fracture -running down stairs in clogs while 5 months' pregnant, 2000 and exacerbated by recent plantar faschitis) shrieks in agony.  My right big toe (proper sporting injury as I broke it falling over a step machine in 2010) grumbles and aches.  My left knee (no specific injury - yet) really doesn't like squatting.  In fact most of my body objects to this activity.  Even my ears ache from the high energy dance music - perhaps a bit much at 6.30a.m. 

However, the trainer is relentlessly positive and encouraging; no-one points and laughs at me (not to my face anyway); by 9a.m I've done an hour's fitness training, walked the dogs, cleaned the kitchen and had a shower.  And I feel virtuous.  Now, pass the cake.......

Hamish is out there

I'm so excited today as my short story is published!  Here's the link.

http://www.thefrontview.com/2013/06/hamish-by-eddi-goodwin.html

I hope you enjoy it.