Easter thoughts from a...

broad.

'Men' 

are my chosen subject; it seems only right

on Easter Day.

First...

What a breath of fresh air the two

new Ecclesiastical big cheeses are.

I think before I start, I ought to lay my stall out...

I love all men, yes I know, gay men are a particular secret pash

of mine...  It's their wit don't you know!

These are my subjective thoughts on 

homo erectus.

Every British Summer Time Sunday morning across the land,

men will mention the change of clocks and the effect on 

their manly bodies; this will carry on for a few days until the next mid-week

football game comes on the telly.

Men never get the message behind the words.

They take what you've said as what you actually mean.

They get pneumonia, when women get a sniffle.

Their shoes are the best turd magnets known to man.

If it's a weekday... dry toast with Marmite.

Weekends... toast with Europe size butter mountain

topped off with 26 varieties of jam, honey, marmalade.

One guy I knew in the Highlands, his wife told me

for six months of the year he would have a boiled egg for brekkie,

the other six months a fried egg.

Routines are of especial importance.

The colour of the fob on keys are not noted ie

Red for the studio

(my thinking... red for love...my space!!!

Blue for the utility...

Fridge, washing machine, cold.)

I explained that this morning, not for the first time,

only to hear the chuntering reply

'If they're not on the right hook...!'

on man's abortive return from the cold outpost. 

Tripping carrying cups of tea are a constant

floor show around here.

They just love walking up to the village for the papers.

Lawn mowing is a speciality.

They still love you (just!) when your rapier words
cut them to the quick.

Men I salute you!

✞♡✞

Happy Easter!

What exactly is the point of..

Panna Cotta?

Too many leaves of gelatine and 

the offending item sits with an air of attitude,

just as silicone tits sit on a beach.

Too few, and it flops like junket, flabby with

flobb and full of apology as it slivers down your throat.

Macaroons?

The skinny girl's answer to cup cakes?

Passata?

A squashed tomato by any other name.

Extra Virgin?

We're hard pressed to find any virgin, let alone extra.

Deconstructed?

Thrown on a plate... by lazy cooks like me.

Sushi?

Produced by cooks, too mean to turn on the gas.

Halloumi?

Sponsored by Pirelli.

Tofu?
Soya... the under-cover agents of a 
genetically modified army?

Quinoa?
A low fat answer to Camber Sands.

Linseeds?
The Dyno-Rod of the 
digestive tract.

Think I'd better stop I've come over all peculiar...
think I better have a nourishing glass of slug slime on the rocks.

This rock salt is over 200 million years old,
formed through ancient geological processes
in the German mountain ranges.
Best before 01-04-2004 
Label on a container

In the mouse quiet of the house...

I stand and watch Lettice with collie

curiosity stare into our wildlife highway of a hedge.

Lettice a while ago... she's now greyer of face and deaf of ear

The meanest pricks of snow pepper her back, 

oblivious to all, she sniffs...

A rat, a too soon awakened hedgehog,

a passing squirrel perhaps?

All wildlife using our ancient hedge as Pilgrims Way

to a warmer Easter world.

Ted slumbers on; the table's laid:

while I wait I spread a piece of toast

with half Marmite and half Bovril,

in remembrance of my mother and father.

For the life of me I can't think why now, 

I remember them and am sad.

Was it the white feather on the stair last night, as I climbed ever higher

in our cottage of rooms on rooms?

A message from My Mum, my lovely mum

gone since 1971.

Perhaps?

This morning a long forgotten memory springs back

of me going to a Happy, Hippy event

in London a few years ago.

(No surprise there LL!)

In an audience of hundreds I sat carefully listening to a

talk on angels...

I wanted to believe I really did.

However the more people that put their hands up and asked if this American woman could tell if they were accompanied by angels, the crosser I got.

I think mainly because the angels names got more and more wacky and far-fetched.

I could feel it building up inside as I glanced round at the exalted faces.

Before I knew it my hand shot up, smiling graciously she turned to me.

'I'm sorry but I think this is a load of codswallop and I can't bear to stay

a minute longer!'

Imagine the shock horror of all around me as I tried to

limbo-dance away without spoiling the moment of her other

disciples.

I got to the door just as one of her acolytes gently grabbed my hand

'Your mother is your angel, you are safe in her hands!'

Shakily I wandered away...

Happy or sad I really couldn't say.

Just what was the significience of the spread on bread, when

all I remember of mum is

her love of Haig Dimple whisky and Hacks!

She always said

'If you want to live and thrive let a spider run alive.'

She died at the age of 48.

Her little theory didn't hold up; however I have never killed a spider, 

thinking always of her when I carefully scoop them up and free them from the bath.

Or more more honestly get Ted to do it for me!

My father's great saying was moderation in all things,

I often think of him when I apply butter to my toast with the help of

a builders trowel.

☺☺☺

Gobshots...

They're like snapshots...

of the wordy kind.

Stupid things I say...

If anyone asks me how many of anything I want

I always reply... 26

I call the fridge t'oven

Beetroot - rhubarb

Tomatoes - cucumber

'Is there anything else to do Lin?'

'Yes, please will you repoint the chimney!'

is a common refrain that reverberates around our old homestead.

That never gets done, I can't for the life of me think why?

Could it be that it doesn't need doing LL? 

I say the most stupid things...

only yesterday I got chatting to a woman in the coffee

shop of my local Waitrose.

I asked if I could join her; from the planet she was on,

she came down to earth with a ploomp.

'People watching I can tell!' says I.

Well one thing led to another, our subjects ranged from

the suffragettes, the pill, women who wear well and so on.

I could tell she was foreign.

We got to talking about regional accents and how acceptable they were now.

'Be proud, nothing to be ashamed of!' spouted out from my mouth.

She said she was from Germany adding

'What about the Nazis?'

I was just about to say

'I'm from Dartford, what about the tunnel?'

Funny thing was, it didn't seem the right thing to say;
in the nick of time I discovered my prudence gene and

decided to button it!

I touched her arm, our fellow feelings talked
in a way words never could.

Rock of Ageing...

You know you're old when...

you don a beret to walk the dog in the perishing cold,

thinking for all the world that you look like a

hot French tart...

When in fact you look like an burnt Bakewell...

or that you've just stepped out of a repeat of

Dad's Army.

You know you're old when... you remember

Dad's Army the first time round.

You know you're old when...

you carefully wash and iron your clothes,

then don't want to wear them, because

you're going to have to do it all over again.

You know you're old when...

jogging bottoms hold you in thrall.

The last thrall you were held in,

was when you watched Johnny Depp

in a film on the telly; carefully remembering to

tie bandage round your head 

to stop your jaw from dropping in wonder.

Well that, and losing your teeth down the back of the sofa (fib)!

You know you're old when...

 the most excitement in your life is

watching the round dots in the frogspawn turn into ovals.

You know you're old when...

your hearing aid whistles and the Dover coastguard
responding to the call,

knocks on the door to check you're okay.

Needless to say,

 you're the only person this side of Watford that didn't hear it.

You know you're old when...

 you remember peeling off a stocking...

Wait for it...

in order that your hot date could use it

as an emergency fan belt to get his old motor ticking over nicely.

You know you're old when...

come four-o-clock

the stays get cast aside and you let it all hang out.

You know you're old when...

whatever it is in Hacks 

make you feel fuzzy inside?

You know you're old when...
You say...
'Well of course I'm fasting!'
When in fact you're slowing.


'An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have;
the older she gets, the more interested he is in her.'
Agatha Christie

Ride of the Valkyries Cook Book...

With Cumberland sausages clapped on my heaving breasts
tied with strings of Garlic and Eddoe bangers
I prepare;  looking for all the world like Madonna 

in her little John Paul Gaultier

ice cream cone brasserie
(more of her ilk later)

I climb onto my horse, those of you who know of my previous with horses
will appreciate my favoured means of transport on this occasion is...
a clothes horse, purely for reasons of health and safety you understand.

Into battle...
'What's got your dander up this time LL?'
These bloody celeb cook books that's what!

Not content with us being bombarded with images of their
French bean bodies poured into figure-hugging penne pasta, they call frocks.
We now have the troughing bible according to
Miss Size Zero Super Star.

Just to whet your appetite
'Nutritionally dense foods'
What the f**k's that?
'Our weekly 80% parameters are:
no wheat, no cow's milk,
no processed white stuff,
etc., etc.,'
Thin on the fun?
The 20% fun...
Coconut water and kale chips.

'When I'm out in the "normal world" I don't stop my kids from enjoying
cake at birthday parties, ice cream on holidays and sweets on play dates'

I just rush them home and put a tube up their bottoms and flush out all the badness.
That bit is me... Sorry... A cheap jibe, I know.

The thing that worries me is...
does anyone really take all this seriously?
Got a horrible feeling they do.
And the cost!

All these culinary tips of wonder coming from
folk that think nothing of having fat from their arse 
injected into their faces.  Not forgetting the 
regular riddance of lines with poison!

In a past life I was a cook and have had the task of getting to grips
with all these weird, wonderful
 and wacky eating regimes.

You ever tried making an egg white omelette 
tasty...
it's bloody hard I don't mind admitting.

Spare us please!

My candid thoughts on...

blogging.

I live in my head... a lot!

I can relieve the pressure by getting out the thoughts 

that swirl around.

I go weak at the knees at such wacky wordsmiths

that inhabit blogland.

If I'm honest, and I always am,

I hate their skill; I just want to crawl under a stone

with my pathetic efforts.

'You're doing it for you Lin, remember?'

'Err... right!' (fib?)

I love using misspelt words and slightly wrong phrases that to me, are just plane

right.  My idol and first love of a girly-kind is

Hilary Mantel.

In the past I've always fallen for gay men... why... I dunno?

Well my 'mate' Hils always says

never explain, let the reader work it out, give them credit.

That's okay for her to say from her high intellectual plane,

however (just love that word) with Thick Os, folk might just

think poor lass, she can't help being dense, or worse,

wish she'd bugger off and give us super brains free reign.

In the past I've given hundreds of talks.

One snooty group of women complained to their head office,

that my stories were far-fetched and my language

was unpardonable...

Err.. I said Bloody five times

and it was a verbatim part of the story.

When the complaint got back to me I thought

I wonder what they would have thought if I'd given them the

real warts and all?

Their shock horror would have known no bounds!

They had been given the sanitised version.

Ted always says 
'Bet folks haven't got a clue where you're coming from!'
I sometimes wonder myself, why I get my knickers in
such a twist about things.
I hate it when folk don't say what they mean,
won't answer a direct question (politicians)
What is that all about?  I just don't get it.
If everyone told the truth, after the shock wore off, 
a level would be found, and we'd all get over it, and move on.

Although having said that, I do wish I had a third hand
concealed in a pocket, poised ready to clap over my mouth
when unbidden, words best left unsaid, issue forth out
of my rosebud north and south. With the skill of a moth catching hand,
pluck them out of the ether before they've formed, ramming them back down me throat before the unsuspecting recipient of this particular pearl of wisdom is any the wiser. 
Bit like a cow-catcher on the front of a train in the mid-West.

No cows were hurt in the making of that particular castigation.

On my return from the castle...

I will recount the tale of the

trained killer, the flip-flops

and the boiled egg.

 I must fly.....


Mrs Bridges-like I basted my bum on the Aga,
happy in the glow of another meal prepared.
The man was boiling his eggs...
3 .45 minutes to the second.
The girl quietly wailed
'Hurry up I'm going to be late for school!'
'Won't be a tick, just one minute more, then they'll be done.'
'Then you've got to eat them, by which time, I will definitely be very late!'
'No worries I'll get you there!'
he replied, carefully peeling off the top his egg, with the same precision
he would take, to put a bullet between the eyes of a opponent. 
She waited resigned to her fate.

The sound of his flip-flops flapping on the flags of the floor
accompanied their departure.
Bum now done to a crisp,
peace reigned...
my thoughts turned to more important things...
Now what shall I have for my brekkie?

Cheeks ballon...

Spittle flies...
Whistles blown...
Seeds are sown...

Why lie?

Speak...

Don't be afraid!

In heaven's name...
Why would you want to...
turn a blind eye?

Whistle blowers of the world...

Unite!

Whatever happened to...

Luncheon vouchers

Angel Delight

Instant Whip

Five boys chocolate bars

Sunlight soap

Vim

Mr Pastry

Muffin the mule

Wagon Wheels that seemed as big as Wagon wheels

Starting handles on cars

Cream on the top of milk bottles

Fry's chocolate Fruit Bars

Proper Corned Beef

I bought some the other day...

pink, minced mush...

horrible... horse?
Bird's Trifle mix in a box

Dinner parties... Seventies

Baked avocado... very swish

Prawn cocktail,

Steak cooked to shoe leather

Real chips

Dripping sandwiches

Green veg boiled to buggery and back

Bicarbonate of soda in cabbage to soften?

Black forest gateau

Baked Alaska

After Eight mints

Kissing on one cheek

All matching Denby Arabesque

Tureens with lids

Hostess trolleys
Sculleries

Encounter magazine

The Bunny Club 

Nova magazine

Ban the Bomb marches

Greenham Common girls

Virgins

Money

Telephone boxes that took real money

That firm that came round to offices to

sanitise the phones.

Telex machines

Telegrams

Telegram boys

Hedgehogs

Respect

 Real ink

Fountain pens

Painting by numbers

Politicians falling on their swords

???

Just had a thought...
Kunzel Cakes... very middle class
Lyons Individual Fruit Pies...
very working class!

Lyons Corner House
The Golden Egg
Machines that x-ray your feet
Start-rite shoes

Ooh... wish I hadn't started this...
-