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Sunday 31 March 2013

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!















Saturday 30 March 2013

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.

☺☺☺










Friday 29 March 2013

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.


Thursday 28 March 2013

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







Wednesday 27 March 2013

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!


Tuesday 26 March 2013

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.





Monday 25 March 2013

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?




Sunday 24 March 2013

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!

Saturday 23 March 2013

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...
-