Bacon, Not Bacon (Part 1)

Well, what an eventful time we’ve had in Paris!

I’m composing this sitting in my seat in the Eurostar on the way home…..it’s only a whole 24hours late, and I’ve just finished coping with the dual stresses of French public transport ‘diabolique’, and The Family all getting their combined knickers in a big old twist (as in combined stresses, rather than they were wearing one gigantic pair of pants between them!)

But, as all good stories do, we should start at the beginning….

Ahhh, Paris! The city of love! Of shopping! Of glamouressness!

Sparkly Eiffel Tower!

Now because this is me, of course it was all those things…(ha!)……

I fell in love with a gorgeous Parisian man named Claude, bought a couple of Dior handbags and waltzed down the Champs-Élysées in my towering Louboutin heels whilst dragging a small rat-like yet highly fashionable dog-type creature behind me.

Humn, maybe it didn’t happen quite like that…

So, what really happened?

Well, we arrived at our hotel and all went swimmingly until the next morning when we went down for breakfast. We were shown in as usual, went to get our chosen food from the buffet and sat down to break our fast (sounds very dramatic when you put it like that doesn’t it?)

No sooner had we started than we get a bustling little French man pop up and start whittering on about us sitting in the wrong place and eating the wrong breakfast. ‘Wrong breakfast?’ I hear you say!

Apparently there was a swish option and a pleb option. We’d been allocated the pleb option (how very rude!), but had managed to find our way to the swish side.

There goes the bacon then!

The little waiter looked as though he’d very much like to take our laden plates away from us, but manners just about managed to win through.

On inspection of the ‘plebfast’ as we came to call it, we realised that the absence of any bacon was a permanent feature, and no amount of asking the smirking boy-waiters would bring forth any of the basic breakfast delicacy, however much we managed to convey any feelings of desperate bacon-related need! Tiny random sausages there were, but the best bits remained tantalisingly close on the other side, yet forever out of our reach.

Breakfast continued to be a shoddy affair each day, contributing to the hotel’s frankly undeserving 4 star rating, but we managed to make a joke of it, cram our cheeks full of pain au chocolat (apparently even plebs are allowed these) and get on with exploring the city.

And the city decided to explore me too. Well, one of its many pigeons did. In the form of a giant green poo. Directed cleverly into not only one of the pockets of my handbag, but onto my camera as well. Apparently it’s lucky. I just think it’s grim.

So there I was, travelling around one of the most beautiful cities man has ever built, snapping away with my poo-filled camera having a smashing time, when a young girl stopped in front of me, picked up a ‘gold’ ring from the floor and tried to give it back to me so she could claim a reward.

Now all I could think of at the time was if this seemingly useless rubbish con ever worked on anybody. You would have to be pretty thick to be taken in. (In my opinion-I apologise now if I have managed to inadvertently brand you brainless because you fell for this one!)

I have a brain, and am perfectly capable of keeping track of my rings. After all, they reside on my fingers, fit well and don’t look at all like the one she was offering me! I politely declined to enter into her game and walked on.

Suddenly though, it was if the whole of Paris was trying to re-unite us with countless pieces of recalcitrant digit adornments…We couldn’t take more than five steps without another ‘helpful citizen’ picking up yet another shining band of not-precious metal and insisting we take it from them.

What I couldn’t work out to start with though, is how they ever expected anybody to believe that the shiny object ‘on the floor’ in front of us would have been ours….I’m fairly certain that most people don’t go around flinging their possessions out in front of themselves in the hope that some helpful handily-situated layabout will see them and rush to their aid….They were retrieving rings left, right and centre….yet always from pieces of pavement I hadn’t yet walked on!

Ah well, maybe they got lucky once or twice a day, who knows? I can’t think of any other reason they would carry on day after day trying to be the scruffy French version of Ernest Jones!

Anyway, more on my travel nightmares later; but for now, I will leave you to check all of your rings…if you have lost any, pop out your front door to see if you can find a frenchman….They usually have a pocketfull!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Belfast, My Boots and Blimey!

Hello chaps,

It’s been rather a while since I’ve managed to get round to writing a bit of a blog, and one of the main reasons for this is undeniable…I’ve simply been a bit boring!

It’s hard to get into trouble, or do anything stupidly embarrassing when most of my day is filled with rolling around my lounge floor faffing with beads, pliers and tiger tail!

But, dear readers, you’ll be pleased to learn that I am writing this on the aeroplane coming back from a weekend away in Belfast. There was (unsurprisingly) a marked absence of the above jewellery making ingredients, which left me with plenty of time to make a complete tit of myself all weekend!

Lets just say, The Friend has had to put up with rather a lot this weekend. Not to say she hasn’t coped marvellously; she’s been a rock, a brick, and every other hard-sounding object that signifies her general legendary friendship status!

It started well – we got to the airport without mishap.  We might have started off at the highly unseemly hour of 6am, but we got there! Check-in was a doddle.  Even the slightly fraught moments where you hold your breath in the hope that the extra pair of shoes and the chocolate you shoved in your case at the last minute doesn’t tip it over the baggage allowances!  All went well and in no time at all, it was bye bye bags, see you at the other end…

I was through security with nary a glance ( I must have an innocent face?! ) and was collecting my bits when The Friend’s hand luggage was diverted in a highly dramatic manner and was picked up by a forbidding looking woman intent on being very thorough!

As it turns out, there were no fewer than three items of liquid casually rolling about the bottom of her handbag….  It was the one and only time of the whole trip that I actually felt a tiny bit smug, with my liquids in my little plastic bag!

Luckily, the scary lady was actually very understanding, and once she had correctly ascertained that The Friend wasn’t about to blow up the airport with nothing but some rescue remedy and glasses-lens cleaner, we were waved through, putting our boots back on as we went.

Next stop was a greasy fry up breakfast and a traditional pint of cider.  Yes, that’s right, I did say cider.  At 7.00am.   Nothing sets you up for a flight better…try it next time you find yourself in an airport at silly-o-clock!  (Unless you are a child, then you’re definitely not allowed to imbibe, obviously!)

Now The Friend can be somewhat of a nervous flyer.  For someone who travels an awful lot, she normally copes rather marvellously.  But she’d recently watched a tv channel deliberately crash a plane so they could analyse what happens. Not the best idea then, to be sat directly in front of a couple of plonker business types guffawing their way through the main events in the program, in voices loud enough for even the pilot to hear….

Well, we managed to survive the short journey without turning round and planting a fist in each of their insensitive faces, for which we were rather proud!

There follows a journey with a friendly taxi driver/tour guide, a concert for us to sing in, more pints of magners at the after show party and very little food…

As you may know, the above can be a bit of a danger area, as it’s most prudent to line the stomach with something stodgy before drinking…in this case though, not many mishaps befell us before reaching the house we were staying in….What we did have, was a crazy taxi driver who announced himself to be called Ricky, then proceeded to beep his horn at every passing car still on the road at 2am;  this included a police car, at which point we slunk down in our seats and prayed they wouldn’t start chasing us!  He delighted in getting the English-accented people in the in the car (So myself and The Friend then) to continually utter the phrase ‘I know your name’ in a Northern Irish accent.  (Phonetically written it would be something along the lines of: ‘Iiiee knaw yawr kneeaum’!)

Obviously we were highly amazeballs at this, which just delighted him further!

So after an extra long journey home (he was driving slowly to rack up the price…or it could have been our sparkling wit and marvellous company!) He dropped us off back at the house, asked us who this Ricky guy was, told us his real name and drove off.  Now it’s hard to convey here how hilarious this all was, but you’ll just have to trust me!

Cue friday lunchtime, and we’re off to lunch with the legend that is The Friend’s (the one we’re staying with) Nana.  Now this lady is a philanthropic marvel, an MBE no less.  She makes her own sausage rolls and tried to fatten me up further (I know, not needed!) even when I had stopped because I was full!  And apart from a slight mishap involving Nana swapping mine and The Friends names over, and us not quite realising until it’s too late and embarrassing to correct, it was a lovely meal!

Now it wouldn’t be a wee holiday without a spot of shopping would it?  I found two lovely tops, had a look round the handbags, and accidentally sprayed myself with the male version of my perfume.  For all of the rest of the day I was wafting about smelling eerily like The Brother.  It was not pleasant!

After that, I thought it prudent to address the problem of my headache.  I am one of those stupid/unfortunate people who find themselves addicted to diet coke.  (Other addictive caffeine-based beverages are available)  Anything after about 8 hours of no diet coke will give me a headache, and right at this moment I was coming up to about 25 hours!  So whilst everyone went off into the next shop, I had spotted a generic supermarket, and quickly headed in to scout out some lovely fizzy brown stuff!  I picked up a wire basket, trotted quickly down the aisles, and selected two big 2litre bottles of the stuff, and a cheeky little bottle to drink there and then.  Unfortunately, the supermarket was absolutely choc-full of customers….I wonder if they thought it was christmas eve or something, but there were people everywhere!

Aware that I might be holding the others up, I decided to take a shortcut through the menswear section…I scuttled through the maze of trousers, socks and underpants, and managed to turn a corner at great speed….next thing I know, I’m skidding over on my silly slippy boots, the basket gets caught on a rack of Y-fronts, the bottles go whizzing off in all directions, and I end up half sprawled on the floor with one arm still threaded through the basket!

After having muttered the immortal phrase ‘Blimey O’Reilley’ to myself and the GIANT queue of sniggering 19 year old boys who witnessed the whole embarrassing event, I scrabbled about picking up the slippery, shaken up bottles and tried to slink off to a queue at the other end of the shop.  I even managed to scuff my boot and leave an attractive black leather ‘skid mark’ on the floor!

Lots of other little things happened the rest of the weekend, but I fear I have kept you lovely readers long enough…

I’ll leave you with the news that I managed to leave my coat at the house and bring an entirely different one to the airport with me, got thoroughly frisked in security by an overzealous woman (what happened to my innocent face?!) Found out we would be flying back on a toy plane with propellers (The Friend was not pleased at all!) and had to ask for a seat belt extension thingy for the first time in my life! (Silly stupid tiny toy plane!)

One thing though…Did they really have to make it orange? I felt like the flight attendant might have well been swinging it round his head and singing as he brought it to me!

FBH strikes again!

To hear the other side of the story, why not click on The Friend’s blog?

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Family Olympics Slightly Less Glam Than London 2012

What ho Chums,

Hope everyone’s having a spiffing August? Those of you who are lucky enough to still be young and learning…Hope you’re enjoying your summer holidays? And those of you who are nowhere near young enough to be at school except in the teaching capacity….How is your time off going?  I have many teacher friends who (bless them) get very excited as the summer holibob looms, then as soon as they’re in it start grumbling about how fast it’s going!

Then there’s the rest of us who only just remember what six weeks of freedom feels like!  Gone are the long, gorgeous days where we used to spend all day outside making up games in our street: I remember one lovely summer, one of The Friends and I used to create a whole ‘house’ from the one solitary street sign! Yep, a thin piece of metal hammered into the ground was the focus of our attention for at least three afternoons…Ah, the imagination of children!

Of course, playing with a street sign might make me sound as if I didn’t have one toy or real game to my name.  I did, I had many lovely toys (very 1980′s themed such as sylvanian families, trolls with massive pink Jedward-stylee hair and a pair of in-line roller blades that hardly got used as I was totally pants at skating in them and feared for the life of both my ankles!) Yet even with all these cracking toys, sometimes the most simple things are the best: For example, give a child a big cardboard box and they’ll be happy for days, creating many different worlds with just their imagination!

Now I am a grown up (sort of, I think I will always be 22 in my head!) August means very different things to me….As the 24th looms with alarming and relentless inevitability, I find myself thinking back over the last 30 years…..

…….Which is a bit of a nutty thing to say really, because I can only really remember stuff starting from age 5, but no-one ever says that do they?

One thing that stands out from all in my memories is the continual and (usually) healthy family rivalry that has always existed, and will always I should think!  Obviously, The Brother and I have always made everything we possibly could into a competition:

One of our favourite games (which I am ashamed to say we’ve really only just grown out of!) was strangely named ‘You are the Liebfraumilch!’ I have no idea why we called it this, as it involved trying to push, overbalance or pull the other onto the sofa before you yourself hit the cushions!  Now obviously, being a bit of a Fatty Blob Head from quite an early age, lets just say I had the weight advantage in this game!  I used to hold my own quite successfully, until about the age of 14.  It was about this time that The Brother got really quite ridiculously strong, and he’s never looked back since! I very rarely get to crow ‘You are the Liebfraumilch’ these days…..The only time I manage it is if he’s not expecting it, in fact not even realising we’re playing the game (Cue evil laugh: Mwahahahahaaaaaaaa!)

So all this family competitiveness was bound to get rather more serious and official as we grew up….(Not that we’re Olympic standard or anything!) The Parent spotted a chart in a shop last year, and presented us with the perfect item to keep us amused for a whole year:

This simple piece of printed cardboard has kept us busy all year.  We’ve got til new year’s eve to complete as many of the 72 different tasks as possible! Hurrah for the Family Olympics!

Now, some of the tasks have been simply made for me:

• Stay in your pjs all day.  Easy Peasy! Next!
• Laugh til you cry.  Done. One of The Friends sent me a big long list of iBone autocorrects that had me rolling about in a very unladylike manner, with tears streaming down my very red face.  Unfortunately I was sat in a cafe at the time, and was making a bit of a tit of myself….I felt the need to read one out to the bloke sat next to me as he was looking to see why I was almost wetting my bridgets….I think he enjoyed it but the same can’t be said for the little old lady who was on my other side…She looked at me as though she wanted to call the men in white jackets!
• Build a snowman.
• Build a sandcastle. Behold both below!

The Brother’s was just too cool!

Now obviously I wish there was a lovely, rose-tinted story to go with the above sandcastle…A halcyon day full of fabulously remembered childhood times that included eating sand-filled sandwiches whilst sat on the fabulously hot sand watching the world go by…..Unfortunately (just for a change) this was not to be……

Picture the scene: Me fully clothed with just the bottom 5 inches of my jeans rolled up to keep the sea and sand off them, brandishing a hastily purchased spade and ‘bucket’ for the occasion.  Now as I’ve grown up, I’ve got a bit funny about sand…You’d never catch me rolling about in it these days, as I just don’t like it when it creeps everywhere and you’re still finding it days later!

So there I am, having a sandcastle competition with The Parents, and I’m trying to do it all from a standing position with a tiny spade that can only have been made for borrowers to dig their vegetable patches with!  I was so busy trying to avoid the demon sand (silly really, as I was attempting to create a pinnacle of building excellence with the stuff!) that I got one foot stuck in a particularly squelchy bit, tried to step back, failed miserably and landed on my (admittedly comfortably padded) bottom with a squeak followed by an ‘oompfh!’

Add The Parents crying with helpless laughter (well done them, they got a sticker for that!) and not helping me in the slightest, things could only have got more horrifyingly embarrassing if there had been any other witnesses to this shameful display of clumsy athletics…….Oh good, yes…That family over there will do….With the hot dad….Brilliant!

My shame was compounded further by the cutiepie four-year old poppet who asked said hot dad: ‘What is that lady doing lying in the sand?’ in a loud voice only a four-year old can achieve!

To top all that off, The Parent won the sandcastle competition (Though I’m wondering if he didn’t bribe the judges with wine…) and I went away from the whole sorry experience with a pulled leg muscle!

So there’s just a few of the stickers I’ve already got…..I’m going to find some of the others slightly more tricky: No tv for a week? Humnnn…..Turn your mobile phone off for 48 hours? Arrgh! I’d rather chew my own arm off!

Guess which one was my very first achieved sticker?  Yep, that’s right….Bake a cake! (Mmmmmmmmmm Cake!)

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

 

Beanz Meanz Mess!

What ho chaps!

I find myself awake rather more early than I’d planned on this Sunday morning, which is pretty amazing really, as I am known for my unending and eternal love of sleep.  I adore it, and as I’ve probably said in the past (I know I do tend to go on the odd loquacious ramble) that I have been known to sleep in some rather strange places including a bus on the way to a night out in Spain…..Not one of my finer moments I’ll admit!

I tend to do that attractive pose which involves my head being flung right back and my mouth wide open as if I’m doing a terrible and highly embarrassing impression of a gormless trout.  What’s more awful is the point when my head dips and I do that thing where you wake yourself up with a jolt, then look around in what I hope was a highly furtive manner to see if anyone has witnessed this beautiful display of female allure!  I can usually detect a few smirks here and there!

But, enough about my near-constant state of gorgeously attractive somnolence, and so to today’s title:

Beans.

Baked beans, green beans, human beans, bean sprouts and coffee beans. Just some of the many different varieties of the humble yet useful and versatile bean.  (Ok, I feel as if I’m now randomly trying to do some sort of odd, bean-obsessed advert extolling the virtues of beans, so quick-back on topic please!)

The Parent and I had an encounter with a few beans this week.  Strangely, I didn’t count them so won’t be able to give you the exact number of beans we had to contend with, but I think I can safely say it was in the billions….

The Brother recently purchased three Big Bertha bean bags. (Other giant bean-filled bags are available) They arrived on thursday in the biggest boxes imaginable.  They took up my lounge to the point where I hadn’t seen The Parent for what seemed like a few weeks, and all she was doing was sitting the other side of the sofa with these hugemongoose boxes in between!

I flung down my long-nosed pliers and informed The Parent that we weren’t waiting for The Brother, and that we would unpack the boxes ourselves.  What followed was a lot of pulling, pushing and a few mild curses (on my part; The Parent is much more angelic and serene) but eventually we had finally managed to separate the boxes from their prizes.  What was now before us was the evidence of what seems to be a highly cheeky and lazy company:

A giant plastic bag of those nightmare-ish polystyrene beans in all their tiny yet inherently evil glory.  And a neatly folded suede bag to put them in.  Why they couldn’t have sent them to us ready assembled I do not know….Presumably they would have a reason, but I’ll wager not one sufficiently impressive enough to appease me enough at this point:  I knew it was going to be very messy!

Helpfully, the company had provided instructions on how to get a bag of beans the size of an average 16-year-old, through an opening the size of an average hamster. (I always measure things by ‘how many hamsters?’  It’s a very effective system for measuring things, and I still can’t see why it hasn’t caught on….that is until the hamster escapes then I’m left with lots of things that need measuring and no possible way to achieve this!)

Anyway, I digress… The company had very helpfully instructed us to fill the bean bags in the bath.  Looking back, this was the best advice we could ever have been given, because halfway through the first one, the pesky beans got carried away and decided to make a determined bid for freedom, and we were left with this:

There were beans everywhere!  In our hair, up our noses, on the floor!  I even found a few down my bra, these dratted beans were so determined to escape!  Now I found myself running around like the proverbial headless chicken looking for something to scoop up said beans.  In the end I settled for a sieve from the kitchen which turned out to be surprisingly effective!

If I knew how to tweet, I’m sure my twit at the time would be something along the lines of: ‘Crouching in bath scooping beans with The Parent giggling helplessly beside me!’  Now if that wouldn’t have brought the nice men in white with a straight-jacket running, I don’t know what would!

After having survived the inevitable snow storm that these tiny balls of hell had created, we moved on to beanbag number two.  Only a few beans spilled on that one, and by the time we were on to number three, we were feeling rather smug and proud of ourselves: Not a single pesky little bean, hurrah!

So!  Now The Parent and I were expert bean bag fillers (we were considering a change in career, we were that impressed at our obvious natural ability!), we continued to read the oh-so-helpful instructions (They should have called them destructions) and next on the agenda was removing all the excess air from each bag.  This, we thought, was going to be the easy part!  We lounged on the bags dispelling all the air we could find, with the zip open at only about half a hamster. (See? You know you want it to catch on!)

All was going rather well until those persistent little devils suddenly popped out of the hole and scattered themselves around the room!  It was a little spurt that had us in absolute stitches, and kept happening as we would try to put them all back again! Actual tears were streaming down our faces as we realised we were facing a loosing battle with the bean bags who looked as though they were breaking wind!   Phfrrt!

When we had recovered and stopped rolling around the floor as though we were a couple of giggling nutters (Maybe it was the beans? Maybe they were giving off some odourless fumes and we were a tiny bit high on beanbag, who knows?!) we zipped them all up with a mighty cheer and went to have a well-earned glass of squash. (It was 11am- pink fizz isn’t usually allowed until at least 11.30!)

Innocent looking things, aren’t they?!

We used them for this first time last night, and I can safely say they were brilliant and worth the fuss!

I’m sure I’ll be hooooovering up the odd recalcitrant bean for many years to come yet…I spotted one hiding in a plant pot yesterday, and I won’t be surprised if The Brother complains at some point this week, as they’ll probably manage to make their way into his soup!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Duck A Doodle Doo

Hello There Chickens!

Sorry I’ve been AWOL for over a month. Naughty I know. I had some stuff going on then just got out of the habit. But, I am back! Maybe with not quite such a stream of posts as before, but we shall see!

So, what’s been happening? Who’s been doing what? Anyone conquered any countries recently? Been awarded any medals? How about finding the cure for crusty ears or inventing a new type of fish?

No? Well what have you been doing?! What can you show for your time if not a brand spanking new species of fish? I have of course, her name’s Gloria the Slightly Mottled Blowfish, and she’s busy swimming around in my bathtub.

So now you have got over your inevitable envy over my poisson-related abilities, I shall proceed to tell you about my holiday with Ruby.

Ah, Ruby Ruby Ruby (aaaahhahahhaaaaa!)

(Sorry, had to be done!)

‘Who or What is Ruby?’ I hear you cry! Well, Ruby was the name of the 65ft Narrow Boat that was home to The family for the whole of last week. For those of you who might not be able to picture clearly what I’m blathering on about, here’s a visual aide:

This is not actually a picture of dear Ruby, as for some reason I managed to avoid taking even one single shot of the actual boat, just lots of people and far too many pictures of ducks! (I like ducks a lot, they make me laugh and they all have such silly personalities!)

Anyway, you get the idea of the type of boat we stayed the week on…a floating caravan with added ducks!

And which exciting corners of the British Isles did we manage to visit in this floating hotel? To Birmingham and back!

For the wonderful readers out there who don’t grasp the funny side of that statement, it’s because it’s roughly 20 miles from where I currently live, and as far as trekking across vistas undiscovered goes, it’s not going to make the top list! I go christmas shopping in Birmingham!

This could all be down to the fact that the top speed on Ruby was a nifty 4mph! Yup, that’s not me typing it wrong, it truly doesn’t go much faster than that! But it’s possible to enjoy life in the slow lane, and that’s exactly what we did!

Of course, apart from the snail’s pace speed of things, there were other drawbacks; the two main ones being the bathroom that had been made for a child’s doll house and the bed so wide it can only be accurately described as a kingsize er, I mean plank! Yup, It was like sleeping on just the one floorboard. Maybe I’m doing it an injustice by describing it thus, but I would have challenged anyone to have a good night’s kip on that bad boy! Maybe only the likes of Kate Moss; she probably would have declared it luxurious.

An ice lolly stick with a bit of foam on top. A piece of skirting board with a nod at cushioning (and not even the posh skirting board that’s a couple of centimetres wider!) You get the idea!

So, borrower-sized facilities aside, what else did we get up to? Well, I have to get the embarrassing bit out now, as it wouldn’t be me if there wasn’t something making me blush going on!

It was the first day and we’d picked up the boat from the boat yard, had the little chat about from the boaty man (how to drive it safely, working the loo, where the horn was located, don’t use the microwave or hairdryer unless the engine’s running etc) and all was going swimmingly. I was ambling along on my way to open a lock with my windlass, full of the joys of being in the open air and avoiding little doggy presents: Usual stuff for a day on a boat!

What I hadn’t remembered was how much effort I’d have to put into winding the paddles of the locks up and down, and what an unsuitable top I happened to have flung on in a blind panic that morning! Now, even on a normal (upright) day, said top is one of those pesky numbers that has to be constantly checked for any inadvertent boob showage, so imagine my horror when I realised I was basically flashing most of my top half to passing unsuspecting joggers, cyclists and even other canal users. The looks ranged from grudging appreciation, comedy double-take shock, to one bloke who nearly toppled over into a 10ft lock!

Add in the wind factor that constantly blew out the skirty bit of the top to giant proportions, and you’ve got the beautiful image of me appearing to be a cross between the Michelin man and a rubbish dancer who’s failed the burlesque exam!

I even think I scared a few ducks!

Of course it wasn’t all bad! The best part was driving the boat. Navigating your way into locks is like playing toy cars with the garages when you were little! I believe it’s the only instance in life where you can drive into the side of things and get away with it! I can’t imagine ramming my car into the side of the local multi storey and people still smiling indulgently whilst encouraging me to try again….’Better luck next level’ is not something you hear too often in a car park! On the canal, even The Parent was clonking the front of the boat into various pieces of brickwork and concrete, the worst comment being ‘oops!’

Then there was Heron Watch (Bill Oddie would have been so proud!) What happens is this: Whoever’s driving at the time yells ‘Heron!’, and I have to execute what can only be described as a mad scramble to where I left my camera, usually at the completely opposite end of the boat (It’s a DSLR and heavy!) to where I was at the time, then pap the unsuspecting birdy until it flies off into the distance:

And another: (unless it’s the same showy-offy birdy who keeps coming back for more?)

Other stuff that happened included:

Staying in the centre of Birmingham where drunken revellers assaulted our boat all night. Some even clambered on the roof to have a little dance while we all tried to sleep. The Brother slept in his clothes so he could fend them all off, poor dear!

Chavs stealing a boat, a letchy old fisherman yelling ‘where’s your bikinis?’ to the three females on our boat at the time, a spot of canal rage, another silly fisherman shouting at us for going through a lock because there was ‘Too much water for the fishes!’ My amazing lock driving skills, apple scrumping, and scalding myself in the extremely hot shower after I had bent over backwards to wash my hair (short people shower only!)

Oh, and a pesky duck every morning with a cockerel complex. So loud and so early!

My list for one day’s drive through the outskirts of Birmingham’s canals:

27 footballs

Countless bottles

One metal beer keg

7 fire extinguishers

1 obligatory shopping trolley

1 stuffed whale teddy the size of a 6 year old

And an angry duck chasing a swan (usually the other way round!)

All that’s left to show you is a few pics of The Brother being an absolute nutter by jumping over the canal locks (scary wide to a normal person!)

I shall leave you to your gasps of amazement at his bold yet slightly enviable stupidity! Makes quite a good photo though, so I of course encouraged him, much to The Parent’s dismay!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Football For Girls

Football.

Men in tiny shorts kicking a tiny ball around a field whilst thousands of people yell, sing and shout abuse at the massively overpaid actors on the grassy stage that is the pitch.

That’s the dictionary definition anyway! Well, perhaps only the dictionary in my head but an important opinion nonetheless!

The Brother (who is not an obsessed football fan but will watch England play occasionally) tells me that there is skill and finesse involved, and it’s something I’d never be able to do in a month of Sundays…..

Well, durr! Of course I wouldn’t be able to play football to that standard! (Or any standard if I’m being properly honest!) For a start I think I’d get very fed up chasing the thing around the pitch (and everyone else running rings around me!) But above all else I find I have trouble grasping the point…

Imagine an overdressed younger version of Vanessa Feltz (she would be overdressed, you wouldn’t catch me in those shorts….Ever!) lumping around in the mud missing the ball with every poorly aimed kick, falling over someone else’s feet and managing to run roughly half the length of the pitch before deciding that a cosy armchair and a glass of pink fizz would be a far more preferable way to spend the day!

Well that would be me if someone ever actually managed to coerce me onto the field. Let’s just say I’d be seriously out of my comfort zone and wishing the ground would swallow me whole.

The Brother and The Friend are currently watching ‘the footie’ as I am writing this, and thank goodness it’s a relatively rare occurrence in my house, otherwise I think I’d go mad with all the noise and yelling.  As it is I’m wondering how much trouble I’d get into if I ‘accidentally’ fell on the tv…..I’m weighing up the options between paying for a new one or simply moving my laptop into another room.  I am notoriously bad when it comes to balance though, so it is something I might possibly get away with!

Having come to the rather obvious and sane conclusion that destroying one of my favourite objects in the house is a bad idea (favourite only to my bed and the fridge!) I have removed myself to my room in an attempt to fathom why football is so popular.

I understand about the supporting the team thing, I do!  It’s much the same as being loyal to The Friends: you want them to do well in life and encourage them in their chosen endeavor.

What my befuddled and over-tired mind has trouble grasping are the aspects of football that get exacerbated on such a massive scale: what might be a little tiff with one of The Friends and necessitates both of us walking away for the day, translates into full on hooliganism in a stadium that ends in multiple arrests and jail time.
Similarly, if I were to demand a footballer’s wage packet simply for being good at my job, people would look at me as though I’d lost the plot!

Then there’s the bit when they get kicked by a member of the opposition and fall to the muddy ground in an entirely over the top approximation of being injured.  Their little acts seem to fool no-one, as the excitable yells of ‘C’mon Ref’, ‘Oooiii!’ and other general grunts of indignant annoyance can be heard throughout the land!

Yes, I know it’s one of our most popular national sports, yes I know I’m ever so faintly ashamed that I’m only 56% certain of what the offside rule is all about, and no I don’t really think my life would be richer for knowing it.

There are some things in this world that I am quite happy to carry on regarding as slightly mysterious; being knowledgeable on the subject of where people should be standing at any one time, whilst attacking an over-sized string vest with a butch ballet dancer standing waving his arms in front of it, is definitely one of those occasions!

Other world occurrences to remain mysterious include:

How people are able to do the tablecloth swipe-offy trick without breaking anything.

How Brad Pitt still manages to look strangely hot with a nasty, ratty mustache under his nose!

How to get the self-service til machines in the supermarket to stop yelling at you: ‘Unexpected item in bagging area!’  What, you silly machine!?  What on earth could you think I’d put in there you weren’t expecting?  A 70s fondue set?  The Complete Works of Shakespeare?  Or maybe it was simply the innocuous packet of butcher’s choice sausages I HAD JUST THAT MOMENT SCANNED INTO THE MACHINE!

So I’m fairly certain mine and football’s relationship is set for life.  I will continue to resignedly grimace when I walk into a pub and it’s blaring out from three different televisions in a room the size of my kitchen.  It wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t have the volume on each tv turned up to the maximum, as though all of the pub’s patrons were deaf and unable to see further than the end of their pint-holding arms!

I must remember to look at life’s positives, The Football For Girls, if you will!

Gorgeous legs in short shorts, with impressive displays of aestheticism.  Then there’s the yummy ones who get underwear modelling contracts…That’s never a bad thing is it?  Maybe I need to forget about the boring bits and the fact that it turns nearly every bloke I know into a spluttering nutter, and just go with the flow!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Lords Of The Wine Flies

Today I am annoyed with The Brother.

He and one of The Friends got it in their crazy brains to make their own wine.
Now, I can fully understand their reasons, but the way they have gone about it is the part that has offended me, and I shall proceed to tell you why forthwith:
Are you sitting comfortably? No? Well add an extra cushion then…what? You’re reading this on your bike? Well don’t! It’s dangerous!
Well anyway, here goes:

Grandma’s Grape was locally renowned for being a slightly dodgy, very strong home-made (sort of) rose wine. The Parents started making said wine about 25 years ago, in response to the other (The Gang) Parents’ tinned D.I.Y wine efforts every time they all went camping. Eugh. Sounds delightful!
(I’ve just noticed that ‘The Gang’ sounds really quite sinister! It was named before 21st Century ‘Gang Culture’ came to the fore… Or at least before I knew anything about it! They really are lovely people, and as far as I’m aware they’ve not performed any criminal acts in their lives! If we had thought about it, we probably would have named it with something slightly more friendly such as The Group, or The Random Gathering of Friends and Acquaintances…something like that!)

Anyway, the wine making was always a big production every year; from the picking of the grapes to sorting them, squishing all the juice out of them (sometimes done in the traditional manner with feet-euggh!) then fermenting, bottling, labelling then finally drinking!

Now on the rare occasion I thought to try some, I found it to be a slightly disturbing, acidic tasting ‘wine’, and of course because I was but a young whippersnapper at the time, all wine (whether home produced or not) tasted like someone had wrung their three-day old socks out over a glass and added some blackcurrant squash for colouring. I sometimes wish I had retained this view of all things grape-related, it probably would have saved me a few brain cells!

Anyway, Grandma’s Grape (so named because of my Grandma, believe it or not…it was her vine!) used to floor people with alarming regularity, even coining the phrase ‘Ooh, he’s a bit Grandma-ed!’

Production came grinding to a halt when we had hardly any grapes on the vine one year. (Hard to make lemonade with no lemons, that sort of thing!) After that, life just got busy and the need for slightly suspect handmade wine tapered off into the past……

…..Until The Brother and The Friend were sitting drinking some good stuff (from the professionals) and happened to get onto the subject of Grandma’s Grape. Next thing I know they’ve placed a bucket of weird smelling grapes in the corner of the kitchen and have left it to ‘do it’s thing’! Brilliant. I’m all for a sport of creativity, but wine making? Really? It was never going to be a brilliant wine, was it?

More Chateauneuf du Crap than anything else!

Now I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure that there should have been some yeast involved at some point near the beginning, maybe even some TLC and an instruction booklet, anything except letting it stew naturally for months on end. Then one day it got plonked behind the door in the Room Of Shame before a party, and that’s where it’s lurked ever since. At regular-ish intervals I have reminded The Brother of its existence, even giving him a running total on the inches of mould growing on the top layers of grapes (All in the plan, I was assured every time I told him!)

So off the subject popped, back into my forgettery until I stubbed my toe on the bucket a few weeks later and jogged his memory again.

Well it all came to a head this morning, when I clonked my poor unsuspecting toe for what seemed like the 756th time!

Instead of cursing mildly and getting on with my day, I swore whilst simultaneously being attacked by a fly wandering up my nostril. Have you ever had a fly explore your nasal passages? Well I can tell you it’s not pleasant. Not something I would request to experience again, ever! In fact, my whole nose is twitching even now at the memory!

Before I knew it, the flies had launched a full-scale attack, and with underhand and dastardly tactics they attempted to take over the Room Of Shame and force me out. Once I’d recovered enough to stop leaping about trying to bash them ineffectively with my hand, I realised that they had come from the wine bucket and that said bucket had a gaping hole in the cling film. This hole was similar to the yawning mouth of hell; Swarms of the nasty blighters were barreling out of the hole in their thousands, and all I could apparently do was welcome them into my home with open arms and offer them a fruit basket and some money off vouchers for the local area.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a girl who likes her wine ‘sans fly’ where ever possible.

Having banished the bucket to the far reaches of the garden (I’m telling the The Brother he is sorting out its disposal; I’ve put a bag over the top and a whole roll of sellotape!) I then spent a good part of the afternoon hoovering up said flies with my dyson.

I don’t know if it was because they were baby flies (and therefore not sufficiently schooled in the art of human-fly evasion) or they were a particularly stupid variety, but they weren’t as flappy as normal ones. Sneaky and very good at hiding, yes; but once they were in the open it was blessedly easy to suck them up to their new home…the dusty filters of the hoover, Hurrah!

So I hope that’s put The Friend and The Brother off D.I.Y alcohol. I rather fear not though as I was within earshot tonight when they were trying to work out if they have enough space in the airing cupboard to brew cider. Man alive what will it be next? Grubs in the apples? Lizards swimming around getting drunk on scrumpy?

Boys, there’s a reason supermarkets sell wine and other beverages…It’s so you don’t have to terrorise sisters with different species of insect every couple of months! Also, I rather think it’s safer this way too…Imagine how messy they would have been whilst Grandma-ed!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

Lamination Is An Art Form

Ask anyone who has ever worked with me and they will tell you that I have a slight obsession with all things stationery.

I used to come back from my lunch breaks clutching snazzy new pens and marker pens with a huge grin on my face.  I rather think that my colleagues used to smile over my excitement in an indulgent manner, whilst really thinking something along the lines of ‘blimey what a nutter!’

The only thought that keeps me from cowering in a vaguely shameful heap is the fact that I have met others that seem to regard pens pencils, rubbers and other means of being creative, with the same intensity of feeling! (Thank goodness!)

One of the Great Aunts used to collect pencils from all over the UK and the world.  She’d line them up on a shelf and they’d display themselves for all to see, proudly stating that they were from Ironbridge, or the Black Country Museum, as if challenging you to visit everywhere and acquire an even bigger collection!  Well I don’t think I’m quite at that stage yet, as I tend to keep my higgledy piggledy collection in the usual receptacles; old mugs with inappropriate sayings on, or shoved in the front of drawers and even a few down the side of the sofa for good measure.

I’ve even discovered that when I’m busy, an extremely useful place for a pen is shoved into the ponytail of my hair; ready to be grabbed at a moment’s notice.  The only drawback to this is in the same vein as the hiccoughs; (read Hic! Ha Ha Ha! if you’ve not already) I get loads of random people bounding up to me and asking (in a highly amused voice as if they think they are a comedy genius) ‘Er! Did you know you’ve got a pen in your hair?’

What?  What!!  A pen in my hair?  How the devil did that get there?  It must have been a cheeky pen-stashing pixie-type being leaping up onto my shoulder in a malevolent, invisible manner!

In fact now I come to think of it, I have heard of a pen-in-hair epidemic down south; someone should tell the authorities, we must deploy the SWAT team specially created for such a disaster: Special Weapons And Pesky Pen In Hair Removal, or SWAPPIHR for short!

Of course I know I’ve got a pen in my hair, I put it there, you cretins!

Anyway, for what seems like the 358th time, I digress…..

My love for stationery has always included the secret desire for a laminating machine.  Many times I have almost bought one; the only thing ever stopping me is mainly due to this fact: I really don’t have anything that needs laminating….How annoying!

So when I was asked to do a spot of laminating this weekend at the Food Show, I actually did a rather good impression of calm nonchalance; what was actually going on was something more along the lines of  ‘Oh man alive, I’m going to get to do some laminating for the first time EVER!  Keep calm, don’t think about the fact that I’m realising one of my life-goals! ARRRGGHH!’

I turned it on and gave it a little pat, then stood back whilst it warmed up and waited.  And waited.  Then waited a tiny bit more.  After that I did some waiting.  After a little snooze, a few biscuits and a couple of chapters of War and Peace, the light on the machine decided to turn green, finally!

Trying to keep my hands from shaking in anticipation, I fed the first A4 sheet in its little plastic wallet into the waiting hot jaws of the machine.  And my first ever go at the subtle art of lamination?  A disaster! It came out folded almost in half with wobbly bits in the corner, and a general air of indignant hot plastic!

Attempt 2 up to 7 didn’t fare much better, much to my continuing dismay…I even had a sheet that refused to exit the machine at all, instead opting for the crumpled up bubbling hot option, rather like me trapped in a sauna wearing a dressing gown and slippers!

To say I was panicking at this point would probably be a bit of an understatement.  The last thing The Cousin needed was me coming running up saying I couldn’t even work what is most likely the more simple of the office machines! (Earlier I had conquered the scary looking caravan-sized photocopier with ease!)  She was busy dealing with real issues such as exhibitor pitches and generators, she would have looked at me as though I had gone loopy and pleaded with me to get a grip!

Just as I was about to descend into a proper technology-fueled meltdown, The Brother ambled by and airily informed me that it had an internal snag, and to post the paper in from the left, not the middle.  Brilliant.  Could have done with that info half an hour ago!

So attempt number 8 was the winner!  A beautiful, sleek job with lovely neat edges:  Perfection personified!  I couldn’t help but wave the completed lamination above my head in a highly excited, celebratory manner as I marched round the site looking for the noticeboard to attach it to!

After all that, has my anguish with the grumpy machine of lamination put me off owning one?  I doubt it!  As soon as I have a bona fide reason for a spot of laminating, I’m off down to the local stationers to do a deal!  Of course my own version would be entirely well-behaved and produce gleaming finished products every time, I’m grinning at the prospect as I write this!

As far as I know, there weren’t any complaints of anyone being offended by my shoddy laminates, so I’m fairly sure I got away with it!  This time anyway!  And if you ever need any office work done, I think I’m definitely the girl for the job, don’t you?  He he!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head

The Nutty Chef

Today I was advised by a crazy chef (but in a genius, hilarious all round snazzbuckets-bloke sort of way) to pop the couple of dry roasted peanuts he’d just reverently placed in my hand into the ground and watch them grow into a magnificent plant-type object!

Apparently I’d be able to climb this plant tomorrow and have wondrous adventures…I’m not sure whether I’m ready to be featured in ‘Jenn and the Nutstalk’ quite yet, but who knows, I may follow his advice in the not too distant future!

And what was this highly entertaining chef’s name?  Stephen Bulmer;  This guy is a solid-gold legend!

A few minutes before he imparted the slightly suspect peanut advice, he had been busy making his apprentice get his face painted with a rather fetching pair of black glasses and a bright red smackeroo-lipstick mark, all of which Aaron endured with extremely good grace, and even with a cheeky grin!

Having introduced Aaron to the audience as Maureen, he then proceeded to smear glucose on Aaron’s chin, add copious amounts of chopped parsley and present his creation to us; a fetching bright green goatee!  This was in a marquee with about 97 people all watching avidly, giggling away for an hour this afternoon!

I was working at an event in Northamptonshire, a food show one of The Cousins organises with her business partner.  I go along every year to help out, with various tasks including welcoming the public, handing out programs, directing people round the event, and being thoroughly entertained by Chef Bulmer!

This guy is unlike any other chef you’ll ever meet; he’s uproariously quick and had me laughing continuously, and produces top-notch grub whilst doing a cracking stand up comedy routine!
He’s also partial to throwing ingredients at the audience for them to try; employing the (admittedly lesser-used) ’25 Minute Rule’ when Joe Blogs in the audience wasn’t quite quick enough!  Tomatoes, sausages and chocolate pieces all found their way into people’s hands, mouths and bags!

It’s certainly impossible to be grumpy around this man, he had me grinning widely from the moment he turned up, and even ‘helped’ in his own way when I was doing the more embarrassing part of my job:  Announcing at the top of my voice the various food demonstrations going on in the marquee behind me!

Now I’m not one who really minds everybody stopping and turning to stare at me when I’m yelling, after all that was what I was hoping to achieve by doing so, but when Chef Bulmer happens to be standing behind me at the time and starts yelling helpful hints at the 200 people in front of me, I couldn’t help be a little bit nervous at what he might have said next!

When not alternately chuckling and cringing at what he was up to (and the amount of stuff he was able to just about get away with!) I was busy directing about a thousand people to the toilets, buying raspberry liqueur (yum!) and sniggering at The Brother.  You see, he had an absolutely genius role over the two-day event;

Also, there was another fantastic costume he sported magnificently for most of the day:

Luckily The Brother has always loved a spot of dressing up, so took to these roles with the kind of polish and finesse usually only seen in Shakespearean actors!  He even developed a scarily accurate waddle-bouncy walk whilst wearing the fat chef costume, and only made a total of 2 small children cry which I think may be a show record! (Don’t quote me on that one, I’d have to check my sources)

So between Chef Bulmer and The Brother, I managed to spend a large amount of time having a good giggle, and even tripping up on some pesky cobbles and nearly landing on someone’s cup of tea didn’t even phase me!

All of a sudden, it was the end of the show.  Stephen Bulmer had launched his last (delightfully fresh, locally grown ingredient) missile and left me clutching my dry roasted magic peanuts, hope and excitement evident in my eyes!  He dragged the long-suffering Maureen/Aaron off to pastures new with a cheeky wink and a chef’s-uniform-clad bum wiggle!

It made me want to sign up for his cookery school just so I could have more fun, but for that I’d have to deny who I really am: an amazing cook, obviously!  I really doubt that there’s anything he could teach me that I didn’t already know….In fact, I reckon that next year I might give him my recipe for plastic soup, that one’s always a winner!  (Small plug for my FBH archives: If you haven’t read Plastic Soup, get on with it!  He he!)

After a combined effort tidying up and long tussle with copious amounts of rubbish (we filled two skips worth!) we called it a day…exhausted but happy!

Having driven home and walked from the car to my house (only about 15 metres) and appeared scarily as if I were an arthritic waddling 96-year-old granny, I dragged my extremely useless, limp and achy body off to bed! (Via the bit of earth under my window to plant the nuts, of course!)

And so the Food Show is over for another year; we had cracking fun with the good people of Northamptonshire, almost-perfect weather (it only drizzled for half an hour, which unfortunately was still enough to make my hair frizz out to Lily Savage proportions!) and above all, buckets of scrumbunctious nosh at every turn!

Here’s hoping that Maureen’s glasses truly were applied with face paint, otherwise the permanent marker’s going to cause a few giggles back at the cookery school!

Love,
Fatty Blob Head

Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Easy Street

It occurred to me as I was carrying around one of The Friend’s husbands new packet of pants, that in general, blokes get the easy deal out of living.

Now I’m fairly certain that any male reading this will immediately start to bristle, huff and puff whilst coming up with a list of arguments in his head.  Indeed, if I were to wait an hour then I could have the benefit of The Brother’s point of view too.

Seeing as I don’t have any of those things (Even the pants; I presented them to him with a flourish once we came back from buying them!  He duly thanked me for them, even if it was with a slightly bemused grin on his face!) then I will proceed to list my own views here and now, with no interruptions!

 

War paint. 

We girlies understand the importance of not scaring people with our unmade faces when we walk outside our front doors.  Men however, can quite happily waltz off to work without even looking in the mirror!  One of The Friends and I spent a happy 15 minutes in a well-known retailer this afternoon…(I’d love it for someone to tell me why Boots is called Boots?  It sells virtually everything except boots!)…and I bought my favourite makeup and a mascara I most definitely didn’t need. 

Now, men don’t have this problem; I have never heard of any instances when men have over-spent on unnecessary make up items! (And all the sickeningly gorgeous women out there who don’t need or use makeup, I am of course ignoring you!)

 

Flat Shoes

Whatever shirt and trousers combo he decides to go with, he’ll always get to wear flat shoes.  Whatever outfit I decide upon, I have a decision to make.  Heels (which make me vie for attention with the Empire State Building) or flats.  Now, I do occasionally miss wearing heels, so much so that I sometimes think that it’s a darned fine idea popping them on for the eve.  Off I toddle to wherever I’m going, only to regret the searing pain in the balls of my feet that signify I should have ‘practiced’ wearing them round the house for a few nights beforehand.

I’ve even been known to be what I consider to be extremely smart and clever (although I did get some funny looks so maybe it just looked nutjobbish!) and wore flip-flops initially to walk the long, painful distance into town.  As soon as I was settled in the bar area I swapped them for glam heels.  Now, here’s the clever bit:  Not wanting to carry around a flappy pair of flip-flops in my impossibly tiny and slightly useless handbag, I had come prepared with a large squiffy bag with my name and address on it! 

Off I scampered to the nearest post box to post my shoes home whilst a cluster of The Friends looked on in puzzlement, not sure whether to congratulate me on a genius idea or declare I was a loopy weirdo who was past all available help!

This would all have ended very smugly for me if I hadn’t received a parcel in the post a few days later, and thinking it was something exciting made a big fuss of opening it in front of The Minions…..When my scruffy, dodgy sandals flip-flopped their way onto the table, I couldn’t really blame them for looking at me as though I had lost the plot!

Cooking Babies In Our Tummies

Now I’ve not yet been lucky enough to have any little chiefs of my own, but I’m fairly certain that the male portion of this endeavour is pretty simple and doesn’t involve pushing a watermelon through a curtain ring.  Enough said on that one!

Hormones

He doesn’t have to contend with ‘The Monthly Visitor’.  Oh, wait, yes he does, just on the receiving end, which is entirely and most definitely NOWHERE NEAR AS BAD!!! (he he!)

Follicle Faffing

This is I think, the only one where the lines blur slightly!  I don’t think all of them care about their hair, but some spend longer than others on their barnets.  The Brother, for instance has very similar hair to me (just once I wish he’d grow it so I could see how ridiculously mahoosive it would be!)

For all their gelling, styling and preening, the blokes of this world still don’t have to put up with the fun and games we girls do on a daily basis.  Firstly, no one told me that I’d need a couple of years training just to have impressive enough muscles to cope with washing my hair…I’m sure my arms get a better workout working shampoo through my unruly tresses than ever going to any gyms.

Then there’s drying it.  One of The Friends has had massive amounts of fun this week as she’s been staying in a different hotel each day with her job.  Not having enough room to pack a hairdryer and a laptop in her tiny case, she made the startling sacrifice of her super dooper all singing all dancing bells and whistles entirely snazzbuckets hairdryer from home!  I think it’s safe to say she’s regretted this decision, as the hotels have provided her with a succession of ever increasingly naff excuses for barnet-blowers, and her life has suffered immeasurably! 

Straightening, curling, cutting, washing, conditioning, partying, holidaying, straightening again, central heating, air conditioning, dyeing, back-combing and a tad bit more straightening….Our hair puts up with a lot, and we put up with our hair!

So now I’ve finished sounding like a shampoo advert, I’m off to prod The Brother in the side of the head with a wooden spoon and tell him he’s lucky.  I’ll probably get a kick in response, but again he’s assured me this is entirely affectionate and any pain I might experience is my own fault for trying to defend myself!

Love,

Fatty Blob Head