Poorly Legumes

Recently I went upstairs to where my teenage daughter was lounging on her bed talking to friends on MSN in a very strange language and handed her a bowl of profiteroles dripping in chocolate sauce.

She responded with: "Ooh! Profiteroles! Sick bean!"

If anyone could explain the last two words, I would be extremely grateful. And yes, I did ask said daughter, but she couldn't help.

Google Mood Ring (Green): Steady, stable, no emotional turmoil

Touch Me and I'll Run Away

A week ago my daughter's boyfriend bought her a new laptop. In theory, it's better than my desktop and also cost more. Twice as much RAM, multi-core ... but the in-built graphics STINK. Anything more than a teeny-weeny picture and it gets so hot and bothered I could brown toast on the heat coming out of it.

However, that isn't the point. Said daughter has gone away for a couple of weeks and didn't need to take the laptop, so I thought I'd try it out. Well, talk about a palaver. What on earth is that touchpad thing that pretends it's a mouse? No way could I control it. The arrow was going all over the screen and half the time my finger was at the bottom of the pad before the arrow got anywhere near halfway down the screen. I almost threw the thing out of the window. It took me ten minutes to close all the programs that opened automatically. Would have taken less than ten seconds on my desktop.

I never did like the idea of laptops anyway (can think of better things to have resting on my knee), but now I am totally convinced ... computers belong on a desk.

Google Mood Ring (Green):Steady, stable, no emotional turmoil

A Hermit Lost in the Crowd

Being a hermit is all very well if one lives alone or with other hermits. It becomes a huge problem, however, when one shares one's home with a teenage daugher who is so extrovert she makes Madonna look like a shy, retiring wallflower.

Whenever she arrives home from school I hear her voice as she walks up the path. Either she's talking to someone on her mobile, or to someone walking next to her. Today it was the latter. Often it is both. Sometimes it is both and then the landline rings and she has to carry-on three conversations. Four, when I start moaning at her and five if you include her greeting the cat. She manages it so well it's worrying.

I went to a presentation event recently at a club both my still-at-home-when-will-they-grow-up-and-bugger-off offspring attend, as my son was receiving some sort of award. The second we arrived there were teenagers swarming round my daughter and she was exchanging kisses on the cheek and "Mwaahs" with them all. I had no idea she knew so many people and I began to seriously wonder where I'd gone wrong in my parenting.

Of course, I know where it all comes from. She takes after my mother. Mummy Dear was heavily into amateur dramatics and singing and generally being in the limelight (now it's just the latter because she's almost eighty-one and a bit past it) and my daughter intends studying singing, drama and dance from September onwards. I have a niece who studied drama and dance, too.

It has just occurred to me that I have five children and not one of them is hermit-like. They're all extroverts and each one is more extrovert than the preceding one. Whatever did I do wrong? Couldn't I have had just one offspring who could have kept me company when I'm hiding behind the sofa avoiding visitors? What did I do to deserve FIVE who always rush to answer the damn door???

My eldest son is a Libran and lives to socialise. While he was still living with me, a day rarely went by without him saying "Mum, why don't you ever go out? How can you not want to go out? Why do you stay inside all the time?". He just didn't get it, poor boy. He thought "Because I don't want to go out" or "Because I like staying in" or even "Because I hate going out" were euphemisms for "I have no friends. Nobody loves me. I am a worthless, useless nobody". At best he was convinced I had agoraphobia.

My youngest son is Libran too and talks to everybody who will listen. When we go out shopping, it takes forever because he keeps stopping to talk to people I've never seen before in my life. All ages too, from toddler through to I'm-not-long-for-this-world. I have no idea how he knows these people, he's only eleven for heaven's sake and he's barely lived in this town for half his life.

As for my middle son, he has the same birthday as my youngest daughter, so I don't really need to say anymore about him. He talks to people on the phone all day for a living and spends his spare time posing in front of mirrors topless and flexing his muscles, stopping only to take yet another picture of himself to post on the Internet with one of various captions that all mean "OMG, I'm GORGEOUS".

My eldest granddaughter is about as extrovert as anyone can get, she's worse than my afore-mentioned youngest daughter and she's got a way to go yet before she becomes a teenager. But, her elder brother, my grandson ... now, I have pinned all my hopes on that one. He's definitely in training for hermitness, in spite of having two parents who probably don't even know what the word hermit means (one of them being my eldest daughter, who is so extrovert she farts at strangers). Perhaps he should come and live with me before it's too late ...

Slightly later ... Ha-ha. I switched on my Last.fm and guess what came onto my personal radio station? "Take Your Mama Out" by the Scissor Sisters. I forgot to mention that my brood are psychic, too. Nice one kiddos, but guess what? It ain't gonna work!!!

Google Mood Ring (Blue): Comfortable, breezy, at rest, lovable

Bohemian Humbugs

Well, I seem to have disappeared again, at least from this blog. People keep sending me messages enquiring as to my whereabouts. I did think of replying in some sort of alien language, pretending I was a creature from another planet who had abducted me, but decided against it. Eccentric is one thing, totally insane is quite another.

What have I been doing since I was last here? Well, for one thing I became a Queen. No, I tell you straight, I am the Queen of Bohemia. It won't mean anything to you unless you are on SL and also on TE, but if you are, you'll now be going "OMG no, not HER". Yeah, it's ME!!! Don't you just love it. I am starting a new TE blog, for those who aren't sitting there going "Huh? What's she on about NOW?".

So, it's just over a month until Christmas and as usual I haven't bought a single thing, not even a card. I would rather not do, either. Total waste of money and I hate all that commercialism. It's almost reached the time when I will have to start saying "Bah, Humbug!" a lot. It's not that I don't like giving people things, I actually get a lot of pleasure out of it, it's just that I don't like been told when I have to do it. Shouldn't need a special day for it.

I'm a year older now in chronological terms than I was when I last penned an entry, so I am allowed to be that bit grumpier, so I may start saying "Bah, Humbug!" slightly earlier this year. I may even start today. BAH, HUMBUG!!!

Google Mood Ring (Black):Tensed, stressed, working too hard

I Should Have Been an Elephant

Well, it's been a while. Quite a few silly things have happened to me since my last entry, but I can't remember any of them now. Maybe they will come to me.

I do remember something relating to the last entry, although it wasn't anything silly. Just me forgetting about the no-smoking ban in cafes and having to traipse down the street carrying a plastic cup full of coffee so I could sit in the park at the end of the road. This particular cafe used to always be full, but on that occasion it was practically empty. I had to go by the law court on the way to the park and there were several police persons and a couple of lawyers outside smoking away, although that has always been the case as smoking has been banned in there for a while. Just struck me as rather amusing at the time.

I can't think of anything else to say, so I'm going.

Google Mood Ring (Dark Blue):Impassioned, delighted, whiff of romance

Light-Up and Cough-Up

Well, today's the day. Yes, from today a certain section of people in the UK are being mercilessly victimised and forced to live like smelly, parasitic entities from a lower spiritual plane. In other words, today is the day that smokers can no longer smoke in public places. I didn't even know about this until my 10-year-old son told me about it a week or so ago.

There's more to it than that and most of it makes no sense. I haven't even bothered to check-up on it, all I know is that it sounds totally stupid and is all based on whether or not the smoking is taking place in a home or a place of business. If it's a home, it's allowed, which means (and this is a good one) that if your home is also your place of business, you can't smoke in it. Yes, you heard right, you can't smoke in the privacy of your own home. Doesn't even matter if you live alone and have no other workers to contaminate with your revolting vapours, you still can't do it. Like hell you can't. I am seriousy considering starting a home business purely on principle.

Smoking is now banned in pubs, but not in hotels. This is because a pub is a public place, but a hotel is classed as a home. This means, of course, that the hotel bars will fill-up and the hotel owners will increase their profits to the detriment of the pub owners. I may be wrong, but I would say that there is a larger majority of smokers in pubs than there are in the country generally, so there's a fair bit of profit to be lost there. Smokers can go outside pubs to smoke, but they can only smoke in shelters with one side and a roof or something, 'cos if they have three sides (or something) they'll be public places. This presumably also means that if they just have a roof, they're homes. So, all we need to do is knock our walls down and we can work and amoke in our homes to our lungs' content.

And lorry drivers can't smoke in their cabs. Since when was a lorry driver's cab a public place? Bearing in mind that they spend a lot of time sleeping in them, I'd have thought they were more homes than business premises. But of course, they're working in them too, so that explains that. Not very logically, but the entire thing is totally illogical.

The punishment for lighting-up is that the naughty smoker has to pay a £50 fine if they're caught. The council will be employing officers to sneak around looking for errant smokers and I bet every single one of them is one of those evangelical ex-smoking types. You know the sort I mean. The most unfair aspect of it is that the person who owns the premises the smoker is smoking on (such as a pub owner) will be fined £2,500. A slight difference there. I would strongly suggest that no pub owners go to the toilet or anything, just in case the entire pub lights-up in their absence.

I don't want to talk about this anymore, it's boring me silly. Go to this link to read a much funnier and far more informative blog post about this topic. Before I go, though, read the title of this post again, because I think it's rather clever. Cough-up has two meanings, you see. Get it? Good. Have to keep you on your toes.

Google Mood Ring (Dark Blue): Impassioned, delighted, whiff of romance

Pointless Opportunities

So I finally get my blog accepted for this silly thing that is supposed to earn me money if I wax lyrical about products I've used (or products I pretend I've used) and things like that, but there's this problem. Out of 93 open 'opportunities', the only one I qualify for is talking about the site offering the opportunities and telling everyone how wonderful it is and how much money I've made from it.

HELLO, people offering these 'opportunities'??? See the problem???

Google Mood Ring (Black):tense, stressed, working too hard

Down With This Blog

OK, so I am somewhat miffed. Before my 2-year hiatus from this blog, it had a 5/10 Google rating. When I came back, it was down to 4/10. How it managed to stay that high for two totally unposted years is more than slightly puzzling. However, now that I am back, it has suddenly gone down to 3/10.

Does this mean my blog does better without me posting anything on it? Perhaps I should just shut-up permanently ...

Google Mood Ring (Grey): Anxious, ill-at-ease, strained
(Is it any wonder after seeing my rating?!).

If It's Loose, Don't Lose It

Lots of things irritate me, on account of how I am easily irritated. Most of all, I am irritated by stupidity, especially stupidity caused by lack of attention to obvious detail.

No more is this demonstrated than in my total aversion to the misuse of words and one thing that really drives me insane is the inability to differentiate between "lose" and "loose". Why do so many people get these confused? It should be obvious from the pronunciation alone what they both mean, yet so many people insist that they are going to, for example, "loose their mind" ... what does that mean exactly, that they are going to send it on some sort of rampage?

Let's get this straight once and for all. When the word "loose" is pronounced, it has an "s" sound; when the word "lose" is pronounced, it has a "z" sound. If that simple difference is borne in mind, there should be no margin for error and no excuse for it. To make it even clearer, "loose" is the opposite of "tight" and "lose" is the opposite of "win". So, if you say "I know I am going to loose the game", what you are really saying is "I know I am not going to tight the game", which makes no sense whatsoever. It also makes you sound like a complete idiot.

Oh and while we're at it, the words "to" and "too" are pronounced differently, too (not to). So, you would "go to work, too" (light "u" sound followed by heavy "oo" sound), you would not "go too work, to", although you might "go to work to work".

Google Mood Ring (Blue): Comfortable, breezy, at rest, lovable

Unwashed Teenage Blondes

Well, for those who know what I mean, Second Life is down for updating and the Beta grid doesn't seem to be working either, so I may as well prattle in here a bit seeing as I haven't done for a while.

Perhaps I will moan about my teenage daughter for a paragraph or two. What is it about teenage daughters and clothes? Mine has like hundreds of things to wear, but yesterday she wanted to wear the one thing that hadn't been washed. Never mind that everything else was clean and dry, it just had to be the one top that she'd forgotten to give me for washing the day before.

We had far more fun during the Easter holidays, though. Her hair is naturally medium-dark brown with red highlights. Due to the fact that, like her mother, she can be a bit scatter-brained at times, the majority of her schoolfriends have told her that she should have been born blonde (she was actually dark blonde as a toddler, but it darkened). Anyway, to this end she decided to colour her hair blonde. Unfortunately, being 'blonde', she didn't make too good a job of it and ended-up with a large patch of very blonde hair on top, surrounded by reddish blonde, graduating to gingery-brown as it went further down. She did all this at her father's and he hadn't the common sense to tell her that with hair the length of hers she'd need two or three packets of colourant, not one. She did try using several others afterwards, but it didn't seem to work.

I had a similar problem when I was her age. My hair then was extremely dark brown (blue-black in some lighting), but it also had red in it. Blonde highlights were all the rage when I was about the same age my daughter is now and as my mother didn't want to pay for me to have them, I decided to try them myself. I bought myself a box of peroxide, grabbed an old toothbrush, and ... well, the end result was several huge frizzy pieces of ginger fuzz and the eventual loss of an entire head of hair that had taken me years to grow to well past the bottom of my bra strap. The hairdresser insisted the only way to solve the problem was to cut it all off to nape of the neck level (way above the bottom of my bra strap, on account of the fact that I have never worn a bra around my neck). Since then, it hasn't seemed to want to grow much past my shoulders, so goodness only knows what damage I did to it.

The upshot of this is that my daughter ended-up having to colour her hair medium-dark brown and the final count in financial terms was around £30 to get herself back to the colour she'd started with.

Google Mood Ring (Blue): Comfortable, breezy, at rest, lovable.

The Last McDonald's American Holiday

It's been the Easter holidays for the past two weeks and I took my son to the cinema a couple of times. Last week we saw The Last Mimzy and yesterday we went to see Mr Bean's Holiday. My son wanted to see Mr Bean last week, but I persuaded him against it as I didn't really fancy it much. However, I have to say that I did enjoy it when we watched it yesterday. The Last Mimzy was good, but nothing extraordinary. It started off reminding me of Gremlins, then became more and more like ET as it went on.

Anyway, the first time we went to McDonald's after the film and the second time we went before. This is the third or fourth time I have been to McDonald's since I NOTICED SOMETHING. The kids noticed it, too. Quite simply, the size of the various burgers has decreased, as has the size of the drink cups. The prices, however, haven't decreased. In fact, they appear to have increased. Even before this change our portions were much smaller than the American ones (as I recall, our small doesn't exist there and our large is their medium or small or something - I think they have two sizes bigger than our maximum).

Not that I want American sizes here, it's all I can do to manage our largest, but I do wonder why Americans eat so much more than we do. It's not as if they're built any differently. Do they feel they're missing out if something isn't BIG? I remember a friend of mine going to America once and coming back saying "Oh my god, one portion in a restaurant is equivalent to what I eat in a week". She was obviously exaggerating slightly, but she wasn't far wrong. I've heard similar from other people, too.

Most restaurant portions here are way too large for me. Ideally, I would eat a child's portion, that's usually about right for me. If I went to an American restaurant I'd probably be sick at the very sight of what they would place in front of me. I suspect that even a toddler's portion would be too big.

I've never understood why restaurants don't offer smaller portions for smaller people - let's face it, there is no way a woman weighing 7 stone can eat the same size portion as a man weighing twice that size, yet there is no difference in the amounts they are given. This makes no sense to me, but I suppose it's all down to money, as they'd be expected to charge less for the smaller size. Nevertheless, if anyone ever has the common sense to start a restaurant chain like this, I think they'd make a fortune.

Just realised it's Friday the 13th today. Not that it bothers me, it's supposed to be lucky for us Scorpios. I shall live in hope of someone reaching 30 pages before midnight (don't try to work it out, you won't be able to, unless you're the person writing 'em).

Google Mood Ring (Grey): Anxious, ill at ease, strained.

I Can Only Marry You if the Weather is Right

It's been like summer here the last couple of days. I went out today in my jacket as usual and almost melted away. Sheepskin doesn't really go with blazing hot sun. Apparently, this year is going to be the hottest on record, beating the record set in 1998. I don't recall 1998 being particularly hot, the hottest year I remember is 1976, the year I got married.

I always said that I wouldn't repeat that particular event until we had another summer like that and as it didn't happen in 1998, maybe it'll happen this year instead. Actually, it's more likely to be 2008, because my last chance came in 1999, a year after the hottest summer, so it'll probably be two years after this time. Then again, it might go back a year, because there haven't been enough offers to work out the pattern yet, in which case it would be this year. Yes, I do strange things with numbers, it's probably some sort of disease. Wonder if it has a name?

Of course, it would all be totally mucked-up anyway if next year turns out to be even hotter than this year. Not to mention the fact that there may have been other 'hottest years' in between 1976 & 1998 that I don't know about, which would render the whole thing pointless and would probably mean I will never get married again at all. Then again, my chances of getting married again probably have nothing whatsoever to do with the weather, because in most cases I don't think there tends to be much of a connection.

Hot weather and me don't mix too well, as it happens. I don't like extremes of weather one way or the other, I prefer it to be warm with a nice breeze. Spring suits me just fine, especially mid-late Spring. I get all frisky and gambol about like a little lamb. Not that there is much use for my friskiness right now, but I live in hope. Spring has only just started, after all.

Apparently it's going to get colder tomorrow, so I won't go out jacketless just yet. Takes a lot to get me to strip off and weather doesn't necessarily have anything to do with it. Probably explains why I've never got married again.

Google Mood Ring (Green): Steady, stable, no emotional turmoil

Pushing the Elderly in McDonald's

My 14-year-old daughter is OK as far as 14-year-old daughters go, but she is awful when it comes to pushing herself forward. She's had since October to arrange a work placement for July and recently I received a letter from her school asking why she hadn't done so. It would have helped if she had told me about it coolly and calmly in October, rather than telling me in total panic a few days ago.

The letter I received included a website where details of available work placements could be found. My daughter said she'd tried this website at school and it was useless as it had hardly any placements on it. I went to look anyway and found so many it took about 15 minutes to read through them all. She'd already expressed an interest in social work and I found one for that, but the person dealing with it was unavailable until Monday so I tried another one in the care field. After trying that, I went back to the social work one and pushed myself forward a little on the phone, resulting in me being given another number to try.

The end result of this is that my daughter now has two work placements on offer, one working with disabled young adults in a social work setting and another working with the elderly at a nursing home. She has therefore decided to do one week at each. What she likes best about them is that both of the places she works from are situated round the corner from McDonald's.

What she likes least is the fact that when she is at the nursing home she will have to tie her hair back and remove her jewellery, including her belly piercing. She also isn't too keen on the fact that when she's on the social work placement she'll have to work from 9-5, not to mention that she will have to work on her birthday, which falls on the second day of the first work placement week.

My daughter is clearly going to go FAR once she finishes her education and has to work for a living.

Google Mood Ring (Dark Blue): Impassioned, delighted, whiff of romance

Cupboard Love

We're starting to get back to normal now. Didn't go to bed until 3.30 am last night (or rather, this morning) and got up at about 10.45, so that's far more like it.

It's Mother's Day here in the UK and my youngest son (aged 10) had hidden various things in the cupboard. When I got up he pretended that he couldn't open it and asked me to help - when I did so, there was a card and various wrapped parcels inside. My daughter's boyfiend had given him some money to get me some presents from him and his sister and I had to laugh because what he'd got me (apart from a box of Maltesers) were clearly leftovers from Valentine's Day, namely a single red rose (artificial) and a teddy-bear covered in roses, hearts, pearls and lace. It took about half-an-hour before he started begging me to open the box of Maltesers, incidentally. It is now rather less full than it was when it was opened.

I got a card from my eldest daughter, with a sarky comment on the back of the envelope, which read: "This is a card Mum, just in case you don't know what one is! You forgot last week!". The reason for this was because, despite quite a few phone calls from said daughter, I still forgot to send her a birthday card. I also forgot to send my mother a Mother's Day card, so I have absolutely no right to complain about the fact that my two eldest sons didn't remember to send me one. BUT I AM STILL GOING TO.

Google Mood Ring (Dark Blue): Impassioned, delighted, whiff of romance

Down Under in Western USA

My sleep pattern seems to be totally mucked-up now. Last night I went upstairs at 8.30, intending to have a nap. I set the alarm for 10.30 and woke about 10.40, but went back to sleep again. Next thing I knew, it was 6.45 am, so I'd almost slept the clock round. I got up at 7 o'clock and although that's normal for most people, to me it seemed as if I was getting up in the middle of the night. I mean, it was still dark! Chances are I'll be tired again by early evening, even though I've had more than enough sleep for one night.

I've noticed that my preferred sleep pattern seems best-suited to the Pacific time zone or the one before it, so maybe I should go live there. I find this somewhat perturbing insofar as people who live there are further back in time than anybody else in the world, but maybe it's because I've never wanted to grow-up. Having said that, chances are that if I did live there, I'd still stay-up way into the early hours and need to move to Australia or something. Eventually I'd probably end-up back in the UK where I started.

I mean, even my Google mood ring proves that I am just not suited to being awake at this ungodly hour! Yeah, I know it's totally random, but it does fit. Well, sort of. I'm not really feeling like that, I'm more bored than anything. Maybe I should go take a nap ...

Google Mood Ring (Amber): Nervous, on edge, uncertain

My True Love is Hairy With a Backward B (OMG)

Well, I was right. I didn't actually go to bed until 1 am. I set my alarm for 8 am, but was woken abruptly at 7.45 by my daughter, who was running up and down the stairs muttering "Oh My God, Oh My God", over and over. Turned out that her boyfriend, who was supposed to arrive here from London at 5.30 pm, had actually arrived somewhat earlier (his idea of a surprise) and she was panicking as she wasn't awake/washed/dressed/made-up. He didn't sleep on the coach down, so is now asleep upstairs on a mattress on her bedroom floor and apparently intends staying there until she gets home from school.

She should be so lucky. The love of my life is unavailable all weekend, so I have to play the gothic heroine and pine a lot. This is something I'm very good at as it happens and I can help it along nicely by playing soppy songs and pretending I'm Catherine Earnshaw. I've always been annoyed that some idiot decided to name a stupid cartoon cat after one of the most romantic heroes of all time (the most as far as I'm concerned), because it sort of takes something vital away when you cry out "Where's my Heathcliff?" to the cosmos, not to mention the risk of your true love turning out to be excessively hairy with whiskers. Wouldn't have sounded so good when Cathy screamed out "I AM Heathcliff" either, come to think of it.

It's not as if I don't have things I could be doing to occupy my time, because I most certainly do. Chances are I'll get a fair bit of time to myself, because my daughter's boyfriend is very accommodating in terms of taking my youngest off my hands, so I could take the opportunity of doing something constructive like cleaning-up (HA-HA, when I have the house to myself? As if!).

At the moment I am listening to ABBA. They are such an institution, I think keyboards should have a backward B on them somewhere so we can type the name properly. So who remembers them winning the Eurovision Song Contest? Unfortunately, I remember it all too clearly, even if it will be 33 years ago on the 6th of April. Apparently they came third the previous year with "Ring Ring", but I don't remember that.. As I recall, I watched them win at my first fiance's house and I remember him saying he thought Agnetha was "low-slung" and I had no idea what he meant.

My second fiance and ex-husband of almost two decades (I married that one) had a thing about Frida, which was a change because most men preferred Agnetha. He said Frida reminded him of me, although I never saw any resemblance. I did have a similar perm once, though. My eldest son, incidentally, is no exception to the Agnetha rule. Once when he was about 18 months old we were watching an Abba concert and he woke-up with no reason, which he normally never did. I brought him downstairs and plonked him on the fireside rug and he sat rivetted to the screen for the entire duration of the concert, then immediately made it clear he wanted taking back upstairs. He still fancies Agnetha to this day, even if she is more than old enough to be his mother - crikey, she's even older than I am. Then again, most of the women he fancies are. As for my middle son, he just fancies any woman who moves (especially if they're Greek).

Well, I started writing this ages ago, but I keep doing other things and not getting around to finishing it, which means I have long since stopped listening to Abba. So, if you want to know what Abba songs I listened to, you'll have to click on one of the songs on my list and go to my musical profile page, which listens every single song I've listened to since I started using the system. And I haven't even got around to classical yet.

Google Mood Ring (Green): Steady, stable, no emotional turmoil

To Sleep or Not to Sleep

It's 9.45 pm and I'm knackered. I've only been up about 13 1/2 hours, so I must be short on sleep if I'm this tired already. Trouble is, getting up before noon at the earliest is not good for my system and my body can't handle it. I'm not sure, but I think most hermits are night owls and it just isn't right that we're forced by society to get up at ungodly hours when the sun is shining and stuff. Not right at all.

Of course, for a hermit I've had a busy day in that I had to do something that really does give my system a shock ... yes, I had to GO OUT. Typically, for the first time in ages, it was raining at the time I had to go and, typically, I couldn't find my umbrella. On the homeward journey, it was raining so much that I had raindrops dripping from weird places like my nose (better than other things that could have been dripping from it, I guess) and by the time I got home I was absolutely soaked. I had intended taking the kids to McDonald's afterwards, but that had to go by the board. Pity, 'cos I fancied a Big Mac.

As to where I went, it was nothing exciting, just to my son's school to listen to his teacher prattling on about how he's doing. Not worth repeating - he's excellent at maths and arts & crafts, very good at English, but crap at working as part of a group and hopeless at remembering his games kit . He's also very polite, very helpful and an all-round nice boy.

Anyway, as I'm knackered and haven't anything better to do, I am probably going to get a ridiculously early night. It may be a normal bedtime for most other people, but for me it's totally unacceptable and makes me think I'm at death's door or something. Chances are I won't go to bed for another 2 or 3 hours anyway, I never do when I say I'm going to. I'll get up and make another coffee and decide I'm good for another few hours yet, especially as in 10 minutes there will be something better I can do.

And I'm being told-off for singing again ... don't know why I bother existing at all, to be honest. Old, knackered and tuneless with a dripping nose. Not much hope for me really, is there.

Google Mood Ring (Dark Blue): Impassioned, delighted, whiff of romance.

Visitors Should Be Gassed

Being a hermit, I hate visitors. Sometimes I have to force myself to put up with them, but if there's one thing I can't stand it's when they arrive early. It's bad enough for me trying to be ready on time, but being ready early is basically impossible.

Today I arranged for my gas appliances to be serviced between 2-4 pm. This means that I expected the visit to take place somewhere between 2-4 pm. To me, this was logical and made perfect sense. Unfortunately, the men servicing my gas appliances were not as logical and therefore arrived at 1 pm, which meant I was not in the least bit ready and not in the least bit pleased. What if I'd been out and hadn't returned until 1.59 pm? What if I'd been 'indisposed'?

Being late is the way to go. Visitors who arrive late are courteous, polite and considerate. At least they are if they are visiting hermits. Having said that, the most courteous, polite and considerate people are those who never visit at all.

Moaning Musical Mothers

My teenage daughter told me off today. OK, so it's nothing new (I'm a lousy mother), but I do feel that she was out of order on this occasion. It's not as if I was doing anything wrong, I was only SINGING. I suppose the fact that I was wearing headphones (I'd been told to do that because I was disturbing her tv viewing) meant I was singing rather loudly (like you do when you're wearing headphones), but it's not as if I can't sing (well OK, I've had better singing days, but I'm still in tune). The thing is, since I've discovered Last.fm, I've been able to listen to all sorts of stuff I haven't heard in years, plus lots of new stuff, and I just have to sing to it if I'm in a singing mood. And today I just happened to be in a singing mood.

Anyway, I had a sort of indie morning, then I switched to the old sixties flower power stuff, which I just can't resist warbling to. It takes me back to when I was young and free and hopeful and totally unaware of the existence of "good old days". Anyway, there I was, warbling away at the top of my voice to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds and I got told off. I am now about to start warbling at the top of my voice to Itchycoo Park (for the second time) and no doubt I will get told off again, because I also sing this one very loudly (well, you have to, haven't you. Poor Stevie's been dead for almost 16 years, he wouldn't hear me if I didn't ... my god, has it been that long?). Anyway, let's face it, lyrics these days just can't compare to blowing your mind by getting hung-up feeding ducks with a bun.

My eldest son was here this morning and he sort of told me off as well, although not for singing. He said it didn't seem at all right that his mother should enjoy the same sort of bands he did and as a result he was seriously considering changing his musical tastes totally. I reminded him that he was the one who was heavily into the Doors, which were actually from my era not his, but he excused that by pointing out that the Doors were timeless and therefore didn't count.

One thing I've noticed is that some people on Last.fm have no idea how to tag music. As an example, I am more than happy to listen to Ace of Base because I like them (I am warbling away to them now as it happens), but they are NOT from the flower-power era, not unless it lasted into the 90's, which it didn't. And has anyone else noticed that the intro to "Always Have, Always Will" is almost identical to the intro to "I Can't Help Myself" by the Four Tops? Well, it is. Listen to them both and you'll see what I mean. Talking of "I Can't Help Myself" (sugar-pies, honey-bunches), I still remember the dance to that ... and the dance to "Band of Gold" ... and the dance to "Get it On" ... hell, I'm old. I need another visit from Christine to make me feel better. Then again, having seen her latest photos, maybe I don't.

Up Your American Vagina!

Well, my Amazon stuff did arrive yesterday (today when I was writing, Friday that is) and I had quite a good time getting to know my Faerie Oracle. Not too enamoured with the Angel Numbers book though, it's a bit too god-biased to me, but I suppose I should have thought of that.

OK, going to pick on the Yanks again (I do that periodically, although not as often as I want to, believe me). Check this out: Girls Suspended Over V-Word. This totally baffles me, along the lines of "It's perfectly OK for you to carry a gun and shoot who the f**k you like, but OMG don't mention the correct anatomical name for the part of a woman's body that plays an important role in the procreation of the human race". (As an aside, I wasn't even allowed to use the word "cock" on an American writing forum today - just as well I'm not a farmer). WAKE UP, AMERICA!!!

OK, the girls did disobey orders, but it's obvious that wasn't the real reason they were suspended. They were suspended because of an outmoded, old-fashioned, puritan attitude that, as the author of the play herself said, is "a throwback to the Dark Ages". It was far more acceptable to kill people then, too. I accept that I live in a country that doesn't see guns as a fashion accessory, but who in their right mind would want to? Children here are taught correct anatomical terms when their ages are still in single figures; they are not taught how to load a gun.

Sorry, and my apologies to those Americans who don't subscribe to the bang-bang philosophy (I know there are many of you, quite a few of whom I know personally ... I shall certainly be speaking to my friend in Brooklyn about this, I thought NY was a little more modern-minded than the majority of the US), but to those of you who do - VAGINA, VAGINA, VAGINA ... and for good measure: PENIS, PENIS, PENIS. Now, shoot me (already).