so far so so-so

I've found the other end of Rambling Bob's horse !

Serendippitiddly it happens to be by my favourite artist of all time...

Franz Marc...

Farmer lad...

Killed on The Somme in WW1...

Good bloke ...

Shame...

This bin is considered to be left
abandoned and is scheduled for
removal within the near future.

If it belongs to you, please take it back
onto your own premises immediately
and mark it with your house number.

This bin was put outside 5 days ago to await collection 'within the near future' according to your own schedule which you are contracted to adhere to. If it had been taken back onto my property it would have missed the random date on which you chose to collect it and denied you the opportunity to slap this snotty notice on it.

My garden is full of stinking refuse which there is no longer any room for in the multi-coloured array of bins you have kindly provided yet neglect to empty.

This necessitates sorting and bagging our own rubbish and transporting it to your excellent disposal facility ourselves. I do not in the least resent paying ever-increasing council tax for my own time and labour.

If I can be of any further assistance in helping you to meet your recycling targets, please don't hesitate to ask.

My house can be easily identified by the Hitchcockian miasma of flies obscuring the windows and the well nourished rats with bows-and-arrows patrolling the perimeters.

My bin is now clearly marked with a skull-and-crossbones.

I was lying flat on my back spreadeagled with my eyes glazed howling at the moon...

And my husband...

And the midwife...

Because they were all complete and utter bastards saints.

I had already been in labour for 16 hours..

It took another 7 hours to blast him out (it was that or send a crack negotiating team in)...

Anyway, Firstborn is 15 today...

And spends all his time refusing to come out of his bedroom...

Unless it's to fall face-down in the fridge inhaling pies...

Iz down wiv da birfday innit lar !

If I were a bit of a fly Judge looking for the middle-ground to stay out of trouble judging an extraordinarily rich and influential moral-maggot then ...

I'd think I did quite well...

Sword of Soloman me...

*applause please*

You bled motherhood for me
Your milk ran fat with injury
And how afraid am I to be
My mother's child ?

(I've stopped now)

I see my elderly mum every few days and I call her in between...

She hates being old, but that's part and parcel of hating her life since the word go...

She's been talking a lot about the The Great Depression...being one of the few...the horror etc.

I called her today to ask if she needed anything and to inform her of stats on the ageing population in the UK...

There are 2 million 80-90 year olds

There are 400,000 90+ year olds

And a surprising number of centurions on the walls with bows and arrows.

I am aware that my age group will cause an even bigger social burden on society , but I hope we can have some fun. What precious little is left of the tax-payer (whos number will not equal ours unless we all spontaneously combust ) can feel that their money has been well-spent.

The reason that I had this conversation with my mum is...

I want her to know what she's missing because she threw the PC I bought her at my head...

I want her to shut the fuck up and lap lizard-like at her Solero...

She needs to know she is Not A Fucking National Institution !

She duz my head in... she is scary-intelligent, but she uses it against the world , and especially her daughters...one she gave away, the other is still by her side...

Which was the lucky one ?

She doesn't want my pity...

But that's all I've got...

Now, bear me on my litter to a place of rejoicing

Ghost ships sail-less sail

Among the N-Power sails in a sunlit haze...

This water flowed and ebbed ...

Before the ships had purposes

And the history

Of taking chances..

As

Romancers

Now...

Have a craic why don't you

In The Pool

Sunday morning...

I'm taking the teen-sinister on the first leg of her journey to a faraway land for five weeks...

The little panda-eyed nightmare might get around to packing between then and now...

I have spent weeks buying internationally acceptable leisure-wear and packing that suitcase, yet each day it is emptied of all useful clothing items with a cheery 'I'm not wearing that shite ' and a camel-trains-worth of mascara has taken it's place...

Saturday Night...

There was the usual friendly weekend chat with the bobbies in the suite...

I discovered that CCTV is rather flattering...to her...

Then when I was getting the train tickets the dog had a skunk-freak and did that death-spray all over a group of big guys (they are so not going to pull tonight )

After she has left at the crack-of-creation on Monday morning I will be found sobbing my heart out in Oxford...

Because I'm going to miss her...

Look, it's a pair of shoes with a timer attachment !

Available at airports and other outlets

They are just so...

Bad

They deserves an award !

In Scallyshire everybody's eyebrows are scraping their ankles...

They lie and steal and maim and kill...

Poor little throwbacks...

I think there's a very strong argument that Neanderthal man did not die out and is to be found alive and well at all Follyoaks bus-stops...

Easily spotted :

Monobrowed..

Wielding the jaw-bone of an ass

Sez 'Ug '....

Just looking for trouble

Give me a call and I'll be right there with my...

Um...

New binoculars

This is my Beloved's love song to me ...

How touched am I ?

...

Exactly ?

She drags herself onto the shining shingle...

The fingernail pink shells pop as she unconsciously shifts her shoulder to shore herself against the sashaying sea and sherbet sands ...

She lifts the shaking shadow of herself upon the shelf...

She sells sea-shells on the sea shore...

The 'Black Pearl' has sunk without a trace...

The rats have scuttled from the scuppered ship...

The good news is I bought a spanking shiny new sou'wester in a very becoming shade of navy and matching waterproof mascara just in time...

Phew !...

When I'm found on the beach tomorrow I'll make a lovely corpse...

Even if I do say so myself...

*strikes for shore*

You might be aware that I collect rubbish off the beach each morning...it was yet another new years resolution...( ticks box...comes over all sooper-Roobs)

Fran Crowe has been doing it for over a year and she's created some great art insallations.

This is why she did it :

M Y 4 6 0 0 0 C H A L L E N G E (by Fran Crowe)

According to a United Nations report issued in June 2006, humankind's exploitation of the the deep seas and oceans is 'rapidly passing the point of no return'. I was really shocked to discover that there are on average around 46,000 pieces of plastic litter per square mile of ocean worldwide, leading to the death of over one million seabirds and over 100,000 marine mammals every year due to entanglement with or swallowing litter. Moreover, Greenpeace recently discovered that there is a vortex of floating pieces of plastic in the southern Pacific which is the size of Texas. Even worse, plastic can take 1000 years or more to degrade in seawater and even then continues to pollute our environment with thousands of microscopic fibres: samples of sand taken from a Northumbrian beach were found to have over 10,000 fibres per litre of sand...

PLASTIC FANTASTIC?

I was so shocked that I was determined to do something about it. So I resolved to 'save' one square mile of ocean by collecting 46000 pieces of litter whilst walking on the beaches near my home. Every time I visited the beach I took 3 or 4 carrier bags and picked up all the litter I could carry. Whilst walking, I raised nearly £1000 for the Marine Conservation Society through sponsorship and sale of my unique seaside ‘souvenirs’. You can do your own bit to help by joining in the Marine Conservation Society's Coastal Challenge or by taking part in local river or beach clean-ups, such as Beachwatch.

My challenge took exactly a year to achieve - in total I walked over 200kms and carried away nearly a third of a tonne of rubbish!

Well done that Fran !

The top three living people I would not invite to a party :

Yoko - ( they shot the wrong one )

Sting - ( no...after you )

The Queen - ( ditto )...

To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And shivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?

-- Frances Cornford

Why do you rush through the fields in trains,
Guessing so much and so much.
Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-head poet that nobody reads;
And why do you know such a frightful lot
About people in gloves and such?

-- Chesterton, 'The Fat White Woman Speaks'
(an answer to Frances Cornford.)

and Housman :

O why do you walk through the fields in boots,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody shoots,
Why do you walk through the fields in boots,
When the grass is soft as the breast of coots
And shivering-sweet to the touch?

(Feel free to join in ... alltogether now !)

I love the Cornford poem (Because I believe it's more reflective than fattist or glovist) :

I imagine a woman going to church on a Sunday morning quietly cooing ' Amazing Grace ' in a lavender floral print dress and seamed white cotton gloves...

I've always been extremely fond of her...

But perhaps she was in dungarees and gardening gloves out doing a spot of dry-stone walling...

Or perhaps she'd just finished burying the third husband she thwacked with a shovel for the insurance money...

Or perhaps she'd been hosing down her muddy fox-terrier in her marigolds...

Ours not to reason why...

But why ?

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain comes in
But the holes are very small
So the rain is very thin

(Spike)

I managed to walk the dog before the flood...

I rather enjoy walking in the rain so long as there's no wind...on the beach downpours seem particularly clean and wet, so it's like having a good old rinse in a power shower...

Unfortunately it makes the hound smell like old poo.

If I pay a years subscription...

And I never go...

Not once..

I WIN !

( Because I'm paying good money not to be in hell )...

You know it makes sense !

(Ticks another box on the New Years resolution list...)

That's 'Join a Gymn' sorted !

Phew !

*sweated buckets over that dilemna*

*ringring*

No...

I assure you I did not bring my eldest child up...

To tell you to fuck off because you are a sheep-shagger and then leap through the window in a single bound...

I don't know where he gets it from...

*ringring*

No...

I assure you I did not bring my youngest child up

To pierce her own nose in the school toilets with a safety-pin...

I don't know where she gets it from...

*ringring*

No...

I assure you Doctor, my husband really is blue and can't breathe for toffee...

Any other symptoms ? As in ' what else could possibly be amiss here ? '...

*ringring*

No...

I assure you Mum, I brought your Sunday dinner in yesterday with your lottery numbers, you haven't been starving for a week...

*ringring*

No...

Mr Spacestyle I do not require windows today....no, I really don't...and again...

Oh fuck off you sheep-shagger !

* leaps through closed window in a single bound armed with a safety-pin, a chicken-dinner and a nebuliser *

Rings 1471...

*ringring*

Oh hello ?...

Is that Spacestyle Windows ?...

See what you made me do ?...

I demand a free replacement window forthwith !

So not butterly barking mad then ?

In the beginning god said 'let there be sunpat lite '

A big slice of honeydew melon, a fried egg butty and a spicy Bloody Mary...

Ho Yurs...

Get in !

Trying to make ends meet !

I just glanced at the bedside clock and came away with the idea of three pounds and tuppence in my poor fried brain...

This is not too good...

I'm numerically challenged at the best of times, which this clearly isn't...

Whatever time it is...

Cats...

They blink meaningfuly at you when you give then their Moggo...

'I am pleased'

They blink meaningfuly at you when you don't...

' I am displeased '

Eeek ....

There is absolutely nothing that I can't do without..

Everything can fall off the edge of the universe as far as I'm concerned ...

(Which ...quite frankly ...isn't all it's cracked up to be... )

If Mr Rowntree sticks to his half of the bargain with the fruity confectionary supplies...

Then I'll stick to mine...

(We're getting there... just a couple of hours work to go, and most of that will be taking the paint off the walls and staining to give far less definition )

* gets out favourite oily rag / bath sponge*

I'm sure the @ ( the 'at' sign ) was christened recently but I can't remember what it was called.

I thought it should be an ampersat like it's sibling the ampersand... and should that be spelled with or without an 's' ?

Or maybe an ampercat because it looks like one....