*cough*

My name is Dirtycowgirl and I am an addict.

I am controlled by a demon and it's name is nicotine.
Like every smoker I know all about the risks and what it is doing to my lungs, and I keep saying I'm going to quit, but whilst the brain might think this is a wise idea the willpower says no. I actually gave up for 14 months about 8 years ago, but in a moment of stressed-angry-I-want-to-fucking-kill-someone I reached for my emotional crutch and in the space of two weeks was back to my old lung destroying ways.
I think that being a smoker is a bit like being an alcoholic, you will always be one, but you might get to be a smoker who hasn't had a fag for twenty years. I know people who quit years and years ago who will say that although they will never smoke again there are still times when they find themselves wanting one.

And the truth is that despite all the knowledge of the effects it has on my health I like smoking.
I like to think it makes me look like this :

Even though the reality is more like this :

I started smoking when I was 12. (Yeah, I know). My friend Janet and I decided to smoke because we thought it would make us look grown up, sexy and more attractive to boys. Not that either of us would've known what to do with a boy if the plan had worked at that age. But this was before tobacco advertising was banned and a packet did not come with grotesque pictures and health warnings plastered all over it. It also helped that Janets family owned and lived above a shop, so it was very easy to steal sneak a packet.

The main flaw in the plan to attract the opposite sex was that we were both so scared of getting caught smoking our contraband stash that we used to go and sit under a bridge near her house to do it. It was pretty cosy under there but not exactly a hub of social activity. Although we managed, with the aid of menthol cigarettes, to perfect the art of "taking it down". This enabled us to not cough our guts up with every drag blow the smoke out of our noses (even sexier, or so we thought). Eventually we decided that we needed to take our boy-magnet skills out to the world at large, so we got some money (I don't remember how but I'm pretty sure it involved minor larceny) and got a train to the next town.
So there we are, parading up and down the High Street chain smoking out of our noses and on the look out for unsuspecting males, and not having much luck. But we did bump into two of my Aunties.
Which resulted in a call to my Mum.

I only became a regular smoker and therefore addicted when I started working at 15. As that was in the days before there was so much employment law (am I making myself sound old here), even though it was supposed to be an after school/Saturday job my boss told me that if was bunking having a day off I could go in to work. Given the choice between school and earning money I was at work more then I was in the classroom and consequently had enough money to develop as many bad habits as I wanted.

Until the day I was sat on my checkout and my Maths teacher was in the queue.
Which also resulted in a call to my Mum.

I've never been what you might call a heavy smoker, a packet of twenty will last me 2 or 3 days, but I did eventually progress to the joys of smoking weed.

I was then a regular weed smoker for a very long time, but that stopped when I quit cigarettes and when I began smoking them again I tended to go through phases with weed. I could go for a very long time without it, but if I was at a friends and smoked a joint I'd invariably end up buying some myself. Then for a while I'd get back into it, until I realised that the lethargy that eventually comes with it was taking hold and I'd stop.
The last time I had a "stoner phase" was about two years ago. I wasn't working at the time so the effects of it didn't matter, but I stopped when I decided it was time to get back on the reality train and find a job. I'm not saying that I'll never be a regular weed smoker ever again, but I don't intend to.

I have always felt that had I not been a cigarette smoker I might never have tried weed, because the first time someone offered me a joint I would've said "no thanks I don't smoke". (And if I'd not been into weed then I might've said no to the other things that were offered to me - but that's another story).
But I guess if I ever do succeed in giving up the fags that'll be the end of all of it.

Nowadays the help-you-stop-smoking products are advertised everywhere, but I don't think any of them really work unless you want to stop (when I quit I did it cold turkey) - willpower is the key, not gum, patches or inhalers. They might help with the craving but they do nothing to break the habit, that's all down to you. I know someone who was insisting that her doctor give her Champix because "they worked for me before". Really ? If they worked that well why are you needing them to quit again ?
Nah, like I say, unless you REALLY want to stop nothing will help, and if you REALLY want to stop that much then that should be all you need to do it.

I am halfheartedly cutting down, if I have none in the morning I will sometimes wait until the evening to go to the shop, or if I know I only have a couple left when I leave work I don't buy any on the way home. Son smokes roll-ups so I might get him to make me one of them (to this day I can roll all kinds of fancy joints and I don't need a mat but I can't make a rolly fag to save my fucking life), but I don't really like them so I'll maybe just have one to kill the craving, whereas I'd smoke 4 or 5 cigarettes. Every little helps.
And, as I said, it's been two years since I smoked a joint.

Last night I only had one cigarette left when I got in so I saved that for after my dinner, and Son had gone out so I knew I wasn't going to smoke anymore for the rest of the night.
That's fine. By 10.30 when I decided to go to bed I was craving badly but doing my best to ignore the nagging voice in my head saying "smoke. . nicotine . . smoke. . need to smoke". I went to get myself a drink and saw an ash tray on the kitchen side with an unsmoked roll-up in it.
Fucking result !
(Son tends to make a few up at a time, so it's not unusual to find one about the house).
So I smoked it.
And about six puffs in when I started to feel a bit odd realised that it wasn't a cigarette at all.

Oops.

By the time Son got in I was a giggling mess and when I told him what I'd done he said "well it's lucky I've got this...." and produced a bar of chocolate from his bag.
Fucking double result !



However today I've not been feeling exactly bright.
And no. I'm not tempted to buy a bag of weed.
And Son has been told not to leave anything other then tobacco where I'm likely to find it.

misunderstood

When I was about ten I had a crush on a boy called Robert who lived on my street.
I knew it was a crush because every time he so much as looked in my direction I would blush. Furiously. Bright fucking red.

I don't think he even noticed me until the day I, and several other kids, were watching him and another boy play marbles and he hit his then couldn't see where it went. It ended up near my foot. Thinking it would make him want to marry like me I picked it up and handed it to him.
Wrong.
Where it had landed meant that he would've won - if someone hadn't moved it. Instead of being grateful he shouted at me that I had made him lose, but at least he hated me knew who I was after that.
And then he ran home to his Mummy.

My Mum was a bit of a snob at heart. Our street consisted of three kinds of houses, most - like ours, were pretty typical terraced houses, and all were lived in by people who owned them. At one end of the street there were some local council owned homes, and at the other a disused building had been pulled down and some very new, very modern and very expensive three story town houses had been built a few years after we moved there.
The boy lived in one of the new houses.
My Mum and Dad had saved for a long time to buy their house, but prior to moving there when I was about four we had lived in a rented council house. Mum considered this to mean she had "bettered" herself by buying. Her snobbery over this meant that she regarded the "council house kids" who lived at the "bottom" of the road as not good enough to be my friends, which actually just made them all the more desirable to me, but she actively went out of her way to talk to the "posh" people who lived in the town houses.

That included Roberts mother.
Mum said that she always saw her in the mornings as they both left their houses for work at the same time and walked in the same direction for a bit. I suspect that the snob in my Mum deliberately left the house at the right time for this to happen. Nowadays I think you'd call that stalking.
Eventually they got to the point where my Mum would go and have coffee with her, although even when this was happening she still called her Mrs Castle and only spoke to her in her best posh telephone voice. Of course I saw this as a golden opportunity and would go with my Mum whenever she let me in the hope that I would get to drool over see Robert.

Robert, who was a year or so older then me would occasionally come into the kitchen when I was there and grunt at me and I would blush and mutter something smile alluringly back. One day his Mum suggested that he and I go and play together in their garden, and by virtue of pretending to like worms, faking interest in football and being in his company for long enough that my face reverted back to a normal colour he finally realised that for a girl I was ok, and we became friends.

I think he kind of started to have a bit of a crush on me a bit too. Mostly because he liked to punch me in the arm. Hard.

Until the day Mrs Castle invited me to have tea with them.
Them being Mrs Castle, Mr Castle (who was about seven foot tall and a policeman and a bit scary to lil me), Robert, and his two older brothers. Tea in their house was quite a posh affair, we all sat around a coffee table in the living room and ate little sandwiches and my drink was in a cup and saucer. Yeah snobby Mum would've approved alright.
After the sandwiches were cleared away another tray was brought out, this one contained cakes and a few other things. I took a cake then Mrs Castle picked up a sundae dish full of red stuff and offered it to me saying "would you like some Jelly ?"

In my house jelly looked like this :

And this was jam :

I did think it was a bit odd that there was only one dish of it, but then I thought maybe nobody else likes jelly or perhaps posh people just offer it to their guests. According my Mother they were entirely different to the rest of us mere mortals so what did I know.
So because I wanted to be polite, I took the spoon, filled it up and put it in my mouth. And then, even though it tasted like no jelly I had ever had before - far too sweet and actually not that nice - I ate another spoonful. Then, as I was about to put the third spoonful in my mouth, I realised that both Mr & Mrs Castle were giving me some very strange looks and Roberts two older brothers were starting to laugh. Robert had turned a similar colour to the jelly but also looked like he was going to laugh.

And then I realised my mistake.
And ran home to my Mummy.

After that Robert no longer wanted to be my friend, but I didn't mind. I was over my crush and onto blushing with embarrassment about the jelly fiasco every time I saw him and far too busy hoping he never told anyone. Even at that age Calamity followed me around.
And it seemed that for all her posh pretentions even my Mum did not know that posh people called jam jelly.

I believe Americans also refer to jam as jelly, I am often amused by the differences in the use of language between our countries. I once told an American that I was dying for a fag, which didn't exactly go well, although he laughed once he had figured out that I meant a cigarette. And the first time I realised that a fanny is an arse across the pond was because I heard an American saying that a girl had a nice one. That did not go especially well either but I laughed when I figured out that he was not referring to her ladybits.
Sometimes I can tell from reading a blog that the author is English, there's often a subtle difference in grammar. Anyone from the UK who used an older version of word will remember the endless green squiggly lines that would appear from using a programme designed for use in America.

Nowadays the thing that annoys me more then anything when it comes to language is the use of text speak. Literacy is a problem with our children far more then it ever was, and I don't think it helps that when communicating with each other they are not using proper words.

And there really is no need. It began when text messages were limited in the number of characters, so there was a point to it, but that's no longer the case. Even Facebook extended the length of status updates and yet I still see people using ridiculous abbreviations on it all the time. Some expressions have even found their way into the spoken word. I have started to hear people say "O.M.G", why ?
Laziness I reckon, a lot of the time anyway. At one time I thought it was actually quite a good equaliser in that it's harder to spot a dyslexic or someone who just can't spell when everyone is spelling incorrectly, but I've changed my opinion. Now I just think it makes everyone look stupid.
Even when they're not.

Once when I working in the children's homes a colleague and I were talking about text abbreviations, and she said lol meant lots of love. I told her no its laugh out loud, usually to mean that that's what you're doing, but also sometimes as an indicator of sarcasm, but she was insisting that I was wrong and she was right.
(When is the rest of the world gonna wake up to the fact that I'm always right ?)
Anyway this conversation went on a while and eventually I called the teenagers who lived in the home into the dining room where she and I were sat.
"Tell Kate what lol stands for".
"It's laugh out loud".
"Really ? I thought it was lots of love".
"No it isn't, Cowgirls right" ...exit two laughing teenagers.
I look at Kate who looks rather uncomfortable, and ask her whats up.
Apparently a couple of weeks earlier she had heard that one of her friends fathers had died and sent a text that said :
"Sorry to hear about your Dad LOL"

Poor Kate had been wondering why she hadn't heard back from her friend, after that she decided to pop round and see her to explain the mistake.

Most of it doesn't even make sense. I particularly hate the way people now write "dis" instead of "this", especially when they are middle class white boys. Listening to Hip-Hop and poor literacy does not make you black or a gangster. Or should that be gangsta.
And as for lmao, did anyone actually say they were laughing their arse off before that particular acronym made it's way into text language ? And anyway I'm always laughing, it's what gets me through life. And yet my arse is the size of a small country.
Despite my constant cackling at anything and everything it refuses to be laughed off.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting too old to understand all these new fangled modern things.

plain speaking

There's a lot of things about getting older maturing that I don't really appreciate but I find I can live with.

Even the mentalpause has been bothering me less since I got back from India. Well either that or I just chilled out so much that my anger issues are being kept at bay.
In which case who knows what will happen when that particular bubble bursts.
But there are ways and means to avoid the other signs of my impending pensioner status. Grey hairs can be dyed ( or waxed - don't ask. You get them everywhere). Diet and exercise can keep aches and pains at bay (or so I'm told) and wrinkles can be filled with botox. Not that I have any. . . yet.
Wrinkles that is, not botox.

And I accept that there may be some things I will be stuck with.
But the one thing I fucking hate is the deterioration of my eyesight. I asked an optician (who was about 25, thin and beautiful - fucking bitch) about having laser treatment and was informed that there was no point since the problem is caused by age. If I had it done I would need glasses again in a couple of years as they will continue to get worse.

Just. Great. Make me feel good about myself why don't you.

I don't actually mind wearing glasses as such.
Men seem to find them sexy for some reason.
I've had sordid fuck fests romances with two men who liked me to keep them on ALL the time. One actually found them more of a turn on then any sleazy get up classy outfit I wore.
What really pisses me off about glasses is having to continually take them on and off. Since I am long sighted I only need them for reading and watching TV so when I'm out and about they are in my bag, and it's a fucking pain getting them out to get a bus ticket or look at prices in the shop, taking them off to walk to the till (if I don't everything looks wonky), then on again to use my card.
In a two hour shopping trip they are on and off more frequently then a strippers pants.

Sometimes I just can't be arsed to get them out of my bag.
Especially as my bag is more like a small suitcase that contains a black hole into which any item I want to retrieve from it will disappear.
Which is why yesterday after Son had text me saying we needed toilet roll I went to the shop and came home with these. . .

It's an easy mistake to make.
They do look similar, especially when you can't see properly.

And I am easily confused.
Sometimes I think the English language is very confusing, I've been helping my friends four year old with her reading and there are some things about it that you just can't explain. How do you make a child whose learning phonetically understand that 'the' is not pronounced te-he-eh ?
Especially when the child asks 'why' about everyfuckingthing.
And why does the announcement on the train as it approaches the stop always have to say "please mind the gap when ALIGHTING from the train".

What's wrong with saying leaving, getting off or even departing ?
I hear that announcement every day and I imagine this,

I'm worried that one day I will spontaneously combust when I step onto the platform.
I have enough trouble getting to work on time.

And here's another thing I don't really get, why do so many restaurants now advertise themselves as having a salad bar. What fucking twat thought up that expression.
There's two words that should not be said in the same sentence, ever. I hear the word bar and I expect to see alcohol not tomatoes, lettuce and cold pasta.

Unless of course they're serving cocktails with fruit in, then it makes sense.

A friend of mine, Tina, is always getting her words confused, but the things she says are hilarious. Her favourite film ever is Blade Runner and one day she was round mine and we saw an advertisment for the directors cut coming on the TV at the weekend. She was annoyed because she had to go out and was going to miss it as her recorder was broken, I told her to remind me and I would record it for her.
Saturday afternoon she rings me,
"please don't forget Road Runner is on tonight"
"meep meep"
"what ?"
"meep meep"

Ridley Scotts finest work.

Another time we were out in Tinas car and another friend of ours had moved house. This other friend now lived just up the road from the local police station and as we drove past it I pointed out her new house,
"I could never live there"
"Why not ? It's a gorgeous house"
"It's far too close to the playstation".

In Tina's case she's just funny, and she laughs at herself when you point out her mistakes.
Kids, on the other hand can be quite embarassing.

When Son was about ten I got myself a Slendertone.
One of those devices with pads that you put on your muscles, the idea being that you can tone yourself up without having to move off the sofa whilst eating chocolate and cake.
Or maybe that's just me. Either way it didn't work.

Son got it stuck in his head that it was called a vibrator. At ten I wasn't going to explain to him exactly why that mistake was funny, I think he had probably heard the word somewhere, and since the thing did sort of vibrate it made sense to him. He found it hilarious watching me twitch when I used it too.
And I probably didn't help, because even though I corrected him every time I was always laughing as I did so.
Fine, until you are on the bus and your child says,
"Are you going to use your vibrator when we get home".
Or you are talking to your older posher neighbour over the garden wall and he says,
"Have you used your vibrator today".
Or you hear him saying to his friend,
"You should see my Mum using her vibrator, she goes all twitchy".

Luckily I don't think that child ever went home and said anything to his parents. . .
"and he said I could watch his Mum use her vibrator too"
. . .  because I never got a visit from Child Services.

it's not right, but it's ok

And so Whitney becomes yet another person to enter that ever increasing group of musicians who lost their lives as a result of living the high life too hard.
Of course it's tragic, but given her well publicised descent into drug and alcohol dependancy can anyone really be that surprised ?

Apparently this now makes her a legend.
Why ?
If it was a random junkie found dead lying in a back alley in a pool of vomit everyone would say they deserved it, if they bothered to have an opinion at all. Just because you're rich and famous are you immune from the reactions the rest of us would get if we decided to push the self destruct button ?
There are many people who turn to drugs as a means of escape from whatever horrors life has thrown at them and nobody gives a fuck, other then to think they are bad people.

Hmmm.

What annoys me is the public mourning that seems to follow any of these deaths.
Why are all these idiots suddenly acting as if they lost a friend ?
Suddenly social networks are full of outpourings of grief from people who might not have even said they were a fan last week. It's like Diana syndrome all over again, everyone wants a piece of sympathy, everyone has a favourite Whitney song that they are going to torture the neighbours with play over and over, and of course once again lay the blame for her demise squarely at the feet of Bobby Brown.

Be sad for her and her family if you must, but it's not a time for more recriminations and unless you personally knew her why are you so upset ? It's true that she always had a good church girl reputation before they got together, but who really knows. And if any of these losers mourners really cared they would realise that right now Bobby is grieving and trying to help their child through the worst time of her life.
Same thing happened with Amy Whinehouse and her husband - even though she already had a bad girl rep when they got together, he still got vilified in the press for being responsible for her addictions.

That pisses me off too. Unless someone holds a gun to your head or physically forces you to take something then it's nobodies fault but your own, in fact it's not even a matter of fault, it's actually a question of choice.
Albeit a bad choice.
Snort or smoke ? Weed or crack ?
You decide.
When it comes to taking drugs for purely recreational reasons the only difference between celebrities and the rest of us is that they have enough money to afford better quality drugs and plenty of them.
More choice.
Which of course means stronger and therefore more likely to produce a dependancy far quicker.

When I first discovered the joys of getting off my face the only thing I could afford in any quantity was speed, but I bet the rich and famous can get anything they want.
I do know people who tried drugs and didn't like how they felt so never did it again.
I loved it, and during that period of my life I only had relationships with fellas who loved them too. Anyone who was concerned about my drug use could've easily looked at that and blamed the guys, but the truth was I WANTED to get smashed.
All the fucking time.
And when your life is going down that route chances are that the people you will meet and attract are on the same path. Imagine trying to have a relationship when one of you is permanently smashed and the other is stone cold sober, it would be like spending your life arriving at a party six hours late.

But mutual partying can all too easily turn into mutual destruction.
I've been there.

I think that often what causes the downfall of celebrities when it comes to drink and drugs is actually the lifestyle that enables it in the first place. There are a lot of people who like to get smashed and party but because they are ordinary folk who have responsibities like going to work and taking care of other aspects of their lives they can't be continually wasted. But when you don't have to do the mundane things that keep the rest of us grounded it must be very easy to just party all the time - and then it can all too easily become a dependency that isn't fun anymore.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the occasional joint, I used to smoke weed every day, even after I stopped everything else.
But the occasional crack pipe ? No such thing.

Personally I kind of liked bad Whitney better.
I could relate to her.
My Love is Your Love is the only CD of hers I own, far superior to all the sugary disco ballady crap she made before it.
Although I used THAT song (which I actually hate) as a child behaviour modification device.

You know how every parent has the thing they threaten their kids with to get them to stop whatever devilment they are getting up to ?
Well of course most times "The Look" is enough, but there’s always those times when parents are forced to resort to the Naughty Step or GO TO YOUR ROOM!

I had a better one.

Mine was STOP IT OR I’LL SING THAT SONG. The song in question being I Will Always Love You.
Seriously, I would just sing “iiiifff iiii ……”
And son would say,
“Alright alright I’ll stop just PLEASE DON’T SING”
Honestly, it worked. Every fucking time.

Even now he hates my singing, and I don't blame him it's truly awful, but one of the joys of parenthood is returning the embarrassment your little brat angel knowingly unwittingly forced upon you when they were small.
Has to be done.
And I've never been one to miss an opportunity for a spot of revenge.
So when Son went out and left his mobile at home I recorded myself singing the Whitney song all the way through. High screeches notes and all.

Then set it as the ringtone for when I called him.

And waited until he was round his mates a couple of days later then called him.

And for that I thank you Ms Houston. RIP.

byeeeee !!!

Well this is it.

This will be my last post for a month, and this time tomorrow I will be thousands of miles away in the sun.
To say I was a little bit excited is the understatement of the year.

Christmas on the beach is something I have always wanted to do, especially since Son grew up and I no longer had to pretend to enjoy it, and could freely admit that I actually hate this time of year.
However I do have a nativity story of my own that I love.
It was a long time ago (no, not that long, I'm not talking about Bethlehem) and Son was still mummy's special little boy. Ok, that was actually longer ago then I am prepared to admit, but he was three at the time and attending nursery school. He loved it there, all the other kids would cry when their parents left them in the morning, mine used to get upset when it was time to leave.
I went to get him and as it was one of the days when we had no lift this meant a walk to the bus stop. It wasn't that far, unless you were three years old and had just endured a long day of games, afternoon naps, making cakes, painting, story telling and generally enjoying yourself.
So he starts to complain.
Usually I would've carried him some of the way, but I had been Christmas shopping before I went to get him and had a few bags to carry. All he was carrying was his (now empty) lunchbox but apparently that was HEAVY.
He started to walk really slowly for a few minutes before stopping altogether, then puts his ghostbusters plastic lunchbox on the pavement, sits on it, folds his arms and says,
"That's it. I can't walk any more. I've got a baby in my tummy and it's coming out RIGHT NOW"

I spent the next few days wondering what on earth they were teaching him. But the next day he was there I got an invite to their nativity play and then it made sense.
Mummy's special boy had figured if it was a good enough excuse for Mary to stop and rest then it was good enough for him.

I realise it's going to be hard to cope quiet without me, but there are some guest posts appearing here over the coming month, and I do have almost a years worth of posts you could always read back through if you find yourself suffering from cowgirl withdrawl. In fact by the time I get back it will almost be LAWAFM's first birthday.
Thanks to all of you who have visited, followed, read, commented. I'm still blown away that so many of you take the time to read the nonsense and constant moaning interesting stuff that I write here.
I started blogging for me, but you all make it worthwhile :)

I love you guys.
See you next year !!!
XXX

I even made you all a Christmas Card. Well I adapted it from what was going to be a followers badge.

Don't expect too much effort I have packing to do.

 My printer's broke otherwise I would send some out, but if you really want you can copy and print it yourselves.

In the meantime. . .  here's some Christmas cheer I stole borrowed from the internet.

The night before Xmas throughout the house,
we were all fucked, even the mouse.
Dad at the brothel, mum with uncle Frank,
I'd settled down for a nice slow wank.
Outside the house I heard a right clatter,
I let go of my cock to see what was the matter.
Out on the lawn I saw a big dick,
I knew right away it was old St Nick.
He came down the chimney like a bat out of hell.
The big fat fucker, I think he fell.
He filled all our stockings with sweets and beer,
and a big rubber cock for my brother, the queer.
He rose up the chimney with a thunderous fart,
the big fat cunt blew the house apart.
He swore and he cursed as he rode out of sight,
Shouting I'll be back next year, have a hell of a night.

Joseph and Mary lived in a barn. Mary had just given birth to a baby boy, Joseph was a carpenter by trade but had no work.
On this particular day, after another unsuccessful day at the job centre, Joseph trudges back to the barn on his donkey. He then notices three men on camels carrying parcels and they take them into the barn.
Joseph gets off his donkey, storms into the barn and shouts, "For fuck's sake, Mary; we've just had a baby, I'm unemployed and you're ordering stuff off ebay."

Driving on ice is like having sex doggie style.
One slip and you can really fuck up someone's rear end.
Drive safely this Xmas

@guestposters - a friend of mine has admin just in case the scheduling doesn't work so she can publish them and any comments.
@Vee - I'll message you, I plan to get an Indian SIM for my phone so I'll let you have the number and hopefully meet you there :)


One last thing before I go.

I know it's a bit early to be saying this is my favourite christmas post as I won't be around to read all of them, but I have a feeling that even if I read loads this would still be my favourite.
http://howtohatemore.blogspot.com/2011/12/rudolph-red-nosed-leper.html

Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sick and tired

Urghhhhh.

I have just spent four days laid up with a horrible stomach bug.
You know the kind, where you think you're about to fart, so you do. And realise just in time that it isn't a fart.
Fucking vile.
An entire weekend laid on my bed in agony and two days off work.
I hate that, makes me feel like I have let people down and that is not something I want to do.

And I am now seriously behind with the list of things-I-need-to-do-before-epic-holiday. I'm not that bothered about delivering the few xmas presents I have for people, Son won't mind doing that for me. Nor do I really care about packing too many clothes, it's going to be hot and we will be mostly on the beach so as long as I have packed all fifteen of my bikinis I'll be ok.

But I am worried that I won't have time to get my legs waxed.
If you hear reports on the news of the missing link being spotted on a beach in Goa you'll know the truth.

I've been feeling so ill I haven't even really turned the computer on, and as it's a laptop that takes very little effort, but when I did so just now it's like I have a hundred new posts to read on my followed blogs.
Fuck knows if I'll ever catch up on reading after a month away.
And my OCD tendencies will mean that I feel I have to.

However what I have managed to do is get the guest posts ready, you lot are in for a few treats while I'm gone. I have to say the people I asked all said pretty much the same thing - that they weren't happy with what they gave me.
Why is everyone their own worst critic ?
I think they're all great (there are three, one per week) so I really hope that after reading them you will all go and check out the respective authors blogs. You won't be disappointed.

I also recently started following Interwebs Fails, go and take a look, I'll wait. . .
Honestly I thought the people I had as 'friends' on facebook were a sad indictment of the human race, but some of the stuff he posts there makes me worry for our future.
If aliens are monitoring us they are probably tapping into the web, and looking at most of that they are probably thinking lets blow them the fuck up there is no intelligent life on earth. But some of the 'questions' posts I've seen there reminded me that I once joined a question forum so I went off to have a look.

Unbefuckinglievable.

That's not what I was taught, but I can see how it might happen. 

Don't confuse birth control with your creepy uncle.

(@IWF feel free if you want to use these, I'd be kinda honoured if you did :)

Regular readers know I buy far too many shoes on I'm a big fan of ebay, and one thing I regularly look out for is Uggs, I'm very good at spotting the fakes too.

But last week before the sick bug got me I saw these,

Look at the fucking state of them !
There's used and then there's knackered, worn out, filthy and with a hole in the side. Yes, it is a hole, there were other pictures that showed it better.
She was asking for a starting price of £50 for fuck sake. I've bought genuine brand new Uggs for not much more then that, so I had to go and read the description.

SMELLY ?!!?
Oh wait, it's ok it's just a little bit.
COLLAPSE SLIGHTLY ?
That's a fucking full on landslide going on with those monstrosities.
LUXURY ITEM !?!?
If that's your idea of luxury love then I really don't want to see what you wear when you're slumming it.
SAD TO SEE THEM GO ?
If I got fifty quid for them I'd be throwing a fucking party.
GIVE THEM A GOOD HOME . . .
The only thing they are fit for is the bin.
Anyway of course I had to go and look at the 'similar items'. After all - they couldn't be any worse.
Could they ?

And then the proverbial penny dropped.

This person is hoping that weirdo perverts are going to buy her old tat.

She even had a pair of knickers amongst her stuff, it said they were new 'to comply with ebay terms' but they didn't exactly look new to me.

Urghhhh.

Hmmmm. I have several pairs of tatty old knickers lurking in the bottom of a drawer . . . . 

Make me an offer.

Maybe she could use this for her advertising campaign.

I can't decide whether this guy is a genius or a bit of a cunt.

But anybody messes with my Bikini is gonna be in for a shock.

And not in a good way.

Never mind, these dogs made me laugh.

 Awwwww.

The second one reminds me of the time I bought my (then about 2yrs old) niece some felt tip pens and forgot to tell my sister I had put them in her bag when she left my house. The next morning my sister found her sat in front of the mirror having coloured her entire face, even her eyelids, green.

For days afterwards people kept asking my sister if her daughter was ok as she 'didn't look too well'. She was fine, she just had a greenish tinge to her complexion.

I'm off, I have a hundred blog posts to read and about a thousand texts, emails and calls to reply to.

Yeah. I wish I was that popular.

I also wish I was getting this for Christmas.

Well someones gotta rub the suntan lotion on the bits I can't reach.

samhain

A while ago I mentioned in a post about my tarot cards, experiences and belief in the supernatural. I said I wasn't going to post about it, but a few people commented saying that they would like to read about it.
So as it's Halloween here's three stories about a spirit, a poltergeist and a message.

When I was about 20 I lived in a fairly old house. The place was falling apart really, but it belonged to a friend who didn't have the money to fix it up so he let my boyfriend and I live there for nothing. One night a bit of the ceiling above the landing collapsed and left a hole about a metre square right outside my bedroom door.
As a result it was always fucking freezing on the upstairs landing.

Another friend came to stay there for a while and brought a kitten with her. From the day she moved in, every night we would hear the kitten playing and meowing right outside our bedroom door and it always wanted to sleep under the hole in the ceiling.
I couldn't understand it, given that every cat I've ever had always wanted to sleep in the warmest part of the house, whereas this one seemed to like the coldest part of ours. A few times I tried bringing it into my bedroom but it would just sit by the door and cry until I let it out.

One night I was very upset about something and went downstairs for a while.
When I decided to go back up to bed, still crying, the kitten was sat at the top of the stairs on the left looking at something to it's right and as I passed it I felt something squeeze my hand.
Very gently, it felt comforting.
I remember standing there trying to figure out what had just happened, I was looking at my hand and as I did so all the hairs on my arm stood up and I felt something - like a very light touch - rub my arm.

I really wasn't scared - in fact I felt better.
At the time I was having driving lessons and my instructor was a member of a spiritualist church. A few days later I had a lesson booked but I'd forgotten about it so when he knocked the door I asked him to come in for a moment while I got ready, when I came back he was still stood by the door and was staring up the stairs.
He asked me if I knew my house had a spirit, and told me that there was a little girl stood at the top of the stairs with the kitten, but not to worry as she meant no harm.

I guess when we could hear the cat playing at night it was playing with her.
Soon after that Don who owned the house said we all had to leave as he was selling it on. Jodie moved out first, the day she left we could not find her kitten anywhere, and we never let it out as it was too young.
We never did find it.
I moved out a couple of weeks later, but in the nights before I did I sometimes heard what sounded like the kitten playing outside my room and once or twice I heard giggling.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first children's home I worked in was in a building that had previously been an old peoples home. The upstairs was completely locked up apart from one room at the top of the stairs that was used for staff sleep-ins. The TV room was under the part that was never used but it was nothing unusual for us to hear someone walking about up there, and although we locked the kitchen at night there were times when in the morning pots would be out of the cupboards.
It wasn't the kids - there was no way they could get in these rooms once locked.
And often whoever was staying in the sleep-in room would hear knocking from the next room, which was empty and locked, some of the staff had refused to sleep in the room.

One night I stayed in this room, and when the knocking started I had said "you don't bother me so shut up" and just gone to sleep. In the morning when I woke up I got dressed and ready, gathered up my stuff (I was going off shift) and put everything apart from my house keys and the night keys (which I needed to lock the room behind me) away in my bag. I put the bag over my shoulder, left the room, locked the door, put both sets of keys in my jeans pocket and went downstairs. As I was going down I heard a bang from upstairs, so I turned round and said "fuck you" to whatever it was.

I went straight to the kitchen where the other staff member was, put my bag on the table and made a coffee. We were sat there chatting when the new days staff arrived. When I went to handover the keys I only had the house set in my pocket, no night keys. As my jeans were the only thing I was wearing with pockets I retraced my steps back, thinking they might've fallen out - but there was no sign. This was 7am on a Sunday and neither of the two kids we had in residence were there, both had gone on home visits for the week-end so there was only myself and my colleague in the building.

I was 100% sure I put them in my pocket, keeping keys safe is a habit in that job, but my colleague and I went through my bag, the only other place they really could be - no keys. I even 'shook' myself to see if I could hear them on me - nothing. We got the spare night set and went back up and looked in the sleep-in room - no keys. We went through everything but could not find them.
One of the women who had just come on shift had a few experiences of her own in that house, she asked me if anything had happened and I told her what I'd heard and said. . . she just gave me a knowing look and told me to go home, the keys would probably turn up eventually.

I went home, made a drink, turned the TV on and dozed off on the sofa.
When I woke up a couple of hours later I ran a bath, as I was taking my top off I heard a clinking sound and in the hood was the set of keys.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The last story is maybe not so spooky, but to me it means more.

My Mum had a sister called Iris who died from cancer. I love the song Iris, it's always been one of my favourites even before my Auntie died. I had played it for my Mum too.
I lost my Mum three years ago this December, the day she died from the minute I got to her hospital bed I had that song playing in my head.
From then whenever I listened to it - in fact for a while I couldn't - it made me think of her.

Weeks later when we cleared her house we found a little portable stereo, Mum liked to listen to the radio at night and had used it for that. I took it home, put it in the bottom of my wardrobe and forgot about it.
Months later I was in my house with my then boyfriend, his football team were playing and as the match wasn't on the TV he wanted to listen to it on the radio. I remembered the little stereo so went and got it for him.

When it was half time he went off to make a drink and I decided to have a play around with the radio. The ex had found it hard to tune in when he was looking for the sports channel, but I moved the dial and straight away hit a music channel.
Guess what song was playing. . . .

Coincidence ?
There are hundreds of radio channels and millions of songs.

So I don't think so.

Happy Samhain people :)

oh crap

If you read yesterdays post then you will be aware of my amazing new-found plumbing skills.

It seems I'm not as clever more creative then I thought.
All I wanted was to able to use my new dishwasher but when I got up today (late - and with the mother of all headaches) I discovered that I had also managed to create an indoor paddling pool in my kitchen.
Yup ! Fucker leaked.

Now this I like - turn your sink into a water feature resembling Niagra.

Wish I'd thought of that.

I'll remember this for next time, because there's bound to be a next time.

Well to be precise it wasn't the dishwasher itself that leaked, it was the tap doubler for the water pipe, as I was trying to save time by using the existing water feed for the washing machine. I blame the DIY shop for selling me faulty leaky parts.
Goddamn B&Q and their unreliable incontinent pipes.
They should come with a warning that using them may result in needing a boat to get to your kettle in the morning, or at the very least a free pair of Wellies.

I could copy this fella's idea and get some ducks.

See what I mean about Calamity.
Fuck my life indeed.
Anyway tomorrow I intend to do it properly and solder on a new tap.
Unless my friendly Hasidic Plumber wants to jump in his G5 and come and do it for me ?

Please note not an actual depiction, but an artists impression.

There are no Racoons here, although I do have a Maincoon cat.
I think I might need a plumbing Superhero.

When I was kid if anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up the answer was "a gelignite man".
I had no desire to change sex, I just wanted to blow things up.

I have no idea where I got this ambition from, my Mum said I started saying it when I was about four, but I do remember really wanting to do it and being totally mesmerised whenever there was anything on the TV about demolition.
I'm starting to think that maybe my talent for calamity and destruction is me acting out those fantasies on a subconscious level.

If I can't explode things them I'm gonna wreck my house instead.

Although I also think it's probably for the best that I didn't fulfil that particular childhood dream because I'm pretty sure I'd be the one blowing up the wrong building.

NO !! Not that one. . . the one behind it.

If you don't hear from me for a few days send a lifeboat to my house.