On Vets and Miaous
Last night Verti discovered a lump in the cat’s neck. Those of you with pets will know what I mean when I say that this information was received with mixed emotions. On the one hand there’s our poor cat, maybe with cancer, on the other there’s the vet’s bill. Immediately I was wondering how much […]
Horace’s 18th
I’m getting over the weekend. Horace was 18 on Friday and requested a family dinner party. How lovely, you might say, she wants to spend her special time with her nearest and dearest. Yes, lovely, until you realise that there were a planned 22 diners. Actually, thanks to the rather feeble constitution of my cousins, […]
On Gerbils
Mavis is a disadvantaged child. Well, at least in the pet department she is. Horace, for reasons of guilt, me having a full time career, had a sequence of pets which survived for limited periods. We had: A rabbit which was truly enormous – a New Zealand Blue – with an overwhelming desire to escape. […]
On the Theft of a Purse
I once had a job (one of many different jobs which one day I will attempt to list on this blog) as a Media Analyst. This rather grand sounding job involved reading endless articles from newspapers and measuring how many column centimetres about a given organisation were devoted to particular subjects. The data was then […]
Child Quote 4
Whiz: (singing tunelessly to himself) Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Riding through the glen .. Mavis: Daddy, who is Robin Hood Whiz: He was a man who stole from the rich and gave to the poor Mavis (horrified) Stole!? Whiz: Yes, it was all right though, they were very bad rich people. Mavis: Ok Mavis: But […]
On Poppy Day
A five minute drive from Pebbleditch is the market town of Tinkle. Tinkle has a museum, part of the Natural History Museum, filled to bursting with stuffed animals. Not cute little teddies and cuddly piglets but life size lions and apes and much, much more, all stuffed by a taxidermist (or two). Mavis was not […]
Horace’s floor
Above are three pictures of Horace’s bedroom floor. Just to prove I’m not exagerating below
On Teenagers (female)
In many ways it is easy to forget that ‘The Teenager’ is part of the family. She doesn’t want to go out with you – unless there’s something in it for her, she appears only at meal times, she is not often at home as she is staying the night with a friend and when […]
Penguins and the Theatre
Here I sit, pondering life and how amazing it is, and why I, at my age, find it so much more interesting than 17 year old Horace, who droops around in a state of perpetual boredom unless listening to her type of music (which sounds just like the stuff I used to listen to), talking to her […]
Three Perimenopausal Women
Three perimenopausal women: Speak complete gibberish, Hear with difficulty and See only with glasses (Biggles, Upper and me), went for a cultural weekend in Stratford on Avon. We agreed to meet for a late lunch and I headed off in plenty of time to arrive at about 1pm. I was batting along the M40 in […]