Dog and Cat Tale

A black cat lying on a white duvet wearing a santa jacket intended for a teddy

It was a long time ago, in the days when Gizzy the cat was alive and our dog was still black around the muzzle. Gizzy did not like Milo (the above mentioned, below pictured dog). She never trusted him after our other dog, Nellie, a rescue with anger issues, caught her by the head and […]

Dress Dense

This article contains what I hope will be taken as affectionate references to book makers (I don’t think I could be called bookie-ist) and gay men (a quote). Also, I apologise to Whizz for exposing his sartorial secrets. I love my husband. I stuck with him even though he turned up on our first date […]

White Christmas

Mavis, before she left for university, had a cake business, which led to a significant amount of my kitchen cupboard space being occupied by ingredients and icing tools, cake tins and other fancy equipment. My worktop bore a food mixer in the proportion of those seen on Bake Off, and leaning against the wall in […]

Life is for Learning

You might think that there’s not much left to learn by the time you reach your 60s. Think again. My last couple of years have probably been the most life-changing of all. I suppose that becoming a Nichirin Buddhist has affected that in many ways but this is not intended to be about the benefits […]

A day of two halves

‘Cheers’ said Whizz as we clinked together our champagne flutes to welcome in 2015. ‘Here’s to a hospital free year’ I rejoined. We almost made it! Yesterday, late afternoon, turned out to be a bit frantic. I worked a bit of overtime at work, the car fuel-gauge was so low that the needle did not even […]

Sexual press ups

When Mavis was about 4 she had a beloved friend, Peter. The two were inseparable, so much so that when they both went to school, the dinner ladies called them the little married couple. Sadly for Mavis, Peter moved away leaving her distraught. For years afterwards she struggled to make friends, but it seemed that the girl groups […]

The Demon Drink

Whizz is not much of a drinker. He will have the occasional beer, and drink wine at a dinner party or meal out but in the main he is, for me, a very valuable chauffeur. ‘Twas not always thus, though. When he was much younger, learning moderation skills, he went to a party and began […]

Bed, Breakfast and Fine Dining

This has been an interesting summer. I have enjoyed it more than usual because a) I didn’t have a broken metatarsal and b) somewhat strangely, because we didn’t go away. The reason for our lack of exotic (or otherwise) holiday, was two fold: First, we couldn’t afford it. Things are finally looking up for us financially, […]

The Incident of the Courgette

Funny things happen in life, and I am always keen to see the humour. This can be a bit unfortunate on occasion, but now that I write, I can at least have an unstifled giggle with hindsight. I once had a proper job, a career as a computer programmer and project leader. Despite a requirement […]

On Gardening

When we moved into our house, the garden, like everywhere else, was in dire need of a makeover. The inside was our priority as it needed new floors, heating, plaster and so on, and to make matters more complicated, the week before we started working on it, Whizz was made redundant.