Monday 25 February 2013

CHILLING......

Yes, it's back with a vengance...

"The most chilling yet...."  Crafts and Sewing Magazine

"But I still don't get it...."  Fishkeeping Monthy

"Pure Hitchcock!"   Bunty Comic

"Rip off from Fatal Attaction, more like!"  Whizzer and Chips

Oh yes, episode six is up.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid!  The Amanda Ann family are in real danger this time!

louismarxtoys.blogspot.co.uk
     

Tuesday 19 February 2013

OVER THE ALPS

My baby  boy has gone to Italy this week, ski-ing with the school.  

Sunday night we got some terrible text from him, saying that he's upset and homesick, and won't be able to sleep that night (despite 30 hours on a coach).

The next night we get a text saying he hates skiing, and he wants to come home, and he's so tired.  

I want to jump in that car and rescue the little tyke.  30 hours over some bloody Alps or other isn't much - is it?  And where does one park?  

If only it could be like old-fashioned times, when the only communication you got from abroad was a postcard that arrived two weeks after you did.  And phones being so expensive, and hard to get through a harassed operator, were rarely used.  
 Silence overseas is probably better really.

This bloody text business!  And Don't get me started on that stupid Skype thing!  Thank God Son wasn't doing that caper!     

I remember going to Germany with the school, on one of those overnight couchettes.  What a bloody nightmare!  Cried most of the time - and didn't sleep.  Then when I got to this town in a beautiful valley, I cried from homesickness.  It probably doesn't hurt a 14 year old to have an awful time.  A traumatic adventure on the Continent.  Bit of a learning curve for them really.  And something to talk about on your blog!  

Next Saturday seems very far away.  Perhaps he will like skiing by then.  

Tuesday 12 February 2013

PANCAKE DAY

Pancake day is never how you think it's going to be.  You're too full of misty memories of coming home from school in the dark, and walking into your childhood kitchen where your mum's frying these things in six tons of butter.  And you eat them on a cracked plate, with blissful amounts of sugar, and one squeeze of lemon (too healthy).  Then you ask for more, and more ....

Mine never taste the same.  Yet I'm sure I follow the same pattern as my mum.  Light up a fag while the butter gets hot, chuck some of that egg-filled batter in, swear at the cat, moan when Son wants another one, then another fag after the washing up.  I'm sure that's the correct recipe. 

A mini-version of myself, Son demands about six of them just like I did.  But I'm damned if they taste the same!  I've even used the same burnt pan!

Frying these days seems very different to the frying my mum did.  I can't bring myself to use Lard, I have to say, but butter I'm all for!  Otherwise it's a little drop of namby pamby Olive Oil!  Something you would have got beaten up for round my way!  Bloody right an' all!

Whenever I used to ask my mum for chips, she used to say, between puffs:  "I'm not standing there, cooking chips!"  So whenever homemade chips are mentioned in this more sanitised household, I always imagine someone standing by the cooker!  Spooky!!  Especially as they're put in the oven now!

Quite fancy a pancake now.  Sod it!   


Tuesday 29 January 2013

Hair Today and all that...

Had my hair done.  That's about as exciting as it's been today.  

But what I did notice, as I was trying to read my book, as the concoction on my head weaved it's magic, was how loud the hairdresser talked.  In fact, she belted out everything she said!  Great projection, my drama teacher would have said.

And that young man, whose salon it seemed to be, bellowed absolutely everything.  And God help the poor bastard who phoned and got him - I tell you!

I suppose it's the hazard of the job.  Trying to be heard over constant hairdryers, and overhead music, and curlers and whatnot.  Not that I've seen anyone in curlers in a salon for a long time.

I thought the hairdressers was a magical place when I was a kid.  I'd go along with my mum while she got her shampoo and set, and pretend to read me Bunty comic.  Now, you have to trust me, they did not remotely talk loud then.  They all spoke in whispers - adult talk - words I was itching to overhear.  Words not for little ears.  Especially about Mrs Green at number 8!  A strong and favourite subject around our way.  But the buggers were discreet then and whispered over my mum's beehive.  

Of course, once you were under one of those dryers out of Dr Who that came right over your head, conversation ceased anyway, it dominating you and everything.  I still love  those dryers with a chair, always swore I'd get one.  They were kind of glamorous - with a pull out ashtray in the arm.  

Once, when someone was doing a perm and it smelt of rotten eggs, as it did then, I assumed someone had farted, and gave this young girl a dirty look!

Swimming instructors and PE teachers also have extraordinarily loud voices - for obvious reasons - but I can give these a wide berth!  

I wonder if there's a whispering hairdresser in the phone book!