Sid's Back

Sid's back. And I am in a state of shock. This time he's slithered in through the back door and nestled into my black living room rug. To get him out of my house, and my life, I had to get him up and over the back door step. This is yards and yards away. I got a hooked stick and tried to lift him forwards but he leapt into the air wriggling, squirming, glistening and landed further into the room.

I am yelling in fright and screaming at him to 'Get out!'

Then it got worse. As I lunged at him with my stick his tail fell off - and there were two of them. Sid and his separated tail both wriggling at the same time. Perfectly synchronised. Oh this is a nightmare.

I eventually hooked Sid and got him out through the door and threw him with such force he's halfway up the garden now. But the tail was losing strength. I now know that Sid wrenched his own tail off as a distraction while he hoped to make his escape. It wriggled independently for a while, weakened, then flopped right outside the back door and went still.

I am shaking now. I can hardly type.

Such a lovely day and I was about to sit outside in the May sunshine but I can't. He's there. Him and his tail. Waiting for me.

Not Welcome

Sid The Slow Worm has obviously found alternative accommodation and I wish him well. Now, Will The Wasp has moved in. He's on my inside window sill. He was there all day yesterday just staring at me. But we got on alright. He doesn't move at all. He was still there in the same position this morning. There's no way this photo shows his size but he is huge. Is this a wasp? Surely it's too early for a wasp

Get him out? I can't. This window doesn't open meaning I'd have to scoop him up into something and take the risk, moving acroos the room to a door or a window that open and give him a chance to survive in the fresh air.

He's still there. I know Will is alive because we make eye contact. If he was dead he'd crumple in a heap and wither.

If he isn't in the same place tomorrow morning I shall worry. That will mean he is still here - in a nook or a cranny in this old cottage.

Is it a Wasp?

Sidney the Slow Worm

This is Sydney the Slow Worm. Last week he appeared from a hole in the stone wall underneath my back door, got caught in the wrought iron door mat and before my eyes shed his tail enabling him to escape and wriggle back into the hole in the stone, leaving his tail behind him. I was beside myself with fear. I knew he wouldn't hurt me but they do slither, wriggle and do look like snakes. I know they are lizards with ears and eyelids but they are big and I don't want one as a lodger. I know they are a protected species.

My carpenter arrived on Saturday to hang a new back door. I warned him about the Slow Worm and as he took the old frame out the Slow Worm leapt out of the hole so the carpenter threw it over a huge hedge into the next door field.


This morning as I went to open my front door there was Sydney the Slow Worm inside the porch. I heroically lifted him out with a stick and threw him onto the front path. It is the same Slow Worm because half of him is in my back garden and this one has the blunt end where his tail used to be. He found his way home across a field, over gardens and pathways and predators.

I'm proud of his determination. I am talking to him and offering him a hole in my stone wall on a permanent basis on the condition that he doesn't come indoors.

Imagine him twice that length?

The Smell Of Money

My Dad was a Fishmonger and this is him on the right posing in front of his wet fish shop in a South London market street in the 1970s. This was before plastic bags and after fishmongers could no longer wrap the fresh fish in newspaper as it was a health hazard. Customers would bring their old newspapers into the shop in bundles and one of my Saturday jobs as a schoolgirl in the 60s was to tear the old newspaper sheets in half and pile them up for wrapping the fish sold from the slab.

My hands would be black from the print-ink and when I got on the bus to go home after work I whiffed of fish, my hands were black but I had a ten bob note in my pocket and I'd earned it. I didn't mind what I smelt like or what I looked like.

Once Dad had to pay for clean white paper to wrap the fish in he started to charge for carrier bags. On the original photo the sign hanging between the heads of the the two young blokes says Carrier Bags 3p Each. The other market traders in the street pulled his leg and called him Mean but over thirty years later he wasn't far wrong was he?

I love this photo because Dad's white overall is smeared with fish guts and blood but he would drive home, after his long day beginning in Billingsgate Fish Market at dawn and ending when he put the shutters down at six in the evening, in his ancient Rolls Bentley still wearing this overall and his Fishy Rubber Boots. He often got stopped by the police on his way to Billingsgate at four in the morning as he looked like a very suspicious character dressed like that but he enjoyed telling everyone that he'd paid less for this aged motor than he would have for a brand new Ford.


Sometimes he'd let my brother and I count the day's takings on the kitchen table. Or at least put the notes and cash into appropriate heaps because it was a screwed up mess in a heavy cotton money bag. The money was covered in fish scales and smelt of fish. One evening I flounced telling him I didn't want to touch it as it smelled nasty.

He said,

"You should ever have this much money and complain about how it smells!"

Thanks Dad. For teaching me the work ethic.

Fischer's Baslow Hall

Morty surprised me for my birthday and booked us into Baslow Hall in Derbshire for one night and dinner in Fischer's, their Michelin Restaurant. It was indeed a surprise because the Chef was one of the competing chefs in The Great British Menu 2008 and I'd seen him cook on the television.

Above are the hot and cold canapes served before dinner. I have eaten Foam now. All modern chefs Do Foam now. The tastes are extremely intense, yet light and delicious.

Above are our deserts, a selection from the dinner menu. Ice creams, souffle, fruit and thin biscuits and chocolate.

Above are the petit fours and lollipops served with divine coffee. A totally wonderful eating experience and my first ever meal sampling Great British Cooking. It was a privilidge. Our room with a canopied bed was utter luxury. Baslow Hall is set in gracious, landscaped gardens and we were made to feel very welcome.

We shall return.

Great British Menu

Hot and cold Canapes

Lyme Bay Crab and Coconut

Pork. Cheek. Loin. Fillet.

Surprise?

The Excuse

I wake up suddenly and lie still. Something has disturbed my sleep. It's dark in my bedroom. I distinguish my kidney shaped dressing table, cluttered with teenage girl necessaries. There's that noise again. A persistent plopping, like a tap dripping; Dad will be cross if I haven't turned the tap off on my hand-basin. I peer at my alarm. It's four thirty in the morning. A relief; he left for work at four so no chance of him finding out.

I try to go back to sleep. It's a long journey to work and back every day, leaving my parent's period house in this quiet Surrey village at seven thirty to arrive in London at nine and not getting back until seven thirty in the evening. A bus to the station, a train, then another bus, each stage of my commute tightly synchronised with no room for error; a long day for a fifteen year old probationary apprentice hairdresser, keen to impress her boss; but I can't drift off. The unrelenting plopping is gathering speed and volume.


I light my bedside lamp, place my naked feet on the parquet floor, gaze around my cosy bedroom. The chintz curtains are tightly closed over the leaded-light windows. I hear the click of the heating system as it automatically switches on. I turn my eyes towards the dark green tiled fireplace at the foot of my bed. The persistent plopping is coming from that direction. I pad barefoot to the fireplace and I am unable to scream, too revolted to move; rooted to the spot!


Maggots! Thousands of them! Plump, white maggots marching up and down the grouting of the tiled hearth like a regimental platoon. As the existing troops uniformly wriggle along they are rapidly joined by more foot soldiers, free-falling down the chimney breast, landing with the haunting 'Plop' onto the cold, green tiles, joining the swelling military ranks on the straight white lines as if under orders from a barking Sergeant Major. I am mesmerised but move quickly as the new arrivals, finding no room in the hearth, edge their way over the shiny brass fender to create a splinter group, within seconds finding the patterns on the wooden flooring and a second squad of squirming, writhing maggots occupying their new parade ground.


But the door to freedom is on the other side of the fireplace and its grisly inhabitants. I have to get past the invaders to escape. Choosing the alternative, I leap back to the comparative protection of the bed. Mum's bedroom is next door. Will she hear me screaming? No matter! I shriek and screech. She hears - comes rushing in.

'What are you screaming at for goodness sake?' as she clutches her dressing-gown around herself with one hand and pats her head full of spongy rollers with the other.

'Maggots - millions of them,' ' I'm blubbering.

Her face is white 'What?'


The marching maggots have reached legion proportions. She disappears, returning with a galvanised bucket brimming with steaming water, strong smelling disinfectant and a wooden handled mop; sloshing the contents over the wooden flooring and tiled fireplace. Things worsen as the tidal wave of boiling water sweeps the maggots along the floor, entirely surrounding my bed - proving maggots can swim. I am trapped, sobbing, shaking and already late for work.

'Get out of bed.' she ordered.


Mum may be as horrified as me by the gory sight, but at least she is wearing slippers, at the other side of the fireplace, near the door and a hasty exit.


'I'm not putting my feet on that floor,' as I bury myself in the pillows 'I can feel them crawling all over me! Get me some Wellington boots and dad's big waterproof mackintosh. Otherwise I'm not moving - ever!'


The scene in my bedroom is sheer desolation. Lifeless maggots, fat on dead, decaying bird, are stranded on my pretty hand-woven rug, like grains of cold boiled rice. Some maggots are making feeble efforts to escape to higher ground away from the avalanche of water by slithering into my work-shoes. Others are trapped in the tiled hearth, floating on the surface, joined by naive maggots plopping down the chimney to a certain death by drowning. Mum comes back with the waterproofs and the wellies; I escape the bedlam and collapse in a frenzied heap on the landing floor.


I get to work very late that day. I explain my valid reasons. My boss doesn't believe me. It's the most inventive excuse he's ever heard.

Headless Ostrich

Ostriches were once farmed purely for their feathers creating much wealth for the Feather Barons who built ornate Feather Palaces. Many of these remain in South Africa. They've been restored and are luxurious tourist accomodation. We visited an Ostrich Farm and found the Ostriches rather funny. They are exactly like Rod Hull's Emu. Cross, bad tempered and get too close to one and it'll have your hat, camera and your face.

Then I felt sorry for them. Place a paper bag on their head and they become motionless. The one above is about to be sat on by a tourist and a photo opportunity. I'd be a cross bird if somebody put a paper bag on my head.

Here the guide has exposed the prize white feathers used for Feather Boas and the Folies Bergere.

These Ostrich are racing. The can run at 60 mph. Considering they can't fly I suppose this is how they survived their predators. We were assured that as soon as they reach the finishing line the jockeys put a paper bag over their heads and they stop dead. I was standing at the finishing line but didn't believe them so my photo is rubbish because I leapt out of the way.

Then we ate Ostrich for lunch and browsed the Ostrich shop. A very useful bird. The eggs are made into lamps, there are feather dusters, feather boas and well crafted Ostrich leather goods. I was very taken with an Ostrich handbag but it was two hundred pounds. I didn't buy anything. They are far more expensive to buy here as very similar bags retail online for several hundred pounds.

I shall buy Ostrich meat though. It is delicious and healthy.

Design Fault? Update

I loved my last Finepix Digital camera but it broke after two years constant use. Something wrong with the Zoom Feature. Not that I ever Zoomed. I loved it because it didn't have sticky-out bits like lenses. It nestled in my handbag or pocket along with my lipstick. It also had a dock for recharging the whole camera without removing batteries.

Above is the replacement camera bought one month ago. Again, no sticky-out bits like lenses but instead of a camera dock for recharging the whole thing it has a battery charger. I successfully charged the battery as soon as I got the Finepix Z10fd. This meant removing it, charging it and then replacing it. This worked fine. I had a happy month taking pictures and then the battery needed recharging. I removed it, sat it in the recharger, red light went off, charging over, so I put it back into the camera - the wrong way round.

I've replaced many batteries into many technological things the wrong way round, realised this, removed them and replaced them the right way round. Not this one. Jammed. Stuck. Broken nails trying to shift it. Sweating. Perplexed.

I re-read the information leaflets supplied with the camera. There are several slips separate from the main booklet with Cautionary Warnings such as If Battery Replaced The wrong Way Do Not Attempt To Force Removal. I have a sinking feeling.

If Battery Replaced The Wrong Way Round go to your main FujiFilm FinePix Dealer. I go to my High Street dealer. Roger disappears into his workshop with my camera for many minutes. He returns, perplexed.

'Can't understand this' he says 'Usually when a battery's put in the wrong way round it's easy to take it out and do it right'.

Roger 'phones Finepix.

'Oh yes' say Finepix 'This is a common problem. Send it back to us'.

So FujiFilm are selling a product with a known design fault?

Hopefully this will just cost me postage and insurance. Meanwhile I don't have a camera and I miss it. I need to photograph food and shoes.

UpDate:

Finepix replaced my camera with a new one within a week. Well done Fuji. The new camera included updated and clearer illustrated cautions about how to replace the battery. If I'd had these in the first camera I would never had put the battery back the wrong way round.

Suggestive Food

We spent two nights at The Grand Hotel in Torquay to include Valentine's. Above is my first course. It's Asparagus Spears wrapped in something meaty with Quail Eggs and a creamy Hollondaise. It does look Phallic and it tasted delicious.

Above is my main course. It's Duck Breast with a Pear poached in red wine. Unfortunately, the kitchen was under pressure - Not Enough Cooks - and we'd finished our wine by the time the main courses arrived and I can't remember what that large food object is laid across the top of the breast. That's why I'm glad I took a picture because on reflection it looks Phallic too.

Those umbrellas on the terrace certainly look Phallic.

The Grand is a lovely hotel to stay in for a short break. This was our third visit. The interior has splendid Art Deco features, polite staff and our Slovakian head waiter won't be there next time we go because he's spent the last six years studying with the Open University while working at The Grand. He is accepting his Degree this year and will be taking a post as a Translator so he won't have to pound the restaurant floor for seven hours a night. That's dedication.

More As Promised

I love these shoes. The heel is an unusual shape and the square toe good. They are comfortable but I totter in them. They are twelve years old.

Mock reptile skin. Ankle straps. High heels. Waving them a tearful Goodbye. Ten years old.

I feel dainty in these cream seude strappy shoes. I don't look delicate as I fell off them several times and had to walk home bare-foot when we couldn't get a taxi. Twelve years old.

This is the Tip Of The Iceberg.

Should I do an eBay or rent a market stall and sell the lot?

I Can't Do This Anymore

I can't wear heels anymore-ever. There are hundreds of pairs of Tart's Trotters, boot and shoe, in cupboards, chests, drawers under the bed, in black sacks and the bottom of my wardrobe. They are beautiful, worn but never walked in. Bought because I loved the look of them. I've suffered in the past wearing them to get to the taxi, sit at the bar, wobble to the restaurant table, then have an inner argument with myself asking, can I be bothered to totter up the stairs to the toilets and then risk falling down them? Lately I've chosen to retrain my bladder rather than risk it. Lately, every restuarant we've been to has Cobbled Pathways. I cannot walk on Cobbled Pathways in High Heels unless I'm prepared to risk breaking my ankles, knees or hips.

Above are four inch high cork wedged sandals. I loved them so much I bought them in both Black and White. They make me appear to be taller in my head. This is a lie because I can't stand up straight in them, I stoop forwards for balance and look shorter, bent knees. Not a good look.

These are my ankle shoe boots. Lined with scarlet. My legs look so elegant as I sit but not as elegant when I attempt to walk in them.

My next Blog Entries will all be photos of my shoes that I can't wear anymore, and probably never should have worn in the past. This will be a lot of entries.

I shall eventually follow these with the shoes I can wear now, still look good and certainly safer.

Cooled Down

I'm not so ranty now.

The missing USB arrived in the next day's post. The HP monochrome laser printer (forty pounds - how can this be) installed easily. So cheap, no ink, how does it actually work? Obviously no scanner, copier and no fax but I only use a printer for business letters, whereas up until last year I had to scan and copy quite a few documents.

The fax on the old printer was a nuisance. I never installed this facility but my builders still faxes and every time he sent me one the HP the fax would kick in, the printer went berserk, print the fax and disrupt my phone line. So when I answered the phone I got the Burbling associated with a fax, my Answerphone wouldn't work and that's how I came to lose the printer all together as every time this happened I uninstalled it, then reinstalled it - but it wasn't having it this time.

The DVD Handset? The TV technician came today and it wasn't broken. It needed replacement batteries. But how come? I'd changed them, bloke changed them, daughter changed them and it wouldn't work for any of us. It does now.

I am still ranting about Hillary's Blinds. I ordered my internal shutters in November. Measured up, paid a 50% deposit and as I was about to tell the representitive that I didn't want them fitted until the end of January when the decorating would be finished he said,

'They won't be here until the end of January as they are made in China and shipped across.'

Because this suited me anyway I accepted the time-line. I would/should never have said yes otherwise.

They'd better fit.

Steaming

Got a new Flossing DVD handset that isn't working with my new Sony DVD player. Done batteries and tried the DVDs in another player. Result - its the handset.

Got a five year old HP all-in-one printer that refuses to re-install. I can't continue driving myself insane trying to get it to work. I am about to Hurl It out of the window.

This is after I'd had to buy a new DVD external drive because the Flossing internal DVD on my tower packed up and without the DVD I couldn't put the Installation Disc in.

Just had a new printer delivered because I am so Flossed Off with my old one and there's no USB enclosed, even though it Has A Check List including the USB with a picture of it on the box!!!!!!.

I've got a box of trailing leads, USBs and other rubbish, one of which should fit, from obselete technology in a cupboard and they've all knotted up like Live Snakes and I've just chucked the box in the air with Twitting Fury.

I am still waiting for Hillary's Blinds to tell me my Pooping Internal Shutters have been made in China and have safely crossed the High Seas so I can have the BumWiping things installed - I ordered them in November!

One week after my new galley kitchen was installed the immersion tank above burst and stained my new plaster ceiling and I had to have a new immersion and the Weeing Ceiling redecorated.

If I didn't already drink alcohol - I'd start now!

I Can See Clearly Now

H
The work-in-progress on the cottage continues. I have moved on from ghastly pub lighting in here to glass and crystal. The centre light chandelier above is acrylic in an Art-Deco style. I bought three of them for lounge, landing and bedroom six months ago from The White Company online and have finally reached the tarting up stage so the electrician arrived this morning to install all my new fittings. They seem very grand for a small cottage but I adore them. They are bold and blend well with plastered stone walls, black beams and wood.

Above is one of the two new wall lights from John Lewis online. Look at the shadows and patterns cast on the walls. John Lewis is the first online store I visit when I need something new for the home. I bookmark items I like and then carry on searching to compare. Next day free delivery and excellent Customer Service.

So now I need sunglasses indoors. This home has never been so bright.

New carpets fitted on Wednesday.

Scented Soy For Me

My decorator spent three days washing my plaster walls before he could begin emulsioning them. They were coated with a layer of wax and very black smoke damaged corners under curtains. Yes - from burning perfumed paraffin wax candles. I love my Yankee candles but the damage was extensive. He advised me to burn Soy candles. I am horrified at the toxins in paraffin wax candles. Disconcerted that my expensive re-paint jobby could be ruined with simply burning a candle.

Some Googling and this website in the top ten on the first page appealed to me the most. Sentelle Soy candles Easy to navigate and customer friendly. I liked being able to choose not only the fragrance but the colour of the candle as well.

Within hours of my order being accepted I had a personal email from Sentelle thanking me for my custom and telling me my fragrant Soy Candles would be delivered within twenty four hours - and they were. With a handwritten Thank You note and a small gift.

Beautifully presented and the promise of the fragrance lasting the life of the candle, slow burning, biodegradable, toxin free, non-carcinogenic from a sustainable resource. I took advantage of free delivery for orders over £50.00 then I took a photo of them for you because they are attractive.

Wine Tasting and Lipstick

The wine tasting in a luxurious South African Vineyard began like this. Clean, shining glasses, the list of wines we were tasting, with spaces to write comments, a dish of dry crackers and a spittoon.

It ended like this.

My Favourite

After two weeks travelling through South Africa seeing wonderful scenery, flowers, birds, sitting on an ostrich then eating it for lunch, lions, crocodiles, wilderbeasts, meercats, holding an elephant's tusk, penguins, seals, lions, pumas you'd think I could do better than this - a photo of a Dung Beatle - but I love them.

They burrow into the dung and gather a golf ball sized lump then roll it to a hiding place where they lay their eggs inside it. They nick each others dung balls and fight over them. Very entertaining.

Everything But The Head

I have never eaten so much meat in one sitting. No:29 restaurant and wine bar in Whaley Bridge Derbyshire was perfect. The decor is warm and welcoming and modern and we were given a professional welcome and the waiting staff were very efficient and friendly. A small jazz combo played Norah Jones type music during the evening at the right level, not drowning conversation and adding to the relaxing atmosphere. Above is my first course. Sweetbreads. They were perfectly cooked and brought back many happy memories for me as my late Chef husband used to cook Sweetbreads when we owned our restaurant. December 7th would have been his birthday so eating them seemed like a perfect tribute.

The above dish was described as Lamb Three Ways. Much laughter. There are Lamb's Kidneys, two Lamb Cutlets and a Barnsley Lamb Chop on a Rosti. Again perfectly cooked and flavoursome. These two dishes contained more meat than I eat in a week. I did have to give one of the Cutlets to my bloke. Can you see those Sumo Chips just above with a Rib-Eye Beef Steal balanced on top?

A great evening in a smashing restaurant.