Atomic Mutton

In my everyday life I do sometimes get the opportunity to meet famous people, or should I say household names, this I did earlier this month at the North West launch of the Big Lunch www.thebiglunch.com.

The Big Lunch is an opportunity for communities/neighbours and friends to come together on 5th June 2011 for a chat and refreshments, it can be as big or as small an event as you want to make it, a cup of tea and a biscuit with your close neighbours is enough, or a full blown street party, just an opportunity to reconnect with our immediate community, like the good ole days (but minus the diptheria, TB and rickettes)


Liz the ever lovely former "Atomic Kitten", she gave us a few tips on making ourselves look good in a photo (these failed on my part so I obviously need miracles rather than tips) my boss looked good (some people are just so photogenic).

Come and hold the fork and knife Liz shouted before our close up (think that one over, it only works if you say it with a scouse dialect), walking over Albert Squares cobbles in Jimmy Choos is another skill, but I wont need tips on that as I will prob never own a pair, A) because they cost too much and B) they wont make them in a ladies size 10!

Anyway if we start up a new band with our increased ages we could always call ourselves ATOMIC MUTTON.....

Mahooo

Scones

I hadnt actually baked for years, I used to the ginger bread men with my first born but as he will be 23 this year you can see just how long ago that was, I did laugh to myself the time I got teaspoons and tablespoons mixed up when adding the ginger, a neighbours boy looked shocked as he brought the gingerbread man back minus a leg and urgenty wanted water (as a mum you have to savour the good times with a quiet little chuckle inside, whilest appearing caring), that seemed to put a stop to the ginger men as the boy with the burnt mouth called them (he had fear in his eyes as he said it, you know like saying the boggy man will get you etc...)

Anyway youngest is a bit of a dab hand with the old baking, she always did like it but it became a real pleasure over the last couple of years and she makes some damn fine stuff, from choc devil cake, cookies and will generally make choc crispies whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.

My fave thing to bake is scones, I do plane ones for me and youngest who love them with extra thick double cream and little scarlet jam (pricey but worth it).

The others in the house like cherry or sultana.

There is a real wholesome pleasure in baking, but you do really have to eat the day you make them, we had a two day old fruit scone and as I said, I wouldnt eat that its rock hard, I will put it out for the birds to which he replied

You can kill two birds with one scone...... this went on all day

sticks and scones may break my bones
fave band... the scone roses
no scone unturned...

and not forgetting that old mowtown classic.....scone love, oh yeah now baby, o do do do do da , scone in love oh yeah.......

I aint no role Model

I cant say I am a mental health guru, but I have read most books from "feel the fear and do it anyway" to "I can make you happy" by Paul McKenna.

What hit the spot for me this evening was putting my ipod to Pink Floyd, pouring a ridiculously large whisky (12 yr old) topping it up with greens ginger wine and ice, realising it was way too strong and that as there was no space in the glass I would have to take three big gulps before there was any room for a coke top up, this I did, then I washing my filthy car, it hasnt been washed since March 2010 and I was taking quite a risk as it may well have only been the stuborn stains holding the 13 year old retro piece together. By the time I was at hoovering the inside and pink floyd was now on "that great gig in the sky", the beverage had done the trick and I realised why there are so many drunk homeless people on the street, its a slippery slope and when people cant cope they will find the means to try to, self medicating isnt an answer to long term downers but by god it can help in the short term. Maybe children shouldnt see you with an alcoholic beverage before the coctail hour.

Now this story should have a happy ending, and in some respects it does, my next beverage of the evening was in fact a large mug of peppermint tea, but when I woke the next morning I had a huge splinter in my finger that needs removing, I walked in the walk in centre but they couldnt see me for two hours, so i walked out and as I type this it is twice the normal size of a little finger and I am trying to remember what to put in a poltice.

as always more on that story later


Maria

Upset

Its tuesday evening and I am just about calming down from (I hope) a throw away comment someone close to me said on sunday. I hope I never phone someone up and reprimand them for not having contacted me in a set number of days, but sadley as I get older and more isolated maybe I will.

While I begin to explain my basic existance and what it consists of you will see I pretty much juggle like someone desperate to get a job at the circus, despite what others may think this is not what I want to do.

I leave the house at 8am and dont get back till 6pm, thats the bit in the day monday- friday I actually get paid for. I have a lunch hour which I think over the whole week are probrably some of my only me times, if I dont need to replenish stocks at home (bread, milk, sub rolls etc) I look round the shops at shiny things, I spray perfume in boots, see if Krispy creme have got samples out, check what the ladies want me to do market research on and generally enjoy myself.

I have a frantic hour from 7-8 where I get dressed, wash up, put washing on, put something in the slow cooker for tea, make sandwhiches on either barms, subs or warbies, everyone has a preference and within reason I do try to give them what they want. I apply my makeup in the car on the way to work, and feel lucky that my firstborn does the driving, he rarely has any change to pay the car parking fees and the red light is on in his thirsty car and I sort both out greatful I am not having to do the tedius journey into manchester on the 256 (where I still have that stalker).

I walk out of work at 5.00pm, check my list and get any provisions necessary before getting my lift home again, now when I come in I usually do tea for my youngest and tidy round, check the post, and do any other jobs that require doing, tonight for instance its completing the census and locating a couple of library books that are overdue. I also have some shirts to iron and when hubs comes in from his late shift I will be doing his tea and prob wont sit down till 9.00, now this is the price I pay for wanting to own my own home and pay a mortgage, I accept all these responsiblities, but what I dont appreciate is someone wondering why I having phoned them in 7 days. I may not keep this story on my blogg and it feels way too personal but for the moment and just for me I need the writing on the wall......

Weekends

Some weekends are just perfect, not majorly exciting not action packed but perfect and filled with many aspects and many moments of pleasure I think my last perfect weekend was in August 2010 it went something like this...................


I finished work on the Friday and decided cooking just wasn’t for me so it was a takeout from the Stretford Balti. A few drinks and we watched Electric mist, with Tommy Lee Jones in it (does this man ever smile?) he had a limp and it wasn’t a great film so I concluded that

1) He only signed up to it to have a hip replacement op

2) There was so much chopped out of the original film it didn’t make a whole lot of sense



But it didn’t matter as I may not have been able to follow even a simple plot.



Saturday, we went to collect my feckles and her lovely boyfriend seb, they had had a week away in corfu and we were collecting them from Manchester Airport, hugs all round and home.



Mum came round in the afternoon and I went to my ace charity shop, Manacare. Its an absolute aladins cave of goods, every week something different, this week they had a snow white outfit, two outfits originally purchased from a hardcore sex shop and a wetsuit. It did make me giggle everyone who came in had a comment on the outfit, Oxfam and barnados would never have put these out on display and that is why i love an independant charity shop every time, less rules to adhere to and lots of randomly good finds, the last time I giggled like that was when I noticed they had an illustrated Karma Sutra in with the cookery books (bless em).



Sunday , the sun shone, Sean did all my ironing, I sat in the garden and read two You magazines, entered some comps, cooked a chicken then did two tubs with conifers, primulas and ivy for either side of my front door and trimmed the boarders and watered my tomato plants. After discussion with Bob my gardening neighbour I have decided I am growing sprouts this winter and I will have them elevated as the cheeky slugs ate the last lot (before Christmas too). Sunday evening I watched the last programme about the Amish teenagers on channel 4, drank a glass of 12 year old whisky and went to bed.

If only all weekends could be this perfect......

Mrs mahoo

Strictly nought penc e....

I clicked on my email and had two emails that started with

Congratulations!

they were, an invitation with a plus one to the Freixenet launch party/Strictly come dancing lesson by non other than that snake hipped kiwi Brendan Cole. Immediately I contacted my first choice as a plus one, my friend and colleague the very glamourous Sharon (pictured above) she said yes, so I emailed our names for the guest list and made a note of the date on the calender. The second prize was for completing and sending back a one page survey for barclays bank, this was in a magazine called smart living with my mum gave me. I won an ESPA detoxifying salt scrub, I only had to confirm a delivery address and that was it.

For the strictly night out it said dress was Smart, Glamourous and over the top, hmmmn I reckon I can do that. So as the working day finished last thursday me and Shaz set about making ourselves glam and made our way to the secret location, where our names were indeed on the guest list. Inside the club we started off with a couple of strawberry belinis and cute mini cupcakes, there were feather bowers, eye masks, long gloves, a roving photographer and makeup artists that specialised in gemstones on faces, of course I do like to give everything a go (apart from morris dancing and incest) a couple more glasses of freixnet rose and Brendan came a leaping energetically down the stairs leading directly to the dancefloor. I havent seen a shirt unbuttoned to a navel since Chequers nightclub, Tenby July 1983, who knows maybe its all back in fashion. After a quick salsa tutorial the music began and we were all strutting our funky stuff, next came the cha, cha, cha and finally a very saucy dance from Dirty Dancing ..... along with the complimentary drinks we each had bangles which we could use to obtain more cava than I have or ever will drink again, as it was a school night we didnt stay for the disco but left around 10.00pm, for my somewhat *silent hubs to collect us both and ensure we got home safely, the goody bags were randomly good and contained:


A cute bottle of freixenet cava
A beautiful freixenet keyring
A very random carton of Custard to make creme brule with
A cadbury's caramel
An alpen bar and finally a weightloss tea bag


* hubs had been up since 6am, and wasnt the original lift home, firstborn had promised but as he later found it was St Pats day and there was a good band on at the horse and jockey all promises were nul and void and hubs was drafted in. He wasnt really grumpy about it just worn out, but you know as he has and will be the recipient of many other nought pence prizes he will just have to take the rough with the smooth......

Ive had the time of my life, ive never felt this way before ect.....

Maria X

My last will and testament

When my time comes (and it will,its more certain than everything else that may or may happen to me) and my body is no longer able to function and I stop breathing and my heart stops, never to race again, well there may well be tears but hopefully not that many and then at some point my last will and testament will be looked at (I am guessing that Sean will be long gone by this time as looking around me they dont seem to have the staying power that we women have )

so at some point my will will be read out, I read somewhere once that you can insist that everyone named in a wil only benefits from the things stated in the will if they actually attending the reading of the will.....and I was daydreaming the other day on the way to work that you could insist everyone comes to a reading (I am fairly generous it would be in a nice hotel maybe will a lunch laid on afterwards) and I would leave the following items to a variety of people related by blood, marriage and friendship, work colleagues, neighbours and all manner of people I have collected over the years here is my list



glass clown from the 1970’s

One pair of ill fitting shoes

One and a half rolls of G B lining paper

my collection of womble memorabilia

the contents of my chest freezer

the mattress in the garage with the unidentified stain on it

A quarter of Ham and three laughing cow cheese triangles

A full dinner set only used twice comprising of two chipped cups and several missing serving plates

three deckchairs one of which is faulty, but you get to find out which one at a later date and possibly injure yourself in the process....


My list could go on forever, but in a final note, I heard a story once on the radio of a woman who lived in devon, her one and only son lived in Glasgow, he never visited made only obligational phone calls unless he wanted money for some venture or other which the lady always provided as it was her one and only chance of seeing him and his family.

She left everything to him in her will, but with a stipulation that he must hire a van and collect the old family piano and personally ensure it reaches his home in Glasgow in pristine condition, and it must be displayed at all times, if this condition was not adhered to he would forfeit his inherritance and it would be donated to a specialist cancer hospital, he could of course contest this but the negative press he would receive would harm his professional profile.

This lady stuck the middle finger to that selfish boy from the grave and he knew every time he looked at the piano that he damn well deserved it.

I dont have anyone I want to get back at which makes me extremely fortunate ....

I also want to say dont spend a lot of my funeral or coffin, you can get them on the internet and build them yourself with instructions, all recycled cardboard which would work unless it rained of course......

God bless us one and all

Maria

ps. the snap is significant because it was my name before I married and took another, proving you never appreciate something until its gone.....

The Amber Gamblers

I suppose this blogg leads on from "Unspecified white fish", from a couple of bloggs back. Hubs had been snapped going through a red light (where previously there has been no active camera) how strange that my firstborn had the same experience, a few differences have been discussed at length

Hubs was snapped at 6.50am and was doing 16mph
firstborn was snapped at 8.32am and was doing 14mph

the outcome is the same, they were both required to complete a form stating that they were indeed the drivers of said vehicles and then their letters came with their options.... points on your license and a £60 fine or no points on your license and you had to pay £79 to go on a three hour driving awareness class, so the two Amber Gamblers as I have been calling them (its from an old advert in the 70's) are going together father and son, like a bonding session but organised by the police I am so very proud of them both...... I think they should be made to wear the orange jumpsuits but then I do love a good laugh

ps. Its highly unlikely I would get caught as I dont drive fast enough anywhere, and my car is so dirty I will just swear blind it wasnt me drivng it....