Strawberries (hopefully) with carnation milk.....

I am constantly amazed when I grow my strawberries and tomatoes this time of year, amazed that from alittle seed with some rain (of which we have had too much) to sun (of which we really havent had enough), that there is often progress from me checking them at 8am to checking again when I am back at base at 6pm, I am in two minds whether to cover them in mesh, on the one hand I dont want birds and other creatures to eat the fruit but on another I suppose that it isnt really mine to cover up, also I keep forgetting to nip to wilkos in manchester arndale (in the same spot that used to house C and A in the 80's and 90's), I will have to write a note on my hand tomorrow.

Even from taking this picture I have more that have rippened just in a few short hours, it really is wonderful..... although an awful lot of effort for half a punnet......but it does make me want to sing, all things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small etc...............

KNIT ONE, HURL ONE

I have a new hobby, Knitting, its dead trendy loads of cool people do it, you dont have to be a granny and you dont have to knit just matinee jackets in lemon for new babies, you can learn how to knit pretty much anything. I admit I might have got a bit giddy as I seemed to be picking it all up pretty quickly, I had my second knitting class at hulme library last thursday night and on coming home after a few essential chores, made myself a cuppa and set about knitting whilst watching a couple of episodes of the West Wing (as box sets go, I am enjoying it but not as much as The Wire or The Sopranos and I know hubs feels the same), on feeling very tired I turned in around 11pm, left my knitting downstairs and tried to sleep, I drifted off and woke up at 3 am feel an awful feeling of seasickness, I managed to make it to the bathroom and vomitted like a drunken sailor, after a few goes of this, I thought two things, 1. I better go downstairs with a bucket and sip water until this sickness subsides and 2. thanks loving family for getting up to check I was ok. Down stairs my innerds ached and to distract myself from how rotten I felt I sipped water and knitted and thought of the phrase KNIT ONE, HURL ONE around 5am, I felt like I might be able to sleep, so I cleaned my teeth with my electric toothbrush and professional descaling toothbrush and thats what I did till 9am, when I rang in work and said I wouldnt be coming in as I had had one hell of a night (but not in a good way). I wouldnt blame anyone who didnt believe me as it looked dubious and was prob the hottest day of the year so far. thats all I have to say about that Mrs Mahoo

Rush Tickets

In the old days you would read in the NME or Kerrang that a band was touring, you would check out the Manchester Evening News and find out when tickets went on sale, you had to go down to the venue in person, I remember queueing up at The Manchester Apollo, handing over cash (£6.50)got a ticket which was made from reinforced sugar paper.I do wish I had kept them - but thats another short story.

So I receive an email earlier this week from live nation telling me that Rush pre sale tickets for Manchester next year. As I am a member of live nation (prob from the last time i bought Rush tickets) I could log on a day before the tickets go on sale and get some. The tickets were to go on sale at 9am - I should have known that presented problems, I couldnt do this at home as I would already be in work, so I forwarded the link to my works email address. On getting into work and doing my usual start up for the day tasks, phone, computer, post, coffee perculator etc, I logged in, it took ages each bar slower than the last, then It didnt recognise my password, to resend the password it would only send to my gmail account which I cannot get access to at work, so I did the only thing I could, I rejoined live nation under my works email and started all over again. I was close to tears but the mission was two tickets for Rush for next May pref on the floor sections, pref at the end of the row, so no matter how tough I would have to complete my mission. After 42 minutes exactly, I have my ticket confirmation, printed out and in an envelope to be safely ensconsed in "the sock draw". It was like answering an online survey the amount of questions and passwords and forgotten passwords, then I got my date of birth wrong and it said "you have to be 13 or over to book tickets", finally I almost paid for the ruddy things with my works credit card........ I informed hubs who thanked me and innocently asked about my evening plans and I snapped his head off with something along the lines of......... for gods sake i am 45, I know where I'm going and its safe....... two cups of coffee later, I have a wopping headache, have wept in the works loos, my heart is racing and my work colleagues wont give me eye contact for fear of an adverse reaction.......

The Chicken Crisis Talks....

.

The chicken crisis talks went on all evening, the chicken had been purchased on a Sunday with thoughts of a roast dinner midweek, quite how this was going to pan out was beyond either of us but somehow we thought we could do it, despite having to leave the house at 8am and not returning till six...... current options

Put the chicken in on a low light all day and go to work
Put the chicken in on a low light all night and wrap when cooled and leave to stand for another 6 hours whilst everyone is at work
Put the chicken in when we come home from work and have a really late tea

Yes you guessed it when you work full time some meals are not a workable concept, and this is why my local chippy is full every night with people too busy to cook healthy meals without too much planning.

Anyway I get up this morning and the chicken has been washed and prepared but as I cant remember which course of action we decided on I do nothing. Rang hubs when I got to work and he said, he would ring first born (who has left home but has no wi fi connected yet so comes back to his original home to work from home every day, are you following this...) we decided to dispence completely with the foil option and he is putting it on gas mark 5 at 1pm, hubs will be home at 4ish to check it, of course he could miss something vital out like the chicken or in fact putting the oven on at all, and if that happens I am having fish and chips. I am worn out with it all and maybe I should go on one of those slimfast diets where I wont have to do food shopping or meal planning and my clothes wont be so tight......

The Wire (promotes unnecessary) Rudeness

I think we may be overdosing on The Wire, the other night I asked hubs to make us both a nice cup of tea as he got out of his chair and his reply?

"Kiss my white irish ass"


I asked him why he hadnt emptied the kitchen bin and he said

"thats just the way I roll, Mxxxxxx Fxxxxxxx"


After a very sharp look from me, he did actually make us both a nice pint mug of tea and infact he also emtpied the kitchen bin, but even so.....

I am enjoying the wire muchly, halfway through the second series and the comfort of knowing we have the box set (on loan from my sister, from another mister....OMG I am doing it now) is a wonderful comfort.

I do think I am actually part of the team along with Keema and the others, not sure where I would fit in, probrably the admin person who doesnt leave the office, but cuts out coupons. When this box set is finished we will be getting into the West Wing, though somehow I dont think its going to be quite so enjoyable as The Wire certainly has been, maybe we will have to start the Sopranos all over again, the old lady was hilariously funny and dark... I do love a good box set, it means we can O/D on quality without having to watch endless adverts for settees (surely everyone has one now).... thats all I have to say about that...

Poorly Cat........

A normal run of the mill tuesday morning was disrupted by a phone call from hubs, it went like this hubs .... maria, just check the driveway, I thought I saw something large and black as I left the house this morning, Me ....... nah, nothing there Next I get ready, check i have phone, kindle, handbag, purse key to lock up and on stepping out of the house and off the front step I lock up and there it is, a huge black cat, bloody and injured, with one eye open, on closer inspection its dead, I didnt touch it and noticed it was the same cat that had been prowling round the garden in the last few days, no collar, not sure if it was a domestic or a ferral, but it was big. As I am on the main road, gangs of school kids are passing and looking in at me looking at the dead cat wondering what to do, a few minutes pass and I look to see my usual 8.05am 256 strolling passed and all the top deck, look down at me and the dead cat too.... I do what I always do when hubs isnt in, I ask my neighbour bob. He gives me clear instructions (as any ex serviceman would) 1. cover the cat with black bin bag, put big stones round to stop the cover blowing away 2. Ring the council I do both, the second wasnt quite so easy as I had to choose out of 7 options, non of which made mention of a dead animal. I chose highway maintenance and then chose from another 6 options, eventually getting through to someone who asked is it on a public highway, is it causing an obstruction to pedestrials and/or traffic by the time I had the assurances of collection it was gone 9.30am, I was void of physical energy and emotionally drained and unfit for work, now you would think that was enough, but oh no, I had put a load in the washing machine leaveing a sock stuck in the door so my kitchen was a foamy wet mess, with water seeping up throught the mdf of the kickboards of my fitted kitchen, I sorted that out and decided the day would not be wasted if I could spring clean my living room, which I did, I also broke two orniments, one a royal dalton figurine, I managed to locate loctite glue and fixed the hand back onto the figurine .... upside down, thats the kind of day last tuesday was, and they say dont drink midweek? Mrs Mahoooooo

Poorly Car

Its sunday afternoon, I have just finished washing up, sprinkled Jamaican jerk marinade powder on the chicken breasts and put them back in the fridge according to instructions and about to flop on the settee with a pint mug of tea, the box of dairy milk my big brother gave me last week and a copy of woman and home and a knock at the door and the dreaded news...... Some complete bastard has smashed the passenger window of our car, this can only have happened between 2pm and 4pm today, that horrible shocked feeling of what do we/I do, what is the order of things, I mean I know the glass will need removing, my insurance will need phoning and we will have to inform the police but in what order and how and when I just dont know. If anyone says these things come in threes I will either A) never speak to them again B) tell them to fcuk off C) kill them I have wept, taken two pain killers, blamed feckles (then apologised) then blamed her again and apologised (you know how these kids leave all their stuff on display etc) but actually I wish I had left the door open because there wasnt anyhing worth the amount that the new window is going to cost me, as the complete contents was mostly tapes including bambi, snow white, the best of james, west side story, 101 dalmations three odd socks........................ Autoglass are coming between 7and 9pm, I am going for another sob, then a chocolate and maybe a pint of strong cider Mrs Mahoooooooooooooo

Birthday No: 45

Dear Lesley,

Well its my 45th Birthday this week, how do I feel about it? nothing negative, this is where I am, 45, I was actually thinking of somewhere really good to go when I celebrate my 50th so its all good, I was thinking Washington,Seattle, I dont do spain as I have said before Hubs tans like an angry farmer and to be honest when you get to your forties you can actually see the damage sunbathing authentic or Tantastic in the Precinct has done to some of my counterparts so I Know the evil that the sun can do to ageing skin (Sid James anyone?. So anyway back to 2012 and the impending birthday, I already have two birthday cards on the mantelpiece and one gift through the post, out of the three things to be opened one is from my mum the other two from work colleagues.

Despite pointing out a couple of budget gifts I would quite like, I had the age old question from the youngest "if i had to pick one flower that was my all time fave what would it be?"

well this year I am having some fun, after entensive googling I have come up with the Japanese lime green lilly - it only flowers once every decade and sure as hell wont be available in any prepacked bunches sold at Morrisons.

The conversation between youngest and first born will have taken place whilst they were eating a macdonalds breakfast and between mouthfulls of mc muffin and prob was nothing more than a few grunts with the words, mum, birthday, thursday, flowers within, how did I raise two unimaginative offspring? dont they know I would like nothing more than a collage or homemade card. I actually pointed out some childrens stickers books in Waterstones the other day and said I would really like to buy these, and was told, well dont they are for children not you.

fecking spoil sports, I will buy them myself on thursday with my own mum who will say

Well, you always did hear a different drummer................

yeah and it wasnt cozy powell (completely overated and voted for every year in kerrang rock comic)

Ladies with Clipboards ... Kerchingle

I am just coming up to my four years working back in the city centre of Manchester and I still love it.

Most weekdays apart from monday if I have no particular things on my lunchtime agenda, I walk past spring gardens post office and walk along and come out on market street, between the mobile phone shop and Miss Selfridge. The anoraked ladies, usually in their fifties, clipboards in hands and I ask my question

What do you want me to test today ladies?

I usually pick out someone who looks like they are struggling to grab the attention of a passerby and after the usual questions, of name, address, age bracket (gutted I will soon be in the 45-60 Pah!) I come under the youthful 35-44 for at least another three weeks.

Today they are testing a new product, i have to sign to say I will not reveal the secret and I wont, this is the closest I will get to doing important top secret governmental work and I appreciate the seriousness of the whole thing.

After the secret mission on the second floor of 3 spring gardens, I am given a blueberry muffin to sample and a glass of water, then I print and sign my name and get a brown envelope with a £5 high street voucher to spend as I wish.

I still have the £2 voucher from last weeks cheese tasting and tomorrow they are testing chunky crisps for £3, a tenner for my views, excellent......all part of my ongoing personal cost cutting lifestyle

thank you and good night

Mrs Mahoo

The big clean up......

First born moved out mid January, youngest child didnt rush to swap bedrooms as predicted, she stuck her nose in and said

" I dont know if i can move into there, it smells of boy...... half term arrived and on getting home from work one day the move had already been done, and after a thorough clean of all services and laminated flooring with Cif Lemon wipes, the room smelt like a lemon instead.

All his stuff was dumped in one large box in any order it fell, so todays task was to look through and put into four smaller boxes, otherwise I havent a hope in hell of it ever going with its rightful owner.


I found:

3 dried up mascaras
6 unopened bank statements (I presume thats what they were - I of course didnt open them)
A selection of photos - a really cute one of me and the boy at the seaside with him wrapped in a towel on a beach and me a rather old looking 24 year old (see above).

135 CDs 82 Dvds 2 books (hmmmn he never was a great reader unless you count the Argos and the now out of print Products Direct - which could never compete with Argos as Chavs cant be bothered to say two words when one will do. Although I did find a copy of Bravisimo?????)

And hair, loads of hair, in fact I could repopulate three bald heads with it and still have some left over? I am actually beginning to feel a bit queazy....

two pairs of hair straighteners, an evelope with XL written on it (I aint kidding) two pairs of scissors, three lots of headphones, two packets of blue tack (thats where it went). If ever a mother deserved two glasses of red wine whilst watching upstairs and downstairs on a very productive sunday evening well I am that mother.

dedicated to anyone who has ever had to sit next to someone smelly on the 256 on the way to Manchester, Piccadilly

Mrs Mahoo

Get your Fcking dog on a Fcking lead....

I had a few titles in my head for this story about how a gentle sunday afternoon stroll turned into something altogether more agressive but on reflection the title I have picked sums it up....

Me and Hubs wrapped up and parked our car on the Monton roundabout and set off for a nice walk along the newly refurbed (courtesy of Sustrans no doubt) paths through Monton, with a few choices of where you come out, our usual is Worsley, we like to watch the gentle waves on the canal , ripples being caused by the ducks and generally be at one with nature...... but before we got 20 mins into our little walk we heard a comotion, it seemed at a distance to be two sets of dogs barking at each other and a couple of little girls a little frightened, the usual stuff, on getting closer it was non other than a former united player, his wife and their two daughters accompanying the most foul mouthed, red faced angry man shouting "get your fcking dog on a fcking lead" to a perplexed and shocked couple in their late fifties who had a collection of three giddy dogs of differing varieties with their tails wagging, now red faced angry swearing man (acommpanying that well known ex united player whose father has the same first name as his last name, was very quiet and probrably wanted to distance himself from the whole thing) actually had a dog with him that wasnt on a lead, I dont know, he was screaming at his wife too, who looked silent and fuming and like a woman about who pushed any further would be calling her solicitor first thing on monday morning to part company with this ruffian of a hubs, she hopefully manage to get a decent enough pay off to enable her never to have to join the real world of the working woman ever again,

She was called Kate and as much as I have searched google I cant seem to find out if she was a blood relative of either Mr or Mrs NXXXXXX, so I am now guessing they were friends, I can imagine the conversation on the way home to bolton later that day

........ thats the last time I meet any of the friends you went to school with, they are trash..

I swear by almighty god that the evidence I have given is the truth and nothing but the truth so help me Max Clifford, the real dampener was hubs telling me not to stare and not letting me walk extra slow to fully take the whole scene in, or follow them etc.........

Mrs Mahoo

Two Hoots!

After our inebriated shenanigans on our official "works do", I decided to do a review of a Manchester eatery, not really because it was extremely good food or anything, but the service and seating were nice and the fact you got three courses plus a bottle of wine per person, yes a large bottle per person for £25.00 was what made it so memorable.....

I wrote a review and once it was published in the MEN City life section, I received a very welcome email that went like this.......

Dear Maria

I’m getting in touch to firstly say congratulations on having your restaurant review published in the Manchester Evening News recently! As I’m sure you know, the prize for this achievement is 12 bottles of Joseph Holt’s newest bottled ale, Two Hoots. We are more than happy to arrange you collecting the beer from your local Holt’s pub. With this in mind, can you get back to me and let me know which pub you are closest too and when is best for you to collect?

I do love these kinds of emails and wanted to share it with my regular blogg readers (I mean you, Lesley X).

I stayed on the bus an extra stop and nipped into the Melville Public House in Stretford, with my email and the lovely landlord helped me "double bag" 12 bottles of two hoots, as it was early doors the clientelle were all a bit curious as to what I was doing, I did explain to two neighbours but I dont think they understood, so I just said simply " I won it", which for one of my neighbours he has experience of, as he has kindly signed for all manner of strange items, jiffy bags and even flight tickets for Vegas once upon a time in 2008. He raised a glass to me and said how lucky I was.

this story is dedicated to anyone who has ever dropped a lead crystal paperweight on their foot in a charity shop and manage not to scream and frighten nearby children looking at picture books, the bruise took a week to come out properly and three weeks to go. nothing was broken

Max Clifford on my speed dial.................

despite all my excitement when I received a phone call from Take a Break magazine stating they were very interested in running a story with pictures about my lucky year of winning competitions, they got in touch by email to say it was all off....


The email read......

Dear Maria,

Unfortunately there are no plans to place your story in our publication so you are no longer under contract with us. I'm so sorry. I did contact you a while a go but we must have got our wires crossed.Good luck in the future


Senior WriterTake a Break

The emotional pain and injury to my feelings are so bad that I feel I should contact Max Clifford to act on my behalf and wont settle for anything less than a two figure sum (a tenner should cover it!)

ah well, you win some you lose some

I wouldnt mind so much but my big mouth ran away with me and I told people I was going to be in take a break so now they think I am not only a nutter but a liar which is so much worse......

Anyway attached is a snap of a fab chocolate hamper I actually did win last year, honest not lying or anything .....

Christmas Presents.....

So here he is Hubs crumpy face, I remember seeing a very similary grumpy face on christmas day 1992 I think it was, he had asked me to get a Richard Marx cd and I had got the wrong one, so when he opened it in the hope of some new tunes he actually had a replica of the one he already had, he was about to throw a hissy fit when I interjected with " you have got to be joking, so what I got the wrong flippin one I can always swap it, your acting like a spoilt child" as you would expect this didnt make him act any better, but I have always remembered this. Me, I dont care what anyone gets me for christmas I like it, in fact I am having trouble thinking of a present I have ever felt miffed about, I think I am just glad that someone thought I might like whatever it is, and I usually do, hmmmmmn Richard Marx indeed....... so quick as a flash let me bring you back into the present and its christmas day 2011and lucky old hubster has got a few presents to open (gone are the days when we struggled so much to get the meagre things for the kids to open - and might I say they rarely got what they really, really wanted as the choices such as Tracy Island,
the full set of Biker Mice from mars, inline skates and a playstation) so he opened his main present to find the full 7 series of The West Wing and attached is the picture I took of him, notice the present label strategically placed by me around his head and look at those eyes, he had just said " when have I ever, ever said I wanted to watch the West Wing?" and then as our youngest was shocked at how ungrateful he was, he tried very hard to back track, saying "oh i am sure I will like it i am only kidding". hmmmmmmmn at least he liked his other presents of Joe Bonnamassa featuring Beth something and his fabtastic manchester city maine road street sign, which looks fantastic on the side of our house, it wont confuse a postman as its at the back.

I cant wait to start the West wing, three episodes per night over February sounds good to me and hubs will just learn to appreciate his presents in future.

M

Badges Aplenty.......

I do love badges, I have loads of them, the snap shows some new and some much older, one of the Rush ones I have had 31 years can you believe it? it used to be on my wrangler when I was 13 and then it was also on the green army jacket the following year...... I still vary them and sometimes where a couple of random ones on my jackets, although I try not to put more than three on at a time I dont want anyone thinking I am a crazy badge woman or anything (even if I am), the hello kitty was on a birthday card 6 years ago by a former work colleague called Kathryn Lloyd I liked her she giggled a lot and told me once that it was in fact a legal requirement for your employer to provide stables during your working day, if your regular mode of transport was horseback.......


I do love badges

M