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