tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18097757759815185622024-02-18T18:56:10.645-08:00Little House on the HeathMrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-20302006076854103102013-04-10T16:47:00.000-07:002013-04-10T16:49:03.089-07:00Here comes the Sun and I say...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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...Really? Is that he best you can do?<br />
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I went to Waitrose yesterday and glanced at the newspaper stand. The Sun's headline caught my eye: Maggie dead in bed at Ritz.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSarVwshPKtiE6YUqTTZk6mpRt7BdwQ2ASz6tDrxpCxWiV7R3V8k46FeU-uCbAM7xLq4dhb96cmpNeOuYGZrcljZV_OfdnNXDnFaEnoEGVus578KdTWDhHw9tWhOPq94wW9anPc-hKPw/s1600/93561DAD24E263FBB4CD9228C895_h498_w598_m2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhSarVwshPKtiE6YUqTTZk6mpRt7BdwQ2ASz6tDrxpCxWiV7R3V8k46FeU-uCbAM7xLq4dhb96cmpNeOuYGZrcljZV_OfdnNXDnFaEnoEGVus578KdTWDhHw9tWhOPq94wW9anPc-hKPw/s320/93561DAD24E263FBB4CD9228C895_h498_w598_m2.jpeg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's only my own words I make up.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">As a factual statement, I guess you can't fault it, but I was under the impression that the Sun has bulging files of potential headlines, just waiting for the right news story. If that is true, is that really the best they could manage? Perhaps they were caught on the hop and simply weren't expecting it, but I'm not sure how that could be; Margaret Thatcher has been I'll and frail for some time. I don't think it was a state secret.</span><br />
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I was half expecting other papers to follow with:<br />
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'Maggie not immortal after all,' say Sun. 'Who knew?'<br />
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I'm just saying, from the paper that brought us this, I was expecting more; I was expecting <i>better</i>:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKu-RBmJMO3HWO7pGzCZ-vVnmKsXBf91QJWpB8htg9qyOtMoULUaeGgnNRsPY05_1Q-eGmNziwO8_vgm28AIWz-nx6w1qxvhRL9GBfGFHs6pNAmsVIZFjjJzF3kmaPU7SWoDDqVajLh4o/s1600/ITS-PADDY-PANTSDOWN.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKu-RBmJMO3HWO7pGzCZ-vVnmKsXBf91QJWpB8htg9qyOtMoULUaeGgnNRsPY05_1Q-eGmNziwO8_vgm28AIWz-nx6w1qxvhRL9GBfGFHs6pNAmsVIZFjjJzF3kmaPU7SWoDDqVajLh4o/s320/ITS-PADDY-PANTSDOWN.jpeg" width="249" /></a></div>
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Speaking of Margaret Thatcher, I remember the day she was elected, with the same kind of clarity my parents generation refer to when asking, 'Where were you when Kennedy died?' Born in 1971, I grew up in Thatcher's Britain. I was eight when she became prime minister and I was at a friend's house, playing with their Play-doh Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop TM set (Google with care), when my dad arrived to take me home.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Just so you know, I didn't make up that, either.</span></td></tr>
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'Margaret Thatcher's prime minister!' he declared, as he arrived in the kitchen/Play-doh salon.<br />
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'Oh no!' I replied. 'Not <i>that </i>awful woman!'<br />
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I clearly remember the brief silence that followed, and the stunned look on my dad's face. You can't blame him - I wasn't a precocious child and neither was I politically aware. I'd seen her on Newsround, explaining, in that way of hers (head tilted to one side, breathy voice that bore a slight hint of patronage) to some disgruntled school children, why they no longer had school milk. </div>
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'What have <i>you</i> got against her?' asked Dad.<br />
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'She's got that awful voice! I can't stand the thought of having to listen to her go on and on!'</div>
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Privately, I also lamented the fact that the information I'd pencilled into my Brownie Pocket Book was now incorrect. Under, 'Who is the prime minister of the United Kingdom?' I'd carefully written, 'Jim Callaghan', and I'd had to ask people for the answer, too. All that effort and research, for him to be replaced by, 'that awful voice'.</div>
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I do vaguely remember the explanation of British politics that followed my outburst, but I'd pretty much gone back to sculpting the perfect bouffant from yellow Play-doh.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">We are a play-doh likeness.</td></tr>
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<br />Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-2477988182496078782013-03-18T05:14:00.001-07:002013-03-18T05:14:27.612-07:00There's an App for that<div style="text-align: justify;">
I'm stuck at home at the moment, nursing (not in the American sense - not any more) two sick children, one sick husband and one sick me. Of course, you know what happens when you get stuck at home for days on end? Well, yes, you do go stir-crazy, but you also run out of groceries. About the middle of last week, our cupboard was looking about as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's. However, this being the modern age 'n'all, I wasn't too worried. I knew I could shop online. In fact, since the arrival of the Nexus 7 tablet, online shopping just got easier...or so I thought.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fire up the Nexus, Fido!</td></tr>
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Using the app for my favourite online retailer, the one that brings me James in a Courgette Van, I logged-in, booked my delivery slot and began my shopping. Mid-shop, I was abruptly logged-out and the tablet helpfully informed me that an automatic update was taking place. I was able to log back in again and complete my shopping...but not pay for it. In order to check out, I had to choose a new password, confirm my new password and then log back in again....which required me to choose a new password, confirm my new password.... ad blooming infinitum!</div>
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Dear reader, I do confess I did once type the password, 'o4duxsake,' or something very similar. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1809775775981518562#editor/target=post;postID=9101973481080892357" target="_blank">Will I ever learn?</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: black; font-size: x-small; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGFhYXlT1FUFlBiYn8CFogbnUPyg78MLNpgeJb_eFWQh9QY1Lc-c-KF2W3Mq5m9ymJ57rZCLAma5KmhSIhiP08Yduaj-UPVCyESuAdCUKgl795EvF8ywRvNMde6X11dLhg4lVwiCTab8/s1600/letter203.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGFhYXlT1FUFlBiYn8CFogbnUPyg78MLNpgeJb_eFWQh9QY1Lc-c-KF2W3Mq5m9ymJ57rZCLAma5KmhSIhiP08Yduaj-UPVCyESuAdCUKgl795EvF8ywRvNMde6X11dLhg4lVwiCTab8/s200/letter203.jpg" width="200" /></a>Lp</span></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Thanks to <span style="font-size: x-small;">http://www.bbc.co.uk/insideout/southeast/series8/week5.shtm</span>l)</td></tr>
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Anyway, during the time this took, my delivery slot got passed to someone else. And then all the following day's slots became unavailable. And then I might have got a bit cross, because I was ill and had no groceries. And I might have dashed off a home-counties-style angry email.</div>
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The following day brought me no groceries, but an apologetic email. (By now I'd had a Lemsip and was feeling a little apologetic, myself.) Apparently there was a glitch in the app, which they were working on. Full of hope and paracetamol, I logged back in, only to find the Glitch still running amok, having stolen not just Christmas but any chance of me receiving bread and milk by the weekend.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3rnYgsFd5Ybsl60g0A7f9EQXGWql2N44ImhIa-unCYZp-TCxPkLlxBGXO6aziZ5vnrSfZzfBLeSV23D1q9qqxJfJ_dooMZeMy2MKrWyA8WtfPJkKECuhpGejlCTl4wFs8DrkqayH1qQ/s1600/Grinch.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO3rnYgsFd5Ybsl60g0A7f9EQXGWql2N44ImhIa-unCYZp-TCxPkLlxBGXO6aziZ5vnrSfZzfBLeSV23D1q9qqxJfJ_dooMZeMy2MKrWyA8WtfPJkKECuhpGejlCTl4wFs8DrkqayH1qQ/s200/Grinch.jpeg" width="168" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> Wait, no...that's the <i>Grinch</i></span></td></tr>
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I then turned to the supermarket where you slap your back pocket to show you've made some savings. Ah, what a stress-free process that was!</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzM7qba4iZ-5f5LMbPtXo67fH41gZJ0rH642-8d9RIyfFu6hezVBfnFCAdMFmsOz3eNURpeVSYHsJekIC9VlbQ5d90CCXlRhPVBp5IRkgIcmARhR3FwAX_Om8jGsk4fD9wbKx-ZzKI0U/s1600/DZO2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJzM7qba4iZ-5f5LMbPtXo67fH41gZJ0rH642-8d9RIyfFu6hezVBfnFCAdMFmsOz3eNURpeVSYHsJekIC9VlbQ5d90CCXlRhPVBp5IRkgIcmARhR3FwAX_Om8jGsk4fD9wbKx-ZzKI0U/s1600/DZO2.jpg" /></a></div>
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Delivery time, however, brought it's own challenges, which I guess was at least something, because it didn't bring all my groceries. Now, tell me, if you were scouring the supermarket shelves for 'free-from fusili, 500g packet,' would you, dear reader, would you think, 'Well I guess this 1kg pack of wheat pasta will do'? Would you? Because if you would, you'd be about 1000 grammes of wheaten wrong! Like Rod Campbell in his quest for a pet, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kzl9IyeMWto" target="_blank">'I sent it back.'</a></div>
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It's OK though, because I wasn't relying on the pasta. (And because even I, in the grip of fever and ague, can spot a first world problem. I may not have got all my groceries, but I did get a grip.)</div>
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I also took a phone call from the original online retailer. A very nice lady from customer services thanked me for my email. I felt bad about that, I must admit. She said that they were glad I'd alerted them to the glitch, gave me some tips for getting around it until it's fixed and asked me to report any further problems as that would be very helpful. So I'm officially helping them now. Except I'm not on a salary from them. Yeah, so that's probably just code for, 'We've got a live one here!' isn't it?</div>
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She asked me if there was anything else she could help me with. Rumour has it they have a delivery driver named Jesus. You get a text, giving you the name of your driver and the vegetable the van is named after. I long for a text saying, 'Your groceries will be delivered by Jesus in a Cabbage van,' truly I do. I would never delete it. So, when the customer services operative asked me what else she could do for me, I <i>very</i> nearly said, 'Yes, can you please arrange for Jesus to deliver my groceries?' but it occurred to me that I was probably on speaker phone, on account of the whole office having already sniggered at my email. So I didn't.</div>
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Good news, the glitch is fixed. Now, where's my pay check?</div>
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Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-50902291484518544522013-03-12T09:46:00.002-07:002013-03-12T09:52:45.293-07:00The Lovely Bones<span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span><span style="font-size: xx-small;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an expression doing the rounds at the moment, which keeps playing on my mind. This isn't unusual for me; I pick up on other people's expressions all the time, often adopting them for my own use. Other times I just let them run round and round my head, probably until something else comes along to take its place. Its quite a distraction, really.</span> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgxaj6pjwyfXxq-o6WsWhG68_Ch9ct1F9BaFQTB9Wg79yio7zl4Ux678Y6lXrPHWAp4FIgZdhIklip9fdgoZFiso6oeFbEJSi4vFGefEqKItT-sgWEGsMqG8k3cJVN66-t2CbRJgiM-4/s1600/Kylie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtgxaj6pjwyfXxq-o6WsWhG68_Ch9ct1F9BaFQTB9Wg79yio7zl4Ux678Y6lXrPHWAp4FIgZdhIklip9fdgoZFiso6oeFbEJSi4vFGefEqKItT-sgWEGsMqG8k3cJVN66-t2CbRJgiM-4/s200/Kylie.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I know how you feel, Kylie.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not just expressions either. Rhythm and tone also fall prey to my magpie tendencies. If I'm somewhere where the dominant accent is very different to my own, I have to make a conscious effort not to speak back in the same accent. Especially if the accent is Welsh. One episode of <em>Stella</em> or <em>Fireman Sam</em> and I come over all Dilys Price. (Presh.)</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgME5sblx0uIKhDnYrdTqMk-eR6zPFgilxVcZs7_iGFmFv_IH4V8l3igo5Srx3JDa1qNdKxiEXHN6o1xR7-pTEZqfbqM6XnnOdbZLjKeg7Z9mbLlCT4prTpcfIPDQAO9rtdbsPKkwF8gxQ/s1600/dancing-skeleton-clipart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgME5sblx0uIKhDnYrdTqMk-eR6zPFgilxVcZs7_iGFmFv_IH4V8l3igo5Srx3JDa1qNdKxiEXHN6o1xR7-pTEZqfbqM6XnnOdbZLjKeg7Z9mbLlCT4prTpcfIPDQAO9rtdbsPKkwF8gxQ/s320/dancing-skeleton-clipart.jpg" width="168" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">I suppose he is quite appealing.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, the expression that is running round and round my head now is not Welsh, it's just a bit weird, or maybe it's only weird to someone with a with a visual mind and a slight tendency to see these things literally, and it literally makes me wince. And, yes, I do mean, 'literally'. It's, 'Ooh, I love the bones of him!' Or her, but it seems to be more often him. If you know what I'm saying.*</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of course, I <em>know</em> that's not what it means. I know it means you love someone so completely, you love them down to their very marrow. But it sounds weird. And why stop at the bones? Why not declare undying affection for his pancreas, or his spleen. 'Ooh, I love his organs!' Hmm...OK, maybe not. I can see how that would get misinterpreted.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You couldn't remain impartial about this one.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, if you were going to impress me with an outlandish declaration of love, it wouldn't be my bones you'd have to demonstrate great affection for, oh no. My bones are so-so - much like yours, I imagine. No, if you want to convince me that you're the one, it's my <em>immune </em>system you need to state a liking for, because that's the thing that'll cause you the most grief, believe you me. </span></div>
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*<span style="font-size: xx-small;">small print: I'm saying it seems to be overused by fluffy-talking women.</span></div>
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Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-40915005354788615142012-11-16T04:44:00.002-08:002012-11-16T04:44:59.632-08:00Over-Egging the Pudding<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm busy writing a novel at the moment. Well, actually I'm busy writing this blog entry, and baking chocolate steamed pudding, and packing for the Mouse to go on Brownie Holiday. When not doing any of those things, I'm working, or cleaning, or shopping, or just sitting down with a cup of tea. You get the picture: I'm employing a variety of avoidance techniques and very much <em>not</em> writing my novel.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xEOmbFqJbtBd5d9FR8khsq2XWuOiiSqiDrWHwAwXDB5RpoLvuE7gBAbvdB0NGFZDYcCy4D3lfEgtFCVIUpDD_Xihw3YZaUZLErMnvWgfTXDgpSN-5IebYXsN7vyOdrEFqc33Bih5bDY/s1600/busy+housewife.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8xEOmbFqJbtBd5d9FR8khsq2XWuOiiSqiDrWHwAwXDB5RpoLvuE7gBAbvdB0NGFZDYcCy4D3lfEgtFCVIUpDD_Xihw3YZaUZLErMnvWgfTXDgpSN-5IebYXsN7vyOdrEFqc33Bih5bDY/s320/busy+housewife.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> <a href="http://www.well-adjusted-pessimist.com/2011/09/07/occdoc-is-a-crappy-housewife/" target="_blank">A woman's work, like the next tricky chapter of my novel, is never done.</a></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiohpb25al1y9G0lkHncxVFLE2n2JO6xgHX5X3RUIucFi1f5aRuOLfCsBBHCsgedZWRVwG4Kjwp_ObZHYLezlcHB5N7N3fvbpnN8oNRRPhxxRbeJzDVzej4dYhWSmcQgHW40viC0UEAY18/s1600/Regency+girl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiohpb25al1y9G0lkHncxVFLE2n2JO6xgHX5X3RUIucFi1f5aRuOLfCsBBHCsgedZWRVwG4Kjwp_ObZHYLezlcHB5N7N3fvbpnN8oNRRPhxxRbeJzDVzej4dYhWSmcQgHW40viC0UEAY18/s320/Regency+girl.jpg" width="218" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Actual childhood photograph of me.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've been writing this novel for years, It is set in my childhood and early adulthood. When I first started writing it, the latter part of the novel was a work of contemporary fiction, if I don't crack on with it, I will have to start approaching publishers of historical fiction. That's right, folks, I started as Joanne Harris and will finish as Georgette Heyer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In case you're polite enough to wonder what it is about, it's about cooking and the healing power of a good meal, pretty much. I've shamelessly mined my own past for incidents, characters, locations and ideas and then added a lot of fictional events. I have to add that bit, as my main character finds herself guilty of 'murder by omelette' and, to the best of my knowledge, I've never killed anyone with my cooking, although my family still refer to the awful day when I served 'Avocado and Chocolate Mousse' as a nadir in my culinary adventures. It was completely inedible and I will never make it again. Nobody died though, despite the children's dramatic objections.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9dbJv9hB7dff7qIbH8I_7d4rj88rXQ7rwHlgTiKV1M1UiI7dplvDfAn9kjdEUZdDozJWIP1GkQmC8Ksq7pSB4SzueS_JhI2c_bxs2zUQ-xYmU3BQm-4Oqu1eviDwkImTgs9YFroDs3g/s1600/IMG_3480+%5B640x480%5D.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="176" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9dbJv9hB7dff7qIbH8I_7d4rj88rXQ7rwHlgTiKV1M1UiI7dplvDfAn9kjdEUZdDozJWIP1GkQmC8Ksq7pSB4SzueS_JhI2c_bxs2zUQ-xYmU3BQm-4Oqu1eviDwkImTgs9YFroDs3g/s200/IMG_3480+%5B640x480%5D.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Good gracious, it was vile!</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The novel begins with a description of a grandmother's kitchen, which, coincidentally, sounds very much like my own grandmother's kitchen. 'Granma,' as she was known (she almost always missed out the 'd') was a keen cook. Aged 14, she'd gone into service and, according to her, generally ruined various dishes in the kitchen of the big house where she worked. Somebody, presumably the cook, taught Granma (Phyllis, as she was then) how to cook and she gradually became a lot better at it. I'm not sure of she ever graduated from 'Daisy' to 'Mrs Patmore,' as she got married before she would have had much chance of promotion but she did later get a job as a school cook and some of my strongest memories of her are linked to the dishes she made and the way she made them. Some of my own early cookery lessons came from her, although I don't generally cook on quite the grand scale she did. I don't know whether it was as a result of a simple country childhood, livig through the War and rationing or just a general love of abundance, but Granma never cooked by halves. An ordinary Sunday tea would invole a table bursting with good things to eat and Granma's admonishments of , 'Have another - go on. Ooh, Jacqui Spratty, you don't eat enough to keep a flea alive!' It was like dining with the Berkshire equivalent of Mrs Doyle.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM5Ern5xePQRfEl5EVZ8u5KO3BiR-YlhRXqdVFXE8IpCTMqTtlLBrappKOCrDs3GeSXobFyhmw-ZPTcJCxui5D9IJ89_Bd8ZurAQ4vOvXQENqNnkQcR85brCiJ_nJW2-7Qq_noOqx6tU/s1600/Mrs+Doyle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpM5Ern5xePQRfEl5EVZ8u5KO3BiR-YlhRXqdVFXE8IpCTMqTtlLBrappKOCrDs3GeSXobFyhmw-ZPTcJCxui5D9IJ89_Bd8ZurAQ4vOvXQENqNnkQcR85brCiJ_nJW2-7Qq_noOqx6tU/s200/Mrs+Doyle.jpg" width="160" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Not my Grandmother.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Christmas was when Granma really exercised her love of abundance, though. For reasons that still aren't clear to me, she always insisted we had turkey <em>and </em>pork or, with her talent for spoonerisms, 'Perky and tork,' often corrected to, 'Oh - Perk and torkey!'. My aunts - one of them Granma's daughter and the other married to one of Granma's sons, would join in, each vying to bring the most avant-garde stuffing, the tastiest Christmas cake or biggest gateau. We had the largest living room, so would often host dinner for the masses, which meant living off leftovers for quite some time afterwards - there was always far too much to eat in one day, or even in one week. The highlight of the Christmas dinner, however, was Granma's Christmas pudding. Huge, with several smaller versions given and stowed away - I'm fairly certain one year we had puddings from the same batch, two years running - it would be pretty much drowned in brandy and carried in like an Olympic torch much to the loud potestations of her firefighter son-in-law. I sure they'd deny it, but I'm fairly certain that's why my dad and uncles tried to recreate the most memorable scene from 'Towering Inferno' every year. Every family has their peculiar traditions: the annual torching of the Christmas puddng was one of ours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It wasn't just the serving of the pudding that was steeped in tradition and alcohol, however. Making it was just as much a ritual. If you were at Granma’s
house when the pudding was being made, you got to have a ceremonial stir and
make a wish. The thing is, you weren’t allowed to wish for any old thing. Oh
no! There was one particular thing you had to wish for. When one of my uncles
(one of the filial pyromaniacs) was small, he had a kitten whom he adored. I
remember that cat; he was a</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">beautiful long-haired grey cat called Smoky, who
either consented to be petted or totally ignored you, as he saw fit. In<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>between times he pretty much ruined the legs
of the kitchen hutch cupboard, by using them as a scratching post. When Smoky
was still a kitten and my uncle still a little boy, he was asked to stir the
pudding and urged to, ‘Make a wish, Neville!’ Closing his eyes tight and
stirring with all his might, Neville uttered the words, ‘I wish my cat grows
nice and big!’ In one of those strange quirks of family history, the wish
itself became a tradition and Uncle Neville has never been allowed to forget
it. For as long as I can remember, I have stirred puddings, cut cakes and blown
out candles, all to the words, ‘I wish my cat grows nice and big!’ On my
wedding day, I went to cut the cake, turned to face my uncle, opened my mouth to
speak and all that side of the family roared with laughter, as Uncle Neville
good-naturedly said, ‘Oh, shut up!’ My own children know they’d better wish for
the same thing too. <o:p> </o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">How I propose to add the finishing touches.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Regarding the alcohol, Granma once conspiratorially informed
me, ‘I always make it with Guinness, Jack Spratt.’ A lesson I dutifully
committed to memory. Despite that, I’ve never actually made a Christmas
pudding. There was never really any need to when Granma was around, and then my
dad took over the tradition, although he did scale back the quantities
somewhat. This year, my lovely neighbour, the Pink Engineer,
kindly offered to make our Christmas cake, so I thought I’d give the pudding a
go. I’ve borrowed Dad’s copy of his mum’s recipe book, so I can make the real
thing. Good sense tells me I ought to scale back the quantities too, but a
desire to make a true tribute pudding and curiosity as to just how many
puddings it makes, has led me to try and attempt the full eight egg, pound of
this, pound of that version. Granma made hers in an old china washstand bowl,
which now resides at Uncle Neville’s (only fair, given his wish contribution)
and I don’t have anything big enough to mix the pudding in. A lament of this
nature, posted on Facebook brought in the loan of a brand new washing up bowl from
friend and former work colleague, Thermal Girl (I hope she doesn’t mind being
called that, but she’ll know why!). We agreed ‘a pudding’ as suitable payment. Pink Engineer has been offered a pud as payment for the cake, although she’s
not really getting a good deal there as I’m making her supply her own pudding
basin. A further pudding has been offered to my dad. Let’s hope it works!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ll let you know how it goes, although I’ll be relying on
the comments of others since it will be full of ingredients I can’t eat. I’ve
decided not to try and make it free-from this year: for my first attempt, I’m
going to try and faithfully follow Granma’s recipe. If it works and I’m feeling
cocky next year, well watch this space…</span></div>
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Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-35078794025890638432012-09-11T02:58:00.001-07:002012-09-11T02:58:54.586-07:00Little House Cookbook<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amazon, in one of their slightly unsettling moments of knowing more about me than I'd like them to, has correctly deduced that two of my favourite activities are reading Little House books and cooking. In what must be something of a triumph for them, they have come up with the ultimate book for me and emailed me forthwith, with the happy news that I can now purchase, 'Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories'. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRa4ko06O_u6NYbRvFJOjIzccZ-2x-En_m8DjaMns1qPY4c6OX7VcYRLw9rwsQyETjmBoxgNHlJVs2UMAKC6lpiT9_bDuwPjQUWxB8efOYN-mYUwkpL7QnwhDEjDaz5xt5yjRwbI5DFSY/s1600/Johnny+cake" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRa4ko06O_u6NYbRvFJOjIzccZ-2x-En_m8DjaMns1qPY4c6OX7VcYRLw9rwsQyETjmBoxgNHlJVs2UMAKC6lpiT9_bDuwPjQUWxB8efOYN-mYUwkpL7QnwhDEjDaz5xt5yjRwbI5DFSY/s320/Johnny+cake" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">All set and ready to bake!</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdl9ejSiucTEkqpyg2GVl2uDCJS3nitYo-NHUplCR8MdtMUOoheuAGhywH17MBWwYHRD6AsS-ZFbs3fUF9ptm1R7uRm3LRJtQTBlA2FBzybXdAANASW-VJUlmWFcPW8KMdziv4CUXymXY/s1600/Little+House+cookbook.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdl9ejSiucTEkqpyg2GVl2uDCJS3nitYo-NHUplCR8MdtMUOoheuAGhywH17MBWwYHRD6AsS-ZFbs3fUF9ptm1R7uRm3LRJtQTBlA2FBzybXdAANASW-VJUlmWFcPW8KMdziv4CUXymXY/s200/Little+House+cookbook.jpg" width="155" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've got to admit, I'm tempted. What a marvellous way to indulge my inner 1880s pioneer woman! With this book propped open on the kitchen counter, I could make Johnny Cake, Vanity Cakes and churn my own butter. Mind you, I'm not really sure you need a book for all of this: the books themselves are so detailed that by the end of one slim volume, anyone with a mind to it and a ready supply of logs, bear grease, old button and a candle wick could easily build themselves a cabin and construct a button lamp. There is a minutely detailed account of how to make butter, how to fry salt pork in an iron spider and how to use every last bit of a recently slaughtered pig. On second thoughts, I'm not so sure this recipe book is such a good idea. It's not the pig I'm worried about, it's more that a true Little House Cookbook would involve recipes nobody much would want to make. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Blizzard raging from October 'til May? Nearly all your wheat supplies used up? Game either hunted to extinction or frozen under eight feet of snow? Family racked by cabin fever and malnutrition? Worry no more! Try our recipe for 'coffee grinder wheat'. That's right: use your coffee grinder to make flour, using the last of your seed wheat. The work is exhausting, largely unproductive and you've run out of leavening anyway, but follow our simple instructions and you may just save your family from starvation!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It's hard work!</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trust me, I've been on the Dakota prairies and ground wheat in a coffee grinder and it is thankless work! Oh, all right, I was just trying it at a visitor centre and doing a bit of re-enacting. And it was hot and sunny. But I've tried it, right? And it was hard work! And that's the thing, all these tie-in products and experiences give us a taste of life on the frontier, but it's a fleeting glimpse, not the real thing. I don't think I'd want the real thing, to be honest (note the hint of indecision there!). Year after year of ruined harvest, debt, isolation, hardship, near-starvation... it all sounds a bit much. That's the thing with being drawn to the past, isn't it? On the one hand, you can tap into the strangely satisfying yearning for a different, less complicated time. On the other, you'd probably be lying if you thought the lack of plumbing, heating or enough food to eat was really an option. One Amazon reviewer inadvertently has a go at summing it up, thus:</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: small/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">I was so annoyed I had to take a pen and cross over all the -homogenized- in basically every single recipe that included milk. The author even uses homogenized milk when making butter, which is utterly ridiculous because you cannot separate the fat from the milk and thus make butter if you use homogenized milk...</span><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: small/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><br style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: small/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;" /><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: small/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">And further more, the first homogenizing machine was patented in 1899, and therefore homogenized milk isn't applicable on traditional cooking in the 1800s.</span></div>
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: small/normal verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That's right, <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/0064460908/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R2NXVCY4IEKORP" target="_blank">K. Norsetdt</a>: ridiculous! I hate it when 'homogenized' takes over a cookbook and you're so darned right about the first homogenising machine (at least I assume you are - I can't be doing with verifying that). There was no homogenized milk on the prairies in the 1880s (to be fair, once the cow got malnutrition too, there was no milk of any kind and l can tell you're not one to split hairs). You know what else? There was no darned Amazon, either! Stick that in your purist's cup of milk and homogenise it!</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You see, folks, you can't have it all. You can buy the Little House Cookbook (and I still might - Ma's instructions for vanity cakes were awfully vague and I can't hold a proper Plum Creek party without them now, can I?) and hope to rekindle a little of that way of life, but you can't replicate it entirely. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></span> </div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRe9brbCsvNsBIlzqSbNCLM3TOHy3G36Vcgf-92zon8HVLMFH0-EckJXlAob6L8hmEyeEG5QjXGDyZl9swl-Pk57Ja97qosiW3BECmMQzyX2jrnbM4lFbSz6oIgrVd-PJAJwtyRcjU4_M/s1600/Peeler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRe9brbCsvNsBIlzqSbNCLM3TOHy3G36Vcgf-92zon8HVLMFH0-EckJXlAob6L8hmEyeEG5QjXGDyZl9swl-Pk57Ja97qosiW3BECmMQzyX2jrnbM4lFbSz6oIgrVd-PJAJwtyRcjU4_M/s200/Peeler.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><strike>Not</strike> also available in Bronte.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Right, well I'm off now to 'pill a putatuh,' in the style of the Bronte's household servant. Wait - no - I don't think they had Good Grips peelers back then! Bother it! I'll have to think of something else to do now. Perhaps I'll read <a href="http://eatingtheirwords.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/little-house-in-big-woods-johnny-cake.html" target="_blank">this blog</a> instead and wish I'd thought of that. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></span> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: black; display: inline !important; float: none; font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">Small print (because I know Nancy likes this bit): I know you're not supposed to start a sentence with 'and' or 'but'. But sometimes I want to. Also, the lovely picture of the ingredients came from the blog linked to above. I have no idea if the milk in the picture is homogenised.</span></span></div>
Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-60492494376249782692012-07-27T06:23:00.001-07:002012-07-27T06:23:57.708-07:00Fifty Shades of Fanfic<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is it me, or is this the year when the whole nation is gripped by craze after craze, fevour after fervour? I like a little bit of collective, national joy and happily bedecked my home in red, white and blue bunting for the jubilee, thus subscribing to two current fads: jubilee fervour and bunting. In fact, mine was home-made from fabric scraps, so I can tick off 'vintage' and 'shabby chic' too. The bunting is still up, looking a little more pastel now, having been battered by the elements for the best part of the worst part of what felt like a month or two of rain. I'm keeping it up for the Olympics (ticks another box) and the street party (tick). I've also finally given in to the cultural and baking tsunami that is cupcakes. For several years now, I have resisted the urge to over-ice over-sized cakes, believing the humble fairy cake was in danger of extinction. To my mind, the marauding cupcake was the invading grey squirrel, pushing the native red squirrel (fairy cake - stay with me) to the very peripheries of the British Isles, i.e. my kitchen. However, the realisation that icing cupcakes might be fun finally dawned on me and now the two types of cake are able to co-exist in my kitchen.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One craze I haven't yet succumbed to is reading 'Fifty Shades of Grey.' I thought I might give it a go, given that everyone was talking about it and I didn't want to feel left out. I had visions of trying valiantly to hold up my side of the conversation, while all around me were discussing topics I had no knowledge of...</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: I've just discovered how to do a 3-M swirl on cupcakes!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Other, much cooler, people: Hmmm? Yeah, so anyway, have you got to the bit about the red room yet?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Me: Huh? What? No, my kitchen's painted green...</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It's not like me, though, to dive into anything without first reading up on the topic, even when the topic itself is, er, reading, so I read reviews and online extracts and decided that it simply wasn't my thing. I decided to take the, 'slightly superior' line, because, y'know, everyone loves somebody who does that, and tried rolling my eyes at anything involving Fifty Shades, but then I discovered that 'rolling your eyes,' in Fifty Shades parlance, is not a very good idea. Not unless you want to be on the naughty step, or a slightly ramped up version of it...apparently. So anyway, I decided to read up on it enough so that I could partake of Fifty Shades of chat, without actually reading it. I do that a lot. In fact, I'm a bit of a Wikipedia: full of information, but not all of it verifiable.</span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today I was talking to a lovely and very talented friend, who has a real gift for writing but who is currently struggling to get her novel published. I don't know why, as I've read it (yes, actually read it) and it is really good. She was encouraging me to write too, but since I am currently 'under the weather' and my brain isn't working quite as well as it should, I declined. I then wondered, aloud, if I could attempt some kinky fanfic, suggesting, rather meanly, that maybe it didn't take much brain power to write. (Miaow!) My friend suggested I write kinky Little House fanfic. I know - it sounds like sacrilege, but here goes:</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Laura looked longingly at Almanzo, his hair tousled and his
pants hanging from his hips. ‘Holy Moley!’ she said aloud, despite her
congrationalist upbringing, and bit her lip. He grasped the log firmly and
rammed it into place. Her inner goddess danced a jig and all her corset stays
quivered.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
‘For Pete’s sake, Laura,’ he gasped. ‘Help me with this log,
will you?’</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<o:p> </o:p>She shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and her inner
goddess made a mental note to put them back together again later. Exactly as
she was bid, Laura grasped the other end of Almanzo’s mighty log.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<o:p> </o:p>‘Stop asking questions and help me build the dashed thing!’
he commanded, commandingly and in a commanding manner.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Build?’ she asked, ‘Build?’ This was something he had never
yet asked of her and Laura wasn’t sure she was up for this. Wavering
momentarily, she took a moment to consult her inner goddess, who was at that
very moment wondering whether to whip up a batch of fresh corn bread and Johnny
cakes. At the mention of ‘whip,’ and ‘Johnny,’ her inner goddess skipped wantonly
through the high waving prairie grasses and Laura’s thousands of pieces
shattered into a thousand more, even tinier, pieces. Her inner goddess noted,
ruefully, that the whole reassembly thing would now take a lot longer. She bit
her lip. Again.</div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
Almanzo rolled his eyes, which was OK for him to do. ‘Yes,
woman: build. These are cedar logs and I’m building us another shed.’</div>
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
‘Another?’ asked Laura, tremblingly, her pioneer
undergarments wet like the shores of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Silver</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Lake</st1:placetype></st1:place>. ‘But, Almanzo, we
have so many sheds already…’ her voice trailed off, mindful of what had
happened last time she had questioned him. Her inner goddess privately wondered
if decorating the parlor red had been a good idea after all.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
Almanzo’s deep and powerful voice cut through her thoughts,
like a knife through freshly churned butter, which you can read all about in ‘Little
House in the Big Woods’. ‘Laura,’ he breathed, in that masterful way of his, ‘Of
course I am building you another cedar shed: I am fifty sheds of grey.’</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, that wasn't difficult: piece of cake! Cupcake, obviously. Or maybe cakepops. I'm told they are the new thing. Off I go to read up on them.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-91019734810808923572012-07-22T10:16:00.001-07:002012-07-22T10:16:25.626-07:00Rage Against the Machine<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiCRgJpd4_A-mz_oeX0goVdOtn5aOaIMWjT8IogjHtk3lhO_5Lj29syJ7HFuJokOCFeJ4egDcyA6eDpkOF-ZlKgOfoxkssgp6JyWSGELg1mYH-lQdE5cBopzrpBOFzvUczEB1FJlBSF_E/s1600/1950s-tired-exhausted-woman-housewife-sink-full-of-dirty-dishes-~-h2867.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiCRgJpd4_A-mz_oeX0goVdOtn5aOaIMWjT8IogjHtk3lhO_5Lj29syJ7HFuJokOCFeJ4egDcyA6eDpkOF-ZlKgOfoxkssgp6JyWSGELg1mYH-lQdE5cBopzrpBOFzvUczEB1FJlBSF_E/s200/1950s-tired-exhausted-woman-housewife-sink-full-of-dirty-dishes-~-h2867.jpg" width="158" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">I'm so very, very tired...</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Firstly, an apology: I do apologise for not writing anything lately and leaving you all hanging in cyberspace, no doubt <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pining</span> for my latest missive. (Yeah, right.) My silence has been due to a number of factors: I had nothing much to say, I wasn't very well and it turns out that the end of a school year is a manically busy time, especially if you have not one but two jobs in two different educational establishments.</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So anyway, I haven't been around much.</span> <br />
<br /> </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_lqr0aeI6pBjMrjQViJtcibIATTt32W6Chw8jygsv2fSQ5kJRDIDGPrK6ZmIsYZ9n5WzWhebFqG8kDFKQ1lMcWRZEy-yo3Jhs3h5zp0AlgsaKQKcw5FH3c5fmd3xY_MBdXbc0hHXUnM/s1600/basil_fawlty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil_lqr0aeI6pBjMrjQViJtcibIATTt32W6Chw8jygsv2fSQ5kJRDIDGPrK6ZmIsYZ9n5WzWhebFqG8kDFKQ1lMcWRZEy-yo3Jhs3h5zp0AlgsaKQKcw5FH3c5fmd3xY_MBdXbc0hHXUnM/s200/basil_fawlty.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now it's the school holidays and a chance to slow down a bit, except that the start of the school holidays round here signifies the start of the <a href="http://www.stpetersfarnborough.org.uk/children/holiday-club.html" target="_blank">St Peter's Church Holiday Club</a>. Not much chance to relax, but a lot of fun! I'm endeavouring to produce some of the teaching materials for the younger children attending the Holiday Club. It's going OK, but you know how it is when you're trying to do something on a computer and it just won't do what you want it to do? Yeah: that! Sometimes I think life was a lot easier before we had computers. True, back then I spent hours drawing and handwriting these things, but at least when things went wrong, I had only myself to blame and could rectify most things with an eraser and a freshly sharpened pencil. These days it takes a plaintive, 'Mr Ruuuuuubbbbbbbyyyyyyyyy!' and much <em>sotto voce</em> cursing at the screen. Thing is, I <em>know</em> what I want to computer to do for me, I <em>know</em> it's done that for me before, but suddenly it seems to be on strike and won't do what I ask it, despite (or sometimes perhaps because of) my increasingly frantic mouse clicking). And the rage this kind of thing inspires? Well, it's impotent rage really, isn't it? Toddler tantrumming, Basil Fawlty, Victor Meldrew rage. You can get as cross as you like at the computer but in the end you're just ranting at code and code really doesn't give a <a href="http://www.theflyingfig.com/" target="_blank">flying fig</a> what you yell at it.</span> <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJ4VFcHiok5fXOBUG5VeNv2TJ5mGogLABJ9JsswFQ-KuNeSdxVdWSd3gCQWc6ZCmPbhrh5eMpH7wp7Qn3ydGvyfDCMbIxge0GiauRRWuDoJMdl08tI-Cq18kJFfF8BO8__NfO9H4GfQI/s1600/computer-code.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihJ4VFcHiok5fXOBUG5VeNv2TJ5mGogLABJ9JsswFQ-KuNeSdxVdWSd3gCQWc6ZCmPbhrh5eMpH7wp7Qn3ydGvyfDCMbIxge0GiauRRWuDoJMdl08tI-Cq18kJFfF8BO8__NfO9H4GfQI/s200/computer-code.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Am I bovvered?</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Incidentally, I'll be darned if I can get the images for this blog post to sit in the right place on the screen. Mr Ruuuuubbbbbyyyyyyyyy!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Small print: I borrowed the 1950s housewife picture from </span><a href="http://midlifesinglemum.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/100-word-challeng-is-getting-into.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-69195831869129791942012-04-17T01:38:00.000-07:002012-04-19T13:58:48.699-07:00Might As Well Face It...<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ever heard a song and thought, 'What on earth was that lyric?!' I'm willing to be that you have. I do it all the time. My own personal playlist of misheard lyrics would probably be enough to fill an entire radio show. (</span><a href="http://www.kickradio.co.uk/djs/ed-liner" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">DJ Bro</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, take note!) Way back in 1987, or thereabouts, I amused a younger version of the aforementioned DJ, when I belted out, 'I believe in miracles, you saxophone!' No really, that's what I thought the lyric was. Not quite the same, is it? The Mouse has just reminded of me of her classic lyric misinterpretation too. When she was much younger, her dad bought her a copy of Little Boots' CD. The Mouse loved it and played it often. One day we heard her singing: </span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
I'm gonna take you out tonight,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I'm gonna make you feel alright.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I don't gotta lotta money but I'll be fine.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
No I don't gotta bunny but I'll show you a real good time.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While we were glad to know that the absence of a bunny didn't necessarily prevent one from having a good time, we did eventually point out to her that the line was, 'No I don't got a <em>penny</em> but I'll show you a real good time.'</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have a theory, though, that the younger you are, the more likely you are to either mishear or or misconstrue lyrics. When I was very little I remember singing:</span></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
See-saw, margarine door,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Jacqui shall have a new master.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He shall have a penny of butter a day,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Because he can't work any faster.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, it was all about dietary fats and toast, as far as I was concerned. And me. Of course. My youngest niece, the utterly hilarious Baby G supported this theory recently, by singing along to Ollie Murs' 'My Heart Skips a Beat'. In the chorus there's this line that goes, 'My heart skips-skips-skips-skips-skips-skips a beat.' Obviously that makes no sense to a two and a half year old, so Baby G sings, 'My heart snakes, snakes a pea!' Yeah I know - that makes no sense either but the point is, to Baby G, it does. As does comparing the object of your affections to a saxophone. Maybe.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7h-fDknG8J2HbO6c6jywj5MKaI1ibo5cd6bSE1E72kz3IVlJbfGyJjeK3CXSYrTnuZkhzv94VIPGvXLgv4-LhdQW7lucf5b22NQtd7ol_I4JPu677ZqIJxk0-HHe-4QDCv0-wZybVTFw/s1600/pea-pod-456.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7h-fDknG8J2HbO6c6jywj5MKaI1ibo5cd6bSE1E72kz3IVlJbfGyJjeK3CXSYrTnuZkhzv94VIPGvXLgv4-LhdQW7lucf5b22NQtd7ol_I4JPu677ZqIJxk0-HHe-4QDCv0-wZybVTFw/s200/pea-pod-456.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Hisssssssssssss!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've had the misheard lyrics conversation with other people too, so I know it isn't some kind of genetic default, shared only by my niece, my daughter and myself. Indeed, there is a word for this phenomenon: <em>mondegreens</em>. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a> defines this as: </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase as a result of near </span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">homophony</span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">, in a way that gives it a new meaning. </span> </blockquote>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, so universal is this mondegreen thing that there is a whole web site devoted to the topic. It is called, <a href="http://www.kissthisguy.com/index.php" target="_blank">'Kiss This Guy'</a>, after the famously oft-misheard Purple Haze lyric by Jimi Hendrix, although whether that is a truly misheard lyric is <a href="http://www.kissthisguy.com/jimi.php" target="_blank">open to debate</a>, apparently. If you look at the, <a href="http://www.kissthisguy.com/funny.php" target="_blank">'All Time Funniest'</a> page on the web site, you'll see how I came up with the title of this blog entry. I must confess, I read some of those and did the Muttley laugh.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwVaIVZ_fGJ5kTEK88OzbrVSn5PtdFdcHK_dRDjOFsurpnLX9lIso2ve0rZRDoT2VOy0iytbzBszVnWwxJkRrvV4IV5aFkIzBQXVKMNPSm9xTj1K7kPjHnNXqCny7BxSESCTAzCEqIXU/s1600/Muttley.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzwVaIVZ_fGJ5kTEK88OzbrVSn5PtdFdcHK_dRDjOFsurpnLX9lIso2ve0rZRDoT2VOy0iytbzBszVnWwxJkRrvV4IV5aFkIzBQXVKMNPSm9xTj1K7kPjHnNXqCny7BxSESCTAzCEqIXU/s200/Muttley.jpg" width="144" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Curse you, Muttley! It's, 'Might as well face you're <em>addicted to love'</em>!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUjTDVVc9W3Ptt5CMKKHFhKi_OpUUhQGOHEi2bCjVpYJydbtvriJsZJWMxS0e0szwG90XN0lAlAegqldk2CWgIiVeZ4varNQ4Ye7CBFXt39SSR7x-gZ17zR-H_HPKkJNAPy58luywk9lI/s1600/beetroot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUjTDVVc9W3Ptt5CMKKHFhKi_OpUUhQGOHEi2bCjVpYJydbtvriJsZJWMxS0e0szwG90XN0lAlAegqldk2CWgIiVeZ4varNQ4Ye7CBFXt39SSR7x-gZ17zR-H_HPKkJNAPy58luywk9lI/s200/beetroot.jpg" width="171" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Read this for your five-a-day!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I asked Mr Ruby if he knew of any more examples and he assures me that a line in Big Mouth Strikes Again, by the Smiths, is often misheard as the bizarre and slightly fetishistic, 'I'd like to mash beetroot in your hair,' instead of the lyrics actually penned by Morrissey, 'I'd like to smash every tooth in your head.' On balance, I think I'd go for the beetroot. Dreadfully messy business, mind. In a similar conversation with Dr Wise-Egg, I was delighted to discover that I am not the only person to have spent the past twenty-six years wondering why on earth Madonna sings, 'Young Girl with Eyes Like Potatoes'. Listen to her singing 'La Isla Bonita' and I defy you to hear that line sung any other way! However the Internet is a wonderful thing and if you google, 'Madonna lyrics La Isla Bonita' you can find out what she's actually singing. I was going to publish the real lyrics here, but somehow the real words lack the charm of the potato version. You'll just have to google it yourself.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Small print: Oh, OK then. The real lyrics are, 'Young girl with eyes like lumbago.'</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Addendum (Latin for: the bits wot I added later)</strong></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">More contributions. I
reckon we could publish a magazine: Reader's Mondegreens.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Hampshire Lass (aka my
mum) offers, 'Take me and break me and baked bean island, I'm yours!' by Joe
Dolan (misheard by the late, great Uncle Paul).</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Mother of all Hoplets offered
'Tonight, I sellotape my guff to you,' sung by pretty much everyone, but penned
by Peabo Bryson and Roberta Flack.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">PromQueen cited Abba's 'If
you change your mind on the Virgin line,' from 'Take a Chance on Me' </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Hampshire Lad (aka my dad)
says he's always wondered why Belinda Carlisle sings, 'Poo heaven is a place on
earth,' and asks, 'Where is Poo heaven does it have countless toilet
facilities?'<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Pompey, Dad, that's where.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</blockquote>
</div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-47334422535095924852012-04-11T15:34:00.000-07:002012-04-11T16:47:30.069-07:00Does Size Matter?<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpWK5qo9F0r6WfS_DuGoBXPOUtUvCOpbiQXA5UMYJsN7TV5Plt-5-cvPtYQcLflPkwgoYl7ZhIR-shD2Nad6nJ4I1sCXFRJHngAOZSJLb1wV3AnGeVacYhWKTByN4bMXzv9YtQWLXj_Jw/s1600/CreamRayburnAtFarm300x278.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="185" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpWK5qo9F0r6WfS_DuGoBXPOUtUvCOpbiQXA5UMYJsN7TV5Plt-5-cvPtYQcLflPkwgoYl7ZhIR-shD2Nad6nJ4I1sCXFRJHngAOZSJLb1wV3AnGeVacYhWKTByN4bMXzv9YtQWLXj_Jw/s200/CreamRayburnAtFarm300x278.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">It's a Rayburn, but I'm not fussy.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, contrary to what people may tell you, size <em>does</em> matter, at least where kitchens are concerned. I have spent my entire life in tiny kitchens (unless you count the Home Ec. room, but there you were pretty much always jostling for space) and yet I dream of something...well, bigger. I have lived in nine different places, all with small, mainly galley-style kitchens. I think a little kitchen-envy is to be excused. One of the ways in which I like to while away the odd spare moment is by imagining my ideal kitchen. The first thing you need to know about my imaginary kitchen is that it is big. In fact, it is the largest room in my otherwise modest imaginary house. Take that on board and you are welcome to come in and warm yourself by my imaginary Aga (or Rayburn or Esse - I'm not fussy!), sit at my imaginary kitchen table and sip a cup of tea, or even relax in the imaginary easy chair. Bring your slippers though, because my imaginary flagstone floor is quite cold. Still, on warmer days we can throw open the top half of the imaginary stable door and let in the sunshine!</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsDoT41puRP3pKG6MrOXHhE61xT6vgcZ9DNTyx0YX4PcWlAgFtM6ODkH_A3uzUPq9kLSCmUH-lmgVFVR7o_hXj_-9TWhkNPJQFZgoTB7q1thNZ2KrIFjaHm404QawaDpJP8E8nrPQBAb4/s1600/farmhouse-table.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsDoT41puRP3pKG6MrOXHhE61xT6vgcZ9DNTyx0YX4PcWlAgFtM6ODkH_A3uzUPq9kLSCmUH-lmgVFVR7o_hXj_-9TWhkNPJQFZgoTB7q1thNZ2KrIFjaHm404QawaDpJP8E8nrPQBAb4/s320/farmhouse-table.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Draw up a chair... but what's that bin doing in my fantasy?!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back in the real world, I've been baking up a storm lately. This is due, in part, to having more time in the holidays and thus more energy. It is also due to my apparently unshakeable belief in the relationship between food and festivals. Honestly, can you name any major festival which doesn't have a food connection? Even those that feature fasting, rather than feasting, have at their core both a memory of and an expectation of food: Lent ends in the chocolate-fest of Easter, Ramadan ends in Eid. The other reason for my baking obsession is that neither I nor the small Rubies can eat dairy products or soya-based foods. At the same time, we've no intention of going without. Thus I have developed a detemination to perfect 'free-from' versions of the foods we love but can't eat. I reckon I can now produce cakes that are free from nuts, wheat, gluten, dairy, soya and, at a push, eggs and sugar. I can produce hollow eggs and cream eggs that don't contain any dairy. I can make hot cross buns without the 'all butter' tag. I can't make croissant dough, though I have tried. Luckily I can buy it in cans, although not so that my gluten-free mum can eat it too. No, free-from croissant dough is my Waterloo! </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZyOZTs84v67juSqkwk_YbxDfdt5nxuf-Ani2Z5KFS7FWHIsKSKNZ9w0oqc13FpanOVV3HKLYBVpU2oJ5VvawsPjV2EM7Z_N9t4FBzGmhTx5QJzPXqIejq5qruTl94J4qCjOBT-wdFjg/s1600/Waterloo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnZyOZTs84v67juSqkwk_YbxDfdt5nxuf-Ani2Z5KFS7FWHIsKSKNZ9w0oqc13FpanOVV3HKLYBVpU2oJ5VvawsPjV2EM7Z_N9t4FBzGmhTx5QJzPXqIejq5qruTl94J4qCjOBT-wdFjg/s320/Waterloo.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not a gluten-free croissant beween them.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTU69GFpN70f7dd2XtfVDtYxhCjUF1V7JkuDAKGJlj6bRfmiHVLL3aE1bZQgQ9hY3cP3jW4gAPSsorXqn10lDYumUaXDQpELHV_Wcs3cK6qW_BgKmSOVJzoySO3aULykjd7b0okMNOUJQ/s1600/kitchenaid.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTU69GFpN70f7dd2XtfVDtYxhCjUF1V7JkuDAKGJlj6bRfmiHVLL3aE1bZQgQ9hY3cP3jW4gAPSsorXqn10lDYumUaXDQpELHV_Wcs3cK6qW_BgKmSOVJzoySO3aULykjd7b0okMNOUJQ/s200/kitchenaid.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Kitchenaid, <em>objet d'art</em></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what does that have to do with my lusting after a bigger kitchen? Well, not a lot really, since you evidently can achieve all that in a smaller space. However, when you are spending quite a lot of time there, you do become a bit frustrated by the lack of space to put anything down. Moving the recipe book so I can put down the pastry board is a proper faff, I can tell you. Lack of space also means lack of room for all my imaginary gadgets. I'd love one of those thoroughly sexy and iconic Kitchenaids, but the breadmaker is occupying the space that might otherwise be assigned to a food processor, and you can't easily buy bread that is free from soya - and anyway, Mr Ruby's home-baked bread tastes much, much nicer. Of course, what you do with a smaller kitchen is you scale everything back. No room for a food processor? Buy a hand-held blender/whisk/chopper! I am very find of my handheld b/w/c although it does loose a little of its appeal when I have to make breadcrumbs in batches because the the chopper attachment can only cope with a slice at a time or when, as this evening, I decide to whip up dairy-free mango, banana, raspberry and oat milk shakes. It wasn't that the thing lacked the capacity, so much as that it lacked a lid. All was going well until I added the frozen raspberries and then, much to the amusement of the rest of the family, I invented the world's first and only raspberry gun. Bits of frozen raspberry shot out all over the place! I'm telling you, it was carnage! I reckon I'll be finding splatters and globules of red for days to come.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_OgTnrbLOXUL3c5nWT_qAIt2pE9l6VBuhgxsW5YDOJ_A12yMcENR-IFvs60lbp1y5lhCVUEU3PncvQCek-pxtg7ajDabjYc8ZSOPX7HLcPVEZiaqqXMNfMQ-kl3NI_fz_UoyhssUThtM/s1600/Gromit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_OgTnrbLOXUL3c5nWT_qAIt2pE9l6VBuhgxsW5YDOJ_A12yMcENR-IFvs60lbp1y5lhCVUEU3PncvQCek-pxtg7ajDabjYc8ZSOPX7HLcPVEZiaqqXMNfMQ-kl3NI_fz_UoyhssUThtM/s200/Gromit.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Prototype for the raspberry gun.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Still, it can't be right to link all this talk of religious festivals with my covetous attitude to kitchens, can it? It's not just the baking I take seriously, it's that the food we share reminds us in some way (however tenuously, when it comes to chocolate Easter eggs) of the festival we are celebrating. This was brought home to me when the Mouse was much smaller. When she was three years old I gave her hot cross bun and she remarked, 'Look - God must love me very much - he's put a big kiss on my bun!' </span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, back to my covetous attitude: I was thinking about this and decided that it is OK, as the ten commandments mention not coveting my neighbour's wife or his ass. Nope, not guilty there. Then I looked them up*. Here's the list of what I'm <em>not</em> supposed to be coveting:</span> </div>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's.</blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bother! If I start referring to it as an apiraton, will that be OK, do you think?</span><br />
<br />
<div align="left">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">* The ten commandments, not my neighbour's anything.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWHeKRQS5kx7YMhaGHEbwlgmRqO6NYDSks4LHJfNwQ6wbRy-KnaF9gpgwv0KnmhAHh74dY4AtqbnuxEREc3gBsIx2mELacmVyuq3iPcHpzA8DYFOaihupv3x72MK9BbhAn908Kq9yAMM/s1600/Hot-cross-buns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJWHeKRQS5kx7YMhaGHEbwlgmRqO6NYDSks4LHJfNwQ6wbRy-KnaF9gpgwv0KnmhAHh74dY4AtqbnuxEREc3gBsIx2mELacmVyuq3iPcHpzA8DYFOaihupv3x72MK9BbhAn908Kq9yAMM/s320/Hot-cross-buns.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mwah!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-51742601685045419092012-03-23T07:55:00.002-07:002012-03-23T07:55:47.187-07:00May the Force be with You!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I was very young, my dad would sometimes take me to cinema. My mum would get my brother down for his nap and then the news of the impending outing would be shared with me. I guess if they had told me earlier, my excitement would have been contagious and my poor brother would never have got to sleep. On one of these occasions we went to see Star Wars. I must have been five or six years old. I remember I was in infant school as I also remember playing 'Star Wars' in the playground. I can't remember excatly how the roles were divvied-up in our games, but I do recall many of the girls arguing over who was to play Princess Leia. To my mind, this used up valuable play time, so my own solution to this was to immediately volunteer to be R2D2. On some level, I think I probably <em>did</em> want to be the princess with the long hair and a space blaster to boot, but I was perfectly happy pootling about the playground, making droid noises. I don't actually remember any further interaction in these games, so for all I know, perhaps I just got on with my R2-ing, oblivious to anyone else. It's entirely possible! The other thing I recall is of having a 'swaps card' of Luke Skywalker stuck to my bedroom wall. Mark Hamil, as Luke, was my first human crush. (My non-human and entirely first crush, for whom I still carry a bit of a torch, was Charlie Mouse.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we both grew older and my baby brother gave up his daytime nap (for a while - I reckon he takes one now), he also discovered Star Wars and pretty much never looked back. I was talking to him the other day, about how - rather tragically, I suspect - we can divide out lives into 'Before and After Star Wars'. I'm pretty certain he was one of the people who helped create the </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'Jedi Census Phenomenon'</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> in the 2001 UK census. He collected the original mini figures, which we spent many happy hours playing with. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anyway, Star Wars has been part of my life for a very long time and I have been looking forward to the day when I could share that fictional universe with my own children. TR recently declared an interest in watching Star Wars, so we borrowed DVDs IV-VI from our lovely neighbours and he and sat down to watch them while his sister was at Brownie Holiday. I admit I was quite anxious about this - what if he didn't like them and I remained the only Star Wars fan in the Ruby household? Mr Ruby has always been more of a Thunderbirds fan. However, I neeedn't have worried - the combination of space travel, laser guns, lightsabers (he's only recently stopped calling them 'lightsavers', little eco-Jedi that he was) and explosions had him hooked from the start.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I hadn't watched the films for years (not since my brother's marathon video and dressing-up party, circa 1994) and really enjoyed watching them with TR. I have to say, he was less taken with the 'magic' of them than I was. He kept asking questions like, 'Did he really make the X-wing float up?' and I'd start answering, 'Yes, TR, Yoda used the Force...' only to realise that what he was really asking was whether the X-wing fighter truly levitated. 'Oh, no TR,' I was forced to clarify. 'That's CGI or models or trick photography.' After that, he spent three films saying, 'That's CGI...that's a model...' etc. Mr Ruby walked in and remarked, 'There's no magic in it, is there?'</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The day after one of our viewings, we were all sat at the table eating dinner when the Mouse choked on a bit of food. Not badly, you understand; it just went down the wrong way. She choked a little and I happened to glance at TR for a second. There he was, sat opposite his sister and doing the 'Darth Vader death grip motion.' Yes, while she choked, he was apparently using the Force to bring about her untimely demise! On the one hand, I'm obviously a little shocked that he's turning to the Dark Side. On the other, I am quite pleased that he believes in the magic of it after all.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtYQRg_Id_vZ9WeuxC1p3G-1xTKe2oGN4Gw7iZuEcuclKdeBgcdYSe4IjFdrIUMO2PXK4IZUolYOTKcqTaqZ_QSzK3U3r0ZKOYCDloO_PyRsUhponmfFIXp9WlowF4tNuTYLUqWNfHcs/s1600/han-solo-head-shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggtYQRg_Id_vZ9WeuxC1p3G-1xTKe2oGN4Gw7iZuEcuclKdeBgcdYSe4IjFdrIUMO2PXK4IZUolYOTKcqTaqZ_QSzK3U3r0ZKOYCDloO_PyRsUhponmfFIXp9WlowF4tNuTYLUqWNfHcs/s200/han-solo-head-shot.jpg" width="159" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">Small print: while I still feel some fondness for Luke, I can now see that it is in fact Han who is the best looking of the lot. </span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-77597982115069954462012-03-22T16:35:00.001-07:002012-03-22T16:35:08.158-07:00When Smokey Sings...<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Mouse recently took up the violin. She has been asking for a long while to learn and we held off and held off, thinking that a true desire to learn would stay with her and then we’d know that she really was keen. It sounds harsh, I know, but if you’d been there for recorder practise, you’d have felt the same way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thankfully, the lovely Associate Rev offered us the loan of a half size violin and a few informal lessons to start us off. We braced ourselves for the sound of cats being murdered and warned the Mouse that it takes practise to get a good sound out of a violin. I was ever mindful of my childhood experiences of ballet, where I thought I’d be able to show up and dance like Margot Fonteyn, whereas, in reality, it involved endless clumsy skipping around a dusty church hall and serious injury to my baby brother…but that’s another story. However, the Mouse surprised us by managing to produce a pretty good sound on her two open strings. Ah yes, you see – I have the lingo now! ‘Open Strings’ is where you play the violin with the bow, but do not press your fingers on the strings in order to play higher or lower notes. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://littlewhileontheprairie.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">A long holiday to the States</a> and a bout of extended illness for both children meant that the Mouse stayed with her borrowed violin and her two notes for quite some time. Finally, in January of this year, we found a permanent teacher for the Mouse and ordered her a quarter size violin. Now, call me naïve, but I had imagined that buying a musical instrument was relatively simple: you just walked into a specialist shop and requested your instrument of choice. So far, so good, but the shop didn’t have any quarter sizes in stock. We ordered one, for delivery ‘in two weeks’. Two months and many phone calls later, our violin finally arrived.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG84cuuR6-U01OmWmD7d8qP7A2K3M0AfWuG8zjqIchyphenhyphen5-M9XyK0lrLltNybIAtGoAaM6WKc6XGMNwYQPZnCxvE5Cb7-PaQxPSuCr1DYijviWARr4lBNlJDCRu6ABdF-DSrCjc6ZNfprjq6/s1600/Primavera+Violin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="138" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG84cuuR6-U01OmWmD7d8qP7A2K3M0AfWuG8zjqIchyphenhyphen5-M9XyK0lrLltNybIAtGoAaM6WKc6XGMNwYQPZnCxvE5Cb7-PaQxPSuCr1DYijviWARr4lBNlJDCRu6ABdF-DSrCjc6ZNfprjq6/s320/Primavera+Violin.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A violin very much like the Mouse's. She loves it that the case can be worn as a backpack.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, the Mouse is now the proud owner of her own violin and bow. She has a music stand (sourced from a charity shop and missing a wing-nut, so don’t grow too much yet, Mouse, as we can’t alter the height of the thing!), a borrowed music book and another sourced, again, from a charity shop. She has been very lucky in that both her violin teachers have been lovely people, whom she likes very much and wants to please. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s been a steep learning curve for Mr Ruby and I too. I played the recorder briefly and badly, as an eight year old. In my primary school music performance I was initially given maracas, before being sent to the back of the row (behind the much taller children) and given a triangle which I was told to play, ‘quietly.’ I’m not entirely sure that the teacher didn’t then confiscate my beater! Mr Ruby had some piano lessons as a child and later taught himself to play a rather halting version of ‘Abba father’ on the guitar. As members of the youth group we mercilessly teased him by singing the chord changes as well as the words – we found we had plenty of time to do so. All I’m saying is, if the Mouse has musical ability, and she seems to, it doesn’t come from us. Her uncle DJ and her cousin Blondie both show considerable musical talent though, so perhaps there are some latent musical genes there. I hope so. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgAGGM-wcaTC85gJDKJGUWvBwD-eVgKIvv6Vq1GCKAYr08yXSk_ul9kp8TYvhFPhWSsEq2iMebHXG5pSvNhbZdtX_V77DdotKmJ7KdS94eR_05oBFvhqwdKacCgvI7nE5zIMjJU71lNYk/s1600/walkers-quavers-crisps.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHgAGGM-wcaTC85gJDKJGUWvBwD-eVgKIvv6Vq1GCKAYr08yXSk_ul9kp8TYvhFPhWSsEq2iMebHXG5pSvNhbZdtX_V77DdotKmJ7KdS94eR_05oBFvhqwdKacCgvI7nE5zIMjJU71lNYk/s200/walkers-quavers-crisps.jpg" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not that kind of quaver</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ve learned to use a metronome and am beginning to read music. I have to ask the Mouse to remind me when I’m looking at a crotchet, a quaver, a minim or a semibreve, though. I also have to remind myself not to call a crotchet a crochet. Knit your own symphony, anyone? Mr Ruby has become rather good at tuning the violin and we’ve both learned that, whatever problem you have with the violin, there’s an app for that! (As well as a Wikipedia article and a YouTube instructional video.) The Mouse, meanwhile, has learned to play open strings and is currently learning to use her fingers to play additional notes. She can play a few tunes and enjoys learning new ones. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The only one rather left out by this is TR. He does express a desire to play his sister’s violin, but she’s wary of letting him loose on it. I have offered him lessons too, but he assures me he wants to learn to play the drums (and therein lies the source of his sister’s wariness, I think – she knows that a violin bow does not make a good drumstick). If his sister isn’t looking, he likes to use her music stand as a prop for his small world play. Apparently it makes, ‘An awesome slide for moshlings!’</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpP8K2o-waJdOkeREn4AXbnQ_SOgASwakDiN2moQ2v1Nrc0iouGiU5N4nJfAml6pakxV-mEDkTq7mms1mnn88eoMY3bxwvDGO_bAjHaGt3g2LhGE8LU__p_m94_oqRfRkvMwEgqT_bwGWj/s1600/Moshlings.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpP8K2o-waJdOkeREn4AXbnQ_SOgASwakDiN2moQ2v1Nrc0iouGiU5N4nJfAml6pakxV-mEDkTq7mms1mnn88eoMY3bxwvDGO_bAjHaGt3g2LhGE8LU__p_m94_oqRfRkvMwEgqT_bwGWj/s320/Moshlings.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t say that I’m quite so eager for him to learn the drums. For one thing, where would I put the drum kit? This blog isn’t called ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Little</i>House on the Heath’ for nothing, you know! For another, I’m not sure the neighbours would be overly happy about TR’s drum practise. Mind you, the builders have assured us that the proposed loft extension will be sound-proof. Now all I have to do is convince Mr Ruby that a drum kit would be the perfect accessory for our new room…</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-21808369644252115202012-02-27T06:38:00.003-08:002012-03-03T15:44:29.976-08:00Dress it Up However You Like...<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...World Book Day is starting to stress me out. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for a day dedicated to books and reading, it's just the costume aspect that is causing me grief. Just in case you are unfamiliar with the concept, World Book Day is a UNESCO initiative, held once a year to promote reading, publishing and copyright. In fact, it's full title is 'World Book (and Copyright) Day. No sneaky 'homers' on the work's photocopier on that day, folks! 'Which day?' I hear you ask. Well, therein lies another little snippet of information for you: almost the whole world celebrates World Book Day on 23rd April, but in the UK and Ireland, we celebrate it on the first Thursday in March. The 23rd of April often coincides with Easter holidays, which is why our celebration is earlier. Of course, this may lead you to suspect that it is therefore not <em>World</em> Book Day, but just 'Local Book Day, for Local People'... whatever!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQACEUKfAfS3Hz__nKHIs_4UMdWXSLil4XnetWgEEHE6ssFVXuwbMH1kzbP7EIWwaCBM9fyVhTYsSUpXnibyakBLYU-utOqlzBqknhCty05CWLia9N9NmlPUrlgs6fERxj_A5hj2IyfnI/s1600/IMG_4934.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQACEUKfAfS3Hz__nKHIs_4UMdWXSLil4XnetWgEEHE6ssFVXuwbMH1kzbP7EIWwaCBM9fyVhTYsSUpXnibyakBLYU-utOqlzBqknhCty05CWLia9N9NmlPUrlgs6fERxj_A5hj2IyfnI/s200/IMG_4934.JPG" width="150" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, back to the costumes, it is fast becoming a UK tradition that on World Book Day, or the Friday nearest to it, in the case of the Mouse and TR's school, children dress up as a book character for the day. Last year the Mouse chose to go as Pippi Longstocking, which was a fabulously easy costume to put together. All she needed were ordinary, but mismatching clothes, a few extra freckles (drawn on with eyeliner pencil), hair in plaits and a toy orang-utan to represent Mr Nilsson (who was actually a monkey, but we did what we could). TR opted to go as Ben, from the book 'Penguin'. Apart from some eleventh hour rushing about to find him some starry pyjamas (thank you, M&S, for not only selling them but for putting a pair by for me) that was pretty easy too. It had the added bonus of providing TR with the impetus to do a bit of box modelling and he still has the cardboard rocket he built as his prop. He still wears he pyjamas too!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast forward to this year and the Mouse recently won a Lauren Child competition, which means she is now the proud owner of a Ruby Redfort selection of goodies and is planning to go as Ruby, teen super-sleuth. That's easy enough - jeans, trainers (or 'sneakers' as Ruby would call them) and her new Ruby Redfort T-shirt: sorted! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TR has prevaricated somewhat on the topic of who he wants to dress as. This is further complicated by the news that, this year, the children need to pick a book character who is like themselves in some way. Mr Ruby casually enquired whether there was a Mr Men chracter called, 'Mr Ranty,' which provoked a - well, a rant - from TR. (If you're interested, there isn't. There <em>is</em> a Mr Grumpy but any grumpiness on TR's part is possibly attributble to his father's enquiry.) TR is quite a stickler for rules and is interpreting the 'like me' requirement very literally. Thus all Mr Men are out of the question because, 'I am not blue/red/yellow/square/a triangle,' etc. I have tried explaining the idea of characteristics but either it has not been well-received or it is a concept too far. Frankly, if you can't explain personality and characteristics via the mono-characteristc Mr Men, you're not onto a good thing. Accordingly I have given up. For now.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqWJLFiDs1mK8RuPpmAeVInWyodlqKOktlBxOXwlhyphenhyphenODMiPO3d801MhEhQFWPcTulSDZIxkXvFb1txXwaUyAkcly8UPovygz9EOSJKqoYe43GOfrC08nOlaZ05FbADNOGQCjgDgEUM0s/s1600/wheres_wally.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TR contemplated going as 'Where's Wally?' (That's 'Where's Waldo?' for my American public), which got me worrying about sourcing a red and white striped top. Unfortunately the stripes on his Brentford top are vertical, whereas Wally's are horizontal. I've no idea how he is like Wally. Mercifully I have never lost him in a crowd, so can't comment on how easy he is to find.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheqWJLFiDs1mK8RuPpmAeVInWyodlqKOktlBxOXwlhyphenhyphenODMiPO3d801MhEhQFWPcTulSDZIxkXvFb1txXwaUyAkcly8UPovygz9EOSJKqoYe43GOfrC08nOlaZ05FbADNOGQCjgDgEUM0s/s200/wheres_wally.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="200" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">There he is!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While I was contemplating this costume, he changed his mind and said he wanted to go as the whale from Julia Donaldson's 'The Snail and the Whale'. TR's reasoning for this was, 'I am big and I like swimming.' I won't comment on that. If you know TR, I know you are now laughing. My mum and my cousin sent me links to whale costume ideas and I contemplated making a whale (not an actual whale - that would require a lab, at least, if not two willing and eager whales). At this point,TR announced that he wants to go as the little boy from 'How to Catch a Star' by Oliver Jeffers and I breathed a sigh of relief. This book character wears jeans and a top - a red and white striped top. <em>De ja vu</em>, anyone? So, now I'm back to trying to find a red and white striped top.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDOyGdzJrcRGEMaznl6f-mUx1Ns1Wu_pBZGpfzJKrD68t3Pk0-SViYMfAbllJWlCu8NfQQ-HPjg_U1MiuLRP3WVXw_G_HbOu4-K4avbLXG8c0524bCMRjNa2rX_oIvx3TnOoGdXFiDeU/s1600/Oliver+Jeffers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKDOyGdzJrcRGEMaznl6f-mUx1Ns1Wu_pBZGpfzJKrD68t3Pk0-SViYMfAbllJWlCu8NfQQ-HPjg_U1MiuLRP3WVXw_G_HbOu4-K4avbLXG8c0524bCMRjNa2rX_oIvx3TnOoGdXFiDeU/s200/Oliver+Jeffers.jpg" width="193" /></span></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, that really doesn't sound too bad does it, all things considered? No, well it wasn't, until I discovered, that <em>I</em> have to dress up too. I quite like the idea of dressing-up and do harbour a secret wish to roam the streets dressed as a pirate, or maybe a Victorian woman, but in practice I can't see me pulling it off. Odd that, because as a child I loved to dress up. Even when not in costume, I was mainly in character. Thus in my ordinary clothes, I was away in my mind, living an extrordinary life. Not any more: now I revel in my Not Very Interesting Life and see it as a bonus if a week goes by without me having to achieve anything extrordinary. Still, I was willing to get over myself, as they say, and don something for the day. Half a day, in fact. Only now I was faced with the same problem as TR: which book character am I like? Over the years I've taken on various literary heroines and claimed them as my own but times and people change and I'm not sure I want to be a middle-aged Anne of Green Gables. I may have got my Gilbert, in Mr Ruby, but I guess I still think of Anne as a young woman: I've aged, Anne hasn't. </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Back to the Mr Men, then. Surely I could come up with a single facet of my personality that would be represented in one of the Mr Men? I asked TR for advce and his reply was, 'Well, you're not like Little Miss Somersault because you've got short legs [harsh, but true] and you're not like Little Miss Late because you're only late for most things, not everything [the boy has my number!] but you are like Little Miss Sunshine because you are very smiley and you like to be happy.'</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good save, TR. The boy will go far! So, Little Miss Sunshine it was... until I realised I own nothing yellow. A quick look at the back of a Mr Men book and a Little Miss book, where all the characters are pictured, gave me the idea of Mr Jelly. I'm easily startled (I recently jumped at my own reflection - true story!) and I own a bright pink jumper. Sorted! Of course, there was the problem of how to look wobbly. Mr Ruby had some suggestions to make on the topic, but I'm not about to type them here. Then a second problem occurred to me: what was I to wear on my legs? I don't own pink trousers. Back to the <strike>drawing board</strike> back of the book! My mum, who clearly went to the same diplomacy classes as her grandson and son-in-law, suggested Mr Forgetful. </span></div>
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<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM5SKXvTwjLkkFjY-d3SNU6JBoXdA_yPLyYAJeHbXFR3zxS0biDih9wuLb9YLNWrWK-EGnHvMX_YH_7CxuaS1BSD-cSgXThEYBXnvZAkQKn-bD_n-hAYcRYCTQJnsKqxKt_OR8pHqlgo/s1600/Mr__Forgetful.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">That's me, that is.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRM5SKXvTwjLkkFjY-d3SNU6JBoXdA_yPLyYAJeHbXFR3zxS0biDih9wuLb9YLNWrWK-EGnHvMX_YH_7CxuaS1BSD-cSgXThEYBXnvZAkQKn-bD_n-hAYcRYCTQJnsKqxKt_OR8pHqlgo/s1600/Mr__Forgetful.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">She's got a point: if it isn't written down and attached to my person, accompanied by beeps and reminders, I will forget it. I like to blame the lupus, even naming the phenomenon of my extreme forgetfulness as 'stupus' but who knows if it's not just senior moments come early? A quick check of the back of the book revealed that Mr F is blue - hurrah! I can dress all in blue! He's also pretty much circular, which could be a little harder achieve. I've decided to approach this via the method-acting route, so if you see me between now and Friday, expect to see me stuffing my face with cake.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-19255719328778882272012-02-21T05:10:00.000-08:002012-02-21T05:10:09.166-08:00We-e-e-e-ell...it makes me wanna shout!<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I had cause today to ruminate upon the matter of what Lulu likes to eat. I know, even by my standards that's a little bit 'out there', but stay with me. One of the ways I <strike>waste time</strike> keep up with the zeitgeist is by reading some of the posts on <a href="http://www.mumsnet.com/" target="_blank">Mumsnet</a>. The site was originally conceived as a way for parents to exchange advice on a wide variety of parenting topics. It still provides that, but with a lot more besides. I mostly lurk there to read and chuckle at other people's comedic misfortunes, but I also like to pick up recipes there, or gain advice on the odd thorny parenting issue or awkward social situation. Like any community, actual or virtual, mumsnet has developed it's own in-jokes. These usually develop from particular threads which seem to catch the mood of the moment. One of these was a post about finding other people's shopping lists abandoned in trolleys or supermarket aisles. One mumsnetter urged others, 'ok i hav now new challenge next time you find a note meant for someone else or a shopping list in your trolley you are to hold on to i tight ans report in' (the typos are all hers) and the idea somehow took off. Thirty-two pages and 886 messages later, it seemed everyone had suddenly taken up the latest 'craze'. You can </span><a href="http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/137278-do-you-ever-find-left-over-notes-in-shopping-torlleys" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">read it yourself</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> if you're at all inclined.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADHCv3eaugktH2zRHlI2HKotLXRmcobBsdAh5Cbyd1651gS9N8Fxb41m_vaT1ooj2IZ-vuv0H4k-7-a4j9ie503c2R3eBSRnb8Rg644juLc-HyEIFpQLelxSvqm72DQ5yEosLKHkkce0/s1600/Lulu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjADHCv3eaugktH2zRHlI2HKotLXRmcobBsdAh5Cbyd1651gS9N8Fxb41m_vaT1ooj2IZ-vuv0H4k-7-a4j9ie503c2R3eBSRnb8Rg644juLc-HyEIFpQLelxSvqm72DQ5yEosLKHkkce0/s320/Lulu.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Whatever it is, she's looking good on it</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So anyway, whats that got to do with Lulu? Good question! Well, today I went to the supermarket and found an abandoned shopping list in my trolley. Now, prior to reading that discussion, I probably would have popped it straight in the bin, but of course my curiosity was aroused and I unfolded the crumpled scrap of paper, hopeful that I might find something to make me smile. Lo and behold, the first item on the list was, 'Lulu Food'. Not long after, my fellow shopper had written, 'Lulu treats'. I was intrigued! Now, I know I was in Waitrose and so maybe my fellow shoppers there entertain the rich and famous once in a while, but it got me wondering... if I was buying treats for Lulu, what would she like or expect? She's been rich and famous for so long now that I daresay it's been a long time since a chocolate hobnob really did it for her. No, I bet Lulu craves your more sophisticated snack. I had a good look in the biscuits and sweets aisle but failed to find the answer to my question. I know she grew up in Glasgow, but even so, I can't see her enjoying a deep-fried Mars Bar, can you?</span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL3o13fDTU78CU-6z4N5swshyphenhyphenWnBNLXFJfEVFhjozeNngOXMhmVxE9omEdEkOM0X2NxxS-z5U4hHdCb8Dg8mtXi5_J0orw9XSGXNoQecvR0hQwzi-vlfcftanWaq5hUJzHoFfrXKv9t2Y/s1600/Hobnobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL3o13fDTU78CU-6z4N5swshyphenhyphenWnBNLXFJfEVFhjozeNngOXMhmVxE9omEdEkOM0X2NxxS-z5U4hHdCb8Dg8mtXi5_J0orw9XSGXNoQecvR0hQwzi-vlfcftanWaq5hUJzHoFfrXKv9t2Y/s1600/Hobnobs.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Admit it, you really want one now!</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjL3o13fDTU78CU-6z4N5swshyphenhyphenWnBNLXFJfEVFhjozeNngOXMhmVxE9omEdEkOM0X2NxxS-z5U4hHdCb8Dg8mtXi5_J0orw9XSGXNoQecvR0hQwzi-vlfcftanWaq5hUJzHoFfrXKv9t2Y/s1600/Hobnobs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now, blog-watchers, I wouldn't want to short-change you or fob you off with guesswork and supposition. That librarianship degree didn't all go to waste, you know! Accordingly, I have researched the topic. It turns out that </span><a href="http://blog.lulusplace.co.uk/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lulu has her own blog too</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> and she's not entirely silent on the matter of what she likes to eat. Be honest: prior to reading <em>this</em> blog, you wonder how you filled the hours, don't you?</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lulu, as it turns out, likes to keep an eye on her cholesterol levels (so I was right on the deep-fried Mars
Bars) and loves fresh herbs. She grows them herself, apparently, and is quite a
keen cook. In her own words, or words similar to her own words because I’m
willing to bet the real Lulu doesn’t actually talk like a sound-bite from Woman’s
Weekly:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Friends who come to my house for lunch or dinner often ask
me about the ingredients in my most simple dishes…To me there is nothing better
than eating food that tastes great, and is also good for you! If you want to
see for yourself if herbs can help you feel younger, try sprinkling some on to
any dish like a bit of fairy dust and watch them work their magic!</blockquote>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, there you have it: I was in the wrong aisle. For ‘treats
for Lulu’ I should have been in the fresh herbs aisle or possibly the magical sparkly herbs aisle. As it happens, I did buy
a pot of parsley so she might want to pop round here after all. She’ll have to
be quick though, or the guinea pigs will have eaten it all.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">Small print: the second item on the abandoned shopping list was 'Puppy Food'. I think the Lulu of the list might be a pet of some sort, but I couldn't have got an entire blog entry out if that. As it is, I'm pushing it.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
</blockquote>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-11759056803891461082012-02-12T14:58:00.000-08:002012-02-12T16:46:34.251-08:00I Promise that I Will do my Best...<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...To do my duty to God,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To serve the Queen,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To help other people</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And to keep the Brownie Guide Law.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those were the words of my Brownie promise. They've changed a little over the years, although the sentiments have remained largely the same. I joined Brownies when I was seven, then we moved abroad and I became a Sunbeam, then back to England for some more of being a Brownie and then onto Guides and Rangers. During my time as a Guide I also helped at my brother's Cub Pack. (Now that was fun!) Now I have a Brownie and a Beaver of my own (and no, you're not allowed to snigger at that!), both of whom attended Church Parade this morning. It's the church service this prompted this blog entry.</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Church Parade was one of the highlights of my Brownie and Guide life. Now, I know that sounds a little unlikely, but bear with me. I was a church kid anyway, or was by the time I got to Guides, so no stranger to a bit of sitting down, standing up, singing, sitting back down again and bowing my head. The church I attended at that time favoured a fairly sparse style of decoration and I always looked forward to a nice bit of Anglican or Catholic fancy church interior, not to mention the eminently singable Methodist hymns. That brings me onto the real reason I loved Church Parade: the Salvation Army band. Now, you couldn't guarantee their attendance but when they did show up, and my memory tells me that was more often than not, you could rely on their brass section providing a rousing accompaniment to, 'O Jesus I have Promised,' which was my favourite hymn when I was ten or eleven years old. Now, I realise it is entirely possible that I was a bit of an Odd Kid, but standing on tiptoe to catch a glimpse of the tubas, while belting out the words:</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">O Jesus, I have promised </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to serve thee to the end; </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">be thou forever near me, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">my Master and my friend. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I shall not fear the battle </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">if thou art by my side, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">nor wander from the pathway </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">if thou wilt be my guide. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, that counted for entertainment, in my mind. I seem to remember considering either joining the Salvation Army or taking up the tuba, but neither of these suggestions were greeted with a great deal of warmth by my parents. Later someone told me that the bonnets worn by the women of the Salvation Army were designed to protect their heads from the bricks that were often thrown at them as they marched through town centres. Frankly, those bonnets never struck me as protection enough from an incoming brick, so I was glad I'd never followed up that particular whim of mine. As for the tuba, well I was all but thrown out of recorder classes, so it's probably as well I never tried that either. Something tells me that, had I taken up the tuba, the chances of me having a brick thrown at me would have increased fourfold.</span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r6FNGchBFQHops2BQHU1Q755ahBHNdpFBUsp9UPjwKE4ZtlzRUd4TC5ZXkeGdGyrmg7g-N4PpbVR8X8B6SWGy4f-J2pyXnOsXBvayJS5qOHoYP8rQBkHHOp5xs6NspjmENlBwPWR31E/s1600/Salvation+Army.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1r6FNGchBFQHops2BQHU1Q755ahBHNdpFBUsp9UPjwKE4ZtlzRUd4TC5ZXkeGdGyrmg7g-N4PpbVR8X8B6SWGy4f-J2pyXnOsXBvayJS5qOHoYP8rQBkHHOp5xs6NspjmENlBwPWR31E/s320/Salvation+Army.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The tuba looks more resilient than the hat.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sadly, brass bands are notable only by their absence from the Youth Service, but we did have a good singing session this morning. The vicar of our local church is due to move on to pastures new and this was his last youth service there. To mark the occasion, the local Scout and Guide movements organised a 'Songs of Praise' type event, where the leaders had pre-chosen their favourite hymns and they introduced each one with a little spiel about how and why it became their favourite. I learned some pretty intresting stuff here, too. For example, one lady told us that she had been a Brownie, Guide and later Guide leader for pretty much all her life and she has always lived in the same area. So, by her reckoning, she has attended nearly 400 parade/youth services in that one church. I know we've already established that I'm easy to amuse, but that little fact impressed me! Also, I learned that <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTaoLEhIbU8" target="_blank">'The Battle Hymn of the Republic'</a> (yes, we actually sung that and I like to think we rocked the rafters) reminds the leader of the local BP Scouts of Brian Blessed. Now, I admit I do have a head cold at the moment, and my ears are quite blocked. Therefore I can only claim that I <em>think</em> he said it reminded him of Brian Blessed. Quite what his link with scouting is, I couldn't tell you, although I am guessing that he was once Chief Scout. If anyone can enlighten me there, I'd be most grateful. Frankly, the link between these seemingly disparate facts has been bugging me all day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div>
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<a href="http://www.traditionalscouting.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&Itemid=57" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BP Scouts</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, by the way, stands for </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-Powell_Scouts%27_Association" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Baden-Powell Scouts.</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Confusingly, they are more recently formed wing of the Scouting movement, who prefer to conduct their scouting in a more traditonal manner. I'm not entirely clear on the distinction, although TR is now a BP Beaver Scout. I signed him up on the basis that the groups are small and friendly and they appear to have an awful lot of fun. Plus TR is, by nature, something of an indoor kid, who will happily engage in outdoor activities if you take the trouble to make them sufficiently exciting for him. So far as I could see, the BP Beaver colony appeared to offer exactly that. I sold the idea to him on the promise of marshmallows and I am happy to report that he has eaten marshmallows at least twice since joining. For all I know, the more mod-cons Beavers may be scoffing them every week, but TR seems very happy in his Beaver colony and I like the fact that he can wear his uncle's old cub cap, once he moves up to cubs, which, by the way, in BP-speak are called 'Wolf Cubs'. Mercifully, the Wolf Cubs no longer wear the long grey socks and green garters, although a photograph on the wall of the BP Scout hut suggests that this practise was dropped only fairly recently. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm proud of the fact that my two are part of the Scout and Guide movement. I like feeling a strong link with the past, both my own and the general sense of Scouting and Guiding History. I also like the way it has it's own little subculture of rules and deferences, such as the left-handed handshake and the slightly odd names given to the leaders. (Actually, the Mouse's are known by their firstnames, but that seems to be the exception, rather than the norm.) I like the way the different groups keep common aims in mind, as demonstrated by the words of the promise, which vary slightly according to which part of the movement you are in, but which all express pretty much the same aims and desires. I also like the fact that you can earn badges. My word, as a Guide I loved earning my badges! By the time I left I had a whole sleeve full and had to learn to sew them on myself because, as my mum rightly pointed out, if I could earn my 'Needleworker' badge, I could jolly well sew the thing on myself!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So, come on folks, light the campfire, sew on your, 'Slightly More Enthusiastic About Hymn Singing than is Commonly Thought Normal' badge and join me in a rousing version of...oh, OK, we'll leave the hymns for now and go for a bit of that old Scouting number, 'Ging Gang Goolie'. As my parting gift to you on this blog entry, I'll share the following bit of trivia with you. Apparently the old campfire song was penned by Scouting founder himself, Robert Baden-Powell. He wrote a song consisting entirely of nonsense words, so that scouts all over the world could sing together and not be divided by liguistic differences. It was a lofty aim, although I think the message is clear: if you are going to write a unifying song, try not to pick words that will cause later generations to snigger into their campfire hot chocolates. Also, if you are a Brownie or a Guide leader, consider sharing the origins of this song with your charges. I spent an entire childhood baffled by why apparently responsible adults were making me maintain a straight face while singing about goolies. It took the advent of Wikipedia to teach me the true <strike>lack of</strike> meaning of this song!*</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's a youtube</span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VVB6kWZ05s&feature=related" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> link</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to the song. You gotta love the backing singer! Bless 'em, they look even more easily pleased than me, don't they? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: xx-small;">* Small print: if you're not from the UK or otherwise unfamiliar with Brit-slang, don't Google that term. It's not all that rude but I can't promise you that your Google results won't be.</span></div>
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<br />Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-13316088767819617452012-02-07T06:40:00.000-08:002012-02-07T06:40:22.367-08:00Corsets and Crinolines<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Ruby family have had one of those winters where we seem to catch everything going, sometimes more than once. It all started on November 5th, when, a few hours after the firework display, TR was sick. It's continued in that vein pretty much ever since. Roll on Spring, I say!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today, three out of four Rubies are tucked at home, feeling too ill to do much of anything. Whether the smallest Ruby will stay healthy, or whether he's just biding his time, well I guess we'll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, there may be a global recession but I like to think that we're keeping the paracetamol, bathroom cleaner and throat sweet economies buoyant. Want to buy shares? Unsure where to invest? You heard it here first!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Today the Mouse suggested that she and I watch the film version of Little Women and so we sat on the sofa together and shared tears and laughter along with the March family. The Mouse is a big fan of Little Women. She's read the abridged 'Usborne Stories for Girls' version and even attempted the original version, although she came unstuck rather at one of the long sermons. I remember my mum reading me 'Little Women' and 'Good Wives'. I think I was around nine or ten at the time. I then went on to read 'Jo's Boys' myself, which was a cunning trick my mum often played with books that were a little difficult for me: read me part of them and then leave them tantalisingly within reach, knowing full well that I'd be unable to resist the next installment. She's a clever one, my mum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At eight years old, the Mouse is already something of a book worm. She reads almost constantly, which obviously I am delighted about, although when she's reading instead of getting ready to go somewhere, I am sometimes tempted to commit the sin of agreeing with the Louisa M Alcott quote, “She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.” She also seems to have acknowledged the universal truth that, when you are too ill to do much of anything, a good sob on the sofa, to a nice period drama, is just what the doctor ordered.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> <br /> Today she is too ill to read but is wise enough to know other ways to quench her continual thirst for</span> <span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">stories. After the film version of Little Women, she asked to listen to the audio CD of Laura Ingalls Wilder's 'Little House in the Big Woods'. We are listening to it now, as I type. I just caught the line, 'And that was head cheese!' which, if you're interested, is some edible dish made from a pig's head. Can't say I fancy some at the moment.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Fun with a pig's bladder.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the Mouse's age I was a book worm too. What impresses me about her book addiction is that the Mouse has plenty of other activities to distract her from reading, whereas I had pretty much nothing else to do. I often wonder if I would have been so immersed in a culture of reading and stories, had the usual distractions been available to me. As it was, not only was I a child in the technology-lite seventies, but I spent two years of that childhood living in a remote outpost of what was once the British Empire. We had no television, no toyshops: only playing outside in the surf... and books. I used to save up my 50c weekly pocket money until I had enough money to visit the book shop. Then we'd all take the twelve mile bus or LandRover journey together and I'd buy books in the English book shop: bliss! I remember clutching the book to me, cherishing it's 'new book' scent and desperately wishing-away the twelve mile journey so that I could finally start my new book. It sounds idyllic, doesn't it?</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Tropical beaches, tropical diseases and a whole lot of reading.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On the downside, we fell ill there too, only with more exotic, tropical diseases: dengue fever, dystentery - that kind of thing. On one occasion I caught some illness that laid me low for two whole weeks. I had a high temperature and was delirious with it on occasion. A good friend lent me the box-set of Little House of Prairie, which I read avidly and thus begun a life-long love affair with the books of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Stuck upstairs in my room, while life carried on downstairs without me, I became completely immersed in Laura's world. In my delirium, Laura's pioneer life and my remote island existence merged, to the point where I began to hallucinate and, on one memorable occasion, ran downstairs in my underwear (it was too hot for pyjamas) and raved incoherently about jack rabbits. 'Jack rabbits! Jack rabbits! On my bed! Pa, shoot them - shoot the jack rabbits!' is apparently what I shrieked at everyone, to the undying amusement of the rest of my family. To this day, I remember being indignantly bundled back off to bed by my parents, who were both almost helpless with laughter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well, I'm not advocating becoming so immersed in literature that you can no longer tell the words on the page from the thoughts in your own head, but I am glad that the Mouse knows, already, what it is to lose yourself in a good book.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-48048071880186400682012-01-28T14:34:00.000-08:002012-01-28T14:34:44.825-08:00The Early Demise of the Televisual Viewing Policy<iframe allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" id="twttrHubFrame" name="twttrHubFrame" scrolling="no" src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets/hub.1326407570.html" style="height: 10px; position: absolute; top: -9999em; width: 10px;" tabindex="0"></iframe><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Before we had the Rubettes, when Mr Ruby and I were young and painfully <strike>self-righteous</strike> naive, I remember Mr Ruby and I discussing a televisual viewing policy for any future offspring of ours. (It's OK, we didn't actually refer to it as the 'Televisual Viewing Policy', although I am aware that this hardly exonerates us.) I seem to remember that the policy included the notion that our, doubtless perfectly groomed, offspring would be encouraged to read through the Radio Times in advance and highlight any programmes of interest. Naturally, in the event of any planned-viewing clashes, we would hold calm and rational discussions as to the best way forward. This was some time ago, so I imagine video recording was mooted as a possible solution.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I say, Father, the Radio Times has some awfully interesting programmes this coming week!</span></td></tr>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fast forward ten years or so and, frankly, I am amazed we even had the time to discuss such matters - much less the inclination! Clearly we were bonkers and very much PAC (Pre-Actual Children). I'm sure there were other pronouncements on a wide range of topics but, mercifully, time and the reality of bringing-up two small children has erased them. Maybe the ludicrous telly policy remains in my memory because it is so...well, ludicrous!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What actually happened was that both the Mouse and TR seem to go through phases with their viewing habits. When TR arrived on the scene the Mouse was three years old and I seem to recall a period of wall-to-wall CBeebies and the Disney Cinderella DVD. I remember a good friend passing on her top tip for coping with having one small child and an utterly dependent baby to care for at the same time, 'Teach the older one to work the TV and the DVD player!' I laughed, thinking she was in jest, but it turned out to be sound advice. Then there was TR's Thunderbirds phase. He would come home from nursery and request the Thunderbirds DVD - four exciting episodes of Supermarionation! - except that TR was at an age where repetition and familiarity counted for a lot and so all we got to watch was episode one, the thrilling - for the first couple of times - <em>Trapped in the Sky!</em> On the plus side, Thunderbirds ignited in TR a love of numbers and he remains an enthusiastic mini-mathematician.</span></div>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Currently he has a bit of a thing for Octonauts, an animated series for young children about a team of animals who perform undersea rescue missions. What I can't quite figure out is how come this particular group of animals came together and why they were so interested in marine conservation in the first place. The penguin, I get: it swims and who wouldn't want to preserve their food source? However, the cat, the dog and the monkey I find puzzling, and don't even get me started on the rabbit! What I do know for sure is that Octonauts makes me nervous. I've already mentioned my </span><a href="http://littlehouseontheheath.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-year-new-blog.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">fear of fish</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Imagine my horror, then, when Captain Barnacles recklessly piloted the GUP-A into an underwater trench of such dark unspeakable horror that I had to leave the room.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just as they go through phases of wanting to watch a lot of telly, so the also go through phases of hardly wanting it at all. Like most things, I guess, it ended up being self-regulating and I'm happy to report that, while we still occasionally buy the Radio Times, nobody goes anywhere near it with a highlighter pen and their viewing is largely a mixture of the haphazard and the familiar. Frankly, I wish I'd listened to Abraham Lincoln on the subject of television viewing... oh OK, so television wasn't invented then, but he does have good quote about policy attributed to him:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my best each and every day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">As good a theory on child-rearing as you're ever likely to hear, I think,</span></div>
<br />Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-53506651667354272922012-01-15T06:34:00.000-08:002012-01-15T06:34:40.521-08:00From Upper Slips to Under Slips: ballet with the Badgers<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm taking a short break from my introductory series to blog about our visit to the ballet today. You'll have to wait for the thrilling entry about little houses and their significance in my life.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Mouse and I went with our Badger friends* to the Royal Opera House, to see a performance of <em>The Nutcracker</em>. The Mouse is a keen ballet dancer and thoroughly enjoyed our trip there two years ago, to see <em>Tales of Beatrix Potter</em> and <em>Les Patineurs</em>. We had a slightly lengthened journey there, due to engineering works, but at least that meant we got to chug past Griffin Park stadium, home to the </span><a href="http://www.brentfordfc.co.uk/page/Home" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mighty Bees</span></a>.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXoQmcQ5uxPKxGfnm2zI3_j0xNP4xcZ3Xt_MVslBQjBZG-W_H43aOCrtzZ8efrss_CEy5_DpHsg89NmlTOooXIB28pkKl85hZV_wwrCHVhTV1rnfmquMRRwFZFMTqidwnqfa9oG-GmgGs/s1600/Griffin+Park.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXoQmcQ5uxPKxGfnm2zI3_j0xNP4xcZ3Xt_MVslBQjBZG-W_H43aOCrtzZ8efrss_CEy5_DpHsg89NmlTOooXIB28pkKl85hZV_wwrCHVhTV1rnfmquMRRwFZFMTqidwnqfa9oG-GmgGs/s320/Griffin+Park.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Although the view out of the train window wasn't quite like this</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We made it there though and took our seats in the Upper Slips, which are a very long way up but the great thing is a) I can afford tickets to watch a ballet in a beautiful space and b) the Mouse can fidget as much as she likes and nobody minds. Credit to her, she didn't fidget much at all, but she did need to crane forward to get a better view. At one point I worried she would slip right off the balcony, as her dancing feet got the better of her and she almost joined in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Royal Opera House in Covent Garden is sandwiched in between other buildings, it's glass house-like exterior almost lost in the crush, but the interior of the auditorium is really impressive. It looks very much as a toy theatre should, only on a much larger scale, obviously. The first time we visited, two years ago, I was completely wowed by it it all: the red velvet curtains with gold brocade edging and 'ER' emblazoned on them (as in the Queen, not as in Dr Kovac); the plasterwork angels and cherubs along the edges of the balcony, the Grand Tier and the auditorium; the blue and gold domed ceiling... it's a visual treat before you even reach the performance.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8acj1Mi2CqSpT40m29NZKemfa3m-tmQQ0KosZuFQhkZz0QvuvOB7E8nXP1vpHzmXaqfQPC8BUWaRT3y34s6VUuderxbEVNAJrvgfE1F22z4qpGGC8QmCyCNGRZKv7eUUzAL_aq0sGZ0/s1600/The-Royal-Opera-House.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS8acj1Mi2CqSpT40m29NZKemfa3m-tmQQ0KosZuFQhkZz0QvuvOB7E8nXP1vpHzmXaqfQPC8BUWaRT3y34s6VUuderxbEVNAJrvgfE1F22z4qpGGC8QmCyCNGRZKv7eUUzAL_aq0sGZ0/s320/The-Royal-Opera-House.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You can just about see the angels and the cherubs</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtaXaW1xqMJ9nkwzfl_N5kO5THJNbgSoHN2zh7My5pI55WDRjpEG5Pacq5uucs7oP3HIAQBeEuWu5bOTu8yIhr7mdrG_V7gEB90s_C-DioauB02rZAVHGlWksTjSfs0XpshRBGgtHE40/s1600/Dr+Luca+Kovac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYtaXaW1xqMJ9nkwzfl_N5kO5THJNbgSoHN2zh7My5pI55WDRjpEG5Pacq5uucs7oP3HIAQBeEuWu5bOTu8yIhr7mdrG_V7gEB90s_C-DioauB02rZAVHGlWksTjSfs0XpshRBGgtHE40/s200/Dr+Luca+Kovac.jpg" width="132" /></span></a></td></tr>
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<br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The ballet was amazing, the sets and staging were stunning and the music was beautiful. I'm not sure I've ever seen two harps in one place before; quite big, aren't they? You can watch a trailer for it <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nU1oN0AuKgc&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">here</a>. The Mouse says her favourite part was the palace of Sweets and she loved the the Sugar Plum Fairy's costume and Clara's nightdress. She was rather eloquent on that topic and I'll try and remember her words. "I loved Clara's nightdress because it was so simple and yet looked like a ballgown as well as nightdress." The Mouse is interested in fashion and costume design and I find I learn things from her observations, which is good because I really don't have a clue about these things! One of my favourite aspects of the day is how it felt like a proper day out with her. She was good company and very much in her element.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Speaking of the Sugar Plum Fairy, I did find myself a little distracted during the <em>Grand Pas de Deux</em>, speculating on what, exactly, male ballet dancers wear under their tights. I know, and I'm sorry, but I couldn't help noticing that a) there was no VPL (Visible Panty Line) and b) Prince Coqueluche had quite a Grand Pas de Deux himself. Well, in the interests of your education, dear readers, I looked it up on the Internet once I was back home again and I can reveal that male ballet dancers wear a thing called a 'dance belt' under their tights. I would post a picture but, frankly, some of you may be reading this early in the morning. The dance belt is a cleverly designed piece of dance foundation wear, which neatly addresses the twin problems of aesthetics and support. It's essentially a flesh-coloured high-waisted jock-strap/thong arrangement, constructed largely from spandex. So, now you know. Consider yourself educated.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;">* Not actual badgers.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-14093164305416023592012-01-10T03:50:00.000-08:002012-01-10T03:50:21.124-08:00Heath? What Heath?<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Good question.I'm glad you asked. Surrey Heath, as it happens. I live there and my house is built upon heathland, which probably explains why I face an uphill battle each year, trying to grow vegetables. Heathland soil is typically sandy and acidic: not what your average carrot would choose for an ideal home. Still, carrots may have one opinion, but according to Channel 4's 'Location, Location, Location', Surrey Heath is the 6th best place to live in the UK. I'm not sure we should get that excited about coming sixth in anything, but I guess we should celebrate what we have, given that we also received an accolade for having shockingly high carbon emissions round here. (For what it's worth, I've just put on a jumper, rather than switch on the central heating. Weren't me, Jack!) On the plus side, I've recently discovered that we have our own <a href="http://surreyheath-residents.co.uk/" target="_blank">blog</a>. Check it out, fellow residents.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In preparation for today's blog entry I did a Google image search for Surrey Heath and here's what my search returned:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFfUKDUPbLe2eez6ZKuwN0d1vKr77_GIW0FSW-0GnKBNbbuH-m0Y2AoZ7fRcanNFD_CHDdSaPJkjA46YMBqx0yCY36jGBxvyW2bZtSAnFXGMnmbGGtfSJfIWGU_O2fpxgKCkX2bJ4f2k/s1600/Michael+Gove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFfUKDUPbLe2eez6ZKuwN0d1vKr77_GIW0FSW-0GnKBNbbuH-m0Y2AoZ7fRcanNFD_CHDdSaPJkjA46YMBqx0yCY36jGBxvyW2bZtSAnFXGMnmbGGtfSJfIWGU_O2fpxgKCkX2bJ4f2k/s1600/Michael+Gove.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Also not my fault.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV06gZIvUvd_qxoJ_0Xn5eVH7sRUMQjlwdC0WAJWoxUX2zTcoDk84BjqHrT0bYfbttYSaCnyRxmwluss2C6GOnQLR5xSJGveYJcecm1elG2-JrwI7mKX758RrSpp2PTWSEtEezjcbWXOU/s1600/rubbish.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV06gZIvUvd_qxoJ_0Xn5eVH7sRUMQjlwdC0WAJWoxUX2zTcoDk84BjqHrT0bYfbttYSaCnyRxmwluss2C6GOnQLR5xSJGveYJcecm1elG2-JrwI7mKX758RrSpp2PTWSEtEezjcbWXOU/s1600/rubbish.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Nice!</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUg9Q92Yg4wWWRjtg2ct1r9I4HHuqn3yoHmbfym9YkplJ4-9jSfwVe4y-854XuAQaWXCNxCr603SMUbNdXNJa0W3nKiyVm0dTwRPjNOPHKM8CWDxwviB_LBR6TnFtype-FKRd60ansZGw/s1600/Surrey_Heath_Pigeon_Control.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="164" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUg9Q92Yg4wWWRjtg2ct1r9I4HHuqn3yoHmbfym9YkplJ4-9jSfwVe4y-854XuAQaWXCNxCr603SMUbNdXNJa0W3nKiyVm0dTwRPjNOPHKM8CWDxwviB_LBR6TnFtype-FKRd60ansZGw/s320/Surrey_Heath_Pigeon_Control.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Good to know.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So what <em>has</em> Surrey Heath got going for it? Well, apparently we enjoy 200 hours more sunshine a year than the UK average. Hard to believe today, as I look out of my window at a 'Tupperware sky': all grey and not a piece of blue in sight. We don't seem to have much in the way of crime. London is just a forty minute train ride away and yet it feels a long way from 'the big smoke' here. Our 'local' news comes from London and the stories aren't the least bit relevant to what goes on around here. Mr Ruby and I sometimes invent our own news stories, when the ones on the television news seem too far divorced from our lives.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">In Mytchett today, someone forgot to stop at the pedestrian crossing, but no one was hurt...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif;">The number 3 bus was a little bit late this morning...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and so forth. You're right, of course: not a lot happens round here, but then I rather like that. You, are, after all, talking to the woman who vowed to blog her Not Very Interesting Life. However, the older I get, the more I think I like an NVIL. Gone are the days when my young self looked out at the world and wondered when everything was going to get started. I used to make endless plans for the future and was always in a hurry to get to the next stage of my life. Now I celebrate the here and now, the simple things like domesticity, a cup of tea and a Quiet Night In. I used to wonder when I'd get to see the bigger picture; now I'm happy just to be <em>in</em> the picture! I think it's called middle age.</span></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1809775775981518562.post-52003725214444124532012-01-08T05:19:00.000-08:002012-01-08T12:17:03.220-08:00New Year, New Blog<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGWgfDXgd_hFfBSm9dIUFxrP2dK1vr76cKP7TroaovyxwdakUHi4XWLhA8JJl0LOeyQkYkmVpri4913seTkTQKaIl2zM8GsgYE0etPq0R2jojkB7_rW3qzKp0_rDmxXr6AAFRsCDszAw/s1600/little_house_on_the_prairie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbGWgfDXgd_hFfBSm9dIUFxrP2dK1vr76cKP7TroaovyxwdakUHi4XWLhA8JJl0LOeyQkYkmVpri4913seTkTQKaIl2zM8GsgYE0etPq0R2jojkB7_rW3qzKp0_rDmxXr6AAFRsCDszAw/s320/little_house_on_the_prairie.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Not actually my heath</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Happy New Year, everyone and welcome to the new blog. I know it's the 8th of January already but someone wished me a happy new year this morning, so I reckon the year is still young enough to celebrate all that's fresh and new. According to our </span><a href="http://www.stpetersfarnborough.org.uk/church/team.html" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">vicar</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> this morning, we've all had plenty of time to break our new year's resolutions and now's the perfect time to make some more. Well, he's right, but it did remind me that I need to crack on with my original resolution, which is....</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">to write every <strike>day</strike> week.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I joined a writer's group a while back. Goodness only knows how I got admitted into that select circle but I love going and reading the contributions from the others. Only thing is, I have so far failed to contribute anything of worth myself. Pretty soon I am going to get rumbled and they'll all figure out that I'm there for the company, the coffee and the open fires. To be fair, I have a very impressive back catalogue of novels, children's books and information books. Impressive if you like opening chapters and aren't at all bothered by what <em>ought</em> to come next. I've worked it out though: in addition to being scared of fish (What? They're creepy!) and braided beards, I'm scared of committing myself to a piece of writing. Pretty much the only therapy for that is to keep writing and somehow a blog seems less threatening; less permanent, I guess.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You're wondering what I could possibly find to write in a blog, right? Back in the summer of 2011 I blogged about </span><a href="http://mrs-ruby.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">our trip to America</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. (Check out the makeover, blog devotees!) This blog is going to be more...every day. I'm planning to fill it with the ordinary little things that make up my daily life: pretty much the same old ramble I post on my facebook status. <strong>Marvel</strong> at the cakes I bake, <strong>thrill</strong> to the details of my sewing projects, be <strong>amazed</strong> at... hmm... I'm running out of ideas. If this blog were a film, it would be called, 'A Life More Ordinary'. Stick with me and I'll do my best to at least be diverting and maybe those clever writer friends of mine will let me stay. (I'll keep you posted on that too.)</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Actually my heath (well, not mine exactly...)</span></td></tr>
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<br /></div>Mrs Rubyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12514200332616646567noreply@blogger.com3