To you, to me. 23/01/2010
 
‘If at first you don’t succeed . . . Give up. Because the chances are you’ll probably always be a little bit s**t at it.’



There. Take it. And keep the sentence somewhere safe so that, in the unlikely event of my temporarily suffering from amnesia and attempting to decorate again, you can ram the sentence down my throat and make me eat my own words. Because decorating is NOT fun.



A good work-(wo)man never blames her tools. But it was their fault. Probably cos they were cheap and if you pay for peanuts you get crap.



The soft cushiony bit of the roller thingy keeps sliding away from the handle and every time I roll with too much enthusiasm, (not that I’m feeling that enthusiastic now,) the squidgy-bits flies off and splatters emulsion around the room.



And I’m covered, literally covered, in paint. I have tiny, weeny splattered dots climbing up my arms, drips on my face and in my hair and I am not a happy bunny.



I’m now ‘taking a break’ from a job that I shouldn’t have started in the first place. I knew I shouldn’t have started, I could see the expression on Jay’s face when I walked in from the shed with all the decorating stuff in my arms. He knows there’s little point in interfering when I’m on a mission, yet he might as well have sighed loudly and said, ‘Here she goes again,’ or something along those lines. He’s avoiding helping at all costs, because , like his stupid wife, he is also rubbish at decorating, only he knows it. Subsequently he's taken refuge in the pub and left me to it. And somehow I’ve got to prove him wrong for doubting my decorating abilities in the first place.



The thing is he’s right. I am rubbish at decorating. Only I keep forgetting. I thought it would be easy since it’s only the bathroom, it’s not huge and I’m not wall-papering, (the last time I attempted to wallpaper the paste proved insufficient and the entire family had to literally hold the paper up against the wall to keep it up! You see? Not my fault. Crappy tools again.) 



I’m wondering whether it would be okay if left as it is? I mean it still functions as a bathroom. Everything still works. There are a few little drips of paint in the bath, but they’ll wash out, surely? And I think bluey-white is a nice unique shade anyway?



Obviously I’ll have to hoover up the bits of shattered glass that flew around the room when I fitted the roller with an extension pole and began unintentionally smashing stuff. It must have looked as though I were auditioning to be the third Chuckle Brother.  First I smashed my Jo Malone Vanilla candle and then I turned around to see what  I’d smashed and accidentally whacked the crystal bubbles from my pot of random pretty stuff that lives in the bathroom. Perhaps I should have listened to Jay when he told me to clear the room before I started.



I wish painting was as easy in my real life as it is here, in my virtual world on the P.C. I could just click a few times and it would be whatever colour I wanted? When are they gonna invent that? Probably not in the next half hour so I guess I’d better get on with it.



It’s taken about 7 hours so far, and I’m about half-way through, so if any of you feel compelled to come help please do so :-) In the meantime I shall return to lay in the drippy, bluey-white bed I’ve made myself :-/



Steph x

 
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Punctuality has never really been my thing. And it is with shame that I make that statement. Alas even with the greatest of intentions and all the will in the world I never have been able to perfect my time-keeping skills. Tis a flaw that gets me into trouble time and time again. No pun intended ;-)

I therefore have refrained from sending a very stroppy email to the North Pole today, for I fear it is my tardiness that is to blame for the absence of one of the pressies on my list to Saint Nick.

Perhaps if I’d returned my list sooner he might have had time to make the necessary negotiations with the Weather Man. To ensure that the snow did not fall upon our little village last night as I’d specifically requested. Alas I guess once again I was too late.  

I know I did state that I didn’t want a white ‘Christmas’. And I am also aware that ‘Christmas’ isn’t actually until next week. Yet I assume that Father C knew what I meant, he is magical after-all, and he should know that as a woman I am fully within my rights to say one thing and mean another.

Ah well, I have been a very good girl this year, so hopefully all the other stuff on my list will appear :-)

Generally speaking 6:30am and I do not meet very often. Unless I am still awake from the night before, or am going on holiday or something. Well last night I went to bed at a reasonable hour and did not have plans for holidaying today, so you can imagine my surprise when I found myself wide awake and face-to-face with the digits ‘6:30’am flashing furiously on my phone.

‘It’s snowed!’ Jay whispered. ’Come and see!’

And as though I might have doubted him had I not witnessed for myself, my excited husband led me by the hand, down the hall and into the living room where we stood surveying the snow-covered, bright white street.

Michael McIntyre (my fave comedian of all time,) makes a little joke in one of his stand-up gigs that a man should never ever wake his wife on her day off unless it has snowed or a celebrity has died. And Jay seems to take this rule very seriously indeed. He never normally wakes me when I’m due a lay-in. This morning though I’m so glad he did. Because it was absolutely beautiful.

Together we padded through the house hand in hand, viewing the picture-postcard scenes from every possible angle of the comfort of our warm house. We checked the drive. Beautiful. We gasped at the garden. Even more beautiful. We tiptoed into Lori’s bedroom for a glimpse of the front garden. Again very beautiful.

And eventually, once we’d decided that yes, the snow had made everything indeed beautiful we climbed back into bed and whispered excitedly until we’d nodded back off to sleep.

Of course snow is all well and good when one has nowhere in particular to be. So today Santa, the Weather Man, Mother Nature and Climate Change can all be forgiven for granting us with a winter wonderland in Wymington, yet I’m slightly nervous that should the snow continue to fall my rellies might be a tad disappointed when they tear open the wrapping paper I have already purchased and find a pressie of Sweet F.A inside.

Because *Shock, horror* I haven’t yet finished my Christmas Shopping. And if the snow continues all the shops will shut, I won’t be able to drive (I can barely drive in fine weather, let alone snow) and the presents I intend on buying next week will remain on the shelves til next year.

Now I’m thinking I should have added ‘punctuality’ and ‘better organisational skills’ to my Christmas list this year, cos right now both are looking more useful than the sable. :-/

Steph x
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My husband, Jay, hasn't exactly got, what you might call, a way with words. I mean, he tells hilarious jokes, (he never forgets a good punchline, unlike yours truly,) and he can do great accents, (my favourite is his Irish one, it's delicious -I would have married him in seconds if he'd used that on our first date!) and when he's working he uses a silver tongue in all his sales pitches. Yet when it comes to describing things Jay will almost always favour his own terms, sound affects and actions over the language of a standard Oxford English dictionary.


It took a while before Jay and I truly understood each other. Not that we have a lack of communication or anything, it's just that I am, in Jay's words, 'a posh Surrey tart,' with a love of the English language and he is a typical west -end London lad that knows and uses virtually every form of cockney rhyming slang ever invented, (and some that I'm pretty sure he's invented himself.)





You want me to give you an example don't you? Hmmmm, well he once called me and said,

'I've just gotta rub over me Baked Beans before we go out tonight. Should I wear my Scooby's or my Gloria Gaynors?'




Which roughly translates to,



'I've just got to iron my jeans and should I wear my shoes? ('Scooby Doo's') or my trainers? '




Gradually, as time has rolled by, we've managed to find a compromise between our two languages so we can chat like any other couple, though I still use terms he finds hilarious and he still says things like, 'tune, by the way,' when a good song comes on the radio or, 'it ain't about that,' when he finds something he doesn't like so much.




One of my favourite characteristics that my gorgeous man possess though is his ability to do Blockbuster sound affects. Seriously he can make the strangest noises. He can simulate a car or a plane or any other motor for that matter, and can make machine-gun noises that wouldn't be out of place in any violent movie. I think it's a talent he shares with the majority of his kind, (the males species that is,) because I've noticed that lots of boys can do it. (Perhaps they learnt at the secret lessons boys had at school, the one where they also learnt to set their farts on fire and to make paper aeroplanes that really can fly?!)




Anyway the point is I am now pretty much used to the way he communicates and thus wasn't surprised when he just pointed out that instead of his life being, (*whistles* a happy tune,) it's more, ('dun, dun, DDDDUUURRRNNNN!!!')




(What he means to say is that instead of everything being easy and simple in his life, it always seems to be complicated and dramatic.)




And this, I'm afraid is where I have unknowingly influenced him. You see my life is always a little dramatic too, I almost always take the hard route and those things that old people are always on about, that are 'sent to test us,' always seem to be sent directly to me. (Perhaps I should redirect my mail?!)




Drama always seemed to follow me around, yet now it appears to want to follow Jay too. Which is why my husband is currently stranded approximately 170 miles from home up in Middlesbrough.




It's a long story, (which involves the loss of a car key and the lack of a spare,) and the conclusion is that instead of being home with Mummy and Leo, Daddy is wearing yesterdays clothes, smells like a tramp, (I imagine, because he forgot to take a towel to use after taking a shower,) and is awaiting the arrival of the spare key which should be with him before 9am tomorrow morning, (according to the very nice lady at the post office whom also kindly informed me that I'd forgotten to actually seal the envelope containing the spare key. Ooops.)




So anyhow I am now technically home alone. Little Leo is spending the night away with Nanny Sandie, (which was arranged during the bizarre hour during this afternoon when it was suggested that I would act as courier and rescue my hubby by taking the 4 hour (and £77!!!) train journey up to meet him,) and Lorelei is still down at Nanny Annie's (and I'm missing her like mad!)




I've got my Tilly and my Jack (both of whom act like Rottweilers, will keep away the burglars and thus will, for one night only, be allowed to sleep on my bed tonight!) – I've got my Tinkerbell (although she hasn't been home for a while, dirty little stop-out) and of course I have Woody and Lucky (the two ducks in the garden) but other than that I'm on my tod.




I'm a 21st century chick. An independant woman. I don't need a man. I enjoy my own company and will saviour this time alone. Ah who am I kidding?! I miss them all already. And I don't quite know what to do with myself.




I have toyed with the idea of drinking Jay's Stella's in the fridge and then belting out a few tunes on the karaoke machine (yep, we must be the only family in Britain to have a karaoke machine in our living room! lol) but singing solo to a couple of mutts seems a little sad, even for me.




I have also toyed with the idea of clearing Lorelei's room and getting cracking on the makeover I'm going to perform as a surprise for her when she returns home. (I've been all inspired by 60-minute makeover and have concluded if they can do a whole house in an hour (give or take the tea break they have half-way through, lazy buggers) I can certainly do a room in 2 weeks!) - Yet I just can't bring myself to tackle the mountains of bits of plastic and play-dough and broken or unused toys.




The telly is somehow displaying billions and billions of channels but still absolutely nothing worth watching and the housework is beckoning but I'm on strike. No way am I going to spend the evening scrubbing thank you very much. (Though I am aware that it is Wednesday and therefore I need to 'do the bins.' Yet since this is Jay's job I'm not really sure what, 'doing the bins' actually entails . . . anyone? lol)




I could go out. Except I have about a fiver in my bag and cash-card is up north. I could invite some friends over, (except we've nearly run out of toilet roll and I don't think it's very good etiquette to invite guests over and ask them to bring their own.)




What did I used to do before I became a Mummy and a Wife? It seems an age away . . . let's see . . . If i wasn't in the pub, or out dancing the night away I might have been in the gym, (Katy and I used to go together. We'd weigh ourselves first, then work-out, then weigh ourselves again, then go and have a Maccy D's to console ourselves on the discovery that we hadn't lost an ounce. Lol) – or failing that I think i would have been at home pampering and preening and beautifying myself.




Yep. That's what i'm gonna do. Stick my ipod on shuffle. Spend an hour in the tub. Deep-condition my hair. Exfoliate. Moisterise. Face-Mask. Slip into my softest PJ's and chill . . .




And just like that. Suddenly I'm not feeling quite so lonely after all ;-)

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When I was at school, the subject of Science appeared on my timetable merely to bridge the gap between the subjects that I, personally, found more stimulating. Like Drama and Lunchtime. Three times a week I was provided with the perfect period in which to smoke fags in the woods and re-do my make-up and thus my entire scientific knowledge could probably be written on the back of a shopping receipt.




Yes I know that H20 is the periodic code for water, (and J2O must, therefore be the code for juice, lol) and I know that gravity is the force to blame for the sagging of various body parts in the latter stages of life. I also know a little about genetics.




My knowledge of the human anatomy came directly from the problem pages of J17 and More magazine and I have never, ever dissected a frog, or any other animal for that matter.




Science bored the pants off of me and I wasn't about to waste what little time I did spend behind the school gates being bored. Perhaps if I could turn the clocks back I would have concentrated a little more, smoked a little less and saved some dosh on foundation and mascara, but then again perhaps if I'd have concentrated a little more I wouldn't be quite so open to non-scientific theories on life in general.




Astrology, alternative therapies and the paranormal are far more likely to gage my interest. I'm not really religious but I'd sooner buy into the story of Adam, Eve and the Snake than I would details of The Big Bang and Evolution. (Not just because I love a good old romance and a bit of nudity, I hasten to add,) I'm ashamed to admit that I am not intellectual enough to grasp the basics of evolution – I've always wondered, for example, if we evolved from monkeys, how come monkeys still exist? Surely they should be humans too? Or did only a percentage of monkeys evolve and the rest simply remained monkeys? You see? I am absolutely hopelessly clueless.




I particularly, whilst I'm on the subject, loathe Science Fiction as a form of entertainment. The entire concept of fusing Science, which by definition is based on fact, with fiction born from the minds of geeky teenaged boys, just doesn't do it for me. I think the two should be separated completely. Either we believe the men in the white coats or we take the imaginative route instead, thank you very much. (I don't mean to offend anyone here by the way, I've never actually seen Star Wars, but I've heard it is quite good and I know that Princess Leia was very beautiful with a fabulous hair-do!)




What I do love is the Supernatural. Not the programme, (which Jay watches religiously, I'm not a fan, though do tune in for the Sam and Dean deliciousness) but the idea of ghosts and angels and life after death never ceases to amaze me.




I am a firm believer in the existence of 'something else,' - not just because of my own, 'magic powers,' (which I won't tell you about for fear you'll think I'm even nuttier then you ever thought before,) but because I cannot comprehend the idea of one coming to the end of their lives and dying into absolute nothingness. (Ooooh I was half expecting a red squiggly line there but apparently 'nothingness' is actually a word.)




Without getting deep and meaningless and starting the 'life – what's it all about' age-old debate, (which one should only ever indulge in after taking drugs or drinking lots anyway, because otherwise it is too complicated a subject for the poor human brain to take on,) – I do have my own little theory and that is that I believe life is all about learning. You live, you love and you learn and when you die your soul carries the traits and the knowledge you've gained from one life, right on to the next. It's reincarnation, but not as we know it ;-)




I also believe that we have the ability to tune into other zones and thus that we can indeed communicate with those no longer living in the 'zone' we're in right now.




Some communicate with the powers of mind, some use ouigi boards, some go to spiritualists church's or mediums, some ring those ridiculously expensive telephone numbers in the back of magazines. But me? I use the powers of the almighty baby monitor . . .




Our house is old, (don't ask me how old, I haven't a clue,) it's a cottage built from stone and decorated by a blind person with very little patience, (I assume? Though that's pretty irrelevant anyway) – and very often one can feel the strange sensation of a kind of 'presence' in the place.




Some strange things have happened, objects have been moved. (I once came down the stairs to find the telly was tilted and facing a wall . . .) and then I went with my pal Tasha to a spiritualist church and guess what they told me? They said my house was haunted.




To be more precise they said that the spirit of a small child might just be lurking around the joint. A week later Jay found some peculiar old toys in our loft. (The little hairs on my arms are now standing to attention, how's yours?!)




So this was months and months ago and although a few eerie things have happened since, none quite so eerie as the episode the other night.




My hubby and I were laying in bed at about 3am, when the lights on our baby monitor suddenly flashed red, detecting movement in our sons bedroom. These lights were accompanied, not so strangely, by the sound of a baby crying. I wouldn't have batted a sleepy eye lid if it wasn't for the fact that our baby was at that moment in time laying in his fathers arms.




We've since heard a number of peculiar noises coming from Leo's baby monitor. The sound of a small child singing, (whilst my other small child was sound asleep,) - the hushed voices of adults talking, Country and Western music, you name it, it's been bought to directly to our bedroom via the monitor.




The simple explanation of course is that our monitor is simply picking up the signal from somebody else in the area, which is totally plausible as many a fresh baby has been born in the village and at least one of the families must have a monitor like ours, yet at 4 in the morning there is something a little scary about hearing a man who isn't my husband chatting away in my room. Lol

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This morning we won £250,000.

What do you mean, 'yeah right.' ?! We did!

Granted the money isn't quite in the account just yet. But we've definately won, the Readers Digest told us so. And I trust the Readers Digest because . . . well . . . because I'm sure my Nan has a few of their books and she wouldn't buy from a dodgy company.

So we are definately winners and the dosh shall definitely arrive within 72 hours, which gives me enough time to properly plan out what I'm going to spend it on. I'm going to make a list. (I love making lists.)

Obviously I'll have to briefly take darling Jay's wishes into account, especially since it was technicaly him that won the money, but we are married and everyone knowes wives are better at spending money than husbands.

Whilst I'm contemplating exactly what to buy with our £250,000 I am munching quite happily on some ice. (I should explain that when pregnant I suffer irrational and quite disturbing cravings for ice cubes, I like to make up at least a pint of ice cubes, which I then crunch, (much to the annoyance of mates and family) and I am extremely particular about the kind of ice I consume - eg. it has to have a 'snowy, frosty texture.' and the cubes have to be relatively small.) - so todays fix of ice cubes hasbeen donated ever so kindly to me from the staff at Raunds Maccy D's. Last night, on the way home from my evening at Mum's i started clucking like a heroine addict.  My withdrawal symptoms, i imagine are quite similar to those of a proper junkie. I start getting stroppy, (not unusual for a hormonal girl, least of all me,) and i get irritable. My heart starts to beat extra fast and i get hot flushes too. I just couldn't wait til we got home.

Really i ought to take this oportunity to thank Jay for negotiating my ice deal in Macdonalds in the middle of the night. Thanks baby, you're a star!

I suppose this leads me to the first item of my list.

1. Ice Machine. (Preferably portable.)

I need to go now, i need to pop into town and get some bits for the house, some stuff to keep us going until our dosh arrives. ;-)

I'll keep thinking about that list though, rest assured. And if you can think of anything else i might buy just let me know!

With Love,

Lady Steph.

(Item number 2. - A Title.)

x



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