One Snow White and No Dwarfs

I'm afraid that this is the best photo I have of myself as Snow White at Michael's school fair (Hello Magazine weren't there; I'm sure they would have done better)! Funnily enough, that's Michael in the photo with me.

At this precise moment, Michael is behaving as if he is on a sugar high. He is being over-noisy, over-lively (to say the least) and is hyper-excited. This is unfortunate. I have counted to "2". Once I count to "3", it's "time-out" and he has to stay in his room alone - usually for 4 minutes, but this time it'll be till morning (as it's nearly bedtime anyway). The throuble is, this computer is also in his room, which means that if and when I reach "3", I'll suffer as much as he does - computer will have be turned off and no more blogging!

OK. That's it. "THREE".

Sigh

I can think of nothing to blog about. This is unusual for me. Normally there's loads I want to spill out onto my blog. But today and of late, nothing. So I'm going to indulge myself in this meme which I found here www.repressedlibrarian.blogspot.com

1. Have you ever been searched by the cops?
No. I was once stopped (on suspicion of driving without L-plates shortly after I'd passed my test - I mean how insulting is that!) but it all came to nothing.

2. Do you close your eyes on roller coasters?
Yes I do.

3. When's the last time you've been sledding?
I can't remember - probably early teens (there was a hill behind our house)

4. Would you rather sleep with someone else, or alone?
Depends upon the weather.

5. Do you believe in ghosts?
No

6. Do you consider yourself creative?
yes - but not today

7. Do you think O.J. killed his wife?
Probably - but I know very little about the case.

8. Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie?
I'm sorry, I don't know who Angelina Jolie is. So Jennifer Aniston

9. Do you stay friends with your exes?
No.

10. Do you know how to play poker?
Yes. And I have played strip poker. Twice.


11. Have you ever been awake for 48 hours straight?
Yes. I have two children

12. What's your favourite commercial?
The prize would have to go to this one, because it's years since it was on our screens and I still remember the words:

We're here on a picnic
You can join us if you be quick
We've got lots of tasty goodies
And of course Country Life

It's fresh and it's English
It's better than you could wish
You'll never put a better
Bit of butter on your knife...

13. What are you allergic to?
Lots of types of make-up cause my eyes to water and swell.

14. If you're driving in the middle of the night, and no one is around do you run red lights?
No.

15. Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?
Yes. I have a birth-mark that's so well hidden that not even I knew about it until I was 15 years old. So make that answer "no" now.


16. Boston Red Sox or New York Yankees?
Red Sox (only because Mum recently visited Boston and bought a Red Sox T-shirt home for Michael. Otherwise I'd never have heard of either.

17. Have you ever been ice skating?
Yes

18. How often do you remember your dreams?
Frequently.

19. When was the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
Too long ago.

20. Can you name 5 songs by The Beatles?
Yes.

21. What's the one thing on your mind now?
It's hot

22. Do you know who Ghetto-ass Barbie is?
No.

23. Do you always wear your seat belt?
Yes.

24. What cell service do you use?
No idea.

25. Do you like sushi?
Yes.

26. Have you ever narrowly avoided a fatal accident?
I don't think so

27. What do you wear to bed?
T-shirts (belonging to husband) He pretends to find it annoying.

28. Been caught stealing?
Yes. Sigh.

29. What shoe size do you have?
6

30. Do you truly hate anyone?
No.

31. Classic Rock or Rap?
Classic Rock

32. If you could sleep with one famous person, who would it be?
No-one. I'd like to dine out with Stephen Fry.

33. Favourite Song?
I'll plump for "The Long and Winding Road"; but there are loads - I mean I love Judy Garland's classics

34. Have you ever sung in front of the mirror?
Oooh yes.

35. What food do you find disgusting?
A lot of what I cook is disgusting

36. Do you sing in the shower?
Yes

37. Did you ever play, "I'll show you mine, if you show me yours"?
Yes

38. Have you ever made fun of your friends behind their back?
Yes. I went through a phase of imitating people's voices and mannerisms whilst at school. People would laugh. I thought I was being simply amusing. In fact, I was being pretty horrible.

39. Have you ever stood up for someone you hardly knew?
Not for anyone I hardly knew, I don't think.

40. Have you ever been punched in the face?
I was punched in the mouth once whilst doing karate. I was day-dreaming at the time. (serves me right for #38, don't you think)

Parental Disapproval

My mother used to hate the coats I wore. They never "did up to the top" and therefore exposed my chest to the wind which put me at risk of "catching pneumonia". (How've I done with 'pneumonia' there, only I can't get the spell-checker to work on this thing..??) Mum still counsels me about what to wear on a cold day, when she comes to stay. She usually concludes this fruitless advice with "toilet anyone?" just as we're about to leave the front door. I mean: ???? I never remember to remind my 4 year old to try for a wee before we leave, and she's still remembering to remind me.

Last time she was here, she enquired as to what I was doing at the computer - I was spending a fair amount of time with my eyes glued to the screen. I had a choice: my response could be either (a) "nothing", or (b) "blogging". I was in the mood for a little parental disapproval at the time, so I plumped for (b). And then explained a bit about what "blogging" meant.

"Hmmmm???", she replied. Yes! I wasn't going to be disappointed in my quest for a hearty debate / row. "Isn't it better to meet people for real than to communicate with them like that? You don't know who you might be talking to. It doesn't seem right to me to communicate with people you don't know. I mean, you never know who might... Is this your blog? Can I read it?"

Anne introduced me to the idea of blogging at a time when I was ensconced in researching my family tree. My thoughts were provoked and I was slightly saddened by the fact that when I traced ancestors, all I had on them was a date of birth, a date of death and, sometimes, a date of marriage. I wanted to know so much more. I wanted to know how they felt about life; what their ordinary days were like; what thoughts travelled through their minds. And that's why I blog. So that the www is left with more than just my date of birth, marriage and death. I know that I could record a private journal - I might probably divulge so much more about myself in a private journal. But I'm never motivated to keep a private journal (I've tried it in the past - I've many a diary that ends on 3 Jan).

There is something thrilling about communicating with the world. I love the fact that I've met people from around the world - I can visit people any time, any where. And I never know who might visit me. I've even made new friends. I'm very much myself on my blog though. I don't want to leave the www with someone who isn't me, for heaven's sake, that would defeat the whole object. Nope. This is me.

And, if I say something stupid, hey, I can delete it!!! (soooo much better than "real life", don't you think?) Wish I could spell-check it though. I wouldn't mind leaving my ancestors with the illusion that I could spell.

Playing Away from Home

I haven't posted on my blog for a little while as I have been embroiled in discussions elsewhere. I'm half-tempted to write a post on 1 Corinthians 6, v 9 - 10, but I am not going to:
a) in case I provoke a repeat of a debate that is in mid-flow somewhere else and
b) because when it comes to matters of theology, I am wearing L-plates - lots of them, so as they are clearly visible. I'd be plagiarising left, right and centre (or, as some readers would assert, left, left and centre-left)

So, I'm sorry that I am not able to present you with the programme I had planned. Instead, I give you:
http://www.hamsterdance.com/classorig.html

Education, Education, Educ-air-con

I have conducted a straw poll of a very small number of British state schools and discovered that none of them has air-conditioning. We always had air-conditioning when I worked in (public-sector) offices. On a day like today (33 deg c) it is impossible to work productively without it. One school that was included in my straw poll has south-facing classrooms - the sun streams in and everyone melts.

This is ridiculous. I demand that we either
a) introduce air-conditioning to schools, or
b) allow our children to stay home on hot days.

Come on! If we can afford it for our HQ-based civil-servants, we can afford it for our SATs-sitting, curriculum-bound school-attendees.

Eh?

Am I going bonkers or has the font on my blog changed? I was trying to put something in the sidebar and failed. And when I republished, it all looked different. Has it changed? Was it always "times new roman"? I can't remember now.

Oh well.

I've just visited Louise's site and seen photos of horses, and now I've got the "Maybe it's a big horse" song on the brain - you know the one:
Maybe it's a big horse I'm a Londoner, that I love Lon... no?

I'm off to bed now.

Cutting Remarks

I would like to have long hair. My hair has never been long. It's fine hair and, as it grows, it's gets untidy. So I have it trimmed. And then sometimes I have it cut short.

I want my daughter (19 months) to have long hair. Sadly for her, she's inherited my hair. It's fine and fly-away. She had her second trim yesterday.

Now, hairdressers tell me that in order to grow hair, you need to have it trimmed regularly. But I once knew someone, when I worked at the Science Museum, whose hair went from being quite short to being quite long within the space of a year. "How do you do that?" I asked her. "You don't have it cut," she replied. And she was clever. She had a degree from Cambridge University. She should know.

Long haired people past and/or present: how do you do it?

Forget Housework....

... over on this blog:

http://teamhammer.blogspot.com/

we're debating "homosexuality and the bible". The Church is divided over this at the moment. If you are interested in hearing both sides of the argument, laid out coherently and in full, you may like to pay it a visit.

(I'm sorry I can't get my links to work, but I'd still urge you to go there and have a read of the post and the comments that follow it).

I hope that TeamHammer don't mind me drawing your attention to their blog. I'm assuming not. I mean I just love it when I have a new reader!)

Housework

This...



... is not meant to be happening. We spent-up and over-spent recently when we re-furnished our dining room. "From now on," I said "surfaces are to remain clear and CDs MUST STAY ON THE CD RACK!"

And once I've finished blogging, I'm going to go downstairs and make a start on tidying up...

Holiday Snaps

Italy, June 2006:

Fields...


Cherries...


Step out of the front door and what do you see? (And sometimes, when there's low cloud, you see nothing, and you are alone for the day)


Highlight of Michaels' holiday...


And (because I wanted to finish the film) my favourite drawing of Michael "as a wise man" (hence the head-gear) produced spontaneously by him after taking part in the church nativity play, Christmas 2005

Where's my heart?

Oh. It's ok. It's right there. On my sleeve. Where it always is.

Over the past three weeks, I have had a number of rather demanding tasks to perform, in addition to the exceedingly demanding task of being a mummy. I had to take a very deep breath before embarking on all of this. In short, and in addition to ferrying little people to and from nursery, toddler groups, music groups, french groups and baby-gym groups, I had to run three sessions over three weeks on strategic planning for the teachers at Michael's nursery (something I knew a lot about 5 years ago in my previous life as career-woman), help organise a school fair and be Snow White at it and run two Sunday School sessions. You may say "and...?", but for me, that was stretching, and to be quite frank, I didn't want to do any of it. You see all of it could have gone totally to pot. The fair and the sessions on strategic planning were especially liable to go pear-shaped.

But week 1 went well, week 2 went well - the nursery fair was a great success and raised loads of money for the school - I'd hoped (in my wildest dreams) that we might raise £1k - we topped it by at least £300!!!!!

My final task was yesterday evening: session 3 on strategic planning at the nursery. And, to be honest, it flopped. I'd not prepared it well enough, I was de-mob happy after the fair on Saturday and I just could not carry it off. It was embarassing. But it was ok in that I was free of charge, I'd not taken up too much of their time and we've almost achieved what we set out to achieve during these sessions (I'd been over-ambitious in my goals). We can fix it (with a little help from my friend: FIONA! FEEE-OOOO-NAAAA!)

So what would you do? Put things in perspective and say "I did really well to run 2 out of 3 good sessions after all this time away from work?" Or feel totally inadequate and fret about it all evening and then go to bed to dream about having to re-sit your finals, going into the exams knowing only what you know now about your degree subject.

How many more times am I going to have that dream?

Feeling A Bit Left Out Today

Well, you see, I'm the only one in this household who didn't win the World Cup yesterday. My husband, Mario, is, well, Italian. Therefore our children are half Italian and I'm English and useless at football.

BUT, I could become half-Italian by virtue of our marriage. A bit of form-filling (yeah right) and I'd be there. I'd never really considered this until recently (when England were knocked out of the World Cup and Italy weren't, if I'm honest). "Get me sorted!" I said to Mario, "Immediately!" Wow. I was to become half-Italian. I really liked the sound of that.

And then I went off the idea. I went to bed that evening and, with my head resting on the pillow, realised that this was not a good idea at all. It didn't feel right. Not one bit. Why? My reason for nudging Mario awake and saying "forget it, I don't want to be half-Italian after all... and by the way sorry for waking you up -I know you've an early start tomorrow" had nothing to do with my feelings about Italy, Italians or being Italian, but more to do with how very English I feel and how not at all Italian I feel. I realised, there and then, that my country has shaped me, to some extent, and that Italy hasn't (I mean that's not surprising - I'd never been there until 6 years ago). Now, if we were to move to Italy and I were to start feeling influenced by the fact that I lived there, then that would be different.

Anyway, here are some of my favourite things about England (I am not going to list my least favourite things - not today). I'm going to be honest here. I'm not going to include things that I feel I should include but actually know nothing about, like "great works of art":

1) London - magnificent buildings (like the Law Courts on the Strand, where I worked for a time), tiny networks of roads and alleys around St Pauls - all Dickensian in their Geography, theatres, museums, parks, shops, wine bars in cellars. Favourite bit of London? Probably Green Park / Victoria.

2) Historic buildings and all that come with them (including cream teas in their "tea rooms" and lavender bags in their gift shops - can't remember the last time I purchased either of those, but I just like to know that they are there) - so we're talking Windsor castle, Warwick Castle, etc. etc.

3) Yorkshire - well, you know, it's where my roots lie. I know that for a fact. I've studied my family tree.

4) proximity to loads of other great and very diverse countries - (including Wales and Scotland, of course)

Just going to pause here. This is quite difficult. I do not want to have to save this in draft. I NEVER do that. I MUST publish it. but I might come back and change it. I'm in danger of two things with this post:

i) sounding patriotic in a right wing sort of a way - don't want that. It's always difficult to talk about good things in England for fear of sounding like a total nationalist

ii) producing a list of twee "English" things that feature heavily in any holiday brochure aimed at enticing Americans to come over (I assume) but that actually never feature in the life of anyone who actually lives here.

OK - let's swiftly finish this post:

5) Coronation Street

6) Radio 4

7) The Times letters page - but only the amusing letter that they always publish at the bottom right

8) M&S food

9) This tiny and very ancient church in Wales that I fell in love with - worthy of a post all of its own. You have to walk through fields to reach it and it sits in a small round Norman churchyard. I'll do a proper post about it, one day. Actually it was the church where my father took his last service on Easter Day 2003.

But that's not in England, Ruth. Oh crumbs. Let's leave it there. I've strayed over the border. That must mean I've reached the end of a very uninspiring list of things that are good about England!!!

Right. I'm off to get meself a nice cuppa tea.

Tattie-bye.

Oooh, hang on:

10) History. Especially 18th century social and economic history and places you can visit to explore relics of that, first hand - e.g. Manchester, Ironbridge.

The Sermon on the Amount

The church I attend has been turning its mind to money, of late, and recently, traditional sermons have been replaced by presentations on giving (money to the church). I have missed all of these, as I've either been teaching at Sunday School or wandering around the churchyard with Isabel in order to spare the congregation from her screaming, running, jumping, singing and other attempts at disruption.

I have, though, read the vicar's piece on stewardship in the church magazine and, as well as providing me with the lovely bit of wit that I half-inched (pinched) for the title of this blog, it has given me a little food for thought. Our church was built for £12k in the late 1800s. It is now insured for nearly £9m (berlimey). It's a beautiful church. So anyway, if we were starting from scratch as a parish, we'd need to find rather a lot of pennies in order to build a church like the one we have. I suspect that if we were all to chip in, we might be able to afford a large tent somewhere.

Aren't we lucky then, that our ancestors made this investment in fabulous church buildings when they did? I mean, religious or not, I think most people would be heartbroken if these historic buildings were to disappear from our cities, towns, villages and hamlets.

So it's BDDGHSS

I may be quizzed on this tomorrow at 11.00am, when I become Snow White for 100 eager children (who can't WAIT to meet her - OOOOHHHHHH HEEEEEELLLLLLLPPPPPPPP). (Michael has asked me to repair his torn Snow White book, so that he can show it to "the real Snow White" - OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLPP)
So it's:
Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Sneezy.

I'm off now, to collect my costume. Michael's coming with me (how will I explain this???? "Mummy offered to have Snow White's costume cleaned and ironed for her and we're just going to pick it up....?")

Oh what a tangled web we weave
when first we practise to ....open the nursery school fair as Snow White.

Wish me luck. I have to say, I'll be offering one of my more bizarre prayers up to the Good Lord at 10.57 hours tomorrow!! If you, too, can bear to say a quick "Lord, make Ruth a good Snow White, Amen" it'll be much appreciated!

Heigh Ho

Perhaps I should be Postman Pat (... and HELP)

But when I tried on the Postman Pat nose, glasses, hair and hat, I looked just like.... Ruth wearing Postman Pat's nose, glasses hair and hat. So I opted instead for the Snow White outfit which seems, thanks to the black wig, to hide the real me to a greater extent (and I get to wear false eye'lashes for the first time!). And that's how I shall open Michael's school fair next Saturday.

But Snow White? What kind of a role model is she? I had a quick think about her and other female fairy tale characters last evening and realised that they all seem to send out the same attrocious message: "Girls. Find your Prince Charming (or better still, get fairy god-mother or 7 dwarfs to find him for you) and you shall live happily ever after". So now I really wish I'd opted for Postman Pat instead (despite the poor cover-up job). "What's so good about Postman Pat as a role model", said Mario last night? "Dunno. Have you seen Michael's library book?" came my reply. Oh we just love to debate these things, Mario and I. Sometimes we spend 30 - 60 seconds discussing the major issues that affect the modern age.

Anyhow, it's impossible to change my costume now (don't make me bore you with details of why - ok - if you, like me, hate minor details, go to the next paragraph now - woman who runs shop's on holiday from 5am this morning till the morning of the school fair and will already have ironed my dress and adjusted the choker).

So I am Snow White, minus dwarfs. I must say I did laugh at myself in the costume. I'm to be the Disney-cartoon version of Snow White and two things stand out when you wear a female Disney-cartoon costume:
1) the fact that your waist-line is greater than 10 inches
2) the fact that your eyes are not gigantic and your mouth isn't minute (is that how you spell my-newt? But it's the same as minute... hmmm. Oh well)

(It also looks very odd if you adopt anything other than a "shoulders back and breath in" stance - I caught myself slouching "Rigsby-style" in the mirror and made a mental note not to do that on the day!!)

But HELP: what am I going to say? How am I going to open the fair? Do I put on a Snow Shite (sorry, but I am leaving that typo there!! There's no way I'm removing that typo!!) type voice? If so, is it girly and pathetic or should I work to improve the role model and try to sound a little, oooh, I don't know, intellectual or something? What if the children point at me and shout "That's Michael's mummy"? How am I going to carry this off?

A stiff drink beforehand is not the answer - I considered that for a brief moment and decided swiftly against it...later, yes. At 8pm that evening I'm meeting a good old pal of my mine and a stiff drink'll definitely be my number 2 priority.

Lessons learned: never volunteer to do anything. Ever again.

As thingy as a wotnot

Many's the time, during conversation, that I need to call upon a witty or, at least, original, simile to add a bit of fizz-pop to what I'm saying. And never can I dream any up on the spur of the mo. Never, that is, until the other day when blogging,and my "like dust to a Dyson" flowed off the tip of my tongue (or fingers), like something from I don't know what, to describe beautifully how, every 4 years, I'm "sucked into" the World Cup. Yes. I was rather proud of that one. OK, it would have been better had it not contained a brand name, but "like dust to a vacuum cleaner" was both lengthy and lacking in alliteration. And, let's face it, nothing sucks like a Dyson.

What I like about my new Dyson simile, if I may make so bold, is that it aint funny, so it can be re-used. Funny similes are only funny once - they do not re-cycle. Not at all. As useless as a chocolate fireguard / ashtray on a motorcycle / one-legged man in an arse kicking competition are all, quite literally, one-hit wonders.

My favourite simile of all time was included in an edition of the dire BBC soap "Eastenders". It amuses me a little that in British soapland there is but one accolade worth achieving for all characters, be they great or small, and that is to get their "name above the door" of the local rub-a-dub (pub). The pub in Eastenders is called "The Queen Victoria", or "The Vic". Dirty Den was especially obsessed with this haunt (he'd travelled the world but returned to Walford, so eager was he to see his name above that door). I don't remember what he was bleating on about or to whom in the particular episode where he chimed in with something along the lines of "... and she'll be out of this Square faster than you can say Queen Vic". Great! What a pricelessly rubbish piece of script-writing or ad lib.

I use the phrase all the time now!

Ah yes. Neil Kinnock. I'd forgotten all about him.

Just been reminded of a lovely line from a Kinnock speech from yester-year (when everything was being privatised):

"The thing about Tories is they begin by promising you the earth and end up selling you water."

[Sigh] We've had some good Labour leaders in the past.

Another "Oh bother, I wish I hadn't started this" type scenario

I was running a training course (.... oh the number of times I, as a management trainer, e-mailed course delegates to tell them that I would be ruining their course, but that's a subject for a future post all about funny typos!). Anyway, as I was saying, I was running a training course for managers, and I'd bought a "business game". I'd not tried the game out before "going live" with it. I'd barely even read the instructions or guidance notes. Had I done any of the aforementioned, I might have realised straight away that the game was not going to provide the lessons in team-building and project management that it promised it would on its box.

The game was long. The course delegates had to split into three teams and spend hours doing something under certain conditions, having first designed a map of "their island" and a "national flag" (to improve team cohesion). They were meant to barter and negotiate with other teams, but using communication-styles that were dictated in their mammoth instruction pack, styles that they would never actually use in reality. We broke for lunch and returned to the game. "No-one will solve the riddle", promised the game's blurb, and the idea was that the group would spend ages after the game had finished discussing why this was. Well, my course delegates did solve the riddle. They rather enjoyed playing the game too. But I could think of abolutely nothing to say in relation to team building or project management when the game was over. I mean that's not necessarily a problem at all. The job of the trainer is to pose good questions, not answer them. All I had to do was to re-convene the group and ask them "what lessons have we learned in team building from this game?" But really, the game provided no lessons whatsoever.

So, moving swiftly on...

It gets me EVERY time

The World Cup. I always groan when I realise it's a World Cup year and humph at the sight of the England flags strewn all over the place (NOT cars as well - prriiee). And then, I'm sucked in, like dust to a Dyson.

I am ashamed of this fact. I'm not ashamed of the fact that I get hooked on the Olympics 2 years later. But I am ashamed of being a closet World Cup fan. I am, by now, even watching non-England matches when I can. And I am enjoying them. Enormously. I really loved the Portugal match the other evening (already forgotten who they were playing) - the ref. was the most comical character I've seen in a long time - he had the temperament of Basil Fawlty and the sleight of hand of Paul Daniels. He couldn't produce the cards from his pocket quickly enough! It was hilarious!

Here is what puzzles me about football (and I am not going to list "the off-side rule" here - that's quite simple):
1) players' earnings
2) the fans: they seem to leave a match with the idea that they themselves have won or lost the game. No! It's the 11 men down there on the pitch who have won. Not you! By the look of most of you, you couldn't even walk the length of the field, let alone run up and down it for 90 minutes plus stoppage time. Oh you may wear the strip, yes, and I could wear a tutu and go and see the Royal Ballet perform, but that doesn't make me Darcey Bussell...
3) pre-world cup parties - No! Parties are for AFTER the event; celebrate when and if you have won..... well, ok, party on while you can, I s'pose...
4) players'hairstyles - they are fabulous, they really are. They are beautifully cut and styled. Now, maybe if you look good, you feel good and you peform well. BUT, if you're having a bad hair day, and we all have them (365 a year, in my case), performance will be affected. Ought our players to be so reliant upon their hairstyle when playing international football? Beckham ought not to be thinking "hope my hair's still holding up" every time he takes a free kick, he should be concentrating on the ball. Sven's mind's clearly on the game - the player's should follow his example and adopt his barber. I suspect that the day "our lads" enter the pitch (or whatever it's called) with hair skew-wiff will be the day we bow out of this championship.

Sirens are sounding and red lights are flashing because I am now going to make a very sexist statement: I wish that their shorts were shorter and I love the bit at the end of the game when they take their tops off. I apologise for any offense caused by that remark, and I would have deleted it from my blog if I lived in a society which disallowed page 3 girls to appear in a national newspaper. Can you BELIEVE that still goes on...? (I know 2 wrongs don't make a right but I'm a desperate housewife and ....doh, I can't think of any excuse really but the comment is staying. I know for a fact that a fair few of my friends will agree with it even if they don't agree with it, if you know what I mean!!!)

Sadly, there's no footie on the telly tonight - I shall knit instead. It's high time I finished my scarf (nearly done) and then I can start project number 2. Anne?! (I wonder if Anne's still reading - this'll test it!!!!) Anne! What next Anne!

Another Fine Mess

You see, I once got myself into a rare old two 'n' eight (state) when I started something that I couldn't quite fin...
The year: 1995
The Place: The bathroom of my flat in Shepherd's Bush - my spinster pad, if you will
And ....ACTION:

Ruth notices a very small flaw in the paintwork above the sink and to the right of the mirror. She peels a small amount of the paintwork off and concludes: "there are too many layers of paint here. The whole room needs stripping down to the plaster and then re-painting".

Further peeling ensues until Ruth decides that "peeling's not the way forward. Sandpaper is needed".

Ruth has sandpaper in her kitchen drawer, fetches it and begins sanding. 45 minutes later Ruth realises that sanding is:
(a) very hard work
(b) going to take for ever

There is now a 30cm square patch of exposed plaster above the sink and to the right of where the mirror should be. Ruth repeatedly looks from plaster patch to the rest of the bathroom, as her heart slowly sinks. "How many hours of my life is it going to take to remove the paint from this room?" Ruth regrets ever touching the paintwork in the first place.

Ruth leaves the room and "sleeps on it".

At work the following day, people are amused to hear of Ruth's exploits. One keen DIY-er offers to lend her his electronic sanding machine. "Problem solved", thinks Ruth! Chap turns up to work with the goods the following day and Ruth happily carts the thing home on the tube - "can't wait to start with this!"

No time for tea, certainly no time for reading any instructions, switch on, sandpaper pressed to the wall, whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and "****fire there's a hole in the wall. Ok. That's bad. It's powerful. Slow down." But all that I could produce were several more, smaller holes in the wall.

Abort mission.

Ruth returns, yet again (had several previous minor disasters when trying to hang pictures from the wall) to her stock of polyfilla. Out it comes, on it goes. It's way from smoothly applied - "think outside of the box, think outside of the box, buy a gigantic mirror and cover the whole think up"

There we go. All done and dusted.

Why didn't I just use paint-stripper? I don't know. There will have been a good reason, but I can't remember what it was....