Just call me 'Herman'.....

.....because I feel like him, Herman Munster that is!

I have one of those necks, you know the one, it hurts like hell and it doesn't do what it should, it's locked in position shooting pain from my shoulder to the top of my head and even copious amounts of pain killers and deep heaty kind of stuff isn't rendering it any the more mobile or pain free. I don't usually 'do' pain killing drugs, tending to think that unless we are talking a life threatening kind of pain then I can manage without, I have to fill my little body with too many pharmaceutical 'wonders' daily as it is without adding to it unnecessarily. This hurts though, big hurts, that or I have become a pain wimp but whatever even with the damn pills it's not good.

I have no idea what I have done to render myself in this pathetic Herman-esque condition, maybe I just slept oddly on it (on the odd occasion I actually sleep these days) or maybe it's sitting in a different position at my new computer table, who knows...... but I do know the novelty has worn off now!

Sun-up

Not today's sunrise I might add, today's meteorological 'gifts' are pretty dull and glum so I prefer to remember this one from a few weeks back!

Sleepless in Cambridge

Doesn't have quite the same ring about it as 'Sleepless in Seattle' does it?

Last night was another of the now annoyingly and far too frequent sleepless nights, I thought I had it cracked having managed to sleep much better the last week but apparently not!

Last night was different though not the usual 'I'm just not tired because I don't work' nights but one of those nasty nights where every worry that usually resides somewhere at the back of the mind suddenly sees fit to come full force to the front and harass you unmercifully. Ugh. I won't bore you with the details, we all have our fair share but why in the dead of night do they have that damn infuriating habit of seeming all the more insurmountable? On the up-side however I did finally finish the book I have been reading for weeks instead of abandoning it half way through out of boredom as is my usual habit.

Anyway, this morning I am fit for very little, there is a distinct feeling of 'bleugh-ness' about me, I have the whole cotton wool head thing going on and a distinct lack of motivation!

Perhaps chocolate is the answer.....

Sore feet!

Yesterday, unusually for me of late, I spent working in gainful employment, this was the job I blogged last week because it sounded a strange combination, a business exhibition , the venue for which was an animal rescue centre!

As it transpired it wasn't so odd. I had assumed [wrongly] that the rescue

establishment would be the usual, small, slightly tatty environment that often prevails in these places as a result of underfunding and over subscription.....how wrong can you be? This place was large, bright, modern, well run and included not only facilities for cats, dogs and small animals but goats, sheep, horses, llamas and waterfowl, it had conference and event facilities and a full size riding arena!

The job was working for a design company doing the front end representation, networking stuff, not my favourite of pass times, all that faux pleasantry, smiling and handshaking drives me nuts, smarmy economically motivated men in suits just don't do it for me but unfortunately I'm not bad at it and it was work.

The guy I was working for was pretty laid back though, a privilege of being in design is that you can get away with being slightly less 'stuffy' even in a business environment, so we painted our smiles on, shook lots of limp and sweaty hands, 'played the game', worked the room hard between us and had a suitably successful day, there was only one casualty....... my feet are so bloody sore! Most of my working life has been spent on my feet, I'm used to it but it's been a long time since I had to do it eight hours straight in ridiculous heels!

I tell you, if guys had to wear heels there would be more sitting down! ;o)

Absolutely no way!!!

El camino del Rey ( The Kings Pathway), a walkway along the side of a gorge in El Chorro near Malaga.

Sorry, no matter how beautiful it is, not as long as I live will you ever find me walking this....


...but why do I just know that someday 'himself', a lover of all things extreme, is gonna try to get me on there?!

Grandmother versus Tesco

You have admire this woman's fortitude in taking on one of the big boys!

In retaliation for finding her home the subject of a possible compulsory purchase order to make way for yet another new Tesco store, Dot Reid has decided to give the Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy, a taste of his own medicine by applying for planning permission to bulldoze his mansion home in Hertfordshire and provide land for a community garden!

She won't win either fight of course sadly, Tesco will, because they always do, they can afford the best lawyers and they can afford to have the necessary 'friends' in high places.... but as one who has found herself in the past, with a property legally blighted by compulsory purchase and having taken my fight the more usual route to law, I applaud her style.

In my case I tried to fight a test case (not against Tesco I might add), firstly against the very specific piece of [then] new legislation that had cause my situation and then through the European court of human rights. It became quite literally a full time, five year job, even finding a barrister to take the case took well over two years, barristers it seems aren't overly keen on taking cases that may or may not succeed, with the possible knock on effect of making or breaking their careers. Ultimately, much to my chagrin, circumstances prevented me from 'taking it all the way' but I have little doubt that I wouldn't have beaten the establishment, once you get that close up to the 'powers that be' their modus operandi is all too glaringly apparent..... and it's not a pretty sight.

So whilst I don't hold out much hope for her attempts Mrs Reid has my admiration because like so many things in our system more recently, for we minions, fighting in the more usual, acceptable and fair manner has a nasty habit of failing dismally!

Cynical....who me?

The perfect birthday

You have to be impressed by a man who not only lets you have chips and apple pie from McDonald's for breakfast on your birthday but also presents you with a big bag of presents and chocolate and then, way beyond the call of duty, organises a trip to a National Trust property...... just because they have a farm with lots of 'lambing action' going on. If there is one thing guaranteed to make me happy it's anything with fur and four legs and particularly new lambs. :o)


Ok, so fair comment, a National Trust property isn't our 'thing' by a long chalk, all those verynicemiddleclass families with hordes of screaming kids in their Barbour wellies just don't do it for us but the lambs do, well for me they do.


Fletch prefers his very rare on a plate with an elegant sauce (ugh!) but I have a passion for the living kind and since I left Scotland my annual small pleasure in watching the new born lambs playing in the fields has been severely lacking.


So, Sunday, off we went to Wimpole Hall, the aforementioned NT posh residence, not for the architecture or the Capability Brown gardens....nope for the farm, in search of lambs....and lambs we found, lots and lots of them, many only a few hours old and so utterly cuddly and cute....and daft! :o) And not only lambs, but donkeys, pigs with piglets, cows with calves, chicks of various breeds and big shire horses


......it was positive plethora of 'awwww-ness'....and ok, this farm facility was no doubt really intended for the under 10's but who cares, I loved it....and Fletch soldiered on bravely. ;o)

Then it was home to have dinner cooked for me, my favourite rich chocolate souffle for pudding, chocolates and more chocolates and my choice of movie, The Shawshank Redemption (incidentally a 9.2 on the IMDb scale).....the perfect 'gemmak' birthday.

Thank you to he who organised it all :o)


(Images clickable)

Spring has sprung!

For me....

....because it's my birthday! :o))

The Big Lebowski

Ok, movies, we 'do' movies or to more exact Fletch 'does' movies....and I try.
I don't profess to be a 'film buff' and as a general rule here were are not talking the easy watching, chill you out kind of movie, more the heavy duty, turn your head inside out variety. This situation usually results in what we refer to as 'intervals', which are in fact the suitable breaks in running order to hit the pause button and for Fletch to bring me up to speed, because invariably I have 'got lost' somewhere along the line and am sitting with a blank look on my face, have begun fidgeting or fallen asleep!

This brings me to the reason for this post, a recent evenings choice (not mine I might add) of viewing, The Big Lebowski, a 1998 Cohen brothers comedy that did poorly from an economic point of view but got rave reviews from the broadsheet movie critical elite. It always works, give a movie a few high brow crits, let it bomb at the box office and you usually manage to elevate any old crap to cult status!

And that is what this insufferable film amounted to in my humble opinion, to borrow a phrase from our friends over the pond...'what a crock'. There are many movies that whilst they wouldn't be my choice, I have enjoyed and got into but this was not one of them. The plot was ridiculously unbelievable, the 'idiosyncratic characters' were little more than two aggravating, half-wit fools, it was painfully slow and any comedy value was apparently D.O.A.

This opinion caused some degree of 'discussion' in the household well into the night because Fletch liked it, more than liked it! (There's no accounting for taste is there?) but despite any amount of persuasion, explanation or further insight I'm sorry, I don't care if it scores an 8.2 on the internet movie database, a fact that himself wasted no time in showing me as proof positive my opinion is severely flawed. I'm sticking to my 'crock' statement. I just can't see how two lay-abouts, obsessed with bowling and trying to maneuver themselves into a vast sum of cash that isn't theirs can be clever/funny/idiosyncratic or even remotely entertaining!

Am I alone here or am I missing something that should be staring me in the face if only I had the wit to notice it?

Go on, shoot me down in flames!....but before you do check out this link (if you're not easily offended) to a short version, which just about sums up the level of inanity we are taking about here! Hell, I can swear like a trooper, who can't but surely there has to be more to a movie than just that? Maybe the inclusion of something else slightly smarter than just banal toilet humour?.... though I have to say, in all fairness, that wasn't the worst aspect of this 'epic' by a long chalk!

Don't we just know this one girls!

Man flu, I need say nothing more! Be amused, be very amused ;o)

Talking of coffee...

.....how do you fancy a trip to Peter Jones in Sloane Square for a cup of what is considered to be the rarest coffee in the world......at £50 a cup and made from cat droppings?!

The perfect start....

....to a day.

The sun is shining, Vista is behaving (this won't last), I have a grande cappuccino and a chocolate twist parked in front of me,
kindly furnished by 'himself' who made a quick detour via Costa on an early morning foray into town, I have no appointments until this afternoon, there are birds feeding merrily from the new feeder I hung from the balcony only yesterday and I slept the whole night through last night! What more could I want?

Ok, perhaps I could do without the obligatory 'introductory visit' to my new doctors asthma nurse this afternoon, who doubtless will nag me narrow on the subject of smoking and make me blow into her infernal machine until I almost pass out but right now I don't care, the morning is a good one!

Pay it forward

I've managed to get myself tied up with a game on the blog of TexsMissusDemeanours; it sounded quite amusing so I decided I wanted to play too. The rules are set out below:

The first three people to join the challenge on my blog will receive a gift handmade by me. I will have 30 days to make and send your gift. You must then do a post on your blog inviting 3 people to join your Pay It Forward and receive a handmade gift from you. Sounds easy enough right. The first three people who leave a comment saying they want to join will receive something made by me.

The difficult bit of course is what does one make for the responders but I think I have a cunning plan...... I'm going to interpret the phrase 'handmade by me' slightly differently and offer for my 'prizes' a personalised header banner or button (your call) for your blog.

Ok, don't all rush at once! ;o)