Words from a Bird

Well what a surprise I've had today. 'What are you doing tomorrow?' was the question on the husband's lips last night.  'Well', I said, 'apart from talking rubbish to customers throughout the Home Counties, a big walk in the woods with Mrs P and Neville, and a quick cup of tea with Mrs B next door, not much really'. 'Cancel the walk and the tea.  We've got plans'. 'What plans?  And anyway, I can't cancel this time with my friends.  Mrs P has been on the calendar all week and Mrs B has bought a kettle so that she can make me a cup of tea at last'. OK ladies, at this point I was fully committed to my time with friends, as these girls are very important to me and it's bad form to cancel your buddies as we all know.  But the husband persisted. 'They won't mind.  You can do it all again next week'. To avoid repeating myself (both to the husband and to you, lovely readers) I asked what was possib

The husband and I have returned from a little jolly in our beautiful capital city.  Now before you get a picture in your head of the two of us enveloped in Lycra schlepping around the city with forty thousand other like minded souls, I have to come clean.  We have spent the last twenty four hours doing the complete opposite to what the brave marathon runners have been doing (still are if you're that Minion I saw).  We have strolled, drunk, laughed, drunk, eaten, drunk, overslept and drunk (tea this morning, we do have some element of common sense). The ankle biters had treated us to this weekend for the husband's birthday.  It involved a night in a very posh hotel, and a couple of tickets for the Covent Garden Comedy Club (nowhere near Covent Garden, but more of this later).  We spent Saturday walking in sub arctic conditions, taking a chance to thaw out at various hostelries and finally ended up outside a (closed) designer dress show.  'You would look beautiful in tha

A lot of people have been very kind and helpful over the past couple of weeks.  Examples have been simple texts asking me how I am faring, right through to friends plying the husband with beer when the care of his wife just got too much to bear. So today, having had a great week (or 80% of one) at Binland, I decided that I would do my best to be kind to anyone I came across for the rest of the day. My first opportunity came at the doctors' surgery, where a nipping in was planned to collect some drugs (of the legal kind you'll be relieved to hear).  Some years ago, my local surgery changed their devil may care car park for something more regimental with a ticket machine.  Now I tend to pick my time very carefully when I go to the surgery, avoiding the OAP rush hours between 8.30 and 12.30, and the coughing kid school run after 3.00.  This leaves a window of opportunity of around thirty minutes when the car park is quiet, and I can run in and pick up my medicines without

Life has finally returned to normal.  The husband has stopped asking me if I need anything every five minutes and the dogs have stopped looking at the husband in a vaguely optimistic manner, realising today that mum was now once again in charge of all perambulations.  The husband didn't leave me unattended once while I was recovering, but being the man he is, he had to find 'something to do'.  The 'something' turned out to be a pergola which I had mentioned in passing a few months ago, having had one of my neighbours voicing their concern about my rampant wisteria.  'That'll have my fence down if it gets any bigger'... Well I wasn't going to nitpick (it's my fence actually, and I think he was more concerned about the savage schnauzer brothers destroying his ornamental raised beds) but the husband took it all on board, and in the week leading up to the operation, oak appeared by the trailer load. Now fortuitously, the husband had deci

Mending at the grand old age of fifty five seems to take a lot longer than when I was younger.  I mean, fall over on a Friday when you're seven, and by Monday you've had a field day with a scab and your mum's replaced your tights.   If only it were that easy now ... As someone who finds sitting down and resting almost impossible, this week has been a most trying one.  The husband has been fantastic though, and has well and truly looked after me like a queen.  Because reading wasn't enough to take my mind off what my poor old body had endured, on Tuesday I turned to Netflix to see what I could find which might amuse me. Having been married for some time time, I have learned to compromise where television watching is concerned, but now that I had full control of the remote, the world was my oyster.  After flicking through the copious amounts of Netflix categories (these included, 'Because you watched ******, you might enjoy.....'  Well I'll be the

Ouch... There are many words which could summarise the last six days, but this one will do quite nicely. Up until today, I have been a woman of two halves.  From the waist upwards, I have been Mrs Brown (she of the 'boys' fame) with a mouth like a sewer and a propensity for foul language at regular intervals.  Below the waist, and it's John Wayne all the way, with a pair of legs which wouldn't stop the proverbial pig in a passage.  It's all been a bit, 'Get off that feckin' horse and drink your Guinness', as the big man may or may not have said. But back to Monday... The husband, ever supporting and caring, left me in the more than capable hands of the local hospital and their fabulous staff, and was there again at the end of the day once the operation was done to ferry me back home. Levitation has been the keyword this week, and no more so than when encountering the sleeping policemen close to home.  After the third had been taken at a

It's been a frustrating start to the week.  Over the past few days, I have come across various folk in my daily life who have made me that cross that I could, in the words of Stu Francis the Crackerjack icon, 'crush a grape'. But I've been patient, polite and friendly, and this morning, I said to the husband that I had designated today as a Wassack Free Wednesday.  A day when every person I met would be sensible, honest and not lacking in some normal human function. It was going really well.  I almost made it to the end of today without silently asking myself whether I was on the set of the Twilight Zone, and then... I went to the garden centre.  A quiet little trip planned to stock up on all those little green things which may or may not survive the next two months.  You'll remember my garden flower beds are also known as Death Row, such is my reputation for sending various plants on a long walk from which they never return. I've bought some wo

This weekend away was my first experience of eating out under my new food rules.  So that you know exactly what I'm up against, here are the foods which I've been told to avoid: Eggs Rose-hip Cashew Wheat Cow's Milk Sunflower Seed Coconut Yeast Bamboo Shoots Beef Peanut Chardonnay Grape Chili Pepper Hazelnut Millet Kale Gluten Shiraz Grape Water Chestnut It's quite an extensive list, but, touch wood, I've not had a headache since I've cleared these foods out of my diet.  It's relatively easy to do this at home, as long as you're well prepared, but a weekend away in the Wobble Box was always going to be a challenge. It didn't start well if I'm honest.  On Friday night, I scoured a pub menu for five full minutes before finally settling on what I thought would be OK to order.  Making sure that there would be no butter or bread with the meal, I waited in eager anticipation. Well it looked lovely. 

So the intrepid travellers have returned from yet another weekend gallivanting across this beautiful island in their Wobble Box. By now, you've probably realised that these weekends are completely built up around our two woofers.  Where can we walk them?  Will there be a river for Percy to launch himself into?  Will there be a couple of pubs en route for the holidaying humans? All of this is looked into before we head out each day, and this weekend's walks were The Clarendon Way, which was a really great walk with hills, woodland, pubs and wide open fields.  Today we decided to do the Test Way.  Now, the choice of this walk was purely based  on the fact that the local river is called the Test, so one would assume that the river would feature somewhere on route.  It didn't.  Well it did, but everywhere we looked, there were signs hung from fences, gates and in the woodland, nailed to trees.  What did these signs say? 'Private' 'Keep Out' '

This bloody weather.  How is that on Saturday morning I was in my deckchair, and this morning in my bobble hat?  The dogs gave me That Look when I hauled them outside for their pre-Binland perambulation this morning.  The heavens were not just open, someone was flapping the doors at high speed to ensure a stiff wind to reach all those bits which vertical rain can't usually get to.  So I left home with two Schnauzers, and came home with two toilet brushes.  They weren't best pleased.. But weather schmeather, the husband and I are off in the Wobble Box this weekend again.  You'll remember that the last attempt to get away was brought to a shuddering halt by the husband and his waterworks (very apt as he a plumber by trade), so I have been very careful with him over the last couple of weeks. No late nights out for him, no beer, lots of healthy food and I've also been very cautious about the amount of jobs I ask him to do so as not to overtax him. Now as we all

It's been a funny old day at Binland today.  As I walked into the transport office to say hello to everyone, Mrs S looked at me, and said, 'You didn't get my message then?' Aah yes, the mobile phone which I carry at all time, which is invariably on mute thus ensuring that I miss every call and message which wings its way across the ether to me. 'What's up?  Do you need milk?'  This is the usual message which Mrs S sends me on a weekday.  Yet again, often not read until I'm settled down in my office and reaching for my mug for my first cup of tea. 'No', she said.  'Everything's down'. 'Everything' was the phone and the internet, so I spent this morning trying to reply to customers via email using my mobile.  This goes someway to explain why my eyes look like two slits on a pig's bum and I was very relieved to head off home after lunch. A lovely walk with the woofers, accompanied by every type of precipi

So the Winter/Spring clothing conflict continues.  I decided today (15 degrees, sunny sky) that I prefer being too warm rather than too cold, so have embraced the thick tight/boot combo for the time being.  Not too much thought has gone into this if I'm honest.  It's just that I look better pink and shiny than blue and pinched.   Talking of pink and shiny, I went to see Rocky Horror Picture Show again, this time in Oxford with some of the other female inmates of Binland.  The evening started in a bus shelter and ended with some serious hobbling to a taxi rank and a very late night.  In fact, I crawled into bed at 3.00am (this takes into consideration the lost hour) and son number two had to come and get me.  He'd driven back home from Leeds that evening, so his car was nicely warmed up to collect his elderly parent in her sequinned shorts. And of course it was Mother's Day.  The same day in fact.  Unbelievably,  I had fourteen coming for lunch and in my infinit