Words from a Bird

OK...  Hands up... Which one of you pressed the fast forward button on the tape recorder of life last Monday?  Well it wasn't me, that's for sure.  If it was down to me, I would have pressed the 'pause' button and gone for a lie down in a dark room for a few hours, never mind racing round the home counties like my drawers were on fire. The house is just about to embark on a major face lift you see, and as much as I'd like to arrange all of this on my own, the husband feels the need to accompany me on every trip to the local wallpaper shop, the bathroom showroom, the DIY store and the carpet warehouse ('my particular favourite' she said, her voice dripping with the most severest case of sarcasm known to man).  Now for the most part, he's quite well behaved and nods in the right places and wanders off when he can't stand yet another paint swatch being thrust under his nose, while I ask him whether he prefers this colour to the one I showed him

To balance out the pretty awful version of Cabaret which I saw earlier in the week, I took daughter number two off to London yesterday to see her first opera.  Now I have seen a couple of operas over the years, but have never had any emotional connection with it unlike the ballet which I adore.  But you have to try these things and as I said to daughter number two over the phone this week, it is important to expand your horizons with something new.  Mind you, she's taking me to see Magic Mike XL (hoping that this is referring to the length of the show rather than anything else) so it works both ways I suppose. The day went perfectly - we each got on the train from different directions and met at the Italian restaurant I'd booked next door to the theatre.  I know this isn't very adventurous, but as the husband is always telling me that he could turn me round three times and I wouldn't know where I was, I felt it better to err on the side of caution and keep any foot

It's been a sad week in the Bird's household. My faithful washing machine has been making a rather troublesome noise over the past few weeks.  Now this is something I am used to, as my washing machine often makes strange noises, but this is usually down to contents of the husband's trousers not being removed before he throws them in.  More often than not, this is often a couple of six inch nails or some washers, or on one memorable occasion, a tape measure. But this was slightly more sinister, and it sounded as though there were four bricks being spun at 1600 rpm come the spin cycle. So I did what any normal person would do and called an engineer out.  £78 call out, and after five and a half minutes of huffing in my laundry, he said, 'Well love, there's your problem'.  Sitting on the worktop was a hunk of cement, with one corner missing.  'Was that in my machine?' I asked (can you tell that I never went to Hotpoint Evening Classes?) Well

You probably all know me well enough by now to know that I am rather fond of a musical.  Over the past few years,I have made several unsuspecting friends sit through Evita, Oklahoma, Carousel, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Blood Brothers etc etc. One of my favourite musicals of all time has to be Cabaret, and I was thrilled skinny to see that a touring version was showing at my local theatre. My first victim, sorry friend, who I considered as company for this school night play date was the lovely Mrs S from Binland.  Like me, she loves a bit of a singsong and the two of us arranged to meet up in town for some pre-theatre Primark trawling which as you know is part of the whole experience and therefore allowed. We had great seats, although the many carrier bags had us sitting like a couple of decrepit budgies on a perch and I was relieved, if not a little surprised, when no one sat in our row at all.  So suitably sprawled out, with our purchases lining the empty seats, we settl

Well I'm back.... I'd love to tell you that I have been living it up with the husband on some round the world cruise, but this would be a fib of epic proportion. A couple of weeks before Christmas, in her infinite wisdom, the mother decided to test the laws of gravity, launching herself into oblivion while on a simple dog walk.  This minor experiment resulted in a couple of broken ribs which in themselves although bloody painful, don't really effect life in a massive way (I should know, I've been there).   However, it became obvious that there was more than just a couple of broken ribs and after enough X-rays to ensure that she now glows as the sun goes down, we got the news that she had lacerated her liver which was now in acute failure.  Add some internal bleeding, fluid on one lung and a touch of salmonella, and you'll understand that those three weeks in hospital were probably the worst time our family has ever had to deal with. Once the mother