Categories
Gardening

Antagonists

If you were in any doubt that I have been neglecting my garden over the last 9 weeks, you’d only need to take one look at it to get the kind of unambiguous evidence that would make Schrödinger himself say “Oh, well that answers that then.”

Upon closer inspection, you’d notice that the ants are taking over the lawn, and I just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Little mounds of earth here and there collapse under a weighty toecap, spraying little scampery chappies hither, thither and ivirywhither.

“Enjoy it, you little scallywags,” I condescend, “because in six weeks you’re going to have a new nemesis to deal with, and he almost certainly won’t be as busy as I am.”

The ants are secretly afraid, but they attempt to cover it up with displays of anty bravado. They waggle their tongues and shake loosely clenched fists at me. Some don’t know when to stop, and just go *too far*. I call the police, and the ants get new ASBOs. Then a huge flying hippo lands on the car, and we all eat jelly.

All of this really happened.

Categories
Peril Photos

Threatening

Threatening

There’s a storm coming.

Categories
About Me

While we’re on the subject of confessions…

…oh, we’re not? Never mind.

You probably aren’t aware that I was President of a Student Union society at University. The reason why you aren’t aware of this is that I don’t talk about it very much, for very good reason.

I joined this society at the start of my first year. Initially it was quite busy, but over the course of the year the number of active members dwindled to a level that wasn’t unhealthily pathetic, but could be described as “intimate”.

The majority of these members were final-year students. The *vast* majority. Oh, okay, all but three of them were final-year students. This is how I became President – because I was too stupid to realise that the most sensible course of action would be to run, very quickly, in the other direction, and the other two evidently weren’t quite as stupid as me.

Categories
Food Meander

Sleight Of Hand

It’s one of those days where I take my lunch break at home. There is one doughnut remaining, in a brown paper bag.

*”Take this back to work with you,”* says the Karen.

*”Why, how generous of you,”* I reply.

She takes the brown paper bag through to the other room and leaves it on my manbag, so that I don’t forget to take it back to work with me.

A short while later, I am at work. I grope the brown paper bag and am aware of the presence of not one but two ovular objects in it. I instinctively check them for lumps (and so should you).

I peer into the bag. Beside my grinning, portly doughnut lies a smarmy, self-satisfied piece of fruit.

A piece of fruit! How did that get in there?

Why, that sneaky girl.

Categories
Parenting

I’d pun on the word ‘rock’ but life is too short

I want to write about our new rocking chair, and my exciting excursion into North London to collect it, but my sentences are disappointing me. Everything I write seems cumbersome and clumsy, and I can’t tell whether this is due to a temporary inability to write, or a temporary inability to make sense of it when I read it back to myself.

The rocking chair itself is slightly less than awesome – it has a chunky lever to switch between “rock” mode and “rock steady” mode, but the lever has a tendency to crunch back into “rock steady” mode of its own accord. A temporary fix has been implemented using twine. The chair also squeaks a bit when rocking to and fro, but I don’t think twine would be much help for that.

Despite these failings, our new rocking chair provides good support for a nursing mother, which will hopefully banish her steadily-worsening backache back to whence from came it.

Categories
Displeasure

Argh Moving

Moving house isn’t so bad, really. However, what **is** laborious is sending your new address to your bank, the [DVLA][], your [ISP][], gas provider, electricity provider, the [SLC][], the [AA][], [NSI][], the council, and [mobile phone provider][], your car insurance company, and some others which I am sure that I have forgotten.

[dvla]: http://www.dvla.gov.uk/
[isp]: http://www.pipex.net/
[slc]: http://www.slc.co.uk/
[aa]: http://www.theaa.com/
[nsi]: http://www.nsandi.com
[mobile phone provider]: http://www.vodafone.co.uk/

Oh, and updating your will.