I laughed to see a pudden...

 crawl...

Was it the two medium sized firkins of Chile’s finest I wonder, or maybe just to be out footloose and Mr.Kipling’s iced fancy... free?  Anyway I digress, or even perish the thought... deviate!

As we sat in Ludlow’s answer to a proper pub, onto the table himself laid his hands in the manner of a medium about to call up passing spirits. He could so easily have magicked up the oiuja board from the back of his creepy cloak.  Magic was in the air.  Tears sprung to my eyes, not driven by fear sadly. Terror coursing through the sluggish veins has got to be good  for the blood pressure of a woman of a certain age.  Dyno-Rod of a human kind, clearing crud as it sloshes and sluices all before it, by way of a stick of Semtex down a sewer of old London Town.

Merriment has always been my default position.  Himself calls me a daft tart, can’t imagine why?  I am fully aware I am not getting to the nub of the story.  So here goes...

You will have heard of Cluedo, Ludo even. Smack the rat at a push? Snap most definitely! Have you heard of the game of Splat the Mouse?  No?  I am not surprised, as its conception has taken place here in darkest Shropshire.  Here I ought to explain to my readers from far and wide that I call a blood blister under the nail, a mouse, not sure if this is my own home-grown colloquialism or maybe it is known the world over, round, down and back... dunno?  Anyway, the start of the run was the loo seat, it fell on his thumb as he was cleaning around the bend.  Why he didn’t leave it to his chum Mr Muscle I haven’t got to the bottom of?  The twins, he acquired when sorting out the double edged rat killing machine.  No rats were despatched just two more mice came into being.  Completely defeating the ruddy idea, if you ask me.

Three down, seven to go.  A royal flush?

Tipping with dinner...

plate size drops the rain is making a point...

‘Alright, alright I get it, however you haven’t factored in that my skin is actually waterproof, so I really don’t care!’  I shouted above the din of the rat-a-tat-tat on the windows.

Thor from on high replied in a mighty whisper...

‘Whatever you do LL do not go out in the buff just to score cheap points!’

The natives are restive enough so I think I will heed his warning.  Ludlow just isn’t ready, what with all this viral overload to have the added excitement of me walking the dog stark bo**ock naked so best not!

What to do next for badness is the thing?

I know those of my regular readers, alright all two of you will have seen this ‘famous’ photo of me at my last demo squillons of times before, however that is how I feel today...

REVOLTINGLY revolting!

Che Guevara in drag.

Twelve years ago...

 today we were wed.

Recycled bride and groom, the London Eye seemed the natural venue.

A ruddy revolution.  

I said I never would.  Capering around the track again?  Not for me, I ‘stoutly’ replied!  The  operative word obv.  Even on our first date I laid out my stall.  All I wanted was a man to get out of the box, for whatever the occasion demanded then smoothly without any animals being hurt in the manoeuvre gently popped back until the next assignment... simples?  Seven long years later of boxing and repacking I relented.

This morning we have both had butter on our single piece of toast by way of celebration.  Who said the art of romance was dead?

I am such a...

Tart!  There I’ve said it.

I am writing this behind Ludlow’s answer to Trump’s wall.  My writing recliner is surrounded by books of an organical kind.  That nice. Mr. Google Esq. V.S.O.P. has kindly arranged for me my very own reinstated Boeing 737 Max.  No worries it might drop out of the sky showering the local hoi polloi with hardbacks, he will have sold more first editions from his expansive library so what does he care?  Added to which these piddling delivery drones aren’t man enough to take on The Tart of the Teme and her latest needs and wants.

It’s fuelled by my latest pash. the allotment.  My first move in this operetta in three parts is to purchase a bench.  Yes, a bench, necessary for the planning stage obv.  The manservant will be instructed to nip across the road at regular intervals with silver trays of, depending on the time of day, beverages of tea, coffee, tea, Harvey’s Bristol, Gin and It and a nightcap of a stiff single malt.  All the while allowing me the time to plan. Also giving him a break from my constant ‘I want!’ whining.

I wish I could blame it on the virus instead of the Bossanova, sadly I can’t.

Calling me a daft tart, the husband is often found with his head in his hands saying 

‘What have I done?’

I hang my head in...

 shame.  The dog looks hang-dog at me, I look even more hang-dog back.  It is a sorry state of affairs.  My exquisite casseroles of a cur kind are no more.  I feel a total 100% heel, not allowing my culinary cred free rein.  Quietly I cry myself to sleep (fib) worrying.  Himself tartly says 

‘Well what’s the difference to her turning her nose up to kibble as opposed to fine dining of a canine kind?’  

I hate clever sods!  All the while thinking he has a point, added into the mix my scathing remarks of folk spoiling animals by pandering to their fanciful needs.  A large piece of humble pie for me please.

I now await some very special food recommended by a regular reader of my blog who sadly can’t comment.  Thank you Wanda for emailing me the details, the samples are on way as we speak.

This morning once again Ellie has turned her nose up and walked away.

What she doesn’t know is nobody, but nobody messes with me.  I am a hard woman, cut me in half and there for all to see is...

‘MAFIA MOMMA’

like Brighton through rock.

In a hissy fit I am...

off to the apricot shop in Hereford.  I am now unable to reply to comments on my own blog.  This has happened before and the villain of the peace is 100% me. Which seriously, like 

SERIOUSLY PI**ES ME OFT!

Do you get my drift?

Maybe not!

I am a purring puss cat all the while things are running smoothly, the nano-second I get the whiff of a problem especially of a techie-kind then the claws are out, sharpened and three laps of the ceiling are the order of the day/days/weeks/months/years/decades  By now you maybe getting the merest sensation of how  crossed I am?

I look up how to correct the problem however the very helpful replies might be in Serbian Mandarin spouted by bears crapping in the woods for all I ruddy understand of their helpfulness!

Being dim of a techno-kind is a burden I carry around in a rucksack full of Stonehenge size stones on my sorely back.  My quill pen, ink quivering in anticipation in its inkwell, seal and sealing wax have never looked so appealing.  Come back I plaintively cry, all is forgiven as forlornly the velum is splashed with my salty tears.

I’m not sure whether...

 I have gone off Google or my browser? I have always for some unknown reason had a hate/hate deeply rooted antagonism for Google.  Here is not the place to dust off the shrink’s couch and explore my little foibles. My blog is saying ‘Create a blog’ and ‘Sign ruddy In’  Gone are the ‘New post’ ‘Design’ and ‘Sign Out’in the top right hand corner.  Now here is the rub which sadly I feel comes back to me, not that I would ever admit it, mind.  Well maybe only to you.  

Since this started happening my blog perambulations aren’t as free as they used to be.  I have to totter through, like an old dear... perish the blooming thought.  My comments on other peoples’ blogs don’t always work which hacks me oft BIG TIME!

Inadvertently I have done something and for the life of me I don’t know what?

‘Hello is that Bletchley Park?’

Trouble is if Alan Turing gets on the dog and bone I won’t have the faintest idea of what he is on about...

A little light...

 shoplifting was the order of the day.  Let me explain.  Before our walk on Clee Hill we decided a trip to ‘Pets at Home’ was in order.  Ellie of late has been developing a funny tummy, going off her food, eating excessive amounts of grass and producing the most wondrous ‘Walnut Whips’ the like of which any chocolatier would be proud.

The blame I lay squarely at my door.  Being a put out to grass cheffette I like to produce food for her.  Which oddly I think isn’t agreeing with her tum.  Casseroles of white fish, minced beef and chicken, each week a different main ingredient.  Vegetables and brown rice or pasta, obviously no onions or veg on the not suitable for hounds list.  I do draw the line at chalking on the wall plat du jour obviously!  In the main because although she is an extremely intelligent collie with a huge vocabulary she hasn’t as yet learnt to read.  This morning her breakfast was left untouched, so we thought after consulting that well known veterinarian Dr. Google that a hypo-howsyourfather might be required.  In order to give Ellie the experience of shopping in a superstore in we all trolled.  With us in deepest conversation and considering to the enth degree the ins and outs of a gnats arse or to be more exact Ellie’s, we were completely oblivious to the fact she had helped herself to a tennis ball.  Having paid and just about to leave the shop she decided that as she didn’t have a recipe for making a cake with a file in it, added to which as already explained even if she did, she couldn’t read the thing.  She obviously thought before they get their collars felt I had best drop my swag and put my paws up.

I potter that is...

what I do. I don’t actually work!

Looking back over my life pottering is about all I have actually done.  I pottered through school having too much fun messing about to apply myself to boring stuff like rainfall in Guatemala’n’stuff.  I’ve pottered through a husband or two, one child was enough, far too much work!  Potter isn’t as far as I know a job description and the careers I cruised through you wouldn’t believe?  The last interesting ‘job’ I had as a chef was a fascinating time potter wise in the household of important people, well in their view!  That I must confess took my potter persona to a whole new level.  My reputation as a ‘That’ll do School of Cookery’ chef was a source of amusement to the rest of the staff.  My telling the man of the house where to hop off also was legion in a household where deference was very much the order of the day.  Just call me a Professor of Potter, you may forgo the curtesy.

Where that all came from I have no idea?  Probably when I spoke yesterday with the lady whose allotment I am taking over.  I offered to help her do whatever she wanted in readiness for the big hand over.

Very clearly and with quiet authority she said

‘No thank you I am a potterer, I much prefer to work alone, doing not very much...just pottering in my own way!’

Well you could have knocked me down with a feather.  A woman of my own heart to take over from.  A patch of heaven to carry on her years of work towards her Masters degree in potterage.

‘I hereby name this allotment... my Potager!’

Me in Goudhurst.

The allotment has...

landed! 

Ellie started barking, I peered around the corner of the Wrenery and there at the gate were the bearers of good news.  The minute I clapped eyes on them I knew.  My cheeks puffed out as if a shot of helium had been judicially applied to my left lug.

‘Come in, coffee, tea, cake, thirty pieces of silver?  Is it what I think it is?’

With a gentle nod of the head they indicated that yes, indeed it was exactly that.

Coffee was duly brewed, generous lemon drizzle portions were cut with me all the while thinking how pleased I was to have homemade cake to offer.  The normal offerings would be a stale digestive biscuit, overlooked and unloved lurking in the biscuit tin.

Regally sitting in my King’s chair I awaited the proclamation. A lady had definitely decided to give up her full size allotment, it was mine if I so desired.

If I so desired?

Desire was coursing through my bod the rate of which reminded me of the good innocent old days of lust!

Waiting with not a small degree of impatience as the ritual of cake coffee and small talk was adhered to, we were duly escorted there to walk the plot.  I watched in wonder as the key was slipped into the lock of the gate in the ancient wall and through into the magical allotment world beyond.

Well to say I was pleased was the ruddy understatement.  The plot was all and more I could have wished for.  The sort of higgeldy-piggeldy planting I love so much.  A shed, a tree, raspberries, rhubarb, compost bins-a-go-go.  Insect friendly flowers, the whole kit-kaboodle. 

Now I wait, for an email from the lady to decide on her timetable and hopefully her accepting my offer to help her to tidy up in readiness of the official hand over.  She, I sense is a kindred spirit and will be happy for me to carry on her allotment.

Watch this space...

My garden in Goudhurst

“Have another...

‘Be patient’ tablet LL!” he said.

Chuntering quietly to myself, I do try to ‘Chill man, chill!’

With the thought of the allotment on the back burner-ish(?) Saturday morning has found me having a lovely time pottering in the garden, mixing the wonderful home made compost from the hot bin with some spent compost, grit and Perlite, call me a witch I don’t care!  I have been planting tulip bulbs and potting on home grown winter flowering violas.  My greenhouse is a place of solace in these strange times.

The electrician came to quote for the Edison effect of the burbling, bubbling water feature millstone nicked from the local flour mill.  Is it any wonder there is a shortage of flour these days? 

‘While you’re here fannying around with all things volts, amps, mega watts’n’stuff could you put a light in the greenhouse, so the night shift can work without miners helmets, Davy lamps and canaries?’

’

He looked at me weirdly, was it the word ‘fannying’ that offended I idly wondered?