A Post With A Ridiculous Amount Of Labels

So, yes, a few random things, that are really just the tip of the iceberg of life this week.

Actually, who knows - its been a week when I dreamt I worked with the mother of 3 men (which, in my dream, made them brothers?? Was I getting confused with the Bee Gees???? Was this anything to do with Lulu getting voted off Strictly?) in Wire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wire_(band). The mother had a  hairdo like Cousin Isobel out of Downton Abbey, but in a more Debbie Harry way.

  
.... Lulu being Mrs Gibb



 Cousin Isobel. Not Lulu. Nor Debbie Harry

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Among the recession-inspired and genuine 40's graphics around at the moment, I like this poster, on ebay:

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Watched Rolf "National Treasure" Harris being interviewed by Piers Morgan* at the weekend  and thought  when he was young he was the spit of someone around at the moment. Of course, I've now forgotten who that someone was.... anyone see any resemblance???

*I'd love to write the name that Private Eye call him but you might be eating...

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Yesterday I accidentally invented a new method of Cracking The Admin Laziness Problem. Formerly known as the Cupboard of Doom, or Ignore It Until It Ceases To Be Relevant. Yesterday our internet was down... after 15 minutes of headless chicken behaviour (from me, the kids were fine about it) where I didn't really know What To Do Instead Of Wasting Time Online Stalking Caitlin Moran And Grace Dent On Twitter, I had a brainwave. While the sheets were in the washing machine, I blitzed my stagnant pile of rubbish tossed into a wooden wine box on the shelf my intray. 45 minutes, once a week - its the way forward.

Goodness Gracious Great Balls Of Fire

Had planned an adhoc mini-bonfire and to toast marshmallows in the garden for tonight... as long as adhoc isn't a contradiction of planned. Y'know, the sort of daft idea you get when you watch Sarah Beeny and her tribe scampering about Rise Hall Acres, having good old fashioned family fun on "Restoration Nightmare".

Anyhows, we'd already scoffed most of the marshmallows by the time Strictly had finished, so we went outside to have ourselves a sparklers frenzy - and watch some of the neighbours' fireworks going up in the background.

More Sunday Night Film Watching And Other Things...

Another one on my list of late-Sunday-night-films-I-have-missed-the-first-10-minutes-of is last week's L'empreinte de l'ange, starring the compelling Catherine Frot. Excellent pacing to the film, wonderful cinematography, and I worked out the twist.


Meanwhile, other randomness:

* One of Zoe Ball's eyes is smaller than the other. Now that It Takes Two is back on, dinner may sometimes be late...
* Philip Glenister is back on tv Thursday night in Hidden. No red Audi Quattro or Bolly Knickers though.
* Len Goodman is on tomorrow's Who Do You Think You Are. I love these trawls through family archives and unravelling of long-ago mysteries.
* I really need to find out what blogger has done to the photo-adding thing; not being able to put photos up is more luddite than I'd like to be. Alas I feel this may require some concentration.
* Some lovely people in town were handing out free bars of Galaxy last week. Guess who forgot to put it in the fridge? Having to put chocolate in the fridge in October??
* We are supposed to be getting a hurricane later this week. Straight after a heatwave? Crazy times...

An Unwise Amount Of Pretzels And Popcorn...

... can only mean that Strictly is back. The dodgy trailer that makes Anita Dobson look like Emily Bishop, the how-bad-can-Lulu-really-be, isn't Russell Grant just like Frankie Howerd... awesome stuff. Especially Nancy Dell'Olio being set-up with that lethal feather boa. Some wardrobe mistress might just be finding a horse's head in her bed shortly.

Earlier today we went out intending to find some cool breeze down by the river in a nearby city. We took the tree-lined pedestrian route to the centre, taking photos of leafery and buildings, marvelling that we were trampling over orange, crunchy leaves in a HEATWAVE, but its too humid and late for me to figure out how blogger have sabotaged the upload-the-pics thing, so no photos for now.

Next along, near the new-favourite caff, were some marvellous gospel-choiresque peeps singing their hearts out to raise money to replace the old folks' minibus that got trashed in the riots. I had to shoo the kids along as the 14 year old was being cranky and rude about how his eardrums were being affected, but they got some bus-building silver from me. Lunch and ice creams were about all we spent on - we steered clear of the hordes in the shops, and I stayed out of the charity shops but popped into a couple of air-conditioned emo boutiques so the kids could window-shop t-shirts. Then by mid-afternoon it was back for a siesta on the sofa with the papers. And a bit of Celeb Masterchef. Danny Goffey made some interesting cake, and multi-tasked brilliantly despite Greg and John's butting in. I was distracted by how nicely he speaks - being a rawkstar an' all, I thought he'd drawl but no. Very home counties.

So, the ebay photos are getting done tomorrow - as is pretty much everything else I've deferred and wriggled out of doing. Why do today what you can put off doing til the next day, or something... ;)

So This Is Boxing Day, And What Have You Done?...

Yeah, I know, I should be padding around the kitchen, with 19 drunk relatives sprawled across sofas, and patting my mince-pie-induced spare tyre, but...Christmas this year has been, well, kind of odd:

• The boyfriend is at his own place for the first christmas in several years, as he has his kids up here, so their first christmas with dad. Our kids do not get on, so we are not "conjoining" our christmasses
• I/we are not at my mum's - also for the first time in several years - as she has A BOYFRIEND now, gasp - and this is their first christmas "as a couple"
• Very stupidly I do not drive, so am stuck here
• The 13 year old wanted to spend christmas at home, and declared in advance he would only eat pizza on christmas day
• Raging pmt manifested itself on the 24th - always a great time to be afflicted
• I had sort of forgotten to buy any booze - in view of the above, a bottle or three of red would have been timely

During the week I had felt compelled, by pmt energy it transpired, to race around the house, changing beds, doing unfeasible amounts of laundry, taking unwanted magazines down to the doctors surgery, hell, even painting plant pots... and of course left wrapping up the kids' things til Friday night.

The 13 year old had just had another episode of staying up on Runescape for 36 hours, and so woke up and came out of his room at 5 minutes past midnight Christmas Eve. Great. The last minute.com wrapping had to be done stealthily and quietly under the duvet, but was eventually done. 2 stockings stuffed with chocolate and sweets (what was I thinking of???) were sneaked into their rooms, and I went to sleep....

Christmas morning was largely all fine and dandy, apart from the 11 year saying he felt sick first thing and would therefore not be wanting any of his chocolate, the presents went down well, a mad game of charades erupted somehow, phonecalls were made and received between us and other family members, the 13 year old accidentally hit the sous-chef in the eye with a metal bottle opener out of a cracker...

Then me and the 11 year old cracked on with cooking lunch, to a loose deadline of 1.30. The bottle-opener injury did not deter him from mixing up the stuffing, grating sprouts in butter, but hands were stabbed in the making of the apple sauce... As this was the first time I'd cooked at home at Christmas, it became evident that the oven was not going to accommodate a full-on roast AND a pizza... things came out of the oven, grew cold, went back in again... made a mental note to get a microwave.

By late afternoon I was blankly watching The Gruffalo and wishing I'd bought a magazine to retreat into. Ronnie Corbett was on, yet again, which was kind of nice, because who didn't love Saturday nights and The Two Ronnies. Although I'd intended to watch Dr Who, I felt a break for solitude and a therapeutic bout of dipping saucepans in boiling hot water was what I most needed. I came back in for the last 15 minutes of Amy Pond saving the world and got to grips with the backwards and forwardsness of the ghosts of christmas past, present and future without much difficulty.

And then it was time for the Christmas Strictly! The BBC did not pull the show, as Vince Cable had not lost his job this week, and his elegance on the dancefloor points to it being perhaps a good idea that he ditch politics and change career. There were quite a bit of Baker Backflips. There was a lot of John Barrowman's American Teeth. And he won. Which can only be a bad thing for his over-inflated ego.
Although the overriding impression of the whole show was Gavin, in a beard and white jumpsuit, looking like a lost member of the Bee Gees.

Trashsparkle's Televisual Treats Take Two, Apples, And Other Sparkly Stuff

So, we are finally all defrosted and everywhere (aside from places I have yet to see on the news, such as Scotland) has Totally Thawed. What an adjustment getting used to all these dark colours after the sparkly white stuff. The leaves are looking knackered, as if some toxic poisoned blanket has been to visit these past weeks, and the contents of an orchard has been revealed on the trampoline. Leading to a minor Saturday morning outfit dilemma - put on yukky old clobber and get set to with a broom to clear the trampoline, or ignore all that and go with the new grey leopardskin-print frock sneakily purchased on the basis of it being Non-Leopardskin Colour And Therefore OK?

Yes, I am totally over Real-Colour Leopardskin - Too Everywhere. Even EastEnders were sending it up - spotted Pat Butcher, as ever faux fur coat-clad, sitting in front of a ginormous painting of a tabby cat. A bit like the BBC's version of the patterned carpet, patterned wallpaper combo...

Which we saw gallons of when Boy George went back to the 70's on Thursday night. Ace decor-recreation. A total brown'n'orange fest. His old family house, and then another one, giving us double-decor whammy. And I lost count of the hats, but loved that his first one matched the yellow front door.

We have also had Kirstie doing her lovely mate Phil a favour, and organising some Channel 4 work for him, in the form of K&P's Perfect Christmas. Alas, there was just not enough time in Trashsparkle's day for a mammoth 4-episode roll-out of this nature, and from what I caught of it they kidnapped a good, clean-cut mormon boy and made him fix them some devil-juice in the shape of get-the-rellies-pissed cocktails. Oh, and there was the very heartwarming bit where Phil was doing Something Interesting in the kitchen. Apples, cider, sugar..... Sadly, this was then presented as a sauce, which can only be described as looking like vomit. Hope Phil did better in the rest of the shows, otherwise Kirstie's going to remain solo on Channel 4 in future.

And who could not watch Corrie? I haven't seen it since the 80's - just not the same without Elsie Tanner, Hilda Ogden and Albert Tatlock, but it became sort of cult-viewing with the 11 year old's peers and turned into Cultural Highlight Of The Week. One of his teachers was even in the audience at the tacked-on-afterwards quiz. For me, it was the usual wooden acting, yes Ken Barlow I do mean you, and its best line was the just-rescued Rita murmuring "what is it with me and trams?"

And aside from working new frocks and/or chucking apples around the garden, I shall be watching how picky Mr Revel-Horwood gets over whose feet are deemed to have left the floor, and who out of Scotttttt, Matt and Gavin gets desperate enough for votes to forget to keep their top on. At least we know that Ann Widdecombe ain't gonna get that glitterball.

On The Sunny Side Of The Quality Street

A glittering Sunday of sun on the snow, and diamante droplets on garden twigs.... the only downside of this lovely welcome sunshine is that Trashsparkle's house looks, erm, a tad on the filthy side. Never mind, as yet another tongue-in-cheek announcement hanging on my kitchen wall declares, "how can a woman be expected to do all the cooking and housework when she's been shopping all day"..... A bit of a time management review needed around here perhaps?

Indeed, tardy kitchen activity last night - lying on the sofa reading the papers til lastminute.com led to me missing a few chunks of Strictly; I didn't really mind missing Ann's rehearsal footage to retrieve the Tesco's Indian from the oven, and when I caught her performance it was as if a discarded Quality Street wrapper had attached itself to Anton.

Alas, through further kitchen mistiming issues, I managed to miss vital seconds at the start of Austin Baker's shenanigans.... so had to wait for iPlayer to see the magnificently fabulous backflip. Did he have elastic on those specs - still there when he landed... Why didn't they get 40???

Though I loved that Pammy got the 40 for her Viennese Birthday Waltz... In fact, I think Kara and Artem's tango should have got 40 too, especially if bonus points could have been given out for Fabulous Frocks.

Incidendentally, an accidental encounter with the cover of Heat/Closer/Look while purchasing chocolate yesterday afternoon leads me to believe that Charlotte is now keen for Gavin to come home. Could that be anything to do with his newly-acquired competence in the hip action department?

Trashsparkle's Triceps, Tea and Televisual Treats

Morning bloggers! Some tea, some free-range egg'n'fakey bacon sarnies, Nina Simone and Blondie, and all is well in Trashsparkleland this fine and dainty Sunday morning...

...apart from the still-disturbing image of the big canary wandering out from behing the curtains last night. Ann's big mistake was to refuse Anton's suggestion of doing Improper Moves, and thus diluting their samba down to another Queen-Mother-Wanders-Round-Chelsea. Not sure about their choreographical intentions, but I strongly suspect she'd had enough by the end and lay down on the floor, leaving Anton to improvise wildly by having to drag her around like a defeated floorcloth. Where have we seen that before?

Another dodgy samba was Scott and Natalie's. Not that bad, but, in Strictly-Speak, far too much "gapping" during that forward roll thang. Has Scott gone off Natalie's perfume or something? I felt myself almost shouting "forward" to make him move his feet nearer to her.

Which is something poor Sheryl Gascoigne had to do to urge The Big Wimpy Vegan that is Gillian McKeith through the blindfolded cave of horrors experience in last night's slice of "I'm a Celebrity..". Sheryl played a blinder when Gillian freaked again at another hanging cobweb... "Its only a Christmas decoration". Genius, Gascoigne.

Meanwhiles, in the land of my Disgracefully Unfinished House, I have temporarily put down the knitting and entered phase 2 of sanding the bathroom floorboards. Did a couple of hours Friday and got half the room done. Just the other half to go, then. Full of optimism that it SHALL be finished Fairly Soon, I shelled out some quids for a tin of yacht varnish. Very good for one's triceps, this floor-sanding malarkey...

And in the spirit of Winter Decorations, we are soon to become Proud Owners of a red reindeer. Not a Beryl Bainbridge-style taxidermy one, but a huge wooden advent calendar. T'is for the kids... It will go over the mantelpiece in the dining room. The mantelpiece that I have yet to source and install. There are high hopes that the planed piece of floor joist lurking in t'shed shall be fashioned into such.  Also, in the spirit of Planning Ahead In Effort To Avoid Haphazardry I have invested in some new red decorations. Some tin and wooden decs - but disappointingly, they turned out to be not scarlet as imagined, but sort of rustic-red-oxide. Think I will leave the Gisela Graham look alone in future...

We are also recovering from a visit from Trashsparkle's mother yesterday. Hence lurking lazily on here, writing, and admiring other people's creations and findings. Yesterday, mum did not get as enthused as me about the bathroom floor - she merely asked when I was getting the doors sorted, and tut-tutted as she passed the bombsite that the 11 year-old sleeps (and hides his clothes) in. As for the lovely knitting, well that just made her sneeze. Although she did atually love something - the pie'n'mash I made for lunch. A small victory...

Strictly Snogs and Snoozing

ooh, yum - kids still asleep, one hour and 9 minutes of me-time so far this morning! am sooo evil, making them stay up til 11.30 watching The Million Pound Drop.... obviously, it was me who was nodding off towards the end, and bossing them upstairs the SECOND it finished. The lack of noise around the house so far, although lovely, has made me very lazy - lots of tea and chunky buttered toast, still in pjs, and not much likely to get done today.

The Strictly use of lesser-known tracks has resulted in me dragging out Murder Ballads to show the 11 year old Kylie's cool side. He was a little horrified by the album title, but I think the exposure to the tracks thereon was worth the risk. What is with everyone doing snogs on Bruno last night? Gavin is well and truly past being shy, that's for sure...

Oh Lordy, Leopardskin. Again

This rainy morning I am fondly remembering my old leopardskin coat, that once upon a time I used to swish round London in... All before accidentally coming to live in a town where to wear something as "show-offy" put one in the ranks of the Widow Twanky Who Sits Outside Poundland Being Sharon Stone, and the lively old bat who wears her leopardskin in vinyl, with jauntily matching cap, in such a way as to remind one of Mollie Sugden as Nerys Hughes' mum. So it came that reluctantly, the acrylic jungle-fur had to be rehomed... And now leopardskin is EVERYWHERE again. Gutting... though I am planning on a range of handbags crafted out of some leopardskin velvet... far more delectable than swishing around like Widow Twanky Of The Dubious Underwear.

Aside from that, I feel a magnetic draw toward the shiny scissors of the hairdressers - something not unlike the sleek choppy look Brix Smith wore when she flew to the Outer Hebrides in search of real, uber-expensive tweed on Gok yesterday. Actually, it may not even have been yesterday - it could have been on cable, in which case when it was is anybody's guess. Can you tell I have a cold? Time-travelling telly - absolutely excellent for the state of confusion induced by one's sinuses.

Sort of inevitable that Jimi and Flavia will be on Claudia tonight - will Jimi be able to speak? He was rendered speechless with the emotion of getting voted out (or rather, not voted for enough to keep him in) last night. Proper choked, he was. How can it be that, after Peter Shilton and Paul Daniels went, the ones who can actually move are getting chucked off?  Even Gavin seems to have finally mastered the art of linking up all those stilted man-at-C&A-poses into Actual Dancing, so he could be in dangerous vote-off territory. Meanwhile, Ann (channelling the Queen Mother this week) rehashes her trademark moves - a cross between an afternoon at the Chelsea Flower Show and slow-motion moshpit action.

Pasta Telegram and Other Dreadful Side Effects of Chocolate

Have been 'festing up the house a bit this week in honour of the non-stop combo of sparkliness and fizz that is Diwali and Fireworks. The sparkly corner I showed in the last post is, finally, now bedecked by a string of multi-coloured lights. Damned gorgeous, although I say so myself.

Have been snaffling up bits and pieces to hide away for presents for the Winter Festival aka Christmas. Not usually this sensible, but it seems wrong to give people things that you've bought in a tearing hurry, at the last minute, getting all hot and grumpy in a shopping mall, boiling over to the point of resentment. Have now decided that if I see something that is "right" I will buy it, there and then. Which gives me carte blanche to go into shops A LOT. Which can be dangerous, but so far I have found 5 Very Suitable Things, and today managed to be Very Sensible in TK Maxx - ok, what's a little Charlie'n'Lola calendar here and there? T'was only £3.99, and it's for the house, not me..... and it will make me happy every day throughout next year. Bargain. And I am secretly 47-going-on-4 years of age...

Last night I rediscovered how utterly weird your dreams get when you eat chocolate in the evening. There I was, in the post office, asking for a bowl of pasta, telling them off for putting brussels sprouts on it, and trying to send it to someone in order to sort out what I was doing at the weekend. Bloody Yorkie bars - I swear they've put something in them.

Am thinking that the post-Halloween versions of Strictly are going to be a bit, well, just not vampy enough. I really think Matt the macho farmer should adopt the guyliner fulltime, and not just for showbiz. He just looked a bit too well-scrubbed without it on Claudia the other night. Come on BBC makeup ladies - the nation needs YOU. But it does not need Alice Cooper to be hidden away, obscured by cavorting Professional Dancers. What is the point of that???

Trashsparkle's Thursday Televisual Treats

Earlier tonight Trashsparkle was zonked - brain absolutely addled by the day's academic complexities, and so had to have a bit of a lie-down on the sofa. Flicked through LivingEtc, and found myself quite fancying a papier mache zebra for the lounge.

Revived by the tonic of an-approved-of-by-Gillian-McKeith raw carrot in time for the always-delightful It Takes Two. Finding it a bit hard to see exactly what botox Patsy Kensit has had, or it could just be the tv screen badly needs cleaning. Have a gut feeling it'll be Gavin doing the sad we're-leaving dancey bit at the end this weekend, though the poor lad seems to think he's still in with a chance now that he's worked out you need to do a bit of acting during the dancing. He 'fessed up the other evening to spending A LOT of time in front of the mirror - and I don't think Gavin knows about irony, the little lambkin that he is.

And then, joy of joy, it was a whole hour of Keef, with the god that is Andrew Graham-Dixon thrown in for extra eye candy. The Keef book has, naturally, been on the Christmas list for the past 2 weeks....

 ps Yesterday's indecisive day-off resulted in a chance find of a gorgeous G-Plan style 60s wooden armchair in a charity shop - I only went in for a cardigan!

Lame Is The Name Of The Game

...oh, t'is a sorry autumn when I feel Brucey puns abounding in my head. Shouldn't my head be full of other, more original, more creative, life-enhancing thoughts??

A sunny Sunday, and I am having the visual joy of watching many, many yellowy-greeny leaved trees wafting about - the view is through my back window, but I am not quite grammatically awake yet to make that any clearer in the space of a sensibly-sized sentence. I feel that I should be leaping about - in the spirit of this autumn joyful brightness - atop a hill somewhere, but my nearest hill, and certainly one where I could guarantee not to be seen by anyone I know, is about 4 miles away. I do not possess the va va voomph for an 8-mile round trip by foot, plus assorted leaping.

I feel the need for something big to happen today, to Get Something Done - like a Big Cupboard Sort-Out, or the equivalent of a 60-Minute Makeover of my kitchen-diner but without the whistles, the screeching, the hideous wallpaper-chosen-by-guest-designer, or the ogling neighbours. I think this Need To Do Something relates to tomorrow being back to getting up at the crack of dawn...ugh. :(

This week has been a lovely, slow, lazy half-term week. The 11 year old and I have been on train journeys to larger, more exciting towns than the one we live in. We discovered a fabulous, derelict grade II listed building and explored a very spiritual 14th century museum on one day, and got hopelessly lost and accused of shoplifting in a charity shop in the 2nd town. Suffice to say please tell your children not to try playing hide'n'seek while mum's perusing the cheeseboards and dodgy nick nacks...

Meanwhile, Strictly seems to have become The Cartwheel Show - will we see Gavin cart-wheelin' next week (that is, if his not-very-good tango was enough to keep him in)? And the I'm Ann Fly Me bit? What was that for? Oh, for fun... I'll try to remember that, instead of thinking of it as some doomed civil engineering manouevre...

Argos And The Aubergine

Pizza has been avoided since Thursday's burglar alarm capers - I have been been doing Proper Food! Yesterday I even discovered what a warm salad was (soggy roast veg basically. 'Course, I knew that). Served up a blinder of chunky mushroom slices and other assorted veggies roasted in butter . Ok, it was only Anchor, but it's still early days... Although I got carried away and chucked everything that was lurking in the bottom of the fridge onto the table. Result - the "healthy" table Gillian McKeith presents to the junkfood guzzlers after she's scared them to death with the Table Of Lard-Laden Products Formerly Known As Their Staple Diet.

Very enchanted by Strictly - how on earth did Felicity manage to be "sooo bendy", and felt gutted for Gavin when Craig told him the floorboards in his flat had more movement. I'd get the dry rot people in pronto, if I were you Craig... Just can't get the Jungle Book song outta my head though...

Later on Saturday night there was a 3am full-on domestic in my street - a blonde in impossible heels and a micro skirt was extremely Tired And Emotional... and giving it large with a repertoire that would have made a navvy blush. An entire brace of 3, yes threeeeeee, police cars rocked up to tactfully suggest the young lady might like to return to her own house...

My loadsa-money-spree (in Peacocks, all best acrylic, dahling) has been very uplifting - have been rocking the new knitted dresses with a variety of skinny jeans, leggings, boots... depending whether its a trip to Argos or the Baker's Oven.

Have decided to start looking out for old mirrors - the fancy silver hand mirrors that once upon a time would have been on every art deco dressing table in the land. Think they will look fab hanging up along the stairs. Good job I hardly ever lug the hoover up there - less chance of knocking them all off the wall...

Tomorrow I am playing badminton. Now that will be an interesting wardrobe experience. The nearest thing I own that they might allow onto a court is some black sparkly pumps, but I don't want the rest of my ensemble to be toooo conspicuous - don't want to draw attention to the fact that I am Highly Nervous Of All Things That Fly Anywhere Near Head Height.

Have rediscovered how utterly faberoonie Duran Duran were - there has indeed been Some Dancing Around The Kitchen....

Anyone Want A Man In A Cheap Suit?

Alright, I admit - time to come clean. There probably won't actually be much in the way of the promised Claudia-Coiffure-Calamity-Critiquing... because:
a) the look this series of ITT is much more sensible-of-fringe, less brunette wanting to look like an olde english sheepdog as per last series (whenever the camera panned back, post-enthusiastic-arm-wave-to-departing-guests, our Claudia would be looking a little dragged-through-a-hedge-backwards in the hair department).
b) Important Meetings seem to have been held at the BBC involving deportment advice and sending someone over the road to Boots for some Totally-Claudia-Proof-Hair-Product. There may, too, have been some concerned fanmail begging Claudia to keep her hair out of her eyes, lest she develop a nasty stye...

Anyhows, onto tonight's little half hour of joy... our New National Treasure and her partner Mr-Stage-Name (Because My Old One Was Too Common). This duo's strategy was revealed as being to adlib everything, call it art and give Ann all the credit for it, while Anton is forced to shut up and put up. And she got away with calling his suit cheap. Bless...

This hilarity led to a revelation from the 11 year old - that when I laugh, I don't actually laugh, I just shake. Enough to make him nearly fall off the sofa. Fancy that, I'd never realised...

Earlier today, in lieu of running around a large building in search of young people to impart my wisdom to, I had An Official Day Off. Gleefully pre-planned as Me Time. That is, the kind of Me Time that involves going into Grown Up Shops That Sell Nice Things, and not the other kinds of Me Time which entail running round Tescos or lying on the sofa.

I encountered the usual charming town scenery en route, namely a small boy leaping about unsupervised outside the tattoo parlour (can't think why ADHD sprang to mind there), a bunch of junkies outside Argos, and best of all, The Local Widow Twanky Who Sits Outside Poundland Being Sharon Stone.

And later, on exiting Local Reasonably Priced Chainstore, having to stand aside to avoid being knocked over by 2 pram-pushing young girls of, lets just say, ample build making a beeline for a rail of baggy t-shirts was rewarded by the irony of hearing one of them shrilling " I love over-sized things".

Didn't They All Do Well!

...Which takes us right back to shiny filmy frocks, caked-on make up and a conveyor belt on a Saturday night. but this time round, no conveyor belt.

A Friday-night kick-off to Strictly, then. Startled celebrities spun, stumbled, sashayed and otherwise smoothed us over. And then some more did it all over again the next night... which brings us to Monday, the post-work kip meaning dinner was only just getting underway when Claudia popped up. A bit of veg chopping and soy sauce pouring, then a bit of Claudia-viewing... and back and forth 'twixt kitchen and telly. A cheeky asymmetric Tin Tin look from Craig, and Claudia channelling Cathy McGowan but looking like there'd been a hurried dash to the studio from some flour mixing incident at home. And can someone please take Ann Widdecombe to Rigby and Peller?