Posted under Photography
You see, this is what happens when I don’t have a project. I am reduced to taking photos of flowers for my Photo 365 project.
I am cooking up another project…but suggestions gratefully received. I miss dressing up. I think I’ve unleashed my inner show off and now there’s no stopping me. HELP.
Posted under People I love, Photography, Witterings
I love MrSpud for many reasons, one of which is his sheer gutsiness. I must say that I do try not to tell him too often, just to keep him on his toes and also as a kind of ongoing vengeance for The Saucepans. On which note, a friend told me that his wife just bought him one of those files for removing dead skin from your feet as a wedding anniversary present….love that, “Here, Happy Anniversary! Now take this and turn those trotters back in to feet wouldya?”
But back to MrSpud and his funny little ways. Yesterday he goodly offered to take the boys to the park in a bike trailer despite the blistering heat. The boys were pretty chuffed about this as they’ve never been in a bike trailer before. So we borrowed one from our friend, who luckily was too busy filing his trotters to take his own children out and about in it.
Here are the boys, clipping themselves in and ready to go. Note hard hats…don’t you love their utter trust in their father’s ability to get them places in one piece:
Is there a life jacket with a whistle for attracting attention anywhere?
Bye Mummy! Feel free to loaf around on the sofa surfing the net while we’re gone won’t you?
Bertie looking a little unsure, still looking for the life jacket?
Ready for the off, MrSpud looking confident…er but MrSpud, you’re not supposed to PUSH the bike, you’re supposed to cycle it?
MrSpud looking confident
Oh good, he’s worked it out, he’s getting on the bike, this is good:
Nice sandals...do you wear socks with those sometimes MrSpud?
Hoorah, they’re off. Oh, but MrSpud…it’s a bit of a hill…do you think, perhaps, you’ve over estimated your own strength? You’re only very little remember and you’ve got two heffalumps in the back there?
Note Bertie looking entirely unimpressed in the back
Oh, and he’s OFF. Yes, he is OFF the bike and pushing again having cycled for approximately 2 metres (admittedly a little better than my 21cm shot put).
And he's off...I repeat..he is off
COOOOEEEEE MrSpud, turn around, let’s get a shot of you in your moment of shame shall we? No?
Run MrSpud! Run like the wind...
Giggle. I don’t ‘think’ he pushed them all the way to the park, but MrSpud learnt a valuable lesson about how embarrassing it is when you wildly overestimate your own strength and have your wife photograph the entire episode and then write about it on the WWW DOT, as my Grandad calls it. How he must wish he’d ticked the ‘must be loving and supportive’ box when shopping for me on the internet. No point trying to get a refund now MrSpud, I’m used goods, my packaging is not intact and my labels have been removed. You’re stuck with me! Now stop whining or I’ll buy you a de-trotter for your birthday.
Posted under 30 Secrets in 30 Days, Dirty Little Secrets
A Big...Fat...Liar..shame on you Spuddles
Oh yes, it’s true…I am a Big Fat Liar! Let the facts speak for themselves:
1. This is secret 30. No it isn’t, I miscounted, this is actually secret 31 and I purposely didn’t renumber the secrets to keep you all in suspenders. Lie 1.
2. I took the above photo myself. No, I didn’t. Peer closer (ignore wrinkles, sunspots, nasil hair etc). MrSpud can clearly be seen snapping me, reflected in my shades. He’s little, but get a magnifying glass and you’ll spot him, on tippytoes probably. Lie 2.
3. I told you 30 secrets. 31 if we include today’s bonus revelation. But, oh my, one of them was a Big…Fat..Lie. [pauses to allow collective deep breath]. I’m afraid so, I played with you and told fibs. And I don’t mean little white lies either. It’s a big, fat, black, hairy lie with boils on it. Lie 3.
So, to atone for my sin, given that I am Catholic and thus guilt is my watchword, I am giving away a prize to the first person to comment who can correctly guess which of my 30 Secrets in 30 Days was entirely untrue. Don’t be shy to have a go, I will post the prize anywhere in the world…and it’s (a) worth having and (b) will be personalised for you. I’m not telling what it is because I’m annoying like that. Don’t worry, it’s not my dressing up box. Or MrSpud.
A quick visual reminder of the 30 secrets…I feel stripped bare of my soul and will awake tomorrow feeling renewed and cleansed. But mostly just bloody grateful that it’s finished! Thanks for listening, thanks for the comments, thanks for all the laughs…now, get guessing. Which one was the Big Fat Lie? ONE GUESS PER PERSON! x
30 Secrets in 30 Days...but one was a Big Fat Lie
Posted under Dirty Little Secrets, Lists of things, Witterings
Gremlins! Oh no, I 'think' they've spotted me?
A week or so ago I spotted a little ‘nugget’ on The Fragrant Muse’s blog, where she’d jotted down a few of her ‘gremlins’ with a view to banishing them, or at least giving them a glancing blow, by putting them down in writing. I admired her honesty for sharing and started musing on whether I have any gremlins and if so what to do about them? Treat them like a pet, or vermin? Feed them or swot them? So I took her gremlin catcher openers:
I do not have enough…
I will never…
I am too…
I should…
If only I…
I ought to…
I must…
and then completed the sentence to identify any gremlin presence Chez Spud. I did it fast as I thought that was the best way of luring those little critters in to my trap. Stealth is my friend.
And this is what I got:
I like this, a couple of meaty gremlins in there (lack of patience, lack of local buddies), couple of things that are lurking on my to do list which need urgent attention, couple of statements of fact which I am cool with. I’m sure it’s a good exercise to do every now and again, and that it’s interesting to compare the list against previous gremlin catching attempts.
Give it a go, share them gremlins if you feel like it. But if you catch some juicy ones, be sure to ZAP them.. the little ones can be returned to the wild…or tamed and kept as a pet.
A couple of 'semi' tamed gremlins
Posted under 30 Secrets in 30 Days
Her Royal Maj put Spud in the corner
Picture the scene. It’s the summer of 1977 and I am 6 years old. The UK is gripped with Silver Jubilee celebration madness; the Queen had been ‘on the throne’ (snigger) for 25 years and we cracked open miles of bunting, shut streets and had parties in them and printed terrible photos of Her Royal Maj on cheap mugs to celebrate. Not to be outdone, our village had a whole day of celebrations including ‘Decorate your bike in red, white and blue’ (I won that, my Raleigh 14 had never looked so splendid – it even had a massive union jack rigged up on the back), ‘Fancy Dress’ (I went as Britannia) all rounded off with an afternoon of traditional games for the children.
It was going reasonably well and tantrums had been averted due to my success in the ‘decorated bike’ contest (I bet my Mum slipped a little something to the judge, she’d got the measure of me by then). I shed my Britannia outfit (recycled Angel outfit from the previous year’s Nativity play, plus trident fashioned from a pitch fork – er hello? Health & Safety anyone?) and limbered up to take part in a few races. Already it was a terrible idea given that I can’t run/jump/do anything atheletic, although I was about to find out that being crap at games was the least of my worries. A whole new issue was about to rear its ugly head in the shape of my big, fat tummy.
So, race 1. Easy enough. Amble up the field towards a line of school chairs, duck under the chair, amble to the finishing line…throw a wobbler due to finishing last as usual and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming. That was how it was supposed to go. In fact it went like this:
Amble up the field towards line of school chairs, duck under the chair…oh…it feels a little tight?… REALLY try to squeeeeeeeeze through…help! I can’t move…wriggle a lot while grunting…look up to see the other children have finished the race and medals are being handed out..meanwhile I am well and truly stuck under the chair and people are laughing…try to back out…can’t move….try to wriggle forward…am completely wedged in…start howling…look up to see my mother running across the field to ‘save me’…start shrieking at her….she lifts the chair off me using a degree of force as I am well and truly wedged under it…I throw a GIGANTIC tantrum out of sheer humiliation and have to be taken home, kicking and screaming.
So, your Royal Maj…I’m very sorry that I didn’t get in to the spirit of things as much as I might have done all those years ago. I apologise for cutting short my hommage to your Big 25. I would have stayed but I’m afraid I was just too fat. Sorry about that.
Posted under 30 Secrets in 30 Days
For a professional communicator, I have a disturbing knack of saying exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. I’m a lot better these days, but as a child and teenager my lack of tact was verging on the legendary. I think I must be over the worst of it though as I struggled to think of any recent examples but there are some absolute corkers when I look back in to my murky past. I present the evidence:
1. When I was 18, I was a prefect at school (well of course I was, such a good two shoes). One of the less glamorous responsibilities of being a prefect was controlling the lunch queue which had a habit of snaking around the entire school unless it was properly managed. Pupils were fed by age, with the little ones getting lunch last (seems very harsh looking back, but that’s English public schools for you). One day the queue was taking on a bit of a life of its own, and the master on duty kept shouting at me to keep the queue shorter. So I would get rid of 20 or 30 little pips and tell them to come back later. But the minute my back was turned, those little squeeks would join the queue again. Exasperated I shooed the ruffians away, and shouted that the next person to join the queue would be ‘ on fatigue’ (English public school for ‘given loads of nasty jobs to do as a punishment). That had told ‘em, the criminals.
So I couldn’t believe my eyes when, bold as brass, a girl walked up to the queue and joined it. That was it, I flipped and bawled at her in front of the entire lunch queue to Teach Her A Lesson. I finished up by shouting ‘What is the MATTER with you? Were you not listening to what I said? Are you DEAF?’. “Yes”, she sobbed…at which point I noticed her hearing aid. Cringe cringe cringe.
Lesson One: not all disabilities are visible. Do not make assumptions. Do not make flip remarks about disabilities, they will rightly come back and bite you on the bum.
2. A good few years ago I had the difficult task of taking a very senior member of the management team of the law firm I worked at on one side, to tell him he wasn’t allowed to talk to the media, and that he had broken every rule in the book by doing so and had put the firm in a difficult position. It was a very awkward discussion, he was more senior than me, more experienced, older. He took it reasonably well but his pride had clearly taken a knock. Determined to part on good terms I finished the meeting by saying, “No hard feelings, hey? Let me buy you a beer some day”. “I’m a mormon” he replied, “I don’t drink”. Cringe, cringe, cringe.
Lesson Two: do not make assumptions. Not everyone is a total lush like you. Stop insulting people, they don’t like it and it’s completely unnecessary with a bit of thought.
3.In my 20s, I worked in a small team of people headed by a wonderful, if rather scatty, old lady. She was a marvellous person, loving and kind and was so supportive of me – like a second mother really. But working with her was quite a challenge at time as her age was against her in many ways. One day she started wibbling around, I was on a deadline and didn’t have the time for any wibbling. Needing an outlet for my frustration, I emailed another girl in our team and said,
“Oh, X has only just walked in and already she is annoying me so much I want to kill her!”
You know, one of those exaggerating for effect kind of emails. Except I didn’t sent it to the other girl in our team, I sent it to X herself. CRINGE CRINGE CRINGE. And you know the worst bit? When she read it and I realised what I’d done, I burst in to tears…and she came over and put her arms around me and gave me a hug. Yup, the lovely, kind, caring lady gave ME a hug because I felt bad. Uh, I still feel sick with shame thinking about it and that was about 15 years ago.
Lesson Three: if you really must say something bad about somebody, either seriously or in jest, never EVER put it in writing.
I always fancied a career in the diplomatic service, but alas I’m not sure the quest for world peace would be well served by my bombastic style. Plus, I’d never be able to actually negotiate anything on the basis that my mouth is normally full of my feet.
Posted under 30 Secrets in 30 Days, Things I hate
I’ve already mentioned that I can’t catch or throw. Neither can I run – regardless of how fit I am, I just…can’t… run, I flake out after an embarrassingly short distance and have to lie down, gasping and panting. I also lack any kind of hand-eye coordination, I can’t jump and am very clumsy. Also, I’m quite a scared kind of person and I don’t like any kind of physical tackling type stuff – and I cry if I get hit with a ball, bat, racquet etc. Plus I’m a bad sport. If ‘Crap At Games’ was an Olympic sport, I’d be up there on the podium that’s for sure.
By the time I reached the upper sixth at school (age 18), it was widely known and accepted that I was hopeless at sport and that it was kinder not to make me do it anymore. So, on a Tuesday and Thursday afternoon while everyone else was out playing hockey/netball/tennis etc, I was allowed to go swimming. I wasn’t allowed to go unsupervised, so Mr Jackson (a very kindly maths teacher), came swimming with me. Up and down the pool we’d glide, well he was gliding, I was thrashing about of course. It was all very civilised and I was mighty relieved to be excused the hell of games for the rest of my life.
But, then, Sports Day rolled around and I was told in no uncertain terms that I ‘must’ represent my house. I was quite surprised about this given that my entire house hated me – I’d cheated in the cross country event earlier in the year and the whole house was disqualified as a result. Whoops – but in all honesty I wasn’t capable of finishing the cross country ‘amble’ (naturally I didn’t attempt to run it) without cutting out a good few miles of it. I will concede that it was unfortunate to be caught cheating but let’s gloss over that.
So back to Sports Day. A quick look at the events made it clear I was in trouble. All track events were out as I can’t run, I’d never once managed to finish the 800m never mind more, sprinting was a joke, hurdles too hurty etc etc. Field events weren’t looking too promising either though…high jump was out (can’t jump and too hurty), long jump too sandy, javelin too pointy. Hmm. So after much thought it was decided that the shot put was where I could do the least damage, either to myself or spectators.
Thankfully it was held in a quiet corner of the school grounds, and there wasn’t much a crowd. I was quite relieved about this as I actually had no idea how to shot put but, RESULT, Mr Jackson was in charge of the event and he gave me a quick lesson. Looked easy enough; nuzzle shot under jaw, wheel around a few times and then hurl it while grunting like a pig. Sorted. My first throw was 9cm. Hmm. At this point Mr Jackson started guffawing and this quickly developed in to helpless giggles. This attracted attention as it’s rare for maths teachers to start ‘losing it’ like this. A crowd gathered, oh great. My second shot was 15cm (queue more helpless giggles from everyone) and my third and ‘best’ shot was 21cm.
21cm…let’s just stop and think about that shall we…get a ruler if you can be bothered…but take it from me, 21cm is basically just right in front of your foot. Despite all the wheeling around and pig like grunting, all I’d managed to do was effectively drop the shot on the ground in front of me. I could have rolled the damn thing further.
The world record for women’s shot put is 22.63m. My personal best is 21cm. You do the maths…it’s not pretty. Let’s face it, I’m no threat to her…but I bet I’m prettier than her and, as we all know, that’s what counts.
Posted under Witterings
Oooh this is fun…it’s my wordle. I even love the word ‘wordle’. Go to the Wordle site and make a ‘word cloud’ of the words which appear most frequently on your blog, or other any other site for that matter. Fiddle with the font and colours and hey presto! Your wordle is born.
What I adore is the random poetry it creates…’wobbler time’…’paddy pilates’…’family grudge’…’just loved less’…’face gifts’…brilliant.
So if you read this I tag you. Go forth and Wordle.
Posted under 30 Secrets in 30 Days
Faking it
Nooooo, not like ‘that’. I couldn’t think of a title which encapsulates this secret, but faking is a significant part of it. And so the title stands. It’s a cheap shot for attention, I admit it, so shoot me…
Once upon a time in 2002, I went to Australia on business. I was working for an international law firm, as head of media relations, and started off in Perth for a conference with a group of partners. The Sydney office had asked me to ‘pop’ over to media train their lawyers after the conference so, along with around a dozen partners, I made my way to the airport once the conference was done.
I was booked to fly business class, but for some reason I was feeling awkward about it – as if the partners were wondering why a mere ‘staff’ member was in business, and I’d rehearsed a firm but not defensive position should I be challenged. So imagine my horror when I boarded to plane and found that I’d been upgraded to FIRST CLASS. Arrrgh. So now the partners, the owners of the business and the people who paid my salary, were roughing it in business class and I was larging it up in first.
I begged the cabin crew to put me back in to business (must have been a first surely), but it was too complicated and I had no option but to sink in to my oh-so-luxurious white leather seat and scowl at my ‘designated’ flight attendant who was kneeling in front of me with a glass of champagne and a selection of canapes on a silver tray.
Quickly I formulated a plan. Clearly the partners could NEVER know of my swankiness so, once we got to Sydney, I would wait on the plane until both first and business class passengers had disembarked and then I would shuffle off with the plebs in economy, who no doubt had spent the flight throwing buns at each other and such like and thus the partners would assume I’d been in the back all along. Genius.
Once ‘the plan’ was sorted, I settled back in to my seat and congratulated myself on my good fortune and cunning. I selected my movie choices (only ones I’d seen before, obviously), picked up a couple of trashy magazines and started making selections from the extensive wine list.
Until, from behind me, I heard a very familiar and rather surprised sounding voice saying ‘Hello Spud’. ARGGHHH, nightmare…it was my boss, the chairman of the firm. And she was looking a little startled to find her pooper scooper loafing around in first class. Crap, ‘the plan’ was stuffed. She took her seat directly in front of me and, cursing, I stashed the wine list and got out my laptop since, clearly, I needed to demonstrate my commitment to the firm and my role by working for the whole FIVE hours it took to ‘pop’ to Sydney.
She turned around and saw my laptop, nodded approvingly and then got her laptop out and started working, so I started to draft some document or other. About 20 minutes later my battery died. And for some, bizarre reason instead of putting my laptop away and doing some reading … I just carried on doing fake typing on my dead laptop. Every time she turned round or got up, I ‘typed’ faster and more audibly. What the HELL was I doing? Whatever it was, I was faking it big time. And I did it all the way from Perth to Sydney.
And the sting in the tale? I arrived at the Sydney office the next morning, exhausted from all that ‘typing’ ready for the media training session that the partners had begged me run for them. Not one person turned up, not ONE. I had literally flown to the other side of the world for absolutley no reason. They had set up a video link for the Melbourne office so they could join the session. And the link? Showed a big room full of empty chairs. Those aussies have got a whole Grudge Book to themselves…and, believe me, I’m not faking it this time.
