Quick . . . Get The Sink Plunger!

So, call me suspicious but when the normal pattern isn’t followed I DO become suspicious.

You see, the ‘normal’ morning pattern for me is to be toddling around the place when Richard comes down. Sometimes, I’m sitting at the kitchen table on the laptop. Sometimes I’m splashing water around in the sink, pretending to be washing stuff. Richard shuffles through the door and says, ‘hello, babe, you OK?’

How sweet, you might think, what a lovely bloke, until I tell you that he’s talking to Chea, the cat. Babe responds with a kitty trill and receives a tickle between the ears. (She’d also receive a kitty treat if I hadn’t banned him from giving her treats. She almost broke the scales at the vets when she had her booster last month). I, meanwhile, tap away on the laptop or continue splashing water.

Sometimes we grunt at each other. These days that passes for, ‘good morning light of my life, how are you on this fine morning?’

This morning the ‘normal’ pattern wasn’t followed, even Chea didn’t get her tickle between the ears. I was at the sink, actually washing his wine glass that he’d left from the night before.

He sidled up to me and said, ‘could you do me a favour?’

Now, this comment, linked to the fact that I never receive the first words out of his mouth of a  morning, coupled with the fact that he was still in his dressing gown, concerned me slightly.

‘Depends what it is,’ I said, looking him up and down.

‘Could you look in my ear and tell me if there’s anything in it? It’s full of wax.’

‘If it’s full of wax it’s full. If it’s full – by the very meaning of the word – you can’t have anything else in it.’ Cleaver hey?

‘You know what I mean,’ he said, tugging at his earlobe.

I took a glance at his ear. ‘I can’t see anything. Go and fetch a torch.’

With torch in hand I peered into a hairy orifice.

‘Well, what is it?’ he said.

I was seriously tempted to tell him that he had a bug in it and that it would work its way to his brain (hard journey) and that he would walk in circles for the rest of his life. (I’d  once seen this on a wildlife documentary when it had happened to a poor wildebeast) but I didn’t.

‘Wax, just wax, why do you let them get to this stage?’

‘What!’ he shouted. ‘I can’t hear you.’

Idiot.

I made him sit at the table, with his head tilted, and reached for the olive oil – I might add my super-duper extra, extra, extra virgin olive oil. I tipped some into a teaspoon and trickled it into his ear. Then I massaged it – quite hard – because it pleased me to do so.

‘There you go, we’ll put oil in every day till it softens and then we’ll take it from there.’ I reckon I can probably find some kind of suction device, a bit like a sink plunger, and have a go with that. That’ll soon get Mr Naughty Ear Wax out!  I tell you. My life rocks.

He stood up and walked away, with his little head still on the side, in the search for a bit of cotton wool to stop the oil leaking out. I put my precious olive oil back in the rack and then, realised, as my precious olive oil was already there, that I’d actually filled his ear with an extremely cheap cooking oil.

Never mind, as long as he doesn’t sit with that side of his head next to the wood burner tonight he’ll be OK. Wouldn’t want him to fry his brain . . . would I?

I’m now going to take this opportunity to wish all my readers/followers/friends/those who only read my blog posts because they think I am crazy/sick/mental blah, blah, blah,               A MERRY, MERRY CHRISTMAS. I wish you peace, happiness and love, whether that comes from making new memories or reliving old ones. I’ll be having a quiet Christmas with Richard  – and Richard will be having an even quieter one – because he has wax in his ears and cannot hear!

Bless you all xxx

Cracked It! No Glittered Pussy This Year

So, that’s it! The last craft fair is under my belt. The remaining items are sorted, boxed, and stored away until next year. Unfortunately, the ‘storage’ area is the bottom of one of my wardrobes. This means that anything over shirt length is creased and rammed towards the back of the wardrobe. No worries. I’m going to sort through everything again and fill some charity bags.

I tidied these wardrobes earlier in the year and still ended up with hangers full of crap. Too ‘small’ crap. Too ‘busy’ crap. Too ‘boring’ crap. Too ‘plain’ crap. Put simply – crap. So, I am going to be lethal.

Boots and shoes are not escaping the clear-out either. In fact, if anyone would like a free pair of short, brown boots (Clarks – 6) with a small heel, let me know. They have been on my feet once – for ten minutes. Plantar fasciitis now prevents me from wearing anything with a heel. I’m such a poor sod – falling apart at the seams really. These days I only look trendy when in the garden and wearing wellies.

Anyway, that’s that.

The last craft fair was at my local library. The staff were lovely and the event quite successful. In fact, I’m popping a couple of my books down there this morning. Yes, little ‘backwards at coming forwards’ me! I actually enquired if they took self-published books and the chief librarian was most accommodating so . . . I’m starting small and just letting them have ‘Two Chucks and a Tabby Cat’ (that actually isn’t self-published – but a minor detail) and ‘Witch Ever Way You Look At It.’ That should be sufficient to scare the natives into insanity and have them all diving into the depths of The National Forest for a bit of calming tree hugging.

With the left-over craft items stored away and the wardrobes thinned to baldness I shall be happy. These little things do make me happy. Tidiness. Knowing where everything is. I have even addressed the irritating problem of the glittery Christmas tree.

If you remember, I bought the beautiful, silver glittery tree a couple of years ago? The first year it had a major shed of glitter like some poor dog with a serious attack of mange. We wore glitter everywhere – very seasonal but mega embarrassing, especially when you got home and realised that you’d stood chatting to someone in Morrison’s check-out queue with silver glitter on your chin.

The second year it shed less, but even so poor Chea was ridiculed by the neighbourhood cats as she happily, and unknowingly, trotted down the garden path with sparkly ears and twinkly tail, where she’d rubbed beneath the tree.

This year I have sussed it and the bloody tree is outside, in the back porch thingy. It can be seen from inside the house BUT it doesn’t shed glitter everywhere. This year there will be no glitter on my pussy . . . bless her little heart.

So, off to do a tad more tidying, starting with Richard’s slippers. They have expanded like large boats on his feet and I can hear him coming from one end of the house to the other, shuffling along like Frankenstein’s monster. Yesterday he caught the side of the right slipper under the door and almost went arse over topknot. This is three days after missing the bottom two stairs and crumbling into the hall. I was drinking my tea in bed at the time and came very near to scalding myself when I burst into hysterics. What is it that is so hilarious about someone falling over? Anyway, he’s just buggered off to his mother’s now so the slippers will be in the bin when he returns. I call it an act of kindness?

Take care x

http://jennieorbell.com/books/shop/

Hardly Fairy Dust!

Again – I’m starting this with my too frequently used opener of . . . ‘Yes, it’s been awhile since the last blog post.’ Nothing new in that, hey? Except, there is something new in that – this – whatever.

Choose from the following which you think is responsible for my absence;

1  I won the lottery and took three weeks off to find a comfy country pad?

2  I finally pushed Richard to the end of his tether and he threw me out without my laptop and therefore any means of blogging?

3  I took a long cruise?

4  I almost killed myself with my lovely palm sander?

So, what do you think?

Obviously it’s the last one. I don’t do the lottery. Richard wouldn’t dare throw me out and cruising makes me seasick.

To start with I thought I was going down with a cold virus. This, in itself, is rare. I don’t really get colds. The simple fact that I don’t mix with many people might have something to do with this? Richard started coughing and spluttering around the place and I threw my normal fit and issued him with instructions. ‘Stay away from me. Use a tissue. Sleep in the other room.’ And whenever he made me a cup of tea etc. I bawled, ‘WASH YOUR HANDS!

Three weeks after his bug onset I felt a tickle in my throat whilst watching Emmerdale. ‘I’m getting a cold!’ I announced suddenly and woke the poor soul as he was about to doze off – he doesn’t watch the soaps, says he doesn’t like them, however, he’s always asking me what’s what. Weird that, but I digress . . .

Forty-eight hours later and I was barking like a dog. Then my nose started producing you know what. Buckets and bowls of it in lovely shades of cream and green – yes, I know, too much information. I very quickly fell under the spell of the ‘virus’ and was REALLY, REALLY, poorly, coughing until I was sick, and once I almost passed out because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t taste a single thing for five days. I could have been eating curry or custard . . . no way of telling. My ears were blocked for five days and when the pain slicing through my head snuck down into my cheek, gums and teeth, I gave in and reluctantly took to my bed, after making Richard promise that he wouldn’t forget I was up there.

He forgot I was up there – even after promising to bring me a cup of tea and paracetamol at an agreed time. After the agreed time had come and gone I banged on the wall (always works) and five minutes later up he trotted saying that he’d set the alarm on his phone but it hadn’t gone off. See? This is why I try to address illness from downstairs and not take to my bed. Did he really need to set an alarm? Shouldn’t the fact that his beloved was up in the attic, dying, be sufficient for him to remember? Jeez, even Chea popped up now and again to see if I was well enough to get up to cook her a bit of buttery chicken.

After a fortnight with no improvement, and being pretty sure I needed antibiotics, I struggled to the doctor.

Needless to say I was just as ill as I’d imagined and came home with the appropriate antibiotics and a diagnosis of bronchitis.

It was at this point, or slightly earlier, that a ‘light bulb’ moment occurred and after thinking back I suddenly realised that this had started after using the lovely palm sander. Yes, I’d used a dust mask 70% of the time, but not ALL of the time. On bright, breezy days I’d winged it a bit, throwing caution to the wind and imagined I was side stepping the swirling wood-dust clouds.

It all made sense – even Richards so-called cold. He had produced neatly cut wood for me, length after length, and he hadn’t used a dust mask at all.

And the best of it is I really pushed myself to be fit enough to do a craft fair last Saturday. I didn’t honestly feel up to it but you all know me – an obstinate so and so. I insisted that Richard stay with me, just in case I had a coughing fit, couldn’t breathe and died in the middle of the display. He wasn’t impressed. I’ve told you before, he’ll take me, lug boxes, and fetch me back, but he won’t stay. Well, this time he had to . . . and guess what? For all my effort to survive bronchitis (brought on by my own stupidity) and to make it to the fair, it was utter crap. No one, including me, sold much at all and Richard parked the sodding car in the wrong car park and got a parking ticket! Bloody brilliant.

I have one fair left to do this year. I will review the situation in the New Year. Seems I can’t write books because of my retinal migraines and I can’t produce crafts because I poison and aggravate my lungs with wood dust?

What next I ask myself. So far I haven’t come up with an answer. But I will.

Take care . . . and if you are sanding wood WEAR A DUST MASK!