I've moved all my posts and becoming less anonymous on georginadawkins.wordpress.com. If you follow me here, please follow me there!

Top tip for all you guys and gals out there. Try not to sneeze into your glass of ginger beer when you are a mere nanosecond away from taking a mouthful of drink. Unfortunately I have just discovered what happens if you are taken by a surprise sneeze. "What happens?" I hear you ask... Well, if you actually have your face inside the glass as I did, you'll be more than likely to involuntarily shake the glass as you sneeze, leading your very fizzy and sticky drink to froth up significantly into your face. You will also lose a large portion of your drink onto your new trousers, sofa, floor and dog.

The only thing that would have made it even better would be if someone else other than me and the dog had been there to witness the whole thing. Sadly it was just me laughing into a ginger beer soaked tea towel and Tess who clearly thinks I'm a couple of dog food tins short of a six pack...

Right, I'm off to wash my face because I have sticky eyebrows.

Have you noticed that recently everyone seems to be ready to get their hands dirty? Everyone is getting into gardening - from the very young (some of the projects we fund through my work are gardening projects for Scout and Guide groups) to people in theior early twenties. We all know the older generation (our mums, mostly) love gardening but it's great to see the younger generation raving about home grown foods, helping out on friend's allotments etc.

At the Horniman Museum, they have a great little community garden with planters made out of all sorts of things from wellies, to raincoats (1) and gardening gloves. They have built a 'bug hotel' (2) out of wooden crates, bottles and plants to give all the bugs something to hide in. England's plentiful rainfall is captured in a water butt (3) and they even have a little pond made out of an old bathtub. It's great for kids to go and see things growing and learn to appreciate nature as soon as possible, in my opinion, and I love how inventive people can be in a small space, in central London, where there often isn't much green space to grow things.

As for me, I would LOVE to have a little garden of my own (this is how I know I'm getting old!), the dog would like a bigger garden to run around in, but one thing at a time. I need to move house first. Meanwhile I'm making do with a window sill on which I'm growing sage, rosemary, chilli plants and pak choi (I think it's pak choi - I 'll let you know when it stops looking like generic seedling). Also my orchid seems to be budding with absolutely no help from me. I'm not the most green fingered of people when it comes to flowering plants!

If you have an idea for a place to grow food, and need some cash to get you started, you could apply for some Capital Growth funding from the Mayor. It's what the Castle Climbing Centre (where I climb) used to get its own amazing vegetable garden up and running. Now the Castle's cafe uses own-grown food to serve to us climbers; fresh, handpicked food, no pesticides and no carbon emissions used for delivery.

On a sad and totally unrelated note, the elephants have now gone from their spots aroind London, however, they have been herded together in the grounds of Royal Chelsea Hospital where you can view the whole herd on the official viewing days from 25th to 28th June, 10am to 7pm. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information download the pdf here. If you can afford to buy one, the auction is on 30th June!

Throughout London between May and July 2010 are 250 beautiful, individually designed elephants. Similar to the Cow Parade back in 2002 (but much cuter) the Elephant Parade aims to raise the plight of the endangered Asian elephant. You can even buy them at an auction if you spot one you particularly like - and have loadsamoney. If you're not rolling in it you can buy a miniature version from the Elephant Parade webshop but be quick as they have limited amounts. A side benefit is that the elephants are getting people talking and making them stop, look around and enjoy their surroundings more than they would normally do!

Those thoughtful types at Elephant Parade have even provided a route map to help you. How many can you find?

...not for me, for this rarely updated blog. I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, if it looks better, I'll update it more. Even if it's only a mini-post about something that made me smile.

We'll see.

Had a period of minor but impactful disasters over the last week or so. Mostly caused by the dog it seems. Apart from eating three quarters of a bag of strawberry flavoured jelly sweets (and then trumpeting in my car and it smelling of a mixture of guff and strawberries) she also ate 250g of frozen mince that was meant for dinner. After that it made its presence felt in a rather runny mess on my kitchen floor. Let's not forget she also tripped me up, causing scabby and bruised knees and a full on face-plant onto the pavement. Thanks Tess.

Oh, I also managed to cause some damage all by myself. After coming home from a great concert with friends, I took a running jump onto my (wooden framed) bed. CRACK! Yep, I broke the bed. Nothing a big bit of superglue won't fix, I'm sure.

Yesterday I found out I don't really like cheese fondue anymore, which is a shame as it was my staple diet for a good few months. I guess you can have too much of a good thing, just like when I went off the colour brown. Probably a blessing in disguise for me and everyone around me, that one.

This morning I picked up my make-up bag from the kitchen but managed to lose it before reaching the bedroom. I looked everywhere, every room, the bins, under the bed, even in the fridge (I have found a good many misplaced items in there before now). I gave up and went to feed the dog and then finally found it in the cutlery drawer.

This kind of clumsy, forgetful behaviour is just typical of a stressed me. Later this year we find out whether our company (and our jobs) get renewed for another five years, or whether we will all be unemployed come 31st March 2011. The thing is, I am the one leading the campaign. The buck basically stops here. So, six people's jobs, no pressure love. I have done it lots before, I can do it again. Wish me luck, people!

Amongst the many and varied Facebook status update time-wasting activities that seem to be sweeping the globe (what colour is your bra, what style is your hair etc) some of which I may have taken part in ...this one is about "Urbaning" (To look up your own name on Urban Dictionary, either for definition or myspace useage.). The idea is that you go to www.urbandictionary.com, type in your first name, copy and paste it as your status, and put the first entry of your name under comments....

It's pretty funny if you've got a few minutes to waste. Here are my results. NB they get a little crazier the further down the list you go. I wonder who writes all this stuff?

I was looking back through a diary that I kept whilst I was teaching at a summer school in rural Nigeria in 1998 yesterday. We had found that the students had many misconceptions about England (as expected!) and of course we had misconceptions about Nigeria too, it was a learning experience on both sides that's for sure. We had asked the pupils to write a short essay on their thoughts on what living in England was like, and I found a piece written by a 13 year old girl, which is just lovely:

My name is Ezinne Mba. I am living at Unwana in Afikpo LGA Ebonyi State. I am 13 years old. While I think that England is different to Nigeria is because the white people from England look very smooth and walk as fast as a hare. England is cold and is a paradise, and their flag is quite different from ours. Another thing is because they do not wash their clothes by themselves and do not travel by ten toes [on foot] but travel by aeroplane and their hair is as long as a tail, and England is as beautiful as an angel and their body is smooth as an egg. England is a big country and everything in England is cheaper than ours, for example like rice, beans, tomato, clothes and so on. Our money is in Naira and theirs is in Dollars.

I remember the class had a really good conversation about the differences between where we lived; wages, cost of living, housing, education etc. That whole Nigerian experience was just amazing. I met some amazing people including some who had never seen white people before, saw some wonderous things, ate some...interesting food.

Now I'm getting itchy feet again. Need to plan the next thing! Suggestions on a postcard please!

I spent a lovely weekend doing countryside things, specifically, seeing my dad and my sister on board her houseboat, currently moored near Bath. She had invited us up for a barbeque, and what a barbeque it was! We had burgers, bratwurst sausages (the best kind), and three types of kebab, not forgetting corn on the cob and a lovely salad (healthy options so we didn't feel so bad about wolfing all that meat down!). Just when we thought we had finished, we had to try and make room for toasted marshmallows, which I managed to do quite successfully, even if I do say so myself.

Hearing some of the 'landlubbers' comments as they walked past was quite funny, "Ooooh look, they're having a barbeque on that one!" Yes, we can hear you! My sister told us about a time when a family looked into the boat and one said to another "Wow, they've even got bread and butter!" Woooooow. It's amazing that people treat the boaties as if they are unable to hear anything that is said on land, even worse, that they could well be an entirely new species, albeit one that 'even eats bread and butter'! Ah well, they don't know what they are missing!

I was still thinking about this when we drove through Putney later that night on the way back to the ghetto. Some young cretin and his mates were spraying graffiti on a brick wall, using a rather dull orange colour (which barely showed up, by the way) at only 8:30pm, still daylight at the time of year, with barely a care in the world. You would have thought that they would have chosen a contrasting colour, dull orange really doesn't get the job done, and if they got caught (which they wouldn't as no one seemed to be taking a blind bit of notice) would it all really have been worth it?

Looking forward to getting out of the city for good....

I'll start off with the bad, because it's always best to get that out of the way first isn't it? Is the whole world going mad or is it just me? (Some of you don't need to answer that).

The British Police are in hot water over three separate incidents: pushing an innocent man over during the G20 protests, who later died of a heart attack; a PC who died when he crashed into a house whilst calling the station to say he be late to a meeting; and the other one who was speeding with no lights or sirens and killed a beautiful young girl with her whole life ahead of her....the list goes on.

Meanwhile Silvio Berlusconi, Italian Prime Minister, is rapidly taking Prince Philip's place as pronouncer of stupid and inappropriate remarks, when he reportedly told the 17,000 made homeless by the recent earthquake to look on sleeping in tents as a 'camping weekend'. Sometimes I just wish people would take a look at the REAL lives people lead sometimes, instead of looking out from their ivory towers and making stupid flippant remarks.

In the US, a mentally ill and severely depressed mother shoots her son dead and then kills herself in a shooting range. Shocking and so sad.

So what's the good then? Well, it seems more local and personal. Friends getting married, friends having babies, Romalidays coming up, new friends and old, going for walks with the dog and smelling the new green things growing in the woods, sunny and warm days, not getting home in the dark. You take it where you can find, it don't you!

And the ugly? That's just me. I need more sleep and I'm definitely planning to get it over the long weekend!

Oh my God. What a bloody awful day I had yesterday. It was such an annoying day that I'm still feeling annoyed today, thereby ruining my entire weekend. I'm sure you'll be aware of the saying "bad things come in threes"? Read on...

Scenario #1 - Washing machine delivery
We'd ordered a washing machine that was due to be delivered between 9am and 12noon. We'd been assured that they would call us to make sure we were in before they came round. Well, they didn't and of course they came round early rather than late, so there we were, scrambling out of bed and trying to make room for the delivery. So far, so not yet annoyed. It transpired, however, during the 'installation' process that the new washing machine only needed one inlet pipe, whereas the old washing machine used two. But one of the pipes wouldn't stop leaking. (Cue enormous pool of water on my kitchen floor). "Not our problem mate," said the delivery chumps, "You'd better get a plumber in, luv." And they promptly disappeared, leaving us with two washing machines in our not very big kitchen. Luckily a nearby plumber owed me a favour, so I called him round and he came and capped the pipe off and we plumbed in the new machine. No problem. Scenario #1 dealt with satisfactorily. By the way, for those of you who are wondering what we did with the old one - yes we took it outside and it had been 'recycled' within the hour.

Scenario #2 - dog locked in sitting room
Meanwhile, to let the delivery chumps and the plumber get on with things, I had shut the dog in the sitting room, since she likes to meet new people in quite an energetic way. Despite moaning at Y not to shut the sitting room door for the past week as I'd removed the door handle to test the width of space for delivery of the new sofas, I of course shut it without a second thought. It wasn't until I came to let her out again that I realised the door wasn't going to open. After having a five minute panic some logical thought came into my head that I should unscrew the bedroom door handle, screw it onto the sitting room door and lo and behold, scenario #2 satisfactorily resolved. All door handles now screwed back on to prevent similar catastrophe. Thank god the tool box wasn't shut in the sitting room too. I can take comfort from these small pieces of luck.

Scenario #3 - broken down car in middle of busy junction
In the evening we were looking forward to catching up with friends. I decided to drive since I haven't for ages, and I just got my car fixed up again. We only got about 20 minutes into the journey before the sodding thing stopped slap bang in the middle of Clapham and wouldn't start again. After waiting for an hour in the freezing cold, and enduring much pointing and staring at my poor car by passers-by, we got picked up by a recovery truck and taken home. No chance of tasty homecooked food for me. By that point I was so hacked off with the entire day we just got takeaway and drank some beers. Which was ok I suppose. Now I have a car that still won't start. No idea of what is wrong and no chance of getting it to a garage to sort it out for a while. It's steeled my resolve to sell the blasted thing though, and get something boring and sensible like a Fiesta or something.

It was a pretty bad day, all in all. Thought i could have been worse, when compared to another one of my 'bad things come in threes' days, which cost me £400 and gave me a scar on my leg which I've still got.

Quite frankly I can't wait to get back to work.

Because a well-known high street retailer seems to think so! I can't believe that it's not even the end of January and already they have a dedicated chocolate bunny/lamb/Citroen 2CV area. We haven't even had Valentine's Day yet!! Not only that, but they have taken to charging for plastic bags (good idea), yet they are givimg away plastic knives and forks at the exit (doh!). I don't know, it's just that something's not quite adding up for me there....

Well, I've been back from Malaysia for a week now. My tan has peeled off. My posted-on-the-last-day postcards will be dropping onto people's doormats any time now. It's like a dim and distant memory. But what memories!

Amazingly friendly people, gorgeous weather (even the rain was warm), beautiful jungles and beaches. We watched a couple of excruiatingly badly subtitled DVDs - a couple of Japanese horrors (aptly named) - but it was just impossible. Even English DVDs had been subtitled hideously badly. In the film 'Whisper', the simple line "Your move, Vince" came out as "Your muffins" – less 'horror', more 'humour', we thought!

Looking out of the window of the plane as we flew home over England reminded me that however much I might moan about the bad weather and the fact that I don't want to live in the city, actually I love England and I love coming home, to my own space, my family and friends, and my dog.

And for all you fact collectors out there:

• Number of hours spent on planes: 35
• Number of times passport lost: 0 (surprisingly)
• Number of other lost and subsequently found items: 2 (camera case and necklace)
  
• Number of photos taken: 521
• Number of photos that friends/family will be subjected to: 101 (sighs of relief all round)
  

Yes, if you know me well enough, you probably would. Last weekend, when I was coming back from visiting family, I was unfortunate enough to need to use the train 'facilities'. Without going into too much detail, upon completing my task I heard a *plop* and looked down to see that my mobile had fallen out of my back pocket and into the toilet..... I was in a bit of a quandary, having been the victim (and perpetrator) of several incidents involving water and mobile phones over the year. "Should I fish it out?" "Should I leave it there? It is down a toilet after all, and not ANY old toilet, it's a TRAIN toilet..." "It looks pretty clean, and I DO need my SIM card" "The phone is probably broken anyway and will never work again" In the end, after dithering around, I went for the plunge (so to speak) and fished the phone out, ran it under some clean water and gave it a dry off. No, of course it wasn't working....

As soon as I got home I googled "mobile phone in toilet" and discovered that I was far from the first person to drop my phone down a toilet, and that the best advice seemed to be to immerse it in a bowl of rice for three days. I couldn't really see that it would dry it out enough, but in any case I had nothing to lose. Lo and behold, three days later - perfect working order! Very surprised and pleased - definitely one to remember.

For those who don't know my catalogue of disasters with electrical equipment, read on...

#1 Took friend's drunk sister home. Drunk sister vomited all over me. Clothes and bag (and latterly discovered) mobile phone went into washing machine. VERDICT - dead phone

#2 Carried drink from kitchen to bedroom. Mobile phone and drink in same hand. Put drink on bedside table, dropped phone in drink. VERDICT - dead (and sticky) phone

#3 Went to nightclub. Fell down stairs. VERDICT - smashed and dead phone, smashed coccyx, inability to sit down for 6 months.

#4 Running for train. Fell over. VERDICT - ruined shoes, grazed elbows, smashed digital camera screen, smashed laptop screen, re-bruised coccyx. Phone ok though...

I just love Em, who is the cartoonist for The London Paper. Her stories are so true to life and always make me smile! Dog owners will know what I am talking about here:


(Click to enlarge)

I saw this in The London Paper yesterday, and I just had to share it, because it made me laugh so much on the train that people were giving me funny looks. Tres embarrassing.

It's all about so-called 'Bush-isms', the verbal gaffes that the outgoing President has made since being in office, and they are many and varied as you'll see....

"Families is where our nation finds hope, where wings take dream" LA CROSSE, WISCONSIN 18 OCT 2000

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family" GREATER NASHUA, NEW HAMPSHIRE 27 JAN 2000

"You work three jobs? Uniquely American isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that" TO A DIVORCED MOTHER OF THREE, OMAHA, NEBRASKA 4 FEB 2005

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practise their love with women all across this country" POPLAR BLUFF, MISSOURI 6 SEPT 2004

"They mis-underestimated me" RENTONVILLE, ARKANSAS 6 NOV 2000

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" FLORENCE, SOUTH CAROLINA 11 JAN 2000

"I know the human being and fish can co-exist peacefully" SAGINAW, MICHIGAN SEPT 2000

If that's not enough for you, they also showed this picture of a note written to Condoleeza Rice during a UN General Assembly meeting in September 2005: "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible?"

I feel like I've saved up a whole load of annoyance since my last posting. Top of my Things That Annoy Me list are people who leave their dog's mess on the ground. OK, I own a dog, so I know that you can't always help when and where your little darling goes, but for goodness sake! It looks and smells dirty, it's unhygienic and particularly in the autumn it's well disguised by the fallen leaves in my local park I've noticed, which occasionally leads to a 'sticky shoe' situation a la Phoebe from 'Friends':

We've recently had a new pavement laid down near our flat. It looked lovely and clean, for about half a day. Then it began to get marred with dog poo, just like the old one. The local council obviously had a lightbulb moment when they stencilled the below image onto the pavement at regular intervals. Do they really envisage this having any, I mean any effect on the non-pooper-scoopers around here? It looks like a 5-year old painted it! And what's with the atrocious font choice? I'm no typographer but I'd like to hear what one of my typographery-type (?) friends has to say about it! I really can't see these poor excuses for stencils having much of a difference. In fact I'm tempted to go and paint polka dots on them one night but I'm too scared I might get arrested. Hold on, if I used chalk, which washes off, that would be ok, wouldn't it? Watch this space....

Also I'm annoyed already with the darker nights and colder weather. I feel like I've been robbed of a summer that was promised but never even arrived. I've been stood up by summer. My flip flops didn't even get a look-in. Still, look on the bright side, at least it isn't raining. Much.

However, even I have got something to be thankful for. Whilst out with a friend for dinner the other week, we toasted those commuters who have the daily grind to work on over-packed trains and tubes, allowing us lucky few to work at home, only having to bear the grunting, sweating masses on rare occasions when a meeting calls us into central London.

We were surprised by the long queues stretching out of restaurants in London. On a Wednesday of all days! No sign of the credit crunch in the dining industry then, lucky things. Shortly after that I heard the great phrase 'dead cat bounce', which was first coined about 23 years ago. It basically means a small and temporary recovery in a financial market following a large fall, the idea being that even a dead cat will bounce if you drop it from a great height. Fantastic.

As my friend Tom asked me "Isn't it about time you updated your 'once-every-quarter-whether-you-need-to-or-not' blog?" Well, yes, obviously it is, since someone has actually asked.

I was going to write about my strange dream, which involved living in a mobile home at the top of the Alps, June Sarpong and a nun with a broken leg, but I can't really remember the details of that one. Instead I'll have a rant about my lovely neighbours. I'm not talking about the ones on the ground floor that play extremely loud music until 5 or 6am. Though they do at least play it loud enough that I can hear the words and sing along if I want to, and they play pop, rather than drum and bass, so that's also better than nothing I suppose, still I do draw the line at badly sung karaoke, especially at that time of the morning. Anyway, onto my 'real' rant.

It's about the neighbours below me, the ones with the small white fluffy dog that bit me and my dog when we were out a couple of weeks ago. The other night, Y and I were rudely awaken at some god-forsaken hour by the sound of crashing, banging and much shouting from the flat below. We could clearly hear such politely phrased questions as "Where's my f*@%ing money?", "Why are you touching my f*@%ing stuff?" and kind requests like "Get your hands off my f*@%ing clothes" and things being flung across the room. I was pretty close to calling the police as it sounded like a full-on bust up down there but I was too scared. Not sure what the arguement was about - Y reckons it was about drugs. If that's true, maybe I got off lightly, just being bitten by their dog.

I do like most of my neighbours really! Except the ones that wee in the lift, that's pretty gross.

Y is taking his cleaning antics outside the flat now. He wiped down the buttons in the lift with a wet-wipe, not that I minded! He also bought us a new vacuum cleaner to try to hoover up the dog hair. I arrived home to a post-it note saying

"The new hoover has arrived - yay!
Have got it out of the box, but haven't
had a chance to play with it yet.
Feel free to do some hoovering if you like."

Now if that's not a hint, I don't know what is! It works very well by the way...the hint and the hoover.

Test 1 - Preparation
Women: To prepare for pregnancy:-

1. Put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag down the front.
2. Leave it there.
3. After 9 months remove 5% of the beans.

Men: To prepare for children:-

1. Go to a local chemist, tip the contents of your wallet onto the counter and tell the pharmacist to help himself
2. Go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to their head office.
3. Go home. Pick up the newspaper and read it for the last time.

Test 2 - Knowledge
Find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child's sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners and overall behavior.

Enjoy it. It will be the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

Test 3 - Nights
To discover how the nights will feel:
1. Walk around the living room from 5pm to 10pm carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 4 - 6kg, with a radio turned to static (or some other obnoxious sound) playing loudly.
2. At 10pm, put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight and go to sleep.
3. Get up at 11pm and walk the bag around the living room until 1am.
4. Set the alarm for 3am.
5. As you can't get back to sleep, get up at 2am and make a cup of tea.
6. Go to bed at 2.45am.
7. Get up again at 3am when the alarm goes off.
8. Sing songs in the dark until 4am.
9. Put the alarm on for 5am. Get up when it goes off.
10. Make breakfast.

Keep this up for 5 years. LOOK CHEERFUL.

Test 4 - Dressing Small Children
1. Buy a live octopus and a string bag.
2. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that no arms hang out.

Time Allowed: 5 minutes.

Test 5 - Cars
1. Forget the BMW. Buy a practical 5-door wagon.
2. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment.
Leave it there.
3. Get a coin. Insert it into the CD player.
4. Take a box of chocolate biscuits; mash them into the back seat.
5. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.

Test 6 - Going For a Walk
Wait
Go out the front door
Come back in again
Go out
Come back in again
Go out again
Walk down the front path
Walk back up it
Walk down it again
Walk very slowly down the road for five minutes.
Stop, inspect minutely and ask at least 6 questions about every piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue and dead insect along the way.
Retrace your steps
Scream that you have had as much as you can stand until the neighbours come out and stare at you.
Give up and go back into the house.

You are now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

Test 7
Repeat everything you say at least 5 times.

Test 8 - Grocery Shopping
1. Go to the local supermarket. Take with you the nearest thing you can find to a pre-school child - a fully grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat.
2. Buy your weekly groceries without letting the goat(s) out of your sight.
3. Pay for everything the goat eats or destroys.

Until you can easily accomplish this, do not even contemplate having children.

Test 9 - Feeding a 1 year-old
1. Hollow out a melon
2. Make a small hole in the side
3. Suspend the melon from the ceiling and swing it side to side
4. Now get a bowl of soggy cornflakes and attempt to spoon them into the swaying melon while pretending to be an aeroplane.
5. Continue until half the cornflakes are gone.
6. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor.

Test 10 - TV
1. Learn the names of every character from the Wiggles, Barney, Teletubbies and Disney.
2. Watch nothing else on television for at least 5 years.

Test 11 - Mess
Can you stand the mess children make? To find out:

1. Smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains
2. Hide a fish behind the stereo and leave it there all summer.
3. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds and then rub them on clean walls. Cover the stains with crayon. How does that look?
4. Empty every drawer/cupboard/storage box in your house onto the floor & leave it there.

Test 12 - Long Trips with Toddlers
1. Make a recording of someone shouting 'Mummy' repeatedly.

Important Notes:
No more than a 4 second delay between each Mummy. Include occasional crescendo to the level of a supersonic jet.

2. Play this tape in your car, everywhere you go for the next 4 years.

You are now ready to take a long trip with a toddler.

Test 13 - Conversations
1. Start talking to an adult of your choice.
2. Have someone else continually tug on your shirt hem or shirt sleeve while playing the Mummy tape listed above.

You are now ready to have a conversation with an adult while there is a child in the room.

Test 14 - Getting ready for work
1. Pick a day on which you have an important meeting.
2. Put on your finest work attire.
3. Take a cup of cream and put 1 cup of lemon juice in it
4. Stir
5. Dump half of it on your nice silk shirt
6. Saturate a towel with the other half of the mixture
7. Attempt to clean your shirt with the same saturated towel
8. Do not change (you have no time).
9. Go directly to work

You are now ready to have children. ENJOY!!

Recently I've become really self-conscious about just how much I make a remark on the weather. OK, so I'm English, I suppose I can get away with it, but I'm really aware that I'm fast becoming a prime candidate for the English 'talk about the weather' stereotype. I'm not sure that's a good thing. I've also noticed that I'm starting to take on the mannerisms of my mother, but that's for another time.

Take last Easter weekend. It snowed every day! And I'm in a big city that hardly ever sees snow. It didn't settle mind you. And the weekend before that, we had all kinds of weather - gale force winds, warm sun, drenching rain and hail.

Anyway, it's all ok now. Spring is on the way at last. Green buds on the trees, cherry blossom and the smell of the first grass cuttings of the year all mean it's just around the corner. I can't wait! Being a hater of winter it can't come soon enough for my liking. And just to prove that not only Spring, but Summer is nearly here too, I just heard the chimes of an ice-cream van down my road. So there.

I reckon I have an above average level of morbid curiosity about things, especially if they are slightly abnormal, like those deep ocean fish with the big teeth and dangly luminescent things, the elephant man or teratomas.

I watched a programme on these once, it was fascinating. A teratoma is basically a tumour that has cells in it which can grow into teeth, hair, eyeballs, jawbones or even little tiny hands. Teratoma means 'monstrous tumour'. They are also called germ cell tumours and are pretty rare.

Anyway, whilst googling away I found a link to a blog where someone has knitted one of these things. Quite amazing what people get up to in their spare time! Click here to see the blog entry - there is even a link providing you with the instructions, just in case you are taken by the urge to knit your very own teratoma one Sunday afternoon....













NB: for those with weak stomachs, I would advise against googling 'teratoma' to see what a real one looks like.

First things first, I *am* still alive (just), which is obviously good news for some-including me I think. I've obviously been leading a tres boring life though, because I've had nothing worth writing about. However, now the tables have turned! What with dreaming about my dog talking to me and losing my passport (again) I'm sure you'll all agree that it's time I blogged.

So. I went up to Edinburgh for the weekend and took my passport (for i.d. you understand, not because I thought maybe there would be passport control at the airport....honest guv). Went to the cinema, came back, packed on Sunday night, no passport. Quelle surprise! My first thought was "S*@t, I really can't afford £90 for a new passport!", closely followed by "My mum is going to kill me if she gets another call to say someone has found my passport". As the great Oscar Wilde might say "To lose one passport may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose it twice looks like carelessness." Luckily my guardian angel must be smiling down on me again because the lovely people at Cineworld picked it up and, yes, called my mum. I'm not sure if it was a wry smile or the grinding of her teeth that I could hear in her voice when she phoned me to say they had it. Perhaps I should just sellotape it to my hand next time.

As if that weren't enough, I had a very strange dream that I could all of a sudden understand exactly what my dog, Tess, was saying to me. We had a pretty good chat and it seems that she had been waiting some time for me to be able to communicate with her. Very very odd indeed.

On top of that, I just bought a new hot water bottle, (yes, I left the old one in Scotland by accident) which is lovely and furry. I must have woken up three or four times last night convinced that the warm and furry thing that my hand just brushed against was Tess, who had somehow managed to unlock her cage, open both the kitchen door and my bedroom door and climb into bed with me.... I think I might have actually stroked it a couple of times.

*sigh*

Spot the difference...