“Don’t you wish your girlfriend was as great as mine; don't ya!”

OH MY GOD! Can you believe it? I am the luckiest person in the world! I have recently started a new job working with adults with learning disabilities. As part of this job I have to write regular reports where I have to note the time of when the report was written. Unfortunately up until this point I have not had a watch. Now I could have gone to Argos or the market and picked up any old watch, but that would SO not be me. Obviously any watch I have has to say something about me or be a bit different.

I have always wanted to have a rainbow watch, that was analogue, no leather strap and showed numbers. This has been like the holy grail, i.e. impossible. I have searched the Internet, ebay, regular shops and catalogues but to no avail. I even looked abroad and still did not find anything to my liking. I feared the rest of my life would be a watchless existent, or one where I would be displaying a rather dull wrist.

Well well well, my girlfriend is a genius. The sneaky minx managed to find the perfect watch and bought it for me for Christmas. She must have sold her soul to the devil or something for this information, but she did it. She had to order it all the way from America! WOW. It arrived this morning, but she was excited to give me the gift I received it as soon as I walked through the door from this mornings training. I know it was supposed to be for Xmas, but how could you let something this wonderful go unworn for another 2 months; surely that would be illegal if not immoral. So please feast your eyes on this rainbow loveliness:


So as the Pussy Cat Dolls say “don’t you wish your girlfriend was as great as mine; don't ya!”. Well something like that.

49p – Bargain

While I was perusing my local Tescos for the weekly supply of nectarines and toilet paper, I noticed that all the Halloween stuff was out in full force. Is it really so late in the year? Well apparently so. Although I shall be refraining from trick or treat on the basis that it’s awful and that I’m 31, I still wanted to indulge in some of the plastic trickery you can get for under a £1.

Much to my disappointment there was no fake blood or witches fingers available. What is happening in the world? However I did manage to buy the ‘mrs’ some black lipstick and glow in the nail polish. How good they are is yet to be tested. For myself I got some skull nails. Most of them were a bit small as they are meant for a childs hand, but for 49p I was not going to forgo this opportunity. You can pay up to £10 for a decent set of false stick on nails in Boots, but look at all this ‘quality’ for such a small price.

I am going to ignore the fact that they fell off within 30 minutes, and when I went to scratch my ear, I left one inside! oops

A stab at a social life!

In an effort to increase our social life, the ‘mrs’ heard on the radio there was going to be a murder mystery play at a local church. The audience would be in teams, and try and guess the murder over a ploughman’s dinner. All this fun for only £4 each, so we decided to go. We had invited a couple of friends so we could be a super sloothy team of 4, but unfortunately when we got there we received a text to say they had been locked out of their house and couldn’t come.

We sat in the car for ages outside this church wondering what to do. Was it going to be filled with white middle class bible goers who might get a bit of a shock when we walk in with our rainbow bags and hats? After much deliberation we decided to go in; after all just think of the experiences you could miss if you don’t be brave and jump in. Leaving the car we made our way cautiously to the door of the church. The door was closed. Should we knock? Should be just barge in leading to the silence as everyone turns round? We opened the door tentatively and was greeted by a very smiley vicar man; rather camp with a bright red nose. It wouldn’t be right for me to assume he had been a bit too liberal with the communal wine!

We were asked what name had we booked under. Booked? I rang up for some information but didn’t know I had actually booked. The vicar man then said ‘ah Kate isn’t it’? He was either psychic or we were the only ones there who were not part of the established church going clientele. We were shown to our table which had a sticker on it with my name on; ah how sweet. On the table we had scrap pieces of paper to make notes throughout the play, and a guess sheet to lay down our ideas on who the evil murderer was. Then the vicar stood up and starting talking about how this was a novel way to celebrate Harvest Festival. What? This was Harvest Festival?? What happened to just donating a tin of peas at the back of the cupboard. Oh no, we were trapped. The doors had been shut. Still we were here now, so we should make the best of it and enjoy the live theatre.

The play started. It had obviously been a quick production because all the actors where reading from scripts. The acoustics in the church meant the words were pretty inaudible. I had no idea what was going on, and didn’t even realise when someone had been murdered! I tried, I really did, but I just ended up using the scrap paper to pass notes to the ‘mrs’ like when you were in class at school. It’s amazing how much you want to giggle and release gas when you are not allowed to. In short the play was awful, but they were trying hard bless em’. My favourite character was the oldest member of the cast who kept forgetting where she was supposed to be and jumped every time one of the prop people let off a noise, like a car horn. Bless!

During this long hour, while getting a numb bum, we were thinking about ways we could leave without being too suspicious. Soon there would be a break for a ploughmans so maybe we could slip out then. But what excuse could we give? Well we could pretend that our friends were still stuck as the locksmith had failed to materialise. That sounded plausible. At the break we were handed a paper plate with a role, two blocks of cheese, a cherry tomato and some lettuce. It was time for our escape, but not before I had eaten the bread. Hey this evening had cost me £9 with the tickets and the obligatory raffle tickets, so I was going to eat my bread.


After this the ‘mrs’ made a telephone call to her friend to see how she was getting on, making sure the table next to us heard the words “do you need rescuing?”. The reality was the locksmith had arrived and they were inside, but mrs nosey britches next door didn’t need to know that. Gathering our stuff we made our way out. Just as we got to the door we were accosted by the vicar man, to whom we regaled the story of the friends left out in the cold. We thanked him for a lovely evening and were given a booklet about the church, with an invitation to not be a stranger. We then took our chance and escaped. We had lied to a vicar. Shall we be going to hell? I don’t believe in hell so I am going to say no, after all he’s just a man in a frock. So it would be like lying to a drag queen surely?

After this we made our way to our friends house for some diet coke and chats. So after all it was an interesting social evening, that we can laugh about.

The Picture Speak for Itself

Here is a picture of my most recent purchase. Rainbow welly boots. What more can I say, than fabulous!

Who knew B&Q could be so funky!

Christmas Has Escaped!

Oh dear; it’s happened. This morning I saw my first Christmas products in the shop to buy; chocolate santas and Christmas puddings. Why is it that as soon as there is a ‘ber’ at the end of the month and the first leave turns slightly brown, every shop seems to become festooned with gordy cardboard adverts with printed holly.

I am not being ‘bah humbug’ or anything, but don’t you get tired of the swimming costumes and t-shirts suddenly being replaced with crackers and tinsel. Come on people, it’s September. I don’t want to see anything until at least after Bonfire Night. No matter how much you try and suppress Christmas until you absolutely have to, it always seems to escape far too early. I support we have the joys of 3 months of Christmas adverts to drive me crazy. As we get closer to the season of giving, I almost crave normal adverts with no jingle bells or fake snow. Come back shake’n’vac, all is forgiven!

What I fail to understand is when there are edible Christmas products in the shops with the words ‘perfect for Xmas day’, such as mince pies, displaying a use by date is in ovember. Personally I like mince pies, and don’t see why they can’t be available all year round, but surely this is false advertising.

I am not anti-Christmas; I'm just anti-Christmas RIGHT NOW!

Okay rant over!

Is The Whole Nation Lazy Cooks? - RANT

Don’t get me wrong, I am certainly not one for pouring over pots and pans for hours; in fact if I can do everything in the one pan in 20 minutes, I will. I was in Lidl this morning when the guy in front of me was buying some microwave rice in a foil packet. The man at the checkout was really interested, stating that he would have to get some. His reasons were:

1. I can’t be bothered to wait for the 15 minutes for the rice to boil.
2. The curry I make takes 20 minutes and I don’t want to wait an extra 15 for the rice.
3. Saves using a pan

Okay I have some issues. Firstly pasta and rice are one of the cheapest ingredients around and I think it’s just criminal to spend at least 10 times the price on a 2 minute product. Secondly why does this young man have to wait an ‘extra’ 15 minutes on top of the curry. Now here’s a bright idea. I know it will seem a bit radical, but how about cooking the rice and the curry at the SAME time. I know my ideas are just out there!

I will subscribe to the fact that he might not be able to cook two things at once if he only had a hot plate, but on the basis that he wants to buy microwave rice, I conclude that he does at least have a microwave. In this case he can make ‘jug rice’, which is a personal favourite of mine. Take a large pyrex jug, or even a large bowl, throw some rice in, cover with boiling water and pop in the microwave for high 12-15 minutes. Drain and then use the same bowl to eat out of. Less washing up and the bowl will already be hot keeping the food warm. The same can be done with pasta.

Now I know some may shout at me saying how quick it is if you are really hungry, but surely anyone can wait 12 minutes. My suggestion is that if you come in REALLY hungry, pop some rice or pasta in the microwave, then take off your shoes, hang up your coat, have a wee, go through the junk mail and pet the cat. By the time you have done all this you will hear ‘ping’ and dinner is served!

As a nation I think we are becoming lazier and lazier. We shall be breeding a generation of people who thinks the only way to have lasagne is to buy it ready made, don’t know that chips come from potatoes and that milk comes, not from cows, but Tesco! A few years ago I was at the checkout in Asda buying a huge 5kg bag of pasta, when the checkout lady (who was estimated to be about 25) said “oh I’ve heard of pasta is it nice?”. She then asked me how to cook it and what you have it with. How can you have got to 25 and not eaten pasta? I applaud the fact that she was interested in trying new things, but come on people put down the home fries!

Ooops - Clumsy Me!

I am without a shadow of a doubt a clums moo. This is a great skill built up over many years due to intense training. Today was another me classic, where I managed to break the ‘mrs’ phone charger by sucking it up the Dyson and ripping it in two. The strange electrical smell was rather interesting. I do feel sorry for the ‘mrs’ having the live with me. I have broken glasses, two dishes, two toilet seats (okay one, which I broke twice) and a radiator. Not bad going.

Not only am I clumsy but I am electrical. Seriously I am. I can blow light bulbs just by turning on the light. I don’t mean coincidence, I mean repeatedly. I was always frightened working in an office because I got electrical shocks from photocopiers, door handles, chair legs, filing cabinets and other people. I tried various experience with different kinds of shoes, floor surfaces and clothes but to no avail. I always close the car door with a sleeve over my hand, with my foot or by pushing the glass, in response to some bad electrically experiences. Don’t even get me started on shopping centres. I swear those escalators act as some of huge Van der Graff generator that discharges itself on me, when I reach the metal railings at the top. In addition people scare me. People should learn to stay away as it often results with being shocked when handed something. Maybe it’s just my magnetic personality – boom boom!

It was suggested once that I could have some dyspraxic tendencies especially as it ties in with the need for social justice. I looked up the symptoms, one of which was difficulty in communicating verbally, so I thought this was definitely not me. If there was a metal for talking I was be a gold medal winner. Nothing deep and meaningful you understand!

I just have to reside to the fact that I am a person that must always have household insurance and a good broom to hand!