The Blog Wot I Wrote

Life carried on while we went without interwebs.

Aside from meeting our Neville... I noted a number of other things in my time bound to taking notes with a pen and paper.

• I am locked in a home with varied dialects. This means nowt to those who speak on a normal level...with me, it creates havoc. Loo and HB have London accents, MB is more Northampton, and Ev is Yorkshire with a touch of Northern Ireland. I have a tendency to reflect the dialect around me... I've been known to sound almost Glaswegian after a few whiskeys, a feat some Scots can't lay claim to, truth be known. Here, I end up sounding like a fishwife from ... I don't know who to sound like. Oh, right.....someone from Coventry.

• Frank has developed new neurosis here at Home. We have a semi-open floor plan, which includes a bridge on the second floor, connecting HB and my room to Loo and MB's room... Frank is leery of the bridge, and eye's the railing with a great deal of fear. Most of the floors are wood, we've put down some rugs, and I laid down my robe the first night, to give him a sanctuary. He stepped in, grateful for a place to go, then dashed out, with a look of "Not a real rug! Not a real rug!" on his face. I now have a real rug, and have to deal with Frank trying to hide on my single bed when I get up to go to the bathroom. Right.

• Tea. I am drowning in tea. We solve problems, gossip, move furniture, unpack boxes, wake up and go to sleep based on tea. When we can't make a decision; we have tea.
  

• Last Saturday, we all took the Virgin train down to London and went to a panto. Pantomime is a UK tradition, complete with cross dressing, standard phrases ("Oh, no, you're not!" "Oh, yes, we are!" "Look behind you!") that are part of the audience participation, fairy tales that are fractured to say the least, a celeb that takes part, and packed houses. Mr and Mrs G gathered all the G family at the Old Vic, and we watched Stephen Fry's version of 'Cinderella'. To say a fun time was had underplays the entire day... with the exception of the Menopause Express. As soon as we got on the train, we started to strip off our clothes.... it was h.o.t. Well worth the day, however, with all of us singing along, yelling at the cast, and remembering to yell "CAKE!" back whenever it was mentioned in the script. Personally, I loved the cross-dressed step sister who had so much hair on her back, she could have shaved it and made it into a toupee.

• I love the names of things here, in the medical area... if you have gas, you have wind, and you take 'Windeze'. How wonderful is that? You don't have strep, you have 'putrid throat'. Now, that is something you can use with force when you call in sick to work. I love the medicines... you can get a small dose of codeine in your paracetamol... how brilliant is that?
  

• When you run into someone, with, oh, your trolley, they say "Sorry!"

• The dollar is still crap. It did, however, gain .01.

• I've lost a glove, a pair of glasses, my hat and almost lost a book. You can trace my travels in the UK by the things I lose.

• I've consumed my weight in chocolate.

• Loo and I have continued our never ending gin game, which we've played off and on for three years. Currently, she's ahead by 300 points. Other people join in... no one plays it with the intensity and complete silliness that we do, with the exception of HRH. We throw gris gris, have the cursed titty dance and run victory laps.
  

• There is a television channel here called 'Dave'. Imagine.

• I found more soaps.

• I remembered how much I love London on my brief stop there.
  

• Rain. I'll say no more.

• The 4700 boxes we're unpacking. And unpacking. And unpacking.

• Jealous. This is HB's birthday present. Jealous is a chameleon who is still very small. And green... and he eats live crickets. Thankfully, the crickets don't make any noise...they quietly die as he flicks out his long tongue and laps them in. I find it too 'ew' to watch... however, Loo and HB love to watch him, and coo as he consumes cricket after cricket. It seems he'll get rather large. I won't be here.. proving there are small favours in this world.

• Loo's forgotten holiday present for me from a few years ago. I'm so sorry she found it.

• We've not walked the way we said we were going to do when we moved back here to the village. All we've done is unpack. I've not been to London beyond the panto. We did go to the films, though... if you've not seen Enchanted, see it. Satire at it's best.

• Films in the UK. There were 22 minutes of commercials. Count them, 22 minutes. However, you get to PICK YOUR SEAT in the theater. Imagine that.
  

• Rain.

It was decided an our Neville fact will be provided on each blog during the remainder of my stay here. Why? Because inquiring minds want to know....


Our Neville:

Neville and Margaret shop every Tuesday, wearing matching hand knitted jumpers, and clever matching bottoms... his trousers and her sensible skirt are from a bolt of cloth she purchases while on holiday in the Highlands. It's the family plaid from her grandmother's side of the family. They take the list, and shop, with him pushing the trolley. When people move into the Village, they usually tell them to shop at Tesco's, since it's closer... this way, it keeps the riff raff out of Waitrose, where they shop.