the gargoyle

 composed quickly one evening, on realising that loneliness is a false emotion, a trick by Evolution to ensure that humans breed...

           The Gargoyle

Deep in the night, the day creatures sleep,

You drift into slumber, your quilt round your head. 

Nightmares are rising, more real than you know

And Our lives unfold while you're safe in your bed.

Sometimes restless, sometimes calm,

The gargoyle accepted her fathomless fate.

The portals closed; completely alone, 

The friendly moon glared through the huge metal gate.

A brimming red eye looked imploringly on

But too nervous to hope, from the past and the pain,

She covered her head with her tail, on the ground

And settled on stone, in her cavern, again.

Some would call sweetly as they travelled by,

She'd approach, quite cautiously, ready for flight,

"We understand. We know what you are."

Then tweak at her scales and laugh into the night.

A time of contentment came with the years,

The moon had been lying, a dead, cold face.

Too scared to believe any more in her myth,

She felt some strange strength in her own dark embrace.

She longed for the peace that would come with the end

As she heaved on her ribs to draw her next breath

To feel no more loneliness, hunger or cold, 

The tranquil release that would come after death.

Just in time, before no return,

She sensed a presence that burned in her being.

Darker than night, a smouldering form

With piercing bight eyes that shone with their seeing

She growled as she cringed in the shadows, but knew.

He turned to leave, but threw her a glance.

The gate turned to dust and the moon shone unhindered,

She welcomed his challenge, to give life a chance.

This time she'd die if she'd made a mistake,

He could be false, like the others, or more -

HE could be mistaken, like her in the past,

But, accepting his hand, she unfurled a claw...

december 1994

 Summer Rain

You don't notice me till you need me

You rejoice when I arrive

But if I linger you despise me

While your thirsty flowers thrive

2005

 From 'Just 32 Years of Stuff'
which I recently refound and wanted to record somewhere before I lost again.
Written between 1974 and 2006.

A Cautionary Tale

I call to you and my only goal

Is to burn your heart and devour your soul.

My candy draws you towards my fire,

But to crush your spirit is my sole desire.

So, BEWARE, my pretties, of the cursed dove -

I dwell in hate... but my name is "LOVE"

January 2006

My car had been parked often under a large silver birch tree during the year, and was well overdue for a visit to the local hand car wash.
A few days ago I drove in after dark and finally got it the bath it so dearly needed.
Soap was sprayed on and then jet-washed off, which caused tiny cells of algae to stream slowly down the windscreen, and in the bright lights of the site it looked just like the effect that was used for the Matrix.

A story about one german shepherd puppy [under a year old]
My youngest has just sent me a post about a really obedient young shepherd who complies with an instruction to NOT eat a rib while human leaves the room.
My reply to her, as it was before she was born:
"Gorgeous!
It reminds me of Torba.
He was a terrible thief and a dog-training friend had advised me on how to "cure" him.
I set up the kitchen as advised and went out.
The theory was that he would steal the meat from the work top - meat which was attached by string to all the saucepan handles on the kitchen shelf, so get terrified by all the clattering and never do it again.
When I returned, he had not only had the meat, but all my lovely saucepans were chomped to destruction, and he'd had a whole Munch Party all by himself."

Reward for recovery.

Well, that was something else!
I've needed a treat of some sort after my health-hiccuping first half of 2013, so I've finally managed it.
No, I haven't been fondling human-weary dolphins, leaping ravines on a monocycle or hurling myself out of aeroplanes with wild abandon and only a few bits of fabric to aid and ease the landing.

A few weeks ago I came to the realisation that I could afford a new "toy".
More of an extravagant essential than that which I would normally consider a thing of joy, but I have to be reasonable.
Three times I attempted to buy one, and three times I failed, but each visit to the shop has brought me a little bit closer to fulfilling my quest.

The first time I touched the box, then something else came up and I had to reassign the money.
The second time I was determined to get one, and even decided on the model, but they were out of stock.
The third time I even got one into my shopping trolley, but then the reassignment thing happened again and I put it back.

Today I completed said quest, and managed to get one of my very own, into my house, and even with a price reduction....
Go me.

I'd bought one years before which is still faithfully working very well, but I'm quite aware that its retirement days are approaching and I really need one for each floor of my house.
This means I do know the huge price is worth it, even though my last model cost £100 more than my car at the time.
I'd initially begrudged the price, but have since learned that it was a good investment on boring essential household equipment [unlike buying a custom-built trike, which is much more exciting, but that's another story].

Without unpacking the other shopping I set about the preparations to operate my new machine, undoing the box [a mini quest in itself] and assembling the contents [the easiest part].

You could say I knew what to expect, with the younger, fresher machine, not forgetting all the researched upgrades for better performance.
Well, it's lighter than you'd expect, surprisingly quiet and the power cord reaches all around my house from the kitchen socket, but -
DAMN! That thing's lively!

Imagine, if you can, extra-hyperactive baby weasels, on a caffeine AND sugar overload, and who had just been told they were going to Weasel-Eurodisney.
This little Dyson vacuum cleaner is more excitable than that.
It almost pulled the next-door-neighbours' dust through the wall.
You could suck out eyeballs with that thing. Internal organs, probably.
I hoovered a tile off the floor, and it wasn't even one of the loose ones!

It's even "aware" of it's over-enthusiasm and has little handles to pull to make it more easily let go of wayward curtains, long-lost socks from under immovable furniture and curious-dog tails that wag too close to the "suck zone".
Like valves; but on my first "date" with this new Dyson I had given the operating instructions only a cursory sweep, of course, and hadn't committed all the little gadget-buttons to memory.

I'll appreciate it for years as I have its predecessor.
It's like hoovering up with a spaceship.
It's also like trying to control, by hand, a tornado!

Housework is mostly a repetitive evil, but this thing has been fun, and made it a lot easier.
Once I get to grips with all the labour-saving functions it should be a breeze.
I'm just glad I haven't got small children in my house. I could lose them forever and be left wondering where the tapping and those funny little muffled voices calling "let me out!" were coming from.

Yes, I ache all over now, because I shouldn't even be lifting more than "the weight of a half-filled kettle" for another three months according to the surgeon, but I couldn't possibly have waited any longer.

Ask me how I am tomorrow, haha; aches are always worse the next day.
Actually,I'll probably be hoovering again, and won't hear you because I'll be making laser-fire noises or chuckling at new mishaps.

And, no, you're not borrowing it.

Dilemma

Tesco in dereham has had a horrible "bad drainage" smell in the entrance area since before christmas 2012 [at least].
The staff deny any knowledge of its utter obnoxiousness, but will admit that they've had the same complaint from other customers.
Being a hardened cynic, I have formed the opinion that it is possibly a ploy to get people to buy more air fresheners/smelly candles.
But that's not my point...

I like "awkward moment" stories, but one I haven't come across yet goes like this:
You walk along one of the aisles in a supermarket and it is empty except for one girl who is stacking shelves.
As you get halfway along you notice the terrible smell.
Impersonating a really vile fart which had been trapped in a jar for years like an evil genie, fermenting, before being released to the public in full force.
Your mind races as you consider consulting the shelf stacking girl in case she hasn't smelled it.
There may be some "off" produce in the area - but, no. She might think it's you.
And what if it was her?
Would you truly want to embarrass the poor thing that much?
So you decide to run.
No again.
What if someone races around the aisle end, in a rush to grab some ingredient they forgot to buy earlier?
They might just get a good look at you, then smell that odourous vapour themselves.
They would definitely think it was you.
Unless you're pulling a really wry face. A look of utter disgust.
But the other shopper might have little or no sense of smell, in which case you'd just look incredibly daft.
your best bet [from experience] is to slowly abandon the offensive area and leave the aisle with as much grace as you can muster.
Better still, leave entirely and continue shopping somewhere else.


Similar dilemmas can happen in public toilets from the cubicle next door, but when it's busy you often hear the accompanying sound effects, and reactions of people waiting.

This is a copy of a post I sent to my daughter on farcebook on 8th february, 2013

‎Roxy - I just had to waste part of my life to text you my amazement at those snowflakes.
Sirius came in with one the size of a small country resting gently on his head; it gave his normally comical look an extra boost.
He seemed proud of it and waited until it melted rather than shake it off.
What a goon.

I also rarely make announcements like this, but thought the mental image worth it.
;)

Like · · Share · Promote · 8 February at 17:53 ·

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  Rookwings Kirk Flake-hat

A Smile for Sunday.

I'm not feeling my best at the moment, having had a chronic sinus infection since august 2012, which is probably compounded by the fact that most of my drains froze up and blocked during this recent harsh piece of winter.
Trouble is, they didn't magically unblock during the thaw, so I went on a scouting mission to see if there was anything in the supermarkets that might do the job.
I returned with two bottles.

One contained a sodium hypochlorite and sodium hydroxide mixture, and the other just the former.
Armed with the pair of products I migrated to the bathroom where I felt the first test should be performed.

Child-safety lids.
Don't you just love them?
You actually need a child to be able to unscrew them for you, and as I didn't have a two-year-old handy I make an assault on the bottles myself.

Plan A:
I did hint that I'm not in full health at the moment, and so the attempt was an utter failure - resulting in a metronome-like chorus of loud clicks, and with the lids not lifting a millimetre.

Plan B:
Not to be discouraged, I shut one bottle in the doorway and wrenched as hard as I could.
This resulted in a gobbet of the contents oozing out through the thread under the lid, all over my hand. Not a good thing. One should preferably keep one's corrosives under control.
Hard to rinse off when the drains are blocked, too.

Plan C:
I got a nice sharp knife and sliced off both the stubborn plastic lids in a satisfying, cheese-slice-type action and the stuff was finally liberated, over the bath and spreading like some giant amoeba, but heading for one of the blocked drains.

I really hope it works - time will tell.
I did have a plunger once, which got lent to family and never seen again, but I have another one "on order" from the borrower. Yeah, right. =)

The whole incident reminded me of a dangerous version of the Cheese-Toastie-Monster, only without the nice cooking smell.

Short story

Dedicated to Rik - because he asked to read it =D   


Blessed are the Meek.


    “I’ve only got a few hours left,” he said out loud. “I may as well enjoy them.” He finished calmly peeling his apple and popped a slice into his mouth. Then an angry frown gripped his brow and he crunched it viciously. A tear fell from his eye, smashing into droplets on the marble floor.
    Sure enough, they were all gone within three days; every single living creature, and I was the only one left. 
    All the wild and corny stories that men had ever written, about the Last One on Earth had finally come true.
    And it was me.
   
    It was such a shame. They had just begun the final experimental stage of a treatment for the terrible sickness that was consuming the whole living world of creatures. I was among six others to whom they had administered the new drug, but they had all become too ill to watch our progress.
    At first, my companions died, one by one, so, with no encouragement to keep working, the scientists gave up the fight and retired to small ailing groups to await their ultimate fate.
    If only they had stayed to observe, but only one dying man came, probably out of morbid curiosity. Sadly, he was in the last stage of the disease, and the excitement of my recovery was too much for him. The sight of me, alive and thriving, drove him into a frenzy of joy, misery and panic. I had survived both the virus and the treatment, so suddenly he was obsessed with an insane effort to treat himself. Within moments of  filling the tube with the drug he had collapsed and begun convulsing. I watched him die on the clean white floor. He lay there, his back arched and rigid, a look of sheer terror fixed on his face. His flailing arm had released the catch on my prison and I was freed.
    I left the room and the building, grateful for my good fortune and ready to explore. I passed by bodies that had been maturing for days, lying lonely and neglected in the summer heat. The only sounds were from moving plants, abandoned washing and deserted mechanical systems that continued their faithful tasks, unaware of the pointlessness of their existence.
    It was a rich and beautiful world. Everyone had been so contented and happy with their lives, until a strange new virus had arrived on incoming transport from space, survived all the eradicating techniques, infected the atmosphere and spread rapidly over this delicate and unaccustomed planet, destroying all animal life with unexpected speed and virility, and before we had actually noticed anything, it was already too late.
    So now this gentle Earth was all mine.
    I explored far and wide, stopping for rest at one point in what was once the Chief Administrator’s palace.
   
Odd-shaped robots went about their business as if nothing had happened, running out their programmes with blind devotion, and even attempting to feed the occasional fresh body until a medical check program reminded them that corpses do not need sustenance.
Shortly thereafter a disposal unit would arrive to remove the body and sanitate the immediate area.
    The main hall had been decorated with fancy illumination according to the personal whim of the man who had been the chief. Tiny flickering lights swivelled sparkling colours, gently, round glittered walls, with a complementary main light source originating in the floor; a reflection on the wealth of the age.
    The soft deep chairs were all empty. I settled into one of them.
    This is all mine! I thought to myself. All the beauty and fortunes of the world were mine. All the food and drink, all the visual entertainment, servants . . . .
    I quickly tired of the chair and the great hall, so I moved on into the City. The night life was waking, as it had done every dusk for a hundred years. The almost-silent clicks of flashing signs disturbed the air with their minute vibrations. As the sunset deepened, other sounds sprang out of the silence.  Mechanical vendors and various shades of music, interrupted occasionally by the warm hiss of the empty monorail cars swishing high over the moving walkway, halting at the rooftop stations and opening their empty doors, only to draw smoothly away again, still empty. The absence of the hubbub of human activity screamed at me, and I shut my mind to the futile noises that persistantly ground on and on, as I drifted into thought, and a cool wind touched me from behind.
    “This all belongs to you!” it whispered.
    Yes, they’ve left it all to little me. If only they knew. I replied to the breeze. All the wealth and riches. All the fortunes, all the space, all the emptiness, all the solitude, all the wasted world.
    This wonderful city, the tall and stately buildings, great leviathans towering their vacant magnificence above me, so small, on the stationary paved zone. Did they know they belonged to me, that I had become their master? The street led into beautiful gardens, created for the relaxation and pleasure of the people who had lived here; coloured lights on drooping willows and cascading waterfalls, but now the people had all gone. My only company was the spectre of memory, and the sad and crumpled bodies, huddled together for comfort in anticipation of death.
     So beautiful.
     So tragic.
     Perhaps I should have felt guilt as I entered the dimly lit living quarters. Small, empty and frozen in the cold moonlight. Who knows how long the two dead people in the bed spent, exposed to the chilly summer nights? I could hear all the little apartments calling to me,
    “We all belong to you!” Their blank stares of windows and open doors profoundly expressing their pointless existence. Great grey pillars of power in the distance, destined to function for centuries, giving light, sound and warmth to the empty land and the purposeless automatons.
    “But you know I have no use for you!” I cried out loud to the desolate grey shells that had once been homes, “I have everthing I need to live without all of you!” I shouted back at the cool wind, “It is such a waste, I don’t require any of this!” I stopped shouting.
The ideas had calmed me. I whispered to the two corpses in the bed, “I am laden with eggs, and there is plenty of food for thousands, no, millions of my children and their children for years to come.” The bad moment had passed and I remembered why I was here, and it pleased me.
    I flew over to the larger of the bodies to deposit my precious burden, one by one, and with no fear of disturbance I had time to carefully place them in the eyes, nostrils and around the open mouth. The destiny of the world was left to me; I and mine had inherited the Earth, with all its useless trinkets. Little me. Who could have predicted that?
    A little housefly.

Fashion versus the olfactory nerve.

There are very few perfumes which I actively like, and only two which I would wear.
One is L'aimant by Coty [which has unfortunately become associated with old ladies exclusively] or Estée, by Estée Lauder, which I cannot afford. [My sister bought me a bar of Estée soap once, which I treasured, but my son used it all up because the box and bar were blue and he'd discovered where I'd stashed it.
I didn't even know until I opened the empty box when I was about to treat myself to an Estée bath.]

Camay soap. Oh, dear Katie Boyle, where and why did that soap go? It was beautiful. I have one precious bar left.

I possess a very acute sense of smell which is rarely a great gift, and I'm glad I smoke, because think how much worse it could be....?

Smell memory is important, and I've seen many people stopped in their tracks by a smell that reminded them of something from when they were very young.
So. When companies want to attract me to a product, why do they seem to think that changing the scent of it to something never smelled before will do them any good?

There was a perfume which hit the market some time ago called "Poison".
Well, they got the name spot on for me.
If I smell anyone wearing it my throat feels as though someone has emptied a tub of exquisitely vile talcum powder down and it literally makes me gag. I have to quickly get away, usually choking and coughing and with my eyes watering.
Since other perfumes have sprung into existence trying to imitate the stink of that perfume I find myself being made uncomfortable more frequently now.
Certain checkouts in shops are no-go areas for me for that simple reason alone.
I do try not to make it obvious that I'm reacting to the poor woman or man who has spent good money on the terrible stuff.
There is a nasty, powdery, underlying smell which a lot of modern perfumes seem to be based on.
Old ones never were.

I can't be the only one?

Take Glade, for example.
They make many household squirty and stinky things to - ahem - "freshen" your house. When they first introduced "Shake-and-Vac" I actually really liked the "floral bouquet" one, so when I heard they were changing the smell I bought quite a few reduced tubs of it from a "discontinued item" bargain bin to keep me going.
I only used it because I liked the smell, otherwise why would I want to throw dust all over my floors?
I've never bought "Shake-and-Vac" since because they all smell dreadful, often with that underlying powdery nastiness.
At least you can get a whiff of the stuff before you decide not to buy it because it's hideous.
I will never waste money on their air fresheners because I can't sample before I buy. Why would I?

I have always had to rely on discovering a nice smell in someone else's house and then asking them about it.
Quite frankly, I haven't liked any air fresheners - anywhere.

Ambi Pur have a better idea, although they tend to charge a small fortune for their scents, by having scratch-and-sniff patches on their boxes.
They used to do one of their wall-socket-pluggy-device things which I liked. It was supposed to be anti-tobacco, and smelled really posh and lovely, but they stopped doing it.
Why?
Why-why-why?
Again, I've never liked any other smell by them since.

Vanilla candles? NOOO! Vanilla should be in pantries and special sugar bowls and cakes, not on fire in the living room. And I hate the smell of burning vanilla and wax anyway.

I never ever buy bleach.
Guess why.
=)

Vaseline intensive care lotion.
I bought that because I loved the smell. It reminded me of my dear sweet grandmother, who died when I was seven.
Vaseline, in their wisdom, have changed it completely and now you have to buy a whole array of gaudy-coloured bottles to fail to do what the original lotion did.
And they all smell horrible.

And what is it with cleaning fluids?

What bright little whizz kid decided that everything should smell of fruit?
From kitchen cleaning stuff, shampoos and conditioners, soaps, fabric softeners, body lotions - you name it, they all smell of FRUIT?

I want my hair to smell of clean, nice hair, not a bloody fruit salad!!!

Why would I want my kitchen to smell of mandarins?
I associate the smell of fruit with being horribly sticky and therefore dirty, so leave it out, Procter and Gamble!

I never even liked and have never bought "fresh lemon-scented" cleaning stuff either, except by accident.

I actually buy real lemons or cooking lemon juice [which doesn't reek the house out] for descaling and shining, but artificial scents themselves are ALWAYS WRONG!
I wouldn't dream of ever washing my windows with strawberries, and I never want half a banana to fall from my hair while I'm gently flicking it around to show off my fresh, shiny and full-of-body tresses to my admiring public.

Would you clean your cooker with lemon curd, then expect your toad-in-the-hole or roast potatoes to come out smelling delicious?

Mango chutney, maybe, but NOT blackberry jam, or water melons, or passion fruit.

If only one company would have the idea that retro could be the way to go, I might have a chance, but until then, I wash my hair in the herbal Fairy Liquid [purple one, rosemary I think, which isn't gorgeous, but the most acceptible to me].
That reminds me. Dove Silk conditioner is no longer produced, and nothing else smells as nice as that did now.

Dear old Fairy. The only other product left that doesn't stink everyone out with that horrible powdery smell or fruit.
The only product true and faithful to its own scent is Nivea.
Nivea cream still has the original smell, when I last bought some, anyway. My grandmother used to use that, too.

There's only one scented cleaning product that I like at the moment. Bold Infusions washing machine cushion thingies. The creamy-white one.
I suppose they'll be changing it soon. I won't buy it any more if they do because it is incredibly expensive for simple clothes washing.

Excuse me, now. I've got to go out and buy some star fruit and lychees because
I need to clean my car...... ;)

Resurfacing

My personal puzzle for today has me foxed.
Last week the road where my house is was "resurfaced".
Not like my definition of the word "resurfaced", you understand, but something else entirely.
There are quite a few dents, bulges and potholes reappearing since last year when they did exactly the same thing.
The work:
Basically, a small gang of guys in yellow high-visibility gear and safety helmets wanders around with spades, sprinkling little piles of powdered tarmac grit over the blemishes.
WHAT IS THAT?

Now, I'm no pessimist, but I wasn't surprised when this disappeared again over the following few weeks after they were here last year.
When the sun glinted on it, you could see the bald road surface gleaming brightly where the new loose grit had sandpapered off what was left of the previous resurfacing job, several years before that.
At least that was level, though.
This year's effort was left in little mountains and spade-action swathes and looked something like a Jackson Pollack in monochrome.

This time the grit quickly collected into settling points, mostly along the gutter, and helped on its way there by drivers ignoring the temporary speed limit triangles [20mph] and skiing along at well over the legal 30 limit, sending high-speed pieces of gravelly shrapnel over gardens, into glass window panes and pedestrians' eyes. [I'm exaggerating now, but it doesn't feel safe out there =D]
Of course, a lot of this stuff is collecting in the roadside drains which were emptied and cleared only last month.

I'm sure there's a perfectly good reason for this, but it seems a horrible waste of tax-payers' money and I'm certain we didn't vote for it.
Imagine my surprise when, today, the thunderous drone of a road sweeper threatened in the distance, gradually gaining decibels as it approached.

With the infra-sound vibrating my house and my lungs I watched, incredulous, as it sucked up most of the loose grit from the gutters and roadsides.
Never mind my wonder at how the hell all that stone dust, with the weight of it, would FIT into that machine [especially with a panic-induced fuel shortage hitting us already, a week before this alleged tanker-drivers' strike is supposed to begin; Tuesday, the 3rd of April, I was told, which is tomorrow], I'm at a massive loss as to what special new idea some fresh little genius in the Department of Transport [whatever it's called now] has come up with.
I looked at the road in the wake of the gobbling road sweeper and saw that, sure enough, most of the grit which was applied with reckless abandon last week has gone.

Really. Am I missing something?

But perhaps my questions have been answered already.
A short while later a new rumbling hit the air outside.
I looked out again and discovered that little gaggle of surfacers are back [still with their high-visibility gear on] with their spades, but one of them has a bucket.
In this bucket is a hellish-looking black liquid - probably bitumen - which he is pouring over small areas of more severe damage on our road. The others are, more carefully, spreading that same grey grit dust over these patches.
It a least looks a bit more stable than the job they did last week, but as soon as the hot weather comes [I can hope ;) ] it will be slid off again and redistributed by our vehicle wheels.
One year, in the centre of Swaffham, where they had done a job very similar to this on a heavy-use road, the layer of black "glue" was a lot thicker.
It was hilarious for a while, seeing traffic, including heavy goods vehicles, stopped for the traffic lights and other junctions, creeping along extremely slowly with melted tarmac peeling off the road onto their wheels like pastry around a rolling pin. =D
The road was a complete mess.
Pedestrians were getting stuck in it like ants in honey.
Hilarious, that was, until you got indoors somewhere and discovered that your car, and your shoes, were coated in the stuff.
Only petrol would clean it off, out of my own car, of course, but not until after A LOT of transfer, haha.
It made me understand how Midas must have felt, except I didn't get any gold =D.

So why did they put the dust down, then sweep it up?
Was it some sort of obscure "preparation" technique to "sandpaper" the surface a bit flatter?
Was it a very expensive April Fool joke?
I rather suspect it was a huge mistake by someone trying to cut corners and save budgets.
The latter is the most likely explanation as my local council have got previous for those.
The error-maker won't lose his/her job, though.
Our local government seems to be a tad "family"-oriented. Once you're "in", you're there for life.

Oh, I've just heard that road sweeper again.
What fun!
It's on its way back =D

Childhood memory I'd rather not have =D

Childhood memories can be happy and magical.
It was a wonderland of discovery and invention, and some days stand out more clearly than others. Smells and tastes are very good at triggering a moment of cosy nostalgia.
Some memories aren't so joyful, though. As a child raised by a single-parent strict Catholic, guilt and paranoia play a large part of my own.
Yes, you remember certain punishments for dire transgressions, but there is one act which stands out and is branded onto my brain forever.
One inflicted punishment for which there was no crime.
There are many of us out there who have suffered in silence and for us there is no group or counselling.

To the parent, the deed can be innocent enough, and often is used as a last resort to keep family life running smoothly.
I don't suppose my mother realised how horrible it was to me, and I know it was hard raising three girls alone, one of whom was mentally handicapped by febrile convulsions and a very bad doctor.

No. She did her best and I will never criticise her for that, but there is one thing which I have NEVER done to my own children - THE SPIT WASH!

Picture the scene. You are ready to go out, coats on, shoelaces tied, Hair reasonably tidy, then Mother spots a smudge of dirt on your cheek because you were "looking at" the glittery bits of coal in the scuttle while she was busy with your sisters.
[When you are very young, the process of "looking" always tends to involve your hands.]
She advances on you menacingly, diving into her pocket for that slightly grimy cotton hanky that she forgot to replace last week.
Out comes the hanky - she shakes it and bits of fluff and pocket dust fall away.
Already nasty.
If the hanky looks too far-gone for her to dare putting it to her tongue, she says, "Lick this!", but you never seem to have enough dampness on your tongue to wet it sufficiently.
She gives up and licks the hanky herself to create a more moist patch and lunges at your face.
You wince, but it does no good.
A smear of her bright red lipstick has escaped onto the hanky where she licked it, so she scrubs even harder to get it off, not realising that the redness on your face is due to her over-zealous scrubbing.

"Oh, you'll do!" she announces, and you finally all leave the house.

Whatever your destination, you soon have to endure the second-phase-spit-wash horror.
It dries on your face in the fresh air, pulling the skin tight, so you rub it to turn the area back into flexible skin. If your hands are still dirty from the coal-treasure-hunting, you risk going through the whole process again, but as a child you don't think to look at your hands first.
For the rest of the outing, whenever the air is still, you catch a whiff of dried saliva and lipstick - which is disgusting, but there is no respite until your face is washed properly with water and a flannel.

I never had old dribbly aunts who kiss children and cause much the same kind of distress, but my sympathies go out to those that did. I imagine the suffering is the same for them as it was for us.
A pinched-up bit of crispy face and the stink of someone else's dried slobber.
I still shudder at the thought now.
I never committed a spit-wash on my own children. Although it was before the days of baby wipes I would always carry in my parenting equipment a supply of clean tissues and a small plastic bottle of clean water.
Is that so much to ask?

Needless to say I was horrified when I watched one of my daughters doing the Dirty Deed on one of their own children!
You KNOW who you are!
There's absolutely no excuse for it.

But I realise my mistake.
My own children never had to suffer the spit-wash themselves from me, so maybe they have no experience of how revolting it is to have it done to them.

Maybe it's an every-other-generation thing?

To PuzzledinCA; =)

Copied from EG24:
"Thanks, PuzzledinCA, it's heartening to know at least the television companies think people still care. And thank you for the walkthrough with clear explanantions for people who haven't perhaps followed the complete Minoto Ugly Duckling series. =D"

Thank you for taking the trouble to mention that. I never watch television, so it seems to me that everyone has fogotten.

I know disaster training probably figures higher in japanese education than, say england, where I live, but take for example policemen. All the training in the world never truly prepares one for the first dead body - sometimes a child.
I think the scale of the combined disasters in japan in such a short space of time [earthquakes, tsunami and power plant/s failure] must have been greater than even the trainers had experienced in living memory.
What I'm suggesting is that they can't possibly have been completely emotionally prepared for what happened, or the aftermath.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki [affecting smaller areas, possibly] would be the closest?

I'm not preoccupied with basking in the misery of others' misfortune, I just can't tolerate bullying, which the comments on Ugly Duckling 6 sort of amount to.
Kicking a man when he's down? It just seemed he could do with some back-up, so I got up on my soap box =D

Natural disasters fascinate me; my greatest dream is to go on a storm-chasing tour, and my favourite english experience was driving through a skinny tornado one summer night [yes, we DO get them]. My car window was open, and I only realised what it was when I got smacked in the head by very fast sand and a load of other stuff. =D
Apart from sand-blasting my face, I don't think anything or anyone was hurt by it.


The reason I spouted off on EG24 was because it seems so unfair to be firing so many complaints at Minoto's recent [FREE] games without seeming to consider that even if he hasn't lost everything, he probably knows someone who has.
Minoto is bound to be affected. His life will never be the same.

Guy Fawkes Night in the dog house.

Sirius - the Dog Star?
Well, it's also the name of my dog [part deerhound, with saluki, bearded collie and greyhound as other contributing breeds].

And he is a star at being an oaf; in fact, an absolute buffoon.
He is twenty-two months old and has no courage and very little ego.
He is also quite agoraphobic, and would rather run up and down my garden hell-for-leather than go for a walk in the real world.
It's been quite a journey, trying to give him some confidence. Now, at least, he doesn't completely empty himself in the car.
I used to call him "Three-Mile-Island dog", because if I took him out in the car, after three miles he'd have created a huge island of digestive system contents, from both ends,on my back seat.
Thankfully, he's grown out of that now.

Anything unusual in my garden, which is an oasis for wild birds [in a very bleak housing estate] with mostly trees and bushes throughout, used to start him off.
One time, some weeks after he'd been stung by a wasp, he was barking so persistently that I had to intervene. It was a bee.
It's like women screaming. I just don't "get" why evolution has selected for creatures that express their anxiety so readily. Surely that's just asking for trouble from predators?

He was barking with that nervous "edge" to his voice again another time, and I found that the object of his distress this time was a tiny baby blackbird, cowering at the base of a treetrunk.
He's an intelligent dog, and can work out the solutions to quite amazing problems on his own, so why does he insist on shouting at things he fears?

The most recent time was about a month ago.
The doors to my conservatory and back garden were open and he was standing in the conservatory, shouting very angrily and even growling a little.
I went to investigate and shoved his hindquarters to encourage him to go out so I could get through and see what the problem was.
Instead of leading me into the garden, as I had expected, he backed past me and WOULD NOT go outside or even budge.
I took his collar to lead him out and he turned tail and ran straight through to the other side of the house.
Now, he's huge, height-wise, and you'd expect a dog that size to at least try to have an ego, but no.
I chuckled out loud when I went outside.
He'd been given a new teddy, his favourite type of toy, and had left it about ten feet from the back door, face-down, and hadn't a clue what this huge white monster was that sat there, all fuzzy, looming and scary.
Idiot.
He saw me defeat the teddy monster by picking it up and so he came wobbling out, how young dogs do, his ears back and head circling in a playful way, asking me to throw it for him.

Then came Guy Fawkes night, tonight.
Last year he'd had company for this particular date because we had a slightly smaller dog of the same age staying with us for a few months, and she did wonders for his confidence, bless her.
[I found her a fantastic home, and she seems blissfully happy now. She needed to be an "only dog", and her stay here was only ever meant to be temporary.]
The back doors were open as usual, until the first bang, when he came bolting in and skidded on the floor tiles in his hasty attempt to get upstairs, crashing into the opposite wall.
I followed to check on him and there he was, buried into my bedclothes, doing that "Lassie-Come-Home" whimper.
A pillow had ended up over his head and I wish I'd had the means to photograph it.
Reminded me of Scooby Doo, wimping out. =D

Poor dog - nothing! I cannot take him seriously, because he never says afraid for long and he truly is such a massive wimp at first.
He ventured downstairs ten minutes later, stuck his nose out of the cat flap and FLASHBANG! - suddenly he was a dog blur tearing up the stairs again.

When my previous dog, Bodi, a german shepherd cross, was a puppy, he was absolutely fine with loud fireworks, but when he faced his back to the bonfire [we'd let him lead us a little way into the field to investigate] he began growling and his hackles went up. I turned to see that he was afraid of his OWN enormous shadow projected on the wall behind us.

Bodi was hardly ever afraid, Sirius is another matter altogether.
I know it isn't nice to find humour in another's fear, but it was so funny; he's such a goon.
He can't be fierce, so why does he bother? With his droopy saluki fur he hasn't even got hackles!
He may look like the stunt double for the Hound of the Baskervilles, but he's be better qualified to do the voice-overs for Lassie the Wonderdog!

Not long after his second retreat he was happy to go outside, even with fireworks going off.
I just had to go out first and show him it was okay.
At least it shows he trusts me. I think I must be HIS guard dog!

My six-year-old grandson pronounces his name "serious". He should have really been called Hilarious instead.

The Day The Carpet Died - 1989

We used to have a lovely soft carpet that ran throughout the house, and one day my German Shepherd puppy decided to snack on it, ripping a huge swathe of it out of the living room floor, two feet wide and the length of the room.
Luckily, we were covered by a new-for-old insurance, so another lovely soft carpet was soon fitted as a replacement, again through the whole house.
When my youngest two were aged about four and two years old, they decided not to wake me up straight away one morning, and broke into a cupboard while I still slept, discovering, to their delight, a litre tin of black gloss paint hidden inside it.

I woke about half an hour later, to the sound of squeals and giggles from the happy little pair, and that sprang my defences immediately into action.
They were normally happy, but this was something more..... you know that feeling you get when something, somewhere, has gone horribly wrong.......

I caught a glimpse, out of the corner of my eye, of several sweet little handprints perfectly placed on my bedroom wall, but ignored them, as they couldn't possibly be there, and my two babes could be in danger.
As I rushed out of my bedroom, I saw the sight.
Standing in the near-darkness of the upstairs hall was an apparition.
All I could make out were the few blond curls on the top of his head, and his big white eyes blinking at me. The rest of him was covered in black gloss from head to foot.
A small, black gloss cherub was frozen to the spot in my gaze.
Roxy quickly appeared behind him and she was daubed with small black handprints of two sizes above her completely black legs.
They were both terrified of my reaction and both instantly realised they'd done something I would not approve of.
I said, in a voice as menacing as I could muster,
"What HAVE you done?"
"I don't know!" - "Doh-know!"
To be honest, the sight of them was overpowering, and I popped my head back behind my bedroom door to stifle my laughs.
I wish there was photographic evidence, but the memory is enough to raise my smile, even 20-odd years later.
I didn't say another word to them, but grabbed my bottle of Polyclens (a paintbrush restorer), which I knew was okay on my own skin and put them straight into the bath to get the paint off as fast as possible.
I considered it was safer than leaving them painted, and I'd found white spirit burned me slightly.
Needless to say, I ran out, so when a friend visited and they were still greyish and in the bath, he ran up to town for me and brought back two more bottles.
It was Sunday, and "that was all they had", he'd said.
I splashed it onto them and Roxy started crying. It was hot!
Looking at the bottle, it wasn't Polyclens, but a version by another maker and it was going to burn their skin!
About an hour hour later I had washed them both clean, and they were looking pink and human again with no paint at all, so I left them in the bedroom in towels [still not speaking to them] and my friend and I inspected the rest of the damge.
Little black hand- and foot-prints on every step, all the way up the stairs; a two-year-old-Roxy-sized bum print on the built-in bunk bed [which I've kept]; handprints and smears all around the walls, just about everywhere in the kitchen had been daubed, but the "Pièce  de Résistance" was my lovely new carpet in the living room.
You wouldn't believe how far a litre of black gloss will spread when applied by Child-Roller!
I even found the screwdriver they had used to prise off the lid!
They had upturned the tin on the floor and Rikki had rolled through it like a little human roller, which is why I could only see the top of his head and his eyes. Roxy had sat in it and squished her legs around, so there were splashes of it spread far and wide.

They were completely unharmed by the paint, thankfully, and by the second cleaner, which rinsed straight off with the shower in the bath.

I did not even need to scold them. They knew exactly what they'd done wrong as soon as they'd seen me, and, as they'd got it out of their system there'd be no danger of a repetition. Their experiment was complete, and it was not a favourable result.

My silence was enough.
We used to have fun every day, but this day I was simply a carer, and they showed respect and didn't even expect mummy friend to play with and teach them new stuff after their little stunt. They watched me cut up my lovely new carpet and throw it away over the next few days. They also didn't like hurting my feelings.

The new carpet was NOT insured, and I have not been able to replace it to this day, but there were floor tiles underneath it anyway, and the true reason for my silence towards my little rascals, until they went to bed, was not anger, or even disappointment; I was quiet because I was trying so desperately hard NOT TO LAUGH!

Three of my favourite limericks:

1)
There once was a priest of Belgrave,
Who put a dead whore in a grave.
He said, full of lust,
"With a bit of a dust -
"Just think of the money I'll save!"
[Comedian Dave Allen, I think]

2)
Two ugly sisters from Fordham
Went out for a walk, till it bored 'em.
Then, on the way back
A sex maniac
Jumped out from a bush - and ignored 'em.
[Comedienne Pam Ayers]

3)
When Lady Penelope swoons
Her bosoms pop out like balloons.
Her butler stands by,
With a gleam in his eye,
And pops them back with warm spoons.
[Comedian Kenny Everett]

Cheese Toastie Monster - Monday 27th July 2009

[Posted first on Lazylaces last year]

My second daughter, Angie has given me a sandwich toaster.
Duly buying bread, olive spread and cheese, I set about creating the perfect toasted sandwich.
Then I remembered that about 20 years had elapsed since the only time I had ever used one.
I rang Angie - no answer - so I rang my son Rik. He kindly gave me a brief recap on how to use one, then I made my raw cheese sandwiches with sliced tiny tomatoes inside, and placed them into the toaster.
It was a bit of a struggle to get the clip shut on it, but, plugged-in and closed, the lights came on and it began to steam.
With white clouds billowing from the sides, an innocent and unsuspecting moth flew just above - and dropped stone dead on the other side. Then came the sizzling. A reassuring sound at first, but growing with intensity, as if to warn me to run. I stood my ground and watched as bubbles appeared at the sides, then cheese, then the whole thing seemed to erupt like a cheese volcano. Cheese and tomato juice were gushing out of it onto the counter, and I was deeply tempted to stop the whole process by unplugging it, frantically trying to consider whether it would be easier to clean up whilst still hot (and would I burn myself in the process?) or cold.
 There seemed to be more cheese coming out than I had originally put into the sandwich, but as I wrongly reasoned that perhaps the worst was already over, I decided to keep a healthy distance until the indicator light went off.
 The only thing missing was horror film anticipation music as I stood staring at it for a moment. I tapped the clip in case it was hot, then hooked my finger under it. It burst open dramatically, bread stuck firmly to each surface, flabby parts sagging sadly at the corners, cheese filaments drawn across between them and flopping down. The only sign that tomatoes had ever been involved were small draped shreds of skin embedded in the entrails.
  It was the "Toastie Maker Cheese Monster"; a gaping mouth with crusty teeth and wry, droopy lips, cheese drool strands clinging and dribbling down the sides, with wisps of atomised tomato for added fleshyness, the whole thing standing in a lake of what was supposed to have been the filling.

Taste Test: - I ate just one. I'm not a great fan of bread. It was like unusual toast which had been threatened with the idea of cheese. Tomato was not really part of the taste equation at all.

Things I learned from this....
i) don't use fat bread.
ii) use square bread.
iii) don't put too much cheese in.
and -
iv) let the battle area cool before cleaning.