After effects...

It snowed in Tilly Ville last night - it was quite horrible walking the dogs as it was instantly slippy.

That nasty, sleaty kind of snow, that doesn't really stick, but soaks your clothes.

When I got up this morning, it was icy. My car locks and the windows were frozen over. And it was then that I realised how shook up I still am since the 'car incident' the other week. I had to ask Dave to drive me to work, the thought of driving on icy roads literally had me shaking.

I'm a whimp.

I've just heard...

... one of the funniest conversations in my life.

Two of our engineers were in my office, using the photocopier.

Engineer one: "Have you tried those chicken goujons from Asda? They're gorgeous."

Engineer two: "No - but I've tried their New York Vanilla Cheesecake. THAT'S nice but you know it's all gonna end up on your hips."

And they weren't being ironic at all.

I nearly sprayed my water all over my screen.

Weekend...

We have no sofa in our living room at the moment. We've ordered a new one, and are hoping it'll be delivered before christmas, but Dave took the one to the skip last week while I was in work.

Which was a bit silly.

All we have in the room now is his Eames lounger and footstool and a dining chair, which is far too uncomfortable to sit on while watching TV or reading. Dave keeps giving me the Eames to sit on - but I worry about his scoliosis and insist that HE sits on it... blah, blah.

Anyway, last night, I went up to the guest room and took the spare quilts down stairs, and folded them up into a nice little banquette style mattress on the floor. And that was where I spent the hour between 19:00 and 20:00. Lying on my living room floor, watching the 'Black Books' DVD. At 20:00 Dave said he was tired and did I "fancy and early night?"

We were both in bed by 20:15, and I guess I was snoring by 20:30. Yay!

I woke up at 01:15, WIDE AWAKE. But just went downstairs, got a glass of milk, said good night to the pooches, and crawled back to bed.

I was up and down a few times to the loo also, but, joy of joys, this morning was the first time in ages, that I woke up feeling refreshed, instead of exhausted.

Yay again!

And - more joy of joys - we're actually going out tonight. Together!

Whee!

OOPS...

Last night, while I was running my bath, I was in and out of the bathroom, stepping over the dogs who were lying outside the bathroom door, chatting to Dave who was studying away in the study (ideal place for studying). I was feeling thoroughly happy with the world. Nice feeling.

When the bath was ready, I went in to Dave, gave him a kiss and then went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. Something I don't usually do - we always leave the bathroom door open, when we're on the loo or in the bath... don't know why I didn't last night.

So - I got all my stuff ready, put it on the edge of the bath and climbed in... I was just lowering myself down when one of my feet slipped, and I 'fell' the six inches that were left before I was sitting down.

Within a millisecond, Dave was banging on the door, saying "Maria? Maria? (for that is my name) are you OK? What's happened?" I was laughing so much that I couldn't answer. Which made him even more frantic.

I thought he was going to break the door down.

I just managed to splutter. "It's OK. I'm OK. I only fell a little bit."

And, the love replied, "A little bit? It sounded like you'd created a tsunami in there."

Cheeky bugger.

He then ordered me to "never lock this bloody door, ever again."

Aw - he loves me.

*EDIT: Apparently, according to Dave, I now have a HUGE bruise on my bum. I don't know how that happened... I can't have a HUGE bruise, because I only have a tiny, pert bottom.

KIDNEY SCAN...

I just had to go to our local NHS hospital, for a kidney scan, my GP thought that a dodgy kidney could be what is causing my high blood pressure.

I was examined by THE MOST ATTRACTIVE MAN I HAVE EVER SEEN in real life. He was about 6 foot 2, with bright blue eyes, black curly hair, and the most lovely, soft Australian accent I have ever heard.

And I was wearing a pair of HUGE, black, Bridget Jones style drawers.

Buggeration!

'Cause, of course, you know, I SO stood a chance.

Weekend...

Dave and I went to Southport on Saturday, just for a 'browse' not to buy anything in particular.

There is such a concentration of old people living there, it's really quite strange. Reminds me of a Smiths song.

While we didn't go to buy anything, we actually spent a small fortune. Dave bought me a lovely 'Radley' body bag, to replace the one that the psycho bitch ripped following our little 'crash'.

He also bought me a lovely thick, black, cable knit poncho. I was trying to resist them, I hate the crocheted, floaty, tarty looking ones, but this one is so long and 'substantial' that I think I can just about get away with it.

Dave also bought himself a rather tasty shirt, which had a SHOCKING price tag on it. He said he's going to wear it for his 'night out with the lads' at the end of this month, which seems such a waste.... or maybe I'm being naive and missing something?

Bum!...

We've spent the last couple of months having one of the fireplaces opened up, so that we could burn wood/coal.

It took so long because the builder was fitting us in, in between other jobs.

Our house looks a complete mess, the floor boards have been wrecked by the builder traipsing in and out with his kit, and will have to be resanded and stained.

EVERYTHING in the room is full of building dust and needs to be scrubbed down, but we've been waiting until the chimney sweep came out, just in case we cleaned everything and then the room ended up full of soot.

So, last night, Mr Sweep came out, the chimney was nice and clean, the brush came out of the top of the chimney on the first pass. Result.

However, due to the fact that the builder said we HAD to line the fireplace out with firebricks, the fire opening is quite shallow, and the basket that we had bought actually sits underneath the arch of the fireplace. This means that when the sweep lit a smoke bomb to make sure that everything was clear, the whole room became black and smokey, due to the fact that the smoke bounces off the arch and back into the room.

Bum.

Plan B.

We'll buy a multi fuel burning stove.

Except - the smoke from the smoke bomb exited via two different chimney pots, which means that there is a hole in the chimney somewhere, allowing the smoke to travel into one of the bedroom fireplaces and is a potential 'death trap'.

Grrr....

Looks like we might have a very expensive bowl of Pot Pourri, as that is basically all the fire can be used for. Big piles of logs looking pretty.

OR - we can get a wood burning stove, and have a flexible liner fitted down the whole length of the chimney - which means MORE money...

Dilemmas, dilemmas.

DON'T KNOW IF ANYONE IS INTERESTED...

... but, I have the box sets of series 1, 2 and 3 of 'Cold Feet' on VHS (PAL), going free to a good home.

If you're interested, email me at tilly(dot)mint(at)gmail(dot)com.

If you're the first to email me, I'll reply asking for a postal address that I can send them to.

I'm having a clear out, so there may be more stuff over the next couple of weeks.

How Sickeningly Sweet...

... I was just about to leave for work, when I remembered that it was laundry day, and that I hadn't chucked some clothes in the basket.

I ran back upstairs, crept into our bedroom where Dave was still asleep (he's not back in work till Sunday), grabbed my stuff, gave Dave a quick kiss, went into the spare room and chucked my stuff in the basket, ready for Dave to take to the launderette when he gets up.

So far so good.

I started walking back down the stairs and stood on one of Jasper's stupid, pigging, cuddly toy things, and fell down three steps. Banging my elbow, back and bum.

I screamed a little bit, and sat on the stairs, with my shaking hand over my heart, which was pounding away like a kettle drum.

Dave ran out of the bedroom, half wearing his dressing gown, ran past me on the stairs and bent down, looking directly into my eyes.

It was at that point that I told him to "put that bleeping piece of bleep in the bin". And he laughed and kissed me, saying "Well, at least I know that you're all right."

Pig.

HALLOWE'EN...

You know when you were younger, there was always one house in the neighbourhood that everyone was scared of. The house held supernatural powers, and people always had horror stories to tell about the inhabitants.

How the mother was a witch who kidnapped children? How someone died in that house and the cats ate them?

Well... I think that family/house is us.

Our street was TEAMING with Trick or Treaters over the weekend. We never had any trick or treat calls in our old house, because it was out of the way and it was mostly pensioners who lived there. So I was super excited this year... I bought LOADS of sweeties and fruit, and had them stacked up in bowls near the front door.

We saw a bunch of young 'uns go up next door's path, knock on the door and get some goodies... and then they walked right past our house and went to the neighbour on the other side.

Huh?

So, I decided to make the house look a bit more welcoming, by putting the pumpkin lantern out on the porch, and turning on the porch light. And the same thing happened with the next group of kids.

Out of the thirty or so groups we saw, only ONE GROUP knocked on our door.

I was gutted.