Lazy Sunday afternoon

MSN had a 'cars that are nearly extinct' photo gallery this morning which I was perusing idly whilst waiting for the kettle to boil.  I am not sure why this gallery, in particular, drew my attention, but it did introduce me to a little stunner that would be so ideal for poodling around the Devonshire lanes. 

And with a name like the Daffodil - made by Daf during the albeit brief period of 1961 and 63 - it would have been a must for the dotty Mrs Jonathan Downes of the CFZ.  She is so cute (the car not the peculiar lady mentioned - now that would be a trumpet blow too far).   She also looks more 50s to me than 60s (again the car), but  a beauty nevertheless (erm...yes the car).  Awww, and the first ones off the production line only had 22bhp!  Sweet.  I could have become one of those Sunday afternoon drivers, every day.

However, I really don't think all that stuff is really going to fit in that boot......I reckon the children are sitting on some of it on the back seat, hence their slightly elevated appearance.  And look - no seatbelts!  Aah those were the days when you didn't get garotted by a badly fitting seatbelt as a child, and could make rude faces and gesticulate crudely at the occupants of the car behind you.  Did children do that in the 60s?  Did they know crude gesticulations back then?  I don't think I did - but then I was a good girl.

Happy Birthday Thea!

Happy Birthday to my youngest niece with the ever-present smile and happy glint in her eye.

I hope you have a lovely birthday, Thea.

CFZ Publishing

Keep an eye on the new addition to our bloggo network - CFZ Publishing - which is being launched today. I have been given free rein with it, with the basic requirement of keeping it updated with our new titles as soon as they become available. I may also provide the reader with an occasional teaser regarding books that are on the cusp of imminent publication. You never know, if I am feeling really chipper I may even throw in the odd 'bogof' offer or even a competition here and there to win one of the titles. Jon has already volunteered to pull out the winning entry from a sack if his services are needed, but I have banned him from being filmed so doing if he insists on wearing the shorts that he was sporting when he generously offered his help (believe me, you would need a whole bottle of smelling salts to bring you around from that viewing).

As for the 'featured author' section, I hope to be able to present you with the occasional warts 'n all interview, when yours truly will probe as many Verruca vulgaris as she can, armed only with her trusty and ever-sharpened pencil and well-thumbed notebook.

See you there.

The woman in the wet dress and the throw in the washing machine

Last night (Tuesday) Jon and I watched a couple of episodes of Bones, which has become quite a habit for the last six weeks or so since Helen lent us some to watch, recommending that we would like the show. We have just about finished working our way through five series and once we have finished watching the disc that is left, we will have to wait until the end of the year before being able to see any more. I am not sure how we will cope, but I am sure that the withdrawal symptoms will not be nearly as bad as when I gave up smoking or gave up chocolate. Actually, on reflection, the withdrawal symptoms for the former were not overly bad because having the flu helped me out quite a lot due to my not being able or wanting to smoke anyway. However, I do miss it – by choice I would not have given up quite yet, but it seemed the most sensible thing to do at the time.

But giving up smoking or chocolate is absolutely nothing to do with Bones or the events that occurred on Wednesday afternoon.

What is pertinent to the point, however, is that one of the episodes we watched on Tuesday evening involved a murderer disposing of his victim's body by shoving him down the laundry chute of a hotel, which culminated in said body being given a good old service wash. This meant that he ended up being spread all over the inside of the drum, something discovered once the machine had been stopped and further investigation had ensued. One big machine though; big enough to walk into – now that is impressive (as would be the water and soap powder bills I am sure).

So coming back to Wednesday afternoon …. and I have to say that I had a similar occurrence in my washing machine, the similarity not being that there was a body in it I must add, but merely a burgundy throw. Pru was sick on it the night before (after we had finished watching Bones that is) which I noticed on my way in to see Jon, who had asked me to go and look at something on the computer. Although she ate her deposit (with apparent relish), almost as soon as she had chucked it (dogs are so disgusting) it did mean that I had to wash the throw. I have washed this article many times in its life, but on this occasion something weird happened and the washing machine decided to mangle it slightly and the drum became awash with bits of soggy burgundy-coloured material. This meant the machine could not drain properly as the holes in it had become blocked up with the wet fluff. I had to enlist the help of Oll to assist me in emptying out the machine manually and we, the ‘utility area’, and the kitchen were soon awash with water. Luckily, on this first evacuation the water was warm, so having to wear rather soggy clothing and footwear for the following hour was not as bad as it could have been. However, by the third attempt at getting out the fluff and getting the drum to drain rather than swish around murky particles of thread, the warm water had been replaced with cold that was certainly not so pleasant.

Anyway, back to Bones. Upon opening the door to let the water gush out into the bucket I was holding underneath, I noticed that the inside of the drum looked remarkably like the one in the Bones episode described briefly above, only the body parts had been replaced by the material. So there was a method to my apparent madness in mentioning the episode earlier. And you all thought I had completely lost it didn't you? I may take a roundabout way of getting there, but I do get there in the end, wherever there is.

Oll went off to find a syphoning tube in order to get rid of the water that still sat in the drum below the level of the door. He came back armed with one, saying that there was a bigger one somewhere, but it seemed to have disappeared. I unintentionally voiced my suggestion aloud that maybe somebody had decided to try a bit of home-style colonic irrigation and had failed to return the tube afterwards, at which Oll assured me that it was not him. Well not me either so that leaves Graham and Jon, but we will not go any further down that road.

Since the dramatic events of Wednesday have been laid to rest until the morrow, we have at least worked out the chain of events that led to the waterlogged scenes of earlier, and have all reached the same conclusion…it is all Jon’s fault. It was he who wished to have liver and bacon casserole for dinner, meaning that Pru had a small onion-less version made for her, which involved her eating it quickly as it was such a treat, causing her to throw it up later and so on and so forth.

So BOO to Jon for causing me to get soaked, first in warm water and later twice in cold as Oll and I tried to sort it out. And BOO to Jon for causing Oll to look for a syphon tube and only find the thin one, leading to my dismaying thoughts of DIY colonic irrigation (thoughts that will no doubt take a long time to vacate my grey matter ….urgh).

But joking aside, it will be a real pain and shame if the machine is irreparable. It has given me pretty good and faithful service since October 2000, and considering we live in such a throw away society and things are not made to last these days like they used to be, it has had an amazing innings.

Last of the great surrealists

Tony Shiels introduced me to the art and writing of Leonora Carrington a couple of years ago. I had to admit not having heard of her before, mainly due to the fact that I am not really a lover of surrealism. However, I had heard of Max Ernst – mainly due to Loplop, his alter-ego on canvas in the shape of a bird. The CFZ has a model of this creation, which has featured in more than one Weird Weekend and – at present – keeps guard over Bigfoot and the giant snapping turtle, Quasimodo, up in the CFZ Museum.

On Tony’s suggestion I read one of Leonora’s novels last year , and I used to read it aloud at night so both Jon and I could enjoy it at the same time. The Hearing Trumpet is a very strange novel, but one that you cannot put down once starting. The heroine is a 92 year old woman who is given a hearing trumpet by her well-meaning friend. This then means that she can hear everything that her family is saying and finds out that she is to be taken to an institution. The adventures that follow are weird, funny and poignant and Leonora’s writing had both me and Jon laughing out loud at times, so much so that on occasion I would have to re-read a paragraph over and over before being able to finish it with a straight face.

Leonora died in Mexico City on 25th May of complications following pneumonia at the grand age of 94, and is survived by her two sons, Gabriel and Pablo.

Bottoms up

A visit to the podiatrist at Bideford hospital should have been a reasonably uneventful affair, apart from the fact that, in the end, Jon had to endure a minor medical procedure during which he had something drastic done to his big toe with a scalpel, and a strange looking gleaming instrument. He came out sporting that little child look of feeling slightly sorry for himself, but ever so pleased to have a bandage triumphantly wrapped around his left hallux.

That is all by the by, however. Perhaps the shock of the free show to which he and I had been treated before he had entered into the realms of the podiatrist (who sat waiting for him, grinning from ear to ear and armed with the instruments of wounding) had given him a rush of adrenaline; a weird sort of fight or flight instinct rushing through his veins. This combination had, therefore, enabled the podiatrist to cut his flesh without him flinching and to emerge from the consulting room glorious in his success.

You see, we had arrived at the hospital around ten minutes early, and had also not found it necessary to search for a parking space, so we were able to sit in the car park for a short while before Jon had to launch himself into action and attend his appointment. Jon used to reside at this hospital once upon a time, when nursing was his game, and his window overlooked the area in which we sat idly watching the world go by as we waited for the clock to tick those remaining minutes. In the flush of youth his reactions would most likely have been entirely different to the events that were to unfold as we were parked there yesterday.

The scenery was quite pleasant; the trees were all in full leaf in various, glorious shades of green, and the horse chestnut was in the last throes of blossom, teasingly offering a view of what is to come when its annual fruits ripen and fall to the ground. This will either be under their own steam or from marauding conker challengers armed with sticks or anything else that they can throw in their attempts to ensure the prize falls to the earth. However, being as it is a hospital car park, I am assuming that, in the main, it will be the former that will occur, apart from a few opportunists during visiting hours. In the corner of the eye, a male blackbird could be seen to be busily hunting for food in the shade of a beech, and the wind ruffled the leaves gently in the chilly breeze.

Then the occupants of the car next to us returned to their vehicle and in a second diabolically marred the serenity of the surroundings. Their car was on our passenger side so I could see them whilst talking to Jon. I have no idea what the slang is these days, but in my day it was builder’s bum or bum cleavage. But this was no builder. It was a young woman strapping her children into the back of the car who was revealing a little more than she probably thought. She was clearly wearing a pair of the so-called fashionable – and to my mind uncomfortable – hipster jeans. I have a pair that ease their way down to my nether regions at the merest mention of gravity and are constantly being firmly yanked back up to waist level , and secured with an ever –tightening belt in order to restrict their movement south. Why did I purchase such things? At the time, I found it nigh on impossible to find a pair of ‘normal’ jeans and had to make do with what was available.

This woman, however, seemed oblivious to the migration of her own pair and was exposing at least six inches of her lower cheeks to the air and the local wildlife, and also, to our horror and rather sarcastic amusement, us. I must remind you here that we are two ageing hippies that are growing more belligerent and unforgiving the older we get. And we were – by now – trying not to look at the free peep show whilst muffling our giggling and groans of repugnance at such an unfortunate display of bare flesh.

The car and its occupant with the offending buttocks eventually moved off, leaving us both staring out of the windscreen with looks of dismay and jaws dropped as if catching flies. The spectacle had clearly affected us. But then, it was time for Jon to make his unsuspecting way to the gleaming instruments and for me to doze off slightly, trying desperately to shake the vision that had so recently invaded my personal space.

Sorry to disappoint those who may have been hoping for a picture of the offending buttocks, but this is the hero's toe in all its bandaged glory.

Happy birthday wishes to my brother

Happy Birthday, Ant!

Have a nice day 

Lots of love

Me xxxxxx