Merry Christmas ...

.. And a happy New Year. Wishing all the best to you & yours over the festive period & a happy, healthy peaceful & prosperous 2011. Oh and a wish that in 2011 we find a way to deal with all this snow! Snowed in for 2nd time in 3 weeks .....
PS cute kitten a stock photo – as to be expected, the KC refused point blank to dress up! Bah Humbug

How do we know when we're old?

I have a very glamorous, very gorgeous & in my eyes eternally youthful friend who splits her time between LA & London. She is a proper artist (as in exists on the proceeds from her art) hangs out with the likes of Oprah (yes THE Oprah) gets invited to all the cool parties & yet who mailed me today with the attached photo (from her LA "office" - yeah I could hate her too if only she wasn't so lovely!) claiming it proved she was now old. How did it prove she was old? She was wearing purple – and a hat! For the uninitiated I now have to reproduce Jenny Joseph’s genius poem in full.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple
with a red hat that doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
and satin candles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired
and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
and run my stick along the public railings
and make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
and pick the flowers in other people's gardens
and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
and eat three pounds of sausages at a go
or only bread and pickles for a week
and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
and pay our rent and not swear in the street
and set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I have just glanced down at my keep warm gear today – which comprises pale purple t-shirt, purple cardi & multi coloured purple scarf. And if I am honest I have grown quite fat in my domestic bliss ... my father actually gave me a stack of Weight Watchers recipe cards recently. Discreet huh? And I spend most of my income on good red wine – that's quite close to pension & brandy n'est ce pas? Maybe I just hadn’t noticed I was old ...

Winter Wonderland?

Oh dear, any Canadians or Northern Scandawegian types reading this will be howling with laughter by the end. It has snowed in Blighty, actually quite heavily – it dumped best part of a foot on us - and so all of life as we know it has stopped. Airports are shut, cars can’t go anywhere as there are no snow ploughs & the grit stops working if it goes below -5, the trains can’t run as the points are frozen and so we are stuck! For me it’s no big as I commute from upstairs to downstairs but for others it has been a horror. Have had the joy of the hubby at home since Wednesday which has been wonderful, but the fact he can’t travel 17 miles is shocking! And the KC really not sure what to make of it all (the super eagle eyed will spot her staring straight at a Robin if you look closely at the photo) She has had a couple of go’s outside but is really not sure; she slipped badly at about 6am yesterday as she tried to jump over the snow to get back inside & missed the catflap, instead crashing headfirst into the doorframe which meant she went haring back into the deep (up to her shoulders!) snow & hid under the Leylandi meowing (complaining!) loudly. Hubby had to don wellies & get a torch & get on his hands & knees to persuade her it was safe to come back in before she woke the whole street with her unbelievable wailing! We have had a moment of amazement though. Knowing the weather would be iffy (not apocalyptic as it turned out to be) I went online & ordered a heap of groceries from Ocado. And I have to take my hat off to their delivery boys – no-one was going anywhere Weds night, hubby just about got home in 1 piece, trudging through the snow for 30 mins from the station as I really couldn’t get the 4x4 full on winter equipped Volvo out as the road had iced into a skating rink, yet the legendary Ocado boys Aaron & James who had started at 6am that day then got stuck in a snowdrift for 4 hours persevered with their deliveries for 18 hours & ended up walking our groceries to us through the knee deep snow at 9pm that night!!! Way beyond the call of duty! We did at least make them a cuppa as we were their last delivery. The Dunkirk spirit lives.I have sent notes to their bosses & even mailed Chris Evans for an on air thank you. Again – thank you boys, we have red wine & the KC has her Felix!!