I Saw You Coming!

Fans of Harry Enfield will know exactly what I mean by that. For the uninitiated, in a nutshell, Harry has a sketch in his comedy show in which he plays a Notting Hill antiques shop salesman who sells utter junk to gullible wealthy women for extortionately large quantities of money. I found myself in a similar place today. No not a Notting Hill antiques shop but – bizarrely – a garden centre. Well I’d call it a garden centre it calls itself a nursery & I won’t name it as I don’t want trouble. But seriously. This place was FauxRusticExpensive in the extreme. Located on the edge of London in an area clearly filled with people with far more money than sense (well someone must buy this stuff or they’d go under – surely??) I had to be told to close my mouth and behave on numerous occasions!

Firstly – the coffee shop. Self-service & eat in a garden shed with a leaking roof. So we got dripped on & it was freezing. Slice of cake – very nice cake admittedly £4.50. Cup of coffee £4; glass of wine £6.50 (you’d need alcohol to buy soup - £7.50). Now if I was eating said cake & drinking said coffee in a warm, uber designed sumptuous café with white glove service & silver teapots maybe.

But to sit on a hard, metal, rickety, paint peeling, ancient garden chair (that’ll be £65 if you want to take that home thanks) I don’t think so! My handbag got covered in mud as I foolishly hung it on the back of the ancient rickety chair …. the even more rickety table upon which we were enjoying our eye wateringly expensive coffee & cake was a mere £350.

In the shop more joys lay ahead - £40 yes FORTY English pound coins for a fairly ordinary, not even clean terracotta plant pot; Mmm hmm. £4,500 for an alleged Swedish antique chest thing which looked like it needed a good wire brushing & a coat of paint. £450 for an old (i.e. seen far better days vs. gorgeous well cared for antique) metal garden bench. £30 for a small wonky plate. Yes a side plate. Whoever was doing the pricing clearly kept putting the decimal point in the wrong place…!

Now I am not tight fisted, I’m all for splashing the cash; I own Mulberry bags and love drinking Krug & collect gorgeous things for me & the house darling many of which are also quite expensive in the grand scheme of things but they are either artisan, or precious (i.e. made of precious things … can’t resist a diamond!) but there are limits! Old cr*ppy furniture is not nice! As I said to my coffee mate; I may be gullible but not THAT gullible!

You know what I think? Depressingly given where we were, I think the really really rich come & buy it to pretend that it really has been in their shed "for years darling. Oh that old thing". What a world …

Here Kitty Kitty!

I had a lovely & most unusual evening last night. I volunteer for the charity 'Cats Protection' so with that hat & branded fleece on I attended a local vets' "Cat Fest" event to help make their evening more interesting & drum up support for our branch (I got 3 new members signed up in 2 hours so am very happy). I was set up with my posters, my laptop running a slideshow of the kitties in our care looking for new homes and a heap of our magazines & membership forms, and shared my room with a gorgeous British Blue called Barney. He is an ex stray & ex CP cat who now works as a Pets as Therapy cat http://www.petsastherapy.org/
He basically goes (with his human mum of course!) & visits people who respond well to touch - he has a blind lady he visits, he visits sick children in hospitals who simply cuddle & play with  him (he is so laid back he's horizontal) and he is amazing with Alzheimers patients - many of the people he visits are quite seriously ill, but they all remember Barney and greet him with joy & recognition - you can only imagine how that makes their families feel.

But the joy of cats didn't stop there - in the room next door to me were the actual Whiskas cats - the gorgeous grey & silver British short hair cats who star in the Whiskas TV ads!! I cannot tell you how beautiful / friendly / amazingly well behaved / trained they were. They were the cats who thought they were dogs - they were shaking paws, rolling over - amazing! All using a system of clicks & treats.  

I got home to find the KC purrring loudly, curled up on my bed & I wondered if she would be up for a few tricks for treats (being so close to Hallowe'en!) So I shook the pack of 'Dreamies', treats she normally takes your hand off for. But clearly not tonight. She opened one eye, yawned, rolled over onto her back, crossed her paws over her chest & went straight back to sleep. That'll be a no then ...

Jason - king of the dancefloor

A quick post as have to go into that big city to that huge blue chip company to put the hours in today. I know I was disappointed when the line up was announced but the Strictly bug has now bitten me hard - and go go Jason! I know everyone is saying he was back doing his day job this week as the theme was Broadway (he starred in the stage version of Priscilla; Queen of the Desert - one of my all time favourite movies which if my memory serves me well I saw whilst on hols in Sydney ...) but what a FAB camp tango performed to Gloria Gaynors "I Will Survive" complete with giant pink feather fans & the cheesiest grins ever - proof a tango can be both fun (they chucked in some brilliant disco hip wiggling & finger waggling) and technically briilliant & thrilling & doesn't need sheer tops, half naked women & suggestive hand placement to get your attention (yes you Holly & Artem...)

Just look at the judges' faces!! Even Craig is smiling & Bruno looks like he may explode....

Happy Birthday FauxSurreyHubby!

Today is the 'practically perfect in every way' FauxSurreyHusband's birthday. It's a 'creeping close to a big one birthday' so razmatazz this year has been kept to a minimum. Sadly the evil empire he works for will keep him in meetings till gone 6 tonight - boo hiss! Actually Evil Empire not true - to continue the Star Wars analogy he is a Jedi in the Rebel Alliance tyring to deal with the baddies (Sith?) running the Galactic Empire!

Happy Birthday to the love of my life xxxx

Fat Cat ...

... oh dear. We have just been to the vet for an annual feline MOT & like her mummy, the KC is packing a few extra pounds. But unlike her mummy there are no Weight Watchers recipe cards for kitties & the KC herself has no concept of diets. Despite the fact that she is rather human in her eating habits - I have never seen a cat 'stress eat' before but this one does. Chase a squirrel - barrel through cat flap & eat; have altercation with another cat - run home & eat; get back from vet visit (which for her is the human equivalent in stress terms of a visit to the dentist for root canal treatment) high jump out of the cat basket & eat ALL the food that you can see in the kitchen plus a handful of (now banned) treats from mummy who feels bad.

Hey ho - diet coke & apples for me and senior / light food for madam from now on .... wonder if she'd like to join me on the Wii-Fit?

Green Fingered

I have astonished myself today - I have managed to get a Lisianthus - given to me as a newly potted gift a while back - to flower! The Texas Bluebell as it is also known, is beautiful. Stunning white & pale green lisianthus made up the bulk of my wedding bouquet & I have loved them ever since. They are quite hard to grow but clearly lots of attention, regular watering & an undisturbed space in our conservatory did the trick! My little effort is the pale pink & white one on the left. The purple one on the right is how it should look!

The next green fingered mission is to get my Amaryllis to flower....

Ah, the perfect blend!

Everbody needs good neighbours as the song goes and this weekend we saw not just a good one but a brilliant one! The ex-Neighbours hearthrob (who can forget the 80's cheesefest that was Charlene & Scott's teenage wedding?), now star of the stage & Strictly, the wonderful Jason Donovan has restored my faith in what was proving to be a rather average SCD this year. Lulu is just dreadful; wooden, clueless & shocking to watch - go home now dear - and as for Edwina Currie flashing her knickers... Oh please! But our Jason - well, what a groovy little mover, what a stunning Cha Cha Cha!

I bet Kristina Rhianoff is in heaven; after years of suffering rhythmically challenged lumps with no chance of winning (think John Seargent & Joe Calzaghe - she was even first out last year with Goldie), she finally has a dancer! Even Craig who was more sour than usual with all the other couples, couldn't find anything really bad to say - 'Bonza, you beauty!' indeed. Wonder if Kylie is tuning in? One thing's for sure, from now on I will be.

Little Weed?

This second coming of summer is all very well but alongside the joys of the KC sunbathing blissfully in 28 degrees and the flowers loving it (the roses are blooming again!) the darned weeds are also thoroughly enjoying themselves! I have yet to get on top of them post the back fiasco and now here we have a second wind (if you will) meaning that the bits I did manage to clear are starting to go all green & grotty again whilst the bits I didn’t get ‘round to are redefining the word overgrown & and having lost my patio hook (world’s best garden tool) the weeds in the paving up by the FauxTemple are thriving & HUGE!

Oh lucky Bill & Ben, they lived in a blissful fantasy garden where Little Weee-ee-eed was a delightful friend to the flowerpot men, not a mortal enemy.

Smudging the issue

I have had an esoteric hour. As the house settles into its new shape & we have increasing daily enjoyment of our "gracious & spacious new home” - it now all flows far more fluently & makes so much more sense as a space - it occurred to both of us that we have brought to bear some pretty serious GBH on the bricks & mortar that surround us & keep us safe, warm & dry & that it might be an idea to make amends for the GBH & to do a bit of Smudging. Smudging basically involves burning certain herbs to dissipate negative energies – I paraphrase here Adrienne Borden and Steve Coyote, 2 Native American Indians who regularly perform smudging ceremonies.

 “Native people throughout the world use herbs to accomplish the cleansing of spaces of any bad feelings, negative thoughts, bad spirits or negative energy. One common ceremony is to burn certain herbs and let the smoke cleanse every bit of space .Today this is commonly called "smudging." In Western North America the three plants most frequently used in smudging are sage, cedar, and sweetgrass”

As someone who has had the Feng Shui lady in, burning a few herbs for purification & removal of any bad stuff made complete sense! So I lit my Sage & Copal stick & began to waft the ensuing smoke around the house. And as I wafted, the KC who had not been seen for hours suddenly appeared out of the bushes, hared down the garden & followed me about as I filled the new space with smoke. After visiting each room in turn, I opened every single door, window & roof vent & watched as all the smoke & “bad stuff” dissipated into the ether. The KC was suitably enthralled by my little ceremony – so much so she  stayed indoors, despite it being a lovely afternoon & is now sleeping soundly in a cleansed bedroom! Bless!

Oh what a beautiful day!

It’s a bit of a Disney day out there in FauxSurrey land. Whilst it was only 9 degrees when I took hubby to the station at 6.30 AM (brrrr!) the sky was clear blue & now we have 17 degrees and a gentle breeze & utter silence apart from the sound of birdsong. The KC is slumbering in the gentle sunshine, the last of the summer flowers are blooming beautifully & I feel as if the squirrels will scamper & the bluebirds will fly in to help to me clean up the kitchen at any moment.

However the best is yet to come - this afternoon my task at hand is to go out to take pictures of kittens. Yes I’m completely serious. Kittens. Better go change into something pink ...

Strictly Disappointing

One of the many things I love about the arrival of autumn is the launch of Strictly Come Dancing. Yes I am an old fogey for loving it but the line up has finally been announced (in a very peculiar way) and I confess to feeling let down & disappointed.  I think they may have lost me this year. I guess there there are a few 'proper' celebs - Lulu, Jason Donovan & Rory Bremner & at a push Anita Dobson & Holly Valance - but we have the token controversial politician in Edwina Currie (am I the only one who post her John Major revelations always feels slighty nauseous when I see her?), Audley Harrison & someone called Robbie Savage (???) as the sportspeople, an ITV presenter called Dan something (OK he's v good looking but ... sorry WHO is he?) the Welsh woman with no skills or sense of humour off the One Show (whose publicity shot is just bizarre, all squished boobs) and a couple of odd ones for comedy value no doubt - Russell Grant & Nancy Dell'Olio.

However there are 2 who have completely lost me - a spotty 16 year old (well he looks 16) called Harry Judd (no idea - he looks like a pizza delivery boy) and last & worst is some 'pram faced' girl with pneumatic boobs & hair that is pulled back so tight she looks permanently surprised called (and I have checked the spelling I am not slipping on the keyboard) "Chelsee Healey" Seriously. Her publicity shot is her in a huge wig with a big nylon bow  & what looks like an embroidered support bra. If the lovely Brendan got her he'd walk off before the first dance! Nuff said.

Am sure the last 2 "who the hell are they?" types are in some dreadful teen soap like Hollyoaks so will go far. Will watch the pairing up show this Saturday to see who gets who but it'd better perk up or I will be re-running last years ....