A nice thing happened the other day. The Ladyfriend and I were in Debenhams, Eastbourne on Saturday as we had decided to nip up to the restaurant for lunch - a little known fact, I like department stores - anyway the food is served on the top floor just off of the children's department so we hopped on the escalator (I know it's not healthy but we were burdened with apathy) We were going up and in mid flight I turned around to see an Elf smiling up at me! I was slightly taken aback but then even more so as behind the Elf was Father Christmas! It was slightly unsettling but incredibly exciting at the same time. We watched later whilst we chomped on our chips as kids lined up to enter the grotto.

It is my opinion that the band The Feeling sound like an all male version of Voice of the Beehive.

From M&S With Love - Marks and Spencer

I want this record!

The Ashes have started and as we don't have prescription tv we don't get to see it. Instead we have to listen to snippets on the radio and read about our boys in the paper. I quite like it. It's a bit like the old days when world events like battles, earthquakes and the like took days to reach the public. Australia suddenly seems so very far away.

A weird thing happened today. I was driving to work and a ten year old school girl (I guessed) looked the spitting image of a girl I used to go to school with. It was a bit spooky but then I thought that perhaps it could be that girl's daughter, which could happen and she would have passed on her genes and all that. Anyway, I quite liked the idea. That was until I saw following being her ANOTHER girl who looked like another old classmate! It was bizarre. They were clearly friends too. I didn't like it. Were they the children of my old friends or are there limited permiatations of childrens faces? Or, did I slip through a wormhole into the past? Makes you think.

It pains me to say it but the Ladyfriend and I are really rather hooked on this "I'm a celebrity get me out of here" thing. We started watching it for Minnelli. You should have seen us poised at the telephone to make David suffer. Trouble is, now we love him and we love the programme. I feel I've let Liza with a Z down but let's face it, she let herself down on Parkinson - did anyone else see her do the sign language song?

A weekend of fresh air, oranges and a wee small baby. Yesterday we went off to Saville Gardens in Windsor for a autumnal forage. I took photos whilst the ladyfriend filled her trug with all manner of nuts, berries and fallen leaves : you can see the pictures by clicking here. In the evening we set off into the darkness and drove down to Swindon to visit Oliver the Great (pictured) who is gorjuice. Today has been spent catching up with my Christmas preperations, I have got a couple of oranges sliced and drying in the oven as I type in my wi-fi kitchen - thanks be praised to the neighbours. I read about a new way of reducing the juice and cutting down on oven time but I decided to ignore it, put my chops to it and sucked the slices instead.

Cubby Broccoli must be rolling around in his grave. I refer ofcourse to the new James Bond film. Why oh why is it not being released next year? Why could they not wait a couple of months and bring it out in 2007? Two double O seven? Madness, a marketing dream and they miss it. I daresay they will bring out the whole collection on DVD or somesuch thing next year but aint it a shame that they don't bring the film out then instead? I am quietly shaken....and stirred.

Suddenly the world seems a safer place today. God bless America.

They've opened one of those Primark stores in Eastbourne. It's a huge air hanger of a shop stuffed to the brim with cheap imported throw away fashion. Bargain basement bras etc. The Ladyfriend and I went and had a look on Monday. I didn't like it. There was something about it that made me think of cheap chicken. It was like a huge battery farm where poultry sold for less than the price of a couple of Blackjacks are bred. The rails were packed with the misery of cheap labour and groaned with the sound of the cries of the British manufacturing industry. We'll be sorry. Demand free range clothes, look for the Kite mark!

I've been under the weather. Full of infection, chesty and horse. At my lowest point I spent broken nights sleeping on the sofa flicking through an underworld of the strangest television programmes I've ever seen. I took myself off to the Doctor who was less than sympathetic, my symptoms mirrored hers and she was clearly of the school that if she could be at work so could I. She said "I'd offer you a Locket but I've only got one left" Still she was right, ten days since my darkest hour the infection seems to have gone. I'm left with the occasional throaty rattle which I can cope with.

That will teach me for 'going public transport'. My trip to London at the weekend has resulted in strep throat. I'm WELL mood indigo. I blame Red Ken, he should get out with a bucket of bleach. I'm taking the car next time.

Bit of a change to the plans this weekend. We started out on our journey to Eastbourne on Friday but the motorway was so choca blocka we turned home after an hour and a half, we hadn't even reached Heathrow, so it was a no go.
To make up for it the Ladyfriend and I decided to go up to the big smoke on Saturday and take a look at the 250 anniversary year celebrations of Borough Market. It was billed as a day of cavorting in period costume, trouble was it was so packed with 'foodies' it was completely indigestable, we were packed in like sardines so we were out of there like a shot. Shame really, I blame Jamie Oliver.
There are some photos here if you are interested in that kind of thing: click here

The F Word indeed

I am sick to the stomach, literally, of Gordon Ramsay. Is there nothing that man won't say yes to? He's in every tv programme going, DVD's, Books, magazines, dinner plates, I even saw a larger than life size cut out of the man in the window of Threshers! Stop. Enough. The man would even turning up at the opening of a fridge....
What annoys me the most though is that he has made some nasty comments about Jamie Oliver in the past and now old scar face is stamping his name on anything going, even his wife is getting in on the act....sound familiar?
By the way, I'm now being serialised on the Country Living website today!
www.countryliving.co.uk

Well there I was yesterday afternoon driving through the countryside coming back from the municipal dump where I offloaded splintered bits of kitchen and general household rubbish, I noticed a sign for a Farm Shop. Being a 'shop local' type of lass with ideas of chomping on peculiar sounding apples and gnawing on a tuber fresh from the soil I followed the signs with gusto (and the ladyfriend)
I walked into the farmyard where I couldn't move for poultry, they were free range more by accident than design, the place had an air of neglect. I found the shed/shop and walked in. Inside not only did I find the shelves groaning but also the shop keeper, her head was bent over the lollo rosso. "Are you open?" I asked "hrruuummmmph" was the reply. I began to 'browse' and she went out of the door. It felt nice to be trusted so I picked up a loaf of bread and some preserves. I was ready to pay.......but where was the lady?
After a few strained minutes where I didn't know wether to scarper I walked out and popped my head around a larger shed door. She was in there hacking at something with a HUGE knife, a sheep dog joined me and rubbed my leg with its wet coat.
Then I saw a young man coming from the farmhouse "Coo Eee" I said and mouthed "can I pay please?" I returned to the shop.
A minute or two passed and then SHE came back shouting "get out, get out!" I was mortified until I realised she was keeping the dog from coming in.
I thought at first she had had a stroke as she limped in and nearly went over "Are you ok?" I said I leaned closer and then I realised she was blind drunk, really, really drunk.
She looked at my shopping and tapped the numbers in the till one number at a time circling the digits with her index finger as she focused. She gave me my change with a bloodied hand. I declined a bag.

Tout for Lola

The good news, I was through like a greyhound out of the traps this morning and managed to buy three tickets for the Morrissey concert in December. The bad news, I was too hasty and my handsome big brother and his beautiful wife might not be able to come with me. I may be reduced to hawking them all on ebay. What will become of me? I'm not a natural shop keeper, what if there are complications? Shoplifters of the World unite and all that.

Watched the BBC ruin Robin Hood on Saturday, it was the pits. They've dumbed down the jolly tale, sexed up the story and ruined the plot. It wasn't broken, why fix it? let's hope they don't decide to 'do' King Arthur, they'll have him living on benefits in a hostel in Wolverhampton - all filmed in Eastern Europe by the way. What's wrong with Burnham Beeches? or better still Nottingham Forest.
The casting, Robin looks like one of those boys who are big for their age who smoke, spit and swear outside the doors of the corner shop. Marion looked like Vikki Pollard in full slap AND Keith Allen (who I can never forgive for bringing us Lily Allen - is it just me or does she have Downs Syndrome?) was terrible.
If I were ITV I'd bring back their version quick smartish and show them how its done. Robin, Robin, the hooded man, da da da dum. Oooh it was great.

Walls have ears

I havn't been much of a chatty Cathy of late, I've kept schtum. It hasn't stopped my thoughts or the voices in my head, was it something that I said? Am I Gloria, I'm always on the run now. Apparently hearing voices in your head is normal. Got to go, got nothing to say of any merit, I'm a bit like one of those boats at an amusement park where you put a pound in the slot and drive them round a stagnent pool. I'm the green one that no one wants which is stuck nose to the corner next to the floating fag butt. It's not a bad thing.

I'm being the strong and silent type at the moment, I think it's for the best.

On this Eastern European issue that's got the country up in arms (well the Daily Mail anyway) I was thinking about it on the way to work this morning. The Polish are working everywhere but seem quite nice people (if a little pale) and they don't seem to have troubled my lifestyle at all. The Polish deserve a life of comfort after their chaps helped us during the Battle of Britain anyway. Now the Uncle Bulgarians are lining up to invade I predict a riot but I'm not sure it's too bad a deal.
Give it twenty years when these funny sounding folk have settled down and bred into the mix I'm sure there will be room for everyone. I'm thinking ahead but anything that might fix my pension shortfall has got to be a good thing. We've been told time and time again that there will be more old people than young in 2000 and something so perhaps the smell of cabbage and dodgy brickwork might be worth it afterall, especially if it keeps me in a bag of cough candy and the Racing Post.