The Laughing Housewife

On the Park

Posted by: tillybud on: November 7, 2009

on

    the

         park

        on

    the

park   the dogs will bark big dogs slim dogs

           fat dogs lap dogs dogs you want to pat dogs

                   brown dogs black dogs blonde dogs pack dogs dogs dogs

            try to chase a cat dogs chase another dog dogs

         chasing off the birds dogs  dog poo dog wee

        try to         chase               chase                where            

      chase         me on              me on              the dogs

         me              the                  the                   will

        dogs            park                park                  bark

Tags: ,

Calling Doctor Foster

Posted by: tillybud on: November 6, 2009

The Hub said the sweetest thing to me last night.   A character on tv said that he smiled all day because he had just spent the night with the most beautiful girl in the world.  The Hub said, ‘I know exactly how that feels.’

Now you’ve got your ‘Aaahhh’ out the way, here’s my reply: ‘Who was she?’ 

I am the worst wife in the world for such a born romantic.  In my defence, I was still mad at him for sending me out in the rain.  It intermittently poured down all day yesterday.  The Hub, Spud and I got in the car to go in to Stockport and it was raining so hard we only got to the bottom of the next road and we turned around to come home again.  By the time we got back three minutes later, the rain had stopped and the sky had started to clear.  The Hub suggested to Spud and I that now would be a good time to walk the dog; we foolishly agreed.  Seven minutes later the heavens opened and Spud, Toby and I huddled under the umbrella as the mud rose to our knees.  The dog was so miserable he started for home without us.  We gladly followed.  Here he is:    Usually we all love the Hub but Toby was definitely not his best friend yesterday.

It’s Bonfire Night

Posted by: tillybud on: November 5, 2009

To celebrate Bonfire Night – the evening we Brits remember the saving of King James I’s life - instead of setting off fireworks and burning effigies of Guy Fawkes, here’s a brief poem for you:

 

November Fifth

 

Fire works, so

Stop arson around.

  

   It owes something to the vernacular, so I hope my non-Brit friends get it. 

Of Paint and Wallpaper

Posted by: tillybud on: November 4, 2009

I am still busy.  Once I had recovered from my train lag on Monday, I started decorating Tory Boy’s bedroom.  When he went to Lancaster last year the boys swapped rooms, including furniture and decor.  Spud’s new bedroom is okay, as it was decorated for his teenage brother; but TB’s new bedroom is only okay if you are four: planes on the carpet, cute animals on the walls, that sort of thing.  I have been intending to decorate it since last year but only got my act together last Monday.

I don’t particularly like decorating and I’m about as good at it as I am at cooking, so pretty dire, really;  but the Hub is not well enough to do it and the boys are uninterested.  It has been bothering me that TB still refers to the room he is in as his brother’s room, and I am determined to make it as nice as possible for him.  We have a carpet in the loft that will replace the baby one; I will swap some of the furniture;  and, to make it quick(ish) and easy for me, I am painting over the wallpaper this time, though I had to get a special dispensation from the Hub, who disapproves of doing things the quick(ish) and easy way if it’s not the right way.  He is so much of a perfectionist that he claims he’s not a perfectionist, only that he tries to be one.  It is why he will be forever ill with CFS/ME and I never will.  Sloppy is as sloppy does.

However, he has taught me well: preparation is everything, I know, so I emptied the room’s contents into Spud’s room, washed the woodwork, and took down all wall-mounted items like curtain rails.  Spud is coming home tonight and might be sleeping on the couch, as he has two rooms for the price of one at the moment.  TB’s bed is stored in the upright position, squeezed between two wardrobes and three thousand of TB’s books (the ones we had to wrench from his grasp when he went away, or face driving on the undercarriage), and Spud’s bed is covered with all of the boys’ clothes that they ever owned and won’t part with; trying to sleep on it would be an exercise in Night On The Wear Mountain.  Which reminds me: when my brother collected the children at the weekend, I discovered we are not related after all; I am obviously on the distaff side of royalty but he slept with a drawing pin in his bed on one mattress with one sheet, and didn’t feel a thing.  I wish it had been a practical joke on my part because I could have called this post The Princess and the Glee.

Before he left, he noticed the Hub’s miserable, dead bonsai trees.  For as long as I have known him, the Hub has been trying to grow bonsai.  He’s rubbish at it.  They all die.  It’s not a cheap hobby, either, what with special food, expensive pruning shears, keeping the room at an ambient temperature, not to mention the cost of buying them in the first place; or the seeds, languishing in a bowl in my airing cupboard and refusing to grow.  The Hub, bless him, keeps trying.  Little Brother said he should stop bothering; he took a look at the latest two and said, ‘It’s less bonsai, more bonsoir.’

Back to the decorating, because I have to get back to the decorating: it’s going well.  I have two coats up but it will need a third because the giraffes are peeping out.  There is a corner near the radiator that had peeling wallpaper and I had to strip some of it.  The wall is uneven as a result but it’s not a problem; I stick to my painting motto: slap it on thick and look away quick.  I’ll shove a wardrobe in front of it and no-one will be the wiser.  There are also lots of holes in the wall.  I took down shelves and an old cupboard but didn’t bother plastering over the gaps: that’s why man invented posters.

 

 

 

The Reason Why I Will Probably Have A Nervous Breakdown One Day

Posted by: tillybud on: November 3, 2009

I was busy yesterday.  Spud has gone to visit his brother in Lancaster.  He didn’t go until the afternoon but of course I left it to the last minute to get him organised.   Tory Boy asked for a pile of stuff – old mobile, food, charger, box for new mobile, food, waistcoat, food, aspirin, paracetamol (presumably for if the aspirin doesn’t work), spare bedding and some food – and I foolishly delayed until two hours before ETA my expedition into his room to find the non-perishable items.   It took an hour (in a room the size of my toe, packed with junk the size of my backside) to find everything except the charger, waistcoat, old mobile and box for new mobile. 

Spud’s suitcase was packed with one pair of jeans, underwear for three days, his toothbrush, and enough food (if by food I mean crisps, sweets and other student essentials) to last them till Wednesday.  I ironed his favourite t-shirts and he will wear them, I know – when he gets home, because I left them neatly folded on the kitchen counter instead of adding them to his bulging bag. 

The original plan was that I would put him on the train at Stockport and he would change at Manchester Piccadilly…on his own.  It was supposed to be a trial run for next year, when he will visit his cousins in Gloucestershire, changing at Birmingham…on his own.  However, he is only thirteen and I am an over-protective, paranoid mother, and I spent the previous night tossing in my bed as I imagined chavs pushing him onto the rails, or drunks on the train stubbing out cigarettes on his arm, or him getting off at the wrong station and wandering around like a child who shouldn’t be on a train without his mother, or white slavers coming up from the Sixteenth Century and kidnapping him for nefarious purposes….  Okay, I must have dreamt that last one, but you can see why I was a gibbering idiot (more so than usual, the Hub noted) and pleaded with Spud to let me take him to Manchester.  He most kindly consented, which surprised me, until he confessed, just as he was about to board the train and knew I couldn’t retaliate, that he let me accompany him to Manchester because he knew I would buy him stuff for the journey.  I asked him how he thought he knew that but he didn’t have time to answer as he dropped his bag of crisps, doughnuts, newspaper, drinks and chocolate, and had to grab them before scrambling onto the train.  He nearly didn’t make it but I shoulder-barged an old lady and shoved him on.

He phoned from Preston (the last stop before Lancaster) to say he was at Preston.  I misunderstood and thought he had disembarked.  I would say my panic was only at cooking voice level (as TB calls it), when I know that things are going wrong and I’m not sure how to fix it, but I can rely on a slap in the chops from the Hub or one of the boys to calm me down.   Of course, he was still on the train.  Fifteen minutes after he should have been at Lancaster and already phoned to say as much, TB rang to ask if Spud had been on the train.  Once I recovered from my swoon, he and his brother started laughing at their wonderful joke against their ridiculous mother.

I don’t know why I ever thought having kids was a good idea.

Good Advice

Posted by: tillybud on: November 1, 2009

I wrote this after a week at summer school in 2007; it is almost word-for-word what was written on the back page of the student handbook:

 

From the University Book of the Obvious

 

Action in case of

fire: on discovering a

fire: please shout FIRE

Auditioning For the Role of Goofy

Posted by: tillybud on: October 31, 2009

Check out this link: http://www.mcfc.co.uk/Shop/Junior/Hats–Caps  Newman Bronx Hat £6  Spud was at the match on Wednesday night (City beat Scunthorpe 5-1) and they were handing out free hats before the game, on the proviso that the recipients be photographed for the website…Spud almost devoured the hand that hatted him in his eagerness.  It’s not the first time he has publicised City: a couple of years ago he was at the derby in which we beat united 1-0 and the camera panned round to catch him screaming in excitement; Sky Sports used the shot to advertise the rest of the season’s Premiership games.  The same footage is also screened at each home game, when Pride in Battle is played.

He has been in match programmes as well, for various reasons.  He is never alone at a game when these things happen, but he is either in the right place at the right time; incredibly lucky; or has a face that only a camera could love, because he is always the only one who appears anywhere.  That’s what comes of being a Blue at six minutes old, I suppose.

 

We Apologise For The Inconvenience

Posted by: tillybud on: October 30, 2009

I am a complete blank today and can’t think of anything to blog about.  Instead, I will direct you to the following link and ask that you read it and store it in your memory for future reference:

http://www.empowher.com/news/herarticle/2009/10/29/top-ten-things-not-say-someone-chronic-fatigue-syndrome

Normal Service Will Be Resumed As Soon As Possible

Tags: ,

A Bewildered Pooch

Posted by: tillybud on: October 29, 2009

tobo (7)

He doesn't love me anymore...

Poor Toby.  He thinks he has been supplanted in the Hub’s affections by a little girl.  He has spent this week wandering around the house, looking reproachfully at the Hub and resorting to sympathetic back rubs from me.   Our niece, C2(g), loves her Hubuncle and they spend a lot of time doing crafts and listening to music and gentle girly stuff like that.  It means that Toby can’t be in his favourite place: the Hub’s direct eye line.  Usually, the Hub can hardly move without being prodded, licked, manhandled or growled at; but Toby normally sees me off so he can cuddle up.  This week, he has had to make do with attention from me and three children; long, long walks; C2(g)’s gentle brushing and subsequent reward treats; and only 80% attention from the Hub.  You can see the confusion on his little face.

He is not what I would call a normal dog: in particular, he is terrified of everything, especially other dogs.  That is down to being locked in a small conservatory for twenty hours a day and never being walked by his previous owners.  He is much better now, after nine months of daily walks and lots of love and care.  What is really odd about him is his occasional cough – he has nasty coughing fits that come on unexpectedly.  We can’t find a trigger, and we have ruled out hectic play and his food.  Maybe he’s asthmatic.  Trust us to get the only dog allergic to himself.

There’s nothing wrong with his appetite.  Despite being practically hand fed by the Hub - because he didn’t eat when he first came to us due to being terrified, I expect - he displays typical dog behaviour by donning that dog disguise of starving neglect, indicated by the ribs which magically appear whenever there’s the possibility of a bread crust to chew or yoghurt pot to lick out.  And isn’t it amazing how a dog can swallow a piece of meat whole, without tasting it or it touching sides?  No wonder it’s so easy to poison them.  The Hub calls him Bobo Beggins.

Halftermitis

Posted by: tillybud on: October 28, 2009

Day Three in the Big Auntie’s House, and the boss housemate is exhausted.  Walks, walks and more walks.  Meals, meals and more meals.  Hugs, hugs and more hugs.  Pleas for just one more game of Uno.  It’s all too much and she begs to be ejected.  Her fellow housemate, Hubuncle, is torn: stay with the love of his life to protect her from the ravages of sticky fingers on her brand new keyboard, or follow the missus, for that way lies sanity.  No contest; he’s already nuts, so Hubuncle throws himself across the plastic still covering the two-year-old monitor screen and succumbs to the inevitable tickling.  Poor fellow.  He was last heard of hiding in the shoe cupboard, choking back a scream at the 739th knock-knock joke of the morning.

 

popcorn

Image of an adult parent brain three days into half term holidays

© Tilly Bud and The Laughing Housewife, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Tilly Bud and The Laughing Housewife with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

All photographs © Citywizard, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from the author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

The Important Facts About Me:


I am a little fat. I like food; what can I say? I have dull hair: mousey. I don’t wear much make-up and have no need of a dressing table. If I look like a bag lady, I chose my own clothes. If I look nice, the Hub picked them for me. Despite all this, I am a little vain. This photograph will be six years old at the end of September. I had to go back that far to find one of me that I liked. But I don’t really care: my husband still thinks I’m beautiful and if he doesn’t, he loves me enough to lie about it. I’m lucky.

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