Woo-hoo!

Dancing On Ice starts tonight – all’s right with my world.  Remember this?

Gimme Six!

Hayley and Dan were fantastic this week on Dancing On Ice.  Just watch this:

 

Dancing Off Ice

I felt sorry for poor Emily being voted off last night’s Dancing on Ice; she looked gutted.  It was the right decision, though, in spite of that terrifying lift.  There’s no You Tube video or I’d show it to you – suffice it to say it involved Fred’s hands and Emily’s thighs and a whole lot of air between her and the ice floor.  She was really brave, but she’s not  a great skater.

Mikey was lucky not to be in the skate-off; he needs to do better lifts if he wants to stay in the competition.

I loved Hayley and Dan’s skate on Valentine’s Day.  I’m not a romantic but I thought it was wonderful:

I wish I could show you Kieron’s performance from last week; his best so far.  You can check it out at this link: http://dancingonice.itv.com/2010/WatchVideo/week-seven/week-7-kieron-brianne-1549 

He really made me laugh: Chris and Jayne played his song, The Buzzcocks’ Ever Fallen In Love and Kieron didn’t know it.  Chris said, ‘It’s punk’ and Kieron replied, ‘Punk who?’ 

I feel old.

I can’t bring you Kieron so here’s the next best thing:

I Killed A Phone And I Liked It

We have had Toby a year today. He is a different dog to the one we bought, and we are a different family to the one that collected him. We all dote on him and he has us wrapped around his little paws, as you may have noticed by my regular, gushing posts. Please send all congratulatory and anniversary cards to Besotted of Stockport.

It’s fortunate for me that it is his anniversary because it has put the Hub in a good mood. I needed him to be in a good mood when I told him that I had accidentally put my mobile phone in the washing machine (on a hot wash, if you’re interested). It’s not that I’m afraid of the Hub or his regular temperamental rages – nothing a good whack over the head with a framed photograph can’t sort out; but that’s a story for another day – it is that he’s getting a bit tired of mopping up after my idiocy…did I ever mention the time I ironed the kitchen carpet?

When we moved into this house it had a manky old carpet on the dining room side of the kitchen. We acquired a small piece of carpet (our parents were dropping like flies at that point; one of the reasons why we can’t move in this house for second-hand furniture and sentimental knickknacks) and it sat in the loft for a couple of years until the Hub had recovered from the exertion of putting it up there. Tory Boy was now big enough to help and he moved the heavy furniture, etc., and helped his Dad lay the carpet. I joke about the Hub, but his CFS/ME means that a small job like laying a little carpet knocks him flat for a couple of weeks, so I appreciated the effort he had made. Pity I didn’t appreciate that he knew what he was talking about when he said a flat ‘no’ to my suggestion of ironing the creases out of the new carpet; it would flatten out with use, he assured me. Not trusting he was right, and being an impatient soul, when he was in bed I sneaked into the kitchen and got out the steam iron. It wouldn’t have been so bad if I had started in a hidden corner but, noooo, I had to start in the middle of the floor. The moment I pressed my hot little iron on my new nylon carpet I knew I had made a terrible mistake. To avoid righteous and dreadful retribution, I was forced to work myself into a state of hysteria and fling myself on the Hub’s mercy. He was asleep at the time and got the fright of his life at being woken by a sobbing wife clutching a hot iron and babbling about how sorrysorrysorryshewasthatsheneverlistenedtohimandhewasright andshewaswrongandshewassoverysorrysorrysorry. He was simply relieved, once he had translated my babblespeak, to know there was nothing wrong with the boys; a little carpet burn was therefore not a big deal.

The burn sits there still, many years later, reproaching me each time I enter the kitchen; though now joined by a friend – the second burn caused by me accidentally dropping the iron when I was using it one day. I did float the idea to the Hub that I could cover the carpet with iron scorches and disguise it as a pattern, but I thought it best to acquiesce when he screamed a negative as he danced like a flea in a rage.

This is just one of my many screw-ups over the years, so you can see why I was a little apprehensive about confessing to the Hub about my sparkling clean but unusable phone. I wish I had thought to blame Spud, for he it was who left it in his trouser pocket. He had borrowed it when he went out to play footsnowball – his own phone being too valuable to take outside when playing – and forgotten to put it back. He knows I’m too idle to check pockets when I load the washing machine, my family having become used to shredded tissue over the years (indeed, they enjoy the element of risk I bring to wash day).

I discovered my poor, sodden phone as I hung up the wet washing and I freely confess I was tempted to say nothing and let my deluded husband try to fix it in a couple of days, when it might have dried out. I resolved on this as Hayley (Delilah Dingle as was) impressed on Dancing on Ice. As Alex destroyed the snowman in Celebrity Big Brother, however, it suddenly occurred to me (along with the realisation that I have become strangely addicted to reality tv) that the first thing the Hub would do was try to charge my phone: even I know that water and electricity don’t mix outside of an appliance. I don’t fancy going to prison for manslaughter (I hear they make you do cleaning) so I had to ‘fess up. Annoyingly, he was nice about it. I had a whole raft of self-exculpatory reasons for him not to divorce me that I had prepared during the DOI skate-off I had taped to watch after CBB, and nowhere to use them.

I’ll save them for my next cock-up.