Cedric watched as a woman at his supermarket shopped with a three-year-old girl riding in the child’s seat. As they approached the sweet section the little girl asked for some liquorice sticks and her mother told her, “No.”
The little girl immediately began to whine and fuss. The mother said softly, “Now Cindy, our shopping is going well. Don’t be upset…we’ll soon be out of here.”
Presently, they came to the aisle where the ice cream was on offer and the little girl asked for an ice lolly. When told she couldn’t have one she began to cry. The mother said gently, “There, there, Cindy, don’t cry. Only two more aisles to go and then we’ll be at the check out.”
When they got to the conveyor belt the little girl immediately began to demand sweets next to the checkout. Finally she threw a tantrum when her mother would not let her have any sweets. The mother calmed her saying, “Cindy, we’ll be through this queue in two minutes and then we can go home and have a glass of squash and a nap.”
Cedric followed them out to the car park and stopped the woman to compliment her on her child management.
“I couldn’t help admiring how patient you were with little Cindy,” Cedric said.
The mother turned and replied, “Oh, no, I’m Cindy. My little girl’s name is Dorothy.”
English: North American Opossum with winter coat. Français : Opossum de Virginie en livrée d’hiver. Deutsch: Ein Nordopossum (Didelphis virginiana) im Winterfell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I have a habit of boycotting supermarkets that annoy me. Morrisons irritated me once too often by not having goods in stock that were advertised as on offer – again. We started shopping at Asda. Asda gave us an undeserved parking fine: we didn’t shop there for three years, and never went back as regulars. That was a dearly bought £20 on their part.
I shopped online with Tesco for a while but, as I paid by credit card, I found I was spending the grocery cash on frivolous items like electricity bills (rising because I was shopping online; have you ever done a supermarket shop online? It takes three times as long as getting in the car, driving to the next town, shopping for a year, stopping for lunch, spending the night in a hotel because you had too much to drink at lunch, and driving home again next day. Really not worth the effort), and so I went back to schlepping it in Hub’s taxi.
Tesco Online missed me after a while, even though I visited the local store, and they sent me a £10 off voucher to persuade me to shop with them again. I thought it was worth the effort so I spent two hours finding £50’s worth of groceries, went to pay, only to be told, ‘This voucher is not valid because you are not a first-time user.’ I don’t swear often. Tesco has been a dirty word in our house ever since.
However, I am a forgiving girl, and I accepted their recent apology: £10 off a £30 spend, times four weeks. I may have principles but they can be bought for the price of a full freezer. Our food budget is small but laying out £20 in actual cash is manageable. The Hub went alone last week, and got just over £30 in food for a payment of just over £20. He went alone because I am not allowed to go food shopping: I have a habit of filling the trolley, going over budget, and arguing with him over what is essential (Spud’s French Fancies) and what is frivolous (Hub’s Sensodyne toothpaste).
Yesterday he wasn’t having a good day so I was allowed along for the loading and unloading of groceries, with the occasional side order of whining (But we need olive oil and French Fancies). The Hub stopped to rest in the fruit and veg section and noticed some stuff being marked down. He put a few items in the trolley. He stopped to rest again in the meat section and started chatting to staff member Martin (when he isn’t laying down the supermarket law, the Hub is a sociable guy). How happy he was to have needed a rest: Martin told him that – and this is such a great tip, I’m going to highlight it in bold – in Tesco, if you find an item on the shelf that has to be sold that day, you can ask a member of staff for a reduction. It was like truffles to a pig: the Hub had his nose in every meat shelf and came away with a few items marked down by Martin…by 65%.
In fact, because we arrived around five-thirty on a Saturday, a lot of stuff was already marked down. We saved – wait for it – including our £10 voucher, BOGOFs and mark downs; but excluding items reduced in price for promotion – I can hardly believe it – £152.80. I may have wet myself in excitement.
We didn’t spend anywhere near that, though it was a little over £20. We spent almost £50 on items [see photo] we wouldn’t normally buy, mostly because we can’t afford them. There was a 3kg piece of silverside: we haven’t bought silverside in sixteen years, never mind three whole kilograms of it. There was prepared fruit. We love fruit but buy the cheapest range and prepare it ourselves. There were luxury doughnuts. Need I say more?
I now have enough meat in my freezer to last for months so, even though we went over budget, we saved future grocery money. I might use a little to buy the Hub some toothpaste.
Thanks Martin: you made a Tesco shopper out of me. For now.
These are classified ads, said to have actually been placed in a British Newspaper; I’m not convinced, but I hope they are real. It does happen: when we lived in South Africa, the Hub missed the chance to buy a Ferrari for one Rand. It was a small ad and he thought it was a misprint (well you would, wouldn’t you?). The story was in the paper a few days later: the husband had cheated and the wife, who had the money and knew she’d have to give half to him, sold the car and gave him fifty cents.
FREE YORKSHIRE TERRIER. 8 years old. Hateful little bastard. Bites!
FREE PUPPIES. Mother is a Kennel Club registered German Shepherd. Father is a Super Dog, able to leap tall fences in a single bound.
COWS, CALVES: NEVER BRED. Also 1 gay bull for sale.
WEDDING DRESS FOR SALE … Worn once by mistake.
FOR SALE BY OWNER. Complete set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 45 volumes. Excellent condition, £200 or best offer. No longer needed, got married, wife knows everything.
A young man was walking through a supermarket to pick up a few things when he noticed an old lady with a full cart, following him around. Thinking nothing of it, he ignored her and continued on. Finally he went to the checkout line, but she got in front of him.
“Pardon me,” she said, “I’m sorry if my staring at you has made you feel uncomfortable. It’s just that you look like my son, who I haven’t seen for thirty years.”
“I’m very sorry,” replied the young man, “is there anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” she said. “As I’m leaving, can you say ‘Goodbye, Mother’? It would make me feel so much better.”
“Of course,” answered the young man.
As the old woman was leaving, he called out, “Goodbye, Mother!” As he stepped up to the checkout counter, he saw that his total was $127.50. “How can that be?” he asked; “I only purchased a few things!”
“Your mother said that you would pay for her,” said the clerk.
At a fabric store, a pretty girl spotted a nice material for a dress and asked the male clerk, “How much does it cost?
“Only one kiss per yard,” replied the male clerk with a smirk.
“That’s fine,” said the girl. “I’ll take ten yards.”
The clerk quickly measured out the cloth, wrapped it up, and then teasingly held it out. The girl took the bag and pointed to the old woman standing beside her, and smiled, “Grandma will pay the bill.”
What would cause you to protest or riot for something?
Apart from the false imprisonment of my children – and possibly my husband, if I was in a good mood – nothing. I’m British: I don’t do apologetic complaint, never mind protest. I write a strongly worded letter and feel much better for it.
I bumped into a riot once, by accident. I can’t say I liked it. As a teenager, I went to Manchester to audition for the Manchester Youth Theatre with a friend. It was the time of the nationwide riots against something or other. I can’t remember what, but I bet it had hatred for Mrs Thatcher at the heart of it. We had a summer of exploding protests, when staid young men and women became screaming thugs for the afternoon. We are seeing something similar at the moment in Bristol, because of Tesco. It’s not quite the breaking of the unions or the poll tax, but a supermarket too close to your back yard is certainly a reason to lose all common sense, I’m sure.
We had been to the auditions and decided to visit the Arndale Centre for some retail therapy (or ‘shopping’, as it was called in Days of Yore when I wurra lass). As we walked up somewhere, a screaming, running gang of young gentlemen ran down, straight at us. I grabbed my friend’s hand and dragged him onto the nearest bus, going anywhere. When we got to anywhere, we had to walk back again, to catch the train home. No shopping. What a wasted opportunity.
Trains and a long walk featured once again in my teens. I went with different friends to Liverpool. Plenty of shopping and no riots – Scouse youth being better behaved than Mancunian youth. So much shopping was done, we were late for the train, asked which was ours, and jumped on it just as the doors closed.
I think I was in charge of the travel on that day as well, which explains why we ended up in Widnes instead of Runcorn. We explained to the man in charge that we had been directed to the wrong train and he said well, in that case, he wouldn’t fine us, but we had to get off there and we couldn’t get on another train without buying a ticket. Did I mention we had been shopping all afternoon? We didn’t have the fare for one of us, never mind three.
Did I mention this was in Days of Yore when I wurra lass? No mobile phones to call parents who didn’t own cars to not fetch us.
Fortunately – fortune being a relative term – Widnes is right next door to Runcorn. All we had to do was walk home. Loaded with shopping bags. In heels. A mere three hours or so. I was ready to start a riot.
Umm, I was going to slot in a You Tube video of scary music here but it worked so well I’m too freaked out to use it. Just say Dum-dum-derrrrrr! to yourself instead.
Today is a scary day: it’s school uniform shopping day. I loathe school uniform shopping day: schlepping around from store to store in pursuit of black and white clothes and a blazer with a bright yellow trim, arguing sotto voce with the Hub about nothing in particular, and certainly nothing school uniform-related. The only thing that makes the day even a little bearable is that we don’t have to pay for it: Spud receives a generous uniform allowance as part of his bursary so we get to spend spend spend and send send send the receipts to school to claim it back.
I don’t like shopping for it but I do like a school uniform; it’s a great leveller. No-one knows your circumstances (unless they see you arriving in your little Citroen from their Maseratis), and everyone looks smart. Also, if you are attacked by the students wearing them, it’s easier to identify the culprits if you know which school they are from. You think I’m joking but I’m not: a girl from a local school hurled abuse at the Hub one day as he was waiting in the car for her to cross the road; he knew her uniform and was able to complain to the school; they tracked her down; and she sent a letter of apology to him.
Think of me out there today, cast adrift on a sea of striped ties and grey socks with only a grumpy Hub and a bored teenager for company. I could be doing something interesting, like cleaning.
*
Pointless Headline Of The Day: Pop star due in court on drugs rap.
Supermarket car parks are generally unpleasant places: cars loaded with BOGOFs that will often go uneaten because they pass their sell-by date, try to run down pensioners with their one carrier bag, forced to walk to the bottom end of the car park because selfish, fit middle-aged men park their Beamers in the disabled spaces. But not on Palm Sundays in this corner of Stockport, for that is the day that local church congregations come together for thirty minutes and sing joyful hymns to bemused shoppers.
The tradition was started a couple of years ago by our previous vicar, but we had a donkey then: the incredibly good-natured and beautiful twenty-five year old Jenny Donkey, hired to lead us where we might not otherwise have followed. I have done some bizarre things in my life, but I think following a donkey to Morrisons was the most peculiar, and yet amazingly good fun.
This is a Jenny Donkey but not our Jenny Donkey.
It is a ten-minute walk behind a placid donkey from our starting point at St John’s Church, to get to Morrisons’ car park and meet up with the Salvation Army Band. Their presence surprised me, the first year, because I thought they only came out at Christmas. That first Palm Sunday, hymn sheets were passed out and everyone seemed to have a good time singing along. We quickly got through the printed hymns and had to dredge from memory the words to the familiar tunes that followed: as each person knew some songs better than others, the best that can be said was that a joyful noise was made unto the Lord.
The bravest among us (not me, obviously) handed out palm crosses to the shoppers. It helps to have a child along because even the most harassed of people will mind their language in front of a five-year old. To be fair, many shoppers were happy to listen to the singing whilst their children stroked Jenny Donkey and fed her Polo Mints, and I only heard one complaint about donkey spit on the clothes – fortunately, from my own child.
The festive atmosphere had an international feel because we not only had people from many different denominations but also from different countries, including America and Zambia. Each church made its own contribution to the event: as a sample, the Salvation Army provided the wonderful music which, with our usual British reserve, we were all too embarrassed to applaud, much as we wanted to, in case total strangers saw us being slightly exuberant in public; St Matthew’s brought real palm leaves; and my church provided the donkey mints.
We are in our third year now and have sadly lost the vicar (pastures new) and the donkey (pastor unfortunately took the owner’s contact details with her), but the singing is better. The shoppers’ stupefied looks remain, however: some traditions never die.
The Hub and I went on a mercy mission yesterday. The poor birds in our local park are starving. The reservoir still has patches of ice in the corners (how odd that water has corners) and was still almost completely frozen over last week. We took the dog for his walk there on Tuesday and noticed an old lady feeding the birds. The geese – about fifty of them – climbed out of the water and surrounded her, then followed her back to her car when she was done; they also scavenged for food on the ground. I have never seen anything like it. Geese in our park are usually quite stand-offish. They consent to be fed upon occasion but they often get bored and leave it to the ducks. The ducks didn’t get a bite on Tuesday.
The Hub took one look at the stalking geese and dumped me and the dog to go buy a loaf; and we went back yesterday with more. It’s not fun to be hungry, I imagine. I am fortunate enough never to have missed a meal that wasn’t scheduled by a diet.
My diets don’t last long – about mid-morning, usually. I like food; I really do. Hot roast dinners with all the trimmings; cheese & onion crisps followed by Maltesers and a mug of Earl Grey; steak, egg & chips; lasagne; hot, buttered toast; cheese & pickle on crackers with a glass of cold milk…that’s today’s menu sorted.
Thinking about food distracts me from today’s problem: paying bills. I like paying bills because it means I can breathe for another month; but I don’t like going into Stockport to do it. I have never been a great shopper (except for food shopping: I like food shopping). I read these surveys about 98% of women spending a third of their lives in Sainsburys and Top Shop and I wonder, who are these people? If my children are home, my bills paid and my cupboards full, I am happy. I don’t get the compulsion to spend whole Saturdays in packed precincts, queuing for forty minutes to buy three vests and a sale corset that is two sizes too small and will be worn only once because you nearly choked on the fat that was pushed upwards, giving your neck nowhere to go and the sound of exploding satin left your husband temporarily deaf and he still screams when he passes the lingerie section of Debenhams.
Paying bills isn’t really the problem: that was a distraction from the real issue: public toilets. I can’t be out for more than an hour in winter without the cold attacking the nether regions (see that clever use of the definite article so you don’t think it’s my nether regions I’m talking about? I would never discuss such a delicate subject with my public; the children don’t like it). Actually, it’s not even the public toilets that’s the problem; they are usually cleaned every hour or I report them to the manager if I am not completely satisfied. It is those horrible, awful, disgusting air dryers. I hate them, no matter how cool Madonna made them look in Desperately Seeking Susan. You put wet hands under the dryer and it’s not so bad if it’s automatic but what if it has one of those huge silver buttons to press? You don’t want to touch that grubby thing with your nice clean hands so you raise an elbow but if you’re short like me it slides off at first contact, throwing you off balance; you find yourself on the filthy floor (it’s been fifty-nine minutes since the last inspection) and you have to start the whole hand washing cycle again.
If you are lucky enough to have a modern air dryer, the damn thing won’t start no matter how much you shake your hands under it, so you move away and say apologetically to the woman behind you who picked you up off the floor, ‘It’s not working; sorry,’ and she smiles like you’re an idiot because she can’t hear you over the rush of air coming from the dryer. Defeated, you shuffle wearily out, shaking your hands as you go and looking for all the world like you escaped from a Bob Fosse audition; but it’s cold out there, remember, and you don’t want to put wet hands in your mittens so you wipe them on your trouser leg, by which you mean your bum but you say ‘trouser leg’ because you don’t want anyone to think you uncouth. And that’s how you’re going to spend this afternoon: walking around Stockport with wet hand prints on your backside, showing the world how couth you really are.
I was too busy to blog yesterday. I have packed so much into the last two days I can’t believe it’s not next week. I have had doctor’s appointments and dentist’s appointments: no details for you, but let’s just say that the turkey isn’t the only bird this Christmas to have people rummaging around its orifices. I have bought last-minute gifts, groceries and enough cakes to stop a French revolution. I have been visitor and visitee and wined about it. I have walked through mountains of snow without falling down; and taken my son and his friend sledding. I even had a go myself, which was fun and utterly undignified. I have eaten free toast in Stockport before ten in the morning: I met a Writing Friend and we exchanged gifts and Christmas horror stories: Had to queue for two minutes at the supermarket; ridiculous! Took a child shopping and regretted it. Was forced to drink copious amounts of alcohol and enjoy myself in order to be a good hostess; it’s so unfair. My WF gives me a lift to our writing class and won’t accept petrol, saying I should just buy her a coffee instead. I finally got the chance to do it yesterday. She very fortunately chose a cafe that offers two free rounds of toast with each brew sold before ten, which made me look generous but only cost me £3. I like those kinds of deals.
Today is Christmas Cleaning Day. I always spend Christmas Eve Eve cleaning, getting all washing and ironing out-of-the-way, making sure I don’t have to do anything but cook and enjoy myself for about five days. You may not know this, but I don’t like cooking as a rule, but Christmas cooking has a festive spirit (largely brought on by a glass or three of wine) that marks it out as quite different. I cook the meat on Christmas Eve because I refuse to spend all of Christmas Day in the kitchen, no matter how good the wine. The Hub carves it all up and I just have to warm some on Christmas Day when I cook the vegetables. Also, it means the juices have had time to set and the fat has risen to the top, giving delicious roast potatoes.
I am suddenly starving hungry; I don’t know why. See you tomorrow!
Retail therapy – why do they call it that? Why not call it what it is? A purse lobotomy. I hate shopping. I’ve hated it ever since our honeymoon in 1985. We went to Cape Town in winter and there wasn’t much else to do, once we’d been to the Castle and up Table Mountain. The beaches were too cold to visit, though we did accidentally stumble upon a shrivelled little fellow on a nudist beach. That was fun.
I’m a little grumpy because yesterday I had my fortnightly trek into Stockport to pay bills. I usually go in on a Thursday but went Friday instead: it was awful. Christmas season is horribly upon us. Add to that a cupboard bare of anything except a stale packet of pretzels and three bags of sugar, and I had to go grocery shopping last night. I hate shopping; and I hate shopping twice in one day squared.
I’m aching all over from walking and pushing shopping trolleys. I’m undernourished because I didn’t eat properly with being in and out. And I’m hung over with guilt for accidentally abusing my dog.
Post Traumatic Stressed Dog
As I left the house yesterday, I accidentally shut him into the kitchen. Not a big deal for most dogs, but ours was kept locked up for about twenty hours a day in a freezing-in-winter- boiling-in-summer conservatory for the first eight months of his life, by his previous owners. As a result, he gets terribly distressed if he’s locked in. We came back to find he had scratched paint off the door from trying to dig his way out; pooped, which he stopped doing indoors once he realised we meant him no harm; and vomited, which is another sign of his distress. We stuffed him full of treats and gave him a new toy that was supposed to be for Christmas. I have to say, we are the soppiest pair of dog owners I’ve known since my in-laws; but he was genuinely upset.
I have to stop feeling guilty because Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer, says they live in the now; and Toby doesn’t seem any the worse for his misadventure – at this moment in time he is stretched out on a chair, snoring away. Just like the Hub.
I went grocery shopping yesterday and rather enjoyed it. I don’t normally like shopping; I never have, even when we had plenty of money. I am intimidated by bored and rude sales assistants – but at least they are better than hairdressers. Hairdressers are scarier than dentists; scarier than walking Stockport streets at night; scarier even than a doctor’s cold hands at a five-yearly check-up. They hold the key to my appearance in their hands, and I am powerless to stop them having their wicked way with me. I once had a hair cut. I asked the hairdresser to bob my hair to the top of my shoulders, and cut in a fringe. As she was combing it, she remarked on my natural kink, saying that she had one and it was useless trying to fight it. She decided to give me some layers to make it manageable, and then she began cutting, and cutting, and cutting; tiny snips at a time. I was in the chair for at least an hour, but by the time I realised how short my hair was going to be, it was too late to protest. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and her friendly chat lulled me into a state of torpor, and it was only as much time passed that the horror of what was happening gradually dawned on me. She bobbed me to the top of my neck, not my shoulders, so I had what’s technically known in the hairdressing trade as ‘short hair’. Giving in to the kink meant flicking it out at the back, but the sides and front curled under. I have to say that I was really pleased with the whole look for as long as it took me to walk out into the damp British air and the frizz to kick in. The hairdresser later confessed to my mum, who she knew and was therefore another reason not to complain about my shearing while it was happening, that she just couldn’t stop cutting and I was sitting so quietly and acceptingly that she kept talking and cutting and talking and cutting in panic.
Tory Boy decided to grow his hair long when he was fifteen. I had to accept his decision but it drove me nuts, particularly as he is the only person I know who can wash his hair without cleaning it and dry his hair so that it remains wet. Then there was the unexpected side-effect of his unplugging the hairdryer without switching it off. Every time I came to use it, it would explode into action as soon as I plugged it in, leaving me several heart attacks closer to a hospital. I tried telling him politely, and followed it up with a threatening email when that didn’t work; eventually I was forced to hide in the kitchen, jumping out on him whilst simultaneously turning on the hairdryer as he walked in, so he could have the hospital bed next to mine. But it didn’t work; he looked at me as if I was stupid and, when using the dryer, began exaggeratedly showing me he had switched it off, and then secretly switching it back on again to catch me out. My only choice was to ban him from hairdryer contact altogether and wake him an hour early so that his hair had time to dry naturally before school. Lack of sleep on my part meant that strategy lasted one day.
My Blonde Friend once gave me a load of luxury bubble bath as she had developed an allergy, nudge nudge wink wink, know what I mean John? Remember that annoying advert from the Seventies? Eric Idle and Breakaways, if I recall. Aren’t adverts strange? As a child I thought only brunettes got dandruff because there were no blondes in the Head and Shoulders ad. I was astonished when Tory Boy got dandruff: my then scruffy blonde baby never rinsed his hair properly, of course. Anyway, Blonde Friend gave the bubble bath to me instead of her mum because she didn’t want her poor frail mother to slip in the bath. I treated myself to a luxury bubble bath one Sunday night while the menfolk were watching Top Gear (this was in the days before I discovered the strangely attractive midget that is Richard Hammond). Despite three metre-high bubbles, I didn’t really enjoy my bath: as I was getting in I slipped and banged my knee and was in agony for an hour; the menfolk couldn’t hear my howls of pain because they were laughing so hard at TG downstairs.
Hair plays a big part in my life. I wear a full body apron, no sleeves, and a tubee over my head when I cook, a la Yentl, because the favourite saying in our house during a meal isn’t, ‘That was delicious, Mum,’ or even, ‘Well, at least you tried,’ but, ‘I got the hair.’ My hair finds its way everywhere: the usual places like plug holes and bed, but also in all food (even when it’s stored in the fridge) and behind the toilet. I don’t know how it gets there; it’s not like I ever go behind the toilet to clean. The Hub is also affected by hair. He likes to give our pets the best life he can, and if that involves buying brushes to groom gerbils, then so be it…he will ignore my mocking laughter while they sit nestling in his hand for a brush, then take their turn to groom the hair on his arms, and his moustache.
Even Christmas Dinner can be hair-perturbed: one year, things went better than usual in spite of my mild hysteria, first over cooking, then on putting my chair and all my weight on TB’s foot (screaming adolescents are not good for my nerves, no matter how much pain they claim to be in). However, my hat would not fit on my head over my tied-back hair, and I pulled out my clip in a hissy fit, threw it on the floor and tried again to adjust my hat, which snapped back over my right ear, leaving my ear ringing, me sulking, and my family laughing at me. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d been to Mum’s hairdresser on Christmas Eve. That was the year the boys gave me thoughtful gifts: TB bought me a month’s supply of Maltesers and Spud bought me a Christmas pinny, a collapsible washing bag, and a pair of nose hair clippers.
I truly believe that the hardest part of being a parent is letting my children go, which is rather ridiculous, given that I spend all my time preparing them for independence, for a time when they won’t need me. Having said that, there are mornings when I am more than happy to let some of my children go…like the morning when TB berated me for being cruel, wicked and unfair, for not only did I make him polish his shoes and apply his acne cream, I didn’t pass him the lemonade bottle last night when it was me who wanted him to tighten the top after pouring him a drink while he was drying his hair, thus making him late for school fourteen hours later and forcing him to rush. I admit it: I am a dreadful mother; I thought so as I watched him through the window, strolling to the bus stop while fiddling with his mp3 player, hair doing a passable imitation of Jimi Hendrix in a wind tunnel, clearly determined not to miss that bus he was so late for. It was not the first time my teenage son had stressed me out: he once managed to turn a civil invitation to the cinema into an argument that left me rescinding the invitation and stabbing an innocent chicken sandwich. This is the child that I took shopping with me yesterday. Nineteen and determined to one day rule the world (watch out teachers, you’re heading for a colony in Antarctica), he spent the time choosing alochol supplies, riding the trolley, and out-Barry Scotting Barry Scott with his Cillit Bang advert impression.
I enjoyed my shopping because I saved £20-odd. Stuff was marked down by £1-2 – only 19pence for cooked chicken slices! I thought I’d died and gone to pound shop heaven. I loaded my trolly and later my freezer, and we may be eating ham sandwiches for the next three weeks but, hey, it only cost me £1.37 so stop moaning and enjoy the added hair flavouring.
A final word on hair things: the Hub once made pom-poms with our niece, helped her with her cross stitching, made bracelets, and beaded her hair, much to Spud’s disgust at such girlie activities in the man who claims to be his father. It didn’t surprise me. When we were courting in our teens, I sat with my cropped head and watched his mother plait his pony tail, muttering all the while, ‘I expected to do this for me daughters but not for me son!’ No wonder gerbils like his moustache. And don’t start feeling sorry for him because I’m mean: he likes to be kept on his toes by my teasing, believing variety is the spice of wife.
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 is from 2003. 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. I have two boys. They never lie to me. Still, you can't have everything.
The Laughing Housewife 
I have the funniest readers in the blogosphere (not necessarily ha ha…)