Dandelions, Buttercups and Daisies

Not been the best of week's in our family.  The news came through that Joy's cancer has progressed to stage 4. Sometimes a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and I've been struggling with the news.

I know I'm guilty of overthinking, so I've been trying to keep busy and engineer things so I'm not alone. But my poor dog has felt the brunt, as I was reluctant to take him out for a walk, my best (or worse) time for thinking through problems.

Finally bit the bullet and took the poor canine out, determined to not cry, determined to just enjoy the moment. The sun was out, the dog was making me smile with his enthusiasm for being out and sniffing everything in sight.

I stayed close to home and giving him chance to sniff meant a slow walk, giving me time to enjoy my neighbours gardens. Flowers are blooming, trees have new young leaves and lush green lawns.

I passed several lawns, some beautifully tended and others a little more ragged. When I looked closely, the grass was a little too long, full of dandelions, daisies and buttercups. I remember telling the time blowing the seeds as a child, running after the fairies with my sister. Making daisy chains and arguing over whose was the best and seeing who liked butter by putting the buttercup under her chin to see the reflected sunlight, glowing yellow.

The ragged lawns, edging some gardens, technically were full of weeds. Which to some are an eyesore and nuisance. But taking a step back, I stopped focusing on the individual weed to look at the whole picture; the green grass, peppered with yellow and white flowers and fairies slowly moving in the breeze, was beautiful.

And it hit me. I need to stop focusing on the bad news and look at the bigger picture and just enjoy the landscape as a whole, live in the now and make lots of memories to look back on.

If anyone would like to help Joy a little through this, please take a look at this post

Photo A Day - February on the cards?

Finally done it, a whole month of a picture a day. A little hiccup at the end, am sure I can be forgiven. Staying with my sister and lost the adapter to take images off the card and onto my PC. So photo's taken, just not uploaded.

Here are all 31 days

and day 31 (which I couldn't add in above!)

If you'd like to see the full images with prompts and description you can either take a look at my other blog FayC Depiction or my Facebook Album

Now the question is, do I continue into February???

Photo A Day Challenge - Week 3 Round Up

Phew,  21 whole days and I'm still here, posting an image which fits the prompt set by Chantelle over at Fat Mum Slim. Never thought I would stick to it..... or enjoy it quite so much.

I'm finding it's helping me focus on the photography, whether that's taking it or finding an image in my archive, and to think outside the box about the normal pictures I would take.

The images on the Facebook page. which people post to, are just inspiring and I can lose hours looking through them.I t's a closed group, but you can request to join, just search for 'FMS Photo A Day'

Here's my round up for the week.

There's a mix of staged images and quick candid shots taken with my iPhone.

I post regularly on my other blog, FayC Glass Half Full Depiction, if you'd like to see more images and descriptions to go with these prompts.

And if this inspires you to give the challenge a go, take a look at Chantelle's Blog for details. You don't have to do a full month or even a week. You can post up when you want to, there's no pressure.  quality and type of image is wide and varied, from the quick snap on the phone to something beautifully edited with Photoshop.

So if you're looking for a distraction, due to say illness or wanting to take you mind off snacking (yup, thats me!) to improve your photography skills, or just try something different, then what's stopping you from giving it a go?

Meal Planning Monday 20th January #MealPlanningMonday

This week's menu looks like this

• Baked potato, beans and cheese (Cheese as HE)
• Liver and onions, with carrot and suede mash with vegetables (Syn free)
• Pork, rice and beans (Syn free)
• Pork casserole with potato and vegetable (Syn free)
• Bean bolognaise with carrot & courgette tagliatelle (Syn free)
• Stuffed peppers with bacon and rice

Am pleased to say I didn't throw any food away last week. Every last scrap was used up, nothing was wasted. I'm pretty good at using up food but there's usually something which ends up in the bin. Let's see how I get on with this menu and food shop.

Fingers crossed I've lost a pound or two when I weigh in later too. 

Don't forget to check in for more meal planning inspiration over at Mrs M's. Click the image at the top of the post.

Take care and have a great week! 

Photo A Day Challenge - Week 1 Round Up

Set myself a challenge for January of joining in with #FMSPhotoADay. 'What's that?' I hear you say. Well, it's just what it says on the tin. You're given a prompt for each day and take a photograph which fills the brief.

If you want more details go and take a look at Fat Mum Slim's page here.

I tried to do this last year and failed, so I can't quite believe I've managed a whole week already. I want to learn how to use my camera and this is really helping: it keeps me looking out for great pictures to take and generally just have some fun while I'm doing it!

The Facebook page is brilliant, some wonderfully talented and generous people post from all over the world. The images are just mind blowing.

And I've also been posting them over on my other blog Glass Half Full Depiction, which was set up just for photography. But thought I'd give a weekly round up here.

Hope you like them! 

What do you think?

If you'd like to join in, give it a go, it's lots of fun

It's the little things .......

......which make a big difference

You know, the small things someone special in your life does for you, which maybe inconsequential to anyone else, but mean the world to you. Here are my top 10 courtesy of MrC

1. When the TV remote or my kindle needs charging, I can pass it over and know it'll be sorted
2. Any IT queries? He's onto it, he's my very own helpline number
3. Always available for wonderful foot rubs when the pin wielding fairies start.
4. Organises the media centre, so all our music and films are available at the touch of button
5. Knows what I need, before I even realise it and sorts it out
6. Had the brilliant idea of having remote controlled sockets. So easy turning on cabinet lights now, rather than scrabbling behind, trying to find the switch.
7. Something needs backing up/setting up? It's done, no need to worry about it
8. Does all the research when buying new stuff, from the best washing machine to the right paint for the job
9. Says the right things at the right time
10. Just knows and gets me

I'm so lucky to live with my best friend, what more could a girl ask for? 

What little things do your loved ones do for you which make a big difference?

Footsie update

Had my appointment yesterday as a whole two weeks had flown by since I was taken off the trial drug for a while (see here for the post) Anyone would think we've had Christmas or something since then.

Well the good news is, the head honcho of the trial and my oncology consultant, doesn't believe the trial is the problem. If it was, I would also be suffering with similar symptoms in my hands. I'm pleased to say I'm not, I think I would find that quite distressing. I can ignore toes, but fingers? Nah, I don't think so.

So, what is it?

Well, regular twitter and Facebook friends and readers of the blog, do you remember the saga of #BrokenBum? You know, the one I whinged about for months to anyone who would listen (and plenty who didn't!) The one I visited my GP about several times and would told it would just get better? Well, it did actually get better, after 15 months, so they were right on that score (although it pains me to say it) However, it might also be the cause of the numbness. As it healed, resulting scar tissue may be pressing on nerves which run through the coccyx, making the tootsies feel like pin wielding fairies having a field day.

Simples! And I may not have been a hypochondriac after all! 

And even better, he's prepared to investigate why, so I'm now waiting for an MRI scan. When asked if I had any metal anywhere I replied with "no, and no homemade prison tattoos either". He laughed, so must be a House fan. Either that or he was just being polite........

Either way, I'm to start back on the drug next week, so happy days. Now all I've got to do it find a way to keep the fairies at bay........

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

Well, the time has finally come and today is my last working day for Virgin Media. It's been a roller coaster 16 years, with a few lows but lots and lots of highs, whizzy and stomach churning bits, frights, laughs and tears.

I've enjoyed every little bit, learnt a lot about myself and other people (maybe too much about some, you know who you are......!) 

In all that time I've

• Had just 7 managers, which I think is a record (so few!)
• Two office location moves (Exeter and Plymouth)
• 15 desk moves (yes I counted them!)
• 11 episodes of sick leave
• Became an MBTi Practioner
• And a first aider! 
• Have three different site passes
• Took my CTP
• Learnt to use Excel and now love a fabulous spreadsheet
• Made hundreds of friends (maybe one or two enemies but we'll brush over that one......)
• Worked in four different divisions
• Carried out too many induction courses to remember
• Managed two teams
• Grown into a better person
• Had the honour of being a Divisional Voice Representative
• Loved Tap
• Hated Oracle
• Have 736 saved contacts in Outlook
• Had perms, long hairstyles, short hairstyles and lost it altogether (but its growing back now)
• Visited 21 different sites
• Am in heaven writing a process

So its on to pastures new and to find a new roller coaster ride. Job hunting will start in earnest in February (keep your eyes open for the LinkedIn requests!) Am taking some time out to just get plain bored before then.

I would love for you to leave me a comment below, something I can remember you by, to look back on and match up with the memories.

And on that note, I'm leaving you with a process, one I live by, which is why I've been here for as long as I have.

Adieu, adios, so long, even toodle-oo

People take on goodbye's, differently

It's not just the words though

Some don't know what to say or do, prefer to delay or sidestep the encounter altogether.

Others it's all about avoiding direct eye contact, a quick wave maybe, an embarrassed 'see you and good luck', not knowing what to say, eyes downcast and dark.

The next person it's a jaunty slap on the back, 'keep in touch', all smiles and show followed by a quick turn and moving onto the next conversation, brushing off the encounter.

Or the heartfelt, tender touch on the arm or back of the hand, warmth in the eyes, concerned words full of 'Are you ok's', 'We'll miss you'

And then there's the huge hug, full of meaning, arms enveloped around each other, holding, saying it all. The depth of emotion felt, experiences, soft murmurings in your ear, whispered advice, we'll always have this connection, memories, shared experiences.

People do goodbyes differently, they mean different things to different people, but whichever way they're done, they're needed. They offer closure, a small ceremony to acknowledge what has taken place, an ending to enable the move onwards.

I've had lot of goodbyes over the last week and they've all hurt in their own way but I'm ready to move on.

Thank you to everyone who allowed me the privilege of saying goodbye, no matter how it was done.

Again and Again and Again Films

I posted this on Twitter earlier

" There are a lot of films I can watch more than once. Thor isn't one of them "

Some people agreed, although it was suggested 'I could mute it and watch the pretty man' ( thanks @Jooleroo :) )

I love watching films, I love TV. I love watching my favourites again and again. But there are just some things which don't really warrant a second showing. Although they were great the first time round, some are just downright disappointing.

A favourite is comforting, you know what you're going to get; excellent acting may inspire, make you chuckle, or just an enjoyable way to spend a couple of pleasant hours relaxing. And a great film just gets better the more it's watched. From anticipation of the killer one liner to quirky characterisation, spectacular scenery or just being downright entertaining, here are a list of my 'can be seen more than once' films

• The Matrix, one and two (but not three)
• Dirty Dancing!
• Grease
• 300
• Time Traveller's Wife
• Casino Royale and Skyfall ( not so much Quantum of Solace)
• The Piano
• Schindlers List
• Inception
• Kramer Versus Kramer
• Any of the Transformers films
• Any Star Trek film
• Wizard of Oz
• All of the Indianna Jones films
• Forest Gump
• War Horse
• It's A Wonderful Life
• Any of the X-Men series
• The Postman

It's not a complete list, but it's a start.

So what makes a film 'a one to watch again' and what'd be on your list? Post a comment and let me know!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Meal Planning Monday w/c 18th March

I haven't posted to Mrs M's Meal Planning Monday for a while, totally fallen off the losing weight bandwagon but after my cookathon yesterday, I just could not post today.

Yesterday was a mammoth batch cooking day, it consumed most of it! (the day, not that I ate the results) They were all cooked following Slimming World recipes, so low fat and packed with vegetables and lentils. I now have in my freezer:-

2 lasagne's

2 family sized portions of liver and onions

2 vegetable packed beef bolognaise's

1 pasta bake

1 carrot and ginger soup

Numerous twice backed filled potatoes with leeks and smoked mackerel

Plus I cooked a full roast chicken with all the trimmings for Sunday dinner

I even cooked extra roast potatoes, and they are packed up in the freezer too!

It's all ready for me to pull out and defrost and whack in the oven. I needed to get organised as my chemo drug dose has been increased back to what it was before Christmas. I know it will make me feel crap, so need to be prepared. Feel quite proud of myself. I'm not saying I will do it every weekend, but I've already planned a couple of recipes for next weekend to keep things topped up.

I researched if I could freeze baked potatoes as I over ordered on my delivery and the consensus was they were better if filled first. If it works, I can see a few more concoctions creeping into my weekly meal plans

Onto this week's which unsurprisingly features a few of the meals above. In no particular order

Chicken thai green curry and rice (from Sunday's left over roast chicken

Carrot and ginger soup with bread

Liver and onions, roast potato and vegetables

Pasta bake and salad

Lasagne

Wedges, fish cakes and beans

Roast pork and all the trimmings

Simples!

Is it really sad that I have next week's menu planned too???

Get yourself over to Mrs M's for more meal plans!

Email From My Brother : fighting kids and other things

Hi Fay,

How's it going? I hope your holiday from the drug trial is going well. I've got to say I don't know if I could hold up as well as you. Today I'm having a really bad day just being a stay-at-home dad. Both kids today were fighting over a plastic waste paper basket. Sam wanted to wear the basket on his head while Eva wanted to put a load of cut pieces of paper in it. She was clutching the balls of paper and screaming that Sam had to put the bin down while I asked her to put the paper in the main bin as it was being scattered all over the house. She of course refused, Sam refused to give the bin back and in the end I confiscated everything and pushed the wadded up balls of waste paper into my ears to block out the stereo crying.

Every morning at the moment is a lesson in hearing the word "no" from the kids. Getting dressed, brushing teeth, brushing hair, putting shoes on it's like every request I'm asking them to come over and let me poke them in the eye with peeled onions. All that I ask is for complete unwavering obedience, is that too much to ask? Juliette's M.O. is to make things "fun" and "distracting" so that brushing your teeth is game where by you're puppies being groomed for the big dog show or something. Can you imagine doing that every day of the week? Can you imagine coming up with some new roleplaying scenario just so the kids put their shoes on? It's Tuesday, you've got to come up with a new game tomorrow, that's exhausting as f*ck. I've decided they've got their soft as sh*te parent with their mum, so I'm going to be the parent that's harder than granite shot through the cold vacuum of space. My commands run like a computer programme; you will do A by the time B happens otherwise expect consequence C. Bam, bam, bam. I'm going to be the dad that when the kids are grown up they'll say "you always knew where you were with dad" and they'll respect that... or they'll cut me out their lives altogether and I'll never see my future grandchildren. At the moment it's a price worth paying just to get them to put their shoes on. Hell, if the Devil is listening I've got a soul I could let go pretty cheap some mornings.

Also I'm firmly not a believer in smacking. I never have smacked and I never will. It's also against the law to smack to child in New Zealand so there's that too. However I can see the attraction in smacking. On the one hand you've got to sit down and try to reason with a small child who's developing the ability to reason in the first place and although you've put forward a logical argument as to why they must or must not do something the child is exploring their boundaries and can illogically dig their heals in. So then there's giving them a quick smack and "that'll learn you". It's the real life police officer who has to take witness statements, fill out paperwork and follow procedure versus the Hollywood version who just ramps cars, shoots suspects and has a shouting match with his black police captain. Am I alone in being a parent who never would smack a child but thinks "You are being a little sh*t so this would be soooo much easier right here, right now if I just punched you in the knee"? I think it's the same for murder. I wouldn't murder someone I'm totally against murder but f*ck me lady, you had ample time in the checkout queue to get your purse out why are you only know with everything bagged and the pleading gaze of the checkout operator looking in your handbag? Wouldn't it be easier if I just murdered you with this here bag of frozen peas and I can purchase my shopping with some degree of reasonable expediency?

Okay, so changing the subject somewhat because I put some time in on Google and don't want to waste the research. One thing I learnt from The King of Torts by John Grisham (may not have been that book, it could have been something by Michael Crichton ... don't judge me) is that drug companies come up with names and trademark them before they have a drug. So I did some research on Sorenifeb. Did you know that Søren is a Danish and Norwegian given name originating from Latin Severinus, derived from severus which means "severe, strict, serious". So you may be taking a break from strictifeb or seriousifeb or severeifeb? Doesn't everything make sense now?

It's getting late here so I had written a bit about if you're into Harry Potter and dig the Latin link to Severinus think of it as having a break from Severus Snape from kicking you in the verjayjay. I know some people might be really into having Alan Rickman in a black wig and teachers cape kicking them in the crotch but luckily I deleted that from the e-mail because to reference that is frankly just plain weird and unnecessary.

Take care of yourself,
Love Mark xxx

Yippee!!!!!!

Today's another great day. Not only is it my beautiful and wonderful sister's birthday (a special one no less) but I've been given a six-month all clear!

I'm doing a little happy dance as I type. Imagine that in your head plus I'm wearing a wooly hat. Nice!

Role on the next three months, next deadline/milestone/all clear is 12th of March

Email from my brother: What's pooping in his cereal bowl?

Hi Fay,

How's it going? I hope you've got over the blip with having to come off your trial drug and are feeling happier. It's a funny thing happiness I reckon. Here I am in New Zealand and it's still technically spring however the days are hotter, the grass has been cut in the fields around us and turned into hay which is lovely, bumblebees the size of two penny pieces are drifting around, the baby chicks are getting bigger and fatter, Juliette got a new job she wanted, Eva is looking forward to Christmas with their six week summer holiday and Sam's just Sam the Toddler, ever ready for random hugs and kisses. But what am I preoccupied with? What is it that's taking a poop in my breakfast bowl? Well I'm glad you asked, it's dyeing a cloak the colour green.

I wanted to make a medieval cloak so that I can wrap it around myself on cold evening in front of the camp fire at SCA events. I found some woollen blankets at the local charity shop, sewed them together, lined them, put buttons on and button holes and then had to dye the finished cloak green. I did it in the old bathtub and the results are a bit lighter than what was expected. If I wear the cloak to an event I'm going to requests to lie down on the floor so folks can have a game of Subbuteo on me. It's was like the least medieval green ever. I could wear this cloak as a high visibility jacket. So we gave the kids a bath tonight and Juliette's like "Mark, what's all this brown stuff around the bath?" and I'm like "er, it's some coffee ...", and she's like "what the hell is coffee doing in the bath?" and I'm like, "er... me and Sam were dying some, er, cloth brown." In reality I was baristaring the f*ck up in that bathtub with litres of instant coffee to stain the cloak darker. I'll find out if it's worked tomorrow. It's a real worry for me I can tell you. So erm, how's your cancer going?

That reminds me, here's a puzzler about coffee. Am I the only one that if I buy a latte from a coffee shop or what ever and add loads of sugar from those little paper tube packets and stir it all to hell it's only the last mouthful at the end that is actually sweet? It is just me isn't it. I don't have much luck with coffee. At the indoor play area where I take the kids I always get a coffee in one of those lidded paper cups and it always drips onto my jeans. I try to clean the coffee spot up with a wet wipe and end up clearing a clean patch on my jeans around the brown stain. So then it looks like I've got some sort of dirty fried egg on my leg.

Last weekend we rented a bach and went to Waihi Beach. Just for a moment I'd like you to say how you think Waihi is pronounced. If you pronounced it "why-hi" go back and try again. If you pronounced it "why-he" you'd were spot on, well done. If you're wondering that the heck a bach is it's a New Zealand term that originally meant a small beach hut. If you're wondering why my jeans are so dirty that I can clean a patch with a wet wipe you have to go back in the e-mails about six months. However things with baches have moved on and we rented a two storey three bedroom full on house for about eighty quid per night that was still termed a bach and was better than the hut we live in for the rest of the year. One theory is that bach comes from bacheolor pad and I'd love to have lived in that house as a bacheolor. Five minutes walk over some sand dunes to miles of white beach on the shores of the Pacific Ocean (yes, I did pretend to be C3PO on Tatooine while walking over the dunes - "Don't get technical with me" I said to Eva at one point just for giggles). There can't have been more than twenty or thirty people on that beach all day and we had miles of the stuff to spread out on.

We shared the holiday with Juliette's sister, brother-in-law and kids and the rest of Juliette's family popped up for a sort of day trip too. One of the the highlight of the trip was when a pod of Orca whales swam by us off shore and you could see the wave crests created by their dorsal fins and tails. Of course another name for Orca whales is "killer whales" but "Hey kids, look, Orca Whales!" induces fewer nightmares than "Hey kids, look, Killer Whales!".

Juliette's dad brought up some cheap (less than $3) plastic kites and the son-in-laws had a go at trying to fly them in lieu of the kids not giving a f*ck about them. They only had one string and tended to spiral around and hit the sand unless you got them high enough. I can say with some pride that once I got mine high enough I managed to unravel all of the light weight twine and got my kite to fly what looked like about a gazzilion miles up. Felix Baumgartner would have said it was high up. It was aces and skill. The only thing that bothered me was the design on the kite which showed the sun wearing sun glasses. I couldn't help but wonder as I unwound the Atlantic spanning length of string why the sun would wear sunglasses. To protect it's eyes from itself? It dawned on me that the only reason why the sun would wear sunglasses would be to protect itself from the nearest star to our solar system way off in Alpha Centauri. I mean that's like a tiny pin prick of light. So then it dawned on me that the kite was taking the piss out of the sun. The kite was designed to taunt the sun. I was going to get the kite to fly as close to the sun as possible like some sort of kite flying 21st century Icarus. Game on! Then Sam shat his swimming trunks for the second time that day and Juliette made me reel the kite back in and put it away. So that didn't happen in the end.

Actually I've got to tell you that before I tried to taunt the sun I had offered everyone a chance to fly the kite (as in "look how awesomely high I've flown this $3 kite, want a go?") and Juliette's mum said she had never flown a kite ever. I passed her the plastic handle, she asked if she had to do anything, I said no and then we waited about five seconds and she passed the plastic handle back to me with a curt nod. Awesome.

After the holiday on the way back we men dropped the wives and kids off at the Goldfields Railway. This is a restored charitable railway which runs between Waihi and Waikino along the Ohinemuri River. We had to drop them off and pick them up at the other because we had the two cars and it was a one way journey. So we dropped them off at the Waihi station then in the car park we debated long and hard about doing a runner but eventually drove round to the Waikino station and picked them up at the other end. The kids loved it as this was the first time they had been on a railway train. I joked that at the other end I was then going to then show other old time stuff like a a vinyl record player, a VHS recorder, a cathode ray tube television set, a rotary dial telephone and corporal punishment. The looks I got seem to suggest I had suddenly morphed into Phil Harding from Time Team and had suggested we all do some flint knapping. Up in the Maungakawa Reserve by us is an old outbuilding that's had people graffiting it for the last hundred odd years. Some of it says stuff like "Dave and Sue, Sep 1994", but some is from 1947 and the like so you kind of respect it. My favourite quote on it is "Nothing is as old as yesterday." Think about that one for a moment... nothing is as old as yesterday. That is deep. I'm going up there later to add "except the day before yesterday obviously. Mark 2012".

It also occurs to me that nowadays you post something now on an internet forum or what ever and chances are there's some sort of ratings system for it. So every now and again you can't but help pop back and check out if anyone thought what you said was any good. Usually it's "Likes" or green thumbs up or red thumbs down but there's nothing like that for graffiti at all. From now on I'm going to go into public toilets and mark each statement with random green thumbs up and red thumbs down. So you'd see "I have climbed highest mountains, I have run through the fields, Only to be with you, Only to be with you. I have run, I have crawled, I have scaled these city walls, These city walls, Only to be with you. But I still haven't found what I'm looking for, but I still haven't found what I'm looking for." (add six green thumbs up, four red thumbs down.) And then underneath someone could have written: "Have you tried taking your sunglasses off before you look Bono?" (add five green thumbs up, one red thumb down).

I think I'm in bit of a funny mood because my hands are still dyed green from the cloak (gives self two green thumbs up) so I'll say cheery bye for now. Speak to you next week.

Love Mark xxx



 

Meal Planning Monday w/c 26th November

Guess what? I lost 2 lbs last week! Yay! Plus I had chocolate everyday, so an even better bonus! It still surprises me how much a difference planning can make.

Onto this week, which is going to be a little harder as I away for work and not back home until Thursday. So it's restaurant food for me.....eeeek! I'm taking breakfast with me (cereal and fruit) so I won't be tempted by the cooked in oil breakfast and will try and be good for lunch with baked potato to fill me up. Dinner will be the harder one, but will go for the healthier option of steak and salads. Wish me luck!

So the rest of the meals will be

Butternut squash soup with wholemeal roll (inspired by Nigel Slater)
Scotch eggs, wedges and salad (about 3 syns)
Ratatouile and spicy couscous (syn free)
Chicken thighs with roasted root vegetables

Lunches while at home will be left overs from the night before with a chunky salad.

For more inspiring weekly planners, go check out At Home with Mrs M, there  are some amazing plans on there!

Will report back next week, with hopefully at least a pound lost

E-mail from my brother: Chickens and other dead things

Hi Fay,

How's it going?

This week I've been mostly thinking about our chickens.  We've got new arrivals in the form of four new little chicks two white ones and two speckled grey ones- everyone say "awwwww".  We didn't really want four new little chicks but with the ability for the chickens to go and hide anywhere when they go broody we've got to keep an eye out and obviously this time we failed.  Those chicks should have been a decent omelette or two egg fried sandwiches, but no, Mother Nature has to thwart our culinary plans and deliver up four little cute chicks.  You make me sick Mother Nature.  So to cut a long story short we had a broody chicken that we needed to find out where she was and this explains why I went under the house.

Now our house is a hundred and two years old and made of wood.  The method of construction was to simply put in load of pad stones down and then put posts on them to which the rest of the house could be nailed onto.  You can (and some people do) move their houses by disconnecting the water and electricity, jacking the house up and moving it onto a giant flatbed truck leaving the pad stones in the ground.  But what this also means is that you have to have a good skirting board around the bottom of your building to stop chickens, children, dogs, killer clowns and other miscreants from getting under there and laying eggs, getting stuck, pooping dog poop, jumping out to murder us in our sleep and other undesirable things.  Our skirting boards are a bit patchy around the back (i.e. missing) and it's here where I believed the chicken had got in.  I deduced this by watching the other chickens skipping in and out of the gap like they were a bunch of scallies and the hole was the entrance to an Iceland on the last shopping day before Christmas.

So I put on my overalls, got a torch and slide in under there like a Vietnam Tunnel Rat hunting Charlie.  It's dark under there obviously, it's got cobwebs and it's got spiders, so it's not great to begin with.  It's kind of like sliding under a bed in search of something you've dropped; it's claustrophobic, difficult to move and breathe and has the added psychological horror of being underneath a whole house rather than just a piece of furniture that if you get stuck under you're semi-confident you can shift it off yourself.  So I'm under there for bit when I find the corpse of Sparkles, the speckled cockerel (father of the two grey chicks I'm sad to say).  I have to admit I wasn't expecting that and may have uttered a naughty word.  Normally I like my chicken coated in KFC batter but this one was rather inconsiderately coated in a thin film of chicken death and nightmare fuel.  He was lopped over on his side, his two eyes milky white zombie style and staring at me, some bugs crawling over his feathers, basically pretty horrible.  First thing I thought was could I leave him to decompose under there?  Sure he'd start to stink but the smell would go after a month or so.  Second thing I thought was that I was a man goddamit and I had to deal with this like a man.  So I did.  I crawled out, got some gardening gloves on, respirator, hard hat, goggles, sprayed on some Lynx and then got a metal rake just close enough to hook the corpse out without me being closer than four feet to ol' chicken-zombie-death .  Once out I heaved the body over into a paddock and buried it where it fell.  Well it happily fell into the ditch, so I didn't have to bury it at all.  Result!  It's almost as if I planned it that way.

I'm thinking the ditch might be the best place to dispose of all our animals.  Get some sort of air compressor and plastic pipe to shoot the guinea pig corpses into it when they die.  Maybe I'll set fire to them as they leave the muzzle for some added wow-factor.  Maybe I'll rig up some sort of collapsing ramp for the alpacas.  Hell, I'd even get dumped in there, I don't mind.  Actually I've given a lot of thought to how I want to go.  Basically have you ever seen a sci-fi film where some team of explorers find a derilict space ship and when they get to the bridge they find a skeleton of the pilot still clad in his spacesuit, grinning into the void?  See when I'm very very old (100 at least) and Juliette has (a) left me or (b) left me for dead, I'll have the house to myself. I'll set up some direct debits, dress the living room up to look like the bridge of a space ship, put on a space suit complete with helmet and then just sit in the captains chair and watch Deep Space Nine re-runs.  Then two years later when someone comes round to ask if I want the grass cut as it's getting a bit long, they'll call out the police who'll break down the door, come into the living room and find my skeleton in the space suit grinning into the void.  And they'll be like "What the f*ck!!?!?"

Maybe I can dress the rest of the house up too while I'm at it.  Hang some WWII gas masks in the hallway instead of pictures, put some pickled eyeballs in jars and stack them in the bathroom, hang hundreds of baby boots up from the ceiling using 8mm film roll showing 50s holiday camp footage,  build a little shrine to Tony Hart under the kitchen sink, you know, regular weird stuff.  The new owners will thank me because then, and only then, will going under the house seem not quite so scary when old Foghorn Leghorn checks out under there.

Take care,
Love Mark xxx

E-mail from my brother: Teddy bear hat and possible career change edition

Hi Fay,

How's it going?  I very much liked the picture of you wearing a teddy bear hat.  I reckon you should make a teddy bear balaclava so that your face looks like it's inside the teddy bear's open mouth. If you stitch some angry eyebrows onto the teddy bear's face you can make it look like it's swallowed you in an angry teddy bear wrathful way.   Or you can make a balaclava that looks like a Batman mask.  Or a Spider-man mask.  I think that would be awesome.  From the neck down, normal, from the neck up, Spider-man and/or Batman.  Ironman balaclava could be a big hit too, or you could do a complete balaclava face mask that makes you look like Barack Obama, Jamie Oliver, Adolf Hitler or maybe something even more fun like Peggy Ollerenshaw from Hi-de-Hi.  If I could knit I'd make one for you, but I can't.  Sorry.  It'd be in the post otherwise.

This week we had Sam's 2nd birthday and "naming ceremony".  We felt sort of duty bound to do a naming ceremony because we did one for Eva.  However everything in New Zealand is so less formal that getting dressed up and doing something like we did for Eva didn't fit right.  So instead we ate vegetarian food and said a few words while we planted some trees.  I insisted we shoot fire arrows into a bonfire to de-hippify the event a little.  I think the event went well.  Even when the father-in-law miss shot his fire arrow and nearly set alight his terylene action slacks.  Oh how we laughed.

Last week we had the alpacas rounded up and taken away to have their winter fleeces cut off.  It's been so long since we've had them in their harness' that it took me nearly an hour of them spitting and kicking before we got them ready to be taken away.  The lady who sold them to us arranged the shearing and she popped by afterwards to see how things were.  I told her about the problems with the kicking and spitting and to my surprise she said I should spit and kick back.  Really?  Apparently if they kick, you have to round house one of their legs from out beneath them.  Brilliant!  Someone walking over the hill gets to see me going all Chuck Norris with the alpacas in the paddock AND I get to spit in their faces on their way down too.  I thought having alpacas would be boring but it's totally not true.

I did the Ohaupo Fireworks display last Saturday night.  Basically it's a chance for our group to dress up in our medieval gear, demonstrate medieval fighting and shooting and charge the public for some have-a-go archery.  The weather on the Saturday was pretty bad so the turn out was slow to begin with.  This meant we could do some demonstration archery which is way more fun than trying to teach a six year old how to shoot.  Seriously it's hard work sometimes.  You have to start off by finding out whether the kid is left handed or right handed.  I do this by asking the simple question "Which had do you draw with?".  This is in case the child in question can't write yet and doesn't know if they're left or right handed.  The number of blank stares I get like I've just asked them to name all of the seven dwarves in their ascending height order.  Then I get kids who hold up their left hand and I say "okay, you're left handed" and they say, "oh no, I draw with this hand," and they hold up their right hand instead like they've just remembered that Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year and not a Sunday which is what they first thought.  Or some say "I write with my right hand but I'm left handed."  What the f....?  My patience is pretty much all used up on my own kids so when it comes to other people's off spring I'm biting my lip and having violent Walter Mitty fantasies when dealing with them.

Get them with a bow in their hands, arrow nocked, bow drawn and ready to fly and you get kids that let go of the bow rather than the bow string (try to imagine that for a moment).  Sometimes we get kids that let go of the string by letting it down so painfully slowly that the arrow drops at their feet (you've just got to pick it up and offer them another go).  Then you get kids that just completely fail to let go of the string like they've got super glue on their fingers.  They're at full draw, their arms are wobbling under the strain and they just can't let go.  The advice of "Let go of the string!" soon wants to become a Gordon Ramseyesque "For the love of God, pull back on the string and then let the f*cker go!  What's your f*cking problem?  Let go of the f*cking string, it's not hard to f*cking do you arsehat!  Let the f*cker go!  Let it go!  Stop f*cking clown dancing and let the f*cker go!  Pretend it's red hot and let the string go!".  Spit would be flying into their tiny face by now.  "F*cksake you tiny mothef*cker I'm dying of old age!  Are you f*cking with me?  Are you f*cking with me?  Get off the range, get off the f*cking range you useless sh*t.  Go practice letting go of things.  Try a rock first, pick one up and then drop it.  Work yourself up to an apple or maybe an orange, progress to a tennis ball and then come back when you can drop a bag of shopping.  Now f*ck off out of it YOU USELESS, USELESS, TW*T!"

But I'm not allowed to rant at them.  Not after the last time anyway.  Juliette has suggested I work as a classroom assistant but I've always said "no".

Actually the hardest part was during a demo shoot after we started shooting two or more arrows at the same time off the same string.  You'd explain that archers did this to make it appear that there were double the number of archers on the field.  After a while this kid came up to the barrier and caught my attention.   You see I'd just shot two arrows at once and although they'd hit the target they weren't great shots.  They never are because with two arrows you're splitting the energy from the bow  and ... no, no, no come back, I'll stop being all "technical".  So anyway this kid stares me straight in the eye, pauses and says "Better to succeed with one arrow than fail with two".   I could totally see his point, I was of course new to this archery business what with having done it longer than he'd been alive, but on the other hand I just really wanted to say, and I mean this sincerely from the bottom of my heart, I really wanted to say "F*ck off, Yoda."  But instead I smiled politely, tussled his hair and said "oh, you" in a fond way and then spun kicked his legs out from under him and spat on him like an alpaca.  I didn't really of course.  Not after the last time.

I'm not a nasty horrible person really, as I said sometimes you want to say or do something when you know you shouldn't.  Anyway got to go, those alpaca goolies won't kick themselves black and blue on their own.  Take care and speak to you next week.  Hey, how about an alpaca balaclava?  Awesome.

Love Mark xxx

Meal Planning Monday w/c 19th November 'I'm Back!'

I'm back! After a few weeks off (which may have been a couple of months, whoops) I've decided to get back onto the Slimming World plan. A big part of it for me, is to be super organised to avoid failure, so At Home with Mrs M's Meal Planning Monday is ideal.

My plan this week is to have porridge or weetabix with fruit (my healthy B), a good lunch like egg or mackerel salad with cous cous or pasta and as Syn free a dinner as possible. This will leave me Syns to play with which I can use for chocolate, my lifeline in times of stress. I've worked out one Milk Tray chocolate is 2.5 Syns each, so I can easily have four every day. Result!

Onto this week's meals, in no particular order

Ratatouille and roast chicken with spicy couscous (syn free)
Pasta bake with mozzarella (syn free, cheese healthy extra)
Sweet potato curry with rice and vegetables (syn free)
Cottage pie and vegetables (syn free)
Chili bean burgers, slimming world chips and salad (syn free)
Omelette and wedges and salad (syn free)
Baked potato, beans and cheese (syn free)

I've already cooked the ratatouille, pasta bake, curry and cottage pie. Everything's safely in the freezer so no reason to fail.

Do you think that's enough planning? Have you got any top tips I can use to make this a successful week?

Wish me luck and I will report back next week

Email from my brother: toddler wigs (don't ask, just read)

Hi Fay,

How is it going? I'm typing this while smelling a bit of sick. Not my sick, Sam's sick. I took the kids to an indoor play area after picking Eva up from school today and gave them both an apple in the car as a snack. That's an apple each of course, I couldn't ask them to share the same apple in the car any more than you could ask Ronald McDonald and Colonel Saunders to share a Burger King Quarter Pound Double Cheeseburger, at a Pizza Hut.

Anyway Sam has a tendency to get over excited after running around a lot and puke up and that's what he did on one of the indoor play area's bouncy castle/Krypton Factor assault course combos that seem popular these days. Of course normally I'd clean the puke up with one of the wet wipes from his change bag but for some reason Juliette transferred the contents of old unisex change bag into one of her old handbags. As a result I tend to leave the thing in the car as not even I have such a low level of self awareness that walking around carrying a handbag is something I'm comfortable with. So instead of being able to use a wet wipe I downed the last of my latte (one sugar please), popped open the lid on the cup, scooped up the apple chunks into the paper cup, threw it in the bin, wiped up the remaining mess clean with my sleeve and then rolled both my sleeves up. Tadaa! Juliette asked me why I didn't just ask management for a cloth but where's anecdote in that? Anyway I've still got my sleeves rolled up and I still smell of puke. It's appley with a faint hint of vomit.

I thought Sam might be extra tired tonight too what with all that running around but it took ages for Juliette to get him to sleep. I gave him no more that forty minutes for his day time nap as well so he was nice and knackered. When I woke him up at midday I tried to get him to stay awake by taking him to check the post (always a favourite). I popped him on my shoulders and he slumped over my head and fell asleep because he was still too tired. I thought I must have looked like a sidecurled Orthodox Jew but instead of ringlets hanging down over my ears I had toddler arms.

They've both woken up with nightmares lately so maybe it's something they've watched? Peppa Pig doesn't pull her punches when she's tackling those hard to stomach nitty gritty subjects I can tell you. "Mr Dinosaur is Lost", "Daddy Loses his Glasses", "Windy Autumn Day", "Traffic Jam", "George Catches a Cold", it's got more edgy story lines than Eastenders sometimes. Come to think of it maybe it was that time we watched Jaws.

This week I'm nearly close to finishing the modifications to my medieval gambeson. If you don't know what that is it's a padded jacket used as basic under protection for chainmail. I bought one ages ago and had to go for the XL size due to the room I need around my shoulders to draw my longbow. As a result the rest of the gambeson (i.e. the sleeves) were in proportion to the XL size which meant the sleeves were so long you couldn't see my hands and when I raised my arms up it lifted the shoulders up too and my head disappeared. Brilliant.

I took the sleeves off, tailored them to the correct size, put in spiral lace ups under the arms so that I can put my arms in and tighten them up and put lacing points inside the main garment so that I can remove the sleeves if need be in hot weather. Thing is it's all padded and quilted and has a gazillion bits that needed sewing but I can't run it through a sewing machine because it's too thick. So it's been painfully stitched by hand. Juliette's been looking at me doing this work and has casually wondered where that peg bag I promised to make her is. Her lips said "Where's my f*cking peg bag?" while her eyes said "Read my f*cking lips". That's an old joke, she didn't swear at me at all, it was just implied.

To be fair now it's been over a year that I promised to make her the peg bag and I actually did. However I ripped it adding some fancy stuff like a shoulder strap and a gizmo for keeping the bag open while taking pegs in and out and I couldn't be bothered to repair it. It's in the garage under a pile of rat sh*t. Still Christmas is coming up, so, peg bag ahoy ... It's the thought that counts I always believe.

Anyway, take care of yourself, I haven't included any mickey taking about being bald this letter for change as I thought you could do with a break.

Love,
Mark xxx

P.S. You can of course borrow Sam any time he's feeling sleepy.

Email from my brother: pirates, nether regions and lovely grapefruit

Hi Fay,

How is it going? I read that you've got a crease mark across your forehead from your scarf. Have you tried looking at some pirate websites? I mean actual pirates, not the ones that download illegal films and stuff? Because pirates wear a lot of bandanas so must have the same problem. Jack Sparrow for example never takes his head scarf off at all so he must have one hell of a crease. Just saying.

I started writing this e-mail in some discomfort. Due to the wet weather and lack of drying opportunities I'm down to my last pair of boxer shorts and those are the ones I received from Eva last Father's Day. They're gold with little rosettes and silver cups all over them. Inside each rosette is the legend "No.1!". Anyway the boxers are also about two sizes too small for me and so my nethers feel like they've been shrink wrapped. I've been wearing them all day, in some pain as I bent over and repeatedly stuffed all the washing into the tumble dryer so that I don't have to wear them again anytime soon. The boxers are so tight I feel like I've been flossing my bottom and all the rosettes on the back now say "No.2!".

This week Eva went back to school. Turns out they have four terms here instead of three so they have another ten more weeks before the big six week Summer/Christmas holiday. I'm trying to get back into the swing of making her packed lunches but to be honest I can't be bothered most of the time. I keep reading articles about super keen parents who make their kid's lunches up to look like characters from Seseame Street or Looney Tune characters. My solution is to make up a normal lunch and pop in a picture of Big Bird or something on top. You get the same effect right? Open lunchbox and see Road Runner, surprise! Eat lunch. She's five so will probably be just as happy. Tell me I'm wrong.

Sam got upset because his plastic grabber toy was found broken in the car. When he's strapped into his seat he likes to use it to grap the handle over the door but he can't grab anything now that one of the pincers has snapped off. I tried to explain that although he can't grab anything one pincer still works so he can still beckon things to come to him with it. He's just not happy with the concept for some reason while I'm astounded at the Zen'ness of the grabber vs broken grabber concept. There's a metaphor or something right there because the grabber is only a foot long where as your useful beckoning range is line of sight. I'm thinking I need more sleep. (Uses broken grabber in general direction of bed).

While I'm on the subject of Sam his new favourite word is "no". Or rather "nah". He babbles away and suddenly there's a clear as day "nah" like he's a bored teenager. "Do you want to read Postman Pat, Sam?", "Nah.", "Do you want to read Peppa Pig, Sam?", "Nah.", "Do you want to eat large amounts of unhealthy chocolate, Sam?", "Na....uh-hu.", "Well Sam ... NAH!". I don't know if it's the broken promise of chocolate that makes him cry or my doing a victory dance and chanting "Su-cker!" to the tune of The A-Team theme. When he learns to talk some more he can tell me.

We're back on the 5:2 diet where two days a week we limit our food intake to 600 calories. It's supposed to be healthier but the only thing that's healthy is my appetite. There's no weight loss either. The only thing I've lost is my will to live. We bought a book on the diet but it's been sat on the side unread for nearly two weeks now. It's like neither of us wants to read the book because if we do that we're going to find out we've been doing it wrong. Six hundred calories!? No, it should be five hundred. One calorie over and you might as well eat pies for all the good it'll do you. Six weeks of it now, brilliant.

I'm also currently brewing some grapefruit wine. It's going to be horrible, I know it, Sam knows it. He helped me pick the grapefruit from our grapefruit tree. No one likes grapefruit and yet it's the biggest fruit tree on the property. It must have a couple of hundred grapefruit alread hanging off it's unwanted branches. Anyway the grapefruit wine is going to be horrible because Sam helped pick them. He's a short lad so he thought it might be easier to throw some in that he found on the floor. Some rotten ones got in, I know it, Sam knows it. I'll send you a bottle when it's ready, it'll take your mind off your forehead crease problem. Everyone's problems go away when you're sh*tting through the eye of needle. Also the grapefruit wine is going to be horrible because it's made from f*cking grapefruit. QED.

Take care,
Love,
Mark xxx