comfortablymum6

Definitely need to get my priorities right….

Today:

Me – first day back after Xmas break . Up at 6. Exercise dogs and feed hens. Drive 1hr 30 mins to work. Lunchtime spent sorting out lost Xmas present deliveries and updating family calendar with 2020 bin/recycling collection dates (otherwise, all refuse containers would fester and overflow, subsuming the house and garden whilst puzzled occupants quietly drowned in incomprehension)

Him – away with likeminded bloke doing fun alpha male stuff in the wild hills for 3 days

😶

Lost your cute and frolicsome cocker spaniel?

Places guaranteed to find the little shit…

Next door pig farm lying in a pile of soya, covered in a layer of fine yellow dust and sporting an enormously fat belly

In the compost heap eating rotten fruit/veg/insert disgusting item here

On the remains of the bonfire where you burn the hen bedding, snacking on lightly roasted hen crap

😡😡

Comfortably Christmas

Woken up at 5.30 by ‘im outdoors who went to bed at 7pm so is full of beans.

“Kids” (20 and 18) barge in, having eviscerated their own stockings, bearing mine which is filled with stuff I bought myself.

Present opening with ‘im outdoors trying to look as if he knew what was in all the ones “we” bought.

He’s very happy with his wireless enabled electric blanket and merino wool cycling pants.

I’m blown away by his sneaky purchase of a rather beautiful bit of sculpture made by our friend and local wood craftsman.

Slap up breakfast of eggs Benedict and full fry cooked by senior daughter – eaten, not to my planned soundtrack of lovely Christmas carols but to rather less relaxing strains of junior daughters choice of “Dominic the Donkey” and “Santa’s a Scotsman”

Traditional ascent (with dogs) of our local favourite mountain with a picnic at the top comprising home made sausage rolls, made by daughters, together with Polish honey vodka and Romanian “chocolate salami” gifted by lovely European friends, not yet driven away from UK by impending Brexit.

Non Christmas, early evening, Christmas dinner of broccoli soup, salmon en croute and pavlova.

Roaring fire, snoozing/farting dogs and humans.

Perfect.

Go to Christmas drinks party in new floaty wrap dress with biker boots.

Rock the party feeling and looking younger than my years.

Drink far too much Prosecco (er – is that really possible?)

Visit the facilities, forget the floatiness and wrappiness of your dress and make a catastrophic error regarding the gathering up of said garment.

Perform a quick remedial cold water rinse of the affected areas of clothing.

Stand in garden for twenty minutes for surreptitious drying, aided by dress floatiness.

Return to party and drink (much) more Prosecco.

Crisis management success.

I thank you.

So many RIP NHS status’s this morning… as some one who works in the NHS and see’s how badly the service is abused EVERYDAY, let me tell you now it doesn’t matter who won the vote today – the responsibility for saving the NHS falls on us, the people who use it.
Stop going to your GP when you have a cold, don’t go to A&E for back ache, if you are genuinely unwell and are lucky enough to get a doctors or hospital appointment – actually attend it and don’t be late, if you can buy medication to ease your symptoms over the counter – don’t harass the doctor into giving it to you on a prescription, don’t call an ambulance unless the situation you are in is genuinely life threatening.
Take responsibility for your own health – don’t smoke 40 fags a day and then be a drain on the NHS when you need chemo for lung cancer, don’t eat rubbish food and then need treatment for obesity related illnesses, go to the gym, look after your own body rather than expecting there to be a miracle pill that some poor overworked doctor on the NHS could prescribe to fix all of your ailments!
The reason the NHS is in the state that is in is because we do not use it properly, we are putting a huge amount of pressure on it and it simply cannot keep up with the demand.
It doesn’t matter what little box you ticked yesterday, if you want to save the NHS educate yourself and your family about how to use it properly!

Had a moment of panic yesterday when (having furtled around hurriedly in the mish mash of outdoors stuff by the back door) I put on my new, unworn, men’s medium, waterproof trousers for the dog walk. In a rush, I was perturbed that they seemed more than a little snug – I could only just coax them over my middle aged arse, but eventually got them on and set off feeling like an overstuffed sausage. On my return I couldn’t get the bloody things lower than mid-hip level and had to resort to the kitchen scissors to cut them off me.

Have I really become such a whale?

On further inspection of the label I noticed the size – XS – and realise these were a pair which, many years ago, I bought for my then 13 year old daughter and which had got predictably mislaid.

My new ones were actually where I left them, by my wellies, to be easily located when required….

Actually really rather chuffed that I managed to successfully get into (even if not out of) an XS……

All in all a quite a satisfactory outcome.

Monday looking good so far…

Usual motherly, middle aged fretting whilst washing my hair in the shower. My thoughts have time to accumulate because I am standing still so just a tad distracted.

Hop out, feeling ahead of the drag curve, dress and pick up my hairdryer to find I’ve forgotten to wash out the conditioner.

After shower number 2, now running a bit late so rushing.

Manage to open the kitchen door in such an uncoordinated fashion that it thunks off my shoe and rebounds into my head, striking my temple with the amount of force to prompt a an immediate feeling of fury and lavish swearing, causing the puppy to retreat under the table, whimpering.

Is interested to know what the effect of 3 whole (thankfully, unlit) Christmas candles would have on the digestive system of a 5 month old lab puppy.

Asking for a friend…

😐

Things I have discovered recently.

Labrador puppies and expensive wicker furniture are not a successful combination.

Thinking about not eating birthday cake, whilst eating it, is not as effective a weight loss strategy as actually not eating it.

When you are eating the birthday cake, it tastes a lot more pleasant if you remove the embedded candle wax from the cream icing.

Menopausal body changes are basically just a bag of shite and probably unaffected by eating cake, in the long run.

Posting one’s ruminations on Facebook is not a clever way of trying to get your evening work session completed

After endless weeks of trial by call centre, brainless phone operators, external works with new pole erection, multiple cancelled and botched appointments and the approachment of near insanity on my part, the Openreach engineer pulls up to my house to install a line just as the coal truck backs out of my driveway and hits the telegraph pole, nearly bringing it down. After a bit of giddy swaying from the pole, me and the engineer, it decides not to fall down. Could have been the last day this earth for the coal man. …