*is somewhere else*

I haven't been around much (again), but I haven't been comepletely procrastinating. Well, maybe just a little bit, but not overly so. I blogged over at my writer's group just over a week ago, for example. And in between getting sucked into everything from family life, to bingo on Facebook, I managed to set aside yesterday afternoon to go through my manuscript in order to submit it today for this year's ABNA.

Yes, perhaps yesterday was cutting it a bit fine, but this is me, and I always leave things until the last minute. *shifty*

Anyway, I don't have a blog post for you today. Well, not here at any rate. But I blogged over at Cardiffella, so I'm popping by with a link to today's post if anyone fancies reading a ramble.

And now I'm off 'somewhere else' again... so toodle-loo!

*coughs*

Limericks.
Slugs.
Pub lunches.
Fairy tales.
Crazy dream/nightmare.
A nasty post on Brighton or Butlins.
Zombie apocalypse.
Nonions.
Star Wars - Taff style.
Monty Python - Taff style.
The origin of pi.
Plato vs. Aristotle.
Chocolate - good or bad for you?.
The smallest country in the world.
Why are villains so damn sexy?
Creepy Halloween stories/movies that have the same lame plot.
The relativity of time.
Rubber ducks.
Air sex.
Palindromes.
Saucy seaside postcards.
Nude calenders.
Toffee apples.
Dung beetles.
Bicarbonate of Soda.
Spinsters and cats.
Chemical toilets.
Light bulbs.
Flea circuses.
Door stops.
Something you do not wish to even think about, let alone write about.
Something about a commonly held belief or myth that you'd like to take umbrage with. 

Original Image

Original Image

 

 

 

Original Image

Original Image

Original Image

Why do I have pictures of cute and fluffy animals on my blog today? Well, they are all calenders, and the models are all naked. So, we have 'Nude Calenders'. *nods*

*shifty*

Posting About Another Post

Accckkk! I still haven't got around to putting together a post for this blog, but I did ramble a little bit for my writer's group today over at Burrowers, Books & Balderdash, so if you fancy reading a catch up post, clicky on the linky!


Click me, you know you want to...

Passing Through

Psst! Tara's not here today as she's been busy cleaning up her manuscript. She did, however, take ten minutes to write an update post for her Cardiffella Blog. I have to say, it's about time she did something on that manuscript. It's all very well being a Fairy Godmother, but it's no good if people don't know about me, is it?

Knitting for the Unknitiated

Yup, I'm definitely clueless about today's topic suggestion, and I don't know where to even begin when it comes to rambling about it, so I decided that Google images would be my best friend today, and that I would go on a mini quest to find interesting (er, for interesting, read 'silly') pictures to fill this blog post. *nods* And on that note....


Knitting can be a very versatile hobby, apparently. It's amazing what you can do with a couple of long, pointy sticks and some soft, lengthy yarn.

You could knit yourself a disguise....

You could even disguise your tank when you want to engage in some warfare with your neighbourly knitters...

If tanks are not your preferred method of travel, perhaps you could whip up your own personal public transport option...

It's easily done, too, apparently. So easy, in fact, that even the wildlife are at it...

And don't forget, domesticated creatures are just as clever as their wilder cousins. *nods*

Though honestly, not all domesticated creatures take to it as well as others...

Perhap's Man's Best Friend was suffering some stress, clearly worrying an awful lot about something...

*lights candle*

Poor thing. Still, goes to show that knitting is for everyone, no matter what walk of life you are from. And as to what you can knit, well, I imagine the options are limitless. So, go forth and knitify! You know you want to!

Apologies & A Pretty Picture

I'd like to apologise to those of you who have left comments since I started this blogging marathon, because so far I've only managed to reply to the first day's replies. Blogger is being an absolute pain in the butt and keeps signing me out every time I try to leave a comment, which is extremely annoying. So just so you know, I've read each and every comment in the last week and I've appreciated them all, so thank you!

I'd also like to apologise to Natasha because today's blog is not only short, but not what it should be either. I was asked to blog about fireworks, and how everybody liked them. There are two reasons why this post is lacking in length. One, I actually don't really like fireworks at all. I mean, I love the colours and the patterns - who doesn't? - but the noise and the smell have always put me off them. I'm a spoilsport, I know.

The second reason that this post is short is because I've had about ten minutes in total all day up until now that I was able to get to the PC (my sister visited with us as soon as I was home from work and has only just left). It is now past 9pm, I've been up since 4:30am (stupid shifts at work, ughness), and I only had about an hour of sleep tops last night, so my brain is fried (insomnia sucks).

Rather than leave an empty blog, I thought I'd explain why there is nothing of interest here, and leave you with a pretty picture. Better a pointless post than no post at all as far as I'm concerned. *nods*

Anywho, here's the picture, and it's goodnight from this Procrastination Princess. *yawns*

Pontificating, Procrastinating and Prevaricating.

Yup, the three big P's. Not to be confused with the singular big 'P', which could mean any number of things (I'll leave it to your imagination). Essentially they all mean the same thing, but because they all start with 'p', and they're all slightly funny sounding, I decided to use them all in my title.

Anywho, what is it this time that I am pontificating/procrastinating/prevaricating over? Well, aside from the usual Putting Things Off (this beginning with 'p' seems to be a pattern of mine) mindset that I have, I typically decided that I should add to my list of Projects to Dither Over (another 'p' right there) and seriously consider doing this year's NaNoWriMo.

*awaits tumbleweed to pass*

I know, I'm crazy. I mean, I haven't even managed to keep up with my blog this year, never mind actually write anything. My brain has been mostly disassociated with anything to do with writing for the majority of 2010. Every once in a while I've attempted a blog post, and I wrote a short story back in... March I think.... but other than a haphazard editing schedule, I've done nothing. It's pretty easy to fool yourself into thinking that it doesn't matter and that tomorrow will be The Day to start writing again, but the problem with tomorrows is that there are far too many of them.

So, with only three months left of 2010, and with one of them being the infamous Novel Writing November, I figured now was as good a time as any to stop putting things off tomorrow and start doing things today.

Okay, so November isn't technically today, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, going from writing nothing to 1700 words a day is bit of a big step - too big a step to start off with, I'm thinking. Last year I had been blogging for a month when I decided to take a stab at the NaNo thing, and I figured this year I should probably do the same thing if I was to seriously consider attempting writing my second novel. That being the case, and with October being the lesser known month of NaBloWriMo (that would be National Blog Writing Month for those of you uninitiated to those funny WriMo words), I am crossing my fingers and hoping to post a blog for every day of October. If, by some miracle, I manage to complete this challenge, then not only do I get to complete my first WriMo this year (*is trying to forget the failure of June's WriMo*), but I also get in good, solid practice of writing every day in preparation for the biggie WriMo in November.

My biggest problem is obviously procrastination - I wouldn't have named this blog the way I did if it didn't make sense, after all - and one of the biggest props that a procrastinator has is the plethora of excuses they can come up with when they are putting things off. My biggest excuse is lack of inspiration, and to be fair, it's an excuse that is actually true. Most days I seriously don't know what the heck I will write about, which is why most days I don't write, it's as simple as that.

So I need 31 topics to blog about. Crikey. That's where you guys come in. Take pity on a poor prevaricator and give her some serious ammunition against the I Don't Know What To Write About Monster that is lurking next to her laptop and just waiting to pounce on her. He's not really very scary to look at, what with his purple fuzzy face and  loopy grin, but he's definitely a big distraction, and has been known to cause weeks of Non-Writingness.

I will put myself at the mercy of six (un)lucky people, each one having the dubious honour of being able to control what I blog about for five consecutive days. Now, if you do the maths, that works out at only covering 30 days, not 31, but I figure I should leave the final day of October for recapping on what will hopefully have been a crazy, but fun-filled blog writing month. (Plus I'll need to have a last-minute panic attack on record if I decide to go ahead with NaNoWroMo *shifty*).

So there we have it. Are there half a dozen people out there ready to thrust strange and random topics at a Procrastinating Princess? There's no fixed way of doing this - you can post five random subjects in the comments below this post, you can give me your chosen subjects via email (tundielatgooglemaildotcom) at the start of your five day slot, or you can give them to me at the last minute, the night before I'm due to post. I'm not fussy (just slightly crazy).

What say you?

Taffiness Takes You Places

Oi oi clarts! I gorra do this yer blog in Taff Speak today fer a very speshal reason. You see, I've only gone and bin given a bluddy award, like innit? Itz the Strange Blog Award, which is like totally bangin', and woz given to me by the Watery Tart, like innit. Now, Tami gave me the award, like, and she gorrit from this clart called Steve (who I don't know at all, like, but thort it waz only decent to menshun him, like innit, speshally coz I iz using the award piccy, which I stole from Tami, who in turn stole it from this Steve clart, who I fink actually stole it from the clit wot started the whole shebang). Anywayz, parrently this award makez you eligable fer entry to a compatishun like (you can find the goss on it yer like, innit), and this compatishun is run by this clit called Cate Gardner, who iz the orfur ov this book ov short stories called Strange Men In Pinstripe Suits.

Anywayz, all you ave to do to enter this compatishun is, well, notalot really, ifyouknowzwhatimean.  The main fing iz that you ave to be strange. Well, thatz like, obvious, right, coz itz the Strange Blog Award.  Parrenty I qualified coz of me Taffing, but I'm not so shore. I mean, what's so odd about Taff Speak, it's like, perfectly normal - youknowzitmakezsense! Anyway, apart for the being strange fingy, there's a cupple of ovver fings you ave to do to enter this compatishun. Like, first ov all you ave to be given the Strange Blog Award - which is wicked like, coz one, itz a really bangin' award to get like, and two, you iz like half way to being entered into a compatishun already like, and you aint done nuffin yet! Anywayz, when you gets the award, like, you needs to like pass it alon to a few ovver strange clarts (or clits az the case may be like, innit - youknowzitmakezsense!), and let the clit called Cate know that you've done it like. Simple, easy peasy annallat.

Only the trubble iz, all ov the clarts and clits that I would ave passed itonto ave already ad it like (and the award too, parrently), so I iz gonna have to cheat alirrlebi, and just sort ov accept the award for now, and p'raps try and find sum ovver worvy clarts and clits atalater date like, innit? Itz a sad state of fairs like, that I dunt know alotov strange peeps. Well, actually I do, itz just that all ov them are so strange (and well wicked too, in the non-evil wicked way, ifyouknowzwhatimean) that they've bin reconized already. Obviously I needs to like widen my circle of clarts and clits, like innit. So anywayz, no compatishun entry for me at the moment, but thatz cool, coz I is more than chuffed at the Strange Blog Award anwayz.

Anywayz, thatsabouri fer now, partly becoz my power has gone like free times tonight (which is a right ducking nightmare) and I iz a lirrlebi scared that I'll lose the entire post, but mostly itz becoz my brain is more spongey than normal owing to the fact that itz now midnight and I've been awake since four o-ducking clock, so I can't fink of anyfink else to type like.

Fanks again to Tami, who gave me the award like, she's like the best clit evah!

Prison Break

It's been almost a full week without blogs.... *sighs* I've had maybe half an hour a day on the computer for the last week, and these half hours have been in snippets of five or ten minutes at a time. Really not conductive towards blogging (or writing of any kind, for that matter). There's no blog today, either. Well, not technically at any rate.

While I was skimming through the Fan Fun forum over at HPANA, I noticed that I hadn't posted a short story in my compilation thread since August. Even more shaming, the August posting was in fact a mere transferring of a story that I had written previously, so it wasn't even a new story.  Feeling the Guilt Monster breathing down my neck, I quickly opened Wordpad and started typing. You have to bear in mind that I had no clue as what I would write about, but I typed for forty-five minutes or so and dutifully posted my ramblings in my compilation thread anyway. That's the kind of Come What May girl I am.  And, as I am also a Kill Two Birds With One Stone kind of girl (or a cheater, you decide), I figured I'd post my hastily written short story here too. I mean, it's rambling, and it was written with no idea how it would end, so it ties in really well with my other blogs, see?

UPDATE!! Sorry, but I had to take down the story, as the second half jumped out at me to be used in a much better way...

I was only going to....

I think - and as I type this I am mentally crossing my fingers - I might actually be able to sit down long enough to type something. This is the fourth time today that I have attempted to update my blog. *rolls eyes* I've managed to get online a few times today, but each time was for about five minutes and I could do little more that 'like' a couple of friends' Facebook status messages. Okay, so I had a couple of games of Bejeweled too, but that was simply because there is a way to, ehm, tweak *coughs* the scores and I thought it might be funny to have a huge score, plus it only takes a couple of minutes. Anywho....

We have been snowed in here in the Kair of Diff. Well, mostly iced in if I am being truthful, but you know what I mean. Everyone has been panic buying milk, bread and vegetables, and there have been more than the usual amount of sirens blaring in the last couple of days owing to people slipping and sliding all over the place. Not good. Thankfully there hasn't been any major traffic accidents as far as I am aware, and I hope it stays that way.

Back to what I was saying before, this is the fourth time today that I have tried to blog. I had a 'spare' half an hour earlier (well, not exactly spare, but it was when hubby had popped out so it was a rare opportunity to nab the PC). Anywho, I thought I would blog, but I wanted to quickly check my emails and Facebook page in case anyone had left me a message (as you do). My step-daughter was online and I quickly grabbed the chance to ask her when she was calling for her Christmas presents. She has a phone, but I didn't have her new number (she changes her mobile about as often as I play Bejeweled. In other words, frequently).

Anyway (Lordy, I'm digressing today), I ended up chatting to her for a while (as you do) and we arranged for her to visit today. By the time we'd finished fixing times and lifts here and back home, hubby was home, so no blogging for me.

When she arrived she decided to pop down her nan's house as well as her bampy's house, so I thought - right! Time to blog! I decided to make a nice cup of tea to warm me up, and while I waited for the kettle to boil I started clearing up from the huge cooked breakfast that I had made earlier. I was only going to rinse the plates and stack them ready for washing up later on in the day, but once I started, I ended up cleaning the whole kitchen. By the time I poured my tea, hubby and step-daughter were back. Strike two.

I popped to the library to stock up on more books (these internet-free evenings are KILLING me), and grabbed the last quart of milk and two loaves of bread from the corner shop. Yay! I thought, no need to go out tomorrow! Of course, I almost broke my neck about five times walking up the hill back to my house (one step forward, three slips back), but I made it home safely, thank goodness. I made a well-earned cup of tea and grabbed a book to leaf through while the hubby played poker on Facebook.

Then hubby decided to go out, and I thought yes! This time I can DEFINITELY blog! Wahoo!!

*shifty*

I dutifully made the kids their tea at 5.45pm, only if you look at the time on this post (if you are in Britain, that is) you will notice that 5.45pm was well over two hours ago. I only went out the kitchen to prepare tea, but seeing as I had already cooked stuff earlier on, it was only a question of re-heating it and serving it up. I ended up changing bedding and putting the nth load of washing on, changing the chip pan oil (and all the cleaning that this job entails), bringing the hoard of Christmas goodies from my bedroom and finding homes for them in my already well-stocked kitchen cupboards, and just generally sorting things out.  I only went to get the kids their tea for crying out loud!! It wasn't as if I WANTED to do these things, I just became this robot that kept finding things to do. *scratches head in robot fashion*

Anywho, these are the perils of a procrastinator. Every day I have a 'I was only going to...' moment, and I swear they are never intentional, they just happen. What's makes it odd is that these moments are often linked to jobs that I absolutely HATE doing (*glares at chip pan*).

So that was my day, and I bet tomorrow will be just the same. I'm hoping to get online tomorrow evening, but if I don't, I'd like to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas, and I'd also like to say a great big THANK YOU to those of you have visited my crazy blog and been kind enough to read and comment on it.

*is cheating again*

Yeah, I'm cheating again. It's Sunday, I'm snowed under with cooking the lunch, washing the laundry, and NaNo-ing. It's 12.45pm and I've only just put the chicken in the oven. *dies* I'm so behind, it's unbelievable. My Taff blog yesterday didn't help matters. After I wrote it, I couldn't get my head around writing 'normally', so NaNo-ing was a complete no-no last night.

Okay, so I also watched X Factor, which ate up an hour and a half, but that's neither here nor there. Escapism is a must for your general procrastinator. *nods firmly* I also had a few games of Bejeweled Blitz before I went to bed, but again, that's pretty normal for me.

I hit a rough patch in my NaNo on Friday. Thursdays are off-limits when it comes to writing, so Friday I was really hoping to punch out a few thousand words to keep on track. What  did I get? A big fat zero. Nothing, nada, zilch. I was not a happy bunny. I managed a meagre 2k yesterday afternoon, but it was hard going. This morning I had a small breakthrough and punched out another 1,700 words, but I'm still 2k shy of that magic 30k marker, and 4k shy of my personal goal of 32k by the end of today. Still ahead by NaNo standards, but not what I wanted.

So I'm not doing a real blog today. I'm rambling a little bit (see above), (which is normal for the most part) but not about anything in particular. And I'm going to insert a drabble into this post, just to make it look longer. *shifty*

Sundays. Bloody Sundays. *mutters* I really need someone to come to my house and do all of my chores so that I can concentrate on my NaNo. As that's not likely to happen any time soon, I am feeling a bit down. And if I'm feeling down, it's only fair I share a little doom, right? You know how I love to be evil. *shifty*

Soooo.... have a dark and twisty drabble:

 

It's too late to mourn, too late to cry.
It's too late to wish I'd said goodbye.

Shadows climb and shadows lie,
Shadows called for you to die.

Shadows took your restless soul,
And left me empty, dark, alone.

Shadows ignored my pleas, my moans,
And took you from your only home.

Now I watch the shadows rise,
And wonder if they hear my cries.

Do they sense my deep despair?
Or do they never have a care?

Shadows feed on my distress,
My sense of loss, my loneliness.

Shadows sense my restlessness,
They'll never leave, or let me rest.

*is saying "crikey" and "daggy" a lot*

This is blog number five in my series of seven requested blogs. So far I've had a blast, particularly the last two entries, and have been able to come up with something to fill my entries pretty much right away.

Yesterday I was asked to blog about Australia. Now, if I had been asked to blog about New Zealand, I could have wrote at least 2,000 words without any problems. Being a Lord of the Rings nut will do that to you. But I was asked to blog about Australia, so that is what I must do.

My knowledge of Australia could be fitted onto the back of a (very small) envelope, consequently I've had to have a really good think about what I will ramble about. Running to recent form, I am going to cheat. *nods* I may not have a lot of expertise on Australia as a whole, but I have remembered something that will definitely help me to supply this latest requested blog.


I don't know about anyone else, but in my neck of the woods there appeared a sudden new craze around twenty years ago. I'm talking about, of course, the phenomena that was Neighbours. For the untutored, Neighbors is an Australian soap opera that has been transmitted for almost 25 years. We Brits got it a little bit later than the Aussies, but in true British fashion, we quickly adopted these neighbors as our own. I don't remember the exact date when I started to follow it myself, but I can remember coming home from school, finishing my homework, having my tea, then settling down to watch Home and Away (that one's being covered in a mo) and Neighbours.

Ramsey Street, the fictional setting for our Aussie neighbours, was awesome. It was a large cul-de-sac where everyone knew everybody, and did exactly as the theme tune suggested (Neighbours should be there for one another, that's when good neighbours become good friends - Lordy, I can't believe I can still remember the words, now I'll be humming the bloody thing all day). The houses were a bit odd, in that even though they mostly had two floors, everyone seemed to have their bedrooms next to the kitchen (maybe they wanted to be near the kitchen implements, who knows?), but the houses were also cool because they had verandas and pools (something which was rarely seen in most British streets).

I was a fan of the soap in the golden Ramsey/Robinson era. These two families were the main characters in the soap, and we watched avidly as they coped with day-to-day issues and said 'crikey' a lot. The two most famous characters were Scott Robinson, the nice son of Jim Robinson, and Charlene Mitchell, who was Madge Mitchell's (formerly Ramsey) tom-boyish daughter. Charlene, being played by a teen Kylie Minogue, was awesome, I loved her to bits. She was a mechanic's apprentice, wore ugly brown overalls, yet still managed to snag the hot boy from next door (I should point out that when I think about Scott Robinson now, I'm more likely to go 'eww' rather than drool. Funny how our tastes change as we grow up, isn't it?)

Neighbours is still going strong, though I haven't watched it for well over ten years myself. It's obviously still popular, or it wouldn't still be airing, but for me the attraction has gone. To me, Neighbours hit its peak when Angry Anderson's song 'Suddenly' played against Scott and Charlene's teen wedding. You don't get cheesiness any better than that.

Now, I mentioned Home and Away a little up the page. Home and Away was the other prime time soap that the Brits poached from our Aussie cousins. BBC may have nabbed the biggest Australian fish, but ITV hooked its closest competition. Home and Away was basically Neighbours by the sea. Set in the fictional  'Summer Bay', we still had two main families to watch, only this time is was the Stewarts and the Fletchers. Nothing really different happened in Summer Bay when you compared it to Neighbours, but Summer Bay had the advantage of copious beach-clad teens prancing across the screen every few minutes. I'm pretty sure that most of Home and Away's fans were teenage boys, who could spend a pleasant twenty-five minutes ogling tanned teenage beauties without their mothers breathing down their necks (because all mums LOVED Home and Away, of course).

I watched Home and Away for about three years altogether, and in that time they had some pretty memorable stories. To give them their due, they tried to cover serious issues; the Fletchers were foster parents, for example, which was a very good thing to highlight (though I suspect the writers did this so that they could swap and change the characters whenever they felt like it). They also covered teenage pregnancy (with the father being a teacher, no less *gasp*), and death via incurable disease. All very worthy topics  (well, maybe not the teacher-fathers-teen's-baby thing)  I'm sure. The trouble is, all I really remember from Home and Away was that the teenagers thought everything was 'daggy', and that the school uniforms were bordering on indecent.

I think I mostly remember the ghosts though. Yup, Home and Away had two "Bobby in the shower" moments (I'm going to presume everyone remembers Dallas and the silly storyline of (dead) Bobby coming out of the shower). Funnily enough, one of Home and Away's ghosts was also called Bobby, though this one was female and, if I remember rightly, appeared in a dream, so was marginally better than the original Bobby sighting.

My favorite ghost was Ailsa Stewart though. As matriarch of the Stewart family, she was much missed when she left the show. So much that the producers brought her back for a few episodes. Unfortunately, her reappearance ended up being funny, which I suspect wasn't what the writers were aiming for. I don't think I'll ever forget Alf Stewart's face as he opened his fridge and came face to face with his deceased wife. What should have been moving  (Alf was slowly losing the plot), ended up being hilarious.

The last thing I want to mention about Australian soaps is something that always makes me smile. One of Australia's most common curse word is 'strewth', and we got to hear it being said countless times on Neighbours AND Home and Away. 'Strewth' is such a versatile curse word, and even better, the kids can say it without being told to wash out their mouths. 'Strewth' was one of the main curse words of my teenage years, and was probably heard more often in real life than it was on the TV. Today, kids are more likely to say the F-bomb, and that's rather sad. I'd much rather hear a 'strewth' any day. Of course, kids these days don't rely on soaps for their entertainment; they have games consoles, iPods and the internet to cover their entertainment needs.

Bring back the golden days of soap, I say. Especially the Australian ones.

There won't be a blog tomorrow, but seeing as I posted two on Monday, I don't think it matters much. Oh, and don't forget to leave a request for Friday's blog!

*is cheating today*

Yeah, I'm kind of cheating today...*shifty* I had a request
to do a blog on 'family', which was brilliant because I had an idea right away and wasn't worried about it at all. I had a great big ramble in my head that just needed to be typed up today.

Unfortunately, it is now past 1pm, and if I want to write for my NaNo today (while the house is quiet, that is), I need to crack on. So instead of the ramble about alternative families that I had planned, I'm posting something that I wrote before. More than three years ago, to be exact, so the ages in this little piece are a little bit off. The other details are still relevant however, so I figure I can still use it...*is double shifty*

The following is something that I wrote to introduce myself to an online writing group. It was an informal group that resided in the adult forum of HPANA. I'd been lurking in there for months before I plucked up the courage to actually post something, and I've never looked back since I did. I've made some of the best friends in the world with members from this group, and to this day we continue to support each other in matters not only concerning our writing, but in our everyday life too.  Sadly, the cafe closed a little while ago, but all of the best people from there are now members of my writing group, The Burrow. I love you guys!

Family Pie.

How do I begin? I guess the first thing I should do is introduce myself; hello, my name is Tara. I'm a 29 year old mother from Wales. I should really say that I am 30, seeing as my birthday is not so far away, but I like being 29 and the idea of being 30 scares me. But I wont go into that. Now, where was I? Ah yes, introductions. Well, as I say, my name is Tara. I guess you would call me the average woman. I have average brown hair which is of average length, average brown eyes which look out of an average-looking face. I am of average height for a female (or so they say. I dont feel average when I see six foot Amazonian goddesses passing me by on the street). The only part of me that isnt average is sadly my weight, which I fear will never be average again after the birth of my children. But I won't go into that.

Ah, children. That leads me nicely to my son and daughter. Since we got together so many years ago, my husband and I have managed to accrue one son- slightly mad - and one daughter, who I'm sure was put on this Earth to test me. Frequently. More detail? Okay then. Said son, one Master Dale Reuben, is 44 inches, light and made of sterner-stuff-than-he-looks. He celebrates his tenth birthday in a few short weeks, but I suspect he is tricking me and may have switched places with a wizened old man. How else does one equate a nine year old questioning me about the complexities of life and death? Then again, he may just be a normal nine year old, who knows?

Then there is my daughter. Miss Ellie Marie. Now there's a girl who needs no added zest. Four years old and already 42 inches high, I swear someone added a growth gene to her when I wasn't looking. Miss Ellie brings new meaning to the word 'petulant'. I am convinced that she has muddled up the meanings of 'smile' and 'pout'. Indeed, pouting is what she does best. Most children go through what I like to call 'The Why? Phase'. Miss Ellie has her own spin on that. She started the 'Why Should I? Phase' when she was two, and is still showing no signs of abandoning it, sweet child that she is.

Hmmm, I believe I have yet to mention The Husband.

When I was young and naive, I had visions of being swept off my feet by a brave Knight charging on a white steed. I would, of course, be a beautiful debutante, and he would be a member of the landed Gentry. Don't laugh now, I'm sure I wasn't the only girl who had dreams like this. Well my Knight, Sir Darren, is not really a horsy kind of person; the last time he charged something was on the credit card. But we won't go there. Darren Reuben will be 38 in just a few short days. I'm sure he conspired to have his son born in the same month as him. He sure did something; Master Dale is the carbon copy of his father, both in looks and character. I'm just hoping he doesn't inherit the women-should-be-chained-to-the-cooker-whilst-being-barefoot-and-pregnant trait. I kid you not.

Hmmm, it may appear that I am not happy with my lot. Au contraire. The mind and heart are curious things. The stocker that contains my emotions is rather full. While there is plenty of sarcasm, wryness and perhaps even bitchiness taking up a lot of shelf-space, there is ample enough room for love, passion and contentment. I even have a spare shelf left, just in case I have need for it.

I like to think we are a well-made steak and onion pie. Why? Well, I could try to sound impressively philosophical and say that Sir Darren is the meat of the family (he would just love that analogy); Master Dale is the gravy, swirling around quite happily; Miss Ellie is obviously the onion, she adds a certain bite to the mix. And I am the pastry, holding everything together. Heck, I would even chuck a bay leaf on top of us to complete the picture of perfection. Actually, scrap that. I never did see the point of bay leaves, I much prefer parsley and thyme. But I won't go into that.

Where was I? Oh yes, I was explaining that I would say that if I were being philosophical. But I'm not philosophical,  I just love steak and onion pies. Oh, and my family too, of course.



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