New house new blog

With the pressure of the second album syndrome hanging over me, I've thrown all caution to the wind and started a new blog.

All future ramblings can be found here Winnats Passages

Enjoy!

Knickers

It was the much anticipated Girl Guide Jumble Sale this weekend. We were feeling rather blasé about the whole affair, being old hands and everything. Both us adults were given bric-a-brac tables to sell (I'm sure in the hierarchy of jumble sales thats 'up there'). However, sorting of the jumble needed to be done the evening before.

We got stuck in to the mountain of bin bags, shopping bags and falling apart assortment of cardboard boxes in which people had deposited their preloved treasures. All was going well, the guides all opted to 'sort' the toys, which as far as I could tell was find toys (1 minute), put on table (30 seconds), establish if toy was play-worthy (10 minutes). Their other objective was to retrieve anything  of theirs parents had donated! 

It fell to us sensible adults to properly sort everything else. I attacked the bags with gusto, first I attempted to look at the clothes, fold nicely and place on the table in t-shirt/blouse/skirt/trouser piles (a librarian through and through). This was soon overtaken by the necessity of just one pile, making sure it didn't fall off the table. I reassured myself with thoughts of "oh well, it will all be a mess within five minutes of the doors opening."

With my enthusiasm, and decreased standards, I emptied the next bag of clothes onto the floor for rough sorting purposes. This I instantly regretted. I was greeted with a load of multicoloured undies, bras, pants and socks! Who would donate those?! A Guide, almost as horrified as me, said - people actually buy them as well! She, however, was very un-Guide like and wouldn't help me handle the said garments to pile onto the table. I found a small box which could be used for display purposes and shoved everything into that. Thank goodness for hand sanitizer and availability of counselling around OCD issues.

The bric-a-brac tables looked great. We grabbed some early bargains (staff perks) and the Scout hut looked all set for the onslaught of bargain hunters.

Our bargains included jodhpurs for Maisie, a jug, a nice woollen blanket, and a singing mexican hamster in need of more batteries. NO Knickers; none at all. And the best bit - £270 raised for the Guides.

Blogger exposed

In the light of recent lesbian bloggers turning out to be blokes living in Scotland, it's only fair to come clean. The blog by Chess the dog, was not written by the dog himself, but by a lesbian living in Derbyshire. Please accept my sincerest apologies for misleading you into believing the dog can type, I promise not to do it again. The dog can't type, his capabilities are fairly limited, but he can run really fast - unlike the lesbian living in Derbyshire, she can only manage a slow jog.

X rated movie

We treated ourselves with a trip to the cinema, X Men the chosen movie. We took Maisie and my niece along too. The movie received mixed reviews, Maisie, Alex and myself - LOVED it, Leanne said "well that's 90 minutes of my life I'll never get back". I don't think my pretending to read everyone's mind, and control metal objects all the way home made the situation any better

I actually wanted to see Kung Fu Panda 2, but Maisie is not so keen, she is a little intimidated by my enthusiasm. I cant see what her problem is Panda + Kung Fu + Jack Black = Win 

Chess says: X men pah, I can hop, I should be in that Kung Fu movie at least, Kung Fu Greyhound, now there's a movie title.

Chess the wonderdog and his adventure

Well it's the guest blogger you have all been waiting for, woof.

I hopped in the back of the car today, expecting the usual sniffs and fleeting glimpses of these damn squirrels. But no, it was completely different. Woof.

We end up in a place with all these giant machine things,  trundling along metal strips. Firstly, they were weird; secondly, they made a strange noise; and thirdly, the dumb humans that live with me were dragging me inside one. Whine.

On the thing [tram]. Not so bad. Getting lots of attention (well I do deserve it) - ooh cheese.

Ooh  - a dropped dolly mixture, woof.

What's this? We're moving. OK, I get it, just need to concentrate on standing up, and everything will be good. At least I can see out the window. Some child, obviously feeling the same trepidation, stands next to me and holds on to me. Well that's OK, I think he has more dolly mixtures. Woof.

We stop, we wait, we go…..backwards, help! Please let it end. We stop, I leap off, phew. Ooh cheese.

A great walk through the woods, loads of lovely sniffs, a few giant ants - the one they call Rachel appears to be as afraid of them as I was of the thing [tram]. I hang around the swings for a bit, then wander over to look over the bridge. Big mistake. More of them things, with loads of people on top of them. What to do, what to do. Do I run down and save them? 


Do I shout out run for your lives? I settled for chattering jaws and whining. Humans took the hint and we went for a bit more of a walk, then back to the car, then home, my bed - ooh cheese. Woof

P.S. Check out my new collar.

[We went to Crich Tramway Village - Home of the National Tramway Museum - ed]

Do you know how much fluid I had in my lung?

And I thought I was bad at conversation topics, many a chat has been about laundry or what's your favourite type of pen to write with. But the table next to ours at the pub on Friday night took the biscuit with a lung fluid conversation. 

It all started with going to the village hall to see a production of Alan Bennet's Talking Heads. We arrived (Leanne and my niece Alex and me) at the village hall - half an hour early to allow for pre-show drinks, and to get a good seat. Although previous experience of the village hall seats forewarned me that none of the seats are good as they all turn into instruments of torture after half an hour. We arrive, drive into a boss parking space (no other cars in the carpark) and sit in the car for a bit. Then another car arrives and they park opposite. Eventually we have the wit to check the notice on the door informing us of the cancellation due to ill-health. Off we all drive.

What to do now? The local was the obvious choice. The nearest pub had a sign saying they welcome customers old and new. Sounds like the place for us. The car park had a promising amount of cars in it - it must be open at least. In we troop. To a welcoming reception? Well, not exactly. More like when the stranger in a western walks into the saloon. All was quiet, all eyes were on us, and it was obvious we had just brought the average age of the clientele down significantly. At least the sign was half right, old customers we welcome.

Leanne and Alex ran the gauntlet of the other customers standing round the bar to get through to a free table. There was someone else making their way towards it, but he was easily out run. It was down to me to make the drink orders, which actually went fairly smoothly, helped I think by me recognising one of the customers. I wan't an outsider after all. 

Back to the table to enjoy the neighbouring tables' conversations. See above. Goodness knows what they thought of our Lady Gaga conversation and Leanne updating her Facebook status on one of them new fangled phones. At least the chairs were comfy.

Let's twist again

Well, it's that time of the year again, Chatsworth Horse Trials. This year we went on Saturday, less international stars, but more local talent and less people. This year we brought the dog which proved to be a major advantage when it came to meeting other dogs and their owners.

A big attraction was one of Maisie's friends little sister being involved with the Maypole dance - or pole dancing as she described it to her grandmother. Leanne hadn't witnessed this great tradition previously which I was surprised to learn. To summarise, Maypole dancing involves children clinging to a ribbon that's attached to a giant pole. Then they skip around the pole to some folk music (today's tune was the Floral Dance), occasionally weaving around each other to create a patten with the ribbons - a bit like giant macramé. The idea is not to run into each other, after a patten is made on the centre pole, or a web effect, the dancers have to do everything in reverse, which I guess prevents dizziness.

Then it was off to watch a French horse whisperer and his troupe of highly trained horses. He was actually amazing - he had moved in with the horses or something, and created a special bond with them, and they would do whatever he asked. Just like our dog (not). 

After lunch, the cross country was calling. I love it and hate it. I get all anxious when I see the size of the jumps, and the horse approaching at great speed. We held our breath, we oohed and clapped, and took a few photographs.