And now for something completely different

Holly in snow
Originally uploaded by victoriaros56

Right its fingers crossed this will work (how I wish I had my friend Jim, fantastic guy and technical genius, here to sort this out) Hopefully what you are now seeing is a picture of beautiful dog Holly (as referred to in many previous posts) stood in the snow last winter (she looks very cute in this photo). If this is indeed what you are seeing then this blog could become a lot more intresting over the next couple of months (I'm thinking giant pumpkins, I'm thinking photos of parties, other peoples children etc).

Tonights main dilemmas are as follows, tomorrow do I go to the bunkest and take Holly or do I risk letting her destroy the house and go to Megan's BBQ? Sam is coming over tonight to do some serious David Tennant/Dr Who drooling whilst consuming lots of wotsits and catching up on her share of dog hugging. T'will be brilliant to see her, I'm also hoping she's caught the knitting bug off Nicola (update: Jacob's hat being finished I have started on the cardigan, and have almost nearly finished the second monster scarf as well, RESULT!)

The sunday I've got to catch up with the bees (having been quite neglectful of late) and definitely attempt some weeding. I'm also fed up of only having one wall of my room finished so will try & get a bit more of that done. The other major thing I simply must do is try and get hold of some of the new Strawberry & cream fondant fancies. I have noticed with some relish that quite a high percentage of my arty friends seem to share my compulsion towards these sticky treats, i there something in the colouring that affects the creative part of your brain? I think possibly not, but its an interesting theory.

Next weekend is the I knit london thing (which alas I can no longer go to) but I will be attempt to pack in some quality Vikki, Kip and Hugh time (mental note to self must find battery thing so can take photo and upload onto here). Right am going to do a bit more workee & then it home time for me, un bon weekend everyone :-)

Our enchanted garden

I went down to the bottom of the garden last night to check on the pumpkins progress, I only got half of the way down there when I could see them, they are huge! We seem to have three at the moment but with plenty more flowers still there (so hopefully we will get a few more). After the disaster of last year (lovely looking plants, but no yield) we decided to give a giant variety a go, and I must say they are very impressive. I am already planning Halloween treats, pumpkin pie and honeyed seeds but there is a while to go before that. Today is my first day looking after the dogs and friends, I went round to get feeding instructions last night and Trish & Malc were just beginning to pack and couldn't find anything (their ferry left at 4 this morning). When I went round this morning however calm was restored. Sam is coming round on Friday night to watch videos with us all and have her share of dog cuddling so that should be really good :-)

No violin last night as Robin is on his hols so I stayed at home and knitted for my life, I managed to finish Jacob's (baby Peters) hat and give it a rather large pom pom on the top. I'm putting it in the post this afternoon after I've shown it to the knitting group (I'm adding the pattern to our pattern library). I'm hoping Michelle will send me a photo of him wearing it which I can put up here. The knitting group are already thinking about Christmas knits, we have a large chart documenting what everyone has promised to knit before then (in pictorial form) and the first person to finish gets a mystery prize (it will be something from the garden in all probability). I've got to seriously consider what it is possible I can knit before then (this means making a Christmas list in August, but if you could see the weather here, grey and overcast, you would assume it was at least October, so autumnal is it).

Yesterday I forwent my lunchtime stroll and spent the whole hour surfing the net. I tried to become a seller on Etsy (this didn't work as you need a credit card, might have to get one of these just for this). Despite this major setback I did manage to find some brilliant stuff including dolls made from entirely natural materials which are here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5937868, lovely mosses in jars which can be found here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5323112&show_panel=true and the always fabulous illustrations by Rima which are on paper here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5195715 and ceramics here http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=14327144. Its just really brilliant that there are so many talented people out there.

Duty calls

Morning! I was summoned over to Trish & Malcs last night as they have an assignment for me, I will be looking after the chickens & cat for 2 weeks and sleeping over with the dogs for 2 nights when they go back to France (on Thursday). In exchange for this they are bringing me back citrus trees to add to the garden/work room when my Olive is currently living. I find this a very exciting prospect as my gardening has been somewhat neglected of late with all the crafty stuff I've been up to. I finished the necklace for my mum last night, finished Jacob's hat (he's still in intensive care but doing well, awww) but have decided it does really need a bobble, so will try & do that tonight. I've started my purple version of the scarf I finished the other night (its really nice, I will try to post a picture when its done but I haven't worked out how to put pictures on posts yet, I have however added a photo of me knitting, which is progress). I've also been making quite a few cards with pressed flowers (mostly my own orchids) on them and I'm hoping I can sell these in packs once I've got enough.

Suzi lent me a fantastic softies book yesterday with all sorts of toys and pincushions & stuff in it. There is a brilliant soft tree which I thought I might attempt and the pin cushion cupcakes gave me the idea to try fondant fancy pin cushions (I'm still trying to work out the details on this one, but fondant fancies have always been a bit fascinating for me, we never got them at home but they appeared magically on a silver tray at Nannas). Suzi is at this moment waiting for news of whether she has been able to buy a house near us, I've got everything crossed as this can only be a good thing. Ryan has also lent me a cd of Scottish poems set to music by Scottish bands (Idlewild are obviously on there) so I can't wait to get home & put this one (although this does mean removing the Mawkin:Causely album 'Cold Ruin' that has been stuck to my Cd player since I acquired it at the weekend).

Finally I had a rather swift cup of tea with my old friend David. We actually started out talking about lawnmowers (he needs to buy one and I urged him towards a model with a grass box, he will one day thank me for this foresight). But we ended up just talking about general stuff. There does seem to be a definite move by people away from our office at the moment towards stuff they have always wanted to do, I'm trying to get enough stuff together to have a stall at our next local craft fair & maybe even approach our local 'local' shop about selling some of it (when we were in Stroud there was a fantastic one of these called 'made in Stroud' if any of you live near I would urge you to go and for those of you that don't here's the website http://www.madeinstroud.org/ but for your own sake do leave all major credit cards at home :-) Right back to work.

Towersey festival

So three guesses how I spent my bank holiday? Yes the only real way you can properly spend the August Bank Holiday, the Towersey folk festival. We were commuting to it this year having had one too many experiences of camping in very muddy fields already this year, and that strategy seemed to work as it stayed dry! Musical highlights included the amazing Blowzabella (a seven piece, french tune playing dance band with a hurdy gurdy player called Gregory Jolliver) who sound like velvet, all luscious harmonies that really, really make you want to dance (I'd never seen them before, and this was a mistake, if you get the chance to go and see them, do, they are amazing). Uncle Saul's band, Faustus, played a blinding set, (although Uncle Saul himself seemed to be three sheets to the wind for most of the weekend), Bellowhead were as always great (but they broke the dance floor, again), as were Salsa Celtica and most brilliant of all (but I may be biased :-) were Mawkin:Causey (I think I have gone on about the wonderfulness of Jamie Delarre on this blog before (he is very nearly perfect, I believe) but his band are very much worth a listen (even if like Mel my flatmate you disagree that the man is a fox...))

Stone Monkey rapper were alright (having one major advantage over Mabel the rapper side in that they get to tumble, which is always impressive) and they wore stripy socks, Pig Dyke Molly were there also, as were a northwest side who's name I forget and Towersey Morris men (a Cotswold side). Next weekend it's Wallingford and I had completely forgotten. The guy who runs the festival phoned me up a while ago to ask how we run our friends scheme as they are thinking of doing something similar. The festival itself seems to be very much stripped down this year with only a couple of headline concerts for which you buy tickets & the rest of its free. A friend of mine is having a housewarming on the Saturday and I have to admit to being slightly festivalled out but I'll see how I feel a bit nearer the time (I've just realised its Tuesday, not Monday, this bank holiday is playing havoc with my brain).

And speaking of Havoc, Fi and I will be making our official return to Cry Havoc (the best cotswold side in the world) on Thursday 4th September after our summer off to sit violin exams (me), well it was theory but I didn't quite get round to it. and have a baby, get married and turn 40 (Fi). I have missed the havocs muchly so it will be good to get back inside the Botley WI and dance to some tunes again.

I realise this post has been mostly folky so a quick update on the knitting. I have nearly finished the hat for baby Jacob and should be sending that ASAP with a blanket & Cardigan to follow as soon as I can catch breath. I've also rather smugly completed one of the scarves for my Christmas challange (how many knitted garments can my knitting group produce? We will all be making pledges on Thursday) and should be wrapping that up tonight. Along with sending thank you notes for my Birthday things and writing a few other letters to relatives etc. Well that's the plan. Thanks for all the emails about Witchcat, she is looking a bit less scabby and runs towards me when she sees the tablet bottle (mostly because she knows she will get cheese) but she is still very much hating being washed (one of the funniest moments from Towersey was when Fi exclaimed "we really should be making a move now Nick and you have got work tomorrow and I'm sure you would like to wash the cat while its still light". Indeed :-)

funny ol' world

Sometimes the strangest things happen almost without any warning. I got back into the office today after my weekend away and several things had happened almost without any warning at all. The first thing is I am definitely ill. After feeling slightly ropey (and taking a day off work yesterday) I returned today feeling even worse. The second is that witchcat seems to have somehow made herself ill. When I got back on Monday she had her eye partially closed & was limping. The limp we later found out was just for effect (the vet checked both legs and nothing, not even a scratch on either of them) what we thought was a wound above her eye was (they think) was a reaction to grasses. When asked which grasses, they didn't know (fifty quid for a consultation and they didn't even really know what was wrong, grrrrr). So for the next 10 days Mabel will be bathed noon & night with some strange liquid and pink tablets will be proffered to her (mostly inset in cheese as she hasn't worked this out yet...). The third (and possibly most radical of all things) was that this morning I heard he who shalt not reply to emails speaking openly about the fact he had been ATTENDING A FOLK FESTIVAL this weekend. This I hope heralds a new dawn of him finding me intensely intriguing in a raggle taggle gypsy, oh how wonderful you are type way (bear with me on this one okay?).

Tonight I am going to do all the things that I have been putting off for ages. So I will sew in all the ends on my finished scarves, I will attempt to do more on the blanket of doom/finish the hats for Michelle's baby who was born on Friday, congratulations to her & Jez), I will tidy my room and finally I will clean out the BBQ that we had nearly three weeks ago and rid it of grime & muck. Its sounds like a lot doesn't it? But because of the feeling mincy I'm not going to violin so I have a bit more time (I got two more birthday cards today, a bee playing the violin and a bee knitting, how well my friends know me) and I will report on my progress tomorrow which will be the last day in the office before Towersey. Oh I forgot to mention, a bit of late news, didn't get either of the two senior jobs (am actually quite relieved) so I'm staying in this department :-)

What a beautiful day!

The title of this post is not alas a reference to the weather but a recollection of the glorious (if somewhat damp) weekend I have just spent in a field near Exeter. The bands were all great but special awards for aceness go to three daft monkeys for continuing greatness, Idlewild for being my favourite band ever (still can't believe I cried upon seeing them) and the Levellers for a great acoustic set on the Friday and coming up with the idea in the first place.

I set off for Auntie Sandys house on Thursday night after sharing the last supper with Mel (she was doing pie and needed some mash so we dug up the potatoes we'd planted and eurika there were potatoes :-) I was actually really scared that there was going to be a great big heap of nothingness but fortunately I was proved wrong. Off to Oxford on the quick bus and a whole evening of the mighty Boosh, red wine and musings on how easy it would actually be to knit a three person jumper a la old Greg, I think it would be pretty easy so when I've got some knitting time I may try (and then wrestle Fi into it so we can be the folk band in a jumper).

We set of for Beautiful Days early on the Friday Morning it was a fairly uneventful journey except for the fact that we passed Stonehenge, which is always nice to see. We met Fi & Nick at a Tescos and travelled in transit to the site. There was lots of putting up of tents and a bit of a rush to get down to the Levellers Acoustic but we made it and enjoyed the sunshine and the beer (its called Beautiful Daze and is made by the otter brewery especially for the festival) for the rest of the day (unfortunately the weather was not the sign of things to come). We walked up to the Bimble inn which this year had a clothes stall with it (from which I obtained the most amazing vintage velvet Jacket, a birthday pressie from Auntie Sandy, its lovely) and then back to the big top for Seth Lakeman. He was the last person of the night I saw having gone to bed quite early, still being quite tired from the week, but he was pretty good. Everyone else stayed up to watch Squeeze and I was later informed that Seth had frequented the Tiny Tea Tent earlier on in the day (we didn't manage to get there during the festival at all because of the mud). My sources however report that Seth was drinking tea with milk, they aren't sure about sugar and had no cake, clearly there is something quite wrong with this man...

Saturday bright and early I feel great having regained sleep and having no hangover, but alas its straight into the nearest van as its raining like its never rained ever before, we look out of the van wistfully at the fields, it keeps raining. We open the first beer of the day. Finally we decide enough is enough, its not going to stop raining we need to make a run for it. Layers on & out of the van only to catch Turin Breaks beige-ing it up like never before. Consolation comes however in the form of the Excellent Salsa Celtica (do they Samba round their houses one wonders?) and we return happy but drenched to the campsite.

Sunday, or, as I like to call it Idlewild day was upon us. I wake up in an incredible mood, just rally happy, the weather starts off dryish but by midday its raining again. All the rest of the gang are stragely not bothered by Idlewild's scotiish awesomeness so I trek through feet of Mud to reach the front on my own. Our friend Chris who is a prof photographer spots me at the front but as soon as Idlewild come on I start crying, human emotions are funny things. Idlewild are as usual brilliant and I vow to get one of their t-shirts I lent to the ex back. Then after Idlewild the long long wait till the Levellers, a wait comprised of hours and mud and more rain. When the Levs do play we get no fireworks cause of the rain and we are soaking. Back to the tent and then sleep and my feet were literally freezing and that's how I think I got this cold. One of these days I will go to a Beautiful Days that has nice weather. Still it was a great weekend and this weekend its Towersey, yey!

Back to earth till tomorrow

I had the most wonderful birthday I could have imagined, everything was great and all is now right with the world. As planned we went to see the chickens, and a new plan has now been hatched (pun half intended). The lady who keeps the Aracanas said that we need to hatch the eggs ourselves as only 4 out of every batch of 12 will be girls. The breeders only now deal in eggs as they do not want to be stuck with 8 male birds. The question is readers would I be able to find 8 male birds homes and if not would I be able to bring myself to do what was necessary? I somehow think after seeing them hatched, not. But the plan in the short term is to get some ex-battery hens and then review the situation. We got given a blue egg to take home and this has just strengthened my resolve to have Aracanas although the breeder had lots of lovely birds, red leghorns which were huge and came up to my knees and black silkies who looked a bit mad...

After that we went onto stroud for a coffee and cake (stopping off at uncle Julian's for a cup of tea on the way, sadly he wasn't there but we got all the news from Hege) and then to Cirencester for lunch and a spot of shopping. Most of my presents this year seemed to have a chicken/bee/craft theme. I got a fabulous egg cabinet which looks like a house to keep my eggs in, a chicken egg cup and matching bowl to have breakfast with, a very pretty stained glass bee from Kip, a kit to make biodegradable plant pots and a massive lavender bush. To add to the excitement my Duotone CD showed up (its brilliant but Kip seemed to think it was a bit morbid (such is the nature of the cello I guess)). On Sunday night Kip & I actually managed to make it down to the half moon on Sunday evening to take part in the session (I never usually go because its on a Sunday night and I've got work on the Monday, and it scares me a bit), the musicians got free beer and the tunes got faster & faster (I was really suprised that I could keep up), it was great fun and I may well take a Monday off in the next couple of months so I can go.

Finally more music news, this weekend is the festival Beautiful Days which is taking place somewhere in Devon (don't ask me where, I'm not driving), my favourite band of all time Idlewild will be playing as well as old favourites the Levellers, but the best bits are the things round the outside like the tiny tea tent (it is exactly what it says it is), the Bimble Inn (tent magically transported from the 60's with cups made from corn starch) and the amazing pussy parlure which is a big Bedouin tent which has a disco till the wee early hours. Last year the weather was terrible so Auntie Sandy & I danced the night away in there and it was awesome! Hopefully will have found my charger by them so can post some photos but at the moment I'm just really excited!

T'internet

It really is a wonderful thing. I had to stay behind at work yesterday as one of my friends was coming round for coffee but she didn't finish till 5, so I had a bit of time to surf. There is so much stuff out there. My favourite place at the moment is Etsy which I was put onto a a possible place to sell some of my stuff (a lot of the stuff on there at the moment is American, so it seems like the perfect time to get started before everyone else in the UK catches on :-). Instead of merely researching however I got drawn into purchasing a painting of a fox with a cup of tea (obviously when the chickens arrive foxes become public enemy number one but at the moment I just think they are fab). Checked out this website recommended by Suzi http://theblackapple.typepad.com/ and checked up on the progress of one of my favourite alternative type bands the Ralfe band (new album out in September, winter doesn't seem too bad after all).

Knitting yesterday lunchtime was a great success we had two new people join the group and they are really getting into it. I'm going to be sat on the train for quite a while (2hrs tonight) so I thought I might take my skinny scarf with me and maybe get it finished. I'm also taking my new book 'A world without bees' so it should be quite an enjoyable journey. My mum and Kip are coming back down to Oxford with me to celebrate my birthday on Monday. The chicken people have yet to get back to me about going to visit but I'm going to give them one last try today. Apparently the black & red Arucanas are so rare you can't get them outside of America (if I can't get a spinning wheel imported I doubt very much I can smuggle poultry across the border :-).

Should do some serious gardening when I get back, we are being slowly invaded by baby spider plants and the pumpkins are tumbling over into next doors garden (might have to go and retrieve them, although the bottom of the garden looks particularly magical at the moment and next door the other way have got a fairy ring :-). The next update to this will hopefully be Wednesday when I'm back to work (we are looking at getting the Internet at home but at the moment the priority is making the sun room water tight and setting up a little workspace in the shed). Hope you all have a good weekend.

Marrow & Jammin

Yesterday was another horrible day at work but was more than compensated for yesterday evening. Mel had taken her giant marrow from the plant and so last night we had a marrow feast. We cooked up a bolognaise sauce using some left over sausages from the BBQ, a tin of chopped tomatoes, the inside of the marrow and some cheese (It doesn't sound very exciting as I list it now, but believe me it was great!). We cut the marrow in half longways, scooping out the seeds (for next year) and some of the flesh which was added to the bolognaise, and baked each half with some olive oil in the oven skin side up. We then turned over the marrow and filled each half with bolognaise, sprinkled cheese on top and baked for a little longer. It was lovely, the marrow had a sort of nutty sweetness to it. I've had stuffed marrow before and I have to say the first marrow didn't really taste of much but this one was really nice. The next vegetable that is ready for harvesting is the 1 Swiss chard that made it through, but I haven't got a clue what to do with it (if anyone has a secret Swiss chard recipe up their sleeves now is you chance to unleash it, if not I guess I'll have to turn to google...)

After we had feasted upon miles or marrow I set off into the garden to gather redcurrants. I think I may have caught them just in time as it looked like they were starting to go over their best. I stripped quite a few bushes of them and made a jam, which I then strained to become redcurrant jelly. I got 7 jars of clear set jelly which is excellent planning as my special Christmas leftovers pie requires redcurrant jelly in its gravy (as well a a great many other nice things). If I remember when its a bit closer to the C word I'll post the recipe as its a great one to share.

All I seem to have talked about in this post is food but there is a great deal of other stuff going on at Rose H.Q I am knitting like the fury. I finished the stained glass window scarf and only have one ball left of that yarn from which I intend to make a skinny version to be given away at the festive period, I'm also starting to make a little shreddies hat for Michelle's baby (you basically knit in a straight line & fold over so said child/adult resembles a kosak gone wrong. I knitted my uncle Martin, who resembles Rubius Hagrid one of these last year and I have to say he carried it off with style & class!) With Michelle's little one however I'm not sure how big to make it so will have to research that. I'm also finishing off something for David (an old friend from uni) and to top it all I went into Mason's for some extra yarn and once again fell victim to their bargain bucket, I am now the proud owner of some purple mohair (its really gorgeous sort of purple, pink & black). I'm going to have to think about designs for that really carefully as mohair doesn't take well to being ripped back. Croperdy (a folk festival run by 60's folk stars Fairport Convention) starts today, but alas I'm not going, hope the weather improves for those that are though.

Apologies & summer coming

First of all sorry for not posting yesterday, it is the first day since I've had this blog that I haven't posted anything, the main reason was that I was stupidly busy with meetings but a contributing factor was that I was just a bit down and possibly wouldn't have had anything that cheerful to write. Today however is another day, the sun is out & its really warm outside so hopefully we are back on track.

Yesterday afternoon I had an interview for the two senior jobs on our floor. I decided in the end that I really should go for them mostly for the experience of being interviewed, I don't quite know what I will do if I get offered one but we'll see. Today I've got the much nicer job of phoning the chicken breeder that my hens are coming from to try and arrange a time to go and see their mum's on my birthday. Sadly the red house is out, due to the fact you have to go through London to get to it (and my mum wasn't too keen on doing that), so on my birthday instead we shall be chicken visiting and having lunch in Cirencester at a lovely pub or cafe (I'm aiming to get my camera working for then (I've 'misplaced' a crucial component of the charger, oops)) as I realise this blog at the mo is very short on photos .

On the Rose home front our pumpkin is now huge thanks to all the rain and the redcurrants are ready and glistening with jucyness. The plan is to Jam them tomorrow night after going out to coffee with Nicola (I made the earings the other night but I'm still missing several cards & some rum truffles. I might try & do the jam in time but then I've got to wrap everything). I also have to make sure that I remeber to take clothes, as these aren't on any list, nor in my brain at present.

I forgot to mention in my post at the weekend that Fi gave a short 'this is how you drop spin' demonstation at the BBQ on Saturday. What knitters there were stood in absolute awe. I've had a go but I'm really rubbish at it. I'm really glad I know someone who knows how its done as the instructions told you to do it a completely different way and she dismantled and rebuilt the spindle before we started. I am determined to master this and I might try and have another go tonight. There were three colours of yarn that came in the kit, black, white and a very lovely purple one (I have a bit of a purple obsession), which I won't be spinning till I'm really good.

celebrations and their subsequent hangovers

So this weekend was the great celebration for my Birthday, in the end about six people turned up but that meant that we had a royal BBQ feast as there was loads of food (and more importantly wine & beer) to go round. Fi & Alex made a guest appearance as did Em & Rich (I got a fabulous lace collar which Emma made for me, she made me open it as its not actually my birthday till next Monday, and a very large book entitled 'craft' which seems to be the authority on the subject, although it might be after Christmas before I get to make anything except Christmas presents). Yesterday I recovered from the small alcohol related illness that I seemed to be suffering from, chilled out on the sofa whilst enjoying an entire packet if prawn crackers and watching a film about Beatrix Potter. This was not the plan, in any sense of the word. So tonight I predict that I shall be running around like a maniac, trying to make earrings, wrap presents and make redcurrant jelly & chocolate truffles for seeing the cousins this weekend. Should have done some of it yesterday I hear you cry, I know but it doesn't seem I'll ever learn!

I haven't had a reply from the chicken lady so it looks like I might have to phone her to go visit the chickens, unexpectedly however I did get a reply from the V&A (we went there before gong to do the presentation at the Natural History Museum and sat in the gardens drinking tea, they had the most beautiful Hydrangeas (usually I'm not a fan but these were such gorgeous bright colours and the flowers were so big, so I decided to be a pain & email to see which variety they were)). This was Bob from the V&A's reply
These Hydrangeas have a bluing agent added to the water to keep them blue as the soil in London is not acidic enough. The file on the garden is not at hand at the moment and I cannot be absolutely sure of the type. I will let you know soonest.
That is service is it not? I was hoping to be able to get hold of one of these beautiful plants but I think adding bluing agent to the water may be too much faff (its taking me an hour to water the garden at present, but most of that is tending to the pumpkins and squash which are just taking over!)

I didn't get to go and see the bees this weekend as it was raining quite hard on Sat morning (when we were supposed to go & bees don't like rain). Viginia couldn't make it on Sat afternoon (and neither could I because of the BBQ which thank goodness went ahead) and Sunday morning it rained some more. I hope they are okay. Virginia united two swarms last week into what I think may be my second swarm (I'm going to have to buy a second hive if this indeed is the case). Over the weekend I finally managed to get hold of 'a world without bees' from our loca & very good bookshop, Mostly Books, which is a book that has been getting a lot of coverage in the media as it points out the devastating effects we can expect should bees be wiped out (in short, we wouldn't be able to survive). The guy in the bookshop very seriously informed me that this book would make me want to keep bees. Ahh my dear man the damage is already done :-)

The horror, the horror

The title of this post is a quote from Joseph Conrad's heart of darkness was adopted as a bit of a catchphrase in my uni days for anything that goes wrong. In this instance the horror referred to is men, I think, this time in general, although certain individuals will get special recognition (I realise this very little to do with the kind of stuff I usually talk about on this blog but everyone needs a rant sometimes, and there is no time like the present).

I sent a chaser email out yesterday to everyone who hadn't replied to the original one, as expected, I got a lot of replies apologising for not getting back to me etc, in fact every single person on that email got back to me bar one (have a guess). Oh yes, it would see that writing an email is a good deal too much trouble for 1 male. Well I give up. He has always been very nice to me and has a very good reputation for being, well nice, yet he didn't even have the basic good manners to reply! I was, I confess, a little upset and shall be making no more overture of friendship or anything else in future. Maybe my standards are too high but all I want is someone nice, who I get on with, who likes me back and is not tempted to go bounding off after the next girl he sees (I seem to have had a rash of these type of late who think its perfectly acceptable to 'keep their options open' when they are going out with you, which is just wrong!)

I think sleeping beauty had it right on this one, do a bit of spinning, go to sleep for a bit and when you wake up prince charming is there at your bedside. (Incidentally I have been looking more & more seriously at spinning wheels over the past few months). Its a pity sometimes that life does not reflect the fairy tales :-).