* 20th Feb 2010 - Saturday NEVER DO A FRIEND OF A MENOPAUSAL FRIEND A FAVOUR

20th Feb 2010 - Saturday

ANATOMY OF A MOVE – Second Blog ¸.•´¸.•*¨`*. ¸.•*¨*.¸¸.•*¨`*.¸.☆

Subtitled: NEVER DO A FRIEND OF A MENOPAUSAL FRIEND A FAVOUR

The ghost tenant was finally laid and I could now complete the long awaited move from a house in a village near Oxford to a first floor apartment on a farm near Malvern Wells. Minimal furniture and equipment had to be moved 4 counties and 66.2 miles from east of the Thames to west of the Severn.

The man with a van has to be mentioned now. I have a girlfriend, I’ll call her Loppie, (because I don’t want anyone to recognise her real name) who has an unemployed, (credit crunch victim) boyfriend, “Aitch,” who has access to borrowing a mate’s white van.

Loppie is menopausal, and besides a downy little moustache, has developed into a drama queen and control freak of note. None of us are perfect. (I won’t even tell you about the interesting little whisper of a beard I’ve developed unless I wax fortnightly: I guess it’s the feminine version of menopausal-male hair slippage – you know, when it slips down from a man’s scalp and curls up to nest in his ears and nostrils.) Yup! None of us are perfect. Long live Depilation, I say.

But I digress...

Before she became menopausal Loppie was a nice person who was very sweet. Nowadays she’s just tolerable in a social situation, but unbearable in any team project. One day, when I’ve recovered my sense of humour, I’ll tell you about Loppie and our local Christmas Pantomime in early December last year. She appointed herself Script re-writer, Censor of smutty jokes, Director, Props-manager, Prompt, Stage-manager, Wardrobe mistress and On-stage Narrator. It is only February; so still too soon to try and write about The Panto without profanity and blasphemy involved.


When she first heard that I was moving, and I hadn’t asked Aitch, she was quite snitty and muttered something about “Aitch could have helped, and goodness knows, he could do with a bit of income.”
But I hadn’t asked Aitch to get involved because I couldn’t stand the thought of Loppie appointing herself “Obersturmbanfuhrer” of The Move.

Long story short: After the original moving van was cancelled because of us having to lay the ghost of the departed tenant, I phoned Aitch, in secret, and told him that so long as he could keep Loppie away from The Move and if he thought that he could do the job, then he was hired. He told me that he sympathised with me about Loppie and said that he couldn’t afford to give “mates rates” and quoted £200 for himself, the van and some muscle in the form of one college student. I agreed.

This was £20 more than the original, large van would have cost, but you know my motto: so long as I can be of help, I will. I throttled the nasty, little voice that was gleefully chanting Oscar Wilde’s saying, “No good deed shall go unpunished.”

The chanting became louder when the phone rang at 10:00 p.m. on the night before The Move. It was Loppie asking if I minded if Aitch were a bit late on the morrow because he was still away for the weekend doing some DIY at his very elderly father’s house.

I’m a coward when it comes to Loppie.

I should have said, ”Absolutely, I mind. I’m not paying mate’s rates, and so I expect him to be professional and turn up at the agreed time of 8 a.m.”

What my chicken-heart said was, “Must he?”

Loppie replied, “Well, really, he’ll be short of sleep if he has to get up too early.”

My brain said, “Too bad. He should come home earlier then, shouldn’t he?”

But my yellow streak caused my mouth to open and close, and finally a reedy, “O.K., but not too late, please,” came out.

The chanting voice became shriller, “Wimp! Chicken! Cowardy-custard!”

Weakly I said, “Well, I have to be in Malvern by eleven, so that means I have to leave at nine, and I want to show him what he has to put in the van.”

Back came Loppie’s clear RSM tones, “Oh! It will be fine. Bye-bye”

Please repeat after me, “No good deed shall go unpunished.”

Aitch arrived at 9:30 the next morning. I was beside myself with anxiety. I had visions of not making it to Malvern in time to open the apartment up for another truck delivering an ebay dining room suite.

I rushed Aitch upstairs and showed him the two beech wardrobes that had to be dismantled and taken down as slat-packs. I pointed out the computer desk, two bookshelves and the sofa. Bring those, and my cripple-stool. (A large NHS hospital-type stool for people who have hip problems. It’s not pretty, but it is a thing of great beauty for me.)

I took care to point out two separate banks of clear plastic boxes. Bring those on the left, leave those on the right because they contain stuff for binning. I would be back in a week’s time to take their contents to the recycling centre.

Was all that clear to him?
“Yeah! Yeah! It’s not rocket-science.”

I rushed off to Malvern. I had noticed that the van wasn’t nearly as big as I thought that it ought to be. But then Aitch and Loppie had been round to my house at least a score of times over the years. I was comforted by the fact that Aitch knew what furniture there was and wouldn’t have accepted the job if he couldn’t do it.

Repeat after me, “No good deed shall go unpunished.”

When the van arrived at my new des-res and the off-loading commenced, I discovered that:
- The computer desk and the cripple-stool had not been brought. “Sorry, they just wouldn’t fit into the van.”
- Neither wardrobe had been brought. They had not even been dismantled because, “You know, once you dismantle something it never goes back together as strong as it was before. These need to be moved as they are”
- “There were a few boxes we just couldn’t get in.” That was because they brought ALL the packing boxes, including those that needed to go to the dump. The "few boxes" that just didn't fit in were only my food, groceries, crockery and kitchen-ware.

No apologies were made, no concern was shown for the fact that another van would have to be hired to complete Aitch’s good work. No shame shown for the fact that I live on a very small disability pension and the additional expenditure meant going without. I smart still.

A week later I hired the original large white van for £20 less than Aitch, and moved the rest of my belongings. They arrived on time. They took what they were supposed to. The wardrobes have been disassembled, moved and reassembled and are sturdy as anything.

I do, however, have an apartment full of boxes of junk that I now have to haul downstairs and to the car. NinjaStix and all. Then I have to find my way to the dump and drag the stuff out the boot over to the disposal areas.

And I spent a week, with the snow thick on the ground outside, eating cold foods off paper-plates.

I did a lot of repeating, “No good deed shall go unpunished, cos they come back to bite yer in the bum!” And I did a lot of wondering if juju dolls and long pins really work.

Want to know the final bit of the story? I have a lovely, but huge, solid oak shelving unit in the old garage. I have to sell it and get the garage cleared out.

Loppie heard about it and emailed to say, “Aitch could do you a favour and take those shelves off your hands. He knows a carpenter who’d like to use the oak. He'll take it away for free.”

Gee! Selfless of you, but no thanks! Not another good deed, please.

(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´

Have a superdelicious lovely day, my friend
The Bum-Bitten, Good deedless Ninja Gran xxx

Copyright vested with the author 2010

17th Feb 2010 Weds

ANATOMY OF A MOVE – First Blog
✫¨´`'*°☆.
( ~Sprinkles of delight over you ~ `*•.¸_¸ . ♫✶* ه
`♥♪♫... •∕̆̃̃❀
Hi,my friends,

The relocation from east of the Thames to west of the Severn is complete. It has taken 18 days to move no white goods, very little furniture, and 30 small-ish plastic boxes a distance of 66.2 miles across 4 county borders along A roads.

EXCORCISING THE GHOST
The move was due to have taken place on 30th and 31st January. That was delayed because we had a “ghost” tenant, in my new apartment, who had done a runner but left himself still connected to British Gas, bt phones, and Sky TV. Their technicians had to visit me in an empty apartment, in order to satisfy themselves that I wasn’t a trespasser with serious mental health issues and stalker deluxe overtones. No utilities could be activated in my name until then.

Because I wasn’t going to move in to a heatless house (the memories of the SofaNest days still burning bright) I cancelled the men with the van. A menopausal friend asked me to do a friend a favour, so I arranged the next van for the first date it was available – the 8th Feb. (That’s tomorrow’s blog.)

Fine. I travelled up to my new home area, stayed with friends overnight: really lovely people, lovely home. I spent a day in the unheated apartment waiting for the utilities engineers to arrive.

I’d forgotten to take a camping chair and ended up sitting on window sills in an icy apartment, or going downstairs to sit in the warm car with a broken music system. For a person whose disability involves a twisted pelvis, this involved discomfort on a major scale... or boredom on an even greater scale; but I belong to the suck-it-up and soldier-on era. So sucking and soldiering took place.

NEVER TRUST TECHNOLOGY

The bt man got lost. That wasn’t really his fault. This is a converted stables and barn, and is part of a farm which has been carved up. A couple of fields, a few hundred yards and a wood away, were made into a static Caravan Park for the summer tourists who come to tramp the nearby picturesque Malvern Hills. (And if only I could find the little lead between my pc and my camera I could show you the Malverns, all snow-covered, glinting in the morning winter sun – beyond picturesque!)

The Caravan Park is accessed from a different road approached from the north. We, in the farm house, stables and barns are approached using a tarred footpath from the west. It all used to be one road, but the middle part has been closed to the public. (One of those delightful Englishisms, no doubt - and one day I really must find out why.) If one punches my postcode into a GPS one will be directed to the Caravan Park.

Barring Semtex there is no way to get through the closed part of the road and a detour of 3 miles is necessary. The bt man needed to know this.

STAND ON A CHAIR, LEAN OUT OF THE WINDOW AND WAVE

Upstairs in the freezing apartment my cell phone rang. I had left it on a different windowsill to the one I was perched on. I applied the Ninjastix and hurried over. The phone promptly stopped ringing.
I tried to phone the number back. Got a “No signal” signal. I walked around the apartment until I found 2 bars and pressed redial. The bt man and I had enough of a conversation to establish who we were, and then the phone cut off.

The “No signal” signal again. Used the Ninjastix to best effect. Moved over to the kitchen and found 2 bars. Got as far as the fact that he was lost before we got “No signal” signalled. The bedroom? No bars. Back to the family room. No signal. In fact, no signal anywhere. Kept plying the Ninjastix until we found a whopping great 3 bars in the bathroom. Good, I needed a pee anyway, I could call seated, in chilly comfort – and Pooh! to the echoing, hollow-vault noises we all pretend not to know are made when calling from the bathroom.

Once ensconced I picked up the cell and saw no bars. Long story short; it turns out that this area is not well supplied with cell booster stations. Not only is the signal never more than 3 bars, but the signal is also playful. It pops up, then ducks down and disappears. It plays hide-and-seek. It never allows more than one sentence of clear speech and 2 more of, “Chost in the Grroble vans Drooble and then Shweep-shweep,” before it cuts off. I should be grateful though, because, scenic, friendly, lively Upton-upon-Severn, our nearest “town” has no signal, at all.... Just like my hillside home in Zimbabwe.

LEAN OVER THE EDGE OF THE BALCONY AND WAVE IT AROUND

Being a white African, I am not only a southern hemispherical living in the northern hemisphere, but also a Bronze-Worlder living in the Gold World. (I am being unduly influenced by the ongoing Vancouver Winter Olympics: naturally I mean that I’m a Third Worlder living in the First World. Now, if you didn’t get that, then please go make some coffee and have a stretch before coming back to your pc.)

Having my Ninja Granny “Insulting Idiots (Highly Commended) Rosette,” and a foot in each hemisphere, I often make blunt, rude, but always truthful, comparisons between aspects of life in each hemisphere. So no mobile signal in Upton and no signal at my Zimbabwe home.

In the Third World, in 2000, under Our Beloved Leader’s kind and just rule, I came under threat of death for being so misguided as to take an opposite view to Our Beloved Leader’s.

I was informed of my “death sentence” by the local Youth League leader and advised to pack up and leave my house in a secluded, wooded, hillside plot immediately, if not I was to be visited by the Youth Militia and beaten to death at 6 a.m. on the morrow.

I remember thinking that if I were a murderer I’d have a learned judge in a white wig and a black hankie deliver the news, but I had a spotty, precocious Youth Leader in dusty dreadlocks and a Bob Marley Dread-hood. Was nothing in my life ever going to be in conventional good taste? ... However, I digress.

After checking up with my down-the-hill neighbour, a bona-fide war veteran, who checked with a member of the District Party Caucus, my mind was put at rest that no “direct action” had been sanctioned by the Party Caucus.

My neighbour winked and said not to worry, she would have a word in the Youth League leader’s ear about how very ticked off the Party Caucus would be if he acted autonomously. (In the interests of accuracy what she actually said was, “Unanimously,” and she may have been right.)

I wrote letters to be given to my older children, and lovely funeral plans; just in case there was a Party Caucus Cook-up; then drove the 30km into Harare and told my coffee-morning girlfriends that I had decided not to evacuate into town.

There were protests, but I was adamant and the conversation turned to practicalities.
Did I have a First Aid Box? Yes.
Was my phone working? No, the copper wire in the overhead line had been stolen a few weeks previously and was waiting to be replaced (and so it would be - in six months.)
Did I have a cell phone? No.
Ah! Then I must borrow one. There were murmurs of agreement, and a concerned friend produced a spare phone and pushed it at me across the table.
I protested that I didn’t want one. The girls told me not to be so stupid.
I said that I couldn’t use it. She said it was very easy to use, Just press this button and then the numbers on the keypad and...
I said that wasn’t what I meant. I meant that there was only one place in my house where I could get a cell signal.
Someone else interrupted to say that then I had to leave the phone on the spot where the signal was.Then, at the first sign of the chanting, blood-crazed Youth Militia invading my plot I was to run to the phone and call the local private security company and ask them to send an armed response team for intruders.

I thought that was an excellent plan, but still wouldn’t take the phone. It was impractical. I had to speak loudly over the barrage of protests and explained that I didn’t bother with having a cell phone because the only signal on that remote, secluded, thickly wooded plot was to be found if I stood on the upstairs balcony, over the front door. And even then, the only signal was where I sat on the balcony railing, leaned out at full stretch and held my phone up high in the air.

There was silence from the girls, until one said, “But it’s better than nothing.”

There was more silence from my girlfriends as the rest of them thought that, actually, it was worse than nothing.

So, I leave the decision to you. Upton High Street or Zimbabwean hillside, is having a mobile with no phone signal better, or worse, than nothing?

Have a Superdelicious lovely day, my friends.
The Signal-less Survivor Ninja Gran xxx

Copyright with author 2010

7th Feb 2010 - I NEED TO SLEEP, SO CHOOSE A VEGETABLE

* Sun 7Th Feb 2010 - I NEED TO SLEEP, SO CHOOSE A VEGETABLE
✫¨´`'*°☆.
( ~Sprinkles of delight over you ~ `*•.¸_¸ . ♫✶* ه
`♥♪♫... •∕̆̃̃❀
Hi,my friends,

Have been very busy, so no blog for ages. Apologies, and you are quite right to nag: how else am I going to get off my derriere if you don't?

I shall be off-line from tomorrow (Monday) thru to Tuesday.
Or Wednesday if bt haven't done their thing with broadband.
Or Thursday if bt can't find the address which is tucked away down a single track road in a farming area.

The man with a van arrives tomorrow and I relocate to Worcestershire (feeling very Saucy!). Have noticed lots and lots of birds and squills in the trees around my first floor apartment, so will have a new Wildlife family around me.

Though I'm not too sure about the massive rat I saw loping across the stable-yard.

I might have to brush up on my Ninja-Gran skills and pay more attention to "Throwing the Ninja-stix like a javelin." .. In a push, that should keep Rattus at bay.

As I'm on the first floor, will have to find a way of setting up bird feeding trays instead of window boxes. But, as I don't have any existing window boxes, and it is a Grade II listed building (historic and no dastardly drill may abuse those ancient walls) it might take some time.

You understand that winter is NOT the optimum time of year to leave the sash wondows open to feed the birds.

I'm sure that you've been along the following road before, and that is: what housewarming presies do we want? My lovely friends will no doubt come calling bearing gifts, because that's the sort of people they are. And I'm funny about gifts. I hate the thought of two things:

a) people spending their hard-earned money on something, (like wine, chocolates, tea-towels or potted plants) I don't want or need, and

b) some of my less lovely friends will bring around recycled gifts. (You know, the sort of things that you don't want for yourself, but havent got the courage to put into a large black plastic bag. So you sieze upon an excuse to rewrap them and give them to someone else. We've all done it, no? Yes, I must be honest, even me. Though I live in the sweaty no-man's land of fear that I might unwittingly gift it back to the giver.)

Anyway, I've decided to ask for silk flowers. Hydrangeas, pink and blue, and dusty pink roses. Then I can make an arrangement to go in front of the little black pressed metal fireplace (for show only, no fires) in my new drawing room.

Or, or maybe, what do you think of this... I have no objections to serving guests off odd plates, so I could ask them for an old bone china dinner plate. Then I could have a plate that reminds me of them, and the plate could be decorative or practical. Hmmm. I like that idea. What do you think?

I NEED TO SLEEP, SO CHOOSE A VEGETABLE
I have been spending evenings browsing through online catalogues. Moving from
rented fully-furnished to rented unfurnished means that I've had to buy a bed. So decided I've had enough of resting all this generous, gorgeous, curvaceously bent body on a single bed and have upgraded to a Kingsize. And so, also need new bedding.

And being refined, well-educated and of gentle birth (though I think my mother would have disagreed with that last and maintained that there was nothing gentle about 57 hours of labour, but anyhoo..)however being exiled from my homeland, and now slightly disabled, means that I am in straightened circumstances. So have had to look to the budget, which means the Argos and Tesco catalogues.

It used to be pale blue, but now I don't know. I have been in a lather of indecision over bedding. Lilac? No, maybe Blueberry? Oh! Wait - have you seen Raspberry? That's nice? Oooh! Look at that Cherry! My head is revolving like a carousel around the Fresh Produce section: Aubergine, Strawberry, Blackcurrant, Sage, Lemon, Chilli, Saffron, Tomato.

Upon which vegetable do I feel like laying me down to sleep?

Have a simply superdelicious lovely day, my friends. xxx

* 31st Jan 2010 THE MAN OF MY DREAMS WON'T COME BACK

* Sun 31st Jan 2010
☆•.¸¸THE MAN OF MY DREAMS WONT COME BACK¸.♥´´¯`•.¸¸.☆•.¸¸.☆

UPDATE
The house move has been delayed until the 8th Feb. That's because the tenant who was in the apartment before me did a runner and had not bothered to cancel his phone, heating, satellite and broadband providers.

No provider will provide to me unless the previous tenant cancels his agreements... OR, I take out longer-than-usual contracts (What a scam)and be physically present at the empty apartment when their servicemen come to disconnect the previous tenant and connect me...and I tell you this for free: the Custy Ninja Granny is jollywell NOT taking up residence in an apartment until the heating has been switched on.
I learned my lesson well from the SofaNest days in The Great 2010 Cold Snap. No heating twice in one winter? No, never, ever. Not on your Nellie.
(I must remember to Google that saying. Who was Nellie? Is Nellie another name for a bottom? How did that come about? Does anyone know? Why do I want to know anyway?)

THE GOLDEN ROSETTE FOR MOP WORK
Saturday the 30th January was an interesting day. (That's how I've started referring to days that are just plain bloody, horrible, chaotic and everything kicks off.)

It started early in the morning when I went through to the kitchen to prepare the first caffiene injection. The kitchen faces out on to the communal parking area for our quiet little close. The area is lit by an orange street lamp.
Yes, I can hear you saying, that's interesting, but not really THAT interesting.

Well, it is precisely because that light is on, shining into my kitchen, that the following "interesting" chain of events took place, so stop thinking your own thoughts, and pay attention to mine - before I'm forced to get busy with the Ninja-Stix.

Hard to admit, but sometimes I am not utterly gorgeous first thing in the morning. Just sometimes. Not often. Hardly ever. Utterly gorgeous first thing in the morning, before that first caffeine injection.

I might, for instance, have on an old and holy pair of PJs on.(Not "Holey" but "Holy" as in, "Good Heavens Above. Bless me! Her bottom's peeking though that rip in the pant's seam? Good Lord!)

My hair might not be sleek and glamourous. It might just be sticking up at every angle known to Archimedes. I might be yawning without putting a hand over my mouth, and I might be scratching my tummy and having a stretch.

I might want the pleasure of standing there, relaxed and half-awake, before I've fully come to, with my hair like Animals, scratching away. (I know, good thing I'm not a man is what you're thinking, otherwise the neighbours would be treated to the sight of me standing there, scratching my nuts.)

However, I might not want to switch on the kitchen light and have my neighbours see me like that. This is where the orange street light comes in very handy.

So, I walked in to the kitchen by the orange glow of the street lamp and got busy with the kettle. It took a little while for it to sink in that as I walked the two steps from the kettle to the sink my slippers made a noise.
Left sliiper "Splish!"
"Stonk" .. That's just my walking stick, and we will ignore it from now on.
Right slipper "Splosh!."
I stopped. Silence!
I spun around, "Sloosh!"
I wiggled my right foot around, "Sloshy-sploshles!"
No longer feeling so considerate towards my neighbours, I moved quickly over to the kitchen light, "Splish! Splosh! Splish!"
In bright kitchen light I could see the kitchen floor.
"Oh! Sh*t!"
It was a lake.

The problem with the pressure in the new, wider pipes and their old Nemesis, the smaller junction with the washing machine pipe, had happened again. The joint had popped another leak.

I decided just to make coffee, dry my feet and ignore the lake for another 10 minutes. After all, Pa'rick the Plumber, man of my dreams, 4'9", bald, owl-eyed and bow-legged would not be answering any phone calls until 11 a.m. on a Saturday. (Friday nights is, apparently, his night "off" and is spent getting hammered with his mates at some far-flung hostelry. I had been warned about this when he casually handed over his business card and said, enticingly, "Call me anytime, except Friday nights etc.etc....)

(It is now Monday, and the man of my dreams has yet to appear. He has been phoning, give him his due.He phones every time he can't make our date. He does care. It's just that he's so very busy, but he always tells me that it really matters to him. )

MOP WORK - GOLDEN MOP AWARD

After I had drunk that first cup of coffee, I put on my wellies and decided on a career change. I had previously been going for the "Crutchwork, Certificated Member" but realised that, at the moment, I would get more practical experience at "Mop Work".

The course has been difficult, with extra points to be awarded for: sopping up behind the fridge but managing to leave the Junk mail and Council circulars that-have-fallen-down-there in place; getting under the veg rack whilst not bruising the potatos; drying under the washing machine and finding all the odd socks that have hidden under there.

I have been practising for the last four days on the kitchen floor, and can now report that Ninja-Gran has just been awarded the GOLDEN MOP FOR SUPERIOR MOP-WORK.

I am so proud. I can't wait for Pa'rick to come and fix the leak. Once he's finished fixing it, I shall introduce him to the Golden Mop... Intimately.

Have a superlovely delicious day, my friends
xxx The damp, very crusty, Ninja-Granny

PS A great bed-time read. If you are ever lost for something soporific to read, I refer you to this link. (The only read better than this is Churchill's ~Volume II of his War Memoirs. I have never, ever got past page 3... thus making it my personal very best bed-time book.)
http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/Trisecting_an_angle.html