If I didn't have proof....

I'd never believe my eyes... Phil, ironing his shirts for work. You can tell that his mum is away and I've only just come back from a mammoth journey to Liverpool....

A Poll

For all you arty dramaery people out there:
Would you rather see Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet or "something by Oscar Wilde" on stage in June?
Answers on a postcard please - or just comments in the usual place!

Little Green Bag

I can resist anything but temptation

- Oscar Wilde

When I read this post by Welshcakes, it reminded me of the bag I didn't buy today. Why am I telling you about a bag I haven't bought? So you can tell me that I did the right thing by not spending money on another handbag which was entirely the wrong colour for my purposes.

Let's recap. I am going to a wedding on Friday, and am recreating my Henley outfit from a few weeks ago. There were two drawbacks to this outfit - the bag and the shoes. The shoes are gorgeous, but I spent all day digging my feet out of the mud, which became very painful. The bag is equally pretty, and bought for me by Mr & Mrs Phil for my birthday. But it's quite small. It was ok for Henley, because Phil had his camera, and held onto most of my stuff when I needed him to...But I'm going on my own to the wedding, well without Phil, so he can't keep things in his suit jacket for me.

I have bought some new flat white shoes, very practical, but not so pretty. The solution would be to wear the pretty shoes and then change them when my feet started to hurt. But where should I keep the shoes in the mean time? I can't keep them in the bag that's too small!!

Anyway, back to the pretty bag. I decided to try to get a bigger white or blue bag. I failed, but there was a beautiful green bag in M&S. It was £15, and bright green, leather. Oh it was lovely. But green, not blue or white. I didn't buy it, but it is playing on my mind....

(can you tell that I have work to do that I don't want to do?)

Now here's something depressing

Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.

The Hebrews learn it backwards which is absolutely frightening.

Use proper English, you're regarded as a freak.

Why can't the English learn to speak?

Professor Henry Higgins - My Fair Lady

I found this article via a Facebook group called "If you can't differentiate between there, their and they're you deserve to die". A little harsh, perhaps, but as a grammar Nazi and a fan of apostrophe graffiti, this article depressed me rather a lot...

Race for Life (& Harry Potter!)

I resisted temptation and did not go and buy Harry Potter at midnight. I seriously considered it - as this is the last one and all - but common sense prevailed and I slept instead.

Kate, Lisa and I managed the Race for Life this year - Kate's third, Lisa's first and my fifth. I ran about 3.5k of the 5, Lisa ran 3 ish and Kate ran "just less than 5". What really matters is that we raised £470 between us (not including Gift Aid). There are still some people left to sponsor us (ahem, Phil), so hopefully we'll break the £500 mark, which would be amazing. Thank you to EVERYONE who sponsored us!! It did show me that I really have to do some training for the one in September though, so that will give me something to do that isn't my dissertation for the coming months!

I sucumbed (how many c's?) and bought HP at Waterloo Station. So far just as readable as the others and already 2 characters are dead - devastating! I won't say anymore...I'm off to climb into my cupboard under the stairs and read some more!

PS: Liz, I hope you're not too flooded??

Funeral Blues

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.
Yogi Berra

Too true, too true. I will not get maudlin and depressing on you, but the funeral was yesterday. Not as awful as I thought it would be, with the family politics involved (not mine, I hasten to add), but sad none the less. Weirdly I kept looking for Molly, I expected to see her there. But there were two things she would have loved. First of all it took me, mum and Patrick three attempts to find the wake - and we used to live in Teddington. The Groome sense of direction is ever present, and would have made her smile. The second is that the vicar was still wearing his bicycle clips... Which would have made her laugh out loud. It was those things that made it bearable.

This is the poem which was read out by Molly's daughter; I liked it , so I thought I'd post it here:

I am standing on the sea shore,

A ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.

She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her

Till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says:

"She is gone."

Gone! Where?

Gone from my sight -m that is all.

She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her

And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.

The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,

not in her.

And just at the moment when someone at my side says,

"She is gone",

There are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:

"There she comes"

- and that is dying. An horizon and just the limit of our sight.

Lift us up, Oh Lord, that we may see further.

Bishop Brent

Classic

"It's that wet rain, soaks you through" - so says Peter Kay. It might actually be "It's that fine rain" but anyway. The heavens have just opened, so its a good excuse to get on with my project work, and I am. Or I was. But then I watched Neighbours, and there were two classic lines that just had to be shared:

Frazer to Rosie: "I might be writing cheques my body can't cash..."
and then
Frazer to Rosie (again): I didn't think I could have a relationship and concentrate on my recovery at the same time. Trouble is, I wasn't counting on how hard it would be to resist you...

Mills and Boon eat your heart out!

And now, back to the work. I really can't watch Doctors as well!

Tagged Again

Pete has tagged me...So here is the list of facts and habits - some of this you may already know!

1. Fact: I used to be small enough to be passed through the nextdoor neighbour's trellis when crying

2. Habit: I fiddle with my jewellery when nervous - hence always taking it off before doing a presentation or play

3. Fact: I am born on the same day as Judy Garland. Shame I can't sing like her.

4. Habit: I read in the bath, and have rarely ruined a book doing so...

5. Fact: My first pet was a tortoise called Betty. It turned out Betty was a boy and she "ran away" when I was 6. In hindsight, I think the foxes got her.

6. Habit: I tidy up before I go to bed. I will even go as far as making the bed, just before I get into it.

7. Fact: I want to do a PhD about Autism - but can't get any funding.

8. Habit: I always look into the driveways of people I know when driving past, for no real reason, just habit...

Now I tag: Liz, Hannah, Becky...and anyone else who wants to, who hasn't already been tagged by Pete!

And relax....

After the excitement of "Oh What a Lovely War" this weekend (and the After-Show party that finished at 5am - though Phil and I left at 3.30...) I dragged Phil to see the fifth Harry Potter film. Actually, that's unfair. He said he wanted to see it, but he probably wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I was...

Anyway, I really enjoyed it. The films are getting better as they get on, and I have stopped getting annoyed about it when they miss bits. In the 4th one they missed a huge and very important chunk which irritated me intensely, but in this one there are bits missing, but they are not important. I think I've realised that its easier to consider the films as "stand-alones" to the books - they are based on them, but don't tell exactly the same story. The special effects are amazing, the acting from the kids is getting better, though I wish they wouldn't bother doing the saccharine speech at the end - it makes the whole thing seems excessively cheesey.

Something that is puzzling me though - why is the film based on "His Dark Materials" called "The Golden Compass" and not "Northern Lights"?? Do they think that people won't realise its the same book, or is it like calling Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone" in the US?

Mucker.

I'm eating an orange and lemon muffin at my desk at work. Not only am I eating BAD food, but there's orangey stickiness in the middle of the muffin, and now on my fingers, and my keyboard...