Oh gosh I know, it’s been simply ages, but I simply haven’t stopped since coming back from Florida and that seems such a loooooooong time ago yet it was only four weeks and so much has happened since. This is rather a rambling post before I actually get to the point of why I’m rambling since I can’t concentrate on anything else at the moment, so thought coming back here may help me.
Firstly the silly things…
… the balls are back, and a whole bag of conkers was unleashed onto my poor unsuspecting garden. My wonderful son Jamie kindly threw the balls back, but I got the neighbour’s little darlin’ to come in and pick up the conkers himself. Oddly we have quite a high fence between our houses so how the little shnip is chucking the stuff over I really dunno. At the moment there is one lone Bob the Builder ball sitting in the middle of my lawn, but it’s a wet wet night tonight, so poor Bob will have to stay there; I ain’t going out that’s for sure, except I do have to put out the rubbish… hmmmm!
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So, where have I been?
From the moment I came home from holiday, I was preparing for the Passover. This entails turning the house upside down, cleaning every cupboard, nook and cranny to remove crumbs blah blah blah… all in all a mammoth task which includes changing over every item of cookware, cutlery, crockery, glasses, pots, pans, casseroles, you name it, even the kitchen sink, well the washing up bowls, everything but everything is cleaned or changed. And every manufactured food item has to be bought especially labelled kosher for passover, so everything starts from scratch. Mucho work to be sure, oh and just in case anyone thinks I may have been slacking, my dishwasher packed up… doh!
Wearily waking one morning and feeling every muscle ache from these exertions I relaxed in a hot soothing tub (since my shower still didn’t work - more of that later), a hot soothing tub of some bright blue Radox muscle stuff when I was harshly awakened by an awful noise. I thought the house was falling apart, or pipes were gonna burst, or the boiler was about to explode, or I’d been hit by a meteor. I flipped flapped and flopped out the bath in a state of panic imagining the worst, water splashing everywhere, wet footprints on the carpet, searching out the dreadful din. Aha, who would’ve thought it. I hadn’t switched off my toothbrush properly and it was vibrating in the mug, what a racket… lucky it was just my toothbrush!
and… talking of bursting pipes… for the duration of the Passover I had house guests, i.e. mother, Jamie and Lucy and Rachel and Daniel, so we had to push the walls out. This doesn’t even include all the dinner guests, i.e. assorted friends and aunts and uncles who descended on me and I was having to go into the office too. Not wanting mother to think this was a holiday camp I set her to work in the kitchen, when I could tear her away from the snooker. I won’t even begin to tell you how many knaidlach (matzah balls) kugels, chickens, joints (erm meat that is) pots of chicken soup and vegetable soup, plavas, almond puddings, matzah puddings, cakes and biscuits, bowls of ice cream (when I threw out last year’s bought passover ice cream I decided to make my own this year), gefilte fish, fish balls, etc. were made and consumed. We went through almost 100 eggs.
And talking of eggs, as my mother was sitting at the kitchen table preparing the eggs for our traditional Friday night egg and onion hors d’oeuvre, (it goes well with the chopped liver) water is dripping through the ceiling spotlight into the bowl. You may recall some time ago I mentioned my poorly shower that could barely muster a dribble of water, well knowing the family were staying en masse and not wanting six of us to share one bathroom I moved my fat **** and got a plumber in who replaced the pump. It is now a very very very powerful shower and someone, who shall remain nameless, managed to flood my bathroom. My recently decorated (last summer) kitchen ceiling is now displaying a lovely long streak of yellow! Yuck!!!!
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Time for apologies I guess. I’m sorry I haven’t been around blogdom or anywhere else for that matter. A lame excuse I know, but on top of everything else, my computer really has been poorly and my little man did eventually come to check it out. Seems my harddrive is full and other technobabble that I don’t understand and internet explorer was behaving badly so we installed Mozilla instead… it’s all greek/chinese/russian/double dutch/gobbledegook to me. I kept losing my internet connection too, which was actually my fault, so my modem probably didn’t need replacing, altho’ I did have a spare one here courtesy of BT. Strangely my little IT guy went orgasmic when he saw my new box was a black one; he said it was rare… wow!
Still back to why it was probably my fault I kept losing my connection. My old digital phone needed replacing ages ago so I bought a new set from John Lewis ages ago which stayed in the box for ages. Push came to shove when I couldn’t find one of the old handsets thinking I’d thrown it out doing the passover cleaning (I always throw things out Pesach cleaning, like a diamond necklace 13 years ago… it’s true, honest). Now I was galvanised into charging the new phone. However apparently when I unplugged the old phone from the wall, I also took out some little white thing the size of a matchbox, apparently the DSL filter… doh again! Oh, and I found the handset a couple of weeks later in Jamie’s old wardrobe when I was making space for my mother’s clothes… double doh!!! Don’t even ask, but that time it wasn’t me!
I have actually sneaked the odd peep at Mr D’Onofrio and lurked longingly and lovingly at the Vincent blogs for a moment or two, yet still haven’t found the time to watch the Nashville video. I couldn’t go cold turkey altogether, I still need my little fix. But my dear poetry friends, I am sorry that I haven’t even lurked at your places; I don’t seem to be in the right place to either write or read poetry right now. And I’m sorry I haven’t visited any of you, my dear friends on my blogroll.
Also thank you everyone who has invited me to be a friend on their facebook. I don’t know how I’m on it at all… I guess one of my dahling children signed me up and I haven’t the foggiest how to navigate my way around, so I’m sorry if I’m on some of yours and not others, because it’s something else I’m not clued up about.
and… and… and it’s been so long since I visited my own blog, that the dashboard has changed and so has writing posts. I need to speak to my wordpress guru, aka Brian, to work out what’s going on here.
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I know I’m prattling and rambling and twittering away and I’m sorry. I was kinda wishing my life away knowing April would be a very hard month, and I haven’t even mentioned the wedding in this post - don’t get me started on that. But this month has turned out to be something else as well.
I’m writing this and pacing the floor and jumping everytime the phone rings, but at this very moment my dear brother (my twin so he’s not THAT old) is undergoing a quadruple by-pass. He is fit; he is healthy; he takes amazing care of himself. I am the short fat one; he is the tall slim one. He exercises, goes to the gym, walks, plays sport, watches what he eats (i.e. no red meat , no fried food, no puddings), has never smoked and is not a drinker other than the odd social one and he has regular check ups, but this time he didn’t get a green light. We are reeling; we are shocked and stunned stunned stunned that someone so well has had to be rushed in for emergency surgery because every artery is clogged.
There is a history of young heart fatalities in our family and he was told it was all down to genetics. They say he will make an amazing recovery because he is so strong and healthy, but it doesn’t stop me worrying and fretting; he is my brother and I guess I think he’s invincible. It’s ironic how he’s gone into hospital feeling fit as a fiddle and he’ll come out feeling like sh** but the alternative doesn’t even bear thinking about.
Oh and I seem to have left out the part here that my mother also had surgery just under three weeks ago; not half as serious as my bro’s, but it was brought about from her open heart surgery 11 years ago and she is 84. All in all I shall be pleased to see the back of this month.
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I’ll end on something that had me laughing my head off; it was much needed and did me a power of good. However, it was my future son-in-law who showed it to me, the naughty boy! This may not be new to you guys over the Pond, but it was for me. The videos are quite long, and rather rude, but please watch them through.
watch this one first
now the response…
hilarious, absolutely hilarious
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I guess I won’t be around much again; hospital visiting, supporting family and all that, and getting back into wedding mode (it is only four months away) but it doesn’t mean I don’t care and I’m not thinking about you all. Be well and please take good care of yourselves and your loved ones.
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