Monday, 21 January 2013

Oh what a matted web we weave in the face of evil ostriches

So how many of you are going to be surprised that I have gone and got myself in a muddle of mischief - all because of a dose of bad cold and an evil emu-ostrich type creature? Well anyway, I have....

A few of you might have noticed that I have taken on a rather Rapunzial look - my thin fairly long locks meta morphing over night into a one huge thick plait of blond hair, traipsing its way down my back. The reason for this was blatantly a lack of patience and the usual woman's logic of always wanting what they haven't got. In three years my hair had continued it slow journey towards my shoulders, and was looking reasonably happy with itself. Whoop went the hair - a collar bone, I've heard the next stop is titties! Then evil Maria swoops in with total disregard for my natural hairs effort and takes all the fun out of it by stating 'sod the titties these extensions have their mind set on reaching my belly button'.

Well all was well. I could be seen swooshing, plaiting, curling and increasingly tying myself up in knots.The latter became rather a bug bear, but the continual need to brush or else tie it up was worth it for that luscious thick length (gosh the end of that sentence sounds awful - you know I'm still talking about my hair...right!?).

Then one day when poor little Maria was struck down with a cold, and whisked away to the land of nod. Happily playing in the cake fields with a battenburg in one hand and a Victoria sponge in the other, she skipped with shear Day Nurse delight. Until....cake land started to crumble away, my cakey goodness disappeared from my hands and not into my belly. Instead, and I apologise that the next bit is sketchy and down right odd, I am rather randomly in a street I don't know, being told by a man I don't know, that it was not me that saved the children, but him. The man points down the street to another man lying scarves on the road. Each scarf saves a child's life. Not to be outdone I spot a child in a car, grab the child and wrap my scarf around it.

Then out of nowhere a giant emu/ostrich creature appears and starts chasing us (the child and I). I run into a house, where the evil bird pecks the poor child, killing it instantly (please let me still babysit children after reading this). I then notice my family are all piled into one room with the eggs of the evil emu-ostrich. I run to the bathroom, still being chased and then appear on the street; a busy inter junction. I turn to the emu-ostrich and pointing to a church in the middle of the junction, say 'Jesus won't be happy with you'. The emu-ostrich laughs and says 'Ha Jesus, he still lives with his dad'. Then suddenly like one of those superman films, there is a rush of air, as if someone is running really fast. I am left to presume it is Jesus, running round and round the emu-ostrich bitch slapping him until he dies. And then I wake...

OK so as odd dreams go, that was pretty epic, and I haven't a clue what it all means. Fortunately I think it is highly unlikely to happen in real life, so please don't hide your children away from me, and no I haven't found the light and started singing hallelujah to Jesus. Although I am quite impressed with the bitch slapping.

The point of all this? Well having not really planned to have a horrific nightmare, I had not tied my hair up before going to bed, despite it being damp (a must if you ever have extensions). With all my running, shaking my head, and general unease, when I woke I literally looked like worzel gummage. My hair was a series of matted rat tails. Rightly or wrongly I hopped in the shower, loaded it with conditioner and started trying to brush it out. In my naivety I rather hoped in a worse case scenario I could just remove the extensions and all would be OK.

Nope...bless him Mark spent 2 hours cutting my weave out of my hair (and did a brilliant job), but my natural hair, under the stress of being braided and caught up in the extensions, had matted just as much. So I am now left with lovely long locks at the front and a matted mass at the back. Instinct told me I was in trouble...matted dog fur just gets chopped off....surely I wasn't going to have to do the same? After a quick google, poured loads of vegetable oil over my hair, mark bought me some detangler and we set about teasing the hair apart. A further hour in, neither of us had managed to detangle more than 2 cms. I confess having waited so long for my hair to grow, I was upset and slightly panicked. The matting is about a cm from my scalp...so you all know what that means...

It's 3am, I've left a message on my hairdressers phone, begging for an emergency appointment, and in my final hours of long hair, instead of caressing it and telling it soothing tales of hair follicle heaven and deep moisturising baths. I am pretending it is already gone. I am mentally (or at least at this point I think I am) ready for my biggest transformation.

I am telling you now, I am not interested in honest responses to the inevitable photo of my new hairstyle. If you are a friend you will accept that I have 7 years until my hair grows back to the same length again and just tell me what I want to hear..."Oh wow, that looks great, it suits you so much better than the long hair, what a stroke of luck - you look amazing!"

Oh and p.s. For all of those considering hair extensions...arn't you glad I have done the stupid deed on your behalf. Patience is indeed a virtue :)

Friday, 19 October 2012

Our Weekly meeting - thats more of a quartely thing...dogs, cows and cob bread

So its 6am and with my boys snuggled up in bed upstairs, I've squeezed out of my slither to come and give you an update on our very successful 'weekly' meeting that actually is more of a quarterly thing (given it took place in July!) that we still haven't got round to repeating, as we can still presume Markles is at home with Jasper and I'm at the gallery sneaking cake. Actually on closer inspections both are realities not presumptions (note permanent mud stains and Jasper fur on Markles as proof of bonding time; and crumbs, muffin tops and sugar induced bounciness from Maria in the gallery).

To save you having to flick between the two blog entries to have some idea of what I'm going on about, I've just added a reality check to the bottom of each agenda point.

Our Agenda:

1. Jasper
2. Holiday
3. Money
4. Moose
5. AOB

Already we are stumbling as other couples discuss weekly evening plans, fun times, relationship things etc. We struggled to come up with 5 things and added Moose to the agenda.

So issue 1. Jasper

After a very brief nod that Jasper who had just accidentally spunked on our bed while chewing on my tights was obviously well and happy. The discussion progressed onto the getting Jasper a friend. I have long been pro another dog, and Mark is in the opposite camp. We thus handled the argument like grown ups and drew up a table:


Pros
Cons
Jasper friend
More work for Markles (he is semi retired anyway)
Extra Love
More hassle for Markles (though less than a standard job)
Marginal extra destruction
Possible dog conflicts
Marginal extra maintenance
Marginal extra destruction
Marginal extra cost
Marginal extra maintenance
Possible breeding program
Marginal extra cost
Humpy friend for Jasper
Nothing stops Maria nagging for long
Will teach him to share

Sufficient supply of sticks in the garden

Will make Maria happy

Will stop Maria nagging for another dog

Goes part way towards Maria’s plan of being a mad old dog lady

It’s not a cow

It’s not a baby

Jasper is the right age (the breeders told me)



As you can see it was a sure victory for Maria and we will soon be procuring another dog. Markles is not happy with this but the table speaks no lies (despite what Markles may say).



Action - Buy 2nd dog

Reality - I am still nagging for another dog and have escalated my barmyness by trying to persuade Markles that it would be a good idea for us to have a small holding, despite our inability to grow stuff, and my sadness at the thought of having to eat Dexter our cow, Mavis and Morris our pet pigs, Cluck McDuck, Waddle and Wherry our pet ducks.

Sanity speaking to Markles (say in loud, measured and authoritative voice of reason) - the smallholding is a bad idea, just let her have another dog, and you can string out cow buying for another couple of years...she may grow tired...but not likely

Issue 2 - Holidays


Ok so despite both loving travelling and wanting to visit every continent there are a few undeniable problems with Crutchley holidays:


  • Maria always gets ill
  • Maria never takes time off
  • Maria can’t take time off
  • Holidays are expensive
Thus to tackle this we came up with the following solutions:

  • Take short breaks when Maria has 2 days off in a row
  • Maria has emailed over the Rota for Markles information
  • Take 2 weeks off in November ( 1 week in Norwich - which will be cheaper and where illness will hopefully come out before main holiday - 1 week in Marrakesh)
  • Possible holiday in August if new recruit found

Action - eat vitamins, stay aways from lurgies, book something and make the most of it regardless


Reality  - Maria has just handed in her notice, so until I've set up my own business (which will result in never having a holiday again) or found a new job, I will have holiday abundance! 

So yay I did extremely well on this one. I've been taking two day stints, sleeping at Horsey beach, sleeping in the car at Yarmouth (supposedly a bad idea but I was OK) and having fun pottering about. Markles has a better idea than I do of when I'm off work. I managed to book a 10 day holiday in November ( to stay near Plymouth - so not quite Marrakesh - but still it's a holiday!) before deciding to leave/ The August holiday was a pipe dream, but I do now have a lovely new team :)

Issue 3 - Money

3.1 Maria has no clue about how money comes in or out of the house, it must be magic!

3.2 Pension man wants to talk to Maria, Maria only knows she wants to be a mad old dog lady with sufficient funds for this aim.

3.3 How to spend Marias incremental earnings (Markles birthday present took the majority. Correction all of it, Markles has just explained evil tax system!)

Action:
  • Markles to educate Maria on monetary flows of household
  • Maria to schedule meeting (ermm next year? – boring meeting – thus highlighting why Maria has no idea)
  • Markles to provide pension wisdom and attempt to realign Maria’s old age life plan to something more sane. (Markles has suggested I become a mad old bag lady – thus I replied for practise I need a new mulberry. Markle’s shakes head and draws my attention to point 3.1 – Maria’s lack of household money knowledge.
Side note – Maria is having fun and exclaims, “this is fun we should have a weekly meeting more often”.

Mark replies “what like every week you mean”

Reality - 

3.1 Markles made a little spreadsheet to illustrate money flows that even Maria could understand. Maria has just buggered up money flow by resigning. Maria is getting baked beans and bread for xmas (hope its one of those posh cob loaves from M&S!)

3.2 Maria visited Pension man, exclaimed she wanted to be a mad old dog lady asap - he said what 52? Maria said nah how about 30? Pension man thought Maria was joking - silly  pension man. Maria has now lost pension so will have to wander streets for homeless dogs and find food in bins. Unless business takes off, in which case, I will probably still wander streets looking for homeless dogs, and then give them a life of luxury - doggy cuddles, homemade biscuits, their own sofa...Jasper will illustrate how to lead luxury life.

3.3. Just left job - no incremental earnings, in fact no earnings at all! Need to learn to be self sufficient on minimal money - great I love a challenge :) I will make homemade pizza and cake for anyone who can teach me how to:
  • grow veggies
  • make my own clothes
  • fix things
  • make a little cob den for the garden with a wood burner so I don't freeze in Markles house/freezer

Issue 4 - Moose

Found on pants; and undies. Maria needs to go on holiday to (cold) location in order to see moose in the wild. Maria wishes they lived in hot places. To see baby moose and mummy moose in wild would be amazing!!! Markles is bragging cause he has seen it. Stupid Markles.

Action - Buy 2 teddy moose and use icing sugar to create 'cold' habitat. Maria to observe through kitchen window

Reality - OMG how could I have forgotten to do this! Next day off this is being done!!!!

Issue 5 - AOB

Meeting suspended while Markles watches the Tour de France. Stupid Markles.

Markles comes back and suggests we have covered a lot of stuff and we dont want to burn ourselves out.

Action - next meeting scheduled for next very bored evening (sometime next week preferably)

Meeting adjourned.

 Maria and Markles


Hmmm I am wondering if Markles will want another meeting, after reading this blog. If yes I will have to check my diary as I appear to have a lot of cake sneaking in the gallery planned...

All encouragement for barmy plans is welcome :)

Have a great day, Maria xxx 

Tuesday, 16 October 2012

Trials and Tribulations of a Jasper hot water bottle

After losing poor Lion on a cold wintry night, I was faced with two options:
  1. Freeze
  2. Encourage Jasper to be my replacement hot water bottle
Given Jasper noses me awake every morning at 5am for an under blankie cuddle, I knew the latter shouldn't be too hard.

It was an interesting night, and I have tried my best to re-enact the nights 'sleep'


All happily snuggled - ready for a long sleep :)

Jasper took up a normal amount of bed, and allowed me the blankie
but then he changed his mind and thought a hot water bottle was more 
efficient if it lay on top of you

and being a little nocturnal, he woke mummy for night time games


With doe eyes like this I couldn't say no

And I soon found myself minus blankie or much bed

And woke to find Jasper's toy (a huge lump of quartz) had 
attacked me in the night!



And so yes, as much as Jasper is wonderfully warm, my sleep was rather disturbed and I will be happy to snuggle down with lion again :)



Have a great day :) xxx


Sunday, 8 July 2012

Maria and Markles have a meeting...

So I've been reading 'Red' magazine for middle aged women who desires to learn about life past 35, gum disease and tesco nappy vouchers. Within all that goodness I also came across an article on weekly relationship meetings. In our hectic lives how can we be expected to know/remember what the other half is doing. Supposedly it is not sufficient to just presume they are at home with Jasper or at the gallery sneaking cake.


Well we need to know this for definate and given we are a pair of sadcases with nothing better to do on a Sunday evening we (well I) decided to schedule our first weekly meeting.

Our Agenda:

1. Jasper
2. Holiday
3. Money
4. Moose
5. AOB

Already we are stumbling as other couples discuss weekly evening plans, fun times, relationship things etc. We struggled to come up with 5 things and added Moose to the agenda.

So issue 1. Jasper

After a very brief nod that Jasper who had just accidently spunked on our bed while chewing on my tights was obviously well and happy. The discussion progressed onto the getting Jasper a friend. I have long been pro another dog, and Mark is in the opposite camp. We thus handled the argument like grown ups and drew up a table:


Pros
Cons
Jasper friend
More work for Markles (he is semi retired anyway)
Extra Love
More hassle for Markles (though less than a standard job)
Marginal extra destruction
Possible dog conflicts
Marginal extra maintenance
Marginal extra destruction
Marginal extra cost
Marginal extra maintenance
Possible breeding program
Marginal extra cost
Humpy friend for Jasper
Nothing stops Maria nagging for long
Will teach him to share

Sufficient supply of sticks in the garden

Will make Maria happy

Will stop Maria nagging for another dog

Goes part way towards Maria’s plan of being a mad old dog lady

It’s not a cow

It’s not a baby

Jasper is the right age (the breeders told me)



As you can see it was a sure victory for Maria and we will soon be procuring another dog. Markles is not happy with this but the table speaks no lies (despite what Markles may say).



Action - Buy 2nd dog


Issue 2 - Holidays


Ok so despite both loving travelling and wanting to visit every continent there are a few undeniable problems with Crutchley holidays:


  • Maria always gets ill
  • Maria never takes time off
  • Maria can’t take time off
  • Holidays are expensive
Thus to takle this we came up with the following solutions:

  • Take short breaks when Maria has 2 days off in a row
  • Maria has emailed over the Rota for Markles information
  • Take 2 weeks off in November ( 1 week in Norwich - which will be cheaper and where illness will hopfully come out before main holiday - 1 week in Marrakesh)
  • Possible holiday in August if new recruit found

Action - eat vitamins, stay aways from lurgies, book something and make the most of it regardless

Issue 3 - Money

3.1 Maria has no clue about how money comes in or out of the house, it must be magic!

3.2 Pension man wants to talk to Maria, Maria only knows she wants to be a mad old dog lady with sufficient funds for this aim.

3.3 How to spend Marias incremental earnings (Markles birthday present took the majority. Correction all of it, Markles has just explained evil tax system!)

Action:
  • Markles to educate Maria on monetary flows of household
  • Maria to schedule meeting (ermm next year? – boring meeting – thus highlighting why Maria has no idea)
  • Markles to provide pension wisdom and attempt to realign Maria’s old age life plan to something more sane. (Markles has suggested I become a mad old bag lady – thus I replied for practise I need a new mulberry. Markle’s shakes head and draws my attention to point 3.1 – Maria’s lack of household money knowledge.
Side note – Maria is having fun and exclaims, “this is fun we should have a weekly meeting more often”.

Mark replies “what like every week you mean”


Issue 4 - Moose

Found on pants; and undies. Maria needs to go on holiday to (cold) location in order to see moose in the wild. Maria wishes they lived in hot places. To see baby moose and mummy moose in wild would be amazing!!! Markles is bragging cause he has seen it. Stupid Markles.

Action - Buy 2 teddy moose and use icing sugar to create 'cold' habitat. Maria to observe through kitchen window

Issue 5 - AOB

Meeting suspended while Markles watches the Tour de France. Stupid Markles.

Markles comes back and suggests we have covered a lot of stuff and we dont want to burn ourselves out.

Action - next meeting scheduled for next very bored evening (sometime next week preferably)

Meeting adjourned.

 Maria and Markles

Sunday, 3 June 2012

10k and a running orangutan!

Yay I did it! All the early starts and training paid off and I finished my 10k run in 58 minutes. The other runners did amazingly well, all completing their 20k run on time and without complaint - just super! Must praise our support team too, as the driving and constant cycle support kept us motivated and well fuelled.

If I am honest I had woken with stiff legs following Thursday 8 mile walk and 1 hour fitness class but being rather headstrong when things need doing, it seemed to disappear as soon as I started the run, and then it was just positive thinking and remembering its only a case of one foot in front of the other :)

Upon completing my next surprise was due to the two designated orangutan's being too tall, my rather shorter legs were going to run another 1.2km all dressed up. I would like to say that Sandra and I made a brilliant pair and fully enjoyed monkeying around!

So far we have raised just over £600, but with offline sponsors as well, we are hoping to cross the £1,000 mark.

Thanks to everyone who sponsored us, and its not too late to still do so:

http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-web/fundraiser/showFundraiserProfilePage.action?userUrl=NorfolkLoopGoldChallenge&isTeam=true

A well earned rest today, with the most strenuous exercise planned being lifting the odd painting and remote control :)

Take care,

Maria xx

Saturday, 26 May 2012

Jaspers first jog with mummy

Well I am three weeks into the training and its fair to say I have used the fact my treadmill broke, as an excuse not to train but don't fear, ever the daft optimist I have forced myself back into my trainers.

Markles and his friend have organised a sponsored relay run of 201.2km around Norfolk in aid of Greenpeace. He had a team of 10 runners each doing 20k, until one confessed to not having done enough training. Silly me comes to the rescue and says no worries if your desperate I can split the leg. So I will be doing my first 10k run on Saturday 2nd June. What Mark forgot to tell me until 2 nights ago was that my leg starts at 2am! Given I need 10 hours sleep to operate like a normal human and 11pm is considered very late, it will be interesting to see whether my legs run faster in the knowledge that the sooner they finish the quicker they can go to bed :)

Like a good girl, my alarm went off at 5:45am and Jasper and I set off on a training jog to Whitlingham. Bless him Jasper was most bemused, but equally happy not to have to go in the car. As I jabbered onto him about the importance of a consistent pace and asked him not to stop and sniff everything as the stop/start approach resulted in a bad running style, we soon got into a flow and happily jogged along listening to the birds and looking at the dappled shadows. It was really rather beautiful, especially compared to the garage wall I usually look at while running.

 I must confess though I had a hidden agenda in bringing Jasper, you see the last bit of the planned run is a long stretch UP Bracondale, which is bad enough to walk. I was rather hoping Jasper would pull me up if I was tired. The reality however is that I pulled him up, but hey its just another form of exercise :)

To conclude I did 3.5 miles in 35 minutes. The longest I have ever run...until Saturday that is!

Do sponsor me if you can, it would be nice to know the polar bears get a longer lie in even if I don't.


http://www.goldchallenge.org/gc/team/Norfolk%20Loop

Now whereas Jasper is crashed out, I have to get my bum in gear and go to work. Have a great day!

Thursday, 10 May 2012

No scone + rain = sad Maria

Day 3 - Well what a wash out day. I overslept and missed my swim, so felt naughty from the off. Then pottered down town with happy dreams of buying even more shoes, but at the crucial moment resisted. A coffee with friend, where I had to endure watching him eat what he assured me was a truly wonderful scone and then a wizz back on the bike to eat snack-ca-jacks and an apple for lunch - wow riveting! What I need to find is some sort of low fat wheat free cake and fast. My cake withdrawals are causing me to be sad :(

On the plus though being stuck in the house due to the rain meant I finally sorted my wardrobe and now have 3 bin bags of assorted shoes, handbags and clothes to take to the charity shop. I also had a lovely lounge about reading a great book on art history (nerdy I know) and then at 9pm forced myself out of my nightie and into my running gear to face the garage torture equipment. It has decided to break....more fiddling required and I got it fixed....23 minutes into my 25 minute run and the belt just stops mid flow. Had Markles not be there to grab me I would have been sent flying!

Hmmm so maria the mechanic will need to have another look and try and fix it. Fingers crossed I haven't bought a second hand dud :(