Yes, I know my Favourites Widget still isn’t working properly… It was nice of it to come back after going AWOL for over a week, but I’ve waited patiently and it STILL hasn’t got its act together. It clearly blew its mind in a mad orgy of drink, drugs and partying and no longer updates or even changes. I’m beginning to wish it hadn’t bothered returning from the wild, frankly! I feel like the wife who has awaited eagerly for her husband to return from the forces, only to discover he is a belligerent, lazy boor. *Sigh* I think there is only one solution: divorce from Technorati. You served me well for… One year. Wait a minute: ONE YEAR? I have pairs of knickers older than that which still work. Why didn’t I just have a list of links like on my old blog??? Gotta be clever, but *oh no* – and look what happens. I rest my case.
But I digress. I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the UK or elsewhere, but in Bournemouth we’ve had bucketloads of rain for about two weeks now, breaking only long enough for someone to think they *might* be able to make a mad dash across town… Only for the heavens to open and soak you head to toe. Niiiiice.
If you have a buggy like me with a kid in it, this is even worse, with said small child complaining all the way: “Mummy, raining. Raining! MUMMY! STOP! STOP RIGHT NOW!” No darling, we must go in search of the elixir of life, ie. gin, for I have not stopped working literally day and night since January 1st on a variety of script reports, treatments and other secret stuff and without it I may die. (For those of you who wonder why my buggy has not got a rain cover, ask the delectable Crampon-Fred, who peed on it. Thanks cat.)
I have taken to getting the bus: it only occurred to nme yesterday that, unlike Devon where you get one bus packed with old people every three days, buses actually run every fifteen minutes and even have those delightful low floors you can get a buggy on. Except of course when weirdos block the gangway up front by standing next to the driver, even when there are perfectly good seats FURTHER BACK SITTING EMPTY DAMN YOU TO HELL.
But anyway: me and Kid were standing under the shelter of the bus stop as rain poured over each side. Two fourteen year old girls were sharing a crafty fag and in loud voices (their backs slightly turned away from me, as if it was someone else they were talking about), they started talking about me and Lil.
SCHOOLGIRL 1: Aaaah, that little girl looks so sweet.
SCHOOLGIRL 2 (Has a quick glance at Lil): Yeah, she does.
SCHOOLGIRL 1: You reckon it’s her baby?
SCHOOLGIRL 2 (gives me the eyeball): Nah. She don’t look maternal. She’ll be the babysitter or aunt or sumfink.
SCHOOLGIRL 1: What’s “maternal” look like you freak? She’s the Mum, innit.
SCHOOLGIEL 2: I’m telling yous, she in’t the Mum. She’s too thin. Mums are like, fat, innit?
This is when Schoolgirl 1 looks over and says:
SCHOOLGIRL 1: ‘Scuse me, you the Mum of that kid or the babysitter?
ME: I’m the Mum.
SCHOOLGIRL 1: See? Told you she was the Mum. Maternal… (mutters to friend) You can tell, she looks knackered, no make-up! Every day’s a bad hair day!
SCHOOLGIRL 2: Oh yeah…
Thanks Girls.
Hoping you’re not having a bad hair day… Unless of course you are one of my bald readers. In which case, congratulations for becoming exempt to this problem.
What are you up to?
Thank you for your congratulations, most obliged.
Lol, asked for that one didn’t I.
Innit.
That cheered me up. That cheered me up! Notice the difference?
I wonder if you’re one of these pram pushers that try to run you over in the street 🙂
Oh, and buses are okay, except they are moving flu labs.
Rain? Hah. Just drove through blizzards. And the sheep were using my car as cover I was driving that slow.
Understand the bad hair day and no make-up bit. Someone tried to sell me a white top the other day and just got a deranged cackle as I dragged the sprogs out the shop.
Thinking about shaving my head now.
ooops. You walking, me driving. OK you win that one. But they were very scary sheep. With tommy guns.
Hello honey-bunch! Are you aware that your favourites widget is working now? On my browser, at least… (which is Firefox)…
Paul, need I even answer that? OF COURSE I run people over with the buggy!
Rach, sheep with tommy guns has conjured up quite an image. Now all we need are cows with ninja stars.
Jason, my tirade against the widget has made it update! But it’s still out of date on IE, so obviously just trying to appease me in half-assed kind of way. And I think it’s making mean comments to me via my adaptation post, apparently its amazed by how “up my own bottom” I am! I thought we writers swore more. But it’s a Widget, so maybe it has a more limited vocab. I’m staking it out.
I saw that. Was going to comment but saw you could look out for yourself. Of course, if it is the Widget then you must plot your bloody revenge…
Cheers Ed. I definitely am: I’m thinking…ERASURE. If that is a word. Other than for 80s electro-pop bands and that thing in Imajica by Clive Barker.
Remove me and The whole Scribosphere erupts, I’ll kill you all.
You have been warned.
Brilliant! I wish I could remember the conversation of the two girls who sat opposite me in the train … oh, I remember they didn’t have a conversation they started playing bad dance music (I mean, it was bad — I like a good bit of techno, house or whatever [well, not drum’n’bass, yuck], this wasn’t good) on a phone. I mean really! A phone, tinny or what.
So I was un-British. I told them I’d rather they didn’t. Did I get a blank look? No. They clearly found it hard to believe they’d actually been spoken to. “Wha?” said the one with the phone, looking vaguely in my direction — but just over my right shoulder. “I’d rather you didn’t.” Quoth I, wittily.
“Eh?”
Then the man on the other side said “I’d rather you didn’t as well.” Aha, reinforcements. Did phone girl look in the direction of his voice? She did not. She looked vaguely over my head as if the voice came from above.
Then a youthful Liverpudlian voice from two seats away said “Come and sit here girls” and they did.
And started playing their music loudly — then they tried having a conversation, and found they couldn’t because of the loud music, and turned it off.
Ha, rain, sheep, you people know nothing.
The journey went downhill from there. The distance from Wigan to Preston is, say, 12 miles. How long should that take? 10-15 minutes.
Try 3 hours.
Still, I managed to get a whole chunk of writing done. And when we finally got into Edinburgh at 9:30pm, the nice train people put the Dundee people, me included, into a taxi. It was cosy and today I have trouble moving my leg, but that might just be age.
Or the cold.
It’s not raining here, nor are there sheep with guns. But it’s very very cold, I mean, seriously cold.
And the office I’m contracting in doesn’t have much in the way of heating. It’s interfering with my thinking. Oh well.
Hope the rain lets up.
hehe am laughing in a kind of guilty “was there once but my baby has grown up” way at the looking knackered all the time comment. It wasn’t until A started sleeping through the night, and hence so did I, that I realised that I’d actually been totally exhausted. Hope the rain is easing off down your way – its pretty soggy up here too
Nope, widget broken again. It’s not updated my site in a couple of weeks. Since I said ‘fuck’ in a post title, actually. I wonder if I offended it.
I tired of waiting and swapped mine for the scribomatic widget.
but I might bring it back if they fix it. Grrr
Hey Lucy!
Nice post. Fun-eeee!
Just wanted to say thanks for the first comment of the year on my blog. You were always loyal.
Well, looks like I’m singing away on the old blog again. Drop by for a visit. I think I need the company.
Cheers!
Vince
Hmm, this is what I feared and I bet you clog up the pound shops too, shame on you! 😀
Sorry about the rain I forgot to say yesterday!
Erasure…damn I’d forgot about them. Project playlist here I come!
“I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the UK or elsewhere, but in Bournemouth we’ve had bucketloads of rain for about two weeks now…”
I live in New Atlantis… er… Gloucestershire… ’nuff said. 🙂
“sheep with tommy guns?”
We just give them water-wings here… it’s far kinder.
“What are you up to?”
…still battling the evils of the treatment story thingy. And insomnia. And arthritis. And rust.