Monday 27 July 2009

Say Cheese!

Another day another fad diet. I know, I know, the clue is in the title: these things are fads, they're not meant to work long term and exist only to fuel the market that is the desire to take up less space in the World. La, la, la, I do get it you know. Except, except, I have found one that doesn't look to be a fad, it looks healthy, well balanced and above all promises big results in a matter of days. All I have to do is send £15 to the website, tap in my details so they can help me keep track of my progress, give up dairy, wheat, meat, caffeine and sugar, follow their simple and nutritious recipes and watch as the fat melts away (this seems to be the best thing about this diet, the fat melts, brilliant!).
So you can see why I'm going to follow it, there are none of the usual meal replacement thingys or chocolate snacks (although I wouldn't say no) that hail the beginning of a new fad. Oh no, this one's full of vegetables, and fruit, and water, and come to think of it not much else. Still, I can eat as much as I like three times a day, the website promised and even put it in italics just to reassure me. As much as I like! Do they know how much that is? A lot I assure you, and I can eat it all, finally a diet I can work with.
So, today was the first day, the new beginning if you like. I got to do the best bit about any new diet: go shopping for all the lovely nutritious food I was going to live on for the next month. It felt good, I tell you. Look at all this glorious, gorgeous, nutritious food. I'll be a goddess by next week at this rate, I even splashed out on a six pack of Evian, I'll be saving so much money on wine I can afford a two litre a day habit now. Wow, diets benefit every area of your life, I am reborn.
I am however going to start it tomorrow, it was everso tiring doing the shopping and putting it all away that I had to have a bit of toast and honey to bolster me up a bit. That coupled with the cream puff I had for breakfast, didn't hail the best diet day. Still never mind, I've got it all to look forward to. I've just been scanning the menu for tomorrow and lunch is a power salad with sage cheese.
Hang on I hear you all ask, index finger pointing upwards in an expression of intrigue mixed with disbelief. I thought you had to give up dairy? Ha! Oh dear readers, but I do, no cheese of any sort. But (and it's a big butt), herein lies the true value in paying my £15: Apparently you can make cheese from vegetables, Yes! I had to read it twice too. All I have to do is mix two garlic cloves, a handful of sage a dash of olive oil and three tablespoons of olive water and voila sage cheese. Isn't that fantastic? How on Earth did the nutritionists come up with this one. Not only do I get to eat a raw leek and chicory power salad, but I get to sweeten the deal with cheese. Perfect, I'm going to stick to this one, I can just feel it.

Monday 20 July 2009

Things I Have Said To My Husband Today

  • No thanks
  • No really it's ok
  • I'm sure you have played a blinder this time
  • I just don't want to smell it
  • Honestly I believe you
  • I don't need to come into the bathrooom to smell it
  • Well it's making it's way over here
  • Yes, well done
  • It is the worst so far
  • You must be very proud
  • Yes of course I'm proud too
  • It's quite an acheivement considering you set the bar quite high
  • I'm not being sarcastic
  • I know it's a man thing but I do get it
  • No please don't phone your brother
  • I asked you not to phone him
  • What do you mean he doesn't believe you
  • Well he'll have to take your word for it
  • No
  • No don't put me on to him
  • I'm not speaking

Things I Have Said To Husband's Brother Today

  • Hi
  • Yes it was bad
  • Worst one yet
  • I really don't want to discuss it
  • No I didn't actually go into the bathroom to smell it
  • It does count, I could smell it from the bedroom
  • I'm telling you it was bad
  • I don't think you could beat it
  • I am not having this conversation
  • The one where I'm discussing my Husband's wind with his brother
  • It is not the best conversation we've ever had
  • Well thankyou for the compliment but I'll go now

Things I Have Said To My Husband Today

  • You're right he didn't believe you
  • Never mind
  • I'm sure you can do it again
  • A what?
  • Invent a what?
  • A fartometer?
  • What's one of those?
  • Well I suppose it would be useful to have an exact measurment
  • Yes then I suppose he'd have to believe you
  • Yes you'd better get to it right away
  • Yes it is your best idea to date
  • Well done

Monday 13 July 2009

Man Oh Man

So, sorry if I sound a little muffled, I'm hiding under the duvet, way under the duvet, with absolutely no plans to come out until Jack turns three, which is in about a year so perhaps you should get used to this being my voice from now on, Husband always said I could do with a muffler.
Pre duvet-hiding I went to Sainsbury's to pick up the weekly shop and cry a little in the chocolate aisle, and a lot in the cake aisle, I then stopped crying in the Chardonnay aisle and bought myself a bottle, with a straw. Why oh why don't they sell wine in those handy cardboard cartons with an attached straw and convenient silver bit that hides a hole? If they can do it for juice surely they can do it with wine, it's not just kids that need pacifying during the weekly shop you know. I'm nothing if not resilient though, not to mention innovative, so until someone comes up with wine-to-go I make do with a bottle and a straw. The management don't seem to mind, by the time I get to the till I'm a sucker for an impulse buy so they make more money I suppose.
Anyway, it was a normal day, Jack was sitting prettily in the trolley stuffing biscuits down his face and generally signalling to everybody that I had no control over my child so I had to feed him rubbish to get a chance round the shops. Then again, the wine bottle and straw number may, just may, have detracted from this glaring bout of bad parenting. Who cares about a biscuit stuffing toddler when mummy+straw+bottle= glaringly obvious gap in the market for mini wine cartons, get to it someone, please.
Where was I? (you see, this is where a bottle of wine ruins things, imagine how much more succinct and focused I'd be if I'd only had a carton). Ok, Jack in the trolley, yes, and at this point I should remind you that he's now two and talking well. I don't mention him often, mainly because between Husband and Twizzle I have enough material for an entire psychiatric conference, let alone a weekly blog post, so he tends to fall by the wayside.
Jack, in a nutshell, loves men. He wants to do men's work, dig, lift, carry, scratch, drip on the loo seat, you name it if Jack sees a man doing it, he wants to copy. Not only does he want to copy but he has also decided that Every Man In The Known Universe must be pointed out and confirmed in his gender with a loud shout of Man! which is fun as you can imagine. He approaches every new situation with assumed bionic eyes and assures each male present that he has been seen and noted, I am looked at suspiciously as the mother of this gender reassuring service provider, as if I am using him as some kind of cheap but effective dating service (which I'm not, but if I was I'd take him somewhere far more expensive than Sainsburys).
The only problem with this little hobby, and it was a problem that was about to rear its short back and sides head, is that Jack isn't too hot at discerning a man from a woman with short hair. Imagine then the scene, Jack replete with biscuits, Mummy humming gently sipping her bottle of wine, slight tear stains from the inner fight in the cake and chocolate aisles, and a woman with short hair examining cornflakes in the cereal aisle. Round the corner we come, Jack on red alert for any man type activity taking place, only to spy one, one with cornflakes in his hand, one that's wearing a skirt. Lord above, she was trying her best, she may have had rather short and manly hair (and features if I'm honest), but she was giving it her all by signalling her femininity using that bastion of womanhood, the skirt.
Oh please Jack, I thought, please notice the skirt, please just this once. But no, Man! he yells, pointing sturdily at the woman, Man mummy Man! Mummy at this point ducks her head in shame over the Chardonnay and mutters something about having seen a man in the previous aisle and would she like a sip of wine? No? A makeover perhaps? (come on I was half a bottle down).
Oh the shame, the pain on her face, imagine standing in the supermarket, innocently examining a cornflake packet, only to have your gender woefully misinterpreted and loudly proclaimed by a toddler with a pointy arm. Oh dear.
But then, Jack did a strange thing, something he had never done before and which forever more I'd wish that he'd done just ten seconds previously instead of now. He noticed the skirt. I noticed, he pointed, I gripped the trolley and ran round into the ice cream aisle, just as the loud refrain of why man wear a skirt Mummy? drifted thickly over the cereal. I peered round at the devastation that we had left behind, and quietly rolled a bottle of Chardonnay towards her trolley. With a straw.

Saturday 4 July 2009

Things I Have Said To My Husband Today

  • Darling?
  • Sweetheart?
  • Husband
  • No, no nothing's wrong
  • It's just you're all over my side of the bed
  • You are
  • Wake up and have a look
  • Yes you may be predominantly in the middle
  • But your feet are over mine
  • And your head's on my pillow
  • It is my pillow
  • Well if you move over you'll see yours over your side of the bed
  • Go on
  • Just roll over that's all it'll take
  • Roll
  • Not that far
  • Yes I know you're clinging on with one arse cheek
  • That doesn't mean you weren't over on my side
  • You just rolled too far
  • What do you mean it must be nice over the big side of the bed?
  • Just leave it it's 4am
  • Night
  • Darling?
  • It's 4am
  • Well stop it
  • I'm well aware we're awake being one of the awake ones
  • Go to sleep
  • I'm sorry you can't sleep now
  • No there's no quickie on offer
  • I said no quickies
  • Or slow ones
  • It's two hours until the alarm goes off
  • I don't care that it'll only take two minutes
  • I didn't wake you for sex you were just on my side of the bed
  • Yes I suppose I have learned my lesson
  • Yes I won't disturb you in future
  • Night
  • Darling?
  • Get that thing out of my back
  • Or I'll tell your Mother
  • Thanks
  • Night