Ho ho ho ... my ****!

Dear Agony Auntie,

My search for love did not abate during the festive season. However, the one man I set my sights on seemed to be a very generous type. I admired the testosterone evident in his rampant facial undergrowth. His sack was HUGE, if you know what I mean. But he seemed to be preoccupied with kiddies, rather than me.

Was he a paedophile, or was Santa's Grotto a not quite right venue to be seeking 'Mr Right'? Are all men like this?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

Here's a bit of Christmas Cheer before I migrate south for the winter ...

Merry Christmas to all the long-suffering, do-gooding so-and-sos who visit this blog. Wishing you a boozy, dissolute Christmas with a good line in hangover cures!


'While shepherds watched their clocks by night
All seated on the ground
An angel of the Lord came down
But no-one turned around!'

But, then, what would be the point of having three clocks if they all told the same time?

Illustration Friday - Voices

'The Grand old Duke of York
Had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And marched them down again'

There has been much interest recently in diagnosing the mental problems of historic characters; it is fairly certain that it was voices inside the head of the Grand Old Duke which urged him to engage in such pointless activities at others' expense. Probably the fact that the initials of his title spell 'G.O.D.' didn't help him much, either!

Illustration Friday - Rambunctious

The teacher of class 10A didn't know what 'rambunctious' meant. So she went to look it up in the dictionary, with little success because it was propping up a wall from which one of the pupils had removed a brick to lob at one of his classmates.

While her back was turned, however, her pupils were demonstrating 'the word in action'.

Illustration Friday - Similar

Some organisms have developed a defence whereby they openly display a warning signal to POTENTIAL PREDATORS!!! This sub-species of herring is a good example:



This is so effective that similar organisms will try to imitate the characteristics of the first one to come up with such a jolly good wheeze! This sub-sub-species of herring is doing his best:



In truth, both these fish are very rare, their survival depending as it does on a certain level of literacy in their predators.

No Sex Please - we're Puritans

Dear Agony Auntie,

I've tried the gym, fishing, Dr Who, football and a war veteran's society. 'Put yourself out there'! they all say.

But all the men I meet these days have very definite ideas on what clothes I should wear, right down to my underwear, how I should do my hair and my place in the household. They address me as 'Mistress' (though there's no activity on THAT front - all mouth and no trousers as they are!). Are all men like this, or was joining a Cromwellian Re-enactment Society a bad idea?


Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

Love Wars

Dear Agony Auntie,

I thought I'd have another go. I've tried the gym, fishing, Dr Who and football.

But all the men I meet these days are old, tired, miserable and we just don't seem to speak the same language. Are all men like this, or is it just the result of joining the Polish War Veterans' Society?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

At the end of the line ...

Dear Agony Auntie,

I haven't been to the gym for several days, and I've stopped hanging around on the river bank. The Dr Who Convention is now over. But all the men I meet these days are obsessed by:

a) football
b) junk food

Are all men like this, or was it a mistake to try and find love in the queue for hot dogs and burgers at a Wolverhampton Wanderers match?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

Illustration Friday - Balloon!

Balloons are an excellent way of communicating thoughts, spoken and unspoken, to the sensitive observer of the cartoon ... in this case, rendering the infinite by reference to the finite ... or is this a load of hot air?

Space in Relationships

Dear Agony Auntie,

I don't go to the gym any more, and I've stopped hanging around on the river bank. But all the men I meet these days are obsessed by daleks and tardises and don't seem to notice me. Are all men like this, or do you think I was misguided in my choice of a Dr Who Convention as a potential pick-up joint?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

A very sad tail

Dear Agony Auntie,

I've stopped going to the gym. My abs and pecs aren't what they used to be. All the men I meet these days are maggot-lobbers who smell of fish. Are all men like this, or was it a mistake to join an anglers' club instead of going to the gym?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September

xxx

Dating Tips - Can You Help This Lady?

Dear Agony Auntie,

All the men I meet these days are self-absorbed narcissists. Are all men like this, or do you think I ought to stop trying to pick up potential dates at the gym?

Yours,

The Lady In The Cartoon On Here Dated 26th September
xxx

Illustration Friday - Opinion

Is junk food REALLY bad for you? It's all a matter of opinion!

Whoopee! I'm rich! Great News!

How many of you set your email so that spam drops straight into the plop bucket? And then go and check the plop bucket anyway, just in case something goes in there that you actually wanted to read?

Well, I was checking my plop bucket today, and found that I've won $250,000 on the Australian Lottery! It's all the more miraculous AS I'VE NEVER BOUGHT A TICKET! It's all obviously bona fide:

'For security reasons, we advice all winners to keep this information
confidential(VERY SECRET) from the public until your claim is processed
and your prize money remitted/released to you.This is part of our
precautionary measure to avoid double claiming and unwarranted abuse of
this program by some unscrupulous elements,equally to guard against non
participant or unofficial personnel taking undue advantage of this
program.'

(I'm sure they'll forgive me for sharing this (VERY SECRET) information on here. After all, how could I contain my excitement??)

And what's even more reassuring is that my prize money is being held in an account in ... Nigeria!!! I've a good mind to go over there in person ...

Shocking News! Lebanon vs Israel in fight for Falafel!

This is really serious stuff - I heard it on the BBC, so it must be true - read all about it here.

Yes, these two countries are both trying to claim Falafel as their own. He's a fine specimen, granted, but who'd have thought that one small rodent could spark an international incident like this! And as he's a Syrian hamster, I don't think either Lebanon or Israel has much of a claim anyway ...

Yet another new look Falafel

We all know about Falafel's mysteriously vanishing plumes (see top image) but just when he was coming to terms with his lack of trailing apparel, yet another metamorphose was afoot ... the fact that he is out of focus isn't part of the cause for concern, by the way...


I was so concerned about this latest development - that he was looking very scruffy, and was turning ginger - that I contacted a breeder (of hamsters) who has looked after him in the past. Sometimes you can tell, even in an email, that the other person is larffing their socks off as they write, and this was a case in point. I was told that people who show off their hamsters in public have to retire sables early because of the dreaded gingering, and not to worry, that it happens to all of them starting at the tail end. I was instructed to admire 'his coat of many colours'. He seems bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (if you can ever describe a hamster as bushy-tailed)as ever.

I also feel I should point out that there's nothing wrong with turning ginger. In fact I regularly sit there with a henna-flavoured cowpat on my head to make myself turn ginger.

It's just that I hadn't expected a hamster to show these autumnal tendencies!

Illustration Friday - Packed

Selwyn disapproved of his friends' attitude to ladies (using the term loosely). He had recently packed in this sort of childish behaviour. Actually, there WAS a reason for this ...

The perils of owning a diesel car ...

Last Tuesday, somebody reversed into my car. I was in it, but stationery at the time; I thought that the bloke was doing a three-point-turn, and left him plenty of space to do so ... but he just kept on reversing, and reversing and ... crunch!!!!!

I've owned this motor for less than six months, and this is the second time someone's reversed into it. I wondered if he had actually used his mirror, but just saw an area of grey (indeed, a grey area!) and thought that it was the sky and that it would be OK just to keep going.

However, I've realised that it's the irrestible allure of DIESEL which is the problem:



So if you want vehicles to reverse into you, use this stuff! Works a treat!

(The following day, someone nicked my wheelie bin. But that's another story ...)

Illustration Friday - Island

Jemima has been on holiday to the Pacific, and bought herself a very small island. So small, sadly, that she's lost it in amongst the rest of her luggage.

Froggy would a-wooing go! (1)

Selwyn's first victim, sorry, conquest, was a lady called Nutbrown. Or Nutter, for short. She was a hippy and had purple hair. She also had a purple hare, called Birkin, who lived at the bottom of the garden along with two footballs and an abandoned pogo stick.

Nutbrown was strange, and would often put posts on Internet forums where she claimed to be a gerbil. Selwyn thought she would be a good future Mrs F. as long as she changed her appearance, lifestyle, personality, interests and her entire life history. So he wrote her a long letter detailing everything she was doing wrong, and how to put it right. He got very worked up whilst writing the letter, and his normally pale green skin went a strong shade of pink.

He thought that this was a very loving thing to do - the letter-writing, that is - so he also made that clear. Then he went back and replaced all the swear words with asterisks, so he could tell himself that he is, after all, a gentlefrog.



As you can see, Nutbrown and her hare were very pleased to receive the letter, which seemed to be covered with lovely twinkly stars.

Illustration Friday - Memories

Selwyn's childhood memories took many forms.

He really preferred the ones where he was legless.

Frogg he would a-wooing go ... 21st century style ...

Mervyn's friend, Selwyn Frogg, has decided to find himself a new lady friend. Not for him a traditional courtship involving flowers, chocolates and the like ... here's his Internet Dating Advertisement:

Name: Selwyn Frogg
Age: Secret
Height: Depends if I'm stretched out or not
Hair colour: No hair, but my skin is beautifully marked and shades of green
Eye colour: Sort of frog colour

Likes: The slime at the bottom of ponds, flies and worms, lilypads
Dislikes: Herons and grass snakes
Hobbies: Hop-stepping and jumping, morris dancing

Personal statement:

We frogs feature in many a fairy story with a happy ending - so don't be shy, girls!
I txt msged four characters to see if they could sum me up in a few words. They were:

a) My wife (she used to be a princess, you know!)
b) My best mate, Mervyn
c) Just dialling at random
d) My mother

The responses I got were, respectively:

a) Who the **** are you?
b) You're my besshhst mate ... hic ...
c) Who the **** are you?
d) Who the **** are you?

So who could resist that?

Remember, girls, if you want to find Prince Charming you've got to kiss Frogg a lot!

Illustration Friday - Routine

Mervyn's back! He's in his usual state! He and his friends are performing a stick dancing routine.

Note his friend - on the right hand side of the pic - that's Selwyn Frogg. He will shortly be going a-wooing, so watch this space.

I've been and gone and done the Race for Life ...

...but I've only just got the photographic evidence to prove it. There were five of us from the Occupational Therapy Department of our hospital; here's the logo we used for our t-shirts:

The wording was arrived at after some discussion; 'We've Escaped From Penn Hospital' was rejected on the grounds that the NHS might not like it.

Here are some highlights of the race...

This first one doesn't show anyone from our team; this is because we were so fast that we'd gone out of view before the shutter - or its digital equivalent - fell:


This is our lot with our medals once we'd finished:


And this one shows me and Sam (female) just past the finishing line. For those of you who've never seen me in the flesh, I'm the dark-haired one in the middle of the photie. Well, when I say dark-haired one, it still is dark in places. Honest:


It was wonderful fun. To my surprise, I managed to jog the first 1 1/2km without any bits falling off my joints, and was certainly able to manage a sprint for the last 500m. It was poignant and heartening to see how many people had turned up - hundreds if not thousands - all ages, sizes and shapes.

If anybody out there is contemplating going in for this sort of thing - GO FOR IT!!!

Illustration Friday - Baby!

Eros, as featured in this piece, is only a baby god. According to Robert Graves, he was the most irresponsible of all the Olympians, and when you read all their shenaniggans ... well, they make my back garden look like a suburban backgarden. This piece is packed with other references to myths, too - you may already have spotted Icarus.

Anyway, this highly erudite piece is something to which you can append your own interpretation. Answers on a postcard, please ...

Nature, red in breast, tooth and claw

While lily beetles have been indulging in orgies in my front garden, the back garden has been host to a series of domestic dramas ...

Spring sprang into action with a pair of blue tits visiting my nest box. They were carrying estate agents' details, were measuring up for curtains and all that sort of thing. They were serious. However, several days passed and I saw no blue tit activity other than acrobatics on the seed feeders. Several more days passed, and the only person I noticed going into the nest box was a bumble bee. I didn't investigate the gender of the latter, but for the purposes of this discussion let's call it 'he'. He seemed to be a very frequent visitor and, indeed, still is. I felt that a bumblebee and blue tits in one confined space was not good news, though the fact that the bumblebee was still alive meant that he hadn't stung anyone.

The blue tits seemed to have deserted the nest.

However, it soon became apparent that the real cause of the exodus was probably not the bumblebee, but a pair of these (red breasts) who had taken up residence:



These charming birds are so aggressive you would not believe it! There were only transient visitors to the back garden from then on. Any brave bird who dared venture into the back garden was treated to a torrent of personal abuse which questioned their heritage, parentage and the size of their *******, prior to a thorough going over with robins' poo.

No wonder things became very quiet.

And then I became aware of these little warriors creating quite a lot of noise ... a predator which even they could not repel had entered the garden ...



Whoops, sorry, wrong pic. We all know that Falafel's far too short sighted to do any harm to birds, but look who'd really arrived:



Oh OK then, it was only a domestic moggie that lives next door, but this demanded instant action. I put a new battery into my cat repeller:




So far, it seems to have worked.

Fornicating Couples in MY GARDEN

I've been out in the garden today - yep, there were several hours of uninterrupted sunshine. Well, cloudy grey bits with no rain anyway. And then it rained.

But I digress.

I have several pots full of lovely lilies. A few days ago I noticed three fornicating pairs of lily beetles ON MY LILIES.

And this is what your lilies will look like when they've finished:



So it was obvious that coitus interruptus was called for, without their knowledge or consent (though it did occur to me that this might have been the 'first time' for all of them, and that they'd think that this always happened). Then followed the tedious task of seeking out their disgusting larvae (the little grubs cover themselves with their own excrement to protect them from marauding birds. Not surprisingly, it works well). And their eggs, which being bright orange stand out quite well against the green foliage. They're nothing like as large as hens' eggs, though, so you have to look quite hard. As somebody who enjoys an occasional bit of 'seek and destroy' as an afternoon's entertainment, I did find it quite therapeutic.

In the meantime, interesting developments have been afoot in the back garden - but I'll leave those for another day ...

From racing around in cars ...

...well, dunno so much about the racing. More like proceeding at a tentative pace whilst trying to locate reverse gear. But not normally the latter when I'm travelling along 'A' Roads.

However, I'm joining in the Race for Life on June 18th, all in aid of Cancer Research. As some of you will be aware, I've had experience of some of the nasty things they do to you whilst establishing whether or not you've got cancer. Whilst these did not rank high in the list of 'Unpleasant Things Which They Do To You In Hospitals', my repeated visits did concentrate the mind wonderfully.

If anyone out there would like to sponsor me, there's a special widget so you can do so online ... on the right hand side of this blog!

Many thanks should any of you feel so moved ...

What is this life, if full of cars ...

I've had a hire car, from a hire car company, all this week (courtesy of the other party's insurance). It's a Chevrolet Lacetti, and I don't like it very much. It seems to be stuck on a really naff radio station, and it's very cold when the weather's cold, and stiflingly hot if it isn't. I can't be arsed to find out what to do about these things as no sooner will have mastered them than it will be time to return it.

It was even worse when I got it from the hire car place; I've driven a Peugeot diesel for yars and yars and thought I'd try driving the Lacetti round the site before hitting the Redditch Ring Road, or, come to that, anything on it. I then found I couldn't get reverse gear (you have to say magic incantations in a weird accent, oh yes, and squeeze some bits together and waggle it. And reverse is in the wrong place.) I then discovered I couldn't get the key out of the ignition, and had to get one of the blokes who works there to show me how. I could just tell what he was thinking. It was not complimentary to female drivers.

Anyway, it was parked outside my house next to the pyracantha hedge. (I might also add that blackbirds are nesting in the hedge, and they keep c*****ng on the car. It's a black one, unlike my Peugeot 206 which is silver and therefore won't show the dirt so much). It was in exactly the same spot as my new 206 had been when it was struck amidships ... then ... I noticed that the evil car wot had dun the damage in the first place was parked just opposite.

NOW I know the meaning of paranoia. From first-hand experience.

I couldn't rest. I paced backwards and forwards. I thought about complicated insurance claims. In the end, I nipped to the house over the road and had an apparently pleasant chat with the perpetrator. I didn't quite say 'Look - that's a hire car, and please don't reverse into it', but nearly.

However, the nightmare should soon be over. The company which has been papering over the dents in my car left a message today to say that my motor's ready. So I hope to reclaim it tomorrow! Yippee!!!

Motor Skills

I bought a new car today. Well, new to me anyway. I'd had the previous one for nine years and was very sorry to let it go, but it had got to the stage where the annual garage bills were more than the motor itself was worth.

So I got a new one. I went to pick it up on Tuesday. It wasn't ready. I went back to pick it up today. Purchase went through on my card OK - halleluia! - and I drove it back. Very trepidatiously, on account of the clutch and brake behaving differently to the old one, and got home with only slightly frayed nerves.

I'd been at home for about 10 minutes when there was a knock at the door, and someone who was visiting a neighbour owned up to just having hit MY NEW CAR!!!
AND I'D HAD IT FOR LESS THAN HALF AN HOUR!!! She said she didn't know how it had happened, and I was very good and didn't tell her, and after frothing at the mouth and rolling my eyes in a maniacal fashion I did thank her for owning up ... but .. fffruuuuuegh ...

This is too much excitement for one day, and I think I'll go to sleep soon ...

The Mysterious Mystery of the Missing Plumes ... Explained!!!!

Many thanks to Jennie from the Planet Jen blog for the following pics - which show clearly that Falafel's missing plumes ARE NOW GROWING ON HER HAMSTER!!!





The super little chap in the pics is called Bodkin, and he is clearly quite a youngster. I guess that no sooner will he be used to having plumes than he will be obliged to hand them on to someone else - but we'll see.

Illustration Friday - Garden

This painting is based on the Botanical Gardens in Birmingham, West Midlands, UK (not that the scene looks anything like Birmingham, Alabama). This fantabulous place actually does have peacocks wandering loose around it. Noisy gits they are, too!

Illustration Friday - Leap!

It was always going to take a mammoth leap of the imagination, but these beavers were able to visualise their catch as a round of fish and chips.

I've made somebody's day!

Shaky Mouse of the Shaky Mouse blog (and I really do recommend a visit to this place) has very kindly nominated Puflet Palace for a 'You Make My Day Award'.  His blog would have featured in my top 5 in any case, but this isn't allowed as it constitutes incest as defined by the book of Common Prayer of 1549.  So I'm nominating the following:

Ambitious Hamster
Elizabeth's Journal
Chichi Parish
Pescador
Ragamuffins

This is how it works:

- The recipients should write a post with links to 5 blogs that make them think warm fuzzy thoughts.
- Acknowledge in the post the award giver.
- Display the "You Make My Day Award" logo with a link to the original post (Optional)
- Tell the award winners that they have won by commenting on their blogs with the news.

The case of the missing plumes ...

Some of you will be familiar with Falafel, the significant male who lives with me, and you have probably known him looking like this:



However, something has happened over the winter months, and he now looks like this:



I'd like to know what's happened to his plumes.  Do any of you out there know who's got them?

Illustration Friday - Theory

I know - it's been a long time.  My old computer keyboard went on a sit-down strike after it had a bath in tea (PG Tips, water, cow juice).  

But the main reason is that these squirrels who operate the blog (mostly) have been testing their theories about how best to attack sunflowers in order to extricate the seeds.  They are having some problems, and this really is theoretical because the weather in the UK at this time of year is too cold for sunflowers, and they're having to work from maps, diagrams and illustrations.  One of these is shown here.

As you can see, there is a distinct gap between theory and practice - but I'll let you know how they get on.

It's good to see that some things never change, and Blugger and layouts are a case in point ...