Happy Valentine’s Day

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Amy

For the men I know, an expression of my sympathy. To my own Husband, thank you for still marrying me.

A short note to the most considerate girl (to be my wife this spring),
I hope this will pre-empt more questioning,
Of why right now we aren’t flying to Venice,
Business class on a mystery premise,
Why you didn’t wake this morning to a thousand blooms,
Or something sparkly as one assumes,
It’s just my cherub, my light, you see where I’m heading,
This year instead you planned a wedding,
The season ticket, golf membership and any booze,
I agree was worth giving up for Jimmy Choos,
And you’re right, the swans do set the tone,
And the olive trees flown in from Rome…
And what are chairs without covers (who’d sit on a naked chair?),
Or choose the cheaper rice pudding over an elegant eclair?
But you see my sweet, investment this way,
Has meant a slightly different Valentines Day,
The M&S meal for two says on the packet ‘divine’,
And Alan from Threshers got in your favourite wine,
On your arrival home, candles will be lit,
There’ll be a rose petal bath in which to sit,
Just, my love, this morning you didn’t say when you’d be home,
Nor do you appear to be answering your phone,
Or your texts, faxes, voicemail or landline,
Then there’s recorded delivery you refused to sign…
I’m sure it’s because you’re tied up, so I shall leave you with this,
If there was anyone in the world I’d rather kiss,
It’d be you, you are truly without any flaws,
Lots of love your Fiancé…

The credit card’s yours.

So this is what happened…

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Amy

In approximately a week’s time my beloved and I were set to pack our lives into suitcases, give our house keys to some select strangers in return for rent money, and move to the United States of America. Boston, in fact.

One however can not always foresee the visa application process not following its intended course.

Still our fact finding mission in November last year threw light on a number of interesting points of note I thought I’d share with you – just in case you yourself are about to embark on a similar endeavour.

1) At the car hire place, when offered a free upgrade to a mini van, take it. Your choice of car (although completely adorable and, if you think about it, really quite funny…) means your husband will look like this. All week.

Neil standing next to 'The Beast'

2) When an estate agent tries to sell you a ‘ranch house’, and your mind conjures up a whole host of romantic and whimsical images of skipping through pastures green whilst the cattle graze on yonder hillock – they really mean a wooden bungalow. On a main road. Next to a gas station.

Ranch House in Newton, MA.

3) Ovens are HUGE. Even the little ones. This one was used exclusively at Thanksgiving and Christmas and for the remaining period as useful storage for an overflow of crockery. This is not unusual. (Point of note – this is the kitchen we removed from our old house in England and we have seen many times since. Did everyone own this kitchen at one time or another?).

The omnipresent kitchen

4) A ‘full disclosure’ is normally provided with every house viewing (or ‘showing’ as our friends across the pond would have it).

Expect information to be forthcoming

5) A garden or ‘yard’ is normally only considered the domain of people with pets or children. Otherwise a deck for the purpose of ‘grilling with friends’ is thought sufficient.

An example of a deck. Perhaps not the best.

6) If you’re posh you frequent Starbucks. If you wear a Burberry hat at a jaunty angle and drive a modified motor vehicle, Dunkin’ Donuts is considered your crib.

The sun shines on the Woburn ('Wooburn') Dunkin'

7) If One is employed in public services, work must be carried out during daylight hours.

Please note: an actor was used for purposes of re-enactment. This photograph does not represent a true occurrence.

8 ) Unfortunately my dry wit was ill received as it transpires no one has ever heard of Duncan Goodhew.

Local Reading store

9) You can travel half way across the globe, but still end up right back where you started.

En route

10) See.

Welcome to Reading, MA.

Reading, MA. high street.

11) They even have the same newspaper…

The Reading Chronicle

12) Our mini adventure ended with a trip to the beach at sunset where we watched as the plane that would take us home landed, ate chips, and froze ourselves to death. Just like England really.

Plane coming in to land at Logan airport

True Brit enjoying some bracing sea air.

Only a little bit different.

Making sense of it all

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Amy

Sometimes it is just a bit too difficult to explain. Sometimes you just need to draw a line underneath it and put it down to experience.

Here I am, and a belated Happy New Year.

Guest post

Posted on June 2, 2011 by Amy

The one who normally writes the blog claims to be otherwise occupied, so I’ve been asked to fill in with some kind of ‘interest piece’. Not sure what she’s expecting, and I wasn’t told this was a working holiday, so you’ll make do.

I’m with ‘the daughter’ this week for reasons unknown, though at least the chickens don’t appear to have followed me. I can only hope they will be using this time wisely to learn to EAT THEIR OWN BANANA!

So here’s ‘interesting’. I’ve been a UK citizen for over thirty years now after coming over from Burma in the ’70s to crew on the Bowie Tour. The days were long and the drink was good, but there came a time when I saw a reflection of my shell in marabou trim and I thought ‘enough is enough’. I left the road the following week and then landed a job in overnight logistics (short haul). I stayed there until my retirement in 1981, found myself a nice little detached ‘batch pad’, hot tub, wi-fi, patio, been deliriously happy there ever since. Until the chickens moved in.

If only I were vegetarian simply for ethical reasons.

Off now to Ladbrokes to put money on a couple of dead certs – the Hare on at 3/1 and Helen Milligan to win ‘the Apprentice’ at – 9/1. Fine ~~behind~~ mind.

Later people!

Rolling in the deep

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Amy

Despite trying, my middle aged gene seems beyond repression and so this week I shall be glued to Alan at Chelsea. The previews on the BBC so far have been very intriguing, and although perhaps a bit too early in the day to pass judgement, and I understand that the man has a reputation to uphold, I already feel Diarmuid’s pink pod is a little unnecessary.

This weekend was a rather jolly one spent with friends enjoying sunshine and beer in the garden. The Toy Boy and I even found a property that caught our eye and we spent a good half an hour or so inspecting it’s fine appointments. Unfortunately we felt we had to leave after our host was asked “Who are your grown up friends playing in Jodie’s Wendy House”? I shall be nipping back for the gingham drapes.

On Sunday we decided to extend our culinary repertoire to include roasted rabbit, which was a bit more expensive than our normal choice of classic poultry but we thought worth a try. Cooked to perfection, browned and seasoned beautifully it was served with Moroccan style couscous, roasted vegetables and a hunk of wholegrain loaf, and (as pictured) looked thoroughly delightful…

but tasted like chicken.

So far…so good?

Posted on January 13, 2011 by Amy

Isn’t she a beaut?

I have to admit to being a bit of a closet diary fanatic. In fact the only thing that makes the cold dark days of January marginally bearable is the excited anticipation of getting my hands on a scrummy new book, all leather bound and full of crispy white pages with useful reminders of the pinnacles of one’s year already written in it. Lord knows I would be forever missing out on ‘international youth tobacco abstinence day’ otherwise.

This year’s diary like others before is already stuffed full of my random effects – little notes I write to myself, receipts, movie stubs, recipe cards, post-its with phone numbers on and a whole load of other random things that just appeal to me. Another habit I seem to carry on each year is keeping a record of certain events that are of particular note. I have to say that I had every hope that 2011 would turn out to be a remarkable year, but I hadn’t counted on collecting so many jottings already. Below is a refined selection:

Wednesday 5th January : Fell in wheelie bin having rescued mistakenly discarded tin of pledge (lavender). Recovered by John next door after he thought ‘the foxes were at it again’. Made lasagne for dinner

Friday 7th January: Ate last of nice cinnamon Christmas biscuits. Found Ryvita more edible if coated in nutella. Doesn’t work on cornflakes. Reminder: Renew Gym..

Saturday 8th January: Picked up PVR from John Lewis depot after stressful navigation of one way system only to fall victim to arrogant BMW driver stealing parking space. Dog on walk peed up expensive alloys. Karma.

Monday 10th January: Sold blue and white dress from Phase Eight on eBay. Bit too revealing. Posted to Essex at 17:12 – Recorded Delivery.

Tuesday 11th January: Picked Neil up from station in pyjamas – definitely got away with it. Nice man from no.14 who looks like Tim Henman took in wheelie bin for us. Suspect neighbours have been talking.

Wednesday 12th January : NB after visiting a public convenience make sure dress is fully pulled down under winter coat to avoid coffee shop embarrassment. Reminder: Order new ‘control’ tights. Set PVR to record new ‘Relocation’.

Thursday 13th January: Got rust off bathroom tile with arm and hammer enamel restore and Immac.

……..I use ‘remarkable’ in the loosest sense of the word.

I’ll work on it.

Halfway update and a new obsession with root vegetables

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Amy

Well here I am, at the half way mark of when my dissertation needs to be written by, and needless to say half a dissertation has not yet been written. Still, this was to be expected as anything even remotely related to me always takes the most unlikely of courses, so I would be a fool to think this would be any different. Indeed it has been a somewhat turbulent time since the end of May with joys and sadness in fairly equal amounts.

At the end of May we celebrated Neil’s Mum’s birthday with another trip to Vinopolis (which is becoming a bit of a favourite haunt of ours now), where I fell in love with a £40 bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape. Needless to say we had to part company at the ‘tasting table’, but I hope one day we will meet again.

Throughout June work on the garden has been in full swing with Neil and I having finally established gound level, and are very pleased to have taken our final van’s worth of weeds and rubble to the tip. Our modest patch of earth still does rather represent ‘the Somme’ with an added hint of ‘Auschwitz’, following the discovery of a barbed wire overhang belonging to a neighbour. I am hoping a well placed clematis may help resolve this issue, although I also have my eye on some bamboo we could use for screening that, when cut and dried, can also be fashioned into the most terrific pea shooter! In a sense this will be killing two birds with one stone – although it is not birds I intend to target with my hand crafted device – but rather next doors cat that keeps peeing on my alchemilla mollis.

The middle/end of June was largely consumed by some very sad news, as my favourite uncle Phil lost his life to Lymphoma. Needless to say it has been a bit of a rubbish time for everyone, and none of us can quite believe he is no longer here as his was such a big character. In true Godfrey style however (my Mum’s side of the family) he got (and quoting the vicar) “a bloody good send off” as the church and get together after the funeral was packed with people wanting to share their memories of Phil . My Mum in particular recalled accounts of being left up trees and locked in the chicken shed by her big brother! Be good up there Phil – I know Granny won’t think you too old to give you a good clip around the ear…..!

And now it is July, it is raining, and I can’t believe that midsummer day has passed and its all downhill again from here! Still, our holiday is booked and so I am not short of things to look forward to, including the handing in of my dissertation and the receipt of my freedom. In the meantime I am taking stock, and as recent events have taught me, I have begun appreciating the everyday as you don’t know what might happen the next. With this state of mind, food shopping has again taken on an additional amusement value, in particular the root vegetable aisle.

Now I am not sure whether this is a recent occurence, whether the EU have relaxed their rules regarding vegetation perfection, or whether for comedy value those hard working polish people trudging away in the fields of deepest darkest Norfolk have let a few slip through, but amongst the box of sweet potatoes I have recently uncovered some interesting finds:

Further proof I am not yet a grown up…

Cleavage shot….

I fear this may turn in to a weekly feature.

I think it’s a sign

Posted on April 14, 2008 by Amy

I love our basement at work – it is an awesome place and I’ll use almost any excuse to visit its maze of secret passages, gloomy corridors, curious cubby holes and also for a chance to peer at the enormous safe housed down there with its supersized door and chainmail security gate more fitting to a chamber of gringrotts. On my latest adventure to this hidden world (a mission to place some of the overflowing files from our ‘paperless office’ into the archive store) I came upon a room I remarkably hadn’t discovered until now, hidden behind a faux wall and mountain of cardboard crates filled with dusty copies of old committee reports.

Now normally curiosity gets the better of me, and if I have the opportunity I will sneak a look at what is behind the mysterious closed doors. On this one this particular occasion however I was stopped in my tracks by the description of the room’s contents marked upon a sign…

It looks like someone is either having toilet problems or we are taking the prospect of cultivating GM foods too far.

Either way – I think there are some things best left undiscovered.

Life is out there

Posted on April 3, 2008 by Amy

I have been experiencing a strange sensation of late in which I have lost all concept of time. I only realised it was the beginning of April this week after a colleague cunningly hid a whoopee cushion on my chair….

You see currently my life is organised only by university weeks and when assignments are due. I have no idea what month it is, year it is, day it is or even if I continue to exist as a real time human being. I only know that we are on ‘Week 9′ and that my thesis presentation has to be done for 10 days time along with a whole bunch of other stuff filed under the growing pile of ‘things to do at some point’.

This strict and strangely timeless timetable has however had other consequences in that several painful sacrifices have had to be made as to my activities. This is why ALBD has been sadly neglected for so long and why I have worn Neil’s socks to work twice this week. There does however come a point when you need to break free of the monotony of everyday life, revive your soul and experience the world that exists outside of Planning Policy Statement 3.

It is therefore, following a much anticipated pay check, I allowed myself 1.5 hours on Tuesday afternoon (‘Week 8′ ) to assult Reading in a bid to find some summer clothes, just in case England decided to have one this year. Now shopping is not usually my most favourite of tasks as I am known to suffer horrendous pedestrian rage, have issues with shop assistants that say hello as you walk in the store but fail to open a till when the queue is out the door and half way past Sainsbury’s, and typically have to search every store to find anything that:

a) Slims my calves

b) Flatters my robust frame, and most importantly

c) Swooshes

I like clothes that swoosh.

By some miraculous marvel however, the gods were shining on me on Tuesday and I hit gold with the Fat Face ‘bargain rail’. Hoorah! I picked up a pair of very comfortable shoes, a useful top that I think will go very nicely with my new blue necklace (you know the one), and a skirt that – you guessed it – swooshes! To top this happy experience and much needed respite away from books and computer screens, the legend that is Fat Face also provided me a useful reminder surreptitiously printed at the bottom of one of its labels:

Life is out there

Something I have to admit to losing sight of recently and you know what, after ‘Week 22′ when all the work is done…

I must just go and live it.

A Little Bit Different

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