Orange Juice is good for you

Would you look at that audience, have you seen what they're wearing, bless! Just do audio if you are easily offended on the sartorial front.



Some of us of a certain (ahem!) age may still have these items in our wardrobes. Don't admit to anything. Or leave the wardrobe doors open.

Strange what you miss about folk, though.

At the interval for ISIHAC, I really missed Sophie. Theatre intervals used to be spent outside while Soph topped up the nicotine levels and I got some fresh air. Easy to do, just stand upwind of the smokers, though it might not count as fresh air in Salford Quays. Scott would join us, just to laugh at the English softies who were trying to smoke through chattering teeth. It's always bloody freezing around the Lowry centre.

Being a creature of habit, at the interval I headed outward past the bars and to the main doors.

The smokers looked pityingly at me, marking me down as a quitter who still tried to passive smoke. But the non-smokers had the last laugh when the smokers couldn't join in with... well, just listen to the show, whenever it is broadcast...

Not so quiet on the Western front...

Life round ours has been rather dull recently. Of course things have been happening, but in the main they have been on the boring-dull-downright sad end of the spectrum, and not up for discussion.

So we were nearly caught out when a bunch of really nice things happened in a short space of time;

i) our friend Nam has finally been granted a visa from Thailand, after years of trying. So she will be living just up the road, with her lovely boyfriend Glyn. He's a mad Man City fan, so I've suggested she tries to get a job at the City of Manchester stadium as soon as her NI number is sorted. So we're all round at theirs for a Thai banquet as soon as she recovers from the jetlag when she arrives in May.

ii) James has finally found a full-time job (rather than all the temp stuff he's been doing for the last few months). About time he decided what he wanted to be when he grew up, hah!

iii) the house sale to the buyer-from-hell has finally been completed. The Big Sis will be spending the proceeds on Valium and anger management courses. The buyer has severely pissed-off the BS - you shouldn't do that to someone whose house you are buying, obviously they know where you will be living... :)

And saving the best to last... The beautiful Faye is now engaged to the lovely Kev, and my sister-in-law is hoping that she just might get to be a grandma in due course. Wedding next year on a beach somewhere, underwater if Faye can persuade Kev to study for the PADI certificate!

Added to all that, the lovely Lucy at Life Begins was christened on Sunday, and I got a last-minute invite to "I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" at the Lowry! Both well worth the speeding tickets that I must have collected, either on the way to church (honestly, officer) or on the way to the altar of St Humph of the Lyttleton.

Greetings from Chez Mogs

It's been a bit on the quiet side here, the only noteworthy events are two quite sad ones.

The first concerns the elegant Eric. Last week he was playing mind games with the dogs, stretched full length in the best space in the house, yawning menacingly at them. Oh yes, this cat could yawn with menace.

On Good Friday we noticed Eric was definitely keeping tight-lipped about something. A bit of skullduggery involving buttered toast and marmite persuaded him to open up. His bottom fangs were missing :( Seeing as he'd already lost the top-right one, cracked and removed long since, this was not a good look. I expect they are embedded in the neck of some wee beastie somewhere, but they looked better on Eric.

The second one concerns Gromit. He is definitely showing signs of severe aging, made even worse by comparing him with 2-year-old Bailey. He's back at the vets tonight, and I'm preparing for the worst. All his ailments are catching up with him, but at least we know Patrick will tell us straight what the outcome is.

The bottom line is that both pets are old, Gromit is 12 years old and Eric will be 12 soon. But I forgot to tell them I expected pet immortality from them, not just furballs and mucky pawprints everywhere.

Hellfire awaits...

the wonderful Child Dawkins.

She wanted to play the good old-fashioned Elastics game with her teddy bear. Don't say 'awww', she's seriously competitive and wanted to do some training at home, all the better to conquer the playground.

She couldn't find her Bratz elastics anywhere. So she improvised...with 4 sets of rosary beads, including a set from Rome.

We can only guess that the Vatican beads had not been blessed, as the house has not been struck by lightning.

Mousie, x2

So there we were, Saturday night, and an early night planned. No better offers, so catch up with MOTD, and some rolling news, bed by midnight.

Not for long.

2am, I was still in the hall, with cardboard boxes, tubes, sticky tape, 2 cats, 1 dog and a very small and determined mouse.

Challenge? To catch said Mousie, before cats and dog did. Mousie found the only spot in the hall where it couldn't be reached. I opened the front door to freedom for it, Mousie stayed curled up in corner, and I froze for a while. By 2am, I'd become 'Frustrated Blue Peter Presenter'-woman, trying to make some contraption to trap it and haul it's furry arse outside. At 2.20am I gave up.

Sunday, 7.45am and the critters dragged me downstairs. The mouse had been inside the contraption overnight, wandered round and back to the corner. So Plan B - empty and move bookcase (mercifully small but still heavy) and herd the little furry-arsed git through the front door. Preferably before the Middlesbrough-Cardiff match.

Success at last, but Tig was sulking BIG TIME. Or he was, until he brought a second mouse in...

I got to that one really quickly, and threw it out. Tig's sulking went off the scale at this point. One mouse I could have, but TWO??? Jasmine, Gromit and Bailey all joined in. I'm a disgrace.

I'm paying the price for being greedy, only Eric is still my pal. But he learned long ago to keep his killing sprees out of the house...

Not much justice there, then

So Carol Barnes dies at 63, and on the same day Thatcher gets to stagger on for a bit longer.

No justice, but at least it gives Elvis Costello a bit more time to shine up his dancing shoes.