Panic Friday

Welcome to Panic Friday.

This is the day that you look at your piles and think, "Where did that week go?"

You go to the allotment and look at the weeds you haven't pulled out.
You look at the cupboards that are still messy.
You notice the cobwebs still lurking in the corners of rooms.
You flick through the piles of music you were going to sort out.
You scratch your head about the fact you did even find time to shred the bank statements overfowing from the filing cabinet.
You look at the work you were going to do.  The planning that would make your life easier if you just got organised.

Then you have a choice.  Do you run around like a mad person, trying to fit a whole week's worth of stuff or do you just make the most of an afternoon of sunshine and pick up another book?

There's always Major Panic Sunday.

It Pays to Enrich Your Word Power.

When I was growing up, my parents subscribed to the Reader's Digest and those funny little books were kept in our loo.  My favourite page was, "It Pays to Enrich Your Wordpower," and sometimes I really miss those little books and their ability to extend my vocabulary. Now I wake up at 5am, grab my phone, check the news, look at the word of the day on the dictionary (today's is Wuther = (of wind) to blow fiercely, which seems very appropriate) and play my turn of Words with Friends.  I like words and I have serial friends.  My longest oponant is my cousin, who is seems to be just as happy to make up words as I am.  It's better than real scrabble because you learn new words all the time and you don't have to have the arguments about whether the word is in the dictionary or not.  When I play, I look at where I want to go and keep putting letters in, until I get a word that gets accepted.  I have learnt some amazing new words.

Here are twelve of the recent favourites.

1.  Ajee - To one side awry
2. Eidola - apparitions
3. Tropisms - orentations of organisms to an external stimulus like light
4. Nixy - A mis-addressed piece of mail
5. Orcing - An orc is a kind of ogre so it probably means acting like an ogre.  The definition I found says Fake Troll trying to troll, "That guy was orcing so hard on my game last night."  I don't think I will ever be using the word orcing.
6. Ajuga - A plant with blue flowers not something you put your beer in.
7. Keef - A bit of a Cannabis plant and not my next door neighbour.
8. Petiolar -Growing from a petiole (slender stalk by which a leaf is attached to a stem)
9. Kelters - Properties of any kind (kelter is another spelling of kilter as in out of kilter)
10. Worrit - Become worried or show anxiety.  "I was very worrit about Mr Gove's proposals for phonic teaching."
11. Womby - Capacious
12. Fuzee - A conical spirally grooved pulley in a timepiece from which a cord or chain unwinds onto a cylinder containing the mainspring and which by its increasing diameter compensates for the lessening power of the spring.

The flipside of this is that words that you use every day, words that you know are real just don't seem to be accepted.

1.  Cooth - if you can be uncooth then you must be able to be cooth.
2.  Tingly - A friend was very upset that WwF wouldn't let her have tingly today.  We've all had tingly hands and feet in the cold.
3.  Prezoing - Going to Prezo to meet friends, gossip and get thrown out at midnight, as in, "Are you Prezoing tonight?"
4.  Eieio - would be a great way to use up your vowels and we've all sung it, "Old Macdonald had a farm...."
5. Ambitexterous - being able to text with both hands
6. Effin - as in, "we was having fun just effin around."

And finally, my favourite word, which I know I have been doing in this blog: Testiculate - talking bollocks with expansive arm movements.

22

Numerology gives great importance to the number 22.  It is a great number and is considered to be very special.  Children enjoy numberology because it's fun.  You give each letter of your name a number and then add them up in any way you want to get the result you like best.  People even change their names to get the best number.  I'm not sure who gave numbers their defining characteristics, or why they decided not to add 22 together to make it just another 4 but I like the number 22.  It has a lovely roundness to it; a great symmetry.

22 A great number for an anniversary

Twenty two years ago the Long Suffering Husband and I got married.  22 also feels like a great number for an anniversiry.  Two people together for twenty two years and if you turn one of the two's backwards you get a heart.

Numerologists define the great 22 as the Master Builder and the most important of all numbers.  It is confident, ambitious and can turn even the wildest dreams into reality.

Last week the Long Suffering Husband said, "Let's go and see Singing in the Rain for our anniversary," I said that I'd rather see Book of Mormon and he said, "We could see both."  A huge ambitious plan, far too extravagent to ever become reality.  We looked at ticket prices on the internet and balked and Book of Mormon was sold out until September. But the number 22 is ambitious and can build just about anything it dreams of, so I dreamt of seeing both and having 2 great meals (after all if you keep the theme going surely you are going to give it more power.)

We got up early and were in London before 10am.  The West End was amazingly busy for that time of the morning; a sea of yellow and red, lederhosen and harsh accents. We started at the Prince of Wales theatre box office to ask if they had any tickets for a BofM show today.  They told us about their lottery at 5pm for the evening show and so we decided to go and see if we could get Singing in the Rain tickets.  If you ask at the box office for Day tickets they give you the best seats at a tiny price.  We got front row tickets for £20.  We were warned that we would get wet but as we had our waterproofs, being prepared for the wonderful British weather we decided it would be fine. The LSH checked when the show ended and it looked unlikely that we would get back to the Prince of Wales theatre to enter the lottery but the number 22 has great power and we decided to keep the faith.

Lederhosen

We had brunch at Bills in St Martin's Court.  The first of what was going to be 2 great meals. We were feeling very positive about our grand plan.  We had tickets for Singing in the Rain and had found a great place for breakfast.  We knew it was a great place because at 11am it was buzzing.  We didn't have a reservation (who reserves a table for 11am brunch?) we waited on the stairs taking in the atmosphere and then had a brilliant breakfast.

Bill's breakfast

The weather was on our side and Covent Garden was full of street performers warning against a degree in drama.  We walked and talked and watched people in Lederhoden get a bit wobbly on their feet and kick football's around in Central London side streets.

'Drama isn't a proper degree'

Otto from Norway becoming star of the show

Our seats for Singing in the Rain were fantastic.  We saw everything.  To be honest, the LSH didn't see everything because we had a perfect view up most of the dancers' skirts and he felt it would be inappropirate to look.  We also got absolutely soaked.  During the Singing in the Rain number he took great delight at kicking great sprays of water all over us.  This turned me into a minor celebrity in the ladies toilets in the interval, as I stood in the queue ringing out my hair and cardigan sleeves.  It was really funny though and a nice wake up because although it was a fantastic show, sitting in a warm dark room filled with familiar songs with a fully belly is a recipe for a little snooze.

The show finished at 5 past five and so we thought the chance of entering the Book of Mormon lottery was unlikely but 22 has great plans, is ambitious and never gives up. They hadn't even started when we got there. We put our name and address on a form stating theat we'd like 2 tickets and waited in the crowd to see if our ticket was pulled out.

The Book of Mormon Lottery

The man next to me said that you have to keep trying that your chance of winning goes up each time you enter.  He looked at me pityingly when I said that statistically your chance of winning was the same each time and that looking around I thought we had about a 1 in 5 chance to win one of the 21 tickets. He thought I was being overly ambitious but 22 is idealistic.  The pulling of the tickets was great theatre.  It was very exciting, we cheered and groaned each winner and then after 12 tickets had gone my name was called.  22 can manifest dreams. We paid £40 for two front row seats, normally selling for £158 each.

For our second meal of the day we chose simple and quick Prezzo and it was perfect and delicious.

We could see right into the pit and I could follow the score from my seat. We both really enjoyed this show. We also said that we didn't know if we could recommend it to anyone.  There is so much in this show that could offend someone.  Personally, I was a little upset by the fact that the producers seem to think there is a shortage of white females who can sing dance and act.  I know it was meant to be funny for the mothers to be played by men but I don't think they would have got away with 'blacking-up' actors to play the Ugandan cast and I found the mother's hairy feet to be highly offensive. Having said that, though, it really was a brilliant show and I would go again, although I probably won't be teaching Hasa Diga Eebowai when we do African songs again at school, even though it's a great, great song.

Thank you 22.  The LSH and I had a great day celebrating our anniversary with your audacity to dream big.

Just a housewife

This week a male colleague used the phrase, "Is she just a housewife?"  and I bristled.  It just sounded like such a sexist thing to say.  Normally, this particular colleague is shot down in flames, gets paper thrown at him and called a 'Mysoginistic B-something' but not this time.  The women were equally scathing about being 'just a housewife'  and told tales of parents that they'd seen with sunburn who needed (in their opinion) to get a life, mothers who had nothing better to do than work on their children's homework projects and others who spend so much time at the gym, they actually look fit.  Since women joined the workforce they chose to look down on those that hadn't.  Women I worked with at a bank (who hadn't yet had children) laughed about their friends with babies who drank tea all day.  I've always been fascinated by this and my final year degree project (A Fishbein Attitude Survey) looked at women's attitudes to having children.  My survey sample was female degree sudents and less than 1% of the women interviewed said that they wanted children.  They couldn't possibly admit to wanting children because that would have been seen as a waste of their degree (they didn't say that but that's how I felt that at the time).  Only one of that 1% said that she would give up her job to look after her children.  Now, I know that of the 1000 women I interviewed, I can't have been the only one to have children and probably not the only one to stay at home and look after them.

I have always objected to the idea that we are defined by our jobs.  I hate it when people say, "what are you?" when they want to know how you make your living and when people ask about my job I always say, "I work as a music teacher."  The stupidity of defining ourselves solely by the job we do was brought home to me when my son's school produced a video interview of all the children in the reception class (the idea was that they were going to repeat the questions in year 6 so that we had a 'before and after' look at our children through the school but it never happened).  When he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up he looked puzzled for a second and then said his own name.  We all laughed but secretly I admired his certainty.  He liked who he was and thought he'd just carry on being himself, if it was the same to anyone else.

Today, we had a non-pupil day for report writing but as I've finished mine (yes I'm gloating) I was just a housewife.  I spent the day shopping, cleaning, ironing and walking the dog (and then obviously bathing the dog)  I didn't have time to clean any cupboards (as I'd planned) or shred the old bank statements or remove cobwebs, or clean the windows, or cut the grass, or change the bedding but I did make a cake. When my son came home from school I was here to listen to his day and check the homework he had for the week.  I did go for a swim and play the piano for a bit and it was fantastic.  Is it jealousy that makes people use the phrase just a housewife and place such heavy judgements on women who choose to stay at home and look after their children and keep their homes looking nice, rather than cramming those important things into too short a space of time?

The whole issue of definining ourselves by our work can be a very difficult thing for women.  Because being a housewife is unpaid, it is also unvalued, as are many low paid jobs that women traditionally do and creative work that also attracts a female workforce. Women who want children then have to make a choice.  They have to choose to pay someone else (hence giving value to the thing they can't be valued for) to do the job they might want to do; the job they might think they can do better or they have to put up with the comments and snide looks.


The suggestion that all women should freeze their eggs so they could delay motherhood to the right time for their career (probably over 50, when the wrinkles have set in) was in the news this week.  This isn't the solution.  Wouldn't it be far better if society started to value the skills of just a housewife?  Then when women want to re-enter the workplace theywouldn't have to start from the beginning again, having seen their pre-child career flounder on the rocks of housewiffery.

Swivel Eyed Loons

If you are at a dinner party with a journalist, the best thing to do is use simple language.  The last thing you want to be is quotable.  Whoever it was who said,  "It's fine. There's really no problem. The MPs just have to do it because the associations tell them to, and the associations are all mad, swivel-eyed loons," must be wishing he hadn't used that particular phrase.  If only he'd stopped after mad I don't believe it would have made the national press.  It would have been the swivel-eyed loons part that would have caused the whipping out of shorthand pad and pencil.  

When I heard the phrase on the radio this morning I was intrigued.  The conservative party seem to believe that one mad reference is not enough.  After Michael Gove's 'bonkeroony' comment I thought he must have issued the quote but on reading more about the story the quote was referring to the people are anti-Europe, which Gove has openly said he is.  I had never heard the phrase before and thought it was an excellent example of creativity but it turns out it has been used before.

I wanted a definition of what the phrase actually means, as people in Government seem to be very upset by it. 

Picture of a Loon from the Loon Preservation Committee Website

The word 'loon' is defined as a crazy or simple minded person and dates back to 1400 Middle English.  It probably a contraction of the word lunatic (rather than being anything to do with the bird), which derives from the late 13th century and means someone who is mentally ill, often epileptic and comes from the Latin for moon, 'luna', as they believed that mental illness was caused by the moon. 

I think Dickens used the term, swivel-eyed to describe someone with a squint but it has come to mean someone who can't see things straight; someone who is unable to see the truth because they are mad. 

So, in the phrase we have the wonderful, journalistic trick of the triple whammy.  Actually, to be fair to journalists, I think it's a Taoist thing.  I was once told by a Taoist that if someone told you something three times you should listen to it and if I didn't believe what he was saying then I should read the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet.  I'm still not quite sure why he didn't suggest reading the Tao Te Ching.

Was whoever put these three things together in the presence of a journalist the first to do so?
Not according to Twitter.  I searched for swivel-eyed loon and was surprised at the results. I expected the first reference to these three words together to be the 17th of May, when the Telegraph published the story but no.  Before then, there were several people using the three words together to imply that the person they were talking about was a racist.  Terry Christian tells someone who was complaining that Richard Dawkins had made an anti-Semitic remark, "What Dawkins said wasn't reckless or inflammatory unless you are a swivel-eyed loon bused in from the 12th Century."  There were lots of references to UKIP members as swivel-eyed loons and Ed Balls and John Redwood were specifically named as S.E.L.s.  Then there were lots of references to spotting  S.E.Ls on Question Time.  The first person to use the phrase, according to my Twitter research, was Rhodri Marsden   on 28th May 2009.  He continued to be the only person to tweet the phrase until the 5th of August 2010, when a steady stream of other people started to use it. 

Rhodri's twitter profile says that he writes for the Independent, plays with Scritti Polliti and used to be moderately funny once.  Although, I had never heard of him, Twitter gives him a big blue tick, which I think means he is real but not normal. (none of my normal friends get the tick). He doesn't seem to claim to have been the inventor of the phrase, though. From his photos I can see that he likes trees, plays music, watches TV, plays scrabble, grows large courgettes and I'm thinking we could be friends.  Then I panic, that my search for this wordsmith has turned me into a stalker and I find out that he writes a column on Social Awkwardness.  #Awkward.

Eurovision Annual Eating Competition

If Eurovision were an eating composition I'm sure Britain would win.  Morrison's shelves were cleared of all junk food.  The Long Suffering Husband is setting out a great array of food and drink, with plenty of cheese. My daughter came home from University to share her expert knowledge with us and is currently making a table of the categories to judge each song on and will give each a score.  The opening ceremony choir is probably the best music we are going to hear all evening but it's going to be better than an evening of The Voice battles.

The presenter Petre Mede, is dressed in candy pink and I think she just said a bitchy Bjorn and Benny and referred to the audience as a bunch of dancing Queens. She's  got such high hair. Graham Norton is now telling us we can't vote by text or mobile app voting.  I wonder why not.  Can the Brits thumbs not be trusted?


1. France is first with L'enfer Et Moi. She has her finger firmly wedged in her ear - not a good sign that the sound production is up to much.  I like this.  She's dressed as a Raven with slightly ruffled feathers and I can imagine this song being very popular in France. My daughter's score for France is 23.

2. Lithuania.  Oh he is funny.  "Because of my shoes he's wearing today."  Graham Norton has accused him of being badly dressed.  He's got huge hands too. Score = 8

3. Maldova.  She's skinny.Graham says that this is all about the frock.  It lights up but her hair is rather foxy and she could easily sit on top of a toilet roll.  I think that this is going to get lots of points our scoring system. Dancers, lighting up dresses, lightening, levitating and a piano, flames.  Score = 33 1/2



4. Finland.  Marry me. I'm liking Graham more and more.  He just said that if two girls kissing offends you, you need to ...... grow up.  Terrible costume, psycho woman.  The LSH understands her boyfriend's position completely, "Why would you marry her." Fireworks gets lots of points in our scoring system and I suspect the pink boots will get an extra point.  Score = 36 (Swayed by the pink - I wouldn't give it that much)



5. Spain.  No Spain, behave yourself.  Bagpipes are horrible.  I like her eyelashes.  Slightly out of tune.  Went to sleep and missed the fireworks.  Score = 16



6. Belgium. A little 18 year old boy singing Love Kills.  Ouch and scary eyes.It has improved and it's quite a catchy song.  It's going to score really badly on our points system but our Eurovision expert thinks it could win.  Score = 26



7. Estonia.  How clever, to be sing in black and white at the beginning.  She is wearing a large white sheet with a hairband tied round it. Not my kind of thing but still better than the Voice.  Score = 8 (with a few marks given for pregnancy)




8. Belarus.  It sounds like Kiss Kiss by Holly Valance appealing to the Eastern countries.  It won't get much for costume because she is only wearing a little bit of fringing. Score = 27



9.  Malta. Tomorrow.  This will appeal to us Brits.  It sounds like Bruno Mars or the little ginger boy with a band and a ukelele and the singer is cute looking. Score = 22

10.  Russia.  Nothing can top the Grannies from last year. Lacy cardies never work for me and I hate it when you hear the breathing louder than the singing. I think they thought that there was no beating their Grannies from last year. Score = 10



11.  Germany.  Just like last year's winner.  Cascada is the most confident performer on the stage so far. She's rocking it.  It won't sore brilliantly on our system because there were no costume changes or fireworks or instruments.  Score = 23



12. Armenia. Already lost eyebrow marks and a silly scarf. A key change, explosion and guitar solo all increase this sad song's marks.  Score = 15

Pause for more food.....




13. Netherlands.  Graham just said that she's like Lana Del Ray, which is over the heads of the LSH and me but this has caused my son to shout, "No, No, No," and cover his ears with cushions.  It is dire, a proper dirge and she sings out of the side of her mouth.  But birds do fly! Score = 4



14.  Romania. It's my life.  Graham says it's very Eurovision and on his advice we are trying to remove the dog from the room. Ming the merciless or Rasputin?  Wow, that's a falsetto, which I can understand.  I might go into a falsetto if 4 naked men jumped out at me. Well you're not going to forget this are you?  He's levetating too, with a gold-sprayed naked women.  This stands a good chance even though it's terrible.
Score = 33



15.  UK.  Graham gives the good advice to fill your glasses and have a drink first.  She is looking old and a little drunk (sorry Bonnie - I want to support you I really do)  I've heard this song a lot on radio 2 and I think the chorus is quite catchy. She is confident and it's making the dog sing along.  Score = 15



16. Sweden.  I missed this but it got a score of 29



17. Hungary.  The backing singer does look hungry, she really should eat something.  Not sure about the beaded homeless man.  Score = 10



18. Denmark.  The bookies favourite. A penny whistle and a some drums and a little girls sitting on the floor. It's a nice song. Oh, that poor penny whistle mimer, his hands are really  shaking. Score = 37



19. Iceland.  His beard/hair combination has confused my son.  He thought he had a Dumbledore style beard.  It's a pretty ballard and his voice is better than any I've heard on the Voice. Score = 13



20. Azerbaijan.  A man on a box, a man in a box.  That's quite clever.  I like the box thing.  And look at that train on that dress, she's dragging the red carpet behind her and you can see her vertebrae.  Score = 31



21. Greece.  This makes me laugh.  Good old Greece.  This is what should win Eurovision.  Men in skirts gets extra points. Grandad and his grandsons in skirts, with instruments and silly dancing.  Grandad's moustache deserves a prize of it's own.  I know a trombone player who will have his eye on that trumpet that lights up in the dark. Score = 46



22. Ukraine.  It's gone downhill a bit since the worlds tallest man left the stage. We can't quite decide if they are singing, "Like gravity." or "bugger off then." Score = 9



23.  Italy.  I have nothing to say about Italy. Score = 5


24.  Norway.  I think I'm tired now as I have an urge to hit the mute button..  I feed you my love?  What? Not many people could get away with a dress like that, and even fewer would attempt to dance in it.  Wouldn't it be funny if she fell flat on her face.  They don't get a lot of daylight in Norway in winter, maybe that explains it.  Score = 20




25. Georgia.  waterfall.  Why is this tipped for greatness?  It's just a bit boring. Score = 22



26. Ireland:  Very slippery dancers and drumming.  I wonder if their tattoos are real?  I don't like this.  It's a bit shouty I'm sure I will be asleep before the results are revealed. Score = 27

I want Greece to win and according to my daughter's score they should win but we all know they wont, the rest of Europe doesn't really share our sense of humour.  We think the winner will be Denmark or Germany.

Results

By our scoring

Country	Eurovision Score	Our Score
Greece	152	46
Denmark	281	37
Finland	13	36
Moldovia	71	33.5
Romania	65	33
Azerbaijan	234	31
Sweden	62	29
Belarus	48	27
Ireland	5	27
Belgium	71	26
Germany	18	23
France	14	23
Malta	120	22
Georgia	50	22
Norway	191	20
Spain	8	16
Armenia	41	15
UK	23	15
Iceland	47	14
Russia	174	10
Hungary	84	10
Ukraine	214	9
Lithuania	17	8
Estonia	19	8
Italy	126	5
The Netherlands	114	4

Results by Eurovision score

Country	Eurovision Score	Our Score
Denmark	281	37
Azerbaijan	234	31
Ukraine	214	9
Norway	191	20
Russia	174	10
Greece	152	46
Italy	126	5
Malta	120	22
The Netherlands	114	4
Hungary	84	10
Moldovia	71	33.5
Belgium	71	26
Romania	65	33
Sweden	62	29
Georgia	50	22
Belarus	48	27
Iceland	47	14
Armenia	41	15
UK	23	15
Estonia	19	8
Germany	18	23
Lithuania	17	8
France	14	23
Finland	13	36
Spain	8	16
Ireland	5	27

So, as much fun as it was. It turns out that our complicated scoring system is terrible for predicting the actual result.

Funerals

I think Richard Curtis missed a trick, when he wrote 4 Weddings.  He made the funeral part very sad, with lots of sniffing and a beautifully read WH Auden poem.  There is always that element to a funeral and as I have been to one this week I can tell you that I feel completely wrung out by the emotion of the event but it's not all tears.  It may be my unusual view on life but I always find something funny at a funeral.

When I worked in a bank, we had a funeral director as a customer who would come in and do his banking every Thursday. He always used to joke that no one died on a Thursday, hence, making it banking day.  He was the most cheerful person I've ever met in my life.  He constantly whistled and told jokes.  He would tell me stories of funny things that happened at funerals, like the time an actor was buried and  because the last show he was in was the pantomime 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' his family had insisted on the pall bearers being the wonderful short actors he had been working with.  As if that wasn't funny enough, they had come in costume.  I tell this story because it's possibly the most believable of many.

My childhood memory of funerals is based around very tall wobbly women.  It seems to be the law that women wear impossibly high heels for a funeral, which does seem strange when you take into account the amount of standing involved.  The smell of sherry also takes me right back to funerals I attended as a child, which might account for some of the wobbliness.

The wake is always an interesting part of the funeral.  The best I've been to have been in pubs, where the atmosphere seems more relaxed and as a sneaky listener to other people's conversations there are some things I have noticed that always come up.

1.  People discuss their own ailments.  They become very aware of their own mortality.  They say how wonderful it is that the person whose funeral they are attending 'died peacefully in their sleep.'  They talk about how they are going to go - as if they have a choice.

2.  There is always a lot of working out, who is who.  I am always surprised at how many people attend a funeral and I often wonder if they all know the deceased.  In fact, when I earwig other conversations, I often wonder if I knew them myself.

3.  My favourite conversations to listen in to are the funny stories about the person who has died, "Do you remember his Donald Duck voice?" "Do you remember when he made me steal everyone's crackers at Christmas?"
4. People plan their own funerals.  They say, "When I die I don't want any of this sad stuff.  I want people to celebrate.  I'm not going to have any hymns, maybe the Oasis back catalogue. I'm going to be cremated and have a coffin in the colours of my football team."  The problem with all this planning is that it's not really your choice.  You can tell the people you love what you would like but unless you write it all down and pay for it in advance then your funeral will be how the people left behind arrange things.  That's how it should be too. Funerals are ridiculously expensive and their point is to allow those left behind to grieve, remember and say goodbye.

Green Burial Cart

 I have fallen into this trap myself.  I said that I didn't want to get stuck in traffic so could I have a burial in my home town and then I found out that they do Green burials and you can have a cardboard coffin.  I've always wanted a cardboard coffin and hoped that everyone could write their favourite joke on to keep me laughing as I go. I also think I might want them to use the funeral director that was used for the funeral I went to this week because their MIB (men in black) number plates certainly lightened the mood for me.  But this is all too morbid to think about so on second thoughts I just plan to live forever.

When life gives you lemons make lemonade but when it gives you rhubarb, crumble fool!

According to the saying, "when life gives you lemons make lemonade," but if life gave me lemonade I'd be living in a hot sunny place and I wouldn't need to make a drink to aid my misery.  May is my favourite month.  It feels as though anything is possible.  Seeds are planted, there is a mixture of rain and lovely warm days.  Blue sky appears for the first time in months and even the trees celebrate by covering themselves in white or pink blossom.  The only problem with May is that it is a lean month, the purple sprouting broccoli has just finished and nothing else is ready to eat, except rhubarb.  Rhubarb is a native of Siberia and so the horrible weather we've had in early spring doesn't phase it in the slightest.

In my final year at University we had a nice student house with a garden.  We tried to look after it, trimming the grass with scissors and the rhubarb plant flourished.  The landlady was surprised, when they came with lawnmower and gardening tools, "What have you been doing to the rhubarb?" she asked. We thought we were going to be in trouble, "Eating it," we replied nervously.  My memory is that she proclaimed us the best tenants she'd ever had (although my memory might be exaggerating that bit).  Rhubarb is very much like courgettes, the more you pick the fruit the more you get.  Last year I had to  divide my rhubarb and so I now have 3 very productive plants.  

What do you do with all that rhubarb?  Here are a few things I've been doing with mine.

1.  Crumble - When the children were small we called it Gruffalo Crumble.  They claimed that they didn't like rhubarb.

2.  Fool - When it's too warm for crumble add it to whipped cream and eat with ginger biscuits.

3. Rhubarb ripple ice cream - make a custard and stirred stewed rhubarb though while freezing

4. Rhubarb crumble cake - sponge, sweetened rhubarb topped with a crumble mixture and baked

5. Rhubarb muffins

6. Rhubarb Jam

7.  Rhubarb Vodka (http://www.nigella.com/recipes/view/rhubarb-vodka-2034)

8. Cleaning pans - Rhubarb is brilliant for cleaning pans.  It's packed full of oxylic acid (especially if you use the leaves, which you mustn't eat), which can even clean off burnt stuff and rust.

9.  Rhubarb and custard biscuits (I use a recipe by Holly Bell from GBBO http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/strawberry_and_custard_85051  She used strawberry jam but I used my rhubarb jam)

10. Rhubarb and Feta Salad  (Recipe from Botanical Baker Blog http://thebotanicalbaker.wordpress.com/recipes/vegetables/rhubarb/roasted-rhubarb-watercress-and-feta-salad/ )

Rhubarb is great for the health.  It's been used as a laxative for years, has enough anti-oxidents to fight cancer, is full of fibre and vitamin C.  It has vitamin K, which helps bones and blood.  It is the only fruit that is suitable for carbohydrate free diets and can lower cholesterol   On the downside eating too much of it can cause kidney stones.  

I haven't yet resorted to trying to sell it or leaving it on doorsteps but I have noticed other people in this town have.

Where's Wally?

Several more Wallies than usual have been in Maldon today.  I am resigned to the fact that I live in a very strange place.  The other day I saw a man walking along wearing a top hat, bow tie, wellie boots and a hi-vis jacket and no one batted an eyelid.  Strange hats are common in this town.

Mud Race

Mud Race

Today, however, was the Maldon Mud Race, where every wierdo from miles around decides that what our town is offering might be fun.  Not only do they think that racing through a load of horrible sticky, smelly mud into some freezing cold water, uphill through some more stinky mud that reaches to their armpits, back through the cold water and downhill through even more fetid mud is fun but they do it in costume.  

Smurfs and Stormtroopers

Wicked Witch of the West

Where's Wally

Where's Wally?

Nice Day for a White Wedding?

I'm sure that the rugby playing idiots who invented the race think this is Mud Race Light and I agree it is not as much fun to watch as it used to be when it was on Boxing Day, in the freezing cold.  For a few years now I have been unable to get my annual fix of watching grown men cry.  On a lovely sunny day, like today, though the Prom was packed and the collection buckets were getting heavy and it will probably make the national news, which I don't think the fire I spotted in the distance will.

I'm sure the winner has won before and is a local.  A race as mad as this should be won be a resident of this insane asylum.

The Winner - Mr Hesky-Jones?