Self-care is care!

Happy New Year! I hope you’ve all had as good a Christmas/end of year festivities as possible. I know it isn’t always possible, but sending you some vampire-style hugs however well your past few weeks have been.

Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? I sort of did, but I did them back on the 21st of December, aka Yule, which was traditionally the time when such things were done.

You hear so many words, hashtags and phrases that get trotted out round about now. New-Year-New-Me, Gym-Membership-Number, I’m-Never-Getting-That-Drunk-Again… You know the kind of thing.

Add some good to your life – for you.

Because… why do you need to change? Do you need to change? Or are there just things about your life that needs to be tweaked so that they serve you better? Okay, sure, you want to start running/join a gym/take up yoga but why? Is it because you feel they’ll help you ‘fix’ something about you? Or do you really fancy doing them?

There are so many sayings and stories that fit this idea.

“You can’t pour from an empty cup.”

“Self-care isn’t selfish.”

If you have a favourite one, pop it in the comments.

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However…

Okay, so that’s adding the good. How about dealing with all the inevitable poopheads and general poopiness that happens in life? Because, let’s face it, life isn’t insta-perfect, is it? What’s that saying about comparing your rough footage to someone else’s showreel? Especially when your rough footage (aka life) is filmed on some crappy handheld device from the last century, and someone else’s showreel (aka…ok, you get the idea) has had filters and special effects and super slick everything thrown at it.

I’m just trying to be a good potato.

I heard this great story from someone who was helping me to deal with the fallout from some particularly toxic people and the poop-storms they kept creating wherever they went. Anyway, the story goes like this. There’s a potato, and it’s trying to potato as hard as it can. But it’s not outside in warm, perfectly drained soil, with all the warmth, sun and care that it needs to be its best self.

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It’s locked away in a cupboard, in a dark, dingy cellar. Is it able to grow into a strong, healthy plant? Not really. It tries its utmost, though. It pushes out roots and does its hardest to be the best potato it can be. But unless it’s taken out of that cupboard, out of that cellar, and planted outside in better conditions, it can only do so much. It’s just trying to be a good potato.

Poop happens

You have to be okay with someone else being an a-hole. They’ll never change (probably). You’ll just waste the wearing yourself out (definitely) and what’s to be gained?

To give you an example – many years ago when I was a very young vampire, I hated school. I was bullied. Mercilessly. Shocker, I know. When I left, I carried with me all of the hurt and frustration and general internal sludge that accompanies such treatment. I carried it all with me for years. I dreamed about what I would do or say if ever I met any of them again.

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And I did. one morning, I bumped into one particular bully who’d been leader of the ‘popular’ girls back in the day. Did she recognise me? Eventually (I hadn’t aged like she had – so there was an instant point to me – yay). Did she greet me full of remorse and apologies for how badly she’d treated me?

Nope.

She behaved like we’d been bestest friends in school. All the while she was gushing over me, I felt all that rage and resentment going round and round in circles inside of me. Why did I waste all that time carrying those feelings? She had clearly never given me, or her treatment of me two moments of thought. Gahhhh!

So, to close with another old couple of sayings – Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. And… Those who matter, won’t mind, while those that do mind, don’t matter.

Here’s to a wonderful New Year, wherever you are.

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Want to read more of my ramblings? Apparently, these are free if you have something called Kindle Unlimited. Even without, they’re still way cheaper than one of those fancy cups of coffee…

For anyone wanting to read all my rants in one place – including all-new exclusive stuff, then click below!

Volume 1 of my diary – why not start at the very beginning?

Volume 2 – more rants, musings and fairly useful advice

Volume 3 – things are afoot! The thot plickens…

Never smile at a crocodile

…or argue with an idiot. Why? I’ll explain later.

Oh, my word.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? How the dickens are you?

I have missed you. I won’t bore you with the reasons for my absence.

So… yes…

Giving not too much away, I’ll just say that even vampires have the occasional brain-frizz. Anyway, back to what I started talking about. I am so glad I don’t base my entire self-esteem on the incoherent ramblings of some talentless mouth breather. Ouch and sorry-not-sorry to anyone I may have just offended, or to anyone who has so graciously decided to be offended on behalf of someone else.

I never understand the reasoning behind why humans feel the increasing need to be so vitriolic online. How exactly does it improve their lives or increase their status? Is it truly a feeling of jealousy? Or the unintentional highlighting of their own inadequacy?

I looked recently on a website where lots of people had left comments on an item that had recently been posted. 99.9% of them left were very positive or at least attempting to be constructive (bless).

But, as with every tub of ointment, there was bound to be a self-righteous, pontificating fly. As a rule of thumb, the unkindest, snidest comments came from people who had absolutely no other way of creating a visible presence. They had no followers, no content, no likes, no form of the validation they so obviously craved. Or certainly only as many as could be counted on the fingers of one hand – if that hand belonged to a squid.

Apologies to any squid who may be reading this.

Wait…

Huh?

What is the plural of squid, by the way? Is it still squid? Squids?

I can only surmise that their sheer nastiness ( the keyboard warriors, that is, not the squid. I haven’t met any squid recently, but I’m sure they’re lovely) was an attempt at garnering some attention/sympathy/pity or they were trying to gather like-minded people into their circle in much the same way as a ship attracts magnetic sea mines.

Hey, if you can’t be the smartest person in the room, be the nastiest.

“Hell is other people.” Even more so when you’re a vampire!

I’m trying to stay away from those kind of humans.

I know of a few very confusing types. For example, in discussing a plan for an event, one such human agreed readily with all the suggestions, only to later turn around and disagree, and then went as far as to say they had never say anything of the kind, and that anyone who said otherwise was lying!

I also heard of one beleaguered person who, fearing for their own sanity after countless battle cries of ‘you’re imagining it’ and ‘I never said that’, decided to tape a conversation when discussing a deadline for a project. They asked the other person a question about it a few days later, only for the other to claim total ignorance of anything to do with. It went something like this:

A: “But we discussed this only the other day.”

B: “No, we didn’t. I’ve never spoken to you about that.”

A: “We had a meeting to discuss it.”

B: “You must be imagining it. I didn’t even know it was happening.”

They even played back the tape to the other person. They still denied any knowledge, despite hearing their own voice talking about it!

B: “I never said that.”

Excuuuuse me?!

So, you can either spend a shedload of energy trying to keep those people happy, or you can spend the same energy (less, probably) on moving yourself forward.

Spoiler alert – You’ll never make them happy, so save the energy for some thing positive.

I’d love to hear any positive things anyone is doing to keep their feelings safe and well.

So I’m going to finish with a Top Tip…

Never, ever argue with an idiot.

They’ll drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

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For anyone wanting to read all my rants in one place – including all-new exclusive stuff, then click below!

Volume 1 of my diary – why not start at the very beginning?

Volume 2 – more rants, musings and fairly useful advice

Volume 3 – things are afoot! The thot plickens…

Say Nay To The Nay-sayers

So, spring is finally here! Hurrah! And here I am, ready to be your little bundle of positivity and amiability.

Just kidding.

But it doesn’t hurt to dream, does it?

Dreaming.

Now there’s something that’s been a problem all my life. At night, there’s the getting to sleep and staying asleep long enough for the literal variety. And, during daylight (ugh), there’s the day variety. Oh boy, that got me into trouble as a kid. Always daydreaming. I actually found some of my school reports the other day. There were a few phrases that kept popping up over and over again. It was almost as though each teacher thought they might as well copy what the previous three comments had said. And oh, how those phrases were used by Mother to beat me over the head. Why couldn’t I be more like so-and-so, they always got the year prize.

In fact, the majority of comments on my old reports soon start looking like a big old game of ’fill in the blank’.

Very bright but-

• lazy
• lacks focus
• needs to concentrate
• spends too much time daydreaming
• needs to pay attention in class

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But, in my defence, it wasn’t always because I wasn’t paying attention. For instance, in one Domestic Science lesson (aka ’cookery’, aka ’yes-I-really-am-THAT-old’), we were making soup. I was 11. My pan of onions and carrots was sizzling away nicely on a corner ring. The teacher decided to gather everyone around one of the hobs to show off one pupil’s efforts. Look at Bethan’s soup, everyone. Isn’t it perfect?

The crowd were, well, crowding out my access to the hob I was using. I tried to get the teacher’s attention, to be told that I should be more like Bethan. My pan of onions and carrots was still sizzling away nicely as the teacher continued to extol the virtues of Bethan’s burgeoning masterpiece. On and on she went, while my pan was now burning away nicely on its back corner ring. I tried again to draw attention to what had gone from being a lack off access to a possible need to call the fire brigade. It was only when thick smoke started pouring from my pan that the teacher dragged herself away from filling in the forms to make Bethan a saint and actually decided to deal with the problem in hand. I then got told off for not paying attention and allowing my pan to burn.

But, ensuring the canonisation of Saint Bethan of the Blessed Minestrone, I was allowed to take a couple of ladlefuls of her soup home so I had something to show for the wasted two hours and suspected smoke inhalation. All this accompanied with a frosty ”Not everyone is a natural cook.” from the teacher and sniggers from the other girls (because apparently boys don’t cook). When I got home, I didn’t dare tell Mother what had happened to my own effort, as I knew I would get the usual eardrum bongo solo for wasting food. What I did get, however, was a “It’s a pity you’re not more like Z – they’re a wonderful cook.”

I am actually a wonderful cook.

So there.

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But, for now, everything everywhere is just exhausting. Life is still very wearing. It takes me all day to do what I usually do all day. Doesn’t help that my attention pings around like a ball in a pinball machine.

So why the title? Simply this.

You are you.

You are not someone else.

And that someone else is not you. They cannot and should not try to make you become like them. And if someone tries it, say no. Or at least, act no. Tell someone. Also, do not let anyone compare you unfavourably with anyone else, either. I can’t be anyone else. I mean, the amount of times when I was growing up I heard “Why can’t you be more like X?” or ”You should try to be more like Y”. The irony is that, years/decades down the line, if I had been more like X or Y, I’d either be dead or in prison now.

A cup is a cup, and a plate is a plate.

They are both equal and valid.

We need both.

I’m going to make a sweeping generalisation. Hey, it’s about the only sweeping I’m going to get done today. People tend to work on the principle of ”The world would be a simpler place if everyone was like me.”
Look at when someone misunderstands or gets annoyed/frustrated with someone else. 99% of the time, they’re experiencing those feelings because the perpetrator isn’t behaving or reacting the way that they themselves would. Seriously. Just watch them. Let me know what you find.

There you go. Homework. A*. Top of the class. Have fun with it.

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For anyone wanting to read all my rants in one place – including all-new exclusive stuff, then click below!

Volume 1 of my diary – why not start at the very beginning?
Volume 2 – more rants, musings and fairly useful advice…

Volume 3 – things are afoot! The thot plickens…

New season, schmooze season

Ah, autumn. To me, it’s almost like the start of a new year. For me, at least, it’s the start of not just a new season, but a new season of me sharing my dumb thoughts with you. a bit of the old online schmoozing, if you will.

That’s right.

I’m back.

Okay, so perhaps schmooze isn’t the right word but I don’t know what is, so we’ll just have to deal with that. The dictionary defines it as:

“to converse informally : CHAT also  : to chat in a friendly and persuasive manner especially so as to gain favor, business, or connections”

Well, let’s stick with the first part of that, shall we?

Anyway, it’s been a while. Summer here is chronologically over, but nobody has told the weather that. You see, as I’ve said before, September here is usually hotter and or sunnier than the more traditional summer months. As one of our lovely neighbours said the other day, ”The tourists have gone. It’s our turn now!” (In case you’d forgotten, we live in a very cute seaside town)

So how have you been? Did you have a good summer? Did you manage to go anywhere?

We stayed here, trying to keep on top of the capricious moods of the weather (hot/hotter/wet). But it’s been hot. I can say that much. Except for when it wasn’t. Which was rare. And even though we had to stay put this year, my summer absence was spent in the garden, learning several lessons the hard way. Like, for instance – cucumbers are prickly! Why did nobody tell me this?

My biggest problem, however was, as always, trying to sleep. If my feet are too cold, I can’t sleep. If my feet are too hot, I can’t sleep. And there’s no way in hailstones that I’m dangling them out of the covers. And however hot it is, I still have to have a cover over me. I just don’t vibe with the idea of lying there like the last haddock in a fishmonger’s display. But then something weird happens in the early hours. Throughout the day, the only thing hotter than the sun are my hobbit-like little furnace feet.

Then, at about 11.30pm (2.30am summer time) –

Me: Arrgh! I can’t sleep! My feet are too hot!

My feet: Don’t you dare dangle us out. We don’t want to get eaten by the under-the-bed monster!

Me: I have to do something!

My feet: Activate Arctic mode.

Me: Arrgh! I can’t sleep! My feet are too cold!

Oh… yes, I should have said. For anyone new to my ramblings, I have a very low body temperature.

It’s a vampire thing.

So, anyway, yes. The grumpy tourists have all gone home now. Not sure why they were grumpy. Perhaps because this was ’the best they could do’, given the current travel restrictions? Or perhaps their sense of entitlement comes across differently abroad, in another language?

So here’s a few tips for when you holiday at home but still want that ’holiday abroad’ feel…

1) Go into a baker, point at something, shout ‘two’ while holding up a random number of fingers. Pay with a £50 note. Get it back to your hotel/air B&B to discover it’s a meat pie, not an apple pie like you thought. 

2) Wear wildly clashing t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops. No matter what the weather. Then complain about the weather.

3) Book a week somewhere that doesn’t have any chain burger bars. Then spend every lunchtime trying to find one of these establishments. Finally find one. Take the entire family in and only start thinking about what you’re having when the harassed staff member tries to take your order. Pay with a £50 note. And for that extra ’Brit abroad’ feel, be sure to change your mind at least three times, up to and including when said staff member hands you your order.

4) Spend the last day buying random useless things to take back.

Which reminds me… This didn’t happen to me (I read most languages, so I tend to know exactly what I’m buying) but to someone who’s related to someone who’s friends with someone I sort of know. They’d gone on holiday to France. Had an amazing time. Did the whole beaches/sightseeing thing, finishing up at one of those enormous hypermarchés, which is basically a small city made of shops. To remind them of the vineyards they’d visited, they decided to stock up on wine. They spent a fortune on a particularly stunning bottle, vowing to share it with their friends on their return. And so, the emails went out. The menu was planned. The evening arrived. Out came the bottle with every bit of ceremony barring an actual fanfare. The cork was popped, glasses filled. Sips were taken in great anticipation.

And spat out in great disgust.

They had assumed that ’aigre’ was the wine growing region that the wine was produced in. This bottle of ’Vin Aigre should have been a delight for the palette.

Not speaking French, they hadn’t realised that ’vin aigre’ or, rather, ’vinaigre’ is actually the French for…

Vinegar.

Yup.

And on that note, I will bid you farewell as I go to the kitchen to cook dinner with random items I pretend I found at the back of the cupboard.

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For anyone wanting to read all my rants in one place – including all-new exclusive stuff, then click below!

Volume 1 of my diary – why not start at the very beginning?

Volume 2 – more rants, musings and fairly useful advice

Volume 3 – things are afoot! The thot plickens…

Because April May

Oh boy. Sorry about that.

I totally missed April.

The weather was… confusing. Given where we live, my system went into automatic a-wooga waltz shutdown. And by that, I mean it was sunny, and I just wasn’t expecting it. So an early bit of laying low ensued. I will still be disappearing in a couple of months time, so, just saying.

And before I get on to what I wanted to talk about, I just have to tell you this…

Today, I had a case of Town Nous & Country Nous.

On the way back from the beach with the furbaby, a couple of lads headed towards us, trainers and hoodies at full mast. I stepped back the regulation 2 metres/6 feet. Where I used to live, it would have been for safety’s sake. As in personal safety because we lived in a heavily bilingual area. And by that, I mean English and Anglo-Saxon. Mostly Anglo-Saxon, judging by the adult-content blue air that sat like a Victorian smog outside our flat. I recall once getting an R-rated mouthful from one young ‘lady’ simply because I’d had the cheek to shut my own bedroom window.

Imagine the nerve of me!

How rude!

And as if she wanted to make sure that I had actually shut the offending pane & frame, she began throwing things at said window, including pebbles, unwanted chips (fries), and a couple of beer bottles.

Changing the subject (sort of), I was in a shop once when a Probation Officer tore in, asking the assistant for breath mints – the stronger the better, as her client was due in court within the half hour on drinking related charges, and her whole case depended on her client’s not having touched a drop of alcohol in several months.

Which was true.

He’d been drinking it fast, from a bottle. Absolutely no physical contact involved – it wasn’t even touching the sides on the way down. Nerves were to blame. Dutch courage and so on. Breath mints were poo-pooed (though that would definitely have covered the smell of booze, with the added benefit of him then having plenty of space in the holding cell if things went awry). Cheese and onion crisps – the cheaper and nastier, the better – were decided upon. I do wonder how his case went. I genuinely hope things turned out well for him. We all make mistakes. For some people, it’s wearing sandals when rain is forecast, but for other, they can be true life changers.

But anyway, back to these two lads. We stepped out of their way and waited for them to go past, and in the back of my mind, there was at least one brain cell that was in Town Nous mode, expecting a mouthful. Luckily, that one brain cell was outnumbered by a whole continent of others, who then delighted in being proved right. The furbaby wandered over (she’s such a nosy little madam), her tail wagging. They petted her, called her gorgeous and said ‘hi’ to me. So lovely.

Take that, Town Nous!
Victory for the continent of brain cells!

We’ve been living here nearly four years now, so you’d have thought that my brain would have left behind the expectations that I’d learned in my previous home. As a vampire, you learn to be very wary of everything and everyone. But I’m getting there. I do have to keep telling myself you’re not living in that town anymore…

Be the continental brain cell, not the shouty one who blames everything on everything and always expects the worst, so is rarely disappointed.

I love where I live.

But, on to what I really wanted to talk about. Although, now, I guess there isn’t that much to say. I just wanted to talk about the garden. I planted some plants out way too early. The poor cucumbers are shadows of their former selves and will need to be replaced. I was good – honest! I waited for the last frost and everything!

Did you know about the whole ‘last frost‘ thing?

I didn’t. But it’s a thing. After that date, it should be safe to put stuff out. So I did. And I even put fleece over it. Not the type you wear, obviously, but some floaty, gauzy stuff that you’re supposed to put down to keep the seedlings warm and safe from birds.

Huh.

Put fleece down, they said.

It’ll protect your plants from birds, they said.

Nope. I’ll tell you what it does. It distracts the birds from the plants. And what they don’t tell you is that, at the exact same time you’re putting this cobwebby stuff over your plants to protect them, the birds have got their own DIY home renovation project going and they’re gleefully ripping the fleece to shreds to line their nests with. Because it’s that time of year, isn’t it?

And meanwhile, the slugs are sneaking in and having a flipping field day. Literally. I wouldn’t mind, but I’ve yet to see a slug in the garden. They seem to prefer my bathroom. Second only to my bathroom are my dwarf bean plants that are rapidly turning into twigs while my back is turned.

And now I’m wondering…

Are the slugs and birds in it together? Is one lot running interference for the other?

“Tell you what, Fred. Let me get on with demolishing the beans. And while she’s standing there, looking all stupid and sticking more plants in, you fly in and help yourself to that fluffy stuff. We’ll both come out of this winners.”

Let’s just call it a learning curve.

And that title? It’s from one of the worst dad jokes of all time. A proper groaner. And for anyone who needs an explanation, click here. But why, I’m not sure.

“Can February March? Because April May.”

See you next month!

This is…not Sparta

Happy Solstice, everyone!

For once, I am actually looking forward to the impending Spring. I do enjoy a good impend, don’t you? And a good spring too, come to think of it. It’s my own fault really, I should never have installed that weather app on my phone. It’s become a go-to thing when I don’t already have enough to worry about. I don’t know about anybody else but just looking at that calendar and seeing that there is never going to be any dry weather ever again can be a bit of a downer.

I mean, I know I don’t like sunny weather but at the same time the weather does take the mickey a bit sometimes with the amount of rain it pushes out. Do you know, there was one day when me and the hubster were walking about in a nearby town and we got caught by some drops of rain and there wasn’t even any clouds in the sky!

But all that rain is soon to pay off ha ha ha because we have begun gardening in earnest. After seeing the carefree way in which some people grope unwrapped food in supermarkets recently, we’re only too happy to try being a little more self-sufficient. Especially seeing as we have the garden. It will certainly be a challenge for the fur baby as she navigates the way around, trying to find a good place to sprinkle when she tinkles (that’s a phrase which I say – rather loudly – when we are out for a walk as she can be quite slow and deliberate when she answers the call of nature. I don’t want anybody thinking I’m one of those dog parents who will leave Mr Woofles to unload their last few meals and then walk off, with nary a care nor a fully-loaded poo bag).

Anyway, back on track. Yes, it’s been raining here. A lot. It does that. As I’ve said before, anything over 0% probability predicted rain usually translates to 100% certainty. And yes, we have got some seeds starting off, ready to plant out if ever the seedlings decide to make an appearance. I’ve decided that lettuce are like Labradors – eager to please and flipping well everywhere. Or perhaps that was just me being clumsy with the seeds. Asparagus are possibly the snobbiest and entitled seeds I’ve ever come across.

But the cold. At least that is hopefully on its way out. The conservatory has gone from a chilly 10 degrees to a better-check-that-again 27 degrees. Let’s see if the rest of the little beggars will germinate now. At least the house is warm. I have a very useful tip for you in a minute. Bear with me.

Ever done this?

Our boiler broke back in November. Because that’s what they do, isn’t it? Wait until winter is just about to set in and decide to do a mic drop on you. Talk about ‘Elvis has left the building’. You see, when we first moved in, we’d moved from a teeny flat where the boiler was about your average size, sat on the wall, minding its own business (and even that was a replacement – but more about that in a minute). So when we first viewed this place and saw a teeny-tiny boiler on the wall of the utility room, we did wonder how it managed to produce enough hot water for the TARDIS-like house. but hey, we thought, there’s also a nice big (like, the size of a small car) washing machine included in the price.

Wrong.

And wrong stupid.

The boiler? That was just for the sink underneath.

The ‘washing machine’?

Yup. You guessed. It was the boiler. And now it suddenly seemed way too big for the house, no matter how Gallifreyan. And it was about 30 years old, though at the time it had been top of the range, apparently. The equivalent of parking your flying car outside with the other Ford Model Ts. I don’t know why I seem to be drawn to places where the boiler is on its last legs.

Because this happened at my last place too.

Except it decided to go bang-bang-goodbye right in the middle of one of the coldest winters since records began (or so the papers said). Although I imagine nobody bothered keeping the records too accurately at the time, given that their fingers were probably frozen and they were too busy warming them on mugs of hot tea.

You know it’s cold when you have to warm your hands up under the hot tap. You know its really cold when you have to warm your hands up under the cold tap…

So there I was, snow piling up outside (when it wasn’t being flung around by winds that could lift you off your feet), in a place that was barely 5 degrees centigrade/41 degrees Fahrenheit. At the time, I rarely watched television (mostly because I didn’t have one), preferring to watch streaming things on my laptop which was linked to a projector.

Two important points about projectors:

1) who needs a 90 inch tv when you’ve got one of these beauties?

and

2) they kick out a lot of heat. I mean, a lot.

So, I ended up huddling next to my film projector to stay warm. And luckily, I did find a lovely plumber who came and fitted a new one fairly promptly. Likewise here. We found an amazing guy who basically saved our necks by dropping everything and replacing the small-car-sized not-washing-machine.

And the title?

Well, that’s because I realised with the first boiler just how adept vampires are at adapting to changing circumstances (even if we do hate change with an absolute passion). And certainly, while I wouldn’t have wanted to live like that for ever, a few months didn’t hurt me. The realisation dawned one night while I was cosying up to my projector, watching a film about the Spartans. And then I remembered how much I’d admired them as a child.

And the tip?

Well, it’s funny how both boilers went wrong either at the start of winter, or in the middle of one. So imagine this.

You’re a runner. You love running. But you only run during the winter months. During the rest of the year, the couch is your friend. TV binges are also your friend. Basically, you do absolutely nothing for 9 months of the year. Moss starts growing on you. Then, on the first day of winter, your running buddy knocks on your door and says “Hey, I’m just on my way to do an ultra marathon. Join me?”

Would you be able to do it?

I’m guessing not.

So, just like with your own movement/fitness levels, you have to give these once-a-year rockstars a regular workout. Make a point of giving your boiler something to do every now and again. Perhaps put the heating on for a while during a cooler summer/autumn evening. At least that way, the poor machine won’t be too shocked when you expect it to work full tilt for three months straight.

Which reminds me, I better go and check the pressure. See you later.

Food, laborious food

So… what is this continued obsession with what vampires do or don’t eat? I think it might have kicked off once more because Netflix have recently added a certain series of vampire films to their catalogue. Here we go again. Yes, I do eat food. Probably far too much. And I love cooking.

I do have ways of getting around the blood drinking thing. I know I’ve already shared a recipe before now for one of my little top-ups. I call it my A+ juice, because it’s that good, plus hey, you know… blood groups. But mostly because it amuses me.

Here it is again, folks. Great if you need a little lift.

My A+ Juice

• 1 beetroot
• 3 or 4 chunks of broccoli
• 5 or 6 curly kale leaves
• ¼ of a pomegranate
• 2 apples
• ½ a lemon
• a couple of sprigs of mint
  Just throw everything into a juicer and press go. Well, you know your own juicer. The one thing I would say is to alternate shoving through the kale with softer, juicier bits like the apples and the lemon because kale can be tough. I mean, basically you’re shoving the equivalent of a small tree through your blender.

And I don’t know why, but a certain scene from the film Fargo just flashed through my mind.

Yikes.

Anyway, food becomes a particular focus at this time of year. It’s the most wonderful time of the year when everyone panic-buys 3 months’ worth of food to cover themselves for the (at most) 24 hours that the shops will be shut. And nowadays, even that amount of time is shrinking rapidly.

Every time I go out shopping for the moment, I see people (quite often the same ones) with another piled-high trolley full of turkey, sausages, beef, pork, pork pies, ham. All the dead stuff. I’m always quite happy to let them go in front of me. It’s all the stuff that, as a vampire, I won’t touch. That, plus all the cheese, and cream and goodness knows what else.

But how can a vampire be plant-based (or whatever the phrase is)? I hear absolutely nobody asking (probably because they’ve already asked it). It’s quite simple, really. It’s the same reason that vampires have stuck to blood for centuries. It’s simply because the after-effects of eating normal human food can be so frightening. It’s just not worth the risk.

And given that the first recorded vampire was in the late 17th century (and in literature in the early 1800s) and the first recorded use of the concept of veganism wasn’t until November 1944, you can see immediately that there is a problem with the timing. 

I know somebody (human) who had a bad experience with a loaf of sourdough bread. It wasn’t even a whole loaf. It was just one slice of a loaf of sourdough bread, actually. They were massively ill and never went near it again, because of the problems that one slice had caused them. In truth, the problem was more likely the six vodkas they’d necked beforehand but it appears that it was the one slice of sourdough bread that tipped the balance for them. I might add they still drink the vodka but sourdough bread – no freaking way!

So you can probably see the issue – in a time when I’m guessing not much was known about food allergies and intolerances, it might have been relatively easy to eat something, feel ill, and get the wrong end of the stick. And probably try eating the stick as well, to be honest.

Picture it – all it would take would be an intolerance to one thing, and it could be enough to throw you. Example – you have a problem with digesting wheat. And you have bread with every meal. After every meal, you feel like Mount Vesuvius at both ends and the seventh level of hell in the middle. It wouldn’t take you long to think that all food is a problem. So you lay off the food, stick to drinking blood (which, I’m assuming) is wheat free and – bingo – no eruptions from any orifice.

That’s how myths are born, folks…

So, what are we having for Christmas dinner? Well, this is our first Christmas at home since the hubster turned vegan. We did a trial run with a magnificent stuffed homemade ‘turkey’ style roast, the recipe for which I discovered online. It’s big, too. We did try a number of shop-bought ones but, in our price range, they weren’t much bigger than grapefruits. In fact, even the ones outside our price range weren’t much bigger. And you just don’t get that ‘Voilà’ factor when you carry a grapefruit-sized thing to the table.

This has got the ‘voilà’, the ‘ooh’, the ‘ahh’, the ‘ta-dah’ – all the factors.

And it’s really, really easy to make. It’s great cold, too. And it freezes like a dream. Plus the hubster gets to do the primeval man thing with the big knife on the day. Everybody wins. Especially the turkeys. (Click this link right now to find out why! I’ll be here when you get back)

And of course, we’ll all be so food-centred that for a few days, we’ll just keep eating because we’ll have no idea what day it actually is…

So there you go. Some vampires stick to blood alone because the bad reactions to some foods just isn’t worth the risk. The rest of us do, because we’ve worked out which ones we can have.

I first mentioned it back in 2014, and it’s only taken me 6 years to get back to what I was saying originally. Doing well, really.

Like I’ve said before, vampires get distracted. Easily. Very easily. And as it’s now the season of sparkly things, I don’t stand a chance…

See you in the new year!

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Bags not packed and ready to rock

Retrospective warning – grossness lies ahead!

Because…

I got to the end of typing this and thought – oops, someone out there is bound to get all snowflakey about where this post ends up…

So…

This is it for me for now.

It’s that time of year again when I disappear until the autumn. My bags aren’t packed. To be honest, I don’t even know where the bags are…  They might be in the attic but then again…

This year, I’m only disappearing metaphorically.  But I guess with everything that’s gone on recently, most people will be only travelling metaphorically. How many people have you seen who need to be gently harrumphed into moving ahead in a queue and got the response “Sorry, I was miles away.” or “Oh, I drifted off for a moment.”?

Well, at least you don’t need a passport.

Oh! And no travel sickness. And no running around the house checking you’ve switched everything off, locked the doors, etc. No decanting all your toiletries into those teeny funky bottles. No making sure you’ve packed enough underwear (plus one spare day’s worth). No panicking about whether you should take an entire first aid cabinet with you just in case you get ill…

I was abroad once when I got a heat rash on my foot. So I went to the pharmacy for some cream. I speak the language fluently, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. I explained and got the reply “Mushrooms.”

Okay.

Stop there for a moment.

Mushrooms?

I later worked out that she meant fungus – aka Athlete’s Foot.

I repeated myself. She repeated herself. I repeated myself again. She repeated herself again.

And round and round we went.

A queue started to form behind me. Their patience was almost audible. And soon the patience bubbled over into altruism. And before I knew it, I had my bare foot up on the (very high) counter with half-a-dozen complete strangers weighing in with their opinion.

A lively debate ensued and after 10 minutes, a consensus was reached. I had heat rash.

Gahhhhhhhfffffft!

And I was allowed to take my foot off the counter and was sent away with a tiny tube of extremely expensive emollient cream that smelled of peppermint.

Turns out it was basically peppermint foot lotion. Same ingredients. And about 5 times the price of ordinary foot lotion.

Lesson learned. 

So yes, it’s me.  I am that person who has a remedy for everything packed in their bag.

I got distracted, didn’t I?

See you in the autumn!

 

…and the days all melt into one

How are you? I hope you and yours are well and happy and have binge-watched yourself into blissed-out oblivion. I’m sorry I haven’t spoken to you in ages but I’m afraid I’ve been losing track of the days a bit. I was doing it before, admittedly, but now it’s a daily occurrence.

You know I was saying ages ago that I have a number of alarms set up throughout the day? Well, I’m now considering to streamlining it to one a day, that just tells me what day it is and whether or not I need to shower…

Hm. Can’t believe I just said that.

Forget I said it.

Anyway…

(she says, changing the subject quickly)

That header quote…

“Be happily positive and you will be positively happy.”

 ~ me

Okay, so I know saccharine sentimentality usually has me rushing to talk to the deity via the porcelain telephone, but I’m quite happy with the above quote thing. I like playing with words.

And talking of words…

The furball is loving having both her furparents at home at the mo. And when we’re out, she becomes the highlight of every toddler’s day. We regularly hear excited shrieks of “doggy!”, “bow-wow!”, “Ci!”, “Woof-woof!” and “Goggy!”. I think there’s probably more, but sometimes the kids go supersonic so not even I can hear them and we can’t get close enough to lip-read…

I don’t care how exciting your life is, or how superbly stimulating your home environment is. Your parents might even be regularly featured on “Lives Of The Rich And Famous”, when you’re two years old, seeing a dog always feels like it’s the greatest thing that ever happened to you and you would be forgiven for completely losing your…  er … poop. And when you haven’t yet finished potty training, losing your poop is a very real possibility.

For some reason, autocorrect wanted that to say “lives in the fridge and famous” and to be honest, I think that’s way more appropriate right now.

Which gets me into autosuggestion. The next sentence you see will have been generated using only the autosuggestion buttons on my iPad keyboard…

I do not get the word to the point where it will not get the word.

And that, human ladies and gentlemen, is why we shouldn’t be worrying about machines taking over the world just yet. To be honest, they could barely apply for a bank loan with this level of grammar. Though I’d love to see one try!

Coming back to that fridge…

I think I heard something in there and I better investigate.

Stay well.

Stay positive.

 

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Fang you very much.

Some things are left better unsaid…

…or conversation for the socially awkward.

Do you ever have days where you manage to stay sane; interact with lovely people or – better still – no people at all?

Do you often have days where you seem to run into every nutter going? Or as I like to call it – Wednesday.

I just seem to attract all forms of crazy and awkward- in the form of people, conversations and situations. Today was no exception.

I’m coming back from visiting someone and on the way back to the train station, I bump into one of their more verbose neighbours. So there I am, with 26 minutes to do a walk which a nearby signpost reminds me will take 17 minutes to do, with my darling furbaby in tow who is determined to sniff every. single. goldarn. blade of grass going and up pops Mrs Verbose, with clear plans to tell me her life story for the I’ve-forgottenth time.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I did stop and talk. I know that much about humans.

I’m not rude but at the same time, I could almost hear the tick-tock countdown in my head. I spend about 10 painful minutes of nodding and making what I’ve learned are mollifying sounds. I’ve watched you humans carefully on this one. As long as I nod, and say things like ‘really? Oh, that’s good/bad’ (Note to self: do NOT mix those two up), I can go on auto-pilot while I plan my escape.

Long story short: even with the unexpected accompaniment of a lovely person who thought I was talking to her and not the furball, I actually managed to get on the train and get home before crumbling into a pile of introverted angst.

Awkward conversations…

Which, if you’re me, is pretty much any conversation.

I mean, we’ve all heard this one, or something similar, I’m told…

You know, this one.

Stranger: Where do you live?

Me: I live in south Wales.

Stranger: Ooh I know someone who lives in south Wales –  their name is Jones. Do you know them?

I think everybody’s had that one at some point or other but how about some of the other clangers?

Like, for instance, the person who doesn’t speak to you for ages and then when you do speak to them, they only seem to be interested in finding out how much money you earn. And they won’t let it go. And they keep coming back to it. Especially if you work in something unusual.

Does anyone else get this a lot?

And then there’s this one…

Something similar to the “Do you know the Joneses” is the person who rabidly insists on describing the other person’s character, appearance or domicile in great enough detail to browbeat you into admitting that yes, yes, you do know them… Now please make it stop…

This is the location variant…

It starts simply enough. You’ve answered the ‘Where do you live‘ question correctly. Then you get told that their cousin’s friend’s brother-in-law lives in the same area and do you know it? It’s just around the corner from you!

And as much as you’re trying to tell them no, they will not let it go. It’s right up there with the Mr ‘oh-I-know-someone-who-lives-about-30-miles-away-from-you-but-it’s-all-the-same-area-so-you-must-know-them‘. In this case, they give you all manner of landmarks that you don’t know and you keep telling them that but does that stop them?

Heck, no.

It’s like getting caught under a boulder rolling downhill.

They come up with things like ‘they live a couple of streets away from the butchers‘.

Butchers?

My eyes glaze over.

They still don’t take the hint. Yes, you know the butchers – the one that does the amazing sausages.

I’m vegan..?

But even that doesn’t stop them. They keep going but clearly haven’t picked up on the fact that you really have no interest where this complete stranger lives and you really don’t want to be bullied into admitting that you do know where such and such a place is. Even if you don’t. Which is more often the case.

Of course, there is one risky prospect which, as long as you can stop yourself from gnawing your own elbow to stay conscious, does work. That is to get the other person talking about themselves.

And humans just love talking about themselves, don’t they?

So if you can keep your eyes open during their TED-worthy speech about the benefits of different densities of concrete, you’re onto a winner. But you have to remember to do the thing with the head and make the correct noises.

TIP: try to sound as genuine as possible. I can’t do it and apparently, I don’t do sarcasm either so I’m really onto a loser with that one.

Oh well.

 

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I mean, in a non-creepy, follow-this-blog kind of way…

You know what I mean.

Do you?

Sheesh.

I hope so.