House Rules by Lucy and Anu (and Tom).

We never actually got a house together. These were written a long time ago. I found them when I was sorting out the bit pile of rubbish from my first year at uni.

1. Must have a permanent stock of junk food and tea bags.
2. Getting drunk at least once per fortnight is mandatory.
3. If you don't knock first, you can't make fun of what you see in other people's rooms.
4. NO SMELLY FARTS!
5. Guests must be awesome.
6. Textbooks must be shared.
7. Washing up must be done before new species evolve in the dishes!
8. A good level of personal hygiene must be maintained.
9. Tom must have lots of practical jokes played on him.
10. Must always have emergency chocolate (for coursework deadlines).
11. Everyone must watch Dr Who.
12. No intra-house bitching. Lots of bitching about outsiders.
13. Lucy isn't allowed to go to Cheshire more than once every two months.
14. (by Tom) Anu must sleep outside.

A trip to the supermarket.

A little bit more rubbish from my book of stupid-things-that-happened-to-me-around-the-time-I-finished-6th-form. The last one was paraphrased a little. This is copied word-for-word.

So yeah. I said I'd go to Tesco's for my mum, just to be nice. I'm not planning on going again any time soon! In fact, after the horrific experience of attempting to cart around a heavy trolley with dodgy wheels (I'm of the opinion that supermarket trolleys should have their own categories on driving licences), added to by the perilous task of having to navigate through a supermarket full of shoppers similarly incompetent with their own trolleys, I fully intend to live for the rest of my life on Dominoes home delivery and be done with it.

The trip actually started pretty well. Or,'well' to the extent that at least nobody added to the ever-extending list of people who have hit my car! However, once I'd got into the shop and got the list out of my bag, things took an instant turn for the worse. I ended up going up and down a single isle for about ten minutes, stuck in a vicious circle of seeing something on the list that was located around there, searching for it, finding it, trying to carry on and then seeing something else on the list which I had already passed several times and had to go back to.

This probably makes it sound as if I had never been to the supermarket before. Actually, I know this particular branch of Tesco pretty well, and have often done supermarket-shopping. I decided that the issue had arisen largely because I had no idea what was on the list. I read it and was on my way, managing fairly well for a while. It seems, however, that nothing can be that simple for me and I soon hit another snag. I picked up some heavy stuff and realised that I was about to put it on top of some very-easily-squished stuff. Ever resourceful, I rearranged my trolley and carried on.

The next problem I encountered was when I got to the last item on the list and realised I had absolutely no idea where puff pastry might be kept. Knowing that it has to be kept in the fridge, I headed to the cold section where butter etc is kept, but had no luck. I proceeded to home baking, and still saw no sign of it. At this point, I considered asking someone, but they all looked pretty scary so I trudged back to the first isle and searched them all (although quite why I thought puff pastry might be kept with items ranging from carrots to DVDs to vodka I don't know)!

Eventually, after a fruitless search I decided that it would probably be in my best interest to go and ask the Tesco people, however scary they were. This was not the case. The guy I asked looked at me with a "what the hell is puff pastry?" look on his face so I backed off, apologising.

At this point, the puff pastry issue took a momentary break as I became preoccupied with something much (MUCH) worse. Someone from my year at school showed up. I perfectly executed some ninja shopper moves, despite the trolley, and hid in a different isle before I was noticed and had to make small talk/exchange awkward smiles with someone I had never got on with in the first place. This reaction ended up being to my advantage as I was able to stop and think a bit about where puff pastry might be kept. Coming to the conclusion that as it's made of butter, the butter isle would be an appropriate place to keep it I made my way back to the very place I had started my search. Lo and behold, it was right in front of me.

Fortunately I managed to pay and get out without much more fuss. The only other issue I had was the fact that I'd spent so long in there that the Costa Coffee outlet in the shop had closed, and so I had to go without the vanilla frappe I'd been promising myself the whole way round!

The garden fence fell down.

I wrote this a while ago, about two years actually! My parents' house now has a fully functioning garden fence, much to the relief of all involved! I was helping my brother with some coursework this weekend, and found a book I'd done some scribbling in.

So I was driving home, and I was nearly there. I went around the corner and there was Meg (the dog) lying in the middle of the road. My first thought was one of complete horror as I thought she'd been hit by a car. I didn't know what to do, and was just beginning to panic when she lifted her head, barked excitedly and sat up. Major relief! 

I drove around her very, very slowly and parked, got out of the car and called her. Nothing. Naturally, I began to worry once more. I walked out of the drive to look for her and called her. Still nothing. I'd left my car door open, so I went to get my stuff out, shut the door and lock the car whilst continuing to call the dog.

I still got nothing from her until I raised my voice a bit (post to locking the door), and there was a bark accompanied by Meg's head popping up in the boot! How she'd managed to evade me, get into the car and climb into the boot without me noticing and then stay hidden while I got all of my stuff out is beyond me! I got her out and into the house, her tail wagging wildly the whole time!

It was a shame that I had to shut her up inside really, as it was a nice day. However, the garden fence had fallen down, so we couldn't leave her outside by herself. I had felt quite sorry for her prior to this, but she managed to seriously decrease my level of sympathy!

Looking up at the world (short but sweet).

Maia has been thoroughly enjoying using my new camera recently. I was looking at some of the pictures she's taken of me, and I noticed that from where a small person is looking from, the world looks very different! Children are living in a world designed by adults, for adults!

When you're little, you have to look up! I'd forgotten how tall grown ups used to look when I was younger! What you see is completely different - things that are designed to be at hip level are at head level.

It made me laugh looking at the pictures she'd taken. The difference in height makes a really big difference.

Things I would do with Bernard's watch!

Bernard's Watch is a late ninties/early noughties children's programme. The basic premise is that of a young boy who owns a watch which can be used to stop time! 

As far as I'm concerned, that watch was wasted on Bernard!! It would have been far better placed with me! There's a lot that I could have done with it, but I've managed to narrow it down!

1. I'd always get a good night's sleep, wake up naturally and have the time for a nice long shower (or maybe a bath, if that's what I happened to feel like!) and leisurely breakfast! This would result in my being a lot healthier, and a lot more productive. 
2. I would never miss a good photo opportunity again! No more rushing for the camera.
3. I could queue jump with ease! I'd be concerned that people would notice me appearing out of nowhere, but as that never seemed to be a problem for Bernard I'm sure it'd be a non-issue for me, too! This would be especially useful at Alton Towers.
4. My criminal career would be able to take off with no risk! It would be in some ways limited. In fact, largely to shoplifting. But that would be a massive improvement(?) on my current level of illegal activity.
5. I'd never be late for anything! I could just pause time five minutes before I needed to be anywhere... I could avoid traffic jams as well, by pausing time and going down the hard shoulder. I could really make the most out of a long weekend away in this way!

Obviously these things are incredibly frivolous and selfish. But you know... I think I could make my peace with that if only I could get my hands on that watch!

Coming up with the things that I'd do if I could pause time got me thinking. There isn't enough time in the day. Everyone's always after a few extra hours in the day, and I think that that is what's really attractive about the ability to stop time is that it would give you a few extra hours.

I'm going to try and prioritise a bit better (at least for the time being). Maybe if I can get important stuff done, I'll be able to find more time to go and do fun things, like trips to the park with Maia!

30 Day Snap!

Of the blogs that I follow, one of my favourites is Sprinkle of Glitter. The most recent post (this one) inspired me! Have a read to get the full explanation, but basically I'm going to be posting a photo every day in June.

I love taking photos, I love editing them, and I love looking back at them. My only problem recently has been that since my camera broke I've only had my phone to use. Sob. However, I splashed out on a new one last Friday, so I'm back in business (and just in time, as far as this is concerned)!

I think that this is a lovely idea, not least because it'll encourage me to actually do something with my photos! I have a pretty awesome month planned for June (including a trip to Paris. I get to take Maia to Disneyland!), so hopefully there'll be a bit of variety in there. I am very much looking forward to doing this! It's nice to have a little project on the go.

I thought I'd rock the boat a little and pop a 'practice' photo in here as well! I love this picture. It's from Sunday, when the sun had made a fleeting appearance and Maia and I had ventured out to the park. We had such a lovely time, and I think this sums it up pretty well. 

Thanks to Sprinkle of Glitter for this fab idea (and also for the top image)!

Getting older.

As far as ageing is concerned, I'm totally on the "growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional" bandwagon. However, as I write this I am babysitting Maia. She came downstairs about an hour ago asking for some grapes. I gave them to her and expected that to be the last I heard. However, about 20 minutes after that, she came back down and asked to show me something.

"What is it?" I asked... And she informed me that she had squashed the juice out of her grapes and got it all over her mother's bed. Fabulous. It was quite a LOT of grape juice, which was definitely threatening to get on the stickier side of things, and I didn't particularly want my aunt to come home to a sticky, messy bed. I've sorted it and the bed is now back to the condition in which it was left. Phew.

But what I'm wondering now is... Where did my childhood go? At what point did I stop being able to see the 'squashy-mess' potential of grapes as a bit of fun, and start to see it as a bit of a chore??

I have a strong history of making a mess. I once spread margarine all over the bottom two stairs. My mother was furious, but tells me that my paternal grandmother said to her "Well, had you ever told her NOT to?" As it happens, she hadn't ever thought to ban me from spreading margarine over things and so I got away with that one with a warning.

However, my 'spreading' history continues. My sister and I had spread Sudocrem all over the bathroom, and once again my grandmother came to our rescue with a solid "had you ever told them not to?" and we got a warning. However, a week or so later when staying with our (other) grandparents, we repeated this in the bathroom there! That time, we had definitely been told, and got into lots of trouble.

Obviously as you get older, things like common sense start to kick in, and it becomes pretty obvious that doing such things isn't really acceptable. However, I notice now that somewhere along the way I seem to have replaced a lot more of my "ooohh, let's do that, it'd be fun" outlook with a more grown up one than I thought I had. I think it might be fun to look at things from a 4-year-old's perspective again.

If/when I have children, as soon as they're old enough to understand I plan on placing a blanket ban on spreading things onto other things, unless specifically told otherwise in a supervised situation (e.g. buttering toast/icing a cake).