For a while now I have been looking for a battered old dressing table to do up for a project.  Imagine my surprise and delight when passing Duke Street yesterday and finding this sitting on the pavement with a note on it saying “Please help yourself”…

It was filthy, covered in cobwebs (eek!) and the paint was flaking off.  Perfect.  I made JT turn the car around (much to his disgust) and he made me haul it across the road and load it into the boot.  I then spent a happy afternoon with sandpaper, but I think I am going to need an electric palm sander, as the paint on it at present is white gloss – ergh.

One of the drawers needs fixing, but I plan to make it into something beautiful!  Watch this space….

You know you have had too many curries at one curry house when half way through your telephone order they say “it’s JT then yeah?” and then they say “you sound drugged up mate!” excellent.

Today I had my first session of physio after the crash.  Whilst the damage on the car didn’t really look like much, we have estimated that the guy hit me at between 20 and 30mph whilst I was stopped with my foot on the brake (this was estimated by the fact that the side of his car that hit me showed that he swerved rather than braking and by the nature of the damage etc).  Unfortunately this created quite a jar and I twisted in my seat causing damage to my neck, shoulder and one side of my back.

The physio clinic is brilliant, you walk in and there is a skeleton hanging in the waiting area, wearing a trendy hat.  Behind the waiting area is a gym, where a hilarious large old lady attempted to ride the parallel bars (all I could think of was my favourite Clouseau sketch) and talk about the church dinners (“we’re very eccumenical you know because the dinners are at the methodists’”)  She was priceless.

I watched with dismay as she attempted to lower herself into a somewhat inadequate chair which nearly turned to splinters beneath her and then she started to say something about not wanting to throw rugby balls behind her head?!?  Brilliant!

I went in for my session and lay face down on a couch with my head through a hole, staring at the physio’s pumps.  She dug her fingers into my neck and shoulder pausing every now and again to ask that ridiculous question “does that hurt?”  “MUMPHWUMPHYES!WUMPHMUMPH” I tried to squeal with a face full of tissue and couch.  After 20 minutes or so of manipulation she decided to do some ultrasound.

The main difference I have noticed is that my jaw is much more relaxed?!  But I am sure it is helping!!

George Forman.  The master of the LEAN MEAN FAT-REDUCING GRILLING MACHINE.  A brilliant device that we all have in our kitchens.  Bung in a piece of meat and it cooks, leaving you with a little dish full of lard.  Now this seems cool, except… Have you SEEN George Forman??

He is massive!!

Julie Andrews, whilst flinging  guitar around once famously said (in the Sound of Music) “The Reverend mother says that when the Lord closes a door, SOMEWHERE He opens a window!”  Classic.  But how true!

I am hugely saddened by the closure of Robert Young, which has been in existence as long as I remember.  I often went there for veggies, flowers or milk.  Gutted.

From the web site:

There has been a nursery situated on the same Cheltenham site for 150 years. However it only became a florists and garden centre in 1885.

The name Robert Young originates from the Young family who ran and owned the business until 1967 and the death of Bob Young.

“The aim and strength of our business is maintained by our high standard of quality and our belief in the best.”

RIP.

I was thinking the other day about childhood myths.  The sort of things you believe or that your parents tell you in order to mould you towards good practice in general throughout life.  One example, is that your crusts (along with the brown bits on bananas) are “the best bits”.  This is to teach you not to waste food, but is also patently not true!  One of my favourite myths, is the predicament suffered by many a small child like myself….  Yes.  The classic notion that if you do not eat your dinner, it will be sent to all of the starving children in Africa who have none.  This was indeed a mortifying experience.

Even at the tender age of three, I could see that this exercise was imbued with physical impracticalities, as I envisaged my brussel sprout and mashed potato mush that I had stirred round the plate several times in an effort to diminish its existence, being popped into a jiffy bag and posted across the ocean.  In my mind, this could have taken months or even years, to reach the “starving children” – images of whom I had only seen on television.

However, despite my measured reservations about this exercise, the pictures had horrified me, as I saw skeletal children lying in dust dying slowly.  The guilt associated with the fact that my mashed potato and brussel sprout mush could save their lives and that I was being an ungrateful little brat by not eating that which had been provided by my hard working mother was too much to comprehend and I would simply have to force another few mouthfuls down.

I hated to think of the starving children in Africa.  I didn’t see why we (as a nation) couldn’t send them a bit of our spare food and eagerly raided the cupboard for tins of peas, carrots and stew (pigeon?) on harvest festival days.   In fact, it didn’t seem such a bad thing to me, if my mum did want to send my sprouts to Africa – it seemed a shame that I didn’t want them and that the starving children might.

I have just done a photo shoot for a cordon bleu chef – the best bit was testing the food afterwards!!

Asparagus mousse anyone??