The revised plan is for the menfolk to sleep under the stars. It’s not all bad news though. My husband bought a Barbie Pink barbeque in a garage sale today for 50p and plans to take it  on holiday along with his leatherman and all purpose bucket. He also bought a Reebok exercise mat for 50p and presented  it to me, and has been puzzling all day about why I am in a huffy huff-huff.

My holidays start right here right now. My brain has already flopped in anticpation. I’ll be back all perky in September. Have a great break whatever you are doing.

My husband is getting ready for a Blokeback style camping trip. He has been collecting carrier bags. Normally as a conservationist/environmentalist he considers these items the work of the devil  – but needs must as there will be no loos in the vicinity of his tent. He is also familiarising himself with the difference between a dock leaf and a nettle when seized from behind whilst crouching.  Or should that be ouching?

Went to see the Beauty Queen of Leenane at The Young Vic – blisteringly good and the audience was oooohing and aaaahinhg along.  It was apparently the writer’s Martin McDonagh’s ninth attempt at getting a play produced – his previous eight were all rejected. Perserverance is all, and there’s the proof in SE1.

My friend Julia boards foreign students whilst they study in London and currently has Juan, a cute, very polite Spanish nineteen year old, as her paying guest. He leaves the house at 7.15am on the dot each morning for college. Julia is in the grip of the menopause and has taken to sleeping in her birthday suit to cope with the hot, hot, hot nights. Yesterday she got up at 9am after a lovely lie in and headed to the bathroom, still in the buff. On the upstairs landing she heard her name being  called in a Spanish accent. Horrified that she was naked and Juan was still at home she backed into the bathroom, slammed the door, locked it quickly and then rested her forehead against it. She stood there listening intently for a minute or two , trying to work out where Juan was. Then she heard his voice again. He was standing right behind her in the bathroom and squeaked, “Please may I leave theees bathroom now Mrs Hoolya? My eyes is closed I promeeees.”

I feel their pain - in my ass. Can you hear me Stella McCartney ?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1295807/Stella-McCartney-Ill-pull-children-private-school-posh.html

A woman who ordered two packs of pantyliners in her weekly on-line grocery shop got a note with her delivery apologising that they were currently out of stock. BUT they had been replaced  with a similar item to minmise any inconvenience.

She got two packs of bamboo barbeque skewers instead.

The top ten (did I mention I am in there?) in the contest  get to pitch their unique TV idea to a panel of big cheese industry professionals,  hope I’m not there as the crackers .

I can’t tell you what I am pitching about because it’s secret until the night, but I can tell you the event is held at The British Academy of Film and Television Arts in Piccadilly which gives me a big what to wear pain in the ass.

I used to go to BAFTA every night. Every night for three years and I wore the same thing;  black waistcoat, black skirt, black tie,white shirt.  That was when I was a student and worked behind the bar. Well, I worked when I wasn’t too starstruck to pour wine and  wasn’t standing and staring instead.

I have another issue which could impact on my enjoyment of the night. My hormone steeped hair has grown a vertical Tuft. It’s curly and clips doorframes when I pass through. There isn’t a product in creation that will keep this seven inch column of hair flat to my head , I know this becauseI have spent all I have in Trade Secrets trying to find one. At my request my husband hid the scissors  this morning so I don’t cave in to the  urge to lop it off - but this afternoon it is so erect that I am considering sawing it off with the bread knife.

One night last week Adam went to a night club ten miles away from home. He danced, he drank, he laughed and after closing time  ended up  asleep in a bush without any money for a cab home. Using his mobile he called home, at 4.15am, and asked to be picked up.

Trouble was he was seeing double and didn’t call home. By mistake he called Doreen,  the neighbour.  Her number was put into Adam’s phone by his mum a couple of years ago for lost key/locked out after school episodes, of which there have been many. 

Believing there must be a very good emergency style reason for Adam to be  calling her and not his parents in the middle of the night Doreen  climbed out of bed, got dressed and into her car to go and pick him up.  She says she noticed that as she drove away all seemed to be well next door. The house was quiet and their car was parked on their front drive.

When she found Adam he was worse for wear and not at all chatty. He did say ”Cheers!” when she pulled up and replied “Cool” when Doreen asked if everything at home was OK.

When the Neighbour of the Year got home  it was so close to getting up time she didn’t bother going back to bed and went straight to work. Several times over the next few days she saw her neighbours over the garden fence and in the street. They smiled and waved but no-one said thank you or explained why she had been cabbing their drunken son in the early hours. Doreen, 62, said she felt a little  tired and a lot peeved.

Then, yesterday after her late night wake up call Doreen found her mortified,  red faced neighbours on her doorstep bearing a huge bunch of flowers. Because an hour earlier their son had asked, “How come you sent Doreen to pick me up the other night?”

I  tried to stay cool and wore a big floppy hat but it wilted in the heat and the brim ended up blocking my view and chafing my chin so I had to take it off.

Highlights were that my bag of jumbo sized chocolate buttons oozed into chocolate sauce within minutes of sitting down and made a very good hot dip for the Coconut Mushrooms – see previous post. Also that we were ‘buggied’  from our car parking space to the  entrance which made me laugh out loud all the way for no particular reason, and that was before I suffered heatstroke.

Federer, Murray and the divine red-knickered Serena Williams didn’t even break sweat as they thundered about  Centre Court.  But I, sat down, was paddling in it within thirty minutes. And I can confirm that perspiration-heavy wet linen (as worn by the row of Camilla lookie likies behind me) smells of green beans cooking even when very posh and previously fragrant people  wear it. Make up melts, too, I found mascara streaks and strawberry kiss lipstick marks on my hands, forearms and cleveage when I peeled my clothes off last night.

The stewards politely requested that anyone  who was going to faint because of the heat gave them plenty of prior warning before  keeling over,  and my sister’s nose got kissed too hard by a sunbeam which is why today she is sporting a Wimbledon blister with pride. It’s like a mini tennis ball and a reminder of our perfect day.

My new shoes are the only problem. They are natty navy coloured suede peeptoe wedges with ankle straps. Quite Betty Boo I think and they definitely make my feet look young.

The only problem is I can’t put them on alone because the buckles are too far to the side of the shoe and my eyesight (poor) and general dexterity (poorer)  won’t allow me to twist, bend and do them up blind with one hand. The Suede straps are thick and the part of the buckles they tuck under is very thin and the operation requires precision, double joints or another pair of hands to get them in nicely.

Trouble is on Monday morning I will be alone in the house bar the dog. He’s smart but paws and buckles don’t mix.

So I’ve decided  to employ human help getting the shoes buckled up on Sunday night, and then sleep in them. I was never a Girl Guide but, golly brown owls, I would have been excellent at the ‘be prepared stuff’ wouldn’t I?

My husband  went there on Saturday and bought a hair trimmer. On the box it said ‘Cut Your Own Hair!’ and there was a picture of a Donald Trump lookalike smiling.   He handed the hair trimmer  to me. I told him I preferred to go to the hairdresser and he replied, “No. You can cut mine.” Like I’d just got lucky.

I pointed to where the box stated ’ Cut Your Own Hair’, and then I fired the trimmer out of the kitchen window and down the garden yelling,”So you don’t think I’m busy enough?”

Undeterred he fetched it in and made a phone call to his best friend and invited him over - to save money.  He arrived within the hour. They pair agreed they were going to cut out the middleman Barber and cut one another’s hair. It was a plan, but not a good one because they weren’t comfortable (much too straight)  touching each other’s heads. They emerged after a couple of hours alone together in the sitting room/salon - a teacher and a policeman with an MBE, looking like a pair of  grey haired Johnny Rottens.

“I’ll do the dog, too” cried my husband, “the more I cut, the more I save!” The dog fell asleep on the garden table as my husband shaved. He dozed off  as a  border collie and woke up, in the words of daughter number two, as a ‘homeless dog’. Daughter number one muttered, “Should have gone to Specsavers….”

I have just applied sunscreen  to the dog to take him for a walk because so much canine pink skin is exposed. My husband aka Nicky Barke for services to dog hairdressing, did every inch of the animal bar the hair around his testicle. Yes, singular. He only has the  one and that’s another story. And now it looks like a giant hairy plum swinging from his bald body.

“It’ll grow back” is my husband’s mantra for the week.

I didn’t wake her up. The telephone ringing did . She opened her eyes and stared at it, and tutted loudly. I was stood at the reception desk, within arm’s reach of the ‘phone, waiting to book in. “Shall I answer it?” I ask. She tutted again and shook her head and began to  travel by chair towards the phone. 

Finally she got there and answered it, but didn’t speak. For a looooong time she listened and then droned “Pardon?” I heard an agitated sounding voice on the other end of the line. “Pardon?” she repeated and then,  clearly beyond bored, she hung up the receiver. Another giant tut.

I tell her my name and my medical notes are fished out from a pile. Still using her chair to move around Flinstone Yabadabadoo style( but in slow motion) she crosses the room and places my folder on a stainless steel trolley outside a consulting room. She nods me to the waiting area, indicating I should sit there.

Three people came after me and she tuttted some more, and chair travelled to lay their notes on top of mine.

 I had to ask. She was back against the wall  with her eyes closed and I woke her with the question, “Do the Doctors take the notes from the top or the bottom of that pile over there on the trolley?”

“Top.” Then she shut her eyes again. So I went and  justice-shuffled the notes into time  of arrival order. The other people sat waiting and watching but didn’t challenge me, or try and stack  them back the way they were. That was a relief because I didn’t want a scuffle.

As I left after seeing the Doctor I bid Nurse Narcolepsy a cheery good morning. But she was alseep and didn’t hear me. And the ‘phone was ringing again.