Roving toothache

On Saturday I developed toothache after eating ice-cream. I have sensitive teeth so have to be careful eating or drinking anything cold otherwise it’s oww, oww, oww…

The toothache started in one of my lower back ones, then worked its way up to the upper teeth and ending at my upper front ones. I took some painkillers and it settled down for a while.

When I woke up on Sunday the pain had gone. My yippee turned into oww the second I took a mouthful of orange juice. The pain has now decided to put all its energy into one of my upper front teeth.

So tomorrow morning I’m going to have to either ask my dentist for an emergency appointment or it’s a trip to the Dental A&E.

If it is the latter then that’ll be three different A&E departments visited in the past 4 months…

Marie

Gripping

The tickets for our holiday arrived today. Now that may not sound much, but when you book with Silversea they come in a nice box covered in silver foil, and the tickets themselves are in a leather wallet, together with much more information about the cruise itinery. So far so good.

But then we checked the flights on the BA website to make sure the company had booked the right ones. Only Marie's bath was running ....

No, we didn't get a wet floor, but we had a very full bath. Full of VERY hot water. So all Marie had to do was let some out so she could put some cold in. Except how do you put the plug back in if the water is scalding hot.

Then I had this idea. Many years ago Marie was immobile after an operation. The hospital gave her one of those "grasper" tools with a handle on one end and a pair of grips on the other. Just the thing to plunge into the water, remove the plug, and replace it after letting out the right amount of water.

OK, so it's not exciting, but it's not as bad as yesterdays joke.

John

Groan

John found this joke on KGB’s website *

A couple go for a meal at a Chinese restaurant and order the "Chicken Surprise." The waiter brings the meal, served in a lidded, cast iron pot.

Just as the wife is about to serve herself, the lid of the pot rises slightly and she briefly sees two beady little eyes looking around before the lid slams back down.

"Good grief, did you see that?" she asks her husband.

He hasn't, so she asks him to look in the pot. He reaches for it and again the lid rises, and he sees two little eyes looking around before it slams down.

Rather perturbed, he calls the waiter over, explains what is happening, and demands an explanation.

"Please sir," says the waiter, "what you order?"

The husband replies, "Chicken Surprise."

"Ah... so sorry," says the waiter, "I bring you Peking Duck."

Marie


* Not THE KGB but the blog of one Kevin G Barkes

How did that get in there

Yesterday we had to go to down to London for a meeting. We had to be in London for 11am and as GNER were yet again doing engineering work, the rail network was a shambles. So we had no option but to fly.

Bleary eyed, well wouldn’t you having got up at 4am… we arrived at Newcastle airport and because of the wonders of the internet didn’t need to check in having already reserved our seated and printed off the boarding cards the night before.

For once we both got straight through the metal detector at the security gates. I usually set them off but that’s what you get when you have a metal hip ! ! !

We weren’t so lucky with John’s bag as there was something inside they didn’t like.

‘Oh it’s probably the stapler. It always looks suspicious’.
‘Not this time, it’s a pair of scissors’.

‘Scissors’, we both cried then tried wracking our brains as to how they could end up in John’s bag.

It turns out that they were a very old pair of kitchen scissors that John kept in his tool bag. They must have fallen out when the bag was last used at Blackpool conference.

The little security man said we couldn’t take them with us, but we could either get a jiffy bag and post them home or check-in John’s bag. Considering the cost of posting them home or the hassle of checking in the bag we decided to leave them at the airport.

Another lethal weapon to add to their collection…

Marie

A tweak here and a tweak there

Last night was the first time since Gertie came to live in the Bogof household that I’ve have time to ‘programme her in’, so to speak.

For those of you who don’t know what a tailors dummy is, it’s an adjustable mannequin which is used to aid dressmaking.

John very kindly helped measure my vital statistics and these were then put into Gertie.

She still wasn’t quite my body double as I don’t have a small bust or a washboard stomach so this morning she became the proud owner of a padded bra and a spare tyre around her middle.

If this is not an incentive to diet I don’t know what is ! ! !

Marie

Motherisms

Regular visitors to our blog will know my mam is a little quirky. Yesterday was a good day.

It started with the milk. As you know she is obsessed about milk and best-before dates. Well, I noticed the coffee was a little creamy (you would just think it had been made with full cream instead of semi-skimmed) and I made the mistake of telling her this.

‘I noticed it started to go off on Monday’, she replied. She only bought it on Saturday and the BBD wasn’t up until 14th May. She was convinced she could taste the deterioration in the milk as each day went by…

As she put the milk back in the fridge I noticed the thermostat was lower than normal so mentioned this as it could have been the cause of the creamy milk.

Bad move. I tried to convince her that the food would be fine as the dial was only down two notches. No doubt her wheelie bin had a good feed that night.

On Monday she asked if she could try on one of the pairs of trousers I was sending back to my catalogue. She was already keeping a black pair in the same style so wondered what the stone one would look like.

Having tried them on, they were too big. She then decided that she might not keep the black pair as she had gone off the idea of wearing them seeing as the stone ones didn’t fit. Don’t ask ! ! !

Then she took both pairs and laid them on top of one another. Even though the black pair fitted perfectly, she was adamant that if they were the same size then the black pair was going back. Again don’t ask ! ! !

Thankfully the black pair was smaller…

Marie

See for yourself

In case you were wondering why there was no picture of Gertie on the blog, all can now be revealed. I re-installed windows not so long ago and forgot to re-install Explorer Version 6. And with a low-5 version you don't get the Blogger post editor toolbar, and without that you can't add pictures. It's now done, so here's a picture of Gertie for you.

I'm sure everyone will be pleased to know that Gertie has settled into the Bogof household very quickly and has already proved to be a great asset. Every home should have one !!!

John

Just for you Jan

As Jan quite rightly said on Saturday night we are ‘boring old farts’ for not blogging so thought I’d put one together. Well it was either this or do some hospital radio work. The former wins hands down ! ! !

We never did get our early night last night as we stumbled across a programme on Channel 4 about one hit wonders so stayed up to watch that.

John had to take his car in for a service and MOT this morning and as I had to pick him up from the garage and take him to work it meant an earlier than usual alarm call.

After dropping John off at work I had planned to go straight to my mams but a call of nature meant I had to dash home instead. Too much information I hear you cry…

Once back from my mams (it was only a flying visit to drop off some bottled water and a couple of pairs of trousers) I then had to catch up on some three letter word * stuff.

This afternoon was spent in a more pleasurable way – watching more of my new Buffy DVD’s.

Normally at this time I would be looking forward to a glass (or two) of wine but we’re back on our diet so no wine tonight. Grump, grump.

Marie


* HBA

Exhausted

Having got told off this weekend by our friend Jan * for not blogging for ages I thought I better do one.

So why am I exhausted, well we’ve just come back from a wonderful weekend away in Derby/Nottingham for the wedding of our friends Chris and Jenny.

Two very long nights spent in the hotel bar have finally caught up with me. Sorry to Jan, Andy and John for keeping you up so late on Saturday…

An early night is called for ! ! !

Marie

* It was more on the lines of ‘you haven’t blogged for ages you boring old farts’.

A new arrival

We have a new member to the Bogof household. Her name is Gertrude (or Gertie for short) and she’s my new tailors dummy.

When she arrived she was lovely and slim. However now, having put my measurements into her, she’s rather tubby ! ! !

I was going to show you a picture of her ‘naked’ but this is a respectable blog…

Marie

Spend, spend, spend

John came home from work on Thursday with a lovely surprise. Every member of staff had been given a bonus and his was a four figure sum ! ! !

Seeing as John worked hard for his bonus it was only fair to let him decide how it should be spent. So it’s being split three ways. John, me and the house.

John has bought himself a new digital camera.

I’ve bought myself a tailors dummy, the entire series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD (yes I know I’m sad…) and series eight, nine and ten of M*A*S*H on DVD. I’ve also done something which my gender doesn’t do – I haven’t spent it all ! ! ! !

The house has decided it would like its share to go towards DIY projects.

Marie

Easter weekend

I’m pleased to report that both banned weekends went splendidly.

Hospital radio wasn’t mentioned all weekend which was wonderful – could get used to this - and our banned food were yummy ! ! !

We spent Good Friday, Saturday and Easter Monday painting. Well isn’t that what Bank Holidays are for…

There’s still a little bit more work to do next weekend so once it’s completed some before and after pictures will be posted.

We had a good try at eating all the Christmas chocolate over the weekend but I’m afraid to report that we failed miserably. There’s still two half bars of Toblerone left plus a hardly touched box of Flake chocolates from my mam (she decided to give us them instead of an Easter egg).

All this chocolate isn’t helping our diet. There’s only 10 weeks to our holiday and we promised ourselves to try and lose a bit of weight before then.

Once the chocolate is all gone we will get back to our diet – honest ! ! !

Marie

Banned weekend

No I don’t mean the thing we banned in yesterday’s blog, but something else.

Every bank holiday we have a banned weekend. This is a weekend where food that is normally forbidden because they’re too fattening is allowed.

So this weekend we’re having bacon sandwiches, sandwiches from our local deli, pate, hot dogs, garlic bread, nan bread and chicken Kiev. Plus lots of chocolate, cake, and hot cross buns.

Can’t wait for the next bank holiday ! ! !

Marie

Normal service has resumed

Yes folks, we’re back. Blackpool conference and hospital radio work I’m afraid took up rather a lot of our time, hence no blogs.

To protect our sanity and give us a bit of a break we’re made an executive decision that from now until the end of Easter the subject of HR will be banned.

So what else has happened while we’ve been away. I’m pleased to report that the cold sores in my eye has cleared up and no damage has been done.

I’m in the wars again. Last Saturday I was a bit over zealous chopping an onion and chopped my finger nail instead. I couldn’t bear another trip to A&E so we managed to patched it up ourselves. Whilst I was at the doctors on Wednesday collecting a prescription, I asked the nurse to have a look at it. It’s still looks a bit yucky but is ok. However until the nail has grown back I have to keep it covered with a plaster. Thankfully the chemist had a 3 for 2 offer on plasters…

We now know why there was a lot of banging, hammering etc coming from next door. We don’t think they are very quick at DIY. They are having a brick wall build at the front and it’s taken them two weeks to remove the old small wall and two days to lay a wall nine bricks high. When we had the same thing done it only took a day to do.

We had loads of chocolate left from Christmas so decided to hide them and eat at Easter instead of an Easter egg. As there was too much chocolate to physically eat in a couple of days we decided to start early. Monday and Tuesday saw us polish off a dark and a milk Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Yesterday was half a box of chocolate truffles. Tonight will be the other half… Still to eat is a box of Celebrations and two large Toblerones – and not a ‘Steve’ in sight ! ! !

Marie

Eye eye

Typical. No blog for days then two comes along…

All day Friday and Saturday my right eye was really itchey and sore. I had a bit of a poke around but couldn’t find anything wrong.

This morning I found out why my eye was so itchy and sore. A nice clump of cold sores had appeared both near and in my eye.

Normally I would have gone straight to the doctors as cold sores in the eye can cause you to go blind if the infection spreads. However this is a weekend and our doctor surgery only work weekdays, it meant a trip to the A&E department of the local Eye Hospital.

Thankfully we only had to wait 1 1/2 hours as the notice board said the waiting time is between 2 to 3 hours, and longer at weekends.

As the cold sores have affected only the white part of my eye, I don’t have to take oral antibiotics. I have them in eye drop form instead. Excellent news as I wouldn’t have been able to drink at Blackpool if I were on the tablets. Yippee ! ! !

At the moment my eye is painful, swollen and blurred, and doing nothing for the bags under my eyes…. Hopefully it won’t get to the purple stage as that’s when it resembles a black eye.

You can image the comments I’ll get next week. I think I’ll have a ‘it’s not a black eye’ badge printed just in case….

Marie

Mothers Day

As it’s Mothers day I thought I’d tell you a little bit about my mam.

I’ve already mentioned previously that she thinks everyone is telepathic. What I haven’t told you is that she has a finely tuned sense of smell, taste and hearing.

She can smell Carbon Monoxide. Gloria, her next door neighbour, had a leak of Carbon Monoxide and my mam claims she could smell it seeping though the walls.

She knows when the food is nearing its ‘best before date’ as she can gradually taste it going off. This happens especially with milk .When the ‘bbd’ is up everything suddenly tastes awful. Whenever I’m shopping for her, I must make sure that the date stamp is well in advance otherwise she won’t have it.

Confession time – I once bought her some milk and forgot to look at the date stamp. It only had two days to go and knowing her obsession, tore the label off so she wouldn’t know. I half expected a phone call two days later complaining about the milk. No phone call. A week later and she was still using the milk…

She came to ours for Christmas day and was convinced she could hear the roast potatoes burning. The sound would have had had to pass through the Aga door, through the closed kitchen door, along the hall way, through the closed dining room door then into the living room.

Whenever we go shopping at Dainty Supplies (a haberdashery shop where I get my dressmaking fabric), we always bicker over fabric and patterns. The assistances know us very well so act as referees.

She is a red head so had a temper to match. I used to have quite a bit of red in my hair when I was younger so the arguments we used to have were beauties.

For all her ‘quaintness’ she’s still a wonderful mother.

Marie

No more lady Vicar

First of all, apologies for not blogging for ages but we’ve been rather busy with Blackpool conference. I’ve stored up what I was going to blog so will tell all later.

Now about this lady vicar. For the past couple of months my hairdresser Gillian has been encouraging me to grow my hair. I fancied a changed so decide to give it a go.

Three weeks ago and I was (excuse the pun) tearing my hair out. It took ages for it to dry, kept sticking up and worst of all showed up all my grey hairs ! ! !

I decided to perceiver as Gillian was coming in a couple of days time. Then I got a phone call. ‘Sorry Marie, but James (her son) has to go into hospital to have his tonsils out. I have to cancel your appointment and can’t fit you in until another three weeks time’.

Aaaaahhhhhhhh

As each day went by my hair got worse and worse. Then the most frightening thing happened. I started to look like a lady vicar….. I’ve got nothing against these lovely ladies but they do seem to have disastrous hairstyles – think Christine from a Seaside Parish. It got to the stage were I was embarrassed to go out, it was that bad.

Gillian came this morning and I’m really pleased to report that I’m no longer a lady vicar as I’m back to my normal short hair.

Wonderful ! ! !

Marie

What no Blog

Apologies for not Blogging for a while.

At the start of the week we were both feeling pretty rotten – and no it wasn’t alcohol related ! ! ! John was in the middle of a cold and I was just starting one. We were so rough on Sunday that we didn’t get up until 2pm…

I’ve made a start making my dress for Blackpool conference. As I couldn’t find any patterns suitable (see a Stitch in Time), I decided to reuse one of my previous patterns. However the last time I made that particular dress I was at least a stone lighter so consequently I’ve had to alter the pattern.

The last time I wore that dress I was also smaller in the bust region so seeing as it’s backless I was able to wear one of those multi-way bras. Not this time.

Yesterday I went to the Metro Centre with my mam – the first time out shopping since tearing the ligaments in my ankle – and I went to M&S to get measured for a bigger size multi-way bra. Having taken my measurements the assistant then went looking for the bra in my size but came back empty handed. They don’t make them in my size.

The only thing she could recommend was a strapless bra, in a size bigger than I would normally have, then pull the back bit down and secure it in place with some toupee tape. I bet Jordan doesn’t have this problem ! ! !

Sorry Jenny but more references to Blackpool. We went shopping this morning at Makro and came back with nice things for conference packs. Having taken a large delivery last Wednesday from Viking Direct, our dining room is now rapidly looking like a stationary warehouse. What’s worse is that the nice things from Makro are also in there too ! !

Marie

PS if you like dogs and have satellite television, have a listen to GlobCast Radio as they are presenting Crufts FM. If you hear a man with a North East accent, that’s John Hindhaugh - he was best man at our wedding….

Right Of Reply

If anyone feels that we're being unfair by denying you the right of reply when we post these ramblings, our only defence is that it's not our fault. I changed some settings and the "leave comment" option has vanished. I can't get it back and I can't even ask you to leave a comment telling me how to put it back.

John

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

When we opened the bedroom curtains this morning everywhere was covered in snow. There must have been at least 3 inches.

My late father in law always took great delight in saying that it never snows by the coast.

My very first Christmas living ‘by the coast’ and we had a 6 inch white Christmas.

Whenever it snowed I used to remind my father in law about what he said only to receive the reply – ‘It’s your fault. We never had snow until you moved to Fulwell’.

So if anyone wants snow in their area, let me know…

Marie