bloody cats...

...I am getting a bit sick of being the local cat clubhouse. We like to leave our windows and doors open to let the air through and the nosy cats in the neighbourhood see this as an open invitation. Slink is quite distressed by this and has taken to spraying in the house. I also found cat poo upstairs which I'm blaming on Ra. That's what we've descended to, a cat public toilet. I've run out of kitchen roll, but the spray bleach is working overtime. It's great to be popular. Or perhaps they hate us and this is their way of saying it

more slink...

I thought I would share with you this lovely picture of Slink looking so very, very cute. It is a little bit out of focus, but if you look closely, you will be able to see that his nose at least is clearly in focus. He just will not stay still long enough for me to take a decent photograph. By the way, the little tufty bit on his head is cat food. For some reason when he eats, he gets it on his head.

favicon...

Hey...I made a favicon. You will all have seen these before, these are little icons that appear in the address bar and next to your bookmarks, or favourites. For some reason it has taken a little while to show up in my Safari browser, but there it is now. Can everyone see it?

boobah...

This morning I have mostly been playing surreal children's games. Kirsty over at Boblog has introduced me to the Boobah Zone. I have never heard of these strange little creatures before, and I am not sure that they will not warp children's fragile little minds, or at least turn them on to drugs. I am sure that the yellow one must be on some kind of anti-depressant. What kind of lesson is that to teach our children?

inspiration...

...has been short on the ground since my return from holiday. I've got the post holiday blues. We often joke at work that's it's dangerous to take more than 10 days off at a time because it's so horrible to go back and that's how it has been for me. I don't want to be completely stressed and working long hours again and a fortnight of freedom has reminded me of what it feels like to be calm. So my swear rate has returned to the usual level of obscenity and no one's commenting on how well I look any more. I searched iTunes for happy songs and am now playing 'I'm so happy you failed' by Laptop. There, that's cheery.

We're also going to see 'Shrek 2' en masse tonight which is a good reason to smile. Mr McMuffin is cooking a lovely meal right now and I haven't had to clear up any cat poo for days. I think things might be getting better

fear me...if you dare...

We've all just been to see Shrek 2. It was easily the funniest film that I have seen this year. Much more knowing that the first film, and clearly aimed at an adult market. All the usual characters are present and accounted, and there is a new one, Puss in Boots, voiced by Antonio Banderas. We all fell in love with him. He is just sooo cat like. I think Slink would be just like him, if he could talk, and had a sword, and a big pair of boots, and a hat. A fantastic performance. We were all struck by his koala defence, and Ms Gypsy Tart is right now consulting with her legal team to consider what action can be taken against those damn thieves at Dreamworks. Who knows, maybe they will settle out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Anyway, go and see this film. It's great. Oh, and by the way, the animation is amazing!

it's a mistake...

to stay up drinking limoncello with your sister until the early hours and all the other guests have left and her partner has been sleeping on the settee for hours and then have a long nap the next day and then stay up reading and drinking coffee and then go to bed and get howled at by Slink so come downstairs with him and open the back door and Ra comes in and then not feel tired so sit in front of the Mac wideawake at 2am and write a post without any punctuation

blogroll of honour...

I have decided to update our blogroll. I have tried to be clever, as usual, and put them all on a separate page. I have also tried to include all those people who have done us the kindness of linking to us, but I am sure that I have missed a few people out. Let us know if we have. It has now been about eight months since we started our blogging career and, as you can imagine, we have visited some bad sites, but these are the ones that we go back to time and time again. They all offer something different, but they are all entertaining in their own way, except of course for The Sharp One. If you are looking for something entertaining or thought provoking then I wouldn't bother visiting his site.

This is just our way of offering a small thanks to all of you for giving us something new to do on wet afternoons.

Here is a link to the new page, just in case you can't find it. I will make a nice banner for it another time.

christmas...

Never let it be said that we are not responsive to our loyal reader. I have removed the Christmas countdown from our site. Even though there are only 173 days left until Christmas, I have decided that maybe, just maybe, we were a little bit quick of the mark. However, just remember that you read about it first on this site. The countdown will be back.

dancing queens US white girly style

I don't know if we've mentioned the next McMuffin wedding in 2 weeks, Mr McMuffin's brother (2 of 4 if he had a Star Trek name, or perhaps 4 of 6 if we included the whole group of them) is getting married to the nice girl he met at college. Of course I now have to rustle up an appropriate wedding outfit, so spent about 3 hours in Bluewater once again buying clothes that aren't right for a wedding but just fine for weekends. I stopped to get some DVD's on the way home as I knew Mr McMuffin was in a staying at home kind of mood and I occasionally try to act like a caring wife.

I had to hire 'Lost in Translation' because I missed going to the cinema to see it and I knew Mr McMuffin would be happy to see it again. We're about two thirds of the way through, but my enjoyment has been marred by the spectacle of US White Girly dancing. I thought little Scarlett would be much cooler than this, but no, she's in a club, so she has to lift her arms and shake her arse. Think Madonna circa 1985, think scrawny Callista Flockheart in 'Ally McBeal'. Why, why, why do White US women in films and tv do this? If you're a white woman from the US, please don't tell me that's how they dance or I'll have to fly over right now and flick the faces of all the white girls from coast to coast into sanity. I can't even claim to be a great dancer myself, but the arm raising thing is not in my dancing vocabulary. Well not since 1985 anyway.

blogroll of honour...amendment

Apparently, Bryan Adams doesn't link to us, neither does Wil Wheaton, they probably don't know we exist, but we like them anyway.

daleks again...

I have spent the day in the Royal Courts of Justice. What a boring day. Our hearing was at risk, and in the end, after sitting around for most of the day, we found out that we couldn't get before a Judge. On my way back to Charing Cross I stopped off at the Stanley Gibbons stamp shop, who have branched out into other obsessional collecting items. They now have the most fantastic collection of Dr Who toys and other stuff. I could have spent a fortune. Instead, I limited myself to buying Mrs McMuffin her very own Dalek. It is fantastic. It's about 10" tall and says a variety of terrifying Dalek things. The detail is amazing, if you look at it right, you could almost persuade yourself that it's real. I took this photo while balancing the Dalek on our garden wall. I then did a little doctoring (ahem...) in Photoshop. It reminds me of some of the special effects that they used to use on the series.

All I have to do now is make sure Mrs McMuffin doesn't see this post before I have a chance to give her the thing.

ridiculas...

Apparently this thing is called a Passion Flower. Mrs McMuffin wanted to plant it in our garden, but I put my foot down, and refused to give it ground room. It is just too weird. It doesn't even look like a real flower, more like some kind of alien seed blown by the solar winds to land on this planet, and carrying with it the collective genes of a race of alien warriors who will bloom from it's flower and eventually subject humanity to awful slavery. Okay, maybe that is taking things a little too far. I just don't like it. Ms Gyspy Cake does though, and it is growing merrily in her garden across the road. There is just no accounting for taste.

swell time...

Today mostly I have been swelling. I woke up this morning with the right side of my face all swollen from gnat bites. Mrs McMuffin quite likes the sudden appearance of cheek bones. During the course of the day I have been bitten a further three times. Both my hands have been bitten, and they are swelling nicely. I also have a bite on my neck, which fortunately is not swelling. I hate the summer. It's funny how some years I don't get bitten once, and then other years when I really am flavour of the month. Ah well, at least there is not much effort involved in swelling.

i feel his pain...

...well, not really. Mr McMuffin no longer resembles a gargoyle thanks to the miracle of antihistamines, but is very puffy and tired. I have no idea why he is so attractive to gnats, but am extremely grateful that they stopped feasting on me in my twenties. I used to be covered with bites, but perhaps my blood has not aged well.

I am a bit bemused by our lovely page of links. Before we had so many it was nice to visit each linked blog daily. It doesn't help that on the new page they're not in any particular order, so I can't easily check off the regulars without passing some others over. I can't pass over some without feeling bad, like they're not worth my time, or something equally ridiculous. I have no idea how other people seem to manage their massive amounts of links.

imitation of life

My name is Mrs McMuffin and I am an addict. I am addicted to trash tv. My partner is not codependant and acknowledges, but does not support my addiction. He would be saddened to hear that if he were not in my life I would watch 'America's Next Top Model', 'Extreme Makeover' and shows of this nature until my eyes bled. I would never go to work or leave the house and would probably not bother to get off the settee. I would probably even watch this years 'Big Brother'. Last night I watched 'Wife Swap' and tonight I watched 'Supernanny' and ANTP. I loved them all.

We recently ordered a copy of 'Imitation of Life' (both versions on one disc) for Ms Ginger Cake as this is the film that makes her sob her eyes out. The last time she was over here we spent about two hours trying to track down the Mahalia Jackson song for her and couldn't buy or steal it anywhere. Mr McMuffin has taken the song from the DVD and put it on disc for her. He has also recorded the final scene with the soundtrack and for good measure thrown in a reggae album of Dark Side of the Moon. He then added the original. This is one of the reasons I love him. He can be a grumpy git, make a pigsty of a clean house and moan non stop about his job, but at the end of the day he is very considerate and likes to do nice things for people without any thought as to what he might get back.

dub side of the moon...

I have discovered some great music. It's a reggae version of Pink Floyd's album Dark Side Of The Moon, called, wait for it...Dub Side Of The Moon and it's by the Easy Star All Stars. Easy Star Records are a New York reggae label. These sorts of projects are rarely successful, but this one just works beautifully, and brings something fresh and new to the music. It's like listening to that great album for the first time all over again. Wonderful. Here is their version of Time.

taking it back

Forget yesterday's gushing sentimentality. Mr McMuffin is not lovely at all. Today I caught him cleaning the work surfaces in the kitchen by flicking the crumbs on the floor with a tea towel.

As I have said before, I was attracted to him as a 'grown up' man who had a very clean and tidy flat. Imagine my disillusionment when he later confided in me that he'd only cleaned up to seduce me.

As we were driving back from the cinema on Saturday, Mr McMuffin noticed that there were two new apartments for sale and suggested that we buy them and turn them into one four-bedroomed apartment. I suggested that if we ever did something like this then he could have one and I would have the other. He had a little stricken look on his face and said quite plaintively, 'but then mine would be all messy and dirty'.

I feel cheated. I was promised a 'New Man', now I find I have married a 'Old Man' who is just more cunning than the others. He'll be telling me to 'wipe that muck' off my face next and calling me 'Er indoors'. Before I know it I'll have instructions to cook the Sunday roast while he's down the pub.

smack attack

"12 European countries have made it illegal for parents to spank their children -- Austria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Latvia, Norway, Romania, Sweden, and Ukraine. Spanking is also prohibited in Israel and the Supreme Court of Italy banned corporal punishment in families in 1996."

Today the House of Lords have voted to restrict the use of 'reasonable chastisement' and it will be illegal to bruise, scratch or redden (transitory reddening is not illegal) children's skin or use implements to hit them. For most of us, this does not go far enough, but for some seriously fucked up people this represents the workings of a 'Nanny State' and is a bad thing.

Some people are concerned that this will mean that 'Loving Parents' will be thrown into prison. I can tell you that my team and our local Police Child Protection Team have always considered damaging a child or using an implement on them to cause damage, child abuse. I cannot remember any parents ever being imprisoned for this level of abuse and it is unusual even when bones are broken. 'Loving Parents' can lose control and can harm their children. 'Loving Partners' can lose control and harm their partners. When it's adults we call it (domestic) abuse. Why can't everyone agree to call it child abuse when it happens to children?

Sadly, there isn't a child in the McMuffin household to practise on. Slinky will have to stand in. When he screams at me at 4.30am tomorrow morning I am going to 'smack' him (without causing damage or anything other than a transitory reddening of his skin) to teach him not to do this in future. As he is a cat, he cannot be reasoned with, but he must learn that this behaviour is wrong.

I suspect that if I really were to do this, Slinky would not come round again (children don't have this luxury) and Mr McMuffin would divorce me. However, I would have the satisfaction that comes from knowing I have taught Slinky right from wrong and that Mr McMuffin is a soft hearted, woolly liberal who would have young Slinky growing up to be a criminal or drug addict. Sometimes it's a lonely, but righteous path I walk.

update

Slinky did not yell last night. I wonder why.

god bless us all...

Ms Victoria Sponge sent us this email, which she had received from a friend. It made us titter.

"With all the news on TV lately about the extreme weather conditions affecting the East Coast of the US, the mud slides in the Middle East and South America, along with the dire predictions made by such films as The Day After Tomorrow, we shouldn't forget that England has its share of devastating weather too. I've attached a photo illustrating the damage caused to a friend's home from a storm that passed through Southern England last night. It really makes you cherish what you have, and reminds us not to take things for granted. God bless us all."

why is it so funny...

...when animals die in freak accidents? I'm thinking of a 'Fish called Wanda' which was hugely unamusing until the little rat dogs die. I laughed so hard and so long that my then boyfriend put his jacket over my head to drown out the sound of my laughter a full five minutes after the scene had ended.

Now I don't consider myself a cruel person and was traumatised by 'Ring of Bright Water' as a child and sobbed for a whole day when my pet rat died. I also refused to go to the vet when our family cat was put down because I knew that I would end up snatching the poor creature and running out of the surgery. However, if I don't see the tragedy, or it isn't my pet, then I find animal death in freak accidents hysterically funny.

The tale I am going to tell is sad but true and I have Mrs Carrot Cake's permission to recount it. Mrs Carrot Cake is a cat fan despite her allergy to them. She had a long haired pedigree cat (the breed escapes me) which was good natured but not that bright. Some years ago she was in the kitchen putting a load of washing in to the machine when she was distracted for a moment by her son. Seizing the window of opportunity, the cat decided to climb into the machine. Mr Carrot Cake turned back and closed the door. You can imagine the rest. Well maybe you can't, you see she was washing sheets on a boil wash.

The poor creature did not survive this experience intact and unsurprisingly Mrs Carrot Cake was in a terrible state when she discovered what had happened. I recall hearing the news as some kind of JFK moment. I was visiting my parents and was in the kitchen with Gypsy Tart and another friend of ours. Single Cookie came round to tell us the news and we were deeply shocked, until she walked out. Gypsy Tart still had a sad look on her face, but the friend and I ended up holding on to each other as we became weak with laughter. I was going to repeat some of the (incredibly witty but evil) remarks we made, but I have restrained myself out of respect for dear Mrs Carrot Cake.

I say dear Mrs Carrot Cake, but she knows what's coming next. Recently Mrs Carrot Cake and I had a brief exchange of comments over the Dalek post that Mr McMuffin wrote. Mrs Carrot Cake's hamster was mentioned. This hamster bravely survived escaping from its cage and falling into a toilet. It swam all night and was only discovered after someone used the toilet. Thank goodness they turned round before they flushed, that's all I can say. This brave and intrepid hamster came to a sticky end though. It survived the water torture, but not the consequences of finding itself under Mrs Carrot Cake's foot in another bizarre accident.

I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's observations on loss and carelessness. That's all I'm saying.

virtue is its own reward...

When?

colourist to the stars

I have been promising to highlight Gypsy Tart's hair for ages and actually got round to doing it today. I think that the impetus may have come from 'The Sturdy Soapbox' (I still haven't learned how to do the linky thing, but he's on the links page). Now, colouring hair is something that I am really good at. I have never trained as a hairdresser or colourist and I sometimes regret this as I could have probably earned more money from this than spending all those years at University. I am particularly good at extremely subtle highlights, sometimes using a couple of colours, and when I've done them you don't have to worry about noticeable regrowth.

Highlights are very easy if you are patient and dexterous. All you need is hair dye, a brush and some foil. I even have my own little kit. I realise that this is a little strange as I never colour my hair and hardly ever bother a hairdresser, but highlights fascinate me.

Back to Gypsy Tart's hair. She has mid brown hair with very fine light brown highlights around the crown as the last time I got lazy and couldn't be bothered to spend the usual three hours doing a perfect job on the whole lot. Her hair looked fine, but we had spoken about a month ago about putting some very fine blonde highlights just on the top layers of her hair for a natural 'look what happened to me in the sun' feel.

Given the difficulty of going from mid brown to blonde in one go, we were using peroxide. We planned carefully where to put the colour and I gathered up the finest strands, coated them in bleaching gloop and covered them in foil. Gypsy Tart cleaned up a little bit and then decided to wash up a few dishes. Something made me do a quick check on the first strands only to reveal that they were white.

We ripped the foil from her head and washed the whole lot off. It was only then that the truth was revealed. Those carefully selected individual strands had somehow managed to join up in patches to give a slightly striped effect. Now I'm not saying she looked like a tiger or anything, but it was noticeable that she had colour in her hair. I had failed. I consider it a triumph when people say to Gypsy Tart that she looks nice, but cannot say what is different. In fact a (good) hairdresser asked her if she had highlights when cutting her hair, then who had done them and was amazed that it was her not so humble non trained sister. This won't be happening again. I have actually made her swear not to tell anyone it was me.

Please don't think that I have made my sister look like a freak. I have seen people happy with worse highlights and pleased that they got change out of seventy quid. But our standards are higher. I was going to be a celebrity colourist. Now the dream is dead.

old lady

I have to confess that I avoided mentioning yesterday that I have been a little under the weather as I have decided that I must stop making excuses for everything I mess up. I am very very good at these excuses because I actually beleive them. However, I do recall saying to Gypsy Tart that I couldn't remember how to highlight when I had the foil in my hand and the bleached mixed up. I'm only saying this so that anyone who wants to pay for an all expenses trip to the US to colour their hair should have no compunction about booking the flights.

I left the house today to see my parents and spent a couple of happy hours with them and Gypsy Tart working on the family tree, which has become a bit of an interest for my sister. She brought down boxes of old photographs and papers to get a bit more background and we managed to get another twenty or so relatives drawn in on the tree. My Dad recalls an old rhyme, which I'll try to spell, as my Welsh is terrible:

Hen fenyw fach Cydweli
yn gwerthu losin du
un ar ddeg am ddimai
ond dau ddeg i mi

This translates loosely as:

The old lady of Kidwelly
sells black sweets
eleven for a ha'penny
and twenty for me

My Dad always thought that this referred to his Mamgu who had a sweet shop in Cydweli and that it had been made up for him. I think someone may have altered it for him, as it is slightly different to the version I found online. I think that's really sweet.

popporn

I just saw my first piece of porn on the internet. I was never convinced that other people found it 'accidentally', but I certainly did. Now I haven't got anything against porn if the models/actors are consenting adults and there is no violence or physical damage, but it's not really my thing. Mr McMuffin isn't a fan either and is still trying to erase an unsolicited image from his mind, seen on a misleadingly named site.

I think what put me off porn was finding some magazines in a field when I was a kid. We all looked through them and giggled. I was offended, not morally but aesthetically. What bits of underwear these women were wearing, didn't match, it was an atrocity. I don't think I've ever recovered from the experience.

poor me

I seem to have a strange virus thing which started off like a cold and has just left me weak and sleepy. I spoke to Ms Ginger Cake yesterday and assured her that I would be in work today as I was feeling much better, but could hardly get out of bed today. It's so boring. I've spent a bit of time on the Mac, tried to read and also tried to watch 'Adam's Rib' but can't concentrate on any of these strenuous activites for any length of time and ended up falling asleep for large chunks of the day. If I'm not better tomorrow, then I'm going to see my doctor. I'm not sure that there's anything they can do, but it doesn't seem right to be off work for more than two days without making it official like.

During my time off I have had ample opportunity to watch Slinky and Ra. I have observed Slinky spraying in the house five times. He has sprayed in our bedroom, on our washbasket, in the kitchen, and twice in the living room. I sort of understood the washbasket and bedroom, as Ra had been lying around thses areas and I think he wanted to obliterate his traces, but I think the rest of the locations are part of his territory mapping.

I have been told that bleaching these areas is the worst thing I can do, so have taken to wiping them down with a vinegar solution. I'm not sure if this is going to help either. The pair of them are also having a pooing competition in the garden. At the weekend I counted fifteen separate piles of poo. They don't even bother trying to hide them any more. I can't believe we're caught in the middle of theis cat conflict. At least they don't have access to guns, although I had a fearful moment earlier when Mr McMuffin swore blind that someone had moved a kitchen knife he was using. Amazingly it was found in the dishwasher, so he is either gaining some tidy habits or the cats are using psychological warfare techniques against us.

water sports....

Just thought I would do something to increase our stats. Anyway, as much as I hate to admit this, I am quite liking my job at the moment. I don't want to like it because it just doesn't pay me enough. It is strange but I have noticed that I hate any new job until I have been doing it for three or four months. I have now been in this job nearly four months, and suddenly I am just getting up in the morning and going to work without thinking about it. What is a boy to do? By the way, I thought it might rain today, and my thoughts drifted off to Mr Rock Cake and wondering whether he liked the rain. If you don't know, he is an extreme water sports nutcase type.

feel like i am skiving...

...even though my doctor told me to take the rest of the week off (and it's not a cat poo related illness, that would need longer to recuperate from). It's a very strange thing I've got as I feel generally knackered and then for a few hours during the day I'm staggering around because my own body is too heavy. I swear that yesterday my arms were hanging like monkey arms, because I wasn't strong enough to support their weight. I am convinced it will blow over very soon, but Mr McMuffin has been really sweet and assured me that if it really was something serious then he would leave me. Love is a many splendoured thing.

The problem with this being ill thing is that I do feel bad about my colleagues having to cope in my absence. I know they're fine because I have no problem covering for them when they're off, but it still feels wrong. I had some good news from work though, two of the weaker members of the team want to transfer. Thank the Lord for that. Despite our constant supervision of their work, I have always been frightened that I'll end up in front of some enquiry as their bad manager. It doesn't matter how much supervision they have, they don't quite 'get' the work and analysis of risk. I'd much rather supervise an inexperienced worker with a bit more about them, than these two.

Another problem is that I can't get out to have my hair cut. Just driving to the doctor's yesterday was enough to convince me that I am a danger to others at the moment. I didn't do anything terrible, but it felt like a matter of time before I did. You may recall that there is a McMuffin wedding this wekend and I would like to look my best. Mr McMuffin has it so easy. All he has to do is hire a kilt and make sure his hair doesn't touch his collar. We did consider hiring a kilt for me too, but thought that might start a war and there's enough of that going on in the world already.

Funnily enough, I'm quite looking forward to seeing everyone at the weekend. I just hope I am well because I'm going to need all my strength.

Post edited
I had another look at this and decided to cut a few bits out. I won't make a habit of this.

cheers...

... to Steve for suggesting that us McMuffins might be involved in something sleazy! I have just had a phonecall from a man asking if this is the 'massage place?' I think my offended response may have put him right. This has never happened before, coincidence or not?

mr and mrs

I think I'm going to lie down after this, it has been an exhausting morning typing so much!

Please accept our apologies for the confusion we often create. We comment on the same blogs and often fail to remove or add that important 's'. We are not deliberately trying to mislead, but sometimes the results are amusing. As I have said before 'we' are not a truck driving serial killer from Wolverhampton called Len, selecting our victims via amusing blogs, we really are a man and a woman married to each other (as President Bush intended) and living in England.

Anyway, you should realise by now that the amusing, intelligent and well written comments are mine and mine alone.

MRS McMuffin.

spare a thought...

...for those of us attending a McMuffin wedding this weekend. I hope the weather's good as we're supposed to be going punting after the ceremony and before the meal. Given all the men in kilts, we might have a 'Piano' style moment in the river, if we're lucky. That would liven things up.

Have a good weekend.

wedding hell

...well it was all going swimmingly until the groom took time out of his special day to tell his own brother, our Mr McMuffin, that the sole reason his family are not united in love is because I am a heinous bitch and hated by one and all. As you can imagine, this put a damper on our weekend.

I know that not everyone in the family hates me, because I'm not actually that objectionable. What can you say to this evildoing? I predict a long and happy marriage.

wedding hell again

At the risk of sounding slightly obsessed, bear with me for trying to work out some of my upset on our blog. Please feel very free not to commment on this, it really is a bit of an exorcism for me. As far as I can understand, my evil brother in law's complaints against me consist of:

Being so 'obnoxious', and 'condescending' when they stayed for a weekend with us that 'everyone' was desperate to get away. When Mr McMuffin asked what I had done, the evil brother in law acknowledged that we had run ourselves ragged ensuring that everything was perfect for them (and his daughter and her friend) but I had been a malevolent bitch by putting camp beds in the tent that his daughter and her friend had wanted to sleep in in the garden. Hmnn. Apparently evil brother in law found it hard to elaborate on this and gave up. I have no idea why, sounds like a reasonable complaint to me.

Not being as clever as his wife! His wife has worked very hard and is likely to get a distinction in her Masters degree this year. Mr McMuffin restrained himself from pointing out that I had achieved this six years earlier.

Being hated by every single member of the McMuffin clan (not THAT unlikely I admit!) but also despised by Mr McMuffin junior's boyfriend and best friend. Actually, this hurt the most as I like them and am pretty convinced that this is mutual.

Now I've stopped sobbing, I am so angry. How could anyone do this to their brother? Even if I was all the things that he has recently decided to complain of, why would he put Mr McMuffin in this position? What did he expect? For Mr McMuffin to dump me? For Mr McMuffin to keep this a secret from me?

The reasonable part of me is also very saddened that he could do this on his own wedding day. Our wedding was such a joyous occasion that we would have smiled at Margaret Thatcher if she had turned up for a slice of cake. Sod it, I'd have told her that I'd let bygones be bygones and given her a hug, that's how happy I was.

it's only me...

Finally beginning to recover from the body blow dealt to me by my beloved brother. At least Mrs McMuffin has the small comfort of knowing that it all had nothing to do with her. The sad thing for me is that my brother seemed to be doing so well. He had made all sorts of changes in his life, and I no longer felt the urge to call him a psycho. I was beginning to quite like him. He appeared to have lost the edge of violence that always seemed to be around when he talked to me, or anyone else for that matter. But I guess all of that was nothing more than a veneer, and lurking underneath was all the madnes and violence just waiting for an opportunity to pounce. I wonder how he tells the story of the incident to himself? I wonder if he paints himself as the righteous man finally able to tell me the truth? Families are very, very strange. What more can I say?

Normal service will resume shortly.

anniversary...

We will have been married two years on Monday 26 July 2004. That is good news, but nearly as good is the fact that I have almost persuaded Mrs McMuffin that we should go to Warsaw for the weekend. I am not sure why, but Warsaw has always seemed like an exotic place. I never thought I would ever be able to visit there. I have to admit that the idea of going to Warsaw was suggested to me by my therapist! Her family are Polish, and I told her about the fantastic website that Falling Sky had found selling Polish movie posters. She suggested that I could go to Warsaw and visit the shop. Sounds like a good idea to me.

mini kilt sensation

I am able to move on to amusing wedding anecdotes now, like the one about Mr McMuffin getting all dressed up for the wedding only to discover that despite being measured for the kilt, they had decided to give him a totally different sized outfit.

Mr McMuffin was given an outfit that would fit an average man of 5'5". Unfortunately he is much taller than this. Picture him in a mini kilt and jacket that came to the bottom of his ribcage. Not a good look for a grown man, indeed any man. Sadly he was forced to wear a linen shirt and trousers. He looked fine, but he's gorgeous in a kilt.

frightening lightening

It's been horribly muggy here and tonight we have lots of lightning, but no thunder. Weird.

Weirder still is Evil Brother in Law who seems to have rung his whole family to tell them he is remorseful about the 'argument' he had with Mr McMuffin. According to Mother in Law McMuffin who phoned today to tell Mr McMuffin that I am liked, EBinL is feeling very bad and giving a different account of events.

Well, Mr McMuffin doesn't lie and a remorseful person usually doesn't contact their entire family to tell their tale before they contact the people they want to apologise to. Enough of this I say. I metaphorically poo on his head and put him out of my thoughts.

Some good news though, a friend's son has got a 2:1. Not particularly remarkable, but he left school without qualifications and with a massive sense of failure. Good lad to have done so well, we are proud of him.

cats; can't live with them, can't shoot them

So much for another early night. Slinky can't settle, so neither can I. He knows better than to try and wake Mr McMuffin, so he just yowls at me. I've kicked Ra out because I just won't have two cats that don't belong to us living in our home and Slinky's fast heading towards the door. Sadly, he is very good at reading my mind, so with an impressive piece of paw action has opened the door and run upstairs.

As I was coming down the stairs I smelled 'the smell'©. Ra's revenge has been to spray the front door so that the enticing aroma of disgruntled cat permeates the house. Who will rid me of these cats? Clearly not Mr McMuffin and the scaffolder who came to our house today to price up some work. Apparently the pair of them had a lovely chat about how much they adore cats. Since when have men felt able to express their feline feelings?

As an aside for Karan, a 2:1 is an upper second class honours degree. I don't know the US equivalent, but I think it's something to do with 'cum laude'. We have first, upper second, lower second and third class honours degrees. Degrees without honours are graded in the same way as Master's degrees; pass, credit, distinction. Of course this could be complete rubbish, but what do I know? I only got a 2:2.

!!! Mr McMuffin has just come downstairs holding a bashful Slinky.
He has now thrown him out and explained that Slinky woke him by SPRAYING on his leg.
He says he feels cheap and used.
Slinky has jumped back in through the window, so obviously wants to reassure Mr McMuffin of his love for him.
Slinky has gone upstairs again.
Mr McMuffin has a haunted look.

This last part was brought to you in REAL TIME by the intrepid Mrs McMuffin, girl reporter of the McMuffin household.

lovely stuff...

We are having a lovely relaxing evening with Ms Gypsy Tart and Mr Rock Cake. We have drank ourselves silly with wine and beer, and now moved onto spirits. We are trying to combine our respective dinners. I am cooking a strange pasta concoction and bread, while they are cooking salmon fillets and making some kind of salad. I really like living so close to them. We have a fantastic four day weekend. I have arranged with Mrs McMuffin's work for her to have Monday and Tuesday off. It is all a bit sad, but it is looking unlikely that we are going to get to see Warsaw, and more likely that we will have a day trip to France instead, which seems like a bit of a comedown. Ah well, I have found this amazing site that does really cheap flights to eastern europe, and we can get to Budapest in December for only £44 return. This may be a bit of a ramble, as I have had too much to drink. Got to go and sort out our dinner. Hope you are all having a lovely evening.

for slinky...

Keith over at The Sturdy Soapbox sent this to me this morning. Thought it was such a great idea that I just had to share it with you all.

said the spider to the fly...

I found this in the garden. An odd looking spider eating a Dragon Fly. I love my camera.

feed and weed

I am getting to the age where more than a couple of beers is not a good thing. I'm not much of a drinker by inclination, but when Gypsy Tart nipped round yesterday to say that she had bought me a bottle of Hoegaarden, it would have been churlish to refuse. We had a long night of eating, chatting and drinking but I managed to get up this morning with some energy to tackle the garden.

I can't believe how much it had deteriorated in the last couple of weeks. The 'grass' was more of a shrubbery and the plants needed a good watering. I'm getting sick of digging up the weeds, but don't want to 'weed and feed' it as I worry for our frogs. I know they show happy little frogs in the advert, but the product carries a warning about not using it near to ponds. I cut masses of the grapevine away so that the grapes will ripen properly, but still have loads to do, as we allowed ourselves to be distracted by Ms Ginger Cake and taken to IKEA and Costco. If the weather's good I'll be out there tomorrow, bugger the cleaning.

I am a little disappointed that Mr McMuffin hasn't been able to have the anniversary break he would have liked, but amazed at the sneakiness of Ms Ginger Cake and our boss, who arranged my leave for Monday and Tuesday without my knowledge. Bless them, they didn't even cringe when I was prattling on about some of the stuff I was going to follow up after the weekend. I now have a long weekend to enjoy and prepare me for the next few weeks, where I'm going to be covering a lot of leave and will probably up my swear rate to prosecutable levels.

ra...

We are just doing a bit of cleaning up in preparation for Mr TEFL Smiler's stay with us this weekend, but before I could do anything, Ra managed to strike a pose that I just had to photograph. This is the cat that has been making our life a misery over the last few weeks. For some reason he has decided that he wants to spend his every waking moment with us. This is driving poor Slinky a bit mad. There seems to be some kind of spraying and pooing cat battle going on around us. Last night I decided that I wouldn't even let Ra in the house, so that Slinky could have it all to himself, but Ra set up post outside on the windows and wailed and wailed. I could see that Mrs McMuffin was close to breaking point, so I suggested that she go to bed, and ignore him. This morning, she tells me that she and Slinky had a long talk last night, and he has agreed to share the house with Ra. That isn't strange, is it?

i also made...

I am very pleased with myself. I have made an icon for my new camera, so that it shows up in iPhoto when I connect it. Not much cleaning getting done here.

dear old blighty

Oh its good to be back in the land of hope and glory after our time away. Our little eyes misted over as we saw the white cliffs of Dover and even Mr McMuffin shed a tear of happiness. We spent a whole nine hours in France and ate a lovely lunch in St Omer, but you just can't beat the congestion and sheer overcrowding in the southeast of England. How would we have coped with a whole weekend in Warsaw? We are thankful for our lucky escape.

Actually we had a lovely day. I had forgotten how going across the channel feels so romantic and like the start of a proper journey, I fear flying, but it's also too fast to give a sense of distance. I was pleased to find that my schoolgirl French was understood and that a lot of vocabulary came back to me. Not useful stuff, mind you, unless a situation arises where a monkey really is on a table.

I have been betrayed by my own family. For some strange reason they have sent us anniversary cards (even we don't bother, after all we were both at the wedding) addressed to Mr and Mrs (insert Mr McMuffin's real surname). How many times do I have to tell them that I have not lost my own surname? It's not like they can't remember it. The only place Mr McMuffin's name is linked to mine is on my passport, where I have (please don't be sick) double barrelled. This didn't stop my airline ticket to Madeira having only his surname on it following on from the title 'Mrs' which I have only EVER used on blogs. I wonder what they'll do when Mr McMuffin changes his name on his next passport. My guess is they'll put all of it down, because he's the man. I am aware that women of the world are persecuted in horrendous ways and this is so minor in comparison, but it's still bloody sexist and pisses me off.

Us McMuffins are cleaning up today, once again I am flipping stunned by the hard work this entails. I want our old flat back, where two hours hard work=spotlessness. I also need the life laundry people to come round as Mr McMuffin and I seem to be the victims of an experiment by an evil scientist, the polarities have been reversed and he is now a bigger pack rat than me. I just want to throw things out.

us...

Here is something else I did instead of cleaning. It is Mrs McMuffin and me in profile. There was a lot of photoshopping involved.

i robot...

Ms Ginger Cake's son thought of us and gave us a copy of i Robot. It was one of those nearly free ones, apart, that is, from the obvious damage that it does to your soul. It wasn't that great a copy, but it was watchable (just the occasional person getting up to go to the toilet). The film was fantastic. Block busting action and something to think about. Who could ask for more? I can't wait for it to come out in the cinemas so that I can see it again. I got so caught up in the film that it was easy to put aside any quibbles that I may have about what they have done to Asimov's stories (Susan Calvin with a machine gun!) A great film that is sure to spawn many sequels. I would give it 8.5/10.