Mr and Mrs McMuffin

cheesy bugs...

Mrs McMuffin has become strangely obsessed with the cheesy bugs, or slater beetles, or wood lice...She has realised that practically every region in the country, or should that be world, has a different name for the little creatures. She would like your help in cataloguing all of the different names. Please leave a comment with the name you know these creatures by, and where you are from. In return for your help, please feel free to enjoy this recipe for wood louse sauce. Apparently it tastes like shrimp and goes really well with fish!

some interesting facts...

While I was looking for some photos of Slater beetles, I cam across some interesting facts. These little creatures, of which there are thousands of varieties, have remained largely unchanged for millions of years. They are perfect at what they do, which is usually spend the day sitting under damp stones or logs. Apparently they breath through gills in their back legs, which have to remain damp at all times. This may explain why we don't see them very often around our homes anymore. I imagine the increased use of central heating has made it very difficult for them to keep their little back legs damp. I also found out that there is a virus which turns them blue, oh, and they don't turn pink when you cook them, even though they are related to shrimp. It is all very interesting, but really I think my interest has peaked with this post. I bet Mrs McMuffin will be able to keep it going for much longer.

we like tha moon...surprise

I was really pleased with myself and the technical wizardry that I demonstrated in getting the song off the site and onto our computer, and setting it up to run everytime we opened a window. However, I have had to remove it from our Mac to save our marriage. It will now have to be my dirty little secret...I will only listen to the song when she is not around. I have now had a good search around Joel Veitch's site, and it is it full of wonderful twisted stuff. I knew they were British!

a redesign...

Nearly finished the redesign of the site, and I think it looks pretty good. My thoughts have now turned to redesigning myself. I am considering giving up smoking. Mrs McMuffin's sister gave up smoking a year ago after some very expensive hypnotherapy. It certainly seems to have been worth the money for her. I have a few reservations about hypnotherapy. I don't fancy the idea of going to see someone for help with giving up the dreaded weed only to find that through some freak hypnotherapy accident I find myself reliving past lives. My real fear is that I would get stuck there. I cannot imagine how I would be able to go about my usual business every day thinking that I was Marie Antoinnette.

when cheesy bugs go bad

Just had to show you this lovely picture of a cousin of the cheesy bugs. Robert Gayle from A Welsh View sent it to Mrs McMuffin, who is a gibbering wreck in the corner of the room. I'm not sure she is going to be able to go to work today.

aliens abroad...

Found this great site for all things alien. These people really believe that they have been abducted by aliens, and they have a survey to prove it. This is a great photo though, one of those iconic images from my childhood. As a child I was convinced that aliens visited the earth, and my father was into the Erich Von Daniken books. We used to debate for hours whether the Aztec and Incas where the product of some kind of alien intervention. Ah, those were the days...

cat nastiness

He's not even my cat, so why am I up at 1am cleaning up about a pint of cat vomit? It defies logical explanation, but I love little Slinky, and I am worried about him. The poor thing is quite distressed, and I am concerned that his attraction to plastic bags may have undone him. He might have actually eaten one. I think it's going to be a long night, and you don't get much sympathy at work for underperforming for cat related reasons, now if I told them I was up all night with a sick child...

misery hates company

The sun has stopped shining. I blame David (TEFLsmiler) but it's not in my nature to hold a grudge, not much it isn't. Mr McMuffin is spending two days working at home on court reports, I feel very mean, but he's getting in my way. How can I RELAX with someone else around? He's trying to be unobtrusive, but I can hear the poor man everywhere. I would say I can smell him everywhere, but that wouldn't be true, he is very clean. He's driving me mad, he's so chirpy and chatty I want to kill him.

I think I did myself in yesterday as well, I'm being dramatic but I think I had a touch of sunstroke. I felt really headachey and shivery and had to lie down for a while. Today I think I've got hayfever, and I can't find any antihistamine. Still, it's going to rain and rain, so that should dampen the pollen down. See, I can look on the bright side.

Mr McMuffin has been inspired by Gypsy Tart and has been speaking to the Cat Protection League about rescuing a cat. He got a bit carried away when he saw some Burmese lookalikes that needed rehoming. I am doubtful that if we get an adult cat that Slinky will get on with it. Even though Slinky isn't ours, I can't bear the thought of him feeling pushed out. I'm having visions of the poor little chap sitting on the windowsill yowling at us, yet too upset to come in because there is an usurper. Well that's decided it for me, kitten only. At least Slinky will still be bosscat if it's a tiny thing.

The other thing about the CPL is that they seem to be acting like family finding Social Workers, they want to vet our home, do Police and GP checks and complete a full form F. Actually, that's not true but they do take it all very seriously. Having said that, this is the country that had the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals before it had a Society to protect children! I guess we should expect a little scrutinising and psychometric testing.

I am proud to announce that I taught Mr McMuffin to score through words like this and that. Soon I shall be master of weblogs instead of the imbec Imecible stupid person I am.

collage homage...

Slink just looked so cute this morning as he lay sleeping on our bed. He was able to maintain his cuteness even after he had walked over the bed with his muddy feet, and that is saying something. By the way, Mrs McMuffin's grandmother made that quilt.

give us money...

I thought you should all know that it is now possible to give us money. I put a link to our Paypal account on our site. I suppose you are asking yourself, "why should I give them money?" Well...you should give us money because we are lovely and you will feel better about yourself if you do. I hear you ask, "is it cos we is poor?" No, we have more than enough money. We both have good jobs that pay a very good income, but you should give us money because we are lovely and you will feel better about yourself. I have prepared a frequently asked questions page for this post. Click here to read it.

iSight...

Mrs McMuffin would like to thank Mr David TEFLSmiler for giving Mr McMuffin the opportunity to experience the wonders of the iSight. He has now gone and bought one. It is truly a beautiful thing. For those of you, poor souls chained to machines running Windoze, who have no idea what I am talking about, you can find out about it here.

slink movie...

I thought I would share with you the torture that we are put through every morning by the lovely Slink. Every morning he leaps on my chest and cries in my face to wake me up. He comes downstairs with me, has something to eat, then demands to be let back upstairs to stand on Mrs McMuffin's head, or at least that is what she says he does. If you don't let him have what he wants, he will cry and cry and cry. He can keep it up for an hour. This is a little movie I made this morning, using the lovely iSight camera and iMovie, just to give you a little taster of what we go through with this animal (I've stripped the movie right back so that it is only about 1Mb in size). This is not the most terrible sound he makes. He has a special one that he reserves for the hallway, for some reason. It is a low guttural scream that seems to go on forever. If you go out to him, he stops, and looks at you as if you are a bit mad. In his special catty fashion, he seems to be saying, "noise, what noise, I didn't hear anything."

freaky friday...

I had an almost surreal day last Friday. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a poster for a film called 'Surreal Friday', so I had to make do with this one.

My day began with me sleeping in. Something that I haven't done for ages. The problem for me is that I am terrible at rushing around in the morning. I need to have at least an hour sitting doing nothing but drinking coffee and smoking fags before I can even contemplate getting dressed. I gave up the rushing around stuff years ago, and now if I am late in the morning, then that's that. I phoned my therapist to let her know that I wouldn't be able to see her for my 8.30am session, and settled down to a relaxing morning. I don't work on Fridays anymore, and use the day for all my therapy stuff, supervision, seeing clients, those sorts of things.

Got a phone call just after 1pm from the place where I see my clients to find out where I was. Doh! The week before I had arranged to meet with a fellow therapist, who I hadn't actually met before, at 1pm to talk about us running a group together. I had forgot all about it. I spoke to him, and apologised profusely. The problem with forgetting anything in therapy is the niggly idea that maybe you just didn't want to do it. And if I am honest with myself, I guess there is some truth in that. When I spoke with this fella the previous week I had finished the telephone conversation thinking "he sounds a bit strange."

I asked him if we could rearrange the meeting, and he said, "well...what's to prevent you from 'forgetting' that meeting to?" To which I answered, "abolutely nothing!". By the end of our conversation we had agreed to meet that afternoon at 4pm, and I felt absolutely raging angry with him. More convinced that ever that here was a very strange person, but willing to consider that maybe I was picking up on how angry he was with me for standing him up.

We met as arranged. I noticed that his right hand was covered in sticky plasters. He had a plaster on his wrist and every finger had a plaster on it. In fact, his index finger had three on it. I did what anyone would do in the circumstances and asked him what had happened to his hand. In a deep, droning, monotone voice, he said, "Well I got myself into a bit of a to-do last night. I was being bullied by this man in the pub and he pushed me into a corner, so I smashed a glass over his head." He went on to decribe a chase through the streets of London, and how he eventually found sanctuary in a Chinese restaurant. As he was telling the story, he kept glancing at me and smiling, as if he was looking for my approval. You know, just lads together, that sort of thing. I listened to him in a slightly shocked silence, and eventually said to him, "I don't want to work with you. I don't want to run a group with you. I am very concerned about what you have told me and I don't want to work with anyone who thinks violence is okay."

At this point he surprised me by suggesting that we move things forward and talk about our different therapeutic techniques! I said, "NO! I do not want to run the group with you, and I am so concerned by what you have told I feel I have to report our conversation to...[the manager of the agency]."

Things just kept getting stranger. He then said, "I told you all that in confidence, and now you are going to grass me up..." It was a bit like we were adolescent boys, and he was invoking the secret rule about grassing people up.

I just couldn't be bothered talking to him anymore, and told him that our meeting was over and I was leaving. As I got up to leave, I said, "I'm sorry that this has been a wasted day for you." I am not entirely sure why I said this. My only excuse is that I am British, and I often feel the urge to apologise for things, even when they have nothing to do with me. He replied, "So you won't be reimbursing me?" I said, "Pardon!" He finished by muttered something about, "Oh, it doesn't matter."

It didn't occur to me until much later that all of this had happened on the same day. I had felt kind of disconnected from the world all day. I think it started with sleeping in, and continued through to meeting with this fella. Everything had a slightly dreamy, surreal, quality to it. I felt a bit like Tim Robbins in 'Jacob's Ladder'. At least his problems turned to be drug induced, or maybe they were, who knows.

There is no moral to this tale. Just the telling. And I am done.

the low of evility...

The good news is that it now even safer to visit this site. It has been a struggle but we have managed to curb the darker side of ourselves and, as you can see, it has paid off.

another evility update...

After my last post, this site has become 16% more evil...Oh, dear...

the view from our window

I thought you might like to see the photo I took of the sun setting. This is the view we have from our bedroom window. Must go to bed now. Goodnight, everyone.

another strange day...

I thought I would go into work late today, and use the time to get caught up with some paperwork. I diligently started writing at 8am, and didn't stop until 2.15pm. I wrote 4864 words. I was then overcome with tiredness and thought I'd have a little lie down on the couch. I woke up two hours later, and that was a struggle. During this time, I kept half waking, but found myself just unable to rise from the couch. But I'm up and bathed and feelng a strange combination of washed out and refreshed. I really needed that little bit extra sleep.

I did have a little break from writing to find a holiday for us. We have decided to go back to sunny Madeira. I very quickly found the perfect holiday at a hotel we have stayed at before, and I was in the process of booking the holiday, when the salesperson asked me if our passports had at least 7 months to run on them. I suddenly remembered that Mrs McMuffin's passport expired in March this year and she hasn't renewed it. I had to cancel the whole thing.

I am sitting here listening to a massive box set of Marty Robbins singing country. He has such lovely mellow voice, and I have very fond memories of his gunfighter ballads from when I was a child. He was always one of those singers, along with the likes of Willie Nelson, Jim Reeves and Kate Bush, who surprised when they sang. How could that voice come out of those lips. When I recently visited my little brother I was shocked to find that in amongst all the show tunes, hi-energy, and the tragic female singers, I found a copy of the ballads album. Once the country is in you, there is just no taking it out! Hey, that could be the title of a country song. Now, if I could just write a few more catchy words and some music, and learn to play the guitar and how to sing, I could make a lot of money.

The problem with these box sets is that sometimes you hear music that you wished you hadn't heard. Marty lends his beautiful voice to the fight against the commies on Ain't I Right and then goes into a tirade against providing aid to foreigners on My Own Native Land. I always knew he had right-wing leanings but hearing him singing these songs has soured my enjoyment a little. I have always been a little bit confused by the Godly right-winger, but here he is on the sublime An Evening Prayer, a song that will give you some idea of what loveliness he is capable of.

For those of you who want to know more about Marty Robbins, I've found this fan site called Kirsty's Marty Robbin's Page. Do think this is our very own lovely Kirsty?

Ah well, I think he will now be filed in the "a great singer, but not a very nice man" section, which is right next to Woody Allen, who is in the "a great film maker, but a paedophile" section and Jim Reeves, "a great singer, but racist bastard" section. By the way, we have a Black Jamaican friend who was also raised on Jim Reeves and buys his records just to spite him! And don't get me started on my struggle with liking Woody Allen!

object of desire no longer...

I have been hankering after a new camera for a while now, and I have been lusting after this particular camera for a couple of weeks. It is a Sony DSC-T1, 5 Megapixels in the slimest, cutest, most stylish, body you can imagine. So what if it doesn't take the best night-time photos in the world...it is lovely to look at and lovely to hold. I think Apple and Sony must be distance cousins. I was going to post this as my latest obsession, but yesterday, when I went to LOOK at cameras, I slipped, and before I knew what I was doing, I accidently bought one. I love it. I really must go on holiday now so that I can take lots of beautiful pictures.

another one...

We have had another troll nip. No idea why he has taken agin us in this way. His comment has been deleted and he has been banned, of course. But, I thought his lovely little poem deserved a wider audience. It really is a brave attempt. Please note that this has apparently been written by an English man who objects to me, a Scottish man, criticising somewhere I lived in Scotland. My, what has the world come to. I wouldn't want to live inside his head. Mrs McMuffin also objects to his sexism. Her criticism of Orkney has been ignored. By the way, did we mention that when we were last in Orkney we spent a very pleasant couple of hours in a local museum. Imagine our surprise to find photographs that were 80 years old with the faces of people we had just seen in Kirkwall. They are a very close knit community in Orkney. I hope you enjoy this because sadly he will not be appearing on these pages again despite the time and effort he has devoted to us. Bless. And, of course, our fan remains anonymous.

I wonder if we are about to receive a huge windfall for being so very, very lovely?

Mr Nasty (foul mouth)

Is the world full of nasty people with a foul mouth,
Well not really but at the time, I was looking south.
Bags of wind, so full of crap,
the rubbish flowing from their mouth like a running tap.

They are like empty tins, rattling to make some noise,
they are the kind they call the bully boys.
So far up themselves, they look like a big ass,
mister you and your kind are not even in any class.

Look into yourself, you are ugly as sin,
if I had a face like you, I’d hide it in a bin
Get yourself a life, forget that, jump off a cliff,
and get yourself a pair of boxing gloves and give yourself a biff.

The world is not full of nasty people, it only seems that way,
but mister, for your sins one day you will pay.
I hope I am sitting there with the lever in my hand,
watching you fry, my wouldn't that be grand.

One day an Orcadian will have call to save your life, if it was me I’d give it a miss,
if you were on fire, I would not give you any piss.
So here’s to you, whoever you think you are,
if I saw you on the road, I’d run you down with my car.

So you think I’m a little Orcadian, well mister I am not,
I am actually English but you don't care a jot.
It’s folk like you who give us a bad name, mate,
when it’s your time to leave please lock and bolt the gate.

You silly little man, you’re so full of crap,
for once in your life close your stupid trap.
If you can’t say anything nice, did your mummy not tell you that,
maybe one day me and the boys will come around for a chat.

This is not a threat it’s just a bit of fun,
it cost nobody nothing but at your cost my son.
Live and let live and don’t be so full of bile,
if I saw anyone of your type I think I’d run a mile.

closer than closer...

I love my new camera. I was playing with it this morning and discovered that it has a little button that allows me to take ultra close pictures. I went a bit nuts and was photographing everything from about 3cm. Here are a few of the photos that I took:

This is a chocolate chip cookie.

This is a concrete paving slab in our garden.

This is some moss marring the beauty of Mrs McMuffin's lawn.

This is some slate chippings that lie outside our back door.

the eye of the beholder...

There seems to more photographs than usual on this site. Not sure why that is. Thought you might like to see a close up of my eye. I have a lovely eye, even if I do say so myself.

just for the heck of it...

Thought I'd post another cute photo of Slinky. He is ignoring me here for some reason. I think I refused him food, or wouldn't allow him to sit on my lap, or some other such catty slight.

eye of mrs mcmuffin...

Guess who is posting this one. Mrs McMuffin was so taken with my beautiful eye that she wanted one herself. After a few goes, we managed to get this picture. It's not as lovely as mine, and she doesn't have my long eyelashes, but you can't have everything. I guess she will just have to make do with having me.

eye of slink...

Slinky, of course, has the most beautiful eyes of all of us, but he just will not sit still so I can photograph them properly.

stop press...

I have finally worked out where Uma Thurman got those unfeasibly large hands from. She stole some of Bjork's. Surely that can't be legal. I can't believe that you are allowed to just take any bits you fancy from other people. Although, Bjork has gone up in my estimation. She hasn't said a word about it. I haven't hear a whisper of a lawsuit or anything. I wonder if that is why Uma and Ethan split up. He just couldn't take feeling inadequate all the time.

garden things...

I am still in love with the macro features of my new camera. Here are a few photos of some of the things I found in our garden.

cat news...

This is the kind of harassment that we have to put up with on a daily basis. This is another neighbour's cat, we don't know his name, and have only referred to him as The Ginger One. He has been coming around our house for a couple of years now, since he was a little kitten. He took a shine to Slink and used to follow him everywhere. And Slink used to let him. TGO has never in all that time come near Mrs McMuffin or me. It is as if we do not exist for him. He will happily sit a few feet away and clean himself, quite relaxed, and we can go about our business, but if we make the slightest move towards him, he's off. Anyway, he has always liked to prowl around our house, and I have found him all over the place. Just sitting, admiring the view. Mrs McMuffin once found him going through the stuff in our junk room, or should I say one of our junk rooms. Today I found him eating poor wee Slink's food. I heard a noise, and looked up, and there he was stuffing himself. He finished his food, and off he went.

By the way, Mrs McMuffin has had a battle with him over the years, because he is quite keen on murdering the frogs that live in our garden pond. He just sits by the side, and occasionally swipes one on to dry land. He sometimes eats their head, but for some reason refuses to have anything to do with their legs. Very strange.

I must update you on our becoming new cat, Ra. Mrs McMuffin was woken at 4am this morning by Slink who wanted something to eat. She went downstairs to feed him, and found Ra crying at the front door to be let in. She is hard, and needless to say, she left him there. I think I probably would have let him in.

five part mushroom study...

There must come a point in every bloggers life when they suddenly realise that this is their blog and they can bloody well post anything they like, including a five part mushroom study. I found this in our garden this morning, and it just looked so lovely. A single mushroom.

Oh, dear I think I loved this mushroom too much. My camera slipped. I guess it is true, we always hurt the ones we love.

down our street...part 1

Mrs McMuffin and I were reminded by Jo of all the celebrities we have entertained over the years. Perhaps the most memorable meal we had was the night Jen and Brad popped over unexpectedly. They have lived a couple of doors down from us for a couple of years now. They say they moved here so that they could have an ordinary life away from the glare of the Hollywood publicity machine. We don't see that much of each other usually, because they are often away shooting some film or TV show or other, but Brad and I have got into the habit of taking out our wheelie bins for the dustmen on a Tuesday night at the same time, and we also take the time to have a quick chat. We have this really annoying group of teenagers that hang around the front of our houses at night, and the other night one of them, or at least we think it was one of them, keyed Jen's Vauxhall Corsa. Left a bloody great big scratch down the side. Now Jen will have to make a claim on her insurance and lose her no claims bonus. She is really pissed off about this.

Mrs McMuffin and Jen have become quite good friends. They seem to have quite a lot in common, similar sense of humour, dress sense, and taste in men. They like nothing better than going shopping at Zara in Bluewater for clothes together, although Jen is a bit jealous of Mrs McMuffin's long legs, as she usually has to take the legs up a bit when she buys trousers.

Anyway, they just popped round. We had a few glasses of wine, and even though Jen was getting a bit loud, and was beginning to needle Brad a bit, I thought it would be nice to make us all something to eat. It's quite difficult feeding them, because they're always on some stupid faddy diet or other. This time they were only eating dry cornflakes and slow roasted cherry tomatoes. I know, it doesn't sound like much of a diet, but I think they supplemented their diet with lots of red white. Jen certainly like her glass of sparkling rose. Well, at least that night she did.

We had a lovely meal, sitting chatting while we ate our cornflakes and tomatoes. Then suddenly for no reason that I could see, Jen started throwing cornflakes at Brad. We were all a bit drunk by this point, and it seemed like some harmless fun. Until, that is I was hit in the eye by a slow roasted cherry tomato, thrown by Jen. It nearly took my eye out. But even this didn't stop her, she just seemed to get more and more excited, and before we knew where we were, she was up on the table. She started kicking the glasses and plates onto the floor. Brad was desperately trying to get a grip of her, but Jen seemed completely out of control. In the end, I had to shout at her to stop, and I told Brad that he had better take his wife home. He was so embarassed and apologetic. I felt quite sorry for him, being married to such a lush. It was all a bit strange, that what had started off as a nice evening had deteriorated into such a mess.

We were left to clean up the mess that Jen had made. And, you know we couldn't find the nice Art Deco vase that my aunt gave to us last Christmas. We only found out the next day that Jen had taken the vase. Poor Brad brought it back, and he just kept apologing. He kept saying that Jen's behaviour was so out of character.

Now that was a night to remember.

[UPDATE I bumped into Brad this morning, and he told me that Jen had been to the doctor the other day to have ingrown toenail sorted, and she had got chatting to the doctor about her diet. Turns out that the combination of dry cornflakes, slow roasted tomatoes, and sparkling rose wine, had brought on some kind of psychotic episode. He gave her some Librium, and she seems to be okay now. Well, I guess that explains what happened. We were a bit surprised, because she isn't usually like that. By the way, Jen drew the picture of her and Brad. She gave it to us as a little apology gift.]

look what i found...

When I went to bed last night, I was confronted by the sight of not one, but two cats, relaxing on our bed. How quickly things change. It is only a few days since Ra decided that maybe, just maybe, and I am not sure he has entirely made up his mind, that we could be trusted enough for him to come within ten feet of us, and now he is sleeping on our bed. I slipped into bed, leaving them where they were. They lay contentedly for a few minutes, until I watched Slink quietly reach over and cuff Ra across the face, which started a bit of a hissy fight. He reminded me so much of growing up with my brothers and sisters, when one of us would do something completely out of the blue to wind up the other, and then sit back with a look of "who me?" on our faces. Poor Ra, I don't think his introduction into our little family is going to go smoothly, even though the cats have lived together all of their lives.

strange cat noise

My lovely sister-in-law has been a bit freaked out since she found a couple of cats under a car, and one of them was making this sound. She is quite convinced that there is some kind of catty plot to usurp the humans in our area.

more on mrs carrot cake...

Not only is Mrs Carrot Cake a brilliant cook, she has also created a beautiful garden. I took this photo this morning as we sat outside drinking coffee. Her garden is a peaceful haven.

precious...

I need one of these. The new 30" Cinema Display from Apple. It is clear to me now that my so called computing life has been a sham so far. It only costs $3,299.00, which seems a bargain to me.

UPDATE: The link should work now

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.

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?

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.

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.

virtue is its own reward...

When?

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.

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?

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 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.