Ticketty-boo

My Gran was born in 1904 and I think she might have been what you used to call a flapper in the 1920's. She taught me how to do a "real" shuffle when I was 8 years old, and made me into a real card sharp. Every time she came to stay, which was often, we would spend our days playing Gin Rummy.

She was born and grew up in India, and moved to England when she was in her late 50's. I think she had spent most of the time in India playing Mah Jong and Gin Rummy, but her husband, my grandfather, died just after I was born and she had to come to England with very little money.

Not to be put out, my ever-inspired and resourceful Gran got herself a job as a saleslady at Bentall's department store in Kingston, and a room in a house in New Malden with a chap who lived with his son. I often used to go and visit, and it was always very nice at Gran's, she lived as part of the family.

I don't think she'd ever worked in her life before she got the job at Bentall's. It must have been very hard for her.

The best thing about Gran was that she liked presents as much as I do. So every birthday and Christmas, she would appear with a box of presents that she had either made or bought herself, and each of them was wrapped. They were usually quite inexpensive. The point was that she had taken the trouble to find them or make them and wrap them, so there was always a lot of them.

That was the exciting part, the unwrapping. It was wonderful, because my Mum didn't like presents, either the giving or the receiving of them. My Dad did, but he was unfortunately a bit dictated to by my Mum on that point. So we were very reliant on Gran for presents.

Gran also sounded like the female version of a Billy Bunter book. Some of her favorite expressions were Jolly D, What-ho and the one I love most, Everything's ticketty-boo!

All Saint-Like

Have been all saint-like, to quote Bridget Jones, and finished all the enormous amount of work that needed to be delivered by today.

Have also written all invoices, done all accounts, paid all open invoices and only have 2 more orders to finish up by the end of the week.

Boy do I deserve a pat on the back! Will have to give it to myself.

The Miracle of the Headset

Have discovered the invention of the headset to talk on the phone.

Due to intense pain in my left shoulder and in my neck between my head and left shoulder, have reached the stage where I simply cannot insert the phone under my left ear any more when talking on the phone.

Call me stupid (and I can hear you!) but it took a friend to give me the advice of using a headset. Have done this since yesterday afternoon, as often have to be on the phone for ages to customers while still typing - and it is absolutely fantastic. Will never phone without using a headset again.

Seems like I get slightly wiser as I get older. By the time I'm 65 I might just have got the hang of life. Would be ideal if I could then start again from the beginning with all the accumulated knowledge.

Birthday Girl

What a wonderful day!

Was woken by doorbell - it was a flower delivery service bringing me a beautiful bouquet of orange and yellow flowers - sent me by one of my customers!

Spent the day preparing the dinner I was making for friends - it was a lot of work but we had such a fun time. Apart from the three-course meal, there was a lot of piano playing and also a game - one of my friends had written a computer program with a quiz specially for the evening in the style of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" and it was very funny.

Have just finished clearing up and am looking forward to a good sleep.

Blokes' Night Out

My son and his friend went out last night and both came back and stayed here. As usual there were noisy goings-on in the middle of the night as often happens after a Blokes' Night Out with them getting up to go the bathroom and then wandering around in their still fairly drunken state trying to find the way back to the bedroom.

Last time his friend stayed he decided to wash his jeans in the washing machine, which woke me up at about 5 a.m. Unfortunately he had no recollection at all of doing it the next morning and apologized to me profusely.

I was impressed that, even in that state, he was able to correctly operate a washing machine he had never used before - I have problems doing that with a new washing machine in a sober state!

Easter Legs

Have just returned from Aldi! (still have not received that voucher, so here's my second attempt) laden down with a basket of goodies and have fallen up the stairs. Don't know how it happened, but managed to catch the border of one step right on my knee cap, which is in bad shape anyway. Hooray.

On positive note, have already received 2 birthday cards for next week. Has perked me up, after a long boring two days translating a financial report.

Have two more days of this to look forward to. The customer has already sent 2 sets of changes to the report, which I will incorporate one after another once I have finished translation of the original financial report. I like to call these little nuggets The Return of the Financial Report and The Financial Report Strikes Back.

Dr Jekyll And Mr Hide Things From Your Wife

Just saw an American TV show where the woman called her husband "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hide Things from Your Wife".

Very funny! I can think of the odd ex-husband I might have said that to.

Cabbages Tuppence A Pound, E-Mails One Cent

My lady masseur (masseuse?) told me this morning that she had just heard a radio show where it had been announced that the German government will be charging a tax of 1 Cent per E-mail from June 1st. Apparently loads of people were phoning in to complain and nationwide discussions had been ongoing all morning (and it was only 9 a.m.).

This led to a long discussion between the two of us which involved complaining about the many taxes already levied by the German government, and culminating in me worrying about how many Euros a month this new tax was going to cost me, seeing as how I write about 250 mails a month.

Turned out though, it was all an April Fool's hoax!

Morning Mists

Here like small, misguided clouds, the mists blow down
From the mountain which hangs above our town
And which whispers every morning to our valley
Into each and every tiny medieval alley
It is a new day
Come out and greet me
Come out and meet me
Face new challenges that may
Make this the start
Of a different part
Of your life
But I am driving through the mist
And though I get the gist
Of what the mountain is trying to tell me
I still have a problem trying to see the traffic light at the end of the road

Best of Three

When I was in my early teens, the last thing I was interested in was boys or even pop stars. However, to have any credibility, you had to have a pin-up hero. If you wanted to appear normal, you basically had 3 to choose from: Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and Marc Bolan. (Never mind that Marc Bolan was a cross-dresser).

Every single girls' comic and magazine had a pin-up of one of these guys every single week. At school, you would constantly be stopped in whatever you were doing and confronted with "Who do you like - Donny, David or Marc?" That was your choice. It wasn't an issue that I liked Mr. Marks the Science teacher - he wasn't one of the Big 3 (which is actually what many of the magazines called them).

I didn't feel the slightest attraction towards any of them but I had to pick up one so I chose Donny Osmond. At least he was about my age! David Cassidy seemed kind of too old and Marc Bolan seemed kind of too weird. I hung every Donny poster I could find on my wall and his practically luminous teeth would keep me awake at night. I taught my little sister to sing "The Twelfth of Never" with me (actually I quite liked that song).

Fortunately this phase only continued for a couple of years. Marc Bolan crashed his car into a tree so he was out of the running and as we grew more sophisticated, we were allowed to like David Bowie, Elton John (little did we know), Alvin Stardust and Bryan Ferry to name a few.

Coming Up For Air

Phew, just coming up for air here!
Most of my customers were a little bit asleep in January and half of February. I guess they were all still on their hibernation holidays. Anyway, for the last 5 weeks they seem to have woken up and have been sending me lots of work.
This week has been a record, with everyone deciding to come at once. I am just peeking out from behind my PC once in a while to fetch a cup of tea and make sure that I'm still here myself!
Nearly popped out of comfy seat this morning when called up one file that I had received and it was 5 times longer than I had been expecting. Was just thinking, well that's it, no room for anyone else now, when PC went ping! and another file from other regular customer appeared in mailbox.
However, it is all leading to a jolly good turnover. If I carry on like this, then I might well be a millionaire by oh... April 2024!
I have only my own greed to blame.

Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem Dry Bones

Went to the orthopaedist today for my knee injection and there was a lady in a wheelchair in the waiting room who was 103!

She looked better than I did! Perfectly coiffed hair, smart makeup, earrings and snazzy glasses - and a stunning smile. I could hardly take my eyes off her.

Again on the medical front, had a massage this morning with a new lady masseur. I was very pleased to have a lady, as I have always had male masseurs and they never seem to stop asking questions about your private life. So when I saw this lady, I thought oh good, just the massage this time. Although she did in fact talk non-stop she was very nice and gave a thoroughly good massage. The old shoulders were cracking and crunching away so am obviously very tensed up. But was very impressed with the treatment.

Too Much Culture

Have been given 2 free tickets to a classical music concert in our local Palace this evening. It is a posh do. And as the Palace is only about 75 seconds' walk from my front door, it will require no effort to get there.
However, don't want to go on my own as I think you should always be accompanied when you go to the theater. And all my friends are either too far away, already busy or reckon it is "too much culture".
It might even be too much culture for me! It would not be good if I found I was bored out of my brain and had to sit through it for an hour until the interval.
Am thinking of going and taking my I-pod just in case.

Super Market

Have discovered the joys of Aldi! I used to go to an Aldi a few years ago and found it quite depressing, not to mention untidy and strangely quite dark (that just might be me remembering it that way because it was a long time ago and the recesses of my memory are fairly untidy and dark, a bit like an old attic).
However, decided to venture in once again on Saturday as there is one just around the corner from us or more precisely, about 5 minutes drive in the car.
It was like Christmas! Large, bright, tidy, FULL of food and other really good goodies, and especially the food sections contained lots of bio products, gourmet products and products that you normally only dream about being available here (such as Earl Grey tea).
It was as if 50 helicopters had landed with care packages in an airlift action.
And the prices! I filled an entire basket for 17 euros.
If you are reading this, it is not an advert for Aldi, nor it is one of those product promotion things they write into sitcoms these days - but if Aldi is reading it I wouldn't be averse to a large voucher.

Age of Aquariums

There is a döner parlor around the corner from us. It is run by a Turkish family, the sons have grown up here and speak fluent German but the parents not so much.

I often pop in to get something and have a little chat with the father.

A few months ago a friend gave them a gift of his aquarium with exotic fish because he was moving and it didn't fit in his new appartment. It's not very big but it is very pretty and well-kept. When it arrived it had 23 quite large and exotic fish in it and I admired them a lot.

One evening I went in and the father was looking even more depressed than he normally does and wasted no time in telling me "Thirteen dead!"

I looked inside the aquarium and sure enough there were only ten fish left. Apparently all thirteen had died overnight. I guess it is pretty obvious they all ate something that wasn't good for them.

Apparently schoolkids come in at lunchtimes and while he's busy making koftas and yufkas and the like they're busy feeding the fish bits of döner.

So now he wants to get rid of the aquarium as fast as possible as he says he can't be watching all the people all the time. He has offered to give it to me for half the price of new. And he wants me to take it really soon. I'm still considering it as it would take up quite a lot of room and is a considerable amount of work.

Also I would be worrying about the fish all the time, giving them names and counting them twice a day. Maybe not such a good idea.

Spring Clean

Spring has inspired me! It is as if I have awoken from a deep sleep (otherwise known as hibernation) and some of my senses have started to return!

Possibly it is due to a warming of the environment (not to be confused, I hope, with global warming), after all it is 19° C here! Have turned off the heating and the balcony door has been open all afternoon.

Have cleaned most of the appartment with help of son (who hoovered all carpets) and will finish up tomorrow morning. (Almost) everything is gleaming! Son even purchased new mop.

It feels pretty good.

First Ice of Spring

It is Spring in our city! Our innovative city, in which so many things were invented and discovered, has found Spring 2 days early. Met up with a friend this evening and we had intended to sit inside a café but as it was so warm (14° C) we decided to sit outside in an ice café and ate our first ice of Spring - one Spaghetti Ice and one Banana Split.

The Dearly Departing

It is sad when a friend moves to another continent.

Unless you're going to skype them every day with a webcam, you will probably not see them for a long time, if ever again.

One of our Specs is departing for foreign shores and even though I haven't known her very long, I will miss our little lunches.

Attention Spam

I have noticed that some people have difficulty concentrating on one topic of conversation for longer than about 8 seconds, and are continually branching off onto non-related subjects. It's sometimes preceded with "Can I just interrupt?" and you think there might be some informative supplementary data to your mainline stream of thought forthcoming, but in fact it's more likely to be so off-topic as to make you wonder if you're so boring that any other topic would be a relief to the ears. Other times the off-topic is not preceded by any introduction but just hurls you into a parallel universe. I call this little nugget of observed behavior "attention spam".

Specs and the City

Lunch date tomorrow with The Girls! It's Girls' Lunch in a restaurant, a bit like Sex and the City. Except that we are not quite as glamorous as they are, nor do we talk about men and sex. Mostly we discuss food, food allergies and our hobbies. And we all wear glasses. In fact we are more kind of Specs and the City!