I had a fantastic IKEA!

Pablo being a model.

There always seems to be a casualty when I go away on a trip.

Somehow, despite checking every fudging drawer and cupboard, the bathroom sink and under the bed, I always manage to leave something behind; like a hairdryer, an eye cream or a valuable, family heirloom earring.*

After I arrived home last weekend, I realised I’d left my brand new shower cap dangling on the nozzle at Mum and Dad’s house. Now, I know shower caps only cost $2 but it took me weeks to find where they stock them in Coles and I’ve forgotten which aisle and shelf they were on and the thought of going through the whole tiring process again is too much to bear so I’ll have to put up with my hideously stained old one with stretched elastic that lets the water in and makes the entire exercise of wearing a shower cap pointless.

I may as well just go and get a bucket of water and plunge my tiny head in it for all the protection it gives me.

So if Coles confuses me in this manner, imagine how circumspect I was when Scotto and I decided (as a frivolous experiment to check how strong our marriage actually is) to stop in to IKEA on the way to the airport on Sunday. We don’t have an IKEA in our one-horse town (or an Aldi) and I’m sick of being an ignoramus when people talk excitedly about how IKEA causes a high level of antagonism between them and their spouse.

I don’t like to miss out on good blog fodder like that.

The parking lot was an ideal place for me to start. 

“Well you could have got that parking spot if you’d been on the ball!” I nagged in my high pitched shrill. “That was a bit close to the pylon, don’t you think! You nearly dinged the car!” I taunted.

But there was no satisfyingly tetchy reaction from Scotto. That’s okay, I thought. I’m just warming up. There’s plenty of time to ignite an argument once we get inside.

But once I’d gained access to the place, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.. It was quite simple to follow the illuminated arrows on the floor and mosey along like a stupefied cow being led through stiles, around and around what seemed, on the surface, to be a furniture shop.

I mean, is that all it is? A furniture shop? Why do couples get divorced after they go there?

I was expecting something far more antagonising. I thought there might be sexy Swedish blondes wearing fur bikinis soaking in Jacuzzis or something and I’d have to keep clipping Scotto over the ear to get his attention.

I’m far more likely to divorce my husband after a trip to Bunnings with all the drill bits and socket wrenches and stuff.

According to my research, walking through kitchen displays brings up touchy subjects like “who does the most cooking” and the fact that most couples who go there are already probably under stress because they’re renovating.

My favourite IKEA Kitchen

It seems as though the more choices there are available, the more scope there is for disagreement.

Fortunately, I don’t think Scotto and I have very passionate feelings about furniture. We save our rage for more important things.

We might get into an argument about him traipsing through the kitchen with his big ugly size 13 feet after I’ve just mopped it, or because he smacked my neurotic Chihuahua on the nose for barking incessantly at the cat, or the fact that I think all zombie movies are pathetically stupid and you’d have to be an intellectually challenged moron with glue for brains to watch them.

We might bicker over who’s going downstairs to check if the kitchen’s on fire at 2 o’clock in the morning because the smoke alarm is screaming blue murder after an unsuspecting gecko accidentally ran across it, or we might squabble because I was clumsy and tripped over the bathroom scales in the middle of the night making a shattering noise loud enough to wake the neighbours three doors down ( it happened last night) and when he gets up one hour later and does the exact same thing and I accuse him of trying to pay me back in a spiteful way by waking me up in precisely the same startling fashion… but we’d never argue about a silly piece of furniture. That would be ludicrous.

Nor would be argue about assembling flat packs, because for a start I’d be nowhere in the vicinity when Scotto was doing the assemblifying. 

I quite liked IKEA.

They even throw in the view!

In fact I think I could live in an IKEA store if they looked into doing a bit of plumbing... you know, actual flushing toilets. 

If they were smart they’d rent their little scenery things out at night to Uni students.

The cutlery drawer was all we could afford.

*There are no valuable heirlooms in our family that I know of. That was just to impress you.

Do you always accidentally leave something behind when you go on holidays? Ever had a fight in IKEA?

Linking up with Grace from With Some Grace for #FYBF

My Homework from ProBlogger

I arrived home from the ProBlogger event, held at the fabulous Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast last night and now I have to write an eBook. Or is it an Ebook? Or an EBOOK? Or an ebOOk? 

I’m not sure which, but anyway... I have to write one.

According to the highly professional speakers we had the pleasure of listening to on the weekend, the best bloggers give back to their reading community. But in the last two and a half years I’ve given you all nothing but a headache and a niggling suspicion there’s something extremely wrong with me. I need to lift my game.

I did think about it at length and I sort of decided I could probably write about “The Disgraceful Habits of Appalling Old Women” considering my reputed behaviour. I could write an electronic book about how to be a disgusting old bat with a side dressing of style.

I was sitting in the teacher's staff room today, regaling my friends with stories about how I was running around with a certain breed of blogging buddies at the ProBlogger function on Friday night and what delirious fun I’d had drinking champagne and ripping off my mouth filter.

 Over my punitive tuna and spinach salad (after a weekend of pina colada-flavoured, macaroon decadence), I told the girls how I left my husband chatting to a decidedly attractive blogger (who looked exactly like Olivia Newton John, actually) and on the way back from the toilet I decided to make an impromptu visit to a bar at the resort with the gals without telling him and how he then lost me for an hour and a half despite calling me eighteen times on my mobile until he eventually grew suspicious and wandered into the bar where I was having a freaking whale of a time 'networking' and proceeded to greet him with a highly animated Mexican Wave (for one) and then he was very cranky and started to speak to me in a raised voice and I told him it was all the fault of my blogging buddies and that they’d led me astray and I was just an innocent acolyte who’d been abducted and besides, the last time I’d seen him, he was talking to Olivia Newton John, so I was the one who should be angry, not him, and would he like to buy me a drink now that he was here. He bucked up about it for a few minutes insisting I’d set him up with Olivia as a subterfuge but after a while he forgot about it and went and bought himself a beer.

I noticed Kaz and Kyles giving each other secretive looks at the staff room table as they listened to my waffling.

“So… Scotto was angry at your blogging pals, not you?” Kyles gave me the stink eye.

“Yes!” I beamed. “Only for a bit, though.”

“So he was angry with them the same way he gets angry with us when we ‘lead you astray’?” Kaz said in a sour voice. I didn’t like the way she used air quotes when she said ‘lead you astray’.

“Do you think maybe it could be you leading others astray, Pinky?” Kyles tapped her fork against her Tupperware container of ‘tuna something’.

I thought about it for a few seconds and realised it was a preposterous notion. Here I am, a dear little old lady, nearly FIFTY-FIVE years old for gawd’s sake. These young girls come along and force champagne down my neck… what am I supposed to do? Say no?

But even though I don’t think I did anything wrong, I don’t suppose Appalling Old Women will be my Eee Book after all.

I think it will be,


Twenty Best Chihuahua Recipes

Chihuahua Schnitzel! Yum!

Me and Kathy from 50 Shades of Age

 

Kat, Kerryn and Pinky

Me and the star of Aussie blogging... Mrs Woog!

It honestly was an even better conference than 2014.

Congratulations to everyone who was involved in the planning. Can't wait for next year!

Linking up with Essentially Jess for #IBOT

For the Parents of Daughters...

A little poem I wrote for the parents of daughters...

                Minotaurs

 I stare at the blackness 

where the shadows

creep on the flickering walls and the blurred,

grey corners leer.

Twist my head again, see

the glowing of the clock

on the shelf, throbbing with its news

and cruel barbs of malice; forcing me

from the cosy warmness to the frigid floor boards,

blindly grope the stiff blinds

dirty with dustballs, filth, cobwebs,

and the prints of my fingers

in the thick coating of grime…



See a taxi parked, a carriage

in black and white, like a magic coach

on the road it’s pulled to a stop

near the kerb. She is home

at last, with a wave

at the driver,

and her shoes clatter up the stairs. She is

safe. In a place where sentinels, watch

the clock on the shelf.



The knob of thread I offered her at birth

spools back. Like that bundle of string clutched by

Ariadne of Knossos

waiting alone, she

gripped the fraying fibre tight

as she shivered, hearing the roar

of the monster.



I kept her so close

in a spider’s web of the finest silk

netting while the dewdrops glistened

in proud joy. Too much to fear

in the ugliness

that wants her; danger springs

from the unknown plexus of life

where just a move, a slip, a lapse

can raze. How long? How long, til spirit bites,

and breaks free when she severs the cord,

amputates the string for good

and then soars through the air

in ecstatic pursuit

of mystery

and Minotaurs.



I could grasp and strain,

stretch my spider hand. She

was a borrowed treasure, but

it’s time now

to let go.

To my daughter, love Pinky xxx

Ten Commandments for Travelling with your Spouse

Travelling with your wife is a bit like downing shots of tequila. If you can ignore the sharp, bitter taste of prickly cactus, it will eventually make you feel all warm and mushy inside.

In order to possibly circumvent the illicit and mysterious severing of your bungee cord just prior to the big jump because you flirted outrageously with the curvaceous waitress at the hotel restaurant the previous night, let me direct you to Ten Travel Commandments which could possibly save your life...

1. Thou shalt not flirt with exotic, foreign waitresses. This includes raving on to the hot flight attendant about how brave and daredevilly you were at bungee jumping the previous day when you assume your wife/girlfriend is asleep in the plane seat beside you. Just because she’s wearing an eye mask and snoring louder than a Boeing 707 taking off doesn’t mean she’s asleep. She’s not asleep. She’s like a crocodile, sunning itself on a log watching you surreptitiously with a nictitating membrane (third eyelid). 

2. Unless thou art some mutant genetic anomaly who is willing to sacrifice his masculinity and ask for directions, thou shalt have a GPS installed on your phone. We know you want to solve the puzzle yourself and emerge victorious from the bowels of the Paris Metro thrusting your man bag above your head and screaming triumphantly like a Manchester United fan after they just knocked Barcelona out of the series, but it’s silly. All that your spouse desires is to get to where she’s going in the speediest way possible. You’re not exactly Marco Polo are you? However, you could end up like Burke and Wills.

3. Thou shalt not be selfish. Dost thou really need to pack two pairs of shoes? You’ll only be away for a few weeks; surely you can make do with the pair on your feet? Your spouse will need the extra room in your suitcase for her extra luggage and it would be wise to curry favour by offering it before she asks. And don’t dare to be foolish enough to ask if she can squeeze your toothbrush in her toiletry bag. That’s tantamount to asking for one more, filthy, bacteria-ridden person to be squeezed on to the last lifeboat leaving the Titanic.

4. On the subject of packing, thou should make sure to pack an adequate amount of underwear, and by adequate I mean more than adequate. The old, ‘inside out, back to front’ method of saving on washing won’t cut it now that you’re not backpacking around Vietnam with six of your grubby, Neanderthal mates. Don’t expect her to be washing the skid marks out for you in the hotel hand basin either. Just put them in a plastic bag and discretely bury them at the bottom of a bin on your way out in the morning.

5. Don’t attempt to channel ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ when thou gets the persuasive signal to come over for explosives/drug screening at airport security. Your clever quips emulating Seinfeld, like, “What? I look like a terrorist because I have a hipster beard?” will merely bring down the wrath of God and his heavily armed henchmen and won’t impress your partner when your flight is delayed because the Federal Police are mining your coal reserves.

6. Okay. Thou may get on the plane and thou and thy partner may have the choice of aisle versus centre seat. Dost thou really needst the aisle seat for extra leg room when thou knowst very well thy partner has a bladder the size of a small nut? Who art thou? Michael Jordan? Shaquille O’Neill? Or art thou not closer to George Costanza? Give her the damn aisle seat, thou!



7. Learn thou, the language and currency of the country thou art travelling to a little bit, so thou art able to haggle. But don’t be a cheap skate in third world countries and argue with a taxi driver because he’s charging you ten dollars for a fifty kilometre trip instead of five dollars. These people need every cent they can get from thy fat Western butt. Benevolence and empathy will win you points with your lady love. Besides, she doesn’t want to be left on the side of the road in the red light district of downtown Saigon because you were a tight ass.

8. Don’t let thyself be a dick. When you go somewhere romantic, like Rome, don’t stand there with your hands on your muffin top, sniff in a superior manner and declare, “Well, I can see they built this in a day.” Don’t climb to the lofty heights of the fabulous Eiffel Tower in Paris and say, “Looks like the scaffolding for a television tower to me.” Keep the romance alive and blossoming, not dead like a clouted mullet in the bottom of your tinny.

9. Thou shalt not force thy tedious passions on thy wife. If you desperately want to go to the Museum of Advanced Star Trek Mythological Creatures or an exhibition on The Journey of the Development of Graphical Interface Architecture and your spouse stifles a yawn, pops a Prozac and begins to snore with her eyes open, it’s probably best to let her go do what she wants to do instead.

10. Thou shalt try to savour the moment in each experience. Go to a restaurant in Rome and slurp up the same spaghetti noodle until your lips meet in a Bolognese sauce bloodbath. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and recite your marriage vows then release some helium balloons before security handcuffs you for littering and unruly behaviour, go to Mexico City and get drunk on Tequila shots for heaven’s sake. 

* This travel advice was largely sourced from the Old Testament, Disney movies, “Lady and the Tramp”, “The Aristocats” and the lesser known Disney movie “Herbie Goes to Tijuana”.

Have a safe trip!

Things That Fudging Annoy Me!

    

1. When the doona ends up scrunched up on Scotto’s side and I have nothing except a shred of flimsy cotton to protect me from the arctic blast from the air conditioner.

2. The fact we still have to have the fudging air conditioner on even though it’s winter because the Chihuahua wakes up at every beat of a moth’s wing and goes off barking and growling like a hound of the Baskervilles so we have to have the windows shut at night.

3. When Scotto shakes out the doona to give me more insulation at the same time I have a coffee in my hand and am balancing a laptop on my knees and I spill my wine, I mean my coffee all over me.

4. When Scotto starts swearing at the dogs because they won’t settle because he just unceremoniously shook them out of the doona.

5. The clicking sound of the remote that accompanies Scotto's cantankerous swearing when the Internet is broken and he’s trying to get stupid fudging Netflix to work through his laptop.

6. The dogs trembling beside me like nervous, sycophantic neurotics because they get scared when Scotto swears.

7. When I have to get up and go to the toilet just before I’m ready to go to sleep, after the dogs have eventually slunk under the covers and I've finally organised the doona to accommodate my shivering, skeletal frame.

8. When, after I’ve been to the loo, my nineteen year old daughter knocks on the door looking for toothpaste.

9. When after I’ve found the toothpaste for her I need to go to the toilet again.

10. When I get back to bed and the Chihuahua decides that because I got up, he has to get up and he won’t go back to bed and sniffs around the doona making Scotto swear again.

11. When Scotto snaps his laptop shut in an angry manner and swears again because Netflix still won’t work and I tell him to calm down and then he says he wishes a solar flare would hit the earth and wipe out all technology so we wouldn’t have to worry about it and I say innocently that he should just ‘turn the telly off’ and then he gets all huffy.

Anything annoying you lately?

Apparently I'm Cognitively Disturbed.

When I was bored this afternoon and floundering around on the Internet, I came upon an interesting site and did that ink blot test, you know, the Rorschach test, and I’m sorry to say, the results weren’t that good.

In fact, the scientists very gently advised me that I’m cognitively and psychologically disturbed. 

My Results!!!

Even though I suspected I might have been slightly eccentric (in a light hearted, whimsical way), I never dreamed it would come to this.

I made Scotto do it immediately after me, hoping it was all a terrible mistake… but apparently he’s normal… and I’m not.

So what does this mean? Should I check myself in somewhere? Should I start wearing a white jacket specially designed where the sleeves are sewn together and take to rocking in the corner of the room and howling at the moon?

Maybe I should have seen the signs of mental instability before this...

My obsession with dogs for a start, I mean, what normal person owns four dogs?

What normal person has five kids in six years, then, when the kids grow up, buys four dogs and a cat?

What normal person has violent arguments with the garage door and other inanimate objects when they don’t work properly? What normal person thinks plants talk to them and then writes about it on her blog?

What normal person makes major life decisions based on the title of the next song that comes on the car radio?

(I shouldn’t have told you that one, should I?)

I’ve often reassured myself when the notion, I’m crazytown, creeps into my thoughts, that the experts say if you THINK you’re going mad, then you’re not.

But here I am, seemingly mad as a cut snake, as crazy as a hat full of arseholes.

It’s not fair. I don’t want to be mad. What if I ever want to join the army? I wouldn’t pass the ink blot test. I’ll never be a policewoman, or a pilot, or a fireman or ambulance driver or anything else that requires a modicum of sanity.

I wonder if teachers are allowed to stay in their job if they’re mentally unstable. Maybe that’s what’s pushed me over the edge? The constant everyday struggle with little or no recognition has propelled me into the abyss of lunacy after all these years.

But now I think about it, years ago I applied for a job and it came down to between me and another girl. They gave us a psych test to make the final decision.  I was probably crazy back then too. I remember the guy telling me I didn't get the job because of the results of the test. Did he look at me with pity or was it fear? I can't remember.

It’s the word, ‘disturbed’ that disturbs me the most.

Maybe I should just take the test again. I think I know the answers now. I’m sure I could do much better next time.

Or maybe some of you could take the test and be all disturbed with me so I’m not so lonely here in the land of the nuts.

Please? Prove to me I'm okay xxx

A link to the test!

In the meantime, while you're doing the test, I’m off to run around naked, all through the neighbourhood, uprooting flower beds and singing Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport (because that’s what I usually do on Sunday afternoon).

Why I Love Twitter

Hardly anyone I know in real life is on Twitter. I can’t understand it because it’s so much fun. In fact, I think Twitter is helping to stave off the senility which I’m sure is eventually going to creep up on me one day.

My Facebook friends are all people I know quite well but my Twitter crew are from all walks of life and from all over the world.

Why do you love it so much, Pinky? Because I get to challenge myself every night coming up with amusing hashtag responses, that’s why. I scour the top hashtags every night and if there’s something that inspires me I’ll have a go.

These are a compilation of the ones I didn’t delete the next morning because they were so bloody dreadful. (Sometimes Scotto bans me from tweeting some I come up with because he thinks I get a bit risque.)

So, anyway, that's what I do to amuse myself at night when Scotto's watching zombie movies. Beats crosswords.

Have you embraced Twitter yet? Will you ever?

Pinky's Gender Bender

So, on Monday, a few of the teachers had to take the sporting kids to a ‘practise’ athletics carnival. Some teachers (not the lethargic, non-physical, unco-ordinated Pinky), had to accompany our sports teacher to this event. These lithe and nimble teachers were mandated to offload their classes on to the less energetic types such as myself while they were away for the day.

I saw on my allocated list I was to be delegated eight extra students from a lower grade, Eight! Since I only had four of my own students scarpering off to the ‘practise’ carnival, I voiced my concerns to the teacher who’d flagrantly offloaded her kids on to me.

“Just shut up, Pinky!” she bellowed at me as she huffed off. “Deal with it, Princess!” 

When the forlorn urchins turned up at my door in the morning I noticed there were seven boys and one girl. My immediate thought was that it was a bit cruel to send just one girl, with no friend, amongst a bunch of testosterone fuelled, rambunctious lads.

My second thought was that the cow had sent me seven freakin boys.

Don’t get me wrong. I love boys. I gave birth to four of my own. But I know full well how much trouble they can be. They just have so much... vitality.

The first little boy entered the class in tears.

“Why on Earth are you crying?” I asked him. “Is it because you’re in my class instead of being with your grade three teacher?”

He nodded despondently, tears threatening to spill over onto the worksheets he clutched in his tiny hands as he stared up at the dragon grade four teacher.

“Don’t be scared of me!” I growled. “No one else is.” 

I directed him to the cheeky faces of my own class, grinning in confident self-importance at him from their seats.

The solitary, little girl walked in through the door, her brown ringlets bouncing and a nervous expression on her face. She was such a pretty little thing.

“You sit beside Sharleen, my darling,” I said to her. “What’s your name, precious?”

“Trevor,” she replied.

“Sorry? What was your name again?”

“Trevor.”

“Could you spell it for me, darling?” I asked, thinking it was most probably ‘Treavahh', or even 'Ptrevar' (with a silent P).

“T.R.E.V.O.R.” she said, her voice taking on an impatient air.

‘Strange name for a girl,’ I thought. ‘Oh well, takes all sorts I suppose.’

Anyway, I sat the seven extra boys up in the back row where they worked industriously on their assigned sheets. I only had to shoosh them a couple of times.

Little Trevor sat at the front, between two of my gentlest girls and thoroughly enjoyed her day, colouring in unicorns with the girl’s glitter pens and nattering and giggling away with them in muted tones. 

She was such a sweet little thing.

It wasn’t until today, when I was on duty outside the junior boys’ toilets and saw Trevor, walk out wiping his hands on his shorts, that I realised he was actually a boy.

According to his teacher, he’s usually the typical fractious, hormone driven, trouble making boy-boy.

And yet Trevor was such an angel in my classroom?


Did I just do a reverse gender-stereotyping thing?

Pinky's Red Light District

This is actually me. True.

It looks as though I’m about to endure some undesired, early mornings. 

The bedroom blinds we recently had cleaned and repaired, fell down in a spontaneous, malicious fit of spite this afternoon and Scotto is away for the week so he won’t be putting them back up anytime soon.

Our bedroom faces south east so I expect the sun will blast through the window at some ridiculous hour. I’ll have to get dressed in the dark so I don’t traumatise any innocent person walking their bull mastiff past the house because you can see everything in the bedroom with razor sharp clarity when the lights are on. 

People driving past the house at night will have a panoramic view of me dressed in my enchanting cow pajamas, tucked in bed, reading my kindle each night. 

Image Credit

Maybe I could pull a chair up to the window, put on a clown wig and just sit staring out with a demonic, twisted smile painted on my face. I could scare away the ibis that steal the cat’s food, not to mention those annoying junk mail people.

Or I could put a red light on in the background and sit on the chair in the nuddy except for a feather boa around my neck. Someone might call the police about the weirdo woman at Number 29 and I could get the cops to put the blinds back up for me after I explain that it’s just that my husband has gone away for the week and I miss having a man around the house.


I’m a bit cranky because it cost a lot of money to have the bloody things cleaned and repaired and I think some slats were chipped and cracked as they crashed down in their magnificent display of bastardry. I’m not sure because I’m too frightened to look.

I’d like to blame the blind repair man who clearly failed to put them back up properly but it turned out his daughter played basketball with Lulu some years ago and he seemed like such a nice man I don’t think I can ring and abuse him.

This is why I never contract friends to do jobs for me.


I suppose I could hook up a sheet across the window frame. That’s going to look lovely and redneck isn’t it? Maybe I should scatter some empty wine bottles across the front lawn to complete the unrefined ambiance. 

Although the red light in the window sounds like more fun.

What do you think? Clown or red light?

Warning: Politically Incorrect Joke Ahead!

We’re lucky in North Queensland because the only animal that might attack you on land is a crocodile. I live opposite a river and there have been plenty of ‘Beware… Crocodiles!’ signs put up over the years. I don’t mean the dainty, mild mannered, freshwater crocodiles either, I mean the toothy, saltwater, bad boys.

The thing is if you’re confronted by a crocodile as you’re walking along the river, you can always scramble up a tree to escape its jaws. The beauty of crocodiles is they can’t climb trees whereas bears can, and so can lions. Whenever I go for a walk, I keep my eyes peeled for suitable trees to climb should a crocodile decide to scale the riverbank and lunge at me. I like the look of the ones with low branches because I don’t have much upper body strength.

We were having this discussion last night just before bed and I thought it might be an interesting blog post so I jotted down the word ‘crocodile’ on a note beside my bed so I wouldn’t forget about it.

Aren’t you glad?

It’s not very interesting at all really, is it? I don’t know why it seemed so riveting last night.

Wine, I suppose.

Scotto told me an extremely politically incorrect joke last night which I also thought would be something you’d like to read about and I jotted it down… but now I’m having second thoughts.

I was very excited when he started to tell me because Scotto rarely tells me jokes due to the fact I never laugh at them.

This one had to be funny.

“And then the guy said, ‘No. He choked on a sock’” Scotto finished off with the punchline and waited for me to snigger.

I sat in silence digesting it for a while. “You must have got it wrong, Scotto,” I frowned. “That’s not even slightly funny.”

He furrowed his brow in confusion. “No… that’s the joke. I’m sure I got it right,” but I could see him doubting himself.

“Tell it to me again,” I badgered. So he did.

“But that’s just silly,” I argued. “How would a grown man fit in a washing machine? It doesn’t make sense.”

“No,” he coughed nervously. “He wasn’t in a washing machine, Pinky.”

“Well, that’s still not funny. Why would there be a sock in the bath?” I was red in the face with frustration by now. I’d never heard such a stupid joke.

“Well, I thought it was funny anyway,” he sulked, gulping down his sav blanc.

Suddenly, the hazy cloud of stupidity cleared from above me, the traffic controllers waved my brain in for landing and I got the joke at last.

I laughed hysterically for fifteen minutes, choked on my own spit and pulled a muscle in my stomach.

I’m not sure if I should publish it on my blog because someone might get upset…

I’ll tell you what, I’ll put it in a small font so don’t read it if you have any qualms about people laughing at serious medical conditions.



Two guys were sitting on a bus and one told the other a joke.

“What do you do if you see an epileptic having a fit in the bath?

Throw in your washing.”

The guy behind them leaned over and said, "I think that's disgusting. My son died in the bath whilst having a fit."

The two men both went white and apologised profusely. “Did he drown?” one of the men asked.

The guy got up to get off and said, "No. He choked on a sock."


It’s awful isn’t it?

Bloody funny though.

Are you slow to get jokes? Got one to share?

Old Boilers Wearing Long Hair

I set fire to my hair on Saturday afternoon.

I was carrying a pancake flavoured candle and had my hair out and it must have connected with the flame and before I knew it there was flash of radiant orange shooting up towards my scalp. It smelt appalling… like burnt hair, actually. 

I shrieked, like Nathan Lane in Birdcage and Scotto came running into the room expecting to see one of the dogs ablaze in a fiery fur ball.

Serves me right probably, for having long hair when I’m an old woman.

I’ll be seeing my mother soon when I go down to the Gold Coast and I know she’ll disapprove of how long it is. I’m a bit frightened because I know she hates it with a vengeance. As far as Mum is concerned I should have had it cut off short as soon as I hit forty. She’s not the only one. Some of my friends have suggested I might think about cutting it off… you know, to give it some ‘body’. “You look like Cousin It, Pinky!” was just one sensitive comment among many.

It’s not that I’m trying to look like a teenager. Although sometimes when I’m on a walk, a teenager riding up behind me on his bike will turn around for a gawk as he passes and I can see the expression of horror on his face when he sees what a wizened goblin I am.

It’s just that if my hair’s cut short, it has exactly the same flat, straight, fine texture… except it’s short and makes me look like a radiation victim or a very wrinkled ten year old boy.

Plenty of older women have long hair. I’m not going to put images of Jane Seymour, Courtney Cox, Elle McPherson and Demi Moore up because obviously they’re famous and beautiful and I’m not… but why should the fact I don’t have a personal stylist stop me from having hair long enough to braid?

I had it cut into a short bob a couple of years ago (it was a self-flagellation thing and I deeply regretted it, it’s what I do when I’m hating on myself) and when I walked into the staffroom, the first thing someone said in a shocked voice was, “What have you done to yourself, Pinky?” I held back the tears, somehow, knowing it would take years to grow back.

When I was a little girl my mother made me wear my hair short, like a boy. It was because of the turn I’d put on when she tried to comb out the tangles, I guess. But it’s my choice now and if I want long hair I’ll have it.

When I’m sixty I’ll have a long grey plait and dress like a hippy. When I’m seventy I’ll wear it in an elegant bun and wear pearls. Scotto says he’s fine with it, except he’s jealous because he hasn’t got much hair at all to speak of.

I might never have it cut again and go for the Guinness Book of Records for the oldest woman alive with hair so long she can use it as a lead when she takes her German Shepherd for a walk.

You’d think by the time you reached your mid-fifties, people would stop telling you how to groom yourself wouldn’t you? 

But no, apparently it doesn’t fudging work that way.

Most recent photo of my hair... yes I was a bit pissed... shut up.

What do you think? A trim in order?

Liebster today, Pulitzer tomorrow!

Lovely lifestyle blogger, Kathy from 50 Shades of Age, has nominated me for a Liebster Award which means I'm mandated to answer some questions. 

Thank you Kathy! See you at ProBlogger soon.

1. What makes you happy? 

Friday afternoon coffee with my girlfriends and long boozy lunches with my husband. I also like long boozy lunches with my girlfriends and morning coffee with my husband. Christmas is pretty fun too. Of course I don’t mind baby’s giggles, puppies and unexpected windfalls either.

2. Why did you start blogging? 

I wrote some whinging stories about my teenagers and I wanted to make them public so I’d garner some sympathy. It didn’t really work as many readers suggested it just made me look like a despicable mother.

3. What is best thing anyone has ever said about your blog? 

A few people have said some lovely things but Jo Castro told me ‘Pinky’ is a disarming character and I really liked that. I think she meant disarming as in ‘enchanting’, not that she just wanted to put down her gun and walk away. I hope so anyway.

4. What is one piece of advice you would offer or one saying you live by? 

Don’t pick it or it will never get better. That goes for all sorts of things. (I just made that up off the top of my head but it’s pretty good actually, don’t you think?)

5. What are your top three bucket list items? 

To go to the Oscars, to win a Pulitzer prize and to own a meerkat. If I had a meerkat I would take it with me everywhere in my handbag and call it Timon. 

(I researched it and you can* keep meerkats as pets but they have smelly anal glands, which really won't make too much difference to the atmosphere in our household in the long run.)

* South Africa only.

6. What is your ultimate guilty pleasure? 

Eating an entire loaf of garlic bread instead of a proper dinner (like I did last night). I do like three teaspoons of sugar in my tea as well.

7. What is one product or service you cannot live without? 

Revlon (extra multi-purpose strength).

8. What is your favorite Australian travel destination? 

Sydney. It has shopping, history, pubs, restaurants, beaches and a lot of weird people to stare at. Lots of people walk around talking to themselves in Sydney which can be amusing if you're careful not to make eye contact with them.

9. What two countries make you the happiest to visit? 

I’ve been to England, Scotland, Ireland, Holland, France, Belgium, China, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States and I enjoyed them all. Nothing beats Australia though. I literally hug trees when I get back to Australia.



10. What is your dream destination? 

One of those luxury huts over the water in Bora Bora. I’d have a manservant and a woman-servant, a cook and a chauffeur. I’d like glass floors so I could see the fish swimming around and a connecting room for my meerkat.

I would like to nominate these people for a Liebster Award.

Sue from Making the Mundane Merry

Amy from Handbag Mafia

Alana from House Goes Home

Cate from Life Behind the Purple Door

Shauna from Shauna Round the Corner

But girls! If you've done this before you are welcome to answer these questions instead...

1. What's your favourite and least favourite word?

2. If you found out that due to a mix up at the hospital one of your kids wasn't yours would you give it back? *

3. What is the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you?

4. The last time you were pulled over by a cop?

5. The first thing you thought when you woke up this morning?

6. What was the last lie you told?

7. If you could have personally witnessed something historical what would it have been?

* You aren't allowed to pick your favourite child to answer this question.

And as for you... feel free to answer any of the questions in the comments! l'd love to hear from you x