The Cinderella Complex

I have the dress:

I have the pair of sandals :

I have the bag:

And all week I have battled a cold, a virus and backache

(if my comments last week were crazy, that’s why!).

I am ready to go for my Afternoon Tea at the Ritz today booked months in advance, costing tons.

But what’s this? What appears yonder on my chin?!?!?

Woe bloggie friends. It’s a ZIT, a PIMPLE, a SPOT!

I am 40 years old and I have a great big adolescent spot on my chin the day of my putting on the Ritz.

Cinderella never had to put with such a thing, why me?!?!!?

Charlie says: I’ll be your puss in pots!

Have a spotless Monday everyone!

Broods

To ease everyone into Sunday I thought I'd share this pic I saw in yesterday's Guardian newspaper:

It's a parent longtailed tit with ELEVEN of her brood to feed! Now isn't that just lovely for a Sunday? The full story is here.

Charlie says: I like the pic but for reasons best kept to myself!


Now who watched the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest last night?!?!

And if really interested, Germany won (with a very catchy ditty - if you follow the link above you can see the video of said ditty!). UK came last with a godawful song, sang awfully! Oh how I laughed.

Have a sing-a-long Sunday everyone!

Cows that purr and moths that bask

Yes they exist.

Beautiful bloggie friends, meet a cow-kitty!

A heartfelt thanks to the talented and hilarious Sammy and Andy (and their mama bug!) for this beautiful badge.

And thank you TK and Squashies of Furrever Home for pursuading Charlie to take part! He could be very shy at times but once confident, he's quite a showcat!

Charlie says: "Purr-mooo"

And here is a lovely moth - or is it a butterfly? It was brown and hairy anyway! And it was sunning itself on the wall by my front door just above my lavender pot plant.


I also tried to be artistic and get a photo of bees feeding on my geranium flowers but the little buggers refused to cooperate and buzzed off!

Have a nature filled Saturday everyone!

The Bronte Sisters Rocked!

Dear bloggie friends - we all know that in order to be published the Bronte Sisters (Charlotte, Emily and Anne) had to use male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell to be precise.

But did we also know that they doubled up as the Brontesaurus and er.. well kicked proverbial outdated Victorian attitudes' derriere?

We do now!

Charlie says: No need for violence. I take the zen approach. Any moment now and the door will open to many wondrous possibilities. Any. Moment. Now.

Have a world is your oyster Friday everyone!

Trying to look hard like Gary Cooper - super duper

Next week Monday, my sister is taking me to have Tea at the Ritz.

For an extortionate amount of money, we have exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes to pretend we are posh and that we do this every day.

Which sort of got me thinking about tea.

Why don’t I drink tea more often? Why do I crave coffee more than a good cup of earl grey or Yorkshire tea? I used to love tea as a child – there were so many ways to make that perfect cup of tea.

My mum’s way was to let the tea brew first then add milk.

Her boyfriend at that time nearly had a heart attack when he saw me do this and said that it was milk first in the cup, then tea bag, then hot water. Needless to say that relationship didn’t last although he was a really nice bloke!

A friend of mine (whom I lost contact with regrettably) was from a Muslim household and she would boil the milk and tea bag together and serve it quite sweet.

Another friend drank only Earl Grey and she had a precise measurement of how much milk to add – too much and it’s spoilt, too little and she’ll send it back.

These days if I do choose tea, it'll be herb tea with honey.

If I ever decide to revert to drinking proper english tea over coffee - at least I could have teapots like these:




Now my next task is to pursuade my sister NOT to wear trainers under her long skirt on the day.

Charlie says: You have tea at the Ritz, I lick the dirt off the concrete. Just as good.

Have a spiffing good Thursday everyone!

Cut, cut, cut!

You do this with your essays, stories, novels and nails when they ramble, outgrow and waffle.

Oh you do this with plants too.

Today I had to make the unfortunate decision to cut down to two stumps my 16 year old ficus tree.

It was a sad and hard decision to make but unfortunately these horrid pests invaded it:

Bountiful bloggie friends, these are Scales.

I researched how to get rid of these nasty beasts organically, chemically and manually (every day I’d run a wet paper towel on each leaf, each branch squishing these nasty beasties) but these incredible insects just multiplied and went forth!

The annoying thing they do is secrete a honey-like substance not just on the leaves and bark but on the flooring too, killing the leaves and making the flooring sticky.

So out came the secateurs and snip, snip! I feel sad because this plant was 6 inches tall when I bought it for 10p and it grew to over 5 ft.

It came with me to every house move and stayed with me through many relationship break-ups and family trauma. It grew lush and tall while I remained stunted emotionally and physically! LOL!

I’m hoping that in time and with a lot of tlc, it’ll revive soon enough!

Charlie says: About time - my footsy pads were all icky after walking near that plant!

Have a pest free Wednesday everyone!

A tail of two halves

There is only one reason why I placed the cheap synthetic pink/cerise/magenta duvet cover over my 100% cotton Laura Ashley bedlinen.

It's a reason Charlie has not quite grasped.

He took one sniff and decided which half was more suited to him. And it wasn't the half I'd hoped for.

Anyway!

I'm trying to take a pronk and get my act together to try and enter the Guide to Literary Agents Dear Lucky Agent contest: Sci Fi and Fantasy. I think I have to mention this contest twice. :-)

Now all I have to do is submit something! LOL! Anyone else entering this? Thanks to Theresa Milstein for highlighting this competition.

Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Brain wave

As my nose is stuffed and I am a little light headed, I thought I'd pass on a game to mess with your minds, my lovely bloggie friends!

This grid and the text quoted below are from Grand Illusions

"Just count the little black balls...
There are different names for this illusion, but the Scintillation Grid is probably the proper name. This illusion was found by Elke Lingelbach of the Institut fur Augenoptik Aalen in Germany, and is a modification of an illusion called the Hermann Grid, which dates from 1870!"

I apologise now if you emerge cross-eyed as I have from staring at this grid!

But isn't this amazing?!?! I thought so.

And this is for the lovely fairyhedgehog. She advertised a competition run by Disgruntled Bear. All I had to do was comment on Disgruntled Bear's blog and I was given a lovely t-shirt promoting her self-published book "Minder" on the condition that I wear it somewhere crazy.

This was't the pic I sent - it was a trial run!

Charlie says: OI! Gerroff my segment of your blog!

Have a "phew wot a scorcher!" Monday everyone.

Painting the Irony

Sizzling Bloggie friends - this weekend is proving the warmest weekend of the month so far and what happens?

I've come down with a stinker of a cold.

Oh the The Irony! On the hottest weekend and I am feeling like death warmed up.

Anyway, I am so determined to enjoy this weather that I've taken my toesies out and am in summer sandal heaven!

Now I'm all for looking good in pedicured toesies painted bright pink but even I draw the line to this:

This unfortunate cutie is Coco - David and Victoria Beckham's dog. Oh dear. In another life he's a bulldog.

Charlie says: I don't understand irony but I dig the sun! And pink is so not my colour!

Have a virus-free Sunday everyone!

Sting in the tail

This week is National Be Nice to Nettle week.

I'd like to think that in Nettle Land they have a "national be nice to people's skin week", but I'm being silly now.

Anyway, nettles are GOOD FOR YOU and wildlife.

They are nutritious, medicinal and apparently delicious!

Here is pasta covered in nettle pesto :


Nettle Tea of course!

A Nettle Fruit loaf:

They can also be made into fabric - yes this dress is 100% nettle fibre:

And best of all they can be brewed into this:

Charlie says: I prefer catnip!

Have a sting-free Saturday everyone!

Pepe le Pew

Wonderful bloggie friends, may I introduce you all to Le Whif.

A professor Edwards has invented "a lipstick-sized aerosol shooting tiny particles of dark chocolate into the mouth with all of the flavour and none of the calories".

Why? No idea. Something to do with dieting or some such.

I hope it doesn't catch on. The team behind this concept have now also invented a coffee equivalent.

Le Whiff costs £1.99.

For less that amount I could get a really good bar of chocolate.

Charlie says: everything in moderations ain't bad! See, I didn't eat all the grass and kept the side bits of the lawn for you!

Have a sweet filled Friday everyone!

You Pronker

Pronking: a zoological term meaning "leaping in the air with arched back and stiff legs". (Oxford Dictionary of English) like a kangaroo or an antelope or this kitty!

Another word for this is Stotting.

Aren't they great words? Thar Charlie goes, pronking and stotting (NOT)!

Speaking of pronking: I may be brave and try this competition that I found lingering on the lovely Theresa Milstein's blog.

Hmm. Charlie says us pronkers don't have time to go hmm. They just do!

Have a leaping Thursday everyone!

Writer's Block - literally

So here I am re-writing my first three chapters for my course - deadline 29 May.

And what happens?

I encounter that bugbear of writers the world over. The Writer's Block. Here is mine.

An hour later and the words just refuse to be typed. Why?

I take the hint and go to bed.

:-)

Have a lovely Wednesday everyone!

Fantasy travels

Bloggie friends, I know I’ll not travel anywhere for a holiday soon - mainly because of one reason

This:

Awwwww I can't leave him!

But if I ever did travel somewhere, it'll be to these places:

1) New York

But where can I combine visiting NYC with the scribbler and reader in me?

The Library Hotel, New York.

2) I'd love to explore the Netherlands further so how else to combine that with the alcoholic in me (I'm kidding - I like my wine but responsibly!!)?


Rooms here are made out of recycled wine casks!

3) And what about England? I'm talking cheese and chocolate and green and pleasant land!

The Chocolate Room in the Wensleydale Heifer, North Yorkshire.

Aaah one of these days!

Have a dreamy Tuesday everyone!

Name calling

Dear Bloggie friends - my name has changed.

I am now known as Benita, formerly Old Kitty.

I am kidding of course! My lovely tutor of my soon to be concluded writing course has given his assessment of my biography piece but in it he kept referring to me as Benita.

Which isn’t my name.

A few frantic emails later where I desperately tried to contact Benita thinking I had her assessment by mistake while simultaneously trying to contact my tutor thinking he had mixed up our assessments - and all was cleared up.

Which didn’t change my overall marks unfortunately – darn it!! LOL!

But which made me think about how unusual some names are. Benita is definitely unusual. Well it is for me.

My real name is Jennifer. Maybe if I spelt it with a G it’ll be more interesting but ever so wrong!

Anyway, that was my excitement for the day. I needed a lie down after that.

Charlie says: I call you human who gives me a toy that I have no interest in whatsoever!



Have a sunny Monday everyone!

Paradise

It's Sunday, it's sunny, let's all go to Papua New Guinea and see what a male Superb Bird of Paradise needs to do to go a woo-ing ...



The clip itself is from the BBC's Planet Earth and the original narrated by the dulcet tones of Sir David Attenborough, can be found here.

Have a loving Sunday everyone.

Charlie says: this is my own special dance - the lolling about. Preferably on dirt.

Charlie and I are sending our hugs and purrs to Bin and Lucky. Lucky isn't feeling too well after his surgery to repair his decapitated tail stump. We hope he'll pull through. Please pull through. xx

Hair Today

Wonderful bloggie friends, what, I hear you ask, are these?

These are hair booms and a brainchild of A Matter of Trust.

We all know of the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – well these lovelies are used to help soak up the spill!

And what are they made out of?

This:

and these:


Human Hair + Nylon tights.

Oh and pet hair and waste wool.

According to this article from the BBC, “Hair is an extremely efficient material for taking in all kinds of oils including petroleum”

A Matter of Trust have been co-ordinating donations of discarded human hair, wool and pet fur from salons, farmers and pet groomers.

Now isn’t that just amazing? Amidst such a catastrophe there is a tiny glimmer of hope when humans and furry creatures cooperate to help stem this environmental disaster.

Charlie says: I've found a box to put your hair in. It had shoes in it but I gave those away.

Have a hair-raising Saturday everyone!

Roasted

Dear bootilicious Bloggie friends, I'm an addict.

A caffeine addict to be precise.

I must have my coffee and it must be strong, extra expresso shot, cappuccino -frothy, milk barely there please - first thing every morning or else I do not function and will be lip dibbling all day.

I've never been a latte fan - the milk kind of gets in the way.

But if my cup came up looking like this.. I might just change my mind:


Latte art at its best!

I only mention this because the keen eyed of you will notice I missed out yesterday's blogging. I was knee deep in my final woman's mag short story revision - deadline midnight just gone. And it was all I could do to stay awake. Coffee came like a knight in shining cafetiere armour and rescued me! :-)

Thank you the humble coffee bean.

Charlie tried to stay awake with me. :-)

Have a buzzing Friday, everyone!

Peculiar Pancake Posturing

Meet Jim.

Jim likes making pancakes for his 3 year old daughter.

But not just any ol pancake like how I make them (flat and round-ish and batter coloured).

He makes them look like these:

What a Dad!

And if you want to know how he does these works of wonder - go here for more pics and how to videos.

And yes that's a "bling" pancake necklace he's wearing aroung his neck.

Charlie says: This is not a pancake - it's an abomination!

May you all have a joyous Wednesday!