Being Me

There are so few laughs in this that you'll wonder whether you're on the right blog.  But I was thinking today about a close relative who died a few years ago and remembering the last time I saw her.  I wrote this when I got back from seeing her in hospital.  I wasn't in the mood for triviality.  (It does happen.  Sometimes.) *** I came to visit you in the cancer ward.  How I thought my short visit would make up for thirty years of irregular, half-hearted contact, I don’t know.  I suppose it was all about guilt.  So many things are.               You were sitting in a high-backed chair by the bed, fragile hands folded in your lap like still butterflies.  As soon as I saw you, I knew your eyes were wrong.  They were bulging out and not quite straight on, as though something were behind them, pushing and competing for room.  You had a swelling in front of y...

It's only 10.30 in the morning and already I have several questions to ask of the world, raised while going through the processes of getting up, having breakfast, reading a Linguistics magazine and using my computer. Question 1. No one is watching, so why is it still a humiliation to find yourself standing under the shower for three hours holding a bottle upside down so that the last dribble of shower gel becomes available? Question 2. How can (a) a satsuma and a pear and (b) two slices of thick white toast buttered and then spread lavishly with Nutella BOTH be deemed an acceptable breakfast?  I've just had option (a) and had to have a mug of hot chocolate to make up for the disillusionment. Question 3. I've been reading a magazine about American phrases.  Why do the Americans call a 'starter' an 'appetiser' when we ALL know what happens after you've eaten that pizza bread and forty-five queen olives and your main course turns up ...? Qu...

I am so in love with bread and butter pudding that I would willingly have an affair with it if a) such a thing were possible and b) I were able to do so without subjecting my husband to the ignominious accusation of being cuckolded by a dessert. Having accepted that adultery with a pudding is probably not the way ahead, here instead is a poem about the pudding I made tonight.  Step aside, Wordsworth. Tonight I made a bread and butter pudding. It looked just like the one that's in this pic.  I made it on a whim all of a sudden. You've never seen a pudding made so quick (Forgive the adjective instead of adverb But rhyming at this time of night is tough.) We'd had our main meal and I fancied pudding And just a toffee yogurt's not enough. I dashed into the kitchen and in minutes I'd buttered bread and sprinkled in sultanas. I'd whipped up eggs and milk and poured them over The bread, and then I put on my pyjamas. (Forgive the ...