Being Me

I stood waiting for a bus today, by a tree. All was quiet (including, no bus ...) Then a bird began to sing. I looked up at the tree but couldn't see it at first. Who'd handed it a microphone? It wasn't just singing; it was yelling a song out as though hoping it would reach a little birdy penpal in the Far East. I caught some of the words. The song went something like this. 'I'm a bloody brilliant singer. There should be an X-Factor programme for birdies. Simon Cowell wouldn't know what had hit him. Tweet tweet double tweet. Why does Adele get all the attention? She doesn't even enunciate her consonants. I do. Tweeeeeeeeeeeeee T. See, no glottal stops for me. David Bowie kicks the bucket and, oh yes, SO much fuss, but if I keeled over now and lay on my back, my little dead legs in the air like bonsai twigs, who's going to miss MY music?' Tweet tweet double tweet.' As you can see, the little bird needs to revise 'Effective

I bought my husband a Valentine's card two weeks ago, with a picture of two frogs hugging, and put it 'somewhere safe'. Yesterday, he went out, giving me time to write the card. Could I find it? No. I had to sneak to the local corner shop to buy a replacement. I hoped they'd have something jokey or quirky. We married just after Henry VIII died, so we're not exactly in the hearts and flowers stage. But all they had in stock were a) very rude ones; b) lurid pink and fluffy ones more obviously targeted at girls; c) silly soppy-cheesy-make-you-puke ones with verses like this: I will love you, darling, until the end of time I've been blessed by heaven to know that you are mine You're so very special, you are so sublime Writing verse like this crap should really be a crime     I'm so glad that you're my Valentine [Note the comma splice in line 3. There always is a comma splice.] In the end, I bought a pink girly card, with a picture of a brig

Noises that annoy ... 1. It's windy outside tonight, and the metal flap over our letterbox clink-clink-clinks. It's a tinny sound, as though someone's standing on our door mat, playing the triangle, only badly. Sometimes I take the letterbox flap off to avoid the clinking, but instead we get a Force 9 gale whistling through it like a banshee on acid and nipping up our trouser legs when we walk down the hall. I'll take the clinking, thanks. No one's nipped up my trouser legs for years and they're not going to start now. 2. My husband is a Pressure Cooker Man. Maybe it's a macho thing, to have a stew steaming and hissing and spitting on the stove, instead of bubbling with contentment on Gas 4 for a few hours in the oven.  It's violent cookery, like rugby, only with cubes of stewing steak and half a pound of carrots and onions. But it's the hissing I can't take - it lifts up the top layer of my skin and gets under it. My husband shuts all the