It triggered a memory from somewhere deep within.

Like I’ve said before, it’s the little things … and as I fashioned a magnificent pea beard this week I thought of my amazing Mum.

On Saturday morning I arrive at football training with the 5 year old and see an old friend talking to a man who I haven’t met before.

I am introduced to the man, who for the purposes of this blog post and to protect the innocent we shall call Mr Smith.  We went through Saturday morning pleasantries; weather, shin pads, what we’d rather be doing at 9am on a Saturday.

Because The Husband is normally present at football training Mr Smith suddenly turns to me and says, what I think is, “Ah, your husband, the good cock?”

I say “Oh yes, we love the Cock!  In fact we were there a couple of weeks ago” and chuckle.  His baffled expression and my friend’s ‘WTF?’ face makes me rewind the conversation and I slowly realise that his earlier comment was actually “Ah, your husband, the good cook?”.

It turns out that the two weeks ago The Husband had been going through his menu for a dinner party that night with Mr Smith; a ballotine of pheasant, dauphinoise potatoes, braised red cabbage and a parsnip purée. Mr Smith had been impressed with The Husband’s cooking skills.

I spent the next 45 minutes, red in the face, trying to explain that I thought he and The Husband must have been discussing our trip to The Fighting Cock, a local real ale pub, three weeks earlier.

Three days later and the phrase, “Oh yes, we love the cock!” with all it’s enthusiasm, is still on repeat in my head.

The soaking up of daytime TV went like this …

‘Wanted Down Under’ every morning with a longing look on my face. People from the UK are sent to Australia, willingly, for a week to see if they really do want to emigrate. They get to look at massive houses with pools, jobs that pay twice as much as their UK equivalent and the social aspects of life … lots of BBQing on the beach.

The fly in the ointment is always the message from home at the end of the programme where an aged relative weeps a lot and says ‘don’t go and leave us, we’ll miss you and never see you again … what will I do without you?’.

I have decided that we must move to Australia, immediately. What’s not to like? Sunshine, lots of outdoor living, a better way of life for our children. The Husband, a web and graphic designer, can work from anywhere. Who needs family and friends? *cough* … Skype? … I’m packing our bags. I just need to let The Husband know.

My other obsession is ‘Miami Ink’ … a reality show based in a tattoo shop in … ahem … Miami. I started off, on Tuesday, shouting at the TV with a look of total horror “Why would anyone want a yellow dragon on their arm? What a nobber” … “He’ll regret those stars on his face when he’s 50″ … “Oh my god, who in their right mind would want a picture of their dead grandmother on their calf?” … “That picture of a chicken attacking a scorpion on her neck is going to look stupid when she goes for a job interview.”

Four days in and I am about ready to have a full cuff (a whole arm of tattoos to those of you who are not in the know) involving a rainbow coloured pheonix flying out of some flames. I’ll also be having the children’s faces on my shoulder blade intertwined their dates of birth and a Salvador Dali moustache at the base of my back. What’s not to love?

My tattoos will look great on the beach in Australia.

Having left home I lived in a shared house.  The landlord lived in the house but also stayed away quite a bit.  There were five of us living there at the time of ‘the incident’.

The landlord had always had a soft spot for me and, although unrequited, we were still good friends.

That didn’t stop him trying to ‘get it on’ though.

It was a Saturday afternoon, I had been watching TV and fending off a hangover.  My landlord, who had been reading the paper suddenly jumped up and went off upstairs.

Hangover munchies took over my every thought and I decided to take the dog out for a walk to the corner shop. I needed chocolate and Diet Coke.

As I was leaving, my other housemate returned with her friend and they went into the living room.

As my housemate sat there sipping tea and discussing the finer elements of her current relationship with her friend, the living room door was flung open and in sprang our landlord wearing just a tight pair of tight leopard print tanga briefs.

As the tumbleweed rolled through the living room and someone snorted their tea he, ever so slightly embarrassed, retreated upstairs.

Thank the lord for hangover munchies.

In the main it’s not a problem … for me.  Sometimes my nightly disturbances can be disruptive for the husband especially when we move onto my sleepwalking.

My first episode of sleepwalking was when I was 15 and I woke up running down the stairs away from the MAHOOSIVE mechanical spider that was chasing me. It’s confusing to wake up in an upright position, more so to be moving at speed down stairs.

The second time was when I was 18 and I walked into my stepbrothers room in the middle of the night, naked.  He described it as being visited by the Elephant Man.

Other than that I have night terrors, usually about spiders.  I wake up scrabbling about in bed trying to get rid of the hundreds of spiders that are crawling about on our bed.

In more extreme moments I leap up convinced that I need to rid the room of the hundreds of spiders whilst shrieking about ‘the spiders, the spiders’.  I climb over the husband, elbowing him, waking him, switch on the bedroom light, blinding not only myself but him also.

Then I slowly wake up wondering why I am stood in our brightly lit room at 3am with the husband looking at me as if I am mad.

So after all the times I have woken the husband up with this particular spider/light/bed scenario did he do the following this morning.

I was brushing my teeth and I heard a kerfuffle in our bedroom. I went in for the children to tell me that there was a huge spider in the room.  This is not a problem during waking hours, I am not scared of spiders in my day to day life.

However he then said … “It was a great big ugly thing, it’s gone under the bed now.  That will have been crawling in and out of your mouth all night” followed by a Beavis & Butthead type “hehe” chuckle.

Cue wide eyed children looking from me to their father to the dark space under the bed where Mr Ugly Skinny Legs is hiding. I am aware that my subconscious has filed the thought of those big hairy legs sitting on my face for a 3am visitation.

So, this is just a warning to the husband … when I wake up EVERY NIGHT this week stood in the corner having blinded us both again at 3am screaming about the spiders, I just want you to know … YOU REAP WHAT YOU SOW.

Photo courtesy of Sankax on Flickr

Without thinking it through, a few weeks ago, I purchased Uncle Buck on Ebay for just a few golden coins.  Friday night is movie night in this house, I put it on and went about my business.  It was only ten minutes later that The Husband pointed out that so far he had counted three ‘shits’, two ‘son of a bitch’s and one ‘asshole’.

Regardless the 5 year old loved it and (fingers crossed) has not yet uttered the word ‘shit’ loudly in school.  Needless to say, I will not be letting them watch it again until they are older … and I will be taking notice of age certificates when I make future Gung Ho film purchases.

This brings me to my next childhood film obsession … the Star Wars trilogy.  According to my sister I watched the first Star Wars film every day for a year when I was five.  If you think that’s sad she could speak Ewok.

Eager for the children to watch it … and maybe more eager to watch it myself (my first love was Hans Solo) I started scouring Ebay and excitedly found a beautiful boxed trilogy DVD set.

Some of you may have shared my excitement on Twitter as I became a woman possessed counting down the minutes till the auction ended and I would be reunited once more with Chewbacca’s dulcet grunts.

I proudly told The Husband what I’d bought and like most husband’s he wanted to know how much it cost (£14.75).

I had the following sarcastic response … 

Dave W bought the DVD box set from Morrisons for £5.00 brand new. Nice work, Ebay queen.

I tried telling him this was a special edition in a beautiful box only to be told …

I’m sure it will be worth every penny. Maybe it has gold leaf in the box 1? Or maybe George Clooney has farted inside box 3. Box 2 will probably be empty. Or a US region disc. Or Debbie does Dallas.

That’s when I realised how lucky I was, what a bargain I have indeed got.  I bet Dave W’s £5 box set from Morrisons doesn’t have the sweet smell of George Clooney’s undercarriage permeating box 3.

My hair is naturally a dirty blonde.  I have in the past dyed it blonde myself and had varying degrees of success. There is a photo of me cradling my newborn daughter and the hair on my head looks like a bright orange brush.

At the time I don’t remember thinking there was anything particularly wrong with it.  In fact, no one made any mention of my fluorescent hair. These days, The Husband takes pride in looking at the photo and chuckling.  I look at it and think ‘why did nobody tell me?’.

My hair disasters started at an early age.  My Father (Gramps) tells the amusing story of when, aged 10, I loved Bros more than life itself. I walked into the hairdressers and asked for a ‘Bros’ cut.  Thirty minutes later I left the salon looking like Luke Goss.  What was I thinking?  Why did my Father allow this atrocity?

So, six years have passed since my pregnancy hair disaster and I decided I wanted my hair brightening up.

This weekend I had my hair lightened, at home by a professional, she is also a friend.  I was hoping for a lighter blonde, but could not have prepared myself for what I got. I convinced myself that maybe it was supposed to be the colour of fresh straw.

The Husband said nothing, but his eyes said it all.  Inside he was screaming ‘Noooooooooooooooo!’ but didn’t speak. I decided that the shock, when I looked in the mirror, would subside over time and that it was just a big change.

I tried to show the people of Twitter what had happened but the camera on my phone made my hair look far less dayglo than the reality.

My Sister at first said nothing, but agreed that I looked a bit ‘Myra Hindley’.  Later, under the harsh glare of some strip lighting, she said that perhaps I ought to get it sorted out.

When I got it sorted out, the following day, the 5 year old said “That is much better than your bright yellow hair Mummy”.

There’s nothing like the honesty of a 5 year old.

What was I thinking?

So today I bring you this, something that MIGHT have happened when I was off work on Tuesday on ‘pox watch’;

Yesterday I might have gone to the dining room to get a banana.

On the way to the kitchen I might have unpeeled the banana and remarked to the 4 year old ‘Ooh what a big banana’.

Once in the kitchen I might have put the banana in my mouth, to free up my hands, so that I could open the bin which is in a cupboard.

I might have then swung round to face the window, with the banana still in my mouth, to wash my hands in the sink which is under the window.

I might have then been greeted by the two workman in next doors back yard who were damp proofing the cellar, all wide eyed.

Wide eyed because they were looking at the woman next door going handsfree with a big banana.

Any incidents that stick in my mind seem to involve one of the five churches in the village.

Every year there is a Scarecrow walk around the village, the local shop keepers, churches, pubs and the golf club make a scarecrow or scarecrows and display them.

It’s a very popular even, last year there were over 120 scarecrows.  The villagers pay money to wander round spotting scarecrows, the shopkeepers get more custom, there’s a prize for the best  scarecrow and all the money raised goes to charity.

Sadly, last year we didn’t attend.  Sadly, because there was a resurrection of Michael Jackson coming out of the C of E church graveyard. I drove past early in the morning before the scarecrow walk had started and nearly crashed as I saw Michael and his friends in the morning sunshine.

At this years scarecrow walk, I’m hoping to see Patrick Swayze doing ‘The Lift’ from Dirty Dancing with Mollie Sugden in the community garden.

Where we live, at the bottom of the village, there’s another church, recently renovated, it’s a white wooden church, very Little House on the Prairie.

A couple of months ago there was an incident where someone tried to burn the church down and daubed satanic symbols and something about god, hate and a few swear words on the side of the church.

The reverend decided to leave the writing on the side for a few weeks to show the congregation what had happened in the hope of uncovering the culprits.

… and to teach the local children how to spell ‘F*CK’ and how to draw a pretty star in a circle, which was nice.

The church is now being extra vigilant about any odd behaviour in the surrounding area and considering having CCTV installed

Yesterday my car wouldn’t start so we tried to bump start it.  As I ran behind pushing and panting,  The Husband sat in the car trying to start it.  We went quite a way with no joy.  Eventually we gave in and nearing the bottom of the hill The Husband swung the car into the Little House on the Prarie church car park.

It is still there, abandoned, and will be until we get round to getting it fixed in the next few days.

As I sit here with my poorly, chicken pox ridden, boy telling him not to scratch I keep having visions of the Reverend and the OAP congregation calling the Police or even the bomb disposal experts to come and check out our car.

So there I was, sipping my Diet Coke like a lady whilst trying to endear myself to the group by joining in a conversation about CBeebies (which would be my chosen subject on Mastermind, especially if the humming of theme tunes was also included). 

Homeschool or Nothing Lady - Did you see the bedtime story on CBeebies tonight? 

Academic Lady With Vast Cleavage - Oh yes, it was lovely wasn’t it. 

Homeschool or Nothing Lady - Who was it reading the story? … Kathy … erm … Kathy 

Academic Lady With Vast Cleavage - Yes, Kathy … oh what is her name? 

At this point I saw an opening and I leapt in to their conversation enthusiastically. 

Me - I know, I know …. KATHY BATES! 

Silence fell as they looked at me and then at each other. Tumbleweed rolled through the door, under the table, circled my feet thrice and left through the fire exit as they continued their conversation. 

Academic Lady With Vast Cleavage - Kathy Burke, that’s who it was! 

Homeschool or Nothing Lady – Ah yes, that’s it. J really enjoyed it. 

What a tit.  It was a classic ‘I carried a watermelon*‘ moment. 

Are you ready for your bedtime story?

* For those of you who don’t know what an ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment is read definition here.  And, what do you mean you’ve never watched Dirty Dancing?!