I’m Ready…

I’m feeling desperately low today. 

I’m ready to go home.

Anyone Know What This Bug Is?

Saw this lovely little bug outside just a short while ago sitting on the lavender bush, so iridescent! It’s about the same size as a ladybird. Anyone know what it is?

UPDATE: It appears the little critter is a Rosemary Leaf beetle. And lavender is a favourite food!

Do you want to sit down on the Overground during rush hour?

Do you want to sit down on the Overground during rush hour? Then prepare for war.

Hmm, has this person got a complex or what? Lol. Seriously, something must be going in there if you are THAT desperate for a seat

Trending Topics 26/9/2011

Ah, I love how obsessed and delusional Brits are. Here’s today’s trending topics on Twitter, as of several minutes of the time of this post…

It’s gonna be a SCORCHER! With temps into the HIGH…

 

Twenties! Lol

It’s Official: Tonight is Pointless!

Lol!

I watch a quiz/game show on the BBC called Pointless in which the object of the game is to score as fewer points as possible by giving more obscure answers. One hundred people are given 100 seconds to name as many things about a particular subject as they can and those that score the fewest are the best answers. Some (in which no person polled has answered) are pointless (IE; score zero) and are worth money to the jackpot amount on offer, or actually are the answers needed to win the jackpot.

In the final round, that days winning contestants get the chance to win the jackpot by providing three potentially pointless answers on a question. Only one of the answers HAS to be pointless, but they get three chances. Following?

Anyway, this was yesterday’s final round question…

THANK YOU!

As two die-hard Bowie fans (Em and I), this question could NOT have been any more perfect! It was just WHICH Bowie albums we thought would be pointless. As Bowie fans we could name ALL his studio albums in 100 seconds, and then some!

The first one I thought of was Pin Ups (and to my surprise the contestants – two young female uni students – came up with the same answer), but then I started thinking about the more recent albums. Black Tie White Noise, Earthling, Heathen (Heathen was pointless FFS!)…all of which ended up pointless.

And then, I thought of this…

Proof (if ever it were needed).

 

And so did pointless host Alexander Armstrong. Em felt VERY vindicated to see this come up. Lol. I still have a bit of time for this album but Em was so “just as I have always said, utterly pointless!” about it. Lol

By the way, the ladies didn’t get the jackpot. Their answers were Labyrinth (showing you the depth of their knowledge, hence my shock of their Pin Ups answer), Space Oddity and Pin Ups. Labyrinth was (obviously) incorrect, Space Oddity scored 7, and Pin Ups – 1! They actually got so close but, alas, no cigar.

Our Local Chippy

Our local chippy is in the Guardian newspaper’s list of the 50 best fish and chip shops. You can get fish bites (for the Aussies amongst you – fish cocktails) and chips before 4pm for £2.50 a serve!

View the rest of the list HERE

WTF?!

Seriously? Bad weather! You NAUGHTY weather!!

Have I Found My Gaga?

Maybe it’s because I’m creeping into middle age (I’ll be 40 later this year) but I am suddenly finding myself more and more engrossed in what I’m finding to listen to on the radio. In particular Radio 4 (and no…not just Test Match Special!).

I’ve had the feeling in my head for several weeks now that I’d like to listen to more radio. Spurred on by some appearances David Tennant has made recently in a couple of radio plays, I’m finding myself listening to more and more radio plays.

I listened to one last week which was a “tongue in cheek” look at the behind the scenes making of the film Witchfinder General starring Vincent Price. It was great timing as I’d only just, a few weeks previous, watched Witchfinder General for the first time, so I was at least armed with the knowledge of the film to begin with.

And only yesterday I listened to another play with Bill Nighy in it. If ever there was a voice made for radio plays…

It’s not only the plays I’m interested in. Last night I listened to The Now Show (with Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis), a satirical look at the week in news. There are several other comedies on Radio 4 I’d like to get into as well.

But now, it is confession time. I was scared to ask Em to get this for me because she has an aversion to anything that appears even REMOTELY middle class. I thought I might be in for the chop even for asking (I was going to try and keep it secret, but I like getting the radio stuff to listen to on my iPod in bed in the evening). So it was with some trepidation I asked her if she could get me The Archers omnibus! I know! I even amazed myself!

So I listened to it last night. And I have to say, despite some of it being a little hammy, I liked it. OMG, help me, I’m middle class!!!! lol

I really hope I’m NOT middle class for liking The Archers. It might not even last (my liking it). But it did hook me in. It’s a bit of escapism. I see it almost like a look into how “the other half live” because it is a little posh.

I’m already asking myself really involving plot-based questions like: How will Helen go getting pregnant? How long will Jude and Pips relationship last? What’s going to happen to Tom and Brenda’s relationship, as she sounds like she’s ready to leave Ambridge?

ZOMG! lol

I think Em is going to divorce me when she sees this!

Hilda: The Lost Hog, Part 2

RIP Poor Hilda.

She lost her fight overnight. Jacqui called this morning. I was elsewhere so she left a message on the answering machine. She had appeared to be going well. I’d called Jacqui on Wednesday for an update on her. She had lost then regained weight. She still had weight gaining problems, losing then regaining weight since Wednesday. Then she just appeared to have had enough of the fight, the poor little sweetheart, and gave up.

I hope she’s enjoying her new life in the big hog box in the sky.

Hilda: The Lost Hog.

At around 2pm on Saturday (Nov. 14th), I was sitting on the sofa reading, Em was in the kitchen doing some washing when suddenly Em said to me “there’s a hedgehog in the garden”. Okay, not that significant you might think, but if you know ANYTHING about hedgehogs (and as we have several visiting our garden we’ve read up and are familiar with hedgehog antics) you’ll know that seeing a hedgehog (a nocturnal creature) out in daylight is NOT good.

The weather was quite horrible. It was raining and the light was dimming (even at 2pm, yes!), but still, a hedgehog shouldn’t really be seen out before dusk.

Em gloved up, went outside and retrieved the poor little mite. We initially had the poor little fella/miss in a cardboard box.

I searched the ‘net for a number of our nearest hedgehog rescue centre. There was one near us, but I couldn’t get through. The line was busy every time a tried. I tried a couple of others, but they went to a recorded message. Then I tried one at Leighton Buzzard, a little further away for us, but I got to speak to a real person.

Her name is Jacqui and she was VERY helpful with advice on how to care for the little one until we could get to her.

We weren’t able to borrow a car until Sunday, so we kept the little hoggie with us in doors overnight. We transfered the hog into Chris’ carrier and put a cushion and some wheat pillows in there. We gave the hog food and water. We gave it wet food at first, but then tried some dry food and it ate some of that.

The water bowl was a bit too big, and the poor little tyke ended up sitting in there getting wet and cold. So we got a smaller dish to put water in, cleaned out the carrier as the poor little thing had pooped quite a bit and it was a bit runny so a change of towel was needed and change of wheat pillow. We also kept up supplying the dry food.

Chris was getting curious so we had to put the poor little thing in the bathroom overnight. I called Jacqui on Sunday morning to arrange a time to come over. We got there just after 11.30am. Jacqui inspected the hog straight away. It had two ticks on it (which she removed with special tick removing tweezers) and she also gave the little lady (as it turned out) a milky glucose drink to help rehydrate her. Then she put her in the little cage she’d be staying in during her recovery. There was a bowl of food in there topped with meal worms. Hilda (as we decided to name her – as Jacqui asks people to name the hog that comes into her care) went STRAIGHT for the food and she hoovered up ALL the meal worms.

Jacqui did say though that Hilda only has a 50/50 chance of surviving. We’d weighed her on the Saturday when we found her and she only weighed 265 grams. Half the weight a hog needs to be to be healthy enough to hibernate. She could recover quickly and look like she’s fit and well after 48/72 hours, then 24 hours later could crash and die. She’s had it happen to hogs before, so it will be touch and go for her.

Jacqui will keep us informed of Hilda’s progress and if she takes a turn for the worse she’ll let us know straight away. It will be about a week before Hilda fully recovers and puts on enough weight to come home.

And that’s the best part. If all goes well, Hilda survives, and puts on the weight required, we can collect her and bring her home 🙂

We have our fingers and toes crossed for her.

She’d get a bit frustrated from time to time being enclosed in the carrier and let her thoughts be known. Here is a bit of footage of her protesting! Poor little love 🙂