Reasons to be stressful

I'm really loving friday playdate's Grace in Small Things. I love the idea of counting blessings.

Sadly, however, this is one area where I have to live vicariously. I'm not a blessings-counter. I can always find some reason even in the happiest moments to moan about something. The other day we went to see Inkheart, and (look away now if you don't want to know what happens) in the end the family are reunited after many years, the wife gets her voice back, and everyone is happy.

"I don't believe that," I told Mr Coffee. "I can't believe she's not telling her husband what a bad time she had. She hasn't been able to speak for years."

Mr Coffee nodded, sadly. He knew that's exactly what I would be doing if I found myself reunited with my loved ones after many years of loneliness and heartbreak. Moaning about a niggling pain in my leg or how no-one had offered me a decent hot drink in months.

So, let's play to my strengths. I offer you:

Reasons to be stressful, part 1

1) It's all very well having fancy-ass lights, but not if you can't get replacement bulbs for any of them. Our kitchen is increasingly descending into gloom. And the Black and Blum reading light looks downright alarming without a head.

2) My incomparably marvellous chocolate brownie recipe, by Bill Granger, seems to be broken. It has turned from a wonderful and delicious thing into an overly sugary affair which bursts over the side of the tin.

3) Watching the last fish die, slowly and painfully, was tragic enough (we couldn't bring ourselves to just flush it), and I'm glad that its final torment is over, but the empty tank is FREAKING ME OUT.

4) I've been to Waterstones, and can't bring myself to buy any of the Orange Prize shortlisted books. I had such good intentions, till I started reading the blurbs. Alzheimers. Death. Bombing. Death in penury. Alcoholism. Death. Maybe I need to turn into my mother, and start reading Terry Pratchett all the time.

5) The Littlest Latte's swimming instructor is planning to come off the poolside next lesson and get into the pool with us. A handsome young man in a wet shirt - I may have to be stretchered off. And then who will drive the children home?

New Year's Resolutions

For a start, don't look at me like that. I know what time of year it is, thank you. I've done this before. But last time, if you remember, I just decided to have lots of sleep and eat cake. And this worked, but it's not a long term strategy.

Because the person I was at the Easter weekend isn't an accurate representation of my life. That kind of activity is very, very rare. I'm not Eurolush jumping around the place, (thank god) or Badger who has achieved more than me by the time I get up, even though she's in a different time zone and is actually meant to be behind me.

Things in the Coffee House are getting out of hand. There seem to be piles of things everywhere. It's back to the Flylady grindstone for me, even if I will spend half my time sniggering behind my hand and the other half composing irate emails about feminism in my head.

I also need to water things in the garden rather than planting them and then watching them scorch to death.

I need to read books. Look at this! The Orange Prize shortlist is out! I could have been ahead, having read one of the longlist, but the only one I read didn't make it.

I need to get out more. On Saturday we went to see Mark Steel (it was a last-minute thing - Mr Coffee saw him wandering round our shopping centre in the afternoon, and we realised he couldn't actually have just come for a day out) and remembered that it was actually nice to leave the house together after dark. Who would have thought?

I need to listen to the Eldest Latte read. I need to work with her on her times tables. I need to play stuff with the Littlest Latte rather than just dragging her to the supermarket.

And exercise! I need to do that!

I guess the first step would be to stop typing, wouldn't it? See! I will do it straight away.















(Has everybody gone? Good. I'd hate for anyone to notice me getting this beer out of the fridge and sitting in front of the television.)

Scenes from the Coffee House Garden

To start, here are some of our new plants from the garden centre. There are several garden centres nearby, but we have a favourite. It is small enough for the Littlest Latte to run free without getting lost and falling over and being wandered around the place screaming with a bleeding knee by a woman with a disapproving screwed-up face who thought she'd been abandoned and had taken a while to find us because she had completely ignored the fact that she was being followed by an older girl on crutches screaming 'That's my sister!'(a hypothetical situation, of course, but one that, ahem, could happen in a larger establishment). Also this favourite garden centre is run by one of Mr Coffee's friends. We're not the only people who like it either. Father Christmas was there last year. Amazing man. So warm and friendly - it was almost as if he knew us.




Blossoms from next door's pear tree, which hangs fruitily over our garden.


Shoots of hope from Mr Coffee's acer, after its terrifying near-death experience last year.


A reluctant worm being coaxed onto a purpose-built slide.


Something else we are enjoying is a parcel of goodies from Lynn, which included books for the Little Lattes, a CD, lovely marbled pencils, origami, stickers, chocolate... a wonderful package indeed which made us all very, very happy, and I would have taken a picture of it all to show you were it not for the fact that the Lattes were at the door when it arrived, and were eager to peruse its contents immediately. Sorry, did I say 'peruse'? I meant 'ransack'.

How we scared off Easter

Well, I don't think we'll be seeing that Easter around here anytime soon. It's terrified.

Terrified of the Coffee House and the sheer amount of stuff that went on. Honestly - if you'd been here, you'd have been exhausted just looking at it, and we would have had to feed you cake and let you have a lie down.

Oh yes, there was cake. Ha! We baked fairy cakes and iced them and put Easter eggs on top! Here they are! (Okay, those weren't mine. They were from the Good Food Magazine website. But we were too damn busy to be taking any pictures of the cupcakes, do you understand?) And there was a hazelnut and chocolate cheesecake, and some defrosted chocolate brownies. Actually there was a lot of defrosted stuff, but we'll get onto that later.

So! First thing we do is PAINT THE KITCHEN! Not just paint it, you understand, but sugar soap it all properly beforehand! (This is in line with the famous British tradition, by the way, to spend a rare sunny Bank Holiday cooped up inside doing DIY. Though Mr Coffee did get a blast of fresh air when he went onto the roof to paint the walls around inside of the skylight, so what has he to complain about?) And during this time we go out for coffee and cakes, and go to the butchers and the supermarket and the Post Office, and take the Little Lattes into town twice to buy a new kettle (again, later) and sunhats and shampoo and fish sauce. And we decorate a twig by painting it white and then hanging Eastery papier mache stuff off it. And the Lattes do all kinds of Easter stuff at church as well as having an Easter egg hunt in their own garden.

We go to church three times altogether. I know! How did we find time for that? Also I read nearly half a book!

And then we make a full roast dinner and get The Grandmother round to share it, and just as it's finishing all the electricity goes off! Hilarious! And I get to run up and down the street to The Grandmother's House to put the cake in her oven and check on it, and Mr Coffee sits down to read about household electrics in order to put it all right again. And then since it's already half done, we defrost the freezer, very slowly, since we think the problem is the kettle. And then we make tea with some water boiled on the hob in a pan.

Isn't that enough? NO! NO it's not enough, we are on a ROLL now, so we go to the garden centre and we buy way too many plants and then we come home and we prepare a bed and we plant it! And we cut a hedge! And we sow seeds and we weed and we weed and we weed!

It's too much for you, isn't it? I can see you covering your eyes, and thinking you need a drink.

Hmm. So do we. And we deserve it, don't we? I very much think that we do.

Because you deserve the best

Regular visitors to my blog will remember that a few weeks ago I went to the seaside and drew you a picture of it. No-one was incredibly impressed.

Let's make up for it today.


The tide goes out an awful long way around here, and leaves you with mudflats. Mudflats are a fantastic habitat for birds.


Perhaps the birds are camera shy.

We do, however, also have beaches of wonderful golden sand. This could be something to do with the fact that the sand was imported from somewhere else.

But can you see anyone here who cares?


Me neither.

This was a magical weekend, because it brought with it a visit from a friend. A very, very lovely friend I haven't seen for far too long.

And as an added bonus, this friend brought us biscuits. So, though blogging has its charms, it is not calling to me half as loudly as that wine glass, those biscuits, and those cushions.

I'm on my way...

That's nice dear. Now put it back

I saw something a little bit alarming the other day. Maybe I shouldn't show you it. Maybe you don't want to be alarmed. Maybe you are drinking your coffee and having a little cake and you don't want to be put off your zen.

I'm sorry. I just couldn't stop myself. See - it's Eddie Izzard, a comedian I like very much, but he seems to have forgotten to do up his buttons.

I have spent the last few days trying to work out why this bothers me. I'm not a body fascist. Let's face it, I'm in no position to be. And Izzard's stomach is perfectly normal. Why should it bother me that he has had its picture taken?

Then I remembered Madonna, pouting in some bits of bandage not so long ago. And I remember feeling very sad that after so many years on the planet, the poor woman hadn't grasped the idea that wandering around in your knickers wasn't the only sexy thing in the world. Yes, she's in terrific shape. But surely more mature or interesting people have something else to offer? Don't we deserve better?

Take young Zac Efron here, from High School Musical. Doesn't that look fun? (Obviously, I am an elderly married woman, and my idea of 'fun' would be to stand him against a wall and bounce tennis balls off his stomach. What you think is fun is entirely up to you.) But do you expect him to make a woman giggle uncontrollably with his subtle satire, or impress her with his knowledge of books and world events?

It is a fact that women fancy comedians as unlikely as David Mitchell, Dara O'Briain and Frankie Boyle. These are not, at face value, attractive men. They are not men you would give a second glance if they were working at the Inland Revenue. Your first thought on meeting them would not be 'come on then, let's see your navel'. But it is no surprise that they have fans who want to do more to them than watch them on the telly. They're sexy because they are funny men with a wicked smile and a quick brain.

Eddie Izzard was one of those men. Certainly I thought so. But now he's coming off more as a mildly amusing, slightly tubby bloke who thinks a bit too much of himself.

And that's not a good look.