To Hoard or not to Hoard? That is the Question.

Chez Printemps, we have a hoarding problem in the name of Roberto, my hoarding husband.  He just will not throw anything out.  Take, for example, his wardrobe.  It is completely stuffed to the gunnels.  He has far more clothes than I do.  On closer inspection you will find piles of 1980s shirts which he says he still loves and will fit into when he has been on a diet.  I even found a knitted Starsky jacket (remember Starsky & Hutch?) that his mother, the late great Beatrice Printemps, knitted for him in the late '70s.  Actually, I quite like the Starsky jacket and have been wearing it myself on cold days. 

I know it's nice to keep certain things because they hold happy memories and I'm not a totally heartless de-clutter queen but honestly, the stuff Roberto keeps! In a shed we have that used to be my sewing room, there are boxes and bags of the late great Beatrice Printemps'  things.  Just ordinary things like boxes of blankets, sheets (multi-coloured flowery '70s sheets, that is), kitchen stuff.  Roberto just won't part with it.  He says it will all come in useful some day.  I think, 'yes, useful for someone else.'  I admit, and I'll give him that, I did find her old hairdryer in there when mine broke the other week and yes, I grudgingly admit that it has come in handy...but what the fluff can you do nowadays with a mink coat?

There is a '70s flowery lampshade that the late Beatrice tried to offload onto me on numerous occasions because she couldn't bear to throw it out.  Margot Leadbetter from the Good Life would have been proud to own it

So, I have decided mes amis that, starting with the offensive '70s lamp (see photo below), Operation De-clutter will commence in 10...9...8..

 

 

 

Happy de-cluttering/hoarding! A la prochaine.

 

 

 

On TV Adverts

Settled down to watch TV one evening, cup of tea and shortbread biscuit at the ready.  An advert came on for one of those Ped-Egg machine thingies that seems to suck up all the dry skin on your feet.  I was just taking the first bite of my shortbread when the person who was using the Ped-Egg seemed to be hoovering up a huge (and I mean HUGE) piece of skin off her foot. It looked utterly disgusting.  Needless to say, shortbread biscuit was not so appealing after seeing that.

 

...and another thing.  Sorry mes amis have got charity fatigue again.  Charity adverts seem to be playing non-stop at the moment.  I do understand that they have to get donations but apart from anything else, the actual airtime must cost around £100,000 each time the advert is on TV. The particular advert that has caught my attention is the one for Water Aid in Africa somewhere.  You see a young baby sitting in a puddle and putting his cup into it and drinking the water, while the narrator is saying something like "John has to drink contaminated water every day, even though it could kill him".  If that baby really is sitting there drinking contaminated water and they are sitting watching and filming him doing it....WHY AREN'T THEY STOPPING HIM?????  Is it me? 

 

As for the DFS sale that was supposed to end on 5th January 2014....it's on AGAIN!  It never ends.  There is also an advert for Harvey's furniture which annoys me greatly.  It is stressing the fact that you can get all the furniture for your home on credit over 4 years, encouraging young people (it's always young people in the ads) to get into debt. 

 

Have you heard about Wonga advertising loans on children's TV channels?  People are now complaining that their kids are telling them to get a Wonga loan to buy the latest Xbox, or whatever.  Effing unbelievable, n'est-ce-pas?

Right, rant over.  Squeak soon.

 

 BREAKING NEWS.....BREAKING NEWS.....Roy and Agnes have got engaged.  They are both still married to previous partners, but hey ho!

 

 

 

Michael Buble Overload

Well, I never thought I'd say this but I think I've overdone it with Michael Buble.  As much as I adore him, I've had enough of his Christmas CD.  In fact I'm just about Bubled out. He's been singing non-stop since 1st December so I've packed him away in the CD cabinet for another year. 

I could have sworn I had three boxes of mince pies in my cupboard that I hid in case of unexpected visitors during the festive season, but when I looked the other day, there was just an empty space where the mince pies used to be. There must be a big (huge) mouse in my house.

I'm not sure if I've told you about our ducks.  We have two "rescue" ducks of our own that a friend of ours brought to our pond - a black one and a white one (please don't ask me what brand they are as I haven't got a Scooby Doo).  Some numpty had them at the back of a terraced house and wasn't treating them properly and they were a bit scrawny and straggly when they arrived chez nous.  I fed them every day with special duckling food and chatted to them and although they were quite scared and shy to start with, after a week they came running towards me, squawking and squeaking, when I came to feed them.  I'm happy to say they are now fatter and happier and are are now playing nicely with the wild ducks on our pond. My Auntie Violet always asks about them and on Christmas Day she asked me if I had fed them anything special for Christmas.  I wondered if she meant stuffing balls and tiny sausages. 

"Eh...just some extra bread, Auntie Violet". 

"Oh, is that all?" she said.  "I thought you would have given them a wee treat." 

What the fluff do you give a duck for a "wee treat"? 


Bonne Annee 2014!

Easter Eggs at Christmas in the UK

I happened to pop into our local petrol station this morning, only to discover that they are selling Cadbury’s Creme Eggs already. I told the young girl behind the counter that it’s only 21st December and Jesus hasn’t been born yet but she just looked at me with her dead eyes as if I had asked her to detach her smartphone from her brain. Elle n’avait pas compris, mes amis!

So now that it’s nearly Christmas I have Michael Buble’s Christmas CD playing on repeat non-stop in the Printemps household and also in the car when I go out. Roberto hasn’t said anything but I can tell it’s beginning to get on his nerves a little bit, especially when I sing along at the top of my voice and ask him to dance round the kitchen like the Strictly professionals (speaking of which, it's the Strictly Come Dancing final tonight - yay!). 

We had a Christmas card from Roy and his new love. He’s not yet divorced from the long-suffering Wilma but he has already moved in with his new lady friend, Agnes and is planning a big proposal after Christmas, mad fool that he is. I’ve arranged to see Wilma sometime over Christmas to get her side of the story, so I will keep you all posted. 

My turkey is in the freezer and the stuffing balls are done so put another log on that fire, Heathcliffe and let’s have a cup of tea.

A la prochaine, chers amis.

 

Feliz Navidad.

　

　

　

　

　

　

Roy and his Never-Ending Mid-Life Crisis

It's been a while since I updated you on our friend Roy's never-ending mid-life crisis.  I take it that you are still interested, mes amis?

 

Well, to cut a long story short, after several (did I say disastrous?) blind dates through desperado.com, hundreds of miles driven around the country, one date whose 12 year old spoiled daughter decided that he wasn't "the one" and several hundred pounds less in his moth-eaten wallet, our boy Roy has finally found love.  The lady in question lives in Scotland and apparently this 'new town' where she lives is the best thing since sliced bread - "a lovely place to live", says Roy.  I think he lives in Pixie Land myself.  I won't mention the name of the town but if you've seen the film Gregory's Girl, then you've got it. 

 

Roy, who never spend a penny on his long suffering soon-to-be-ex-wife, Wilma, has been spending £50 a week sending flowers up to his new love.  Might I just mention that Roy is still living in the same house as Wilma and the divorce lawyers have not even had the chance to have a handbags at dawn session yet. 

 

In the meantime, another older lady that he apparently wooed when he was feeling a bit desperate has been sending him texts telling him that she loves him and misses him. Problem is that Roy is friendly with her man, PJ, and do you know what he did?  He phoned PJ, and asked him to tell Beryl to stop sending him texts.  I think Roy is a bit of a dimwit sometimes.  Beryl could still turn out to be a bit of a bunny boiler. 

 

So anyway, back to Scotland.  Roy is spending a lot of time up there with his new love. Says the weather is fantastic and it's a grand place to live.  He said this on the same day my sister phoned me from Glasgow and told me that they had horizontal rain and gale force winds.  He is also talking marriage already, although as mentioned above, his divorce is still pending.  All his friends think he is "bloody noots" (that's how they say nuts in Yorkshire).

 

More later, mes amis. 

 

 

Blind Date Disaster

Our friend Roy has spent the last few months of his mid-life crisis trawling online dating websites for a new woman.  He has signed up to dating website Desperado.com and, according to him, hundreds of women are sending him messages and are desperado to meet him. 

 

He was heading oop North again and arranged to meet one of these ladies on the way oop and spend the day with her.

 

ROBERTO: "What does she look like Roy?"

 

ROY: "I don't know.  She didn't know how to upload her photo onto the website."

 

ME: "Hark, what's that loud noise? Oh, it's alarm bells ringing, Roy."

 

Roy just laughed and said that she was a very nice lass and they had been getting to know each other by text.  I believe that's the new modern fangled way of doing things these days.  As it turned out, Roy had arranged to meet this woman, let's call her Daphne. 

 

Well, Roy packs his little case into his Stuart Little red sports car and heads off to meet Daphne.  He phones her when he gets to the meeting place, a supermarket car park, and she says she's on her way.  Ten minutes later, a large 4 x 4 parked up beside Roy's car and Daphne disembarked.  To put it politely, Daphne was a rather large lady, or in Roy's own words, "Chuffin' hell, she was the size of a chuffin' whale...AND she was wearing skin tight jeans." Roy was rooted to the spot with fear and was unable to move or run away like you would normally do if you didn't like the look of your blind date.  However, being a polite, well brought up person, he kept calm and carried on. 

For some strange reason Roy heard himself saying "let's go in my car."  Daphne managed to squeeze herself into Roy's little car ("me flippin' suspension!!") and off they toddled to the nearest pub to get to know each other better.  When they arrived at the pub Roy got out of the car and went to the other side to open the door for Daphne (what a polite boy!).  Daphne couldn't move.  She couldn't get out of the seat.  She was well and truly stuck. Roy grabbed her chubby arms and tried to pull her.  Now remember that Roy is only Stuart Little sized so this was a huge effort for him.  She didn't budge.  He then went back round to his driver's seat and tried to push her from the back, huffing and puffing and getting very red in the face.  He shoved and pushed and shoved again but all he managed to do was to push her XXXL t-shirt up to reveal her XXXL tights halfway up her XXXXL back (tights under jeans....NOOOOOOOOO!!!).  Daphne eventually managed to squeeze herself out of Roy's car and I didn't ask him about the return journey....I don't think I could have coped!

 

Anyway, not a successful blind date for our Roy.  He was extremely traumatised by the whole event.  I can't wait to hear about his next one though.  I'll keep you posted, chers amis, if I can stop laughing long enough to write it all down. 

A la prochaine!

On Vacuous Celebrities in Africa

I don't know about you but I'm getting so fed up....no, really p****d off with celebrities crying over African children.  It happens every time there is a big charity event in the UK, like Red Nose Day which took place recently.  How insulting to African people to have some vacuous little twit(s) crying over them.  Have you ever looked past the vacuous twits to the faces of the African people in the background?  They usually look bewildered, as if they are thinking "what are these numpties crying about?"

 

When I was at primary school, we used to bring in pennies for the "black babies", as we called them then.  I believe the money was sent to the missions in Ethiopia.  All the catholic primary schools in the region did the same and this went on all through my seven years of primary school.  Now that I am..ahem..40-la-la, those same people in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa are still in the same situation with droughts, famines, war etc.  Throughout the last 40 odd years, Britain and other countries have consistently sent aid.  Bob Geldof, in his wisdom, sent millions of pounds of donations from the British public, raised from Live Aid, to the president of Ethiopia, who spent it on weapons and a lear jet for his many wives' shopping trips to Paris and London.

...And another thing...Oxfam have a TV advert at the moment where they are asking for aid for Zimbabwe and one of the reasons is because the crops were unsuccessful.  Hellloooo...???  The crops weren't successful because President Mugabe threw all the successful white farmers out of the farms they had owned for generations and replaced them with unskilled African people who didn't know anything about farming.  Doh!!

We keep sending aid and money but the people are not evolving to take care of themselves...and why should they when they only have to sit and wait for the BBC cameras to roll up and the foreign aid to start flowing. I think it is time to stop crying over Africans and other poor nations and allow them to evolve, especially since our own country is now hanging by a thread, financially speaking. Snivelling celebrities, take note!