Wummin: ”Hawhawhaw! Ur you oan Facebook anaw? A’m oan it aw the time so A um. Pure oan it aw the time.”
Some Guy: ”Ha!”
Wummin: ”A hud aboot a hunnernseven’y friends oan it so A did. Bit y’know whit?”
Some Guy: ”Hm?”
Wummin: ”Some c*nt broke in’ae ma profile n deleted it – n A loast aw ma friends. I went back tae huvvin’ nain”.
Some Guy: ”Hahahahahahahaha!”
Wummin: ”Whit ye laughin’ fur? It’s NO’ F*CKIN FUNNY!”
I rarely sit at the back of the bus. If I do, it’s never through choice. Say my usual seat (the first row on the raised step – left OR right, no preference) is taken. And say the only free spaces are a) beside the guy with a cold who keeps making throaty snot noises, b) beside the jackass playing sectarian anthems on his mobile phone while stomping his feet and whistling out of tune or c) beside the woman who hasn’t thought to turn her key pad tone noises off on her mobile phone BEFORE embarking on her bus journey text-a-thon – then if there’s a spot for me ‘up the back’, then up the back I will sit.
I think I must’ve been about 13. 14, maybe. I looked older then than I do now. I was sitting at the back of the bus – probably looking quite moody and wearing way too much make-up. There’s every likelihood I was wearing a leather biker jacket and some item of tie-dyed clothing. And maybe a scarf round my neck. In those days, sitting at the back of the bus (especially in either of the window seats) came with the added risk your clothes/shoes might melt or the backs of your legs might be seared by the engine burning through the velour/pleather seat. Nowadays, the risks of sitting ‘up the back’ seldom involve flesh burning but are more likely to include accidentally sitting in someone else’s bodily fluids or being engaged in conversation with a crim about how ‘thur jist oot the Bar-L and uv gote a contract oot oan thum’.
I can’t recall exactly where I was going, but at a guess, I’d be bussing to town to meet my friend Lesley. A couple o’ alternateen mallrats, Lesley & I spent most Saturday afternoons scuffing around Argyle Street in our Doc boots. Barely lifting our feet, we scuffed from one end of the St Enoch Centre to the other, our only plan being to ogle the tall, long-haired, handsome boy who worked in Hoi Polloi and sit in the food court.
So – there I am, sitting in the left side window seat at the back of the bus, my legs hurting from the heat. The bus was busy and it wasn’t long before the back row of the bus was jammed with bottoms. Eventually even the seats opposite were taken by passengers who’d weighed up how they felt about travelling backwards and decided that ultimately they didn’t really mind if it meant they didn’t have to stand for the duration of the journey.
A man sat opposite me. He was dressed in grey pinstriped trousers and a shirt and blazer. He was reading a newspaper. He had weird red curly hair. It looked as though it had been crimped. Crimped – then gelled down flat on his head. His shirt was a little bit crushed up and his jacket had a wee stain on the lapel. He didn’t seem to mind that every time he turned the page of his newspaper he nearly had the woman next to him’s eye out. I don’t like being too close to strangers at the best of times, but there’s something properly creepy about staring into a face at close proximity on crowded public transport. I affixed my eyes on the man’s shoes. They were scuffed and tatty. As we bumped along, he continued to elbow jab his fellow passenger intermittently. I noticed a hole in the man’s trousers. I could tell he wasn’t wearing any pants. Then his balls fell out.
Well, actually, they didn’t just ‘fall out’. They sorted of sneaked out. Little by little. With every bump in the road a little bit more… emerged.
Oh my. At this point, I intended to go into greater detail about ‘the sneaking’ but now I’m typing, it’s dawned on me I really am typing about testicles (the owner of which seemingly hadn’t noticed were on the loose) and I feel a little bit awkward. Not only that but I feel a bit sorry for the poor fella who had inadvertently exposed himself to a 13 year old girl. That’s assuming he wasn’t some pervert getting a kick out of riding buses with no pants on and intentionally allowing his balls to bounce out of a rather conveniently placed hole in his trousers. Should I call the police just incase?
“Officer. I’d like to report a crime. A man’s testicles fell out of his trousers and I saw them. I’m not sure if he meant it or not. Them falling out and me seeing them, I mean”.
“When did this happen?”
“Um. 19 years ago on the 61 bus. He had hair like a giant Frazzle, if that helps?”
I think this is the end of my story about a man exposing himself on public transport. You will be relieved to hear I do not have any accompanying images for this blog post.
A few weeks ago I accidentally wrote a self-indulgent (more self-indulgent that normal), schmaltz-fest post. It was New Year, I was feeling fragile. I came over all reflective and found myself banging on about learning lessons and needing focus and about how I long to get outta here. Yep. There was definitely some ‘longing’ in there… It just happened, I’m sorry. The crux of the post was this: I’m moving to London. With Beardy. And Smokey Cat. We leave Glasgow on Monday 27th February.
People keep asking me how I feel. ”How do you feel?” I’ve had a migraine for a week. I can’t lower my shoulders from my earlobes. I have this weird stabbing pain in my right shoulder blade. There’s something wrong with my eye and I have the constant, eeking feeling my neck might snap. I don’t say that, of course. I say, “Fine thanks. Y’know – excited and nervous”. Then they ask what I’ll do in London. “What will you do in London?”. I make a joke about the streets being paved with gold and then I twiddle my hair. I find it harder than usual to make eye contact. What will I do in London? What will I DO in London? What will I do in London? Will I be pretty? Will I be rich? Oh Doris… Your, ‘Que sera, sera’ is not cutting it this time, love.
Tags: London
It feels like the sun hasn’t risen in months. It makes a shy appearance around 9am, skulks around outside the window for a wee while then disappears again around 3.30pm. I don’t own a S.A.D light but I really wish I did. I read about a special meet-up the other day where people go do yoga under an enormous sunshiney lamp. I’m not so sure about the yoga, but some artificial daylight sounds just great round about now.
While sorting through my incredibly disorganised blog material folder (I don’t know why, but it would appear I do not afford my digital files the same care and attention as I do my paper ones), I came across a bunch of photos I took in the summer time with the intention of writing about my mum and her magic green fingers. I found the blog post abandoned in my ‘drafts’ dookit yesterday and, even though I’m a couple of seasons out of kilter and my thoughts are out of date, I want to share them in the hope they might inject a teensy bit of life back into an otherwise sluggish, winter-weary me.
Even when I was little, I knew my mother was mostly at her happiest when she was shuffling around on her knees, trowel at the ready, through dirt and soil, sifting out stray stones and plucking out weeds. She seemed happier still foraging around in woodland gathering wild flowers and picking crab apples and brambles she would later blitz into tasty sauces. For a long time though, she was gardenless. With no patch of green of her own to look after and unable to wander in the forest quite so much, she paid extra attention to her beloved house plants. ”It’s like a jungle in here”, my dad would grumble as he emerged from behind a thick wall of flowering Busy Lizzies. ”It’s like a jungle in here”, he’d gripe as he swatted away the leaves from the enormous spider plant that tickled his head as it dangled from the kitchen shelf. When he marched my sisters and I into his bedroom one day and pointed at a yuka plant my mother had somehow managed to nurture to the size of a fully grown palm tree, we had to agree that it was, a little bit “like a jungle in here”. And then there was the cheese plant. Brought back to life by, I can only presume, a combination of my mum’s enthralling conversation and whatever the hardcore plant food was she secretly smuggled from Bolivia, we had to navigate round/through the folliage like David Bellamy just to change the channel on the tv set.
My mum has a garden of her own again. She plants the seeds, she grows ‘em. She digs them up again, moves them around, plants them again and watches them get bigger. Round and round she goes, planting, growing, planting, growing. ”Maybe one day the garden will be finished and we’ll be able to sit out”, she’ll say. But where’s the fun in that? This, this right here, is a ‘working garden’. And I love it. Here are some of the things that live there. Much to my mother’s horror, most of my favourites are weeds.
My mother's garden has big daisies in it.
It has little daisies in it too. I like that these ones have extra long stems. Skinny minnies.
If my mum's magic fingers have the same effect on fruit and veg as they do on flowers and plants, I reckon we could be eating giant fruit salad this summer!
I'm sure these wee darlin's are weeds, but they've always been on my list of favourites!
These are cute too.
If I ever have a garden I'll devote a whole section to weeds!
I have no idea what the bowl is for. Maybe my mum grew it?
This gnome is older than me. His name is Sammy. Or Willy.
This gnome is older than me too. If the guy in the blue overalls is Sammy, let's say, then this must be Willy. But it might be the other way round.
I could honestly smell this rose from about a metre away. It smelled bea-u-ti-ful.
I LOVE WHIRLIGIGS! (My mother didn't grow this).
My family had a caravan on a site in Ayrshire. I loved it there. Between the ages of 0 and 12, I spent all my free time there with my mum. It’s probably a good job I can’t drive since I’m quite sure I would probably have been served some sort of order to keep me away from there by now. ”You don’t own a caravan here Mrs Maclennan. Your family haven’t been holidayers here for 18 years. Please go home and please stop harassing us”. Hm.
One time, while I was playing with my friends (climbing trees, rolling down hills etc., etc.), I spotted my mum far off in the distance. She’d been walking in the woods. As she got closer and I could see better, I knew she was wearing her skin tight blue jeans, her wellies and her coral reef cardigan – although it hadn’t been christened ‘the coral reef’ yet. I think at this point, I referred to it as her ‘bear cardigan’ because it was big and fuzzy. I could see she was humphing great armfuls of daffodils. As she got closer still, she started to smile at me and kind of waggle her head – y’know, like you might do when you see someone you know but you’re not *quite* close enough to speak to them yet. You kind of gesture with your face or your hands or something. I’m sure she would have waved if she could but of course she couldn’t due to the 10 kilos of flowers resting on her forearms. With sticky willy stuck in her hair, mud on her knees and weed fluff all trapped in her cardigan, she was quite a picture! At the time, I was a bit embarrassed. Being about 8 – maybe 9, I was all, “Oh lord, here comes my mum… Would you just look at the mess she’s gotten herself in. She’s just so embarrassing” (though I probably didn’t say those exact words. I don’t talk like that. Never have.). Now though? Now that picture is one of my very, very favourites and I’m glad it’s stuck in my brain gallery. Not only that, but 20 odd years later, and I would KILL for those damn jeans.
Me? I can’t grow nothin’. I’m just pleased not to have destroyed the Busy Lizzie my mum gave me when I moved into my house. Eight years and going strong! Well – maybe not going strong so much, but it’s not dead. This summer, Garry bought me a window box. Despite my lack of gardening know-how, I do love the idea of tending to window boxes. I’m just not that great at actually tending to window boxes. The box came filled with pretty flowering pansies. Once they died, I did nothing with the box. I look at it on the ledge now and again. I enjoy examining the dirt and debris that magically just appears in there. I don’t know where it comes from. Imagine my delight, when I peeked my head out of the window one night to spot a wee crop of mushrooms popping up in one corner! Mould, decay, rot – say what you will. I think they are very sweet.
My "crop".
Tags: daffodils, gardening, mother, nostalgia, S.A.D light
I just drank a pint of Creamola Foam so it’s not bedtime yet.
My blog celebrates its first birthday on the 22nd January. Between now and then I intend to play blog catch-up like there’s no tomorrow. I like to have my affairs in order at the start of a new year. Scrolling through my ‘unpublished’ folder, I see I have a few semi-drafted posts waiting to be resolved and published. I can’t decide which to finish off first. Help.
Would you rather read…
(i) a story about a man exposing himself on public transport
(ii) a list of things that enrage me more than someone smashing up my last Tunnock’s teacake
(iii) a post about green fingers
?
While you think about it, I thought you might like to watch this. Once you’ve dabbed away the tears, composed yourself a little and allowed your breathing to return to normal, please do leave a wee comment and tell me what to write about!
As I grabbed ingredients from fridges and from shelves, Beardy held the basket. For the last three nights, I’ve eaten garlic and herb quorn fillets (2 for £1), hash browns (£1 per bag), a vegetable grill (4 for £1) and fresh salsa salad (massive bowl whipped up for £2) for dinner. As much as I’ve enjoyed this trip down freezer food lane, I just couldn’t face a fourth night of the same. Besides, we’d munched through the enormous bowl of beetroot salsa Beardy made and, let’s be frank, the beetroot salsa was the saving grace of an otherwise tinkfest tea ol’ Kerry Catona would be proud of. This evening, as we darted round the supermarket, I decided enough was enough. We’d blow the stupid budget and enjoy a meal containing more food groups than just, um… the ‘frozen’ group. I am pleased to report that the budget blowing was well worth it. ”As good as Christmas dinner”, Beardy said. ”Not only the best burger I’ve ever had, but maybe one of the best dinners I’ve ever had”, Beardy said. I didn’t say much. It is impolite to eat with one’s mouth full.
I’m afraid we ate so quickly I forgot to take photos. I didn’t know this would turn out to be one of those bloggable dinners. Apologies. I did consider writing, ‘FULL UP’ across my now even more enormous tummy by way of illustration, but decided against it. You don’t need to see that.
ONE OF THE BEST DINNERS EVER:
Quick. Easy. Minimal Preparation*. Minimal proper cooking*. Maximum taste-o-rama**.
Grab:
Good quality burgers
Garlic pizza bread
Watercress salad/mixed leaves
Sour cream/creme fraiche
(For salsa) Tomato, onion, green pepper, passata, garlic, sugar, salt, black pepper, habanero pepper pulp, lemon juice, beetroot – if ye like.
Get to it:
Grill the burgers ’til they’re cooked just how you like ‘em.
Bake the pizza bread.
While the burgers and bread are doing their thang (thang?! WHY do I keep saying that?), prepare the salsa. Finely dice the tomato, onion, pepper and beetroot. You don’t need to use beetroot but Beardy experimented with it last week and I can confirm it was a brilliant addition. Sauce it up with a little passata then add a teensy pinch of sugar, tonnes of garlic, a splash of habanero pepper pulp, a squirt of lemon juice and a few tappity taps of ground rock salt. Oh and some crunches of ground black pepper. Smoosh it all up in a bowl.
When your burgers are ready, dab off the beef juice (bleugh) with kitchen roll. Be careful if you’re currently using cheapo kitchen roll though as it may well stick to your patties and you’ll spend more time trying to pick off stray fibres with tweezers. Wasted kitchen time is most unhelpful when you are very hungry.
Cut the pizza bread in half.
Spoon the salsa all over one half of the pizza bread. Then bundle on the watercress leaves. Lay the burgers onto the salad. Add a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche to the tops of the patties.
Take the other half of the pizza bread and layer it on top to make a big, garlicky, burgery, cressy, salsa-y, creamy sandwich. Cut it in half to make two pick-up-able bits.
Eat it:
If like us, you eat like a starving orphan and get awfully excited about your one meal a day, pick up your sandwich and shove it in your face. Be careful not to allow your burger to come sliding out from between the pizza bread slices at speed. It would be tragic to waste/miss out on this taste explosion due to carelessness.
If you tend to eat three meals a day and prefer to take your time and savour your food in the evening, then use cutlery like a civilised person.
* You could, if you had the time or the inclination make your own beef patties and fresh, homemade pizza bread.
** I enjoyed my dinner SO much I appear to be in some state of overdose. I have a hot face and I feel a bit dizzy.
Tags: food, pizza bread burger sandwich, recipe
Four years ago, the bulb in my bathroom pendant ceiling light exploded.
Today, my tool toting, utility belt wearing, techie whizz pal came to my house, big yellow ladder in hand (over shoulder) and replaced the duffed light fitting. It took around 15 minutes. 4 years and 15 minutes.
Tonight I will bathe. After dark.
"I think this is the hairiest lampshade I have EVER seen!" exclaimed Allan
One dark night, about two years ago, I lit some candles and hopped in the bath. As I happily warbled along to Bright Eyes and sculpted funny hairdos/big boobs with my bubble bath bubbles, my relaxing fun time was interrupted by the sound of sirens. Lots of ‘em. Then someone rang my door bell. Irritated by the noisey, buzzy, eee-aw hullabaloo that was drowning out my rendition of Lua, I was pleased Beardy was at home to deal with the surprise visitor/Jehovah’s Witness at the door. As the sirens continued to make intermittent ‘waaaow’ noises, I could hear Beardy chat to someone over the intercom. He burst into the bathroom, the door clattering off the wall. I got a fright. ”The fire brigade are outside! And they’re here to rescue YOU!” he shouted. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or not. As it transpired, a concerned and cautious neighbour spotted my candles flickering behind the frost of the bathroom window and thought our flat was on fire. Imagine. Had Beardy NOT been home, I would have ignored the buzzer presser and continued with my karaoke bath time routine. Imagine. Had I not answered the door, there’s every chance a troupe of burly fire fighters would have burst into my hall and right on through to my bathroom only to find me with a frothy white quiff, carefully moulded 38GG bubble breasts, singing sad, sad songs in a fake American accent.
Wow.
Tags: bathroom, embarassed, I'm Calling About The Used Pants, interiors, nostalgia
This is one of my very favourite Christmas tree decorations. I stole it from my mother. I’m quite sure it’s older than me.
I removed all traces of my washout winter holiday today. The Christmas tree has been dismantled, the tinsel boxed up and the hand-me-down snowman candles packed away. Earlier this afternoon, the radio told me it’s bad luck to take Christmas decorations down early. Whatever. I feel better for it. I will feel even better when I’ve gone some way to shrinking the sugar mountain currently crammed into my kitchen cupboard. I don’t have proper food of any nutritional value to hand but I could easily feed myself – and Beardy – three meals a day worth of fudge, biscuits, ice cream, crisps, chocolates and marzipan fruits for at least a fortnight.
If this blog post were a library book, I’d be liable to pay some hefty long overdue fines!
Last month, as part of a pact my business partner & pal, Clare Nicolson made to ‘get out and about more’, we hosted a pop-up library event feature at one of London’s biggest indie shopping shindigs – The BUST Craftacular.
The project unravelled, just as some of the best ones often do, kind of by accident. A fleeting idea developed into a Proper Idea and with a little help from our crafty pals in London Town, the library was soon fully stocked with the best craft titles of 2011 AND we managed to recruit a gaggle of amazing authors to take part.
Clare is the design whizz of our little Made in the Shade duo and boy, oh boy, did she bring my geekfest library dreams to life! Never short of a great idea, Clare’s also pretty amazing when it comes to interpreting my own gobbledigook visions and madcap design notions. Everything from our library cards (actually discount cards for our online shop) to our book plate receipts (date stamped – of course!) and pretty book bags, librarian badges, banners and signage turned out just as I’d hoped.
To have Jazz Domino Holly, Tatty Devine, The Craftivist Collective and Cicada Books all involved in our little library was quite something. I was proud to place my copies of The Busy Girl’s Guide To Sewing alongside some of the best craft titles of 2011. Pretty neat, y’know, if I may say so myself.
I shall, for the moment, spare you the usual chat about the Megabus journey – but if you happened upon my Carrie Not The Kind Of Girl You’d Marry Facebook page during the trip, you’ll have been treated to some mental commentary from a sleep deprived eejit about some mental, equally sleep deprived eejit co-passengers.
I thought you might like to see some of the brilliant photographs Beardy took on the day…
Tags: author, BUST Craftacular, craft, DIY, London, Made in the Shade, Pop-Up Library
I say, ‘festive’. I’m not sure there’s anything less festive than a dreepy nose, a blocked ear, a stabby headache, a sandpapery throat, a weird non-cough. And a fever. For the first time in about 6 years, I’d made it. I’d made it to the 24th December – through the pre-Christmas chaos, past the work-o-rama hell and over the humps of festive preparations – all without even as much as a sniffle or a wheeze. I even said aloud, “I can’t believe it. It’s normally round about now I catch flu and spend the worst week of my year sweating/sobbing uncontrollably on the sofa, swaddled in thermal clothes and buried beneath a mountain of blankets. But not in a good way”. It was probably right then, on Christmas Eve, as I opened and closed my mouth and breathed in and out and felt wholeheartedly smug about my good winter health that I ate the germs. I ate them and they multiplied in my insides.
To be fair to the little nincompoops, at least they didn’t show themselves until the latter half of Boxing Day. They had the good grace and thoughtfulness to allow me an enjoyable Christmas Day with my family. Then, just as my Boxing Day hangover had began to ease up, I complained to Beardy that my sinuses felt like I’d maybe accidentally snorted some chlorinated water or gotten something (gin?) up my nose. Flashbacking to the party my parents threw the previous night, gin snorting didn’t seem too far fetched. The left side of my face felt funny. The back of my throat felt raw and kind of stripped. My poor nostril (singular) was burning. Mere hours later, the germs came out guffawing, tongues hanging out like members of Kiss, poking their stupid fingers in my face, “Ha! You. You total fanny. You thought you wouldn’t get sick this Christmas? Of course you will be sick this Christmas!”
Yeah. Of course I would be sick this Christmas. Not only are these few (relatively) ‘work-free’ days the last I’m likely to have until this time next year, but for the first time ever, I’d made proper preparations to enjoy myself. For months I’d been saving up some special treats and activities for myself to enjoy on my days off. I can barely describe how excited I was about my holiday kit. I’m not sure I can describe how excited I was about it at all, actually. Um. Imagine that greetings card you see all the time in Clinton’s. The one with the wee teeny girl on roller skates on the front. She’s chubby. She has a chubby face and amazing chubby knees. She’s got curly hair and might be wearing a big furry jacket. She’s clasping her hands with utter glee and she’s squishing her face up in a smile so tight it looks like she might turn inside out. That’s how excited I was.
By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, my holiday kit contained the following:
1 x box of Toffifee
1 x sachet of raspberry Creamola Foam (substitute)
1 x unopened copy of Frankie
1 x unopened copy of Oh Comely
1 x unopened copy of BUST
1 x unopened ‘Jolson Story’ DVD
1 x pair of fleecy socks
1/2 tub of Haagen Dazs (cookie dough)
1 x bottle of Bucks Fizz
Of course, by the time Santa had been on Christmas day, the holiday kit had grown to an incredible size and featured many additional items such as red & white paper straws, rose flavoured chocolate and fruit pastilles.
I’m not saying that the germ invasion has ruined my kit – though it has kind of ruined the first part of my holiday. I have enjoyed some bits – but I know I would have surely enjoyed them more were I not distracted by the soft, sausage shaped tissue paper plugs I’d jammed up my nostrils brushing off my chin. Today though, I have decided to embrace the germ invasion. I have decided, on Beardy’s recommendation, to embrace it. I am cosy. I am comfy. I am drinking hot drinks and eating hearty soup. Never have I watched so much shite on the telly and – I’ve barely moved in 4 days. Now, if that’s not a rest – I don’t know what is. Since I can now sit up without leaking (sorry), I’m hoping to use my time that way I’d intended – catching up on some long overdue blogging, flicking through my favourite magazines, watching my favourite movies – while getting fat.
More stories coming your way any moment now.
