LOVELY PAT'S KNITTED HER A PINE GREEN BEANIE!

If you read my blog regularly, you will know that she goes to weigh in every Monday and that she has a couple of chums with whom she either celebrates or sits mentally kicking herself! One of these people is lovely Pat, whom one could easily hate as she has now lost nearly three stone in 19 weeks! Grrr.

Anyway, last week she complimented Pat on her charming Beanie, Pat's immediate response was "what colour would you like, I'll make you one".. see, you can't possibly hate her! "Oh, pine green please" said she and then they all went their separate ways at about half past two.

She went early today as numpty builder was coming at 2.15pm to meet the engineer from the boiler company to check out the boiler, post script.. nothing wrong with the boiler, it is the fact that there is a faulty tap which is interfering with the water flow and that the hot water pipes were laid in concrete with no lagging.. but let's not get into that.

As she walked in today she was greeted by Pat, who reached into her bag and produced a plastic bag.. full of dark green wool.. which, when pulled out, turned itself into a Beanie with white Christmas stars knitted into the pattern.

HOW CUTE WAS THIS? How cosy was it? Will her head ever see daylight again this Winter? For her head was suddenly snug and warm.. oh, dear kind Pat.. she'll be given an extra large chocolate nut salami next Monday, that's for sure!

She weighed in.. eureeka.. one lb gone aka lost. And that, Dear Readers, is inspite of drinking and eating eating everything in sight with young Claudia on Saturday night!

Blowing kisses and after hugging Pat again, she flew to catch the bus home, numpty arrived and then left, luckily the engineer came just as numpty left so she had ten minutes to discuss the hot water system with him, he pointed out the cooling was due to the incorrect way the pipes had been laid in the floor and then he found the faulty tap in the bathroom basin.

And he also realised that numpty had not installed two inspection hatches so the that flues can be examined on an annual basis.. heehee.. it was, he said, just as numpty arrived, "a very good thing that you called us as this installation has not been completed properly and it will be in my report plus the fact that the basin tap is faulty which is interfering with the boiler and has to be replaced as soon as possible".

With which he left.. saying "I will come back on the 16th of December in the morning before midday and I expect everything to have been done".

Yubba-dubba-doo..

Numpty left, slightly chastened, she grabbed a package and flew off to the Post Office in Launcelot Place and collected a package from cousin Bruce from MailBoxEtc on the way home, we then had our very late lunch, boiled egg, hummus with half a mini lamb sausage and a tiny amount of pasta for me, she had mini sausages and pasta with steamed purple sprouting broccoli and spices.

She's never ever had a Beanie.. a beautiful Swedish woollen Beanie, hand knitted with love.. what a lovely gift.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 30th, 2015.

TO BOROUGH MARKET & BEYOND.. IN FACT, ALL THE WAY TO NORTH GREENWICH!

Apart from a couple of coffees these two women hadn't spent time together for eleven years! So it was with delight that she received from Claudia an invitation to supper in North Greenwich. Claudia bought the house eleven years ago and a charming house it is too.

But she, like my mum, is an avid gardener and longs for an outdoor space that doesn't face north and that is bigger than a 'postage stamp'! Her present garden is, of course, larger than a postage stamp but only just and it faces north, so the little house is going to be sold, for a gardener, when the worm gets to her, HAS to have a garden!

In which to grow your own whatever, to pick your own berries, maybe a cherry or a plum and most certainly an apple of two! With the modern root stocks you can have 'Ballerina' trees which take up no space at all but bring bees a'buzzing into your garden in search of nectar.

She had done half of the run to North Greenwich on Thursday to see how long it would take to get there, she went as far as London Bridge which is the stop for, amongst other places, the Shard, Guy's Hospital and, of course, Borough Market.

Where she found Joe of Ellie's Dairy and as they chatted, she sampled a bit of her favourite cheese.. well, one of her two favourites! It is like Pecorino, which is made from Ewe's milk and truly slurpicious it is too, the other one she loves is Shaggy's, made in the style of a Camembert.. that's beyond slurpicious, if such a thing could be!

On her way to North Greenwich last night she stopped off at Borough Market  to collect some of these two cheeses to take with her to supper, she also had stashed in her bag, a large roll of Chocolate Salami.. well, I mean, you can't just turn up with nothing slurpy in your bag, can you?

But that salami had been made to a slightly different recipe, this one was made with Apricot flavoured Rum, she added two tablespoons of the chopped apricots which had soaked in rum for a year and a large handful of dried barberries. The result was a salami which was moist, unlike the one she makes normally which is harder, less sticky and much easier to roll!

Zoom.. went the Jubilee Line and she arrived at North Greenwich in no time at all and found the bus stop for the 129 or the 188 to take her on to Trafalgar Road.. but all the world and his wife were out in their cars last night and the bus crawled along. But get there she did with the help of two locals, one who told her where to get off and one who guided her almost to Claudia's front door.

Which was the door to a little early Georgian row house, with a knocked through front room and dining room, a proper wood burning stove.. such bliss.. a great kitchen, and beyond, a proper office in what used to be a downstairs bathroom.

The little house has done them proud.. it is an enchanting and very cosy home but it's now time to let another family have it, for as I wrote earlier.. a gardener has to have a garden! But a lot of ground was covered between these two old colleagues, for such a huge amount of catching up had to be done.. until Claudia looked at her watch and said "sweetie, you must go, otherwise no buses or tube" and zoom, she was back on the Jubilee line and heading for home.

Where I was still awake when she rolled down the stairs at 23.25! Huh.. this is getting to be a habit this staying out late lark! That's twice in two weeks she has left me alone to my own devices, no wonder I have no feathers, except two, on my tumtum.. yes, I have to confess, I have a bald stomach again. It's not the best look for Christmas, I have to admit. Do let's change the subject.. rapidly.

Today was windy! Lordy, how blowy and gusty it was out there today! The bedroom blind was up and I could see trees being blown about and leaves being ripped off by the force of old West Wind. She's going to call our big cousin Bruce who lives on the Isle of Man, for the weather up north is supposed to be reallyreally savage and they're due for a lot of snow.. shivver time! Winter is here.

But she made it to Parson's Green market to give Debbie Goat her weekly pot of Ishpol, she doesn't think it lasts her a week, for one pot certainly doesn't last us a week, but it is so good for you plus being such a fabulous taste, that anyone would be happy with just one tub.

What's going on this week? Not a great deal. Numpty builder has been rumbled, she sent photos of his unfinished work to the freeholder, and how about this! Numpty is being sent back to finish the work. Huh.. he'll be very grumpty, that's for sure!

But it will teach him that it is extremely unwise to try and cheat, for she knows that he quoted for trunking on the pipes and guess what? A camera does not lie and the photos she sent to the managing agents office were of bare pipes going up the wall and along the skirting boards.

We have another Gas engineer coming tomorrow to check the installation as well, so she has to stay home tomorrow morning until he's been, only then can she go to be weighed.. well, after last nights delicious roast chicken supper and copious amounts of goats cheese, of which she had two helpings, who knows what the scales will read. To be fair, she only ate a small bowl of steamed cabbage and carrots for lunch yesterday and they didn't sit down to supper until 8.00pm.

This morning it was grapefruit with which she started her day and black tea, neither of which are fattening, illegal or amoral! Which is what most 'nice' things are! She ate a slice of the apricot flavoured salami at Parson's Green and a smidgen of cheese, tonight she's had a bowl of miso and had some vegetables.

There is a half leg of kid on the stove with carrots, celariac, Hamburg parsley root, leeks, spices and herbs, it will cook very slowly until we go to bed over a low flame and then again tomorrow morning it will cook for several more hours, you cook goat slowly for a good length of time, it is a TOTALLY different meat to lamb.

So there we are.. at the beginning of another week, how time and the years ticktock by.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 29th, 2015.

SHE DIDN'T WALK FAR ENOUGH OR FAST ENOUGH BECAUSE..

This morning's scales told her she gained half a lb last week.. and was I surprised? No, for in one week if you cook and two slices of Buck Rarebit, two lots of toast, pan fried Scallops, go to dinner with friends and eat like a python, have two helpings of Malaysian dumplings, a large scones with thick cream, strawberry jam and two fried eggs on sourdough toast, you can't NOT gain weight!

But she knew she hadn't lost anything, old knee told her as did her stomach. The week before last she had enjoyed an unusually strange and very pleasant feeling of not being hungry but feeling empty, of feeling light and satisfied and, as you know, at the end of that week, she lost 3lbs.

She keeps a (very honest) food diary, everything she eats is written down, so she has just looked back and seen that she had drunk more water, eaten more steamed and raw vegetables, had had fruit for breakfast, protein of fish and a tiny bit of meat was cooked simply, she hadn't mixed protein and starch at the same meal and she hadn't eaten any bread.

Ah well, this week she'll revert to eating as before, for you cannot eat like a python and lose weight. I had better explain this expression for you. Pythons have the ability to unlock their jaws, this enables them to swallow huge amounts of food and she, unfortunately, has the same ability, if something is truly delicious she'll have a second helping, not because she's hungry, but because she likes the taste.

She went to the market and bought carrots, purple sprouting brocolli, miniature button mushrooms, lemons and grapefruits. Water comes out of a tap, for which she is always grateful. No more coffee, it was a treat yesterday but she's not sure that it does her insides a great deal of good and she has to admit that, apart from the odd longing for a short, strong black, she doesn't miss it.

She has fish and meat in the frosty larder, which means there's plenty of good stuff for us to eat this week, she'll buy a new pot of hummus during the week but that's for me.

Back to her target loss of 14lbs, if she were Pat, it would be possible by Christmas, for Pat has never gained and has now lost over 2.5 stones (35lbs) in 18 weeks. Sigh.. if she wasn't so sweet and had promised her a pine green woolly knitted hat for Christmas, she'd be envious. But you can't be envious of Pat, for she's lovely and very funny!

Yes, only another 14 lbs (a stone) to go and she'll be down to her first target weight, she used to weigh less but being older she'll see how her face looks. Old dodgy knees, of course, want her to be as light as possible but as she discussed with Pat, Pauline and Anthony when they all first met and talked about what they wanted to lose, who knows when it will be like when I get there? Note that I wrote 'when' and not 'if'!

Her Gastro team and her vascular teams are both happy with her weight loss. Every body is under much less pressure if it isn't lugging around huge amounts of excess weight and every 7lbs is a bag of Winalot dried dog food in her mind! And she's lost 3.5 of those bags so far!

She was late coming back from the market and it was going to be a rush to get changed and up to the British Library for Mulled Wine and Pince Mies.. is it possible to eat just ONE? She doubts it and therefore nipped that plan in the bud.. she'll have a couple over the Christmas holiday for sure but is going to focus on her weight loss and a couple of glasses of Mulled Wine and a few (?) Pince Mies would not have helped.

It isn't as if she doesn't know what they taste like! For Constance was a Master Baker and made exquisite Christmas food. She started off by making her mince meat in the late summer and then it sat  in big Kilner jars steeping in white rum.. what a great smell that was.. until needed.

She also made charming miniature marzipan fruits. Perfect in size and shape and beautifully painted with food colouring. A friend of my mum's in the mid 60's was in charge of catering at the Institute of Directors, he came to have supper with her just after Constance had given her some of these fruits.

He could not believe how exquisite they were and said so, she said "write to my mother and ask her if she'll make them for you, I know that she supplies a small delicatessen and she might make them for you as well", he bought as much as Constance could produced each week and was horrified when she told him she was moving to Spain in 1973.

Hers are good but not a patch on her mothers', neither is her pastry, which is a good thing as it stops her wanting to make things for which you need pastry.. fatteningly delicious things.. like a quiche Lorraine. She saw one the other day and remembered eating them at home, hot or cold, they were divine.

I have never tasted one so I am lucky, I guess. Or maybe not, who knows but we won't be having any quiche in this house until she's lost this 14lbs and then it will only be a slice, if I'm lucky! Don't feel too sorry for me, for I know there's a fresh tub of Goaty curd in the chilly white larder with my name on it!

Now I have to see what's going on in YumYum HQ, we are having an early night, it is bitterly cold out there, she has a couple of unread library books with which to amuse herself and I've her head to sit upon and will doze.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 23rd, 2015.

THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR WALKING.. SANG NANCY SINATRA..

Buses up the creek meant she was delayed getting up to Marylebone today but fear not, there were still dumplings to be had and cheesey nibbles to be nibbled. She produced all manner of exciting things out of WW, sadly, one of the most exciting.. a small bottle of homemade apricot flavoured rum had leaked!

And so the bottle was no longer full! Sigh.. but there were six rolls of pretty ribbon to deliver and two large slices of chocolate salami to have as an extra pudding after dumplings. So they didn't starve.. joke.. starve, these two? It's like that other dreadful word that starts with an S.. share!

Tom was manning Selina's stall, he forgot to come and gives them their dumplings, so she had to go back again to his stall, but perhaps it was better because she was in control of the amount of chilli sauce being put on to them and she didn't put on quite as much as he does.

The day had started off bright and sunny but then old Wicked Wind from the East came out to play and the temperature dropped and it clouded over. But with chilli in throat, swiftly followed by a 'proper' scone, double cream and strawberry jam as pudding, the day was happy at Marylebone Farmer's Market.

A generous stall holder gave them a loaf each of sourdough as she had some left and wanted to pack up, sadly she had forgotten to get over to the organic veg stall to but some of the delicious Sprouting Greens that she loves, when she thought about them, they had all gone.

Never mind, Ted's Veg at Parson's Green might have them next Sunday.

But that's next week end which is a long way away. What's going on this week? Well, after weighing in tomorrow at 1.00pm, she off to the British Library to celebrate Christmas (I know it's a bit early but you've got to get your eye in for nabbing the best pince mies).

Tuesday she's doing a run to Baldwins, the Herbalists on the Walworth Road at Elephant & Castle, she needs to stock up on tinctures and find a couple of Christmas gifts, for which Baldwins are just wonderful!

Other stuff has to happen as well.. but now it's very late and time for me to go to bed.. but you're all wondering about the title of this post, aren't you?

Well, you see, dumplings are small little things and two helpings don't take up much room in your tummy, but when you have added a big mug of coffee, her first in two months(!), a large, quite dense scone + jam + thick double cream + a large slice of chocolate salami.. you get the drift, full stomach.

So having walked through Manchester Square and up on to Oxford Street by way of Baker Street, she thought.. heyho, it's weigh-in tomorrow morning, I think I'd better walk home and luckily, quess what she was wearing?

Comfy boots with a stacked heel.. and indeed, those boots are made for walking and walk they did, they walked her all the way home.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 22nd, 2015.

Post Script: I smelt chilli on her breath when she kissed me upon arriving home and I had a quick look.at her teeth but there wasn't anything, not a morsel was to be had.. she'd scoffed the lot.

AT A QUARTER TO MIDNIGHT.. IS NO TIME TO BE WRITING ON MY BLOG.

THAT, Dear Readers, was the time she and Wicker Wheelie came home last night! They left home at five o'clock, WW laden to his brim with all manner of things. The largest item being something that had been in her family for over forty years!

In the late sixties, when Jaeger clothes were beautifully made using Enlish fabrics, Constance had bought herself a glorious jacket, it was made of multi-coloured Linton fabric, who make a lot of fabrics for Chanel amongst other couture houses and the edges were bound in black woollen braid.

When she went to live in Spain, she left it with her to keep as a jacket for when she came back to visit family and friends in England as it surely wasn't something that she would use on the Costa del Sol. As my mum got older and a little bigger and Constance got old and a little smaller, she lost nearly four inches in height after the accident (another Tale), it was then given to my mum.

Constance was slightly taller than her daughter with a broader back and a larger bone structure. When mum was heavier, it fitted her perfectly but having lost 25 + lbs, when she went to wear the jacket last week, she realised it made her look like 'Orphan Annie' and decided it was time the jacket went to a new home.

Last night she went to dinner with a dear friend, Ann, whom she met through Singing With Dementia and it was to her that mum decided that she would give the, by now vintage, pretty Jaeger jacket.

Along with the jacket in WW were a big bag of empty jam jars, a hostess present and a bottle of Black Seed Oil, for Ann's husband Roy has arthritis.

Clank, clank, off they went and hopped on the little C1 bus which took them to Victoria Train Station, a not too crowded train took them to Streatham Hill Station where Roy picked them up and shortly afterwards, she was at their charming house way up on the hill above Streatham.

She kissed Ann hello and then produced the jacket. "Oh, how pretty" said Ann and tried it on immediately. It was funny, but she looked like Constance for a nano-second, same shape, similar colouring, same height. The colours were perfect and Roy said "that's a glorious fabric ..., what's the story, it's vintage, isn't it?" A true Yorkshireman always knows good cloth when he sees it!

It made her happy to think that a good friend will be wearing this much loved and old family coat, that it wasn't going to sit in her cupboard unworn or given away to a shop where someone would buy it and not take care of the beautiful fabric.. yes, she does get sentimental about the strangest things.

The jam jars were very well received! For Ann is a wonderful jam and jelly maker. She gave mum three jars, Apple and Mint jelly, Quince jelly and Seville Orange Marmalade. Then she gave Ann her hostess gift. A pack of six jars of Pate from Lidl, Duck, Venison, Pork times two of each. They produce them every year around this time and, Dear Readers, they are delicious.

Ann and Roy have just returned from two days in Berlin.. Rosamund, a kind friend who lives there, had been sweet enough to email Ann to give her pointers on what to do and where to go.

After seeing various photos (which she had asked to see), supper was ready, yum-slurp, root vegetable soup with ginger! Oh, just the thing on a cold night with the forecast of freezing temperatures and snow on its' way! Brrr. Then veal escalopes.. beaten and breaded! Ann, Dear Readers, is a SERIOUSLY good cook and they were.. perfect!

A tart Tatine with creme fraiche and coffee and photos of a mini cruise which they had taken just before Berlin which went to Copenhagen, Hamburg and somewhere else. These two take great photos! And as she has been to Copenhagen but not to Hamburg or the other place and they all love architecture, she loved seeing these cities.

She loathes it when people insist on her looking at 'Selfies'.. but these shots of Berlin with external and internal photos of Foster's new dome on the Reichstag kept her happy for many a minute!

Whoops.. look at the time! Eleven o'clock.. hurry scurry.. kisses to Ann, into the car with WW and zoom down the hill to Streatham Hill Station, Roy was kissed and thanked, she caught the train to Victoria, no bus, it was now raining, "come along WW, we're not going to stand here getting wet, we might as well walk home and be there before a bus get's here" and with that, she set off for home.

And passing in front of the Spanish Embassy, she laughed and thought 'what must I look like?', for she was dressed in Ralph Lauren black leather trousers, a chic dog-toothed wool jacket, her favourite Roman black walking shoes, "Thanks Zaira".. walking in the rain pulling a wicker trolley through Belgravia at a quarter to midnight!

And that, Dear Readers, explains why Friday night's post was written on Saturday morning!

GeeGee Parrot.
November 21st, 2015.
Post Script: November 20th, 1975. Death of El Caudillo.. aka General Franco of Spain. 

PAN FRIED SCALLOPS..

She went off to change books at the library and came back with things I've never seen before.. "They're called scallops GeeGee and yes, they're fish but are called Shellfish because they live in a beautiful shell".

She steamed a bag of skinny little beans and tossed them in a little oil with a minute amount of crushed garlic and seasoning, then taking a medium sized frying pan, she lit the gas and allowed the pan to heat up before adding a little oil and salt and pepper.

She plopped the scallops around the pan, waited a minute, then turned them over, the bottoms were beautifully coloured, the smell was delicious, she slid the beans out of their pan onto a dinner plate, turned off the gas and removed the scallops from the frying pan, a squeeze of lemon went over them and we settled down to our supper.

Ooh.. so sweet, so soft, such a deliciously light thing to eat. Yes, they're expensive but you don't need to buy kilos of them, your fishmonger will sell you just a couple, we had six and it was a big treat.

Tomorrow she is out for supper but she will start Saturday's supper tomorrow morning, I know that sounds a bit weird but she is making us a chicken stew with root vegetables, including, of course, our favourite Hamburg Parsley. She starts the stew of by making a stock out of a bunch of assorted root vegetables.

They look just like a skinny parsnip but their taste is completely different and simply fabulous! The only place she has ever found them and that has them regularly throughout the late autumn, winter and into the spring is our much beloved Polish food shop, Bartek Express, which is on the Central Parade, Streatham High Street, very near to St.Leonard's Church.

Other treats came home from Bartek as well, a pot of fresh Sauerkraut (slurp) and two big pots of IshPol Salad, one for her and one for Debbie Goaty mum, for this Sunday.. it's Dumpling Day at Marylebone Farmer's Market! Gosh, that last month has just zoomed by!

And tomorrow she has to make a couple of Chocolate Salami, one to take with her tomorrow night to give as a hostess gift and the other one is to give to our lovely Lebanese friend who is due back from Paris this week end.

Scallops.. Hamburg Parsley.. Buck Rarebit.. this week we've eaten foods for the Gods (and for us), Dear Readers, go and find yourself some really good food suppliers, buy fresh food and cook it properly / simply, OR, push the boat out a bit and make a beautiful sauce, actually, a puree would have gone very well with those scallops but we were too hungry to wait for any root vegetables to cook.

Now it's our bed time, she's got to go to put her eye drops in and refill her water bottle and I'm off to my bed and will post again tomorrow.. PipPip.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 19th, 2015.

FOR OUR ANNIVERSARY SUPPER, SHE MADE ONE OF MARCUS WARING'S SKILL TESTS FROM PROFESSIONAL MASTERCHEF.. BUCK RAREBIT!

Blimey! She came down the steps as if old Nick himself was behind her instead of Wicker Wheelie!

For weatherwise it is truly a dreadful day out there, exactly how it was eleven years ago, if you haven't read my previous post, you should know that today, November 18th, is our anniversary, we have now been together for eleven years.

Last night she watched Professional Masterchef. The skill test set by Marcus Waring was Buck Rarebit, she had forgotten about this delicious dish and her mouth watered instantly for she knew it well as Hugo had loved this dish and made it beautifully.

Watching Marcus making it last night was just like watching her father cooking all those years ago in the family kitchen.. butter, flour, milk, egg yolk, cheddar cheese, salt, pepper, worcestershire sauce, hot mustard, home made bread drizzled with oil and rubbed with crushed garlic, bread toasted, sauce spread thickly onto toast and grilled, a soft fried egg put on top.. and eaten with many slurpy slurps!

She bought a small sour dough loaf this afternoon on her way home from the paint shop and when she'd shed her wet clothes and put them to dry on the towel rail, she set to making us a Buck Rarebit. It was tasty, very tasty, we like tasty food in this house and it made me think, I wonder how many other tasty dishes has she forgotten?

What other delicious tastes are lying uncreated and untasted by old Beaky in our kitchen? For now we tend to eat quite plain food, freekeh instead of potatoes or rice, an enormous amount of steamed vegetables, griddled or steamed fish, she eats much more fish than red meat.

And it has been nearly five months since she ate or has cooked with any butter! So she made the Buck Rarebit carefully with love and great attention to the various tastes and we both ate it slowly, with relish.

You don't necessarily have or need to 'splash the cash' on a special day or anniversary, what you do need to do is to spend a happy time with your loved one and perhaps cook something delicious and for us today, that Buck Rarebit was just that.. a tasty, delicious version of cheese on toast.

It's been a Happy Anniversary.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 18th, 2015.

OUR ANNIVERSARY! YES, WE'VE BEEN TOGETHER FOR ELEVEN YEARS.

Parrot and woman, Blondie and GeeGee. The years are tick-tocking by and she's had CAG's in her life for twenty seven years. First there was Darling Dagga Parrot, they were together for over sixteen years and and now me and our eleven.. yup, that makes twenty seven and a half years.

And yesterday was a day pretty much like the one when she drove up to Shropshire to collect me, what a drive back to London that was! The British weather at its' very worst, heavy rain lashing down, it was so awful even the huge trucks on the M1 were driving slowly, visibility was dreadful but we lived to tell the tale and here we are.

The surveyor was here yesterday.. nice man, very competent and thorough, luckily it was tipping it down with rain when he arrived so he could actually see where, because of a builder's sloppy work, the rain was dripping onto brickwork and oh, lookielookie, someone had forgotten to seal underneath a window sill, so water was seeping into a wall.

That didn't make him very happy, neither did the quality of the damp-proof work which had been done.

Wizard called yesterday, they had a long chat, he called to say that he is thrilled with those 'wages' of the Slow Cooker and the Pasta Machine! The Slow Cooker means that he has a scrummy hot supper waiting for him when he gets home, sometimes late at night.

In the old days, he was often too tired to cook a meal, he'd grab a piece of toast or a take-a-way but now, he assembles everything in the morning, sets a timer and comes home to a proper meal. And lots and lots of delicious Pasta.. he'd made something wonderful with the Goaty curd and wanted to know where he could get it, "Borough Market, go and find Ellie's Dairy's stand, see Jo and tell him I sent you" she said.

"I'm back off to Berlin on Friday, back on December 4th, then off to Australia on December 6th, back here on January 6th, I'll do your cupboards in January and I'll go to Jo, get some curd and make and bring you some tortellini, would that be ok?" he asked. She said "Slurp".

Then he asked her about the heating and hot water installation and was appalled to hear about the extent of bare piping that was surface mounted on the wall. As was Steve, the Freeholders OWN surveyor, who took lots of photos of it and said "these bare pipes will go in my report as well, this level of work is beyond disgraceful!"

The surveyor and she were both flumoxed yesterday.. the huge tin of whitewash could not be opened! The tin has a new fangled security device keeping it shut and neither of them, who have obviously opened a few tins of paint in their time, were able to get it open! So she has to take it back to the store for them to show her how to do this.

That means she lost a painting day but never mind, she's mentally written off entertaining or having friends to stay until January comes along, for she knows that if she puts everything back in the stash hole, she'll never get the painting done, whereas, if everything is left in the sitting room, she'll have all the prep-work done properly for when Wizard is back in January.

Which is in less than two months time.. yes folks, old Father Time is a'tick-tocking away.. and 2016 is fast approaching and then I'll be twelve but for now, I'm quite happy being eleven, like she's quite happy being sixty five!

Fancy that!

GeeGee Parrot.
November 18th, 2015.
Post Script: CAG stands for Congolese African Grey.

DO YOU WANT THE BAD NEWS OR THE GOOD NEWS FIRST?

Let's have the good news first..

I'm freeeeeee.. yes, my mum came to the aviary on Saturday, paid a small king's ransom and I was released from jail. Oh, hallelujah! And from that piece of news you can surmise that the builders have finished.. that's a joke, if ever there was one!

Would you, Dear Reader, work with painted woodwork, finished in high gloss white paint, with dirty hands? I don't think so, but numpty did and so the replaced ceiling is covered with grimy black sticky marks.

He hasn't painted, or even undercoated the newly installed tanking, it is there in all its' glory of raw unfinished mdf! And the down piping, which she knows he charged the freeholder extra money to be tanked, is just there in all its' bare copper glory.. haha, but a camera doesn't lie and she's taken some crackers of photos showing his shoddy work to be kept for the right moment to display in all their gruesome glory.

But, let's not look upon this in a negative way, because if she is painting it, she can do it in the colour she wants and it won't be done in some gruesome tone that they would undoubtedly choose and the flat IS snug and warm. In fact, we are so unused to having a warm bedroom, she's had to turn that radiator right down to its' lowest mark.

And what day is it today? Why, it's Monday, the day she goes to get weighed and.. drum roll please.. she lost another 3 lbs last week! How she lost anything when yesterday she and Debbie Goat ate three slices of Chocolate Salami and a Pince Mie.. work it out.. AND she slurped any morsel of cheese that was passed or given to her.

That makes a total of 25 lbs that she has lost, so she's a'getting there. But the thing she is reallyreally pleased, nay thrilled, about is that she's lost 7.5" off her waist! This afternoon she went to the market and got: apples, pomegranates, persimmons, lemons, Agen prunes (yum), spring greens, yellow and red very small beets and a big radicchio (lovely raw or very lightly steamed) and a big pot of fresh hummus for me.

She has the paint and brushes etc with which to do the white wash on the boiler room walls and will start on it tomorrow morning, she has to be at home for there is a surveyor coming tomorrow at 2pm to investigate the damp. She'll also point out other things that he should, or has to, be aware of.

The bad news? Well, you'd have to be on a deserted island with no communication to have missed what happened last Friday in Paris. She's checked her family and friends that are there, they're safe. It brought back to memories of her birthday on July 7th, 2005 when London was attacked.

We pray for those extremely seriously injured people in the hospitals and for the souls of those who were slaughtered. And, of course, for the people and families who have lost their friends and relatives.

Vayo con Dios, Dear Readers, it means 'Go with God'.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 16th, 2015.

JACQUELINE ONASSIS & HAMSTERS. WHAT'S THE CONNECTION?

Her name was Hamina, she was furry, small, apricot coloured and much beloved by the whole family.

Hugo adored her, as did Constance, human uncle ~ whom you should know by now is never named ~ had been known to hold and stroke her with a slightly foolish look on his face but as for my mum, well, as far as Hamina was concerned in family pecking order, she was on a level footing with Balu the Labrador and James the cat.

What was she? Haven't you guessed? Her name should give you the clue. Hamina was a Hamster.

She lived in the kitchen but usually spent most of her day on someone's shoulder or in a pocket, Hugo often had her with him in his pocket in his old country jacket, which had deep pockets and many of them and he would take her in to Tenterden and so Hamina got to meet a lot of people.

There was a particular friend of Hugo, John Byron, who would smile and say "is Hammie with you as I have some yumyum for her" and he would go up to his kitchen, he lived above his shop and come back with some delicious edible treat for his small furry friend. The two antique dealers would then sit, drink LapSang tea and talk business whilst their furry friend would scamper about on John's desk.

Hugo who had an over vivid imagination at the best of time and should have gone into set design, except that the war interferred with his career, built her the most delicious house, it had several floors, including the all-important wheel without which a Hamster's life would not be complete, he also made her a metal slide!

Now how, or why, Hugo knew that Hammie would even look at a slide will never be known but taking a small amount of metal, he beat into shape, fixed it to a platform and added a little wooden ladder, a Hamster sized ladder.

There came the Grand Day of The Slide Opening and John Bryon and Winnie, who was their daily and had given Hamina to my mum for her birthday, were invited to tea. The kitchen table was huge, the tea was at one end and the slide was put at the other.

My mum picked her up and plonked Hamine half way up the ladder, she knew she'd climb up it as she adored the other ladders that Hugo had made for her but would she trot along the little platform and come sliding down the metal shute?

She climbed up the rest of the ladder, sat up and surveyed the party, looked at the yumyum, all her favourite people and she reckoned the fastest way down was by this shiny thing and plunged head first! And she 'got' it, for she immediately clambered up the steps and whizzed down again!

John said "If it survives her teeth, in fifty years time someone will wonder who made it and what the hell is it?" and the party dissolved with laughter!

Now.. I know you're wondering what on earth the connection is between Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis and a Hamster? Read on Dear Readers, read on.. for this is a cute Tale!

For many years she had a lovely friend called Carolyn Blakemore, who lived in NYC and worked as a senior editor for the publishing house Doubledays. (She worked on all of Barbara Taylor Bradford's books besides other best selling authors and died about two years ago, a lovely, generous woman).

Mrs. Onassis came to work at Doubleday after leaving Viking, another publishing house. ,

She knew from Carolyn that Mrs. Onassis mostly worked from her home and so was literally 'gob smacked' when, one day in the late 80's, she went to collect Carolyn for lunch, from the offices on Park Avenue, she saw who was coming with her, holding out her hand and saying "Hello, I'm Jacqueline and I hope you don't mind, I'm gate crashing your lunch".

The three of them walked around the corner to a small restaurant where Carolyn and she always ate and were seated at a table towards the back. Mrs. Onassis sat with her back to the restaurant facing them.

Lunch was pleasant, with talk of dance, horses and antiques. Mrs. Onassis has worked as the editor on a recently published best seller, the autobiography of Gelsey Kirkland called on 'Dancing on my grave', read the book. Gelsey Kirkland is an extremely famous (retired) American ballerina.

She noticed something interesting about her, which was that she cut her food up into small pieces and chewed each piece many times before swallowing it and putting another piece of food into her mouth to eat.

Mrs. Onassis left first, she got up, handed Carolyn a $20 bill and said "I'm out of the office for a couple of days but I will see you on Thursday, ....., I enjoyed our lunch and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your stay in New York", smiled at them both and was gone.

My mum sat and looked at Carolyn and said "You could have warned me!", Carolyn laughed and said "why, you can be a bit too shy sometimes for your own good and she is an interesting and highly intelligent person in her own right, horses, dance, antiques, you both like the same things, did you notice any awkard pauses in our conversation, because I didn't?"

And with that, they left the restaurant and went off to see an exhibition at MOMA and whilst walking to the Museum, she said to Carolyn, "she eats in a slightly 'strange' way, have you noticed this?".

Carolyn laughed and replied "I know exactly what you're talking about and this is why, Jacqueline knows that there could be a camera pointed at her at any time when she's out and so she only puts very small amounts of food into her mouth at one time, for she doesn't want to be caught on camera with what she calls 'Hamster' cheeks".

Hamster cheeks.. don't you love it! And, if you know Hamsters, you'll know exactly what 'Jackie O' meant!

GeeGee Parrot.
November 12th, 2015.

JUST A LITTLE BIT.. JUST A LITTLE BIT!

Those lines came from a song from the film My Fair Lady.. and it involved 'just a little bit, just a little bit of bloomin' luck'. She lost 'just a little bit' last week but hey, it was a loss, not a gain! She's lost 22lbs and has less than that to go to get down to her target wight.. yippee.

The numpty idiot arrived at 09.15am this morning, she saw his car outside, opened the door, went back into our bedroom and shut the door. She spent the day quietly in bed, last night our much beloved big cousin Bruce called, he had had the same proceedure and gave her an extremely good piece of advice on how to handle the pain, which strong pain killers were not touching.

So she slept well and just let numpty 'get on with it' or rather 'not get on with it'!

She read papers, answered emails, wrote emails to friends, cleared out in and out boxes, did some paper work, cleared out a cupboard. She had a stash of fruit and lots of water in the room and didn't see or speak to the men until just before 6.00pm.

She opened her door and went down the hall to where the front door was, of course, wide open, the floor littered with tools and saw dust (?) and said "What time are you finishing and what time will be you arrive tomorrow?"

The assistant who had never seen her before jumped as if she had shot him! God knows what numpty had told him about the 'dragon' who was behind the bedroom door and numpty was looking guilty, he knows that she is angry beyond belief.

"Would 8 o'clock be ok?" he asked, she replied "yes and shut the front door behind you when you leave please", she turned on her heel and went back into the bedroom shutting the door.

She sat on her bed and watched them go up the stairs. She waited a few minutes and went down to the bathroom to see what they had done, for these two grown men who had been here for 9 hours. Oh look, the time clock has been wired into the new boiler, then she opened the front door to see what they had done with reference to the flues. Oh look, they had boxed in the flue!

Well.. that's not very much work for two grown men to have done in nine hours, is it? Ceiling is gaping, not yet repaired, old flue in the old boiler room has not yet been blocked up, skirting board in the sitting room has not been replaced and the crumbly wall at the bottom of the new boiler cupboard has not been hacked out or resurfaced.

But never mind, because the surveyor is coming next Tuesday to measure for damp and she is going to show him this, for it is a party wall with the next door house and it is important that they are aware of the damage. So it truly was "just a little bit" of work that they had done!

And she ate 'just a little bit' today, after drinking a mug of hot water with the juice of a lemon, she chewed (many many times) a small amount of prunes for breakfast and had three beautiful pears for lunch, she drank lots of water but no tea. It is good to give your digestive system a rest now and again and she's does this frequently now.

Supper was a small bowl of various steamed vegetables and a handful of delicious prawns with lots of garlic and fresh ginger but to her shock.. horror.. she didn't finish it.. she ate.. just a little bit.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 11th, 2015.

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A BRITISH DAME.. & GEORGE IS BACK, YIPPEE.. NOW WHERE WAS I? DEAR READERS, I WASN'T ANYWHERE 'COS I'M STILL IN JAIL !

Back out there, my poor mum had a medical proceedure done today, she's home in bed and I'm stuck here in prison 'cos those idiots haven't finished the building or rather, the rebuilding, work.

When Wizard asked her how it was going, she said "Oh Rob, it's like watching gloss paint dry, boring and very slow".

I cannot sit on her head or play the fool to cheer her up, so life is a tad dismal for both of us. Even more dismal for her because no one warned her that she might be in pain for a couple of days.. grrr.

Anyway, enough of all that sad stuff.. what has amused or educated us recently? Well.. She watched a great programme on British Dames, real Dames! If I said Dame Judi, Dame Diana and Dame Maggie, would you know of whom I speak?

I refer, of course, to our incredible actresses, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Diana Rigg and Dame Maggie Smith, the programme also featured Vanessa Redgrave but she ain't a Dame, although she is in my book, apparently she did not want to be Dame'd.

It was a great programme with wonderful photography of London in the 50's and 60's. She came to London in 1967, when it was well in its' way to recovery but it was an entirely different city to what it looks like now.

She has been so lucky to see all of the before mentioned actresses on the stage as well as in films, Vanessa Redgrave in 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' in 1966 and thought her amazing, in fact so amazing, that she has never wanted to see the film version in which Maggia Smith played the role.

Other stage work, she's seen Judi Dench, 1971 in The Merchant of Venice at Stratford, Diana Rigg, 1971 in Abelard & Heloise, London. Maggie Smith in Anthony & Cleopatra at Stratford, can't remember the year, sometime in the 70's. Bill was a avid theatre (and ballet) goer, whenever he was here they went to lots and lots of plays.

Who remembers Maxime Audley and Paul Jones, of the pop group Manfred Mann, in 'Conduct Unbecoming', but that was before Bill, she saw it with Trevor Dawson and wife, who was her date for the evening? Not the faintest idea, it was sometime in the summer of 1969 she thinks.

And who is George? Ah, well, he is a very popular BBC Newscaster whose name is George Alagiah. He has been off our screens whilst battling cancer, tonight is his first night back on the 6 o'clock news.. "welcome back George".

The idiot's back tomorrow, she's been told to stay very quiet by her surgeon, so she intends to let numpty in, shut her door and hope they get on with it! She'll keep an eye on the outer stairs because they have been known to go off to get or have lunch and just leave the front door open.. grrrr.

But that's tomorrow and we're not there yet! So let's hope that her pain lessens soon so she cheers up and hopefully, she has a new book to read. Me? I've got Growly to amuse me, he is so silly!

GeeGee Parrot.
November 10th, 2015.

EAT YOUR GREENS, ALL OF THEM!

And your purples, reds, oranges and your yellows! Ooh, it would be just delicious to be tucking into our favourite Sunday night supper. A BIG bowl of all manner of vegetables steamed and mixed in with freekeh.

With garlic, smoked paprika, olive oil and lots of pepper and allspice, it keeps us and our tumtums happy. Whilst waiting for freekeh to cook, we nibble on raw yellow beetroot, very crisp and crunchy, the smaller the better, they're deliciously sweet and extremely good for you.

As are collards. We were lucky, a friend sent us some seeds from America, so she grew them for many years but the last lot she planted didn't come up, she needs to get new seeds.

Here is a fascinating vegetable website.. whfoods.org. The page detailing what collards contain in the way of healthy stuff is extraordinary, I cannot think why they are not grown in Europe.

As you know, I am still in prison and there's no great scape plan being plotted yet, she lonely without me and I miss her and my comfy warm perch.. aka her head. She got an email from Wizard asking if everything had been been finished, she nearly cried, because if dearest Wizard had been doing this, it would have all been done beautifully and finished last week end.

She's busy with medical stuff on Monday and seeing her surgical team on Tuesday, yes, they've now decided she has to have a small operation. So no builders here until Wednesday. She can't and won't leave them here by themselves, she came back one day last week and found they had gone off for lunch leaving the front door wide open!

Grrrrr.

Nothing else to report.. boring.. Growly can't hold a tune and I'm bored of being in this silly cage and want to go home.. sigh. Stay happy & healthy.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 8th, 2015.

DUE TO THE GAPING HOLE.. I'M HAVING TO STAY IN 'PRISON'..

Yes, Dear Readers, the ineptitude of stupid Richard means that I will not be released from prison.. aka the aviary today. You can well imagine my thoughts on that bit of news I received a few minutes ago.

With the gaping hole above the front door and that door wide open to the elements, it wouldn't be wise for me to return home, sad but true. So it is lucky that I am amongst friends, for, whereas, I am having to eat bird food and drink plain water, instead of human fodder and LapySang tea, at least I am being fed, watered, am warm and being cared for.

Growly and I are next door to each other and we can and do make an alarming amount of noise when we put our bird brains to it, I have been trying, in vain, to teach him my favourite song Farewell, adieu, auf wiedersein, goodbye but he hasn't 'got' it yet but never fear, I'll keep trying.

She.. aka my mum.. is trying to sort some of this mess out. But until the remedial works are finished, she really doesn't stand a chance. For instance, the heating pipes, in all their coppery glory, now run along skirting boards and until they're painted and dry, she cannot move the furniture back against the walls.

The demi-lune table which lives in the hall with a lamp on it cannot go back because that is where stupid Richard's (grrrrr) tools are scattered about. The linen cupboards contents, who knows where they will go, as that has disappeared because the new boiler is in there.

And that stupid man, before mentioned, doesn't seem to realise that shelves are necessary for bath towels and 'preferably' the shelves should be in the bathroom. Oi vey.. as I say.

Ok.. rant over. What's happening? Well, timber strips can be bought in preparation for when the work is finished and she can rack up the storage space. Whitewash can be bought with which to brighten up said space, a new colour can be chosen with which to paint the bathroom.

She's going for a pale stone-white. When everything else is finished and she can get on and do her own re-decorating, she will change the bathroom flooring and together with this, the wall colour will look crisp and pretty especially with white and her favourite Duck Egg blue towels.

Today being the first Saturday of the month, she will go and chat to Anthony who mans Ellie's Dairy in Bute Street, South Kensington between 10.00am until 2.00pm. Then Debbie Goat will appear at some time between 2.30pm and 3.15pm to collect that stall and mama can give her a pot of IshPol.

Which reminds me, I have never told you the origin of IshPol, well, I will but it won't be today. In fact, you'll have to wait until I'm home again so that I can befreshed of the story by herself.

Home again, home again, jiggedyjig. That would have been SO nice to go home today but never mind.. well, I do but t'aint nuthin' I can do about it. Except make an ethigy of a lazy, stupid worker (you know his name) and stick feathers into it.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 7th, 2015.

HILDEN LINENS.. AND A PERFECT NIGHT'S SLEEP.

Ooh, I cannot wait to get home, for apart from being incarcerated in my cage at the aviary for more days than I was told I'd be, I hear through the grapevine that she's bought herself a couple of new blankets!

Since dispensing with the continental quilts and going back to 'old fashioned' sheets and blankets, her sleep pattern has greatly improved and this has to be a good thing!

Continental quilts, or duvets as they are now usually called, enable you to 'make' your bed quickly but if you are a sleeper whose feet and legs wander about in your sleep, sooner or later, the quilt starts to walk over to the other side and inevitably, some part of you will end up cold.

So back came a top sheet, two old Vellux blankets and an American comforter. (These are wider than an eiderdown but used in the same way over blankets). They had been in an old laundry basket under the bed along with three school trunks. Now you understand why the bed is up on this frame! It allows for this huge amount of storage.

One of the Vellux blankets had been stored in its' original plastic blanket bag.. oh dear! Not a good thing! For it had begun to crack and separate. Vellux blankets were an extraordinary invention, they are toasty warm, come in pretty colours and, Dear Readers, are washable and, in fact, get better with each wash. BUT, as she has found to her cost, they don't like being shut up in a plastic bag for years!

She looked on-line for a replacement but as she wanted the same colour and there were so many bad reviews about this colour being returned because of streaking and patchy colouring, she gave up. She bought hers on a trip to the States over twenty five years ago and had been able to check the blankets before she bought them, they were King sized.

Humm.. she thought, ok, let's look at hotel quality bedding and pressed enter.. and up sprang a huge list of suppliers who cater for the hotel and restaurant trade. And then a little bit further down the screen was the name of a company she has known for at least thirty five years.. Hilden Linens of Lancashire. They've been supplying the hotel and restaurant trade for a veryvery long time.

Napkins, glass (tea) towels, sheets.. she's bought a lot of their products over the years and all because of a business card. A long time ago a friend of hers was dating a man called Tim, who invited  her to a drinks party at which she met a charming woman called Wendy Sharples, they exchanged cards, Wendy's card said she worked for Hilden Linens.

"Because you never know, you may either be up in our neck of the woods in Lancashire or you may like to buy some of our products" said Wendy. And as I've just told you, she has bought a lot of stuff from them over the years. Scarlet and dark green napkins for Christmas, old fashioned glass towels of which she has bought, and given away, dozens, they're mindblowingly expensive to buy in shops and they make great presents!

One of her recipient uses them as napkins! And they're brilliant for picnics.

So there they were.. 'hotel blankets' she thought and clicked on the link. Yes, they did them, not the same quality as a Vellux but hey, at this price, they'll do until she gets to the States again, if she ever does, and if she doesn't, well, these will be just fine!

And lookielookie.. there were proper old fashioned pillowcase (with zippers) protectors, blanket bags and other such useful household linen items, all at extremely good prices.. a sign said 'click on this link and get an automatic 10% forever', it was duly clicked.. by the way, blanket bags (with zips) are perfect for storing your summer or winter clothes in along with a couple of lavender or cedar sachets.

Two king sized blankets in a pretty blue, they didn't have the darker colour, two pairs of pillow protectors, six blankets bags in which she'll store her fabrics. Whizz went the online order and an email arrived from Hildens saying that her order would be with her in two days time.

The big box was brought home from MailBoxEtc by WW.. our bed was stripped, clean sheets and the new blankets made her bed, look! Big generously sized blankets, the fabric showing that they will be better after a wash or two but for now, she just wanted to test their weight, for you don't want a blanket to be too heavy.

Supper, wash, pjs on and into bed. Initial response? Nice weight. Light out, go to sleep. Woke up at a sensible hour to make tea and let the guys in at 08.15, no, they haven't finished yet, there's still no ceiling and there's that gaping hole above the front door.

But how did she sleep? Ah, a perfect night's sleep, warm but not too hot.. in fact, she could have been in a very good hotel's bed. And blankets really ARE the best, why? Because I can run about and play the fool on 'our' bed now, which was always hazardous in the past when she used a duvet I would trip up and fall over onto old Beaky.

And it's all down to Wendy's card and her saying all those years ago 'because you never know', well, we've let you know, Dear Readers, about Hilden Linens.. find them at www.hilden.co.uk

GeeGee Parrot.
November 6th, 2015.

THE MOUSE WHO WANTED TO PLAY..

Do you know what your beloveds get up to when you're away from home? Well, she gets up to many strange things, of this I am sure! She makes Salami out of chocolate.. not for me, I hasten to add for birds and dogs should not eat this as it is poisonous for us.. no, it is for Master Engineer, aka David, who has given Constance's WW a new pair of legs.

She has also been watching a mouse! I am pretty sure it is the thieving pincher who stole her amber earring. This, Dear Readers, is what went on last night, I would not have approved of such goings on but seeing as I am incarcerated in prison.. aka the aviary.. I had only to listen and hear about these games second hand when she called my prison this afternoon.

The mess in our home is still that! Dreadful, the only place she can actually sit is on the lavatory, for no chairs are accesssible in our sitting room and you don't really sit in bed, do you? She has been known to perch on the sink in the kitchen, in fact, that is our favourite spot to have supper, I KNOW, we are pretty weird but we don't inflict our dottiness on you lot so just settle down, keep on reading and thank your lucky stars you haven't got Richard working in your home!

Talk about slow.. there's been 'noise' coming from the bathroom since eleven o'clock this morning but upon inspection, he has just left, the only thing that she can see he has actually done is put up two pieces of plyboard to tank in the big open space where one of the header tanks used to be.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the games at home. Last night, instead of doing a late trip to B&Q to get some building supplies, she did a little sorting out of one side of the piled up chaos in the sitting room.

And found, to her great happiness, a beautiful pair of glass vases that she bought twenty five years ago! They're still in their original boxes and have never seen the light of day! She bought them to give as a wedding present for a friend who, two weeks before the wedding, called it off and went back to live in Australia.

There's not much she can do in the way of tidying up and putting away until the storage spaces are done and she isn't going to do them until all the other peoples' work is finished.

Having spread new plastic sheeting and brand new dust sheets over the clean carpet, she sorted out the mess that the guys had left in the bathroom and put all their tools into the bottom of the boiler cupboard. She also rounded up the so-called missing extention cords and the powerful torch light, this had been hung on the inside of the sitting room door, no wonder it had been 'lost'!

Hungry.. yum.. early supper time? And what was on the menu? Ah, a particular favourite supper of ours, griddled fish with greens.. ooh.. we just LOVE our greens. The Americans call them Collards, they're part of the cabbage family and INCREDIBLY good for you!

Having cooked and eaten this, she changed into pj's and went off to bed at a reasonable hour. Our television is misbehaving, some nights all the channels work perfectly but last night the reception was completely out of sync on most of the channels, so she muted the sound and read the evening paper.

It was whilst she was reading the paper that, over the top of the page, she saw 'something' on the curtain, as she wears glasses for watching tv, she pushed them down onto her nose from the top of her head and saw.. to her utter amazement.. a very small mouse with an extremely long tail climbing up the curtain.

'What do you think you're doing up there' she shouted at this tiny person who was certainly two metres up the curtain by then. No response came from this naughty mouse and she watched in fascination as he carefully traversed across the curtain and then leapt and landed on top of the cupboard by the window!

So that's how they get up there! When she did a major clean-up the day before I went to the aviary, she found a stash of uneaten monkey nuts. He was now obviously hungry, for I have now been away for nine days and she has removed my food and water bowls so life must have been a bit grim for this small person.

She sat straight up and could just see his little brown figure hunting for his stash.. but alas and alack, no stash was there to be found, for she had removed everything and sprayed the cupboard top with a mix of water, vinegar and peppermint (mice don't like the smell of peppermint), and sure enough, he realised that someone had been interfered with his store cupboard, came back to the edge of the cupboard, jumped onto the top of the pelmet and abseiled down the curtain!

That, she thought, was the end of it.. but no. For about five minutes later, who should appear up on the end of her bed? None other than this small brown person himself! She threw a small pillow at him which bounced past him and he shot off, only to reappear about five minutes later climbing up the tv flex and onto our bedside table.

She switched on the very powerful flexible bedlight and pointed it at him and then realised something sad but truly remarkable, he was blind. For no sighted animal would have been able to stand the intensity of this light and when she moved towards him, he continued on his journey, he didn't see her.

She nudged him with a pen and he shot off the table and onto the floor and under the bed. She then went into the kitchen, took an old ladle from the utensil drawer, got an empty wastepaper bin and went back to sit on her bed and waited and sure enough, he reappeared.

But this time, instead of climbing up the window curtains, he started climbing the curtain which hangs infont of my night-house.. aka cage. He obviously knew where he was going, blindness was no handicap to this mouse and he had thought he should go and check to see if my cage and yumyum were back.

She slid off the bed and taking the ladle and the bin, she tiptoed up behind him and putting the bin just below him, she pushed him off the curtain with the ladle and he dropped into the bin. She put the bin into the bath whilst she pulled on some clothes. Then taking some of my seeds and putting them into the bin with the mouse, she took the house keys, the electronic card key to the gardens and went across the road into the gardens.

A passerby would have thought her completely off her rocker.. luckily, there was no one about to see this escapade! She walked up to the gardener's shed and finding an upturned wheelbarrow, she said "goodbye mouse, please don't come back" and tipped him gently onto the ground under the barrow with the seeds.

He had to go for he had no fear of her smell. It is bad enough having a parrot on your head.. however, mice on the bed.. that's a no-no. But at least now know who nicked my nuts!

GeeGee Parrot.
November 5th, 2015.
Post Script: It's an extremely wet evening to "remember, remember the Fifth of November!"

THEY DON'T DEEP CLEAN YOUR CARPET, THEY JUST TAKE OFF THE TOP LAYER OF DIRT!

Sorry about the length of this post's title but oh dear.. anyway, the really bad dust and grime was taken off the carpets and she waited, politely smiling at the three huge men in our home, until they had gone and she whipped out our magnificent Bissell carpet washer!

She went over the carpet using the extractor and got out a lot of water.. which was almost black! So although the man had got out the marks made by the building work, he had not gone back over the carpet with non soapy water.

She filled the tank with warm water with a splash of white winegar and vroom, she was off. She started up the far end of the hall, the work involved spraying clean water and then vacuuming up the dirty water from our pale carpet. She went back over and over again until the extracted water was clear. Then she did the bathroom.

This quite small machine is truly extraordinary!

Being now in the mood to clean things, she stripped down the vacuum cleaner and washed the brushes, tubing, filters, attachments and the big plastic tub that takes the debris. When you are doing a job like this, it is imperative that you A. remember how everything how fitted in the machine and B. to put all the very small screws into a cup or mug so you don't lose any!

After making herself a delicious supper that I would have loved to eat.. sea bass fillet on steamed vegetables.. she brushed the carpets with a clean stiff broom. This was to get the pile up which will help it to dry.

They're back again tomorrow, the kitchen cold water is being switched onto the mains, Melford was a bit shocked to find that it wasn't and is changing it for her, the ceiling is being put back and the gaping hole HAS to be filled in as the cold water just comes in and out with no barrier!

So there's no point in really trying to heat the house, thank goodness the weather isn't freezing cold but it is typical of Richard.. he is SO slow at getting jobs done. And he has still, after a full week, to change the two washers on the hot taps in the bathroom.. grrrr.

And I am confused as to why they had the carpets cleaned when the work has not been finished.. but hey ho.. we are only women and know no better... grrrrr!

I am still in prison.. aka the aviary.. and I think that she is going to leave me here until Saturday.. grim news but sensible. Carpet needs to dry properly, which means that furniture cannot go back yet and as the hall demi-lune table is presently where my night home lives, I would have to sleep on her head.. there being nowhere else suitable for yours truly to sleep!

So giddedy-up time, get ticktocking along so I can get back home with my mum.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 4th, 2015.

THERE'S A BIG EMPTY SPACE! BOILER + ITS' ASBESTOS FLUE HAVE GONE!

Now we'll just have to take her word for it but apparently both old lumpy boiler and that huge flue have disappeared! She badgered poor Melford to take away every single bit of old tubing and pipe and flex in the outer part of the old boiler room and we now have an empty space 180 cms long by 90 cms wide.

She swept the walls down with a stiff brush, vacuumed the floor and, tomorrow, she'll go to one of the flooring shops on the North End Road and get a lino remnant.

She measured up the wall space in the inner part where the gas meter is situated and has worked out that she has space for four shelves of 130 cms long and 30cms wide. This will give us a lot of shelf space and leaves the floor, which will also be covered with another piece of lino, for the heavier lamps which will stay on the floor in their boxes.

Fancy being able to just walk into this space and be able to find anything immediately! Shoe polishes in the box on a shelf, likewise light bulbs. The vacuum and carpet cleaners will sit where boiler used to live. Two U shaped supports will hold the ironing board up on the wall facing the door.

Oh.. happy days are a'coming! She does love an orderly home and is just having to ignore all this chaos in the sitting room, hall, bedroom and bedroom until the airing cupboard is replaced in the bathroom and the shelves are up. For only then will things be able to be placed where they belong and our home will, again, be a happy one.

For all of this chaos and disorder in our home has meant that we haven't been able to have friends to stay, let alone people in for a meal! Its' been grim.. but in a couple of weeks, this will all be over! 

Melford is coming to clean the carpets.. good luck Melford.. and Richard has to come and finish the carpentry work, there's still a gaping whole above the front door, the hall ceiling is still down but very early today she went to the bathroom, she'd shut the door when she went to bed, opening the door.. she smiled.. the room was cosy, not too warm but the loo seat wasn't icy cold!

Apparently I am staying at the aviary for another two days.. sigh. But as there's going to be a lot of dust flying about plus smelly glues being used, so much as I may moan, it is actually for my own good. Fiddle-dee-dee!

GeeGee Parrot.

November 3rd, 2015.

A SLEEP IN & A DAY OFF.. BUT NOT FOR ME.

Because of her numerous appointments today, she asked Melford and Richard to come tomorrow and so it was not at the crack of dawn that she awoke this morning.. and what a very foggy grey morning it was too.

But she is happy as she has hot water and heat coming from the new radiators and when they have blocked up the gaping hole above her front door which is allowing cold air to flow into our flat, why, she'll be even happier!

And three eggs plus some Goaty curd made a delicious omelette and coupled with a mug of piping hot LapySang.. slurp.. well, her day started on a good foot.

I, meanwhile, am still incarcerated in my 'hotel'.. aka the aviary and it looks as if I am going to be here for a few more days as they fiddle, diddle, remove and replace all the necessary stuff in my home. I could winge and moan about it all but what's the point, the work has to be done and I am being fed and watered and am safe and warm.

She has to measure for wood which will form the base of the racking in the store cuboard and for where the boiler, soon hopefully to be removed, is presently situated. Wizard has introduced her to a new glue which is a miraculous product, it is capable of sticking wood to concrete. Therefore, she won't have to drill the concrete wall in order to fix the metal shelf uprights.

And, in fact, if she got her act into action, she could do this all herself! But she first has to WAIT for them to remove the boiler, it will create a massive amount of dirt and dust and she's making sure to shut all the doors and putting towels infront of them to stop this dust getting everywhere.

Then the plan is to whitewash this space, which is no longer secret as we've told you all about it. But whitened will make it brighter and lighter, that's for sure! And she has to rock and roll with this if she wants her sitting room 'back', for there is NO point in just piling everything back in again, is there?

For then everything would just stay there in a hideous mess! And she would not be able to show these items. For only one or two pairs does she want to keep, a single blue vase and a pair of early transfer vases but the rest, even her old Spanish lamps she has decided, can go.

After the fog and mist lifted it was a beautiful day, warm and with a clear blue sky.. let's hope that the rest of the month continues to be of the same disposition! Wouldn't that be nice! What WAS very nice was for her to shed her outer clothing and step on the scales to see a loss.. of another lb, she's more than half way there now, her total weight loss is 21.5lbs.. ooh.. yubba-dubba-doo!

And she wore a pretty 'Joseph' sweater when she went to church for All Saint's Day which fitted properly! That's enough to make anyone smile.. especially as she loves this sweater but hasn't been able to wear it and not feel like an over stuffed sausage for a couple of years.

Prescriptions handed in, new appointment booked with the Dermatology Clinic at St.Mary's hospital. It's all go and tomorrow the guys are back again tomorrow.

But having spoken to a building company earlier today, they told her that the freeholder cannot just ignore the old asbestos flue pipe, it can only removed by a company licensed and qualified to do asbestos removal and they told her NOT to be in the flat whilst they do it.

So she has emailed that over the office and copied it to the local Environmental Health office. I am not being picked up now until the asbestos is cleared out of our home.. sigh.. but better safe than sick.

GeeGee Parrot.
November 2nd, 2015.