Glimpsesofcolour

Do forgive the long radio silence. It’s been half term, and so nothing of any significance has happened – apart from Genius Brat going to a sleepover at his girlfriend’s, thus giving The Grouch and myself a night out without need of babysitter. I probably had some profound thoughts at some point during the week but if I did I’ve already forgotten them.

Instead I’ll just note that this morning I received a charity mailing in an envelope which bore the legend, ‘HELP THE AGED DRAW’. Obviously collecting for easy grip 4B pencils…

Couldn’t understand why, when the weather widget on my computer’s ‘dashboard’ said it would be cloudy and 4º C, I positively sweltered in the hot sun when I went out dressed for winter yesterday. Then for today’s weather it said sunny and 2º, while I had just heard the TV forecast say it would be cloudy and 7-8º.

Then I clicked the little ‘info’ sign in the bottom right corner of the box, and discovered I had been monitoring the weather for London, West Virginia! That is so embarrassing. A few clicks later and I now have a daily forecast for London, UK (they also offered London Colney in Herts, a place with which I have an intimate acquaintance but really don’t need to know the weather in). By the way, the London, UK forecast for yesterday was 13º, which certainly explains why I spent lunchtime stripping off.

Provided I get to know what it can actually do, my new iMac is proving to be a daily pleasure. Everything works!

As my son was off school last Friday, we didn’t receive the school newsletter which he normally brings home at the end of the week. As a result I decided to read the newsletter on the school website, which has been a most educational experience. Not the content of the letter so much as the interesting use of asterisks. For example the newsletter records that the ****nal Double Club has been involved in a football and literacy project (clue: we are in North London).

I then went on to read, as far as possible (it is very detailed), the newly written Behaviour Policy. This informs me that ***ist behaviour will not be tolerated, and that responses to the policy will be ****ysed.

Guess the omissions! It seems the child protection software on my new iMac is a little overzealous…

My Christmas cactus, which flowered with admirable accuracy in December, is now about to break out into wonderful magenta blossoms again. So is it really an Easter cactus? Or is it a Christian cactus which flowers for major church festivals? (In which case, will it come into bloom again for Greenbelt?). Along with the little pink flowers on my other indoor succulent I don’t know the name of, and the early fog clearing to yet another gorgeous sunny day, it really does feel that spring is at least partly sprung (though the weather forecast on my desktop predicts 10º today and 2º tomorrow, then 9º the next day. Confused? I will be).

Every month a glossy free local magazine comes through our door, giving information on local events and of course packed with advertising. In this month’s issue there is an advert for ‘Crystal and Spiritual Healing’ which promises to ‘re-balance the auric field.. helping you to achieve your highest potential in physical, emotional and spiritual health’. Among the list of benefits predicted are ‘inner child healing’ (but I don’t have an inner child, he came out 13 years ago and at 55 I don’t plan to have another), ‘distant healing’ (presumably you don’t even have to turn up for that one) and my favourite, ’soul retrieval’. Presumably if you happen to have accidentally misplaced your soul, they will trace it for you.

Whatever happened to the secular society we were all supposed to be heading for?

‘Your house needs cleaning’. These were the opening words of a little handmade flyer (well, more of a scrap of paper) put through my door, advertising a cleaning service.

How do they know? Who told them? Yes, it’s true, my house does need cleaning, but these are matters I generally prefer to keep private. Has someone been peeking through my letterbox?

This is not an approach which is likely to endear me to the services offered by the flyer. I really don’t need to be told how dirty my house is. My current cleaner tells me off quite enough already.

Just heard a contributor to ‘From our own correspondent’ on Radio 4 saying that there were ‘6,000 down telephone lines in China needing to be repaired’. Well, I’m not surprised they don’t work, if they make their telephone lines out of a goose’s underneath feathers. Apparently Mr Wen, the prime minister (as opposed to Mr – or Dr – Hu, the president!) went to give a ‘warm and fuzzy’ pep talk to citizens who were affected by the heavy snow. Presumably that (the talk, not the snow) was made of goose feathers too?

Woo hoo! While I was out shopping for exciting stuff like boys’ vests, my dear Grouch set up my new iMac which he had bought me for my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I now have a wonderful wide flat screen which, unlike the old one, can actually be made bright enough to read without peering, and doesn’t have a mushy green area all down one side. I have suddenly discovered the true colours of this blog – it isn’t black and grey at all, it’s purple and blue!

I also have a DVD drive, a built in camera, a remote control for watching media, and all sorts of nice stuff. Using it is such a joy that I shall be blogging several times a day just for the pleasure of typing text I can actually read.

I do have a good husband. In spite of the grouchiness..

There is a new development in the cards for ‘models’ and ‘massage’ posted in my local newsagent’s window. On a card that advertises (depressingly) ‘New Girls Daily’, there is a sentence in red capitals that promises ‘A and O levels’. I have a sinking feeling I know exactly what that means. Is this the fruit of ‘education, education, education’?

Seen chalked on the café menu board in our little local cottage hospital: MARMAID 10p. Fishy end or human end, I wonder? (pretty cheap either way at 10p). Further down the list, QUISH. No doubt as in, ‘Give ush a quish, darlin’. Or possibly referring to St Paul’s famous injunction: ‘Greet one another with a piece of quish’.