Misunderstandings

Been away a lot in the Isle of Man lately and nearly overlooked this story.

Mrs Blog was preparing a salad, (yum :-( ), full of low cholesterol stuff like watercress, pea shoots, lettuce and the like. Then she hit me from left field with,
"Would you like courgette ribbons?"
As a bloke, salad is pretty girlie food to be begin with, but courgette ribbons??

Here they are

Strawberry Problems

Living in Scotland presents a few challenges for the intrepid gardener. Our climate is damp and sunlight can be hard to come by. So it was with great delight that Mrs Blog showed me her prize strawberry plants had actually got a few green strawberries on them a few weeks ago. Well done Mrs Blog.

The plants sit on a dry stone wall in the garden, clearly visible from the kitchen window.This afternoon I was n a work call at home and saw Mrs Blog run past my window at a speed that would threaten Oussain Bolt. I finished the call and went outside to see what had happened.

The blackbirds had eaten all the strawberries - no jam for us this year!

Heat Sausage

What has my life come to?
I  find the most interesting thing to write about today is the "heat sausage". It has vaguely "Carry On"/"Benny Hill" undertones to it. It is, however, an elongated bag filled with tiny beads, (see diagram)

You put the sausage in a microwave for 5 mins to heat it up and then wrap it around any tired, injured, aching muscles. Last night I used it on a sore calf and ten minutes later it was fine. All of this a top tip from Mark the physio

I promise I am going to try and get out more. .

Midges

This is the first post in response to reader demand.

Living in Scotland can be problematic at this time of year and especially living anywhere near a river or loch. The cause of the problem is the Midge -  a domestic form of biting insect illustrated below.

The Midge might look pretty harmless but it gangs up with thousands and sometimes millions of it's relatives and bites you to death. These little buggers make you itch for days and leave nasty little red marks behind as a memento. The only known way to deal with them is Avon Skin So Soft - it is not an insect repellent but a moisturising lotion. It does not deter the little so and so's it kills them. Which means that you walk around covered in little black specks that were once healthy midges and are now dead ones and you smell somewhat camp! Like I said - problematic.

Midgy Facts
There are fifteen varieties of midges
Only five varieties bite
It is only ever the female of the species that bites (sound familiar guys???)

Goodbye Muffin

Muffin is our pet dog aged 11, a golden Labrador of very little brain. She moults incessantly, smells and occasionally rolls around in fox poo.

Understandable then that I wanted her nowhere near my new car. Dog hair on the seats and an awful smell when you have just forked out a fortune is not what you want.Mrs Blog had other ideas. She let the mutt loose in the new car without a word to me. Hoping that I would not notice the myriad telltale hairs floating in the car and stuck to the seats, mat, headrests etc.
This blog could have been titled "Mrs Blog needs a solicitor" but that would cost far more than a simple visit to the vet - after all Muffin has had a good innings!

Mrs Blog you have been warned.

Mrs Blog's Quandry

There I was resigned to the world's most boring diet - no cheese/bacon/chocolate thanks to the German doctor telling me I had high cholesterol; (and me making the mistake of telling Mrs Blog). Mrs Blog, worried as she was, added sausages, chips, white bread and a whole host of other goodies, to the list of banned substances.

After weeks of salads,vegetables and boredom comes the news of the Ecoli outbreak attributed to ......of all things  - salad!

So now Mrs Blog has to decide between the health threat of deadly salad, the risk of my arteries furring up like a kettle by eating all the yummy foods and my death by slow starvation.

We are having a barbecue tonight so I guess I will find out from the menu what choice has been made. 

Buttocks of Doom 2

Daughter-blog may be away but the impact of her buttocks of Doom iss still being felt. It seems she is using them, involuntarily, to communicate. Before you get carried away - it is achieved by leaving her phone switched on in her jeans pocket and then relying on touch screen technology and our telephone number being stored as the last number dialled.