I'm a fire-starter

Night before last I was busy in the kitchen making a sweet chilli dipping sauce. Somehow I spilled a big load of sugar on the hotplate of the Aga. No problem - I simply mopped it up with a piece of kitchen towel.

This led to a series of important discoveries,

1. Spilling sugar on an Aga creates a nasty smell
2. My curry did not mask the smell of the burning sugar
3. You cannot concentrate on cooking when there is smoke billowing in the kitchen
4. Despite there being no naked flames on the Aga hotplate it can still cause a kitchen towel to spontaneously combust
5. A plastic recycling bag isn't best place to put a piece of paper that is going to burst into flames

Hunger games and hairstyles

A week or so ago Daughter-blog was staying with us. One morning she wandered into the dining room with her hair tied up in massive curlers. A little like this...

Having recently seen the last film in the Hunger Games series I mentioned that she looked a bit like Effie Trinket. (For non-Hunger Games fans see below)

She was not totally bowled over by the comment. A short while later she said she was going back up stairs to finish her hair.

Son-blog offered the following support, "May the odds be ever in your favour!"

Blog Christmas

Christmas in the Blog-house was peppered with mis-speaking. Here are some samples...

"We can have Christmas rolls on sausage eve." (Mrs Blog)

"Oh, lovely! Spam hand lotion!" (Grandma-snoop-blog referring to a spa hand lotion)

"There's an Agatha Crispie on tonight." (Mrs Blog)

So we are looking forward to a nappy-new-hear....

Five a day?

Mrs Blog has been on a mission for sometime to make sure I get my five-a-day of fruit and veg. She is deaf to my pleas that bread, cheese and chocolate, (being non-meat) should count towards the five a day total.

Last week she served up broccoli,which I can just about cope with, but had a surplus of it after serving. Not the food recycling bin for us, we have chickens! Mrs Blog was convinced that chickens like to get their five-a-day and so she scattered the left over broccoli on the grass for them.

A week later and the scattered broccoli is still there. Not only do chickens not like it, nor do any other animals that roam the blog garden. Foxes, squirrels, rabbits, (to say nothing of birds that have no issues eating the less pleasant parts of roadkill), all turning their noses up.

I'd like to think this evidence would be enough to let me off this element of my "five a day" plan but I suspect Mrs Blog will have other ideas.

When tea and bread taste funny

This morning I had two slices of bread (a homemade loaf of which I was particularly proud) liberally spread with butter. Instead of the yummy flavour of bread and butter, all I could taste was flavours that hinted of the dishwasher.

My first thought was that I had mixed the flour etc in a bowl which had not been washed properly.

Then I sipped my tea and it too tasted of the same foulness.

Perhaps the dishwasher is faulty I thought. Or perhaps I was coming down with a cold and it was affecting my sense of taste?

Readers will be pleased to know that Mr Bog doesn't have to fork out for a new dishwasher or prepare for a bout of man-flu. Mrs Blog had bought a new type of butter which had found its way into the butter dish (I couldn't read the label properly without my glasses) - garlic butter!

If I had warned her in time we would not have had garlic omelette, garlic mushrooms and garlic bacon for breakfast.

Nearly lost the wife...

Mrs Blog works at a local emporium from which she likes to be collected after work by yours truly.

Yesterday evening I duly set off to pick her up outside the shop and waited patiently for her to appear.

After a few minutes I saw her cross the road and head towards our car.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled open the door saying,

"Hello Darling. How was your day?"

I didn't hear her say these words though. Is Mr Blog going deaf in his dotage? I hear you ask. No, I am not. Mrs Blog was trying to get in the wrong car and make off with a complete stranger!

Cheese humour

Met daughter-blog earlier this week and picked up some cheese jokes that are crying out for a wider audience.

I was in sainsburys and went past the cheese counter. The guy there threw a lump of cheddar at me. I thought "That's not very mature!"

Just after that a ball of cheese exploded. There was de-brie everywhere.

A piece of cheese looked in the mirror and said "Hallo, me"!!

Communication problems

Mrs Blog was out shopping today. Not any old shopping though, this was Christmas shopping.

"Would you like to see what I have bought?" asked Mrs Blog when she returned.

"OK" said I, (I know the right answer in these situations).

"Right, but you musn't look!"

Is it me????

Scientific discoveries

You may have seen on the web(and possibly in real life) that if you take a large bottle of coke and shake it up, then take the top off, it will behave like a missile. Brown froth gushes out of the opening and the bottle goes haphazardly in the opposite direction.

Today I discovered, quite by chance, that there is an alternative method. I happened upon it when I left my cold cup of coffee in the microwave to heat up for a little too long. By adding a teaspoon of sugar to the scalding hot coffee, you get a brown gushy fluid all over the kitchen floor. It seemed not to have the strength to move the coffee cup, which is mildly disappointing.

Sadly this experiment leaves you with absolutely none of the coffee in the cup afterwards.

Heading for divorce

That's it! The line has been crossed. After nearly 27 years Mr and Mrs Blog are heading for separation. The reason is "unreasonable behaviour" by Mrs Blog.

Mrs Blog had sore teeth. I identified that this was probably curable by using a special toothpaste which I have been using for over five years.

"Why not try my sensitive toothpaste?" I suggested (foolishly as it turned out).

That night after Mrs Blog was in bed asleep I went to brush my teeth and found this...

Yes. Mrs Blog mauled my tube, going for the strangulation method of squeezing out the paste rather than the civilised "end-squeeze"!!

It's all over!

Struggling to be funny

As regulars know I like to find humour where I can. Today, Mrs Blog,texted me to say,

"Can you pick up 6 aaa batteries and 12 aa batteries?"

I saw an opportunity and replied,

"So, you want 42 a's then?"

Quick as a flash,

"No. 6 aaa and 12 aa batteries!!"

Missing Persons

Earlier this week I was at the gym, or more correctly the changing room having just been to the gym. I have provided a detailed diagram so you will know exactly where I was.

The changing room is at 3, the gym at 2 and the swimming pool is at 1. (I haven't drawn the swimming pool because I ran out of space)Wh.

While I was getting dressed one of the attendants popped his head round the door and asked me if two men had just walked in. As they hadn't I replied "no". 

It seems that two guys walked from the swimming pool (2) and never made it to the gym (1) and as they were not where I was (3) and there was no other unlocked door they could have gone through, they have been deemed missing.

I have, rather helpfully, provided a "fotofit" picture based on the descriptions I was given.

Strange things

Been a weird few days in the Blog household.

Mrs Blog wondered if Stuart Lancaster played for Australia. Then she observed that the insoles she bought were more comfortable when she put the left one in her left shoe and....

Tonight she complained that I was spoiling things after she asked me to stuff a pumpkin into a pair of fish net tights. (Don't ask!!!)

Day of failures

Today was a particularly bad day in the blog household.

Mrs Blog had a filling.

Mr Blog went to the gym and ran on the treadmill for several minutes before realising that his shorts were inside out. (The flapping pockets and waist tapes should have been a warning).

Finally on a Skype call with son-blog (currently studying at St Andrews University, a leading educational establishment), he asked if Swansea was in Yorkshire! What is he studying? Geography!!

Mistaken Identity

Today I received an email from Pinterest - the app that lets you post pictures.

It told me that I had a "twin". Apparently when someone else "pins" several pictures which you have "pinned" they match you up. The email told me to click on the button to find out whom they had unearthed. "Son-blog, daughter-blog or Mrs Blog" I thought. But no!

My twin is a leather bag shop!

Poo problems

Just been out to bring in the washing before it rains. (Living in Scotland, bringing in the washing can keep you pretty fit so I am hopeful for a gold letterbox before long).

As regulars will know I had a gannet-poo problem a week or two ago. Today it was the turn of a garden bird. I cannot say what type of bird but, based on the evidence it wasn't a crow or probably a pigeon. My money is on the sparrow which has been displaying attitude all summer (after all we know they take out Robins with archery sets).

In a moment of irony it had chosen to poo only on my pants making it essential that I tell Mrs Blog asap before she draws her own conclusions!

Gathlick

Dropped son-blog off at St Andrews yesterday and went for a coffee. On the way we met a lady who took a shine to his beard. She was in her fifties/sixties/seventies, (I think), and was wearing a vest -type top showing off her chest tattoos.

She told us, through the impediment of only having two teeth, that there had been a "Gathlick".

I apologised for not understanding. She repeated that there had been a "Gathlick". Could she have meant Catholic, I wondered?

Seemingly not, the Gathlick was at the leisure centre.

After more attempts than was decent we worked out it was a gas leak!

Life!!!

I haven't blogged for a while and I cannot work out if there has been too little going on in my life or too much (so much so that I haven't had time to write the blog).

Here is a summary of what you have missed...

Mrs Blog "We are going to have burgers with pozzarella". (No typo!)

Daughter Blog "Dad your aftershave smells nice!" (I wasn't wearing any. It was my hair wax she was smelling).

Daughter Blog "My favourite TV quiz was Masterchair".

Chickens eat pretzels

Gannet poo smells of fish

Gannet poo smells so strong you can smell it up-wind 500 metres away

Gannets poo on sea kayaks.

Misnamed vehicles

Just back from a tortuous drive along a single carriageway road in the Highlands. I am left with a question,
"Why do makers of campervans call them "Swift"????"

Vodafone go for world record

Yet again Vodafone have qualified for a blog. This time it was a different conversation but teh same Vodafone logic...

"My phone is getting no signal"

(after checking)

"The mast is being repaired and will take six days to fix." (repeated three times in a Dutch accent despite it not being a recording but a real person).

"I would like to access my messages please by dialing my mobile number from a landline But I cannot remember the PIN."

"No problem. We can send you a new PIN."

"Great! Do you want my email address?"

"No for security we can only send it to you as a text."

"A text? What to the mobile number that isn't working cos you're fixing the mast?"

"Yes"