Toilet Brush Mystery ......

For some weeks, some would say years I have been somewhat preoccupied. (yes hubby, I am taking to you..) Lots of things in my brain jiggling about, planning, renovating, writing, tutoring, befriending, entrepreneuring ...Not a real word you say? Then how come I've been doing it?

When my brain gets overloaded, new information and ideas still arrive, pushing into my noggin through my eyes and ears, unfortunately other older more useless stuff gets pushed out to make room for the new stuff. I can only presume there is a tiny hole at the back of my head, but I'm too busy to look.

Trivial things seem to filter straight through, never remaining in my head for more than a few seconds. Tonight hubby phoned to say he'd be late;

'Could you record the football please?' he asked.

'Sure.' said I.

I put the phone down and 'ting,' the request fell out of my brain and I got on with the immediately important stuff; dinner for the kids, their home work and lots of walking around the trashed house and gardens saying 'Right,' as if that would magically sort out the devastation. Only when the 7yo read her book for school - a book about a daddy - did my back-up brain kick in, and I shot off to press R on the remote!

.....This inability to function properly is the reason I haven't been able to solve the toilet brush mystery before today....

Our downstairs loo is rather frugal, fairly roomy, but frugal, (and that's being kind.) Beside the toilet, I've placed a huge flowerpot housing Finn McCool's (Fionn mac Cumhail's) loo brush. It's not that we do excessively large number twos in this family, its just that when we first arrived to the house, the cleaning jobs required industrial strength tools. I bought a massive cleaning brush that looks like a fat hedgehog on a pole; length and girth. Impressive eh?

Now for weeks, every.single.darn.time I go into that loo, the toilet brush is out of the flower pot and lying on the floor. It first started when we had guests, I'd assumed one of them had forgotten to replace it, but after the third and forth time of finding it on the floor I was wondering what the heck was going on.

Sadly, every time I left the loo, the info pertaining to the loo brush incident fell out of my brain, a consequence of being hounded as a mummy....

'Can you push me on the swing?'

'Can I have a drink?'

'Can you help me catch the neighbours sheep that are in our field?' (that was tonight!!)

'They' loiter outside the loo, waiting to acost me. I can't even have two minutes to wee....

After our guests left and the bog brush still kept escaping its pot, I assumed the children, bored during protracted movements, were messing with it. I never remembered to ask them about it: Brainless!

Anyhoo, mystery solved, euwwww, yuck, disgusting. Tabby attacks the brush, claws out, viscious, clearly he thinks it looks like a hedgehog too...




This is NOT a good week for the cats; pigeon murdering and now this!
[Update 2014: 5 years on and our new website is launched here come visit us online.]

What could possibly go wrong????

Usually, when my husband is away on business, (whisper please...)... disasters happen. I won't list the disasters of the past, for fear of reminding the disaster daemons...but suffice to say they've been, pretty, damn, B. A. D!

Today however, went quite smoothly. The sun was warm. I cleaned the car and the kids washed their bikes; having ridden them through the woods yesterday with friends.


No chickens died today. No horses escaped. OK, a rabbit was murdered before our eyes by a cat, while the children and I ate dinner in the garden,....but heyho that's nature. Actually, (she sniggered) when the children saw the bunny in Ben's mouth, they politely said,

'May we be excused from the table?'

I gave the nod, mafia-like (or murphia-like really, because I'm actually Irish, well; born to an Irish mum and dad....) I watched as the two cats, one carrying a bunny almost the same size as him, were pursued around the garden by two children. They were desperate to rescue the squealing bunny. All five lashed 'round the pond, hurdled the felled conifers and navigated the stone wall onto the bridlepath! I continued to eat my chicken and coconut curry, while sipping a glass of chilled Chablis, a left-over from the weekend. It was like watching The Goodies or a Benny Hill sketch in fast motion......the cats won. Bunny died. The End....

After dinner, we three played golf till 9pm! Husband has mowed Home field so that we have a par three golf hole, (for him it's a par three! For the rest of us it's a par 99, especially if you go off the fairway, as the meadow grass is up to our knees) The green has a hole in the earth containing an inverted 2 litre pop bottle. This in turn holds a natty flag stick I made....such a talent!

... Well anyway, our game was going really well, until the cats joined in, and then the 7yo had an urgent appointment with the loo, and then the 5yo discovered enormous black slugs, that he collected on dock leaves for the chickens.... so who knows who won. These people who won't take sport seriously! Honestly! Annoying really, as I'm sure I was leading the field... and yet I'm pleased to tell you, I felt none of the urges of Mr T let's-go-down-to-the Woods!!! 'scusting, should be ashamed of himself!

As it was 9pm, there were no sproglet shenanigans regarding bed. They surrendered easily. Pretty late, even for half term. I had just one more ordeal to conquer.......The nightly electrocution.

Well, my hair is slightly frizzier but I locked the chooks down, turning on the dreaded 'leccy fence. I love/hate it.

Oh yes, there was one slight disaster, I dyed my hair. I've had many disasters with my hair in the past...another blog post entirely. But I'm too poor/mean to get the professionals to colour my hair, so I expect failure every so often. Today, instead of just slightly toning down my brassy, gold-blond, shock of madness.....I am now a brunette. Oh well gotta laugh!

Before


After



Clearly my husband's fault entirely. No question!

Cat Flaps and Chinese Food.....

The dog-doo was delicious, thanks for asking!

Talking of poo, I can no longer tolerate the kittens potty training in the house. I had invested in a lavatory for felines from the store that should be re-named, 'You love your pets so much that you will be blind to our prices.com.' But the pong is unacceptable so....OUT! OUT! OUT I SAY!

We are now the proud owners of a cat flap. How cool is that? Husband spent an age in the store reading the back of packets. Did you know, of course you did, that there are some cat flaps that magically open up just for your precious kitties?....Some sort of computer chip tells the flap that this is his/her home. No bringing pals over, no chickens popping in to warm up in the kitchen, just your cats! We bought the cheap one; it opens, it closes! Cool.

Posting the cats in and out of the cat flap has been fun also....

On a completely different note, I have to confess I have fallen off the wagon....1 glass of wine Friday, 2 glasses of wine Saturday!! In order to have a good week next week I am sitting here finishing the bottle! What a saint I am! To Sarah, a friend with will power who lasted the whole of January I say,'I am not worthy to wash your feet.' MANTRA: *Monday to Friday I will not drink. Monday to Friday I will not drink. Monday to Friday I will not drink.... *Exception: Book Club on Wednesday.

SOAP BOX MOMENT
Last night, Saturday night, I thought I'd have a night 'off' so to speak. I'm a bit of a cook on the sly (just ignore the poo incident in previous blog) and like to menu plan during the week; spaghetti bolognaise, roast duck and mash potatoes, chicken thighs wrapped in bacon, slow cooker lamb, to name but a few. On Saturday I thought I'd get a take-away meal from Tesco, delivered with my usual order on a Friday. I chose a Ken Hom (he's on the telly don't you know, AND he's brilliant at cooking chinese food, mainly because he IS Chinese.) The take-away was revolting. I could detect no chinese flavours at all! Put it this way; when we could eat no more we scraped the spring rolls and egg fried rice into a dish for the chickens. (We binned everything else.) Then we set about putting the kids to bed and when we came back downstairs an hour later, the cats hadn't touched the left-over food which was exposed on the kitchen table. THAT IS A VERY BAD SIGN!

My advice: Cook it yourself or go to an authentic take-away restaurant. Ken Hom - you ought to be ashamed!