Tuesday 8 December 2015

Friday 29 May 2015

The case of the oily buttocks

So I am about to recount to you the sad/funny story of the day I trod in oil.  Before you all roll over laughing, let me tell you that it was no ordinary oil, it was thick, dirty, discussing, seen better days, engine oil that my son had drained from his car a week earlier.  

On my usual mission of the day I was charging around looking for things that, as usual, where not in the place they should be and having a bad foot at the moment wasn't making it an easy task.

I needed to get into the beginning of the long shed and spent some time looking for the key to it.  As usual the key had done a disappearing act and I decided to go into the front workshop via the next one which key was available.  This meant that I had to go through the middle double doors and by doing so I only had one back light available to put on when entering the front workshop.  

So there I was clambering around in the semi dark to get to the front of the building so that I could illuminate it properly and find the item I was looking for.  Hobbling on my bad foot stepping over things and round piles I saw a bowl of thick oil on the floor.  Shining in the semi dark in a rusty saucepan I made a conscious effort to step over it.  Unknown to me, there was another plastic pot of oil lurking in the shadow straight in front of it.  I did my biggest step over the saucepan only to step down hard completely on the front of the large plastic pot.  The pot did a flipping motion propelling the sticky black oil straight up the back of me.  I felt the oil reach the top of my bottom and could feel it oozing down my right leg. Unable to see what had happened properly I limped on my bad foot and tiptoeing on my oily foot over to the lights so I could thrust open the big double doors at the front to assess the situation, while leaving a trail of oily puddles with each step.

When the double doors opened and the light flooded into the room I could see the extent of the disaster. There was oil everywhere and I was covered right through to my skin.  I hobbled back to the house angry, upset, sniffing back tears of annoyance, while shouting to everyone what had happened.  No rushes of help or any kind of emergency was shown by the family.  All I could here was laughter and disbelief that I had done something so stupid.

I peeled off my clothes and put them into a plastic bin bag and tiptoed into the shower where I cried while I covered myself with bleach, Ajax, Flash, soap, shower gel and washing up liquid in an effort to remove the oil.  All I ended up with was a black oily right leg, a black oily right bum cheek and two black oily feet. Oh and I forgot to say The shower has been turned black and no amount of bleach can remove it so I am reminded every morning of this wonderful event when I take a shower. 

It has taken around three weeks for my skin to replace itself and the oil is still on the floor in the front workshop as I cannot bring myself to clean it up yet. I can see the funny side of it now by the way, which leads me to the moral of this story is, if you do an oil change do not leave the oil in the shed!! 

That's all for now from the sticky black Funny Farm.

Monday 27 April 2015

Its that time of the year again

Well here we go again, tomorrow is my Birthday.  I will start the day by falling out of bed, grabbing my glasses and staggering out to make breakfast.  Then, after my shower, I will be rushing to the vets with three little kittens to be sterilised.  I then have to take my father to NOZ to buy a straw hat for the summer due to the fact he left his one in a restaurant in Brittany last year after a visit to the little boys room. I then have to try and get over to pick up some fence posts. The next job on the list is clearing out the dishwasher and filling it up again, feeding all the animals and spending the usual 30 minutes having a coffee with Dad.

After that I then have to make lunch for my son who comes home so hungry after a morning of mucking out loads of horses.  My thoughts for the afternoon is trying to cut the grass growing very tall around the fence with a pair of scissors.

I will probably try to squeeze in a spot of washing and if I am lucky I might get to watch another episode of Hart of Dixie which is a wonderful box set I am watching on Netflix.

So my Birthday looks like it will be a real doozy of a day and I possibly won't feel any older than I already do.

Happy Birthday Me
Balloons and bunting on the Funny Farm

Saturday 25 April 2015

Portrait News

Just thought I would share with you what I have been working on.  Just a couple of my latest portraits.




The beef burger test and stirrups

Well what a fun few weeks I have had.  As the lovely RSA finally agreed another year of health care and as usual it just leaves me 6 months before it has to be renewed again so I am rushing to get all my health checks done before it expires.

First on the list was a mammogram or as my dear Mum used to call it the beef burger test.  This nickname aptly describes the extent of the squash flatten and spread you go through with this test.

 Unlike the UK, in France you do not have two nurses for every test and you are led into a tiny cubicle no bigger than a postage stamp to de-robe.  Left standing in a 2ftx2ft room with nothing on you wait patiently for something to happen or someone to come and get you.  Finally you are led into another room with no windows in the middle of the building.  The lady jabbers on in medical French some of which I just answered no to without fully comprehending what she had said.  You are then forced into this machine while she tugs and pushes, pulls and squeezes you under these transparent plates.  When totally satisfied that she has most of you upper half wedged onto a plate she then shouts out 'do not breath'.  The plates then come together squashing your breast and most of your shoulder stomach and side until you think it might come unattached.  Holding your breath while marveling at how you never knew your breast could become a metre long and half a metre wide you continue to hold your breath.  She then shouts to you to breath again and you take in a long breath while watching the plates depart from one another and your beef burger breast then makes an effort to regain its original shape!  This happened 4 more times and finally she said just sit there and wait.  So there you are again with nothing on sitting waiting in a room with no windows and wondering who decided on the various colours on walls (orange, green, blue).  Suddenly a man in a white coat bursts through the door and tells you to put your arms above your head and put your elbows towards him and he proceeds to pummel and rub your breast in all directions until satisfied that he could feel nothing.  In a blink of an eye he says wonderful and disappears leaving you actually wondering if it really happened or not.

My second test was the dreaded cervical smear test, which is usually done in a clinical area with two nurses and over in a second.  Well this is France so I go into town to find the place which isn't a purpose built building but a little run down house with a small door in need of a paint.  I tentatively ring the bell and walk in only to be greeted by a long dark hallway with nothing to direct me to the place I need to go.  Getting up the courage I walk along the long dark corridor, turn the corner and find a little lady sitting behind a desk.  Relieved I ask, in my best French for an appointment and hand her the letter from my Dr.  She tells me to take a seat and there I sit for 30 minutes.  I then get called in to an office where a little man in a red suit and cap, red cheeks and a yellow tie is sitting.  He tells me to sit down and then goes into fast paced french asking me all sorts of medical questions none of which I understood.  After a while he gives up and tell me to go into the back room and get undressed!! I was just expecting to get an appointment and was getting the picture that I was about to have it there and then.  Not being prepared I was wearing my best knickers which had no elastic and were held up by good will and a hole in the side where the seam was falling apart.  Whipping them off quickly I sat on the table, he came in still wearing his hat but now with the added bonus of some purple rubber gloves! Sticking my legs in the stirrups he got to work.  Every few seconds he stuck his head up from between my legs with a massive smile and sticking his thumb in the air as if to say everything's OK!!! He then told me in his best English that I was a very good menopausal woman!   The strangest appointment I have ever had.

I do wonder what the French would think of the UK's rules of always having a chaperon when having any kind of examination as it clearly isn't an issue here.

Never a dull moment living on the Funny Farm.

Thursday 26 February 2015

My latest Portrait


My latest portrait, should have been completed before Christmas but unfortunately, due to winter illnesses, was not completed until January

Flu

I used to think that flu was just a cold.  People at work walking around with a runny nose and headaches telling people they had the flu, which was the only knowledge I had of this horrible illness.  My parent never had the flu, in fact my mother only had one cold all the years I knew her.  I never had the flu, just the usual bad cold every year.  Then I had children and everything changed.

When the children were about 2 and 3 they came down with something that rendered them totally useless, in bed, high temperature, not eating, hot and cold at the same time, occasionally sick and aching in every part of their body.  I then promptly caught this illness and was in bed for over a week!! My mother looked after us and never caught it surprisingly enough.  She swore blind that it was eating potatoes that protected her form all these illnesses,

After my initial introduction to the flu, I regularly caught it every Christmas until I ended up with pneumonia and was then put on the flu jab list.  Since moving to France I have not had the flu or the flu jab, possibly because we live in the middle of nowhere and the only passing traffic is a wild boar, deer and the odd tractor. I also realise now that all the people who are walking around telling everyone they have the flu are grossly misinformed because if they really did get a dose of flu they would know all about it and be unable to lift their heads off the pillow.

That said, I have just got over what can only be described as a flu like cold.  Worst cold I have ever experienced with aching bones, shivers, headaches and feeling very under par, but I might add I could still get about. At the same time as being really poorly my father decided it was his time to have broken nights, making breakfast at 3am in the morning, walking about trying to find life and thinking we were talking at 4am in the morning and he was missing out. So there I was trying to sleep through the night after taking copious amounts of medicines and rubbing vicks on every surface of my body only to be woken up every night with a new adventure of whats Dad doing now.  Even though I gave him the lecture of - if its dark outside it isn't time for you to get up or make breakfast, you should go back to bed - none of which worked.  I ended up pleading with him to let me have one nights sleep unbroken as I was so ill and asked him to stay in bed if he wakes up, That night I did actually get a full nights sleep and felt a bit guilty that I had been so firm with him but he then told me that he had got up and had breakfast at 3am but had been very quiet and did go back to bed afterwards!! Then while I was trying to sleep unable to do anything my Dad would come in and say I've made you a coffee and it's getting cold and unless I got up and staggered into his room he would keep coming in and telling me.  Even my protests that he might catch this cold were fruitless as his reply was that he was made a strong stuff.

My high energy dog was very good while I was ill he just sat in his bed sulking waiting for the fun to resume.  Thankfully all better now and only managed to pass it on to my son who soldiered though and worked through it with the help of medicines.

So the next time someone walks in and says they have the flu, it's probably because they have never actually experienced real flu and have that pleasure to come.  Life on the funny farm continues to be funny and we are waiting with baited breath for Spring to arrive.

Monday 19 January 2015

Samantha Brick

This is my latest portrait.  The lovely Samantha Brick



My day so far

Well this morning, down on the Funny Farm, I was awakened by many bangs and crashes.  Staggering out of bed, bleary eyed and knackered I wandered into the kitchen to find an over excited dog, a wide awake daughter and a tiny mouse stuck in the bottom of the dog food bin.  All of which was not the normal greeting on a cold sleety Monday.  My daughter squealed and told me how she had heard the mouse scrabbling around in the bottom of the bin and voila there it was.  As she tried to get hold of it the little mouse bounced and bopped around in an effort to stay free.  Just as she got hold of it, it jumped straight into the mouth of a waiting curious cat.

After all the fun of the mouse, the dogs began barking madly.  Looking outside I saw the delivery man with the massive boxes of animal food.  Dashing out in dressing gown and slipper I managed to step in a lovely big duck poo.  Signing the computer screen with a squiggle that resembled nothing like my signature I hobbled over to the outside tap to wash my slipper.  After cleaning off all remnants of duck poo I heaved up the massive box by the sturdy carry straps in an effort to take the 30 something kg box inside,only to find out the 'sturdy' carrying straps where actually not. As the straps broke the box tumbled down my dressing gown and landed on my duck poo slippered foot, splitting down the side and spilling the contents onto the soggy wet leaves.

After making several trips carrying heaving bags of animal feed into the house.  I decided it was time to feed the outside cats as they had all congregated outside to see what all the commotion was.  Taking one of the large bags outside with the scoop I was greeted by a dominant male called Brain who preceded to wrap his body around my ankles causing me to fly across the wet mud landing face first in, yes you guessed it, goose poo! I decided that I would throw a few biscuits out before going inside to shower and put my dressing gown in the washing machine.  This proved too difficult today too.  As I moved the full scoop across to the bowls Brain decided to headbutt me and tossed all the biscuits across the floor.  Giving up I went inside.

Stepping under the lovely hot shower (the one luxury I have which I am thankful for everyday) I let the hot water cascade over me and after forcing the cement like freezing cold shower gel out of its bottle I managed a smile.  This smile lasted all of 5 seconds as it suddenly ran cold causing me to jump, scream and slip backwards in the bath falling over so the ice cold water was spraying directly over all of me.  Slipping and sliding to get up and get out seems to take an eternity.  I finally got out and wrapped myself in a towel to find out why my shower had been so rudely interrupted.  I did finally get a hot shower and am now dressed with 6 layers of thermals as you can see your breath in my house today.

I just have to deal with the dripping tap in the kitchen, change the gas bottle in the fire, clear the wood burner out ready for tonight and make some lunch.  Life on the funny farm, never dull, never boring and always fun!!

Ps: Just caught my Dad trudging across the farm to the wood shop dragging two shopping trolleys behind him.  Only problem with this was he had them round the wrong way so the metal stands where being dragged across the floor and not the wheels, causing major sparks, lots of noise and frightening all the animals!!