This was the theme of yesterday’s service at church – a really good sermon indeed.
But a bit ironic that, at the end of the sermon, everyone stood for the hymn.
Everyone, that is, except me.
This woman who had been sitting straight and was usually quite capable of standing straight, who did not have a curvature of the spine for 18 years, who actually should have been perfectly capable of standing for the hymn…. this woman remained in her seat, unable to stand.
Would you believe it?
One of the loops of the fastening of my bra had twanged apart, ripped through my top and embedded itself deep into the fabric of the cushion of the seat I was in, pinning me to the spot.

It was him lying on the couch and me on the mattress on the floor, seeing as my bed is still covered with the contents of the boxes that it’s taken from now to unpack.
He’d just come in (soaking wet) from his paperround… thank goodness – the sound of him closing the front door woke me from the strangest of dreams. Still incredibly vivid.

As an adult I had returned from away to visit my parents at our old house in the Midlands, and they informed me that Teacher Margaret (the Sunday School teac) her from the Isle of Wight) had invited me to go along to the Sunday School party as I was home. So I walked up to the church – which turned out to be the church I had attended until we moved away at the age of 11 – where there was a church service going on (part of the dream included this service, but I cannot remember much of that) and afterwards we went into the Sunday School rooms for the party. As the dream progressed I got younger, until for the main part of it I was 14, but still home visiting the parents from my life far away.
The party began with a game of pass-the-parcel. Except it wasn’t. What we were actually passing was a chocolate muffin, which we either threw to the next person or slid along the floor, leaving a slightly worrying trail of chocolate across the parquet flooring. One by one the children all wandered off except me and one other, who passed the muffin back and forth. I won a strange toy made of wood with writing all over it. Initially I thought it would be useful for work but then I realised it was made out of balsa wood and so was too breakable, and that the writing was very grown up. I felt quite indignant because the game had been organised so that everyone would get two prizes each but, even though everyone else had wandered off, they got two prizes and I only got this one.
Then the food was brought out and put on loads of tables. Teacher Margaret asked me to be in charge of windows and doors. Still not sure quite what she meant, but felt annoyed that it wasn’t as interesting a job as helping put the food out. One boy was eating in a separate room, with his food piled on an ironing board. This boy was a younger version of one the kids I work with. I went to take him to join the others, but he tried to pick up three different plates of food to carry with him and dropped them all upside down on the ironing board.
As I took him through to the other room, I realised I felt very uncomfortable and realised I was not only wearing my bathing costume under my party clothes, but that I had it on back to front. I went through to where the toilets were in the church and discovered they’d been replaced by some private changing rooms for a school swimming pool, though there was no pool there. I couldn’t go into the changing rooms as there were pupils changing in there and signs saying it was private and not for church use, so I slipped into the shower to take off my party clothes and turn my bathing costume round… which was successful except that the shower was on. Soaking wet, and carrying my party clothes in my hand, I set off back to the church. As I crossed the road (road? The shower room had been in the same building so I don’t quite know why I was crossing a road) I saw a circus troupe walking towards me in fancy dress, all with things to torment the passers by. One went past without noticing me, the second fired a pop gun at me, and the third, dressed in a cape and top hat, walked menacingly towards me carrying a large jar of Hellman’s mayonaise. He grinned and I thought to myself “I know exactly what’s going to happen now”…. and at that point the Smudgelet arrived home, shutting the front door and waking me before I could even find out what I knew was going to happen.

Weird? Or what?

I daren’t even begin to analyse where all that came from!!!!

The Smudgelet is away and today I have been grown up.
Well, sort of grown up.
Well, as grown up as I can be when spending time with a particular friend and her husband (though some of our conversation was very grown up as they are going through some tough times too), as we’re not known for taking even some of the most serious things in life as deadly serious.
So today I had my first ever visit to Tate Britain.

I have to admit that the first two hours were spent in the cafe.

But the rest of the time was spent in the gallery itself. WOW! Art galleries are not my first choice of places to visit, though they are on the list of places I’d happily spend time if given the opportunity. Museums come higher, though. But to do an art gallery in adult company, totally at leisure, with someone whose interest mirrors my own (i.e. equally happy to discuss the paintings or to discuss other things prompted by the paintings) and whose knowledge is slightly greater than mine but not oppressively so, and whose thought patterns and preferences in art are close enough to my own to make discussion fun but not so identical as to take out all reason to discuss, now that was a really lovely experience.

Funny how looking closely at paintings can tell you a lot about yourself.

Little wonder I now need a snooze with my feet up.

Brrrring… brrrrring…..
Good afternoon, could I speak to Ms Smudgie please?

Speaking

Good afternoon, Ms Smudgie. I am your friendly-voiced and extremely convincing representative from your insurance firm. I am sure you are aware that you have your insurance with us? Well, this is just a follow up call to see how you’re doing.

That’s very nice of you.

Just to inform you that this call is being recorded for training purposes, which of course, means absolutely nothing.

OK

We are offering our customers a really special special offer at the moment. Accidental death insurance.

No thank you.

Our accidental death insurance has a guaranteed payout of x-thousand pounds in the event of your accidental death and we’re offering it completely free for the first three months.

No thank you.

Have you already got accidental death insurance?

No.

And you don’t it, even though it’s free for the first three months?

No.

Why would you not want something which is free?

Tell, you what, I promise for the next three months to be really really careful not to die accidentally. If I fail, you can laugh and say “I told you so”.

S I L E N C E Er.. Goodbye.

First the mad dash into the big city. I still can hardly believe I live near enough to London to “pop in for coffee” – surreal! But it was extremely nice to see several lovely shippie people, albeit fleetingly as I had to leave to get back for my afternoon shift. This is the life, though. I could have got some lovely photos, if only my SD card hadn’t gone mysteriously missing. (“SMUDGE-LE-E-ET!!!”) The sun shone, the coffee was just the right strength for my liking, and I managed to resist the temptation to have a chelsea bun.

Then the mad dash back to work (via the flat for a toilet stop!), just in time to find myself drafted in to blow up balloons. Now isn’t that better than SATs tests and league tables? It was party night tonight and we had fun! It’s lovely when one’s work is just like being part of a big family. Also lovely when the kids spend so much energy on partying that they’re all ready for bed nice and early and fall straight to sleep!

Then finally the mad dash home to go into the ship cafe for a reunion of all the cafe folk of the dim and distant past. Weird, actually – it seems a long time ago those crazy cafe days. But lovely to catch up with people once again and to find myself once more at the computer at pumpkin hour, forgetting the stresses of everyday life and rediscovering those carefree days just a little bit. Good to break ice, too, in several ways. Goodness knows how I’ll wake in time to get the place tidy for the babysitter tomorrow, though. Wish I had never had the genius idea of taking advantage of the Smudgelet’s absence to empty all the boxes all over the flat. Tomorrow will end up being a mad dash to repack everytthing ready for next time he goes away!!! But still, having fun was… well… quite simply too much fun to miss, and the housework will still be there tomorrow.

There’s nothing like the window cleaner appearing at your bedroom window when you’re sitting in your (rather skimpy, due to the hot weather) nightie at the computer (alongside said window) playing around on the internet at midday to remind you that you are supposed to be working.

Not that I hadn’t done any work, I hasten to add. No, I work best in my nightclothes, believe it or not, and I was only having a coffee break, honest gov.

But I have worked and worked and worked and reached that point now where I’ve run out of a) enthusiasm, b) space to “put stuff”, and c) enthusiasm. You know that point, the point where you’ve made it all a million times worse in the preparation stage of making it all better, you know you’re going to have to make it a million times worser still (if only that were a word), and now there’s no going back but you’re going to have to redouble your efforts if you’re going to move forward…. or even if you’re going to have somewhere to sleep tonight!

Today there is no putting it off. There is no excuse. Procrastination will be punishable by … er… hold on while I complete another game of bejewelled blitz while I think of a suitable punishment.

Today I MUST do some work in this flat.

When we had to break in, the Smudgelet, in being brave and helpful, also managed to cause an avalanche in my room where I keep all the as-yet-un-unpacked boxes. They are now semi-unpacked….. all over the bedroom floor…. and causing a barricade to anyone who wants to get to the windows, the garden door, the computer. (By “anyone” I mean, of course, ME). I can no longer stand climbing over the bed to get online.

Something. Must. Be. Done.

Just got in from fetching the Smudgelet from Scouts.

Interesting to discover that we’d never make it as burglars.

Despite two windows having been left open, and a larger one being fairly insecure, the Smudgelet and I were unable to manoevre his now-much-bigger body in sufficiently without breaking any bones in the process. We even managed to get the back door open…. about four inches. Well, it is the door which has all the boxes still piled in front of it.

In the process, the Smudgelet and his trousers parted company. Interesting how many people walked past totally oblivious to the woman and the boy in his underpants trying to break into a house at night by the light of a mobile phone. (A mobile phone which was decidedly lacking in credit)

Thank goodness we have free calls to my brother. From Scotland he was able to go online and find the details of our nearest locksmith.

Know how long it took him to break in? Thirty seconds. Thirty seconds! £112 for thirty seconds of work. I’m in the wrong job!

Next time I go to fetch the Smudgelet from Scouts, remind me to check that I’ve picked the right keyring up.

It was nice to take a break and have a stroll along to the greengrocer.
Why don’t greengrocers sell chocolate? (Our greengrocer conveniently sells milk!)

Lounge complete. Car cleaned out – well, the bits that are visible to people accepting lifts are, anyway.

Sense of self-satisfiedness – pretty good.

Boy delivered to Scouts. My life’s my own now until it’s time to pick him up. (I rang in sick at work – depression basically – needed a day to come to terms with what I learned yesterday). Think I’ll meander along to the Ship of Fools cafe and see if I can still remember how to babble inanely.

What do you mean, when did I ever stop?

Out of milk.
How did that happen?
How can I carry on without caffeine?
I’ll be back after a short emergency-ration-seeking walk.
(which may or may not also involve chocolate)