Beware of tea cosies

This is Grandson today about to descend a chute, as we call it in Scotland but (I think) not in England, where it tends to be a slide. I've included the photo for aesthetic reasons, since the main subjects of this post are rather less photogenic.

You know those unlikely accident statistics in which one reads that (for example) in Britain last year there were 390 reported accidents involving tea cosies, another 288 in which the culprit was a picture frame and a further 125 incidents of injury by stationery? And you think: what on earth were those people doing?

Well, the day before yesterday I was hurt by my wardrobe. I'm putting it this way to make it sound less like my fault. The fact is that I kicked the wardrobe, hard, with my bare left foot. I didn't mean to; I was just bustling between it and the bed, intent on getting to the chair where my clothes were. "Did the wardrobe make a sudden move?" enquired Son-in-Law 1, when I told him about this. I have to admit that it didn't. I wish it had in fact sprung smartly backwards as I approached. Only one toe is very sore, but it's more incapacitating than you'd think, being unable to put one toe to the ground without pain.

More unusual, I thought, was the recent attack on me by Mr L's iPad. He was lying on his back on the sofa reading the news on his beloved tablet. Something of interest caught his attention and he beckoned me over. I lay down beside him, turned my head towards the iPad and he tilted it towards me. At least I assume that this was what he intended to do. What he actually did was to drop the iPad on the side of my face and snap off my crowned premolar.

Thus I have been having dental attention and have a tender mouth as well as a sore foot.

I told the dentist this tale, expecting a merry laugh, but he told me, very seriously, that this is a common experience. "You were lucky," he said. "Lots of people drop their iPads on their own faces when they're reading in bed, and they break their front teeth."

You have been warned.

I don't feel all that lucky.

I hope a third piece of luck isn't coming my way soon.

Dead? Or only sleeping?

 

Look what happened last night. Snow! Not a lot, granted, and it's melted now, but not what we want, thank you, Weatherman.

 

The Advent reindeer have been joined by a tree.

Daughter 2's parcel for us contained two big green hooks.

Here is Grandson hooked to the fridge. The photo was taken (advert follows) by my lovely photograper friend, Alan Rennie. He also did the wedding photographs for Daughter 1 and Son (Daughter 2's were done by a friend of her husband) and they were great and he is so nice and very reasonable. He's highly recommended! Alan Rennie Photography. I would give you his website address but I can't because I'm using Mr Life's computer BECAUSE MINE HAS DIED! WAAAAHHH!!! - and I don't know how to get another internet page while I'm doing this.

As you can see even by my rubbish photo of Alan's photo, his photos are better than mine, but here's Grandson having great fun today playing with a travel rug.

I can't show you what our parcel for Daughter 2 contained, because my photo of that is on my computer AND IT'S DIED, as I may have mentioned.

In answer to the commenter who asked about the penguins (sorry I don't know who it is since I haven't read it yet but Mr Life has just told me about it) they came in a packet labelled Tux and the website www.designideas.net and seem to come from China via Springfield Illinois. I'm sure Daughter 1, who gave us them, could tell you more. Are you reading this, K?

Grapes for the invalid

It's one of those weeks when things feel a bit of a struggle. Grandson hasn't been well - in a vomity way - and though he seems to have his appetite back today (despite a slightly black eye caused by falling over (in his own home - grandparents were not involved)) he's rather inclined to sit on one's knee sucking his thumb. (Which is actually rather nice - cuddly.) In  between times he's been playing happily, such as with my clothes pegs in their now rather raggedy (but home-made, Anna) bag. Now I think about it, the bag is nearly 40, so it's done quite well.

Anyway, the main problem with Grandson's vomityness is that tomorrow, he and Daughter 1 were booked to go down on the train to stay with Daughter 2 in London. Coping with Grandson, the pushchair, the luggage and Volume 2 (due February) on and off trains and other modes of transport in London would have been difficult enough, but she was worried that he wasn't really 100%. She then became more worried when she started throwing up herself, last night.

So today has been a day of oh-dear-what-should-we-do? We think she's now decided to go down on Friday instead, health permitting.

Meanwhile, we were going to have the study carpet fitted today. Once the carpet's down, Mr Life can erect the Billy bookcases (scheduled to be bought tomorrow) and we can then clear all the study furniture, archives, books, papers etc from what was my mother's bedroom in preparation for the delivery next week of a new double bed for visitors.

The carpet did indeed arrive. But it was too small. It was duly removed.

Grrr.

I phoned the shop to ask if they could try to get an express delivery on its replacement instead of our having to wait another two weeks. They said they'd find out and let me know. Silence so far.

Ho hum.

PS This evening's development: Mr Life has now started throwing up. Alas.

When I'm Queen

 I popped into town today. The weather was lovely again, though not warm.

It was only 1.30 pm but look how low the sun is - not quite behind the Castle but not far off.

The shadows in the Gardens are already quite long.

And I sat on the little bench in the queue at the bus stop and wondered, as I often do, why some tall chaps stand on the non-queue side of the bus stop, blocking the view of the buses coming. Do they feel they're too cool to queue? I don't suppose they realise they're blocking the view but I wish they wouldn't. I have to keep bobbing up and down and craning my neck to see round them.

When I'm Queen, this will be a punishable offence. Haha. I have one or two other plans in mind for this time, connected with people who drop chewing gum on the pavements, those who say "I" when they mean "me"* and thin people who eat far more than I do and still remain thin.

And you? What's on your statute book?

* ... such as "He gave it to John and I". No he didn't. He gave it to John and me.

Some advice for life

I was walking with Daughter 1 and Grandson in the Queen's Park this morning. The hill was looking very atmospheric: the mist swirled (yes, a June day in Edinburgh) and the ruined chapel loomed romantically on the craggy bit above the loch. And Grandson was looking devastatingly fetching and cheery as usual. However, I'd forgotten my phone and therefore couldn't delight you with photos of either the landscape or the descendant. So I offer you - above - Andy Murray winning a match at Wimbledon this afternoon ...

... my garden in this evening's sunlight, complete with many many lurking slugs....

and some of my paeonies, before the torrential rain (which always comes at peak paeony time) ruins them, probably tomorrow.

But the main point of this post is to give you a piece of advice.

Next time you're lying in the bath at one in the morning, looking at the cobweb hanging down from the ceiling - the one that you keep noticing when you're in the bath, but never see at any more useful time - what you should do when you get out of the bath is to go into the kitchen (never mind if you disturb the cats), take your long-handled feather duster out of the broom cupboard and remove the cobweb with this.

What you shouldn't do is to get out the bath and flap your towel up at the ceiling with the idea of dislodging the cobweb that way.

Why not? Well, what might happen is that you might miss the cobweb but, as the towel returns on its downward trajectory, it might knock the heavy blue ornamental perfume bottle off the shelf above the sink.

This might then fall into the sink with a crash like a million iron foundries collapsing and smash into a trillion tiny blue shards, which spray over your unclothed person and the entire bathroom.

And then you might notice that it had also cracked the sink.

This would make you very annoyed with yourself. Especially as the sink is fitted into a counter top which is nicely cut to fit it. No doubt the sink is a long-discontinued shape and so you'll need to get a new counter top too.

Anyway. I hope you're grateful for this advice. I like to spread comfort and joy. More than I like to spread bits of glass.

Distracting myself from my thickness

Oh, it's a terrible thing to be thick. And I am. Having signed up for Facebook, I can't really see how you're supposed to work it. Possibly I might understand it if I tried a bit harder, but I can't be bothered. There seems to be a lot of information about friends of friends, which seems irrelevant to me. (Yes, I know I spend lots of time reading the blogs of people I'll never meet...) What I need is a young person to instruct me. Daughter 2's coming home at the weekend but she's got lots of weddingy things to arrange.

Anyway, I'll distract myself by posting pictures. Son came to visit us twice within a few days (we were honoured) and Sirius lay on his legs. These big blue things are Son's feet. It's funny how Sirius looks in photos. In fact he's the nicest natured, most tolerant cat in the world (I've met all the cats in the world, of course) but he looks rather severe and reproachful here.

Here's my mum cuddling her great-grandson. Thank goodness that he's here to cheer Mum up, because she's not well, she can't sell her flat and her upstairs neighbour is being difficult about downpipe repairs. "I just want to run away," she keeps saying.

This is the second of Son's visits. Look at those butch bootees. Son used to have a pair just like them.

They had a bit of a chat. It's so odd (but sweet) seeing the person who was (it seems to me) a baby himself such a short time ago, and was the baby of the family, cuddling his tiny nephew. Tempus (as I'm not the first to remark) fugit - and extremely fast.

Grrr

I’m not a person who is particularly easily annoyed, but I was a bit annoyed yesterday. I had a student who was sitting Advanced Higher English – only the one student. It's a national exam which requires an outside invigilator.

This exam may be an hour and a half (one question) or three hours (two questions) – depending on which other options the student chooses. This student was doing the three hour exam, in a room by herself with the invigilator. However, our exam section had misinformed the invigilator that she was only doing the one-and-a-half-hour version. So the invigilator wrested the paper from the student after an hour and a half and, despite her protests, sent her away. Fortunately the girl sought me out; a colleague fetched me from the class I was teaching; and I managed to get the paper back and the exam restarted. But by that time, the student was in floods of tears and probably not in the right frame of mind to do her best.

Now, goodness me, anyone can make a mistake and the original mistake wasn't the lady's fault. But it seems to me that if I were an invigilator and a twenty-two-year–old girl sitting Advanced Higher English assured me that she was supposed to be in the exam room for three hours, I think – even though that wasn't what I had been told – I’d at least investigate: let her start writing the second part and then go and find out what the situation was. Wouldn’t you? Rather than insisting the girl leave and just going off and having a cup of tea, as this lady did?

The invigilator wandered in from her cup of tea while I was sorting this out and didn’t seem at all worried. It was by then 3.30 pm and when asked if she could stay and invigilate for the next hour and a half, ie till 5 pm, she said well, only till 4.45 because she was being picked up then.

Another 15 minutes would clearly have been too much to ask. (We did get someone else to take over from her.)

I don’t mind mistakes. But I do mind sheer unhelpfulness.
Cats in drawers, however, I do like.