Old and New

My mother is 87, my son is 7.  Since we don’t live conveniently close, we rely on the phone to keep in touch.

I can hand the phone to the Smallcat and leave them to it while I get on with household chores in peace.  If anyone can explain to me just what this conversation was about, then answers on a postcard please.

(Obviously, I only heard Smallcat’s side of the conversation).

"I am in charge of the whole world, because I decided what lives there and what shape it is.  There are also baby mushrooms".

"Only trees grow.  Which are completely immobile".

"Derek, the teenage mushroom, is pretty much unconscious".

"I painted my papier mache in a colour called "Party World".  It was as GOLDEN as the SUN!"

"There's an evil swamp of death, but the oil went into it and made it pretty much oil toxic"

<pause>

"No, that was only the first bit, Nan.  Obviously."

Hmmmm……

Call this a political protest?

It started near the A33 Junction.  A big field.  A massive great Tory hoarding.  “VOTE FOR CHANGE” it said, for days.  Every time we drove past it, I shook my fist.  Until one day, I heard Smallcat giggling in the back.  “CHANGE” had been replaced by “CHIMPS”.

“I’ll vote for chimps!”, he said “I want chimps in charge!”

Two days later the chimps had gone and the farmer had replaced them with a new hoarding before I’d had a chance to take a picture.  Honestly.  Some people can’t take a joke.

It wasn’t to last.  Following day, same handwriting.  The anonymous chimp supporter had upped the stakes.

 (I made poor Catman drive along a busy dual carriageway and pull in – probably illegally although he claims not – just to take that picture).

“I’ll vote for pants!”, said Smallcat, who’d clearly vote for anything that amused him. 

The farmer retaliated with ANOTHER hoarding, which he sneakily hid round the corner, away from the main road, near a tree.  It was so cunningly hidden that only the sharpest of Smallcat eyes spotted it.  This led to unreasonable demands on Catman, who had to pull in at a convenient spot where I handed him the camera and said “no, YOU do it.  I’m not doing it.  Go on – you do it.  You’re better with cameras than I am.  I don’t want to be seen!  Ok, I’ll buy you a drink, then”

 Quite right too

I don’t know.  The quality of political protest isn’t the same as it was when I were a lass.

Though I say so myself

I’m dead chuffed with this.  It made me go “squee!”.  The intended recipient may have to fight me for it, quite frankly.  Or be subjected to a Paddington Hard Stare at the very least.

This is what the character actually looks like in the cartoon.  He’s the little blue chap.

And here is my version.

SQUEEEE! 

Technorati Tags: amigurumi,totoro

Ash Death Doom Plane Plunge AAAAARGH!!!

People who know me will tell you that I have quite a nervous disposition. So imagine how agitated I am this morning. The Catman is in Athens at the moment. He went there for a big, fat Greek wedding and he's due home this evening. However, this has just gone off again;

Belch - "pardon me".

I've just checked the BBC website and airports in the South East are open, but the rest of the country appears to be closed. Am I pleased about this? It does mean that Catman can come home after all. Well no, no I am not. That ash is far too close for comfort. I would rather he stayed in Athens all year until every single particle of ash has been hoovered up by a magic, flying Dyson.

Is Catman of a similar opinion? No. He'll probably be irritated by the delay, not refusing to come out of his hotel room until the sky over Europe has been wiped down with a clean cloth. Because that's what I'd be doing. Oh yes.

I’ve not been entirely honest

I wasn’t REALLY trying to create a woollen version of the Prime Minister. I was making a Totoro for a friend.

For those of you who don’t know who Totoro is, I urge you to buy the DVD “My Neighbour Totoro”.  I did so on recommendation and thought I’d hate it, not being a great fan of Japanese animation ( and I cannot STAND Pokemon).  I also felt it might be just a tad too young for SmallCat.  But from the moment I put the disc in the DVD player, to the moment it finished over an hour later, the pair of us had not moved from the sofa and were enchanted from the word go.

If you look closely, you can see the little fella I’ve been making on the spine of the cover here…

 

And as luck would have it, the wonderful Lucy Ravenscar produced a free pattern, which I’ve been working on this week.  I strongly advise that you scroll down that link to her Star Wars characters.  If they don’t make you hoot with laughter (in a good way, the woman is a genius), then you have a HEART OF STONE!

Anyway, I’ve got his bib pinned on now, and there’s string everywhere, but he currently looks like this.

How absolutely DARE you accuse me of being a Tory!

Well, quite.  He’s much cuter than that Cameron person, and he’s not currently threatening to cut Child Benefits.

This is what Elections do to people

In order to avoid biting my nails down to a frazzle, I picked up a crochet hook to divert my hands.  There was so much excitement in Westminster, I thought I’d produce my own woollen representation of the incoming PM to pass the time.  Bear in mind that until the last minute, no one was sure who it might be, so it was all guesswork.  I like to think that I got a fairly accurate representation of our new leader in the picture below.

Oh, come on.  At least I got the colour right.

If only it were not so.

Sundry Discontent

Absence caused by much upheaval.  The unwanted house move has  finally come to pass, amidst many tears from all three of us, because we didn’t really want to go and only left because we had to. 

SmallCat and CatMan seem to have settled in now.  We’ve been here nearly two months, but most mornings when I wake up there’s a split second when I think I’m still in my old house.  Or home, as it was.  This isn’t home yet and may not be for some time.

The move has done strange things to what passes as my brain (I think there might be a cell in there, but I’m not sure).  At some point last month the panic attacks started, which gradually got worse and worse, and were closely followed by – well, even worse than that.  It was like being taken over by mental ivy – it got everywhere and I couldn’t pull it out.  Rather like the stuff which is currently growing in my herb patch and ruining the oregano, (only I’m not a plant and I don’t normally make stews taste nicer, and I’m making light of it now but it wasn’t funny at the time). 

Well.  That took me unawares.  But it is gradually getting back under control, slowly and with assistance, but getting there all the same.  And in the meantime, one good thing did happen, which is that I finally finished the monkeys for Speechless, Mostly.  I expect she’s given up on them, but wonders never cease.

There are three boys, of which two are pictured here…

…and one girl, who is very pretty, and has a bracelet, and is ever so sweet, and is JUST like Lynne I’m sure.  However Ms Monkey, alas, has terrible trouble with her skirt and it keeps falling down.

I think perhaps someone needs to have a quiet word in her ear.