Sitting here like Piffy on a rock bun....

[Greensleeves]

One of my DC is fascinated by weird and inexplicable English idioms - the one in the title being our current favourite example! Also love "looking like the wreck of the Hesperus". Could anyone indulge me with other bizarre and colourful idioms, regional or otherwise?

Shape yourself - sort yourself out.

That's the badger

Piggies in your parlour

Black as the earl of hell's waistcoat was one my mum used.

You have a mouth wider than the Mersey Tunnel.
They cut clothes for all kinds of cloth.

It's a bit black over Bills mothers.

What's for dinner?
Shit wi sugar on
or
3 jumps at the pantry door and a bite at the latch.

What's in that bag?
Layholes for meddlers

She also used to say things were as cold as a stepmother's breath.

my uncle long departed a georgie use to say " he is so mean he would split a pound note with a razor"
My ddad use to have a few long sayings "big bugs have little bugs upon their backs to bite them & little bugs had little bugs & so on ad infinitum"

“But I thought…” “Thought thought he had a head but he had a cabbage.”

I’ve always liked ‘What am I, chopped liver?’

Enough blue in the sky to make a sailors collar
Who's she, the cats mother?
You make a better door than a window (if you were stood in front of the TV)
Hang the pelmet back up when you're done wearing it (too short skirt)
Were you born in a barn? (If you didn't close the door)

you must be local to me 🙂- when I was very young I thought it was just a way of saying 'all around the houses' not realising the Wrekin was a real place.

Dim as a toch 8 (or possibly toch H) lamp - not very bright!
I'll have your guts for garters
It's raining stair rods
Having a good old chin-wag

He'd laugh to see a pudding crawl...

My grandpa used to say that about my brother and I never understood it

It’s like Piccadilly Circus in here! If too many people kept coming in and going out of a room at home.
What do you think you’re on? Your Daddy’s yacht? In answer to a request for….well, anything really

It stopped at every buggers netty door.
(The train stopped at every single station)

Up Aunt Fanny's behind behind the wallpaper (when asked where you have been).

“He/She’s got a bell in every tooth” - Welsh expression meaning they’ve got a loud voice 😀

Piffy on a rock bun here too! Never heard anyone say it apart from my DM…. are you my DB OP?

As awkward as Dick's hatband - went round nine times and still wouldn't meet

I could eat a scabby donkey between two buggy mattresses

Sun's cracking the flags out there

So many that we still use

He's not as green as he is cabbage looking

What's for tea? pickled pigs pap & fuckled onions

She's got more faces than the town hall clock

Ear all, see all, say nowt. Eat all, sup all, pay nowt. An if that ever does owt for nowt... do it for th'self

Close the door: Put wood int hole

It's a bit black over Bills mothers

He could peel an orange in his pocket

I could eat a scabby horse between two pissed mattresses

It’s black over Bill’s Mam’s - it’s clouding over
Chelpsing - chatting
Nesh - someone who feels the cold

Those are all Leicestershire ones

What a smeech! - what a stinky, smokey bonfire - from my MiL (Essex/Suffolk way)

Put the wood in the hole.

Ooh yes - I could eat a scabby horse between two bread vans

It's like Blackpool bloody illuminations in here - when you leave a light on, usually roared by dads.

'But I thought xyz' - well you know what thought did. It planted a feather and thought it would grow a hen.

My parents used to say all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff!
'You're like a jar of stoggies' - meaning you're really loud (I have no idea what a stoggie is'
'You're all my arse and Peggy Martin' - generally meant they didn't believe me and again I have no clue who Peggy Martin is!
My mum also used to say 'Can you see green in my eye?!' when she didn't believe me, and 'you've a voice like a Corncrake' when we were being particularly loud or screechy
Ahhh I miss them both so much!