Beware the Crepes of March!

[QueenQueenie]

Well someone had to do it as my last post was number 999...

Rose, stop putting yourself down! Who cares who was the fattest?!
You are a great person and attractive and good at what you do, just like the rest of us. And them

MI, I have been meaning to go there for about 20years! And we'll done on client!

ouch Hatty! Do you think you will be brave enough to get your skis on again in the future? And wasn't it lovely relaxing reading? Did you have good weather?

My friends DM has just remembered that on their last coach trip, DM tipped her purse out to the waitress and said "take what you like lass" eek!
DM rang me to tell me what the fridge-mender-man said, but as usual it was garbled and incomprehensible. At least she sounded upbeat

BTM, really do go there. I'll generously offer to meet you if you like.

Emily, I was thinking how in the 1970s very few people seemed to do stuff like run. Whereas now the streets are full of the buggers. Mind you my dad (born 1934) is still obsessive about open windows.

Rose, that spiral is seductive. Resist, resist, resist.

I think we knew a lot of people who ran in the seventies? OH certainly did. Also masses of walkers, especially because we lived near the peak district. Gyms weren't so much in evidence, I think, that was more the eighties, but pretty much all our friends ran, walked and/or went swimming very regularly.
We were already gardening furiously by then and did the Good Life thing of digging up our front garden (but not in Surbiton).

I know, Tilly you're right. I just sat there, stupidly, making all sorts of unfavourable comparisons. They are all thin, and arrange meetings 10-2, and don't eat anything…by that time, I'm ready to eat the paper off the walls. They all have their own consultancies and websites…very successful. I don't have enough to my name even to be on Linkedin! They have all the corporate-speak which is like a foreign language to me. One of them has a grown up son…other than that, I am the only mother. I just let myself get intimidated.

But I have made : Leek and potato soup and Chicken Chasseur for dinner.

Actually I don't know that gyms weren't in evidence in the seventies, just that we didn't join one until the eighties.
it is interesting about how our own experience shapes our perception of the past isn't it? The seventies for me were all about gardening, wholefood, long dresses, feminism and the outskirts of hippydom. Can't have been the same everywhere.

My parents never did a stroke of exercise, except building the odd house (in my dad's case). Blamed it on 'slipped discs'. Sound familiar, MI? Problem is, I never grew up with it being a 'thing', so am similarly slothful.

Just returned from a highly successful playdate, with a boy I'd been trying to engineer DS becoming friends with, as I liked him, and thought his mother was supercool. I spent more time than I should have done wondering what to wear. I plumed for my new Sainsbos boots!

Turns out she IS supercool, and we have lots in common. And her husband is head chef in a very well-known Smithfield restaurant. They have a cast concrete worktop in their kitchen they made themselves, and he builds his own bikes.

Her DS has a vast dressing up collection, so they spent the whole time giving us a display of outrageous get-ups. Until they went into the bathroom and showed each other their willies and bums. This a first.

Nice move Herbs!
Is it the well known on in St John Street - that has things like squirrel / spleen / eccles cakes on the menu??

The very same, QQ. I feel cool by association.

Herbs, I am now thinking that you must be super cool, too.

I ran in my 30s and definitely ruined my poor knees. We also played badminton once or twice a week. The explosion in sport here has been in cycling - the roads roundabout during the week are full of retired men and women and some of the men are amazingly fit. One chap cycled 70 miles on his 70th birthday!

Don't get too depressed, Rose, you always seem very dynamic to me.

Squirrels? Fark, no, tell me that's not serious. No one wants to eat a tree rat, surely?
Rose, your meeting-mates are all clearly not very nice. And LinkedIn is just a forum for guff and puffery. It is all a made-up pile of twaddle. I am particularly fond of a work contact of mine who has listed his skills (on Linked In) as "talking nonsense late at night", "social subversion" and "advanced budgie training". He never seems to be short of work. :)
My mother (84) is mighty fond of exercise and always has been. She was busy running in the 70s and we were always forced out to do bracing walks in inclement weather etc. She gave up running when she decided it was daft and would only lead to joint replacements. But she was swimming a mile twice a week until recently. She now just does old person aquamobility, I think. Dh thinks exercise is for twits who can't think of anything better to do, although he says he likes what it does for my arse. I tell him I like what I think it might do for his arse, were he bothered to ever get up off it.

I feel cool by virtue of knowing you who knows them... six degrees of separation and all that.

Yes Stropps. Squirrel. Really!

We once went to someone's glamorous birthday party in the private room of squirrel restaurant. No squirrels in evidence on that particular occasion but I did sit next to some man who ordered pressed tongue followed by rolled spleen.

Molly, please stay in bed and Do Not Venture Out. Wait until you are well!

I have insanely volunteered to help on a school trip for ds. Insane, because the trip is to the British Museum and the entire year group is going (150 y5s) and the coaches leave at 6.15am. And I will be allocated a bunch of what ds refers to as 'twits' to mind all day. He said "I feel very sorry for you - you will have to spend the whole day with twits". Mind you, one of said twits is him. It's not like I don't have other things to do. I have always avoided school trips in the past. Rush of blood to the head. This means 2 x 4.30am starts in a week. I dunno about the Y5s being twits, but I am def one.

Tongue is just Not Nice. It is far too .. tonguey.

Should you even eat spleen? Is that a good idea?

And whose spleen is it, anyway?

So many questions Stropps!
And yes, BM trip sounds exhausting jolly good fun. You twit.

But seriously, I am concerned about the whole spleen-eating shebang. Is it something to be recommended? I suppose, on reflection, I am all for eating squirrels. If one knew that they hadn't been fed entirely on city dustbin contents. Ddog is certainly all for eating squirrels.

I know Stropps - ddog's unwavering ambition in life is to catch a squirrel... she is perpetually on the alert for any squirrel catching opportunities.

You certainly wouldn't catch me eating a spleen, rolled or otherwise. I can still picture it - glistening and the colour of Germolene.

MI, that is great news about your dm. And sorry to hear about your week to come, Rudy.

Molly, sorry you are so poorly - stay in bed and recover or it will take longer in the end. BTM, as I feared this weekend is looking....complicated so I doubt I can get away on Sunday.

I've just looked up spleen eating and it seems to be a bit of an Italian tradition. Lots of spleen goes into sausages apparently. My grandfather lived on tinned tongue for decades. He claimed it was medically advised...

Herbs - it is nice when your offspring make friends with the "right" children, but I do hope DS's untimely willy/bum showing hasn't damaged your cool credentials.

According to DS the other boy 'started it', but it think they might have been 'sword fighting'. Apparently DS 'got a stone in his peepee'.

One of our esteemed local eateries was serving squirrel years ago on a night out with friends. None of us tried it!

Herbs, glad your DS has found a new friend with similar interests

The seventies was all about junk food, power cuts, not being allowed to wear nylon clothing (but thankfully not sheets), but having to wear clothes made by DM (who was not a fashion goddess like your DM, CV!) and being stuck in the wilderness years of pre-early teenhood at an all girls grammar stuck in the 1950's.
My DM is the worlds biggest sloth. I think my father was originally quite sporty (mainly footy and rambling!) but had sunk into alcoholism by the time I came along. So no role models for me!

DH booked our flights for NZ last night!!! And DDs GodM rang from NZ just after - just as I was thinking they might be up so I could ring!
Something to look forward to in the grim sandwich between teenage dramas/stress, etc and elderly confusion.

Ohhh that is exciting, Tilly i shall be following your trip all the way…it's on my bucket list

Thank you Stropps for making me laugh about the Linkedin thing…one needs to laugh to get out of the quagmire of self pity and associated silliness. Funnily enough DH also says similar about Linkedin.
I always hated being a parent on school trips…i used to get DD and an assortment of horrible boys, and spent the whole trip in terror of losing someone. I also don't do coaches very happily…especially if then don't have a loo.

For religious reasons, I can't eat offal (except liver for some reason)…and not surprisingly, we can't have squirrel or other rodents… I have had rabbit once and found it somewhat chewy.

Sorry about Hatty's injury…and how is Molly today?

I have a headache….bloody smoke alarm bleeped for an hour at 4am…only disturbed me. Everyone else snored through it. I have had a SW fry up to compensate. DD has rehearsals today and later, her and DS are watching a freebie production (i.e. free seats for YTs). DH has been summoned to DPILs apparently to discuss their will .