Crepeys who try not to look like creepy clowns....

[BeachysSandyFlipFlops]

Would that be OK?

Must try to avoid a thread switch on a Friday night

Sorry to hear about your Cremcat. It does bring it all out though..... sometimes I think it's a good thing. You can allocate the crying session to cover many ills.

Just about to start a Halloween gathering, with about 5 families, before going onto the local stately home for ghostly walk through the cellars!

My dh is being mega moany and annoying today - just saying! There is nothing, and I mean nothing, jolly, kind or funny coming out of those chops today.....I took myself off for a 5 mile walk, with headphones in and bopped around the forest at pace, singing out loud. If anyone came across me, they saw a strange middle aged woman, but a HAPPY strange middle aged woman.... honestly did not want to come home to moany, misery and shouty!

Stropps, Woolovers sizing - I find some shrink a lot. But they do come up large, especially the unisex ones. I like their lambswool or merino V necks (I have specific jumper requirements for sitting WAH but not getting hot and bothered) and find the medium is OK once it has shrunk on me.

Cocoa, phew. It sounds like the right decision - knowing he is well looked after will be such a help and give you some time and space for each other without worrying about the day to day, I hope.

I bought two slouchy woolovers V necks in M and possibly should have got S but am expecting them to shrink slightly.

I have had a day out in Brighton! V jolly.

Are woolovers really wonderful? I had a fleeting visit to their outlet shop - Burgess Hill?? - once & didn't buy anything. I do need some jumpers, however.

Herbs your trek sounds like ours in reverse! We went Amsterdam, Bruges, Vienna, Salzburg, down through Yugoslavia as it was, thessolonika, Istanbul, kusadasi, Samos Athens, brindesi, Rome, Florence, Bern, chamonix, namora, Paris. Antwerp..... it literally was 'if today is Tuesday it must be Belgium'.....

Lots of bad spelling there - Namur...

A childhood of being dragged to live periodically in Forrin, plus many rather dire family holidays, meant I have been quite an unadventurous traveller in youth. I now feel the urge to do it (did I mention I am going to India) but would I think have to drag DP, who had an even more disrupted childhood, fleeing Pakistan when his dad was imprisoned, etc.

I have some S&B news to impart. Was just in Sainsbury's, natch, and tried on this [http://www.bourjois.co.uk/catalog/make_up/lips/lipstick/rouge_edition_velvet Bourjois lipstick thingo]]. It's really rather marvellous. Great colour, very light, non-drying and doesn't look like budging for the next day or so.

DP slaving over a fish pie; me finishing first part of grammar course. Note use of semi-colon.

I am contemplating going into work tomorrow to try and get a handle on my out of control inbox. Or I may see if I can log on from home. I am very tired and very fed up with work, and feel like I am on a downward spiral that I can't get out of. Home is not much better. I would like to take a few days off, but won't be able to do this until at least the end of November as we are so short staffed (colleague has just been signed off work sick for another three weeks). And all I get is fucking criticism.

Auriga, forgot to say, I hope the epidural gives you some relief from the pain. There is nothing worse than a bad back, I think.

Gosh - the semi colon is something of a mystery to me, having never done it at school.

Mrs S - your work environment sounda positively toxic

I am a great fan of the semi-colon; if anything, I use it too frequently.

MrsS, this is all getting too much for you in every possible way. You need a Day Out like wot I have just had.

DP on the other hand is working. At 7pm on a Saturday night when we are supposed to be having a drink chez friends.

Herbs, DD and I were both baffled by the "incorrect use of semi-colon" comment her Eng Lit teacher put on an essay. But I stick to hyphens - far easier!

Not a good day for DS (or DH who had to abort an afternoon out with him) Boo. It's difficult.

Auriga, when might you get the epidural?

MrsS sorry that you are contemplating workng on a Sunday.

Crem, so sorry about your poor cat.

MrsS, I would be tempted to take a machine gun in.

All these lovely travellers' tales! I went round Scandinavia in an old jeep with some disreputable friends. Back in a min with dd's itinerary.

Today I have been to John Lewis; had a delicious tapas lunch; drunk 2 glasses of fino and a strong coffee; read the paper; helped ds2 with his Halloween party outfit; walked the dog; done the washing; written a shedload of emails; lain on the sofa watching really crap tv (ongoing).

There is only one thing spoiling my evening: fireworks.

Is that right Herbs? I'm digging deep for unused grammar knowledge here - and I went to Grammar School.

I was taught grammar by a wonderful Indian man whose language knowledge was impeccable. He taught us that the colon goes before the list, so it would be after "...been to..." in GGG's list above . And then the list which was in phrases/sentences were divided by semi colons. Was that correct?...he was a stickler for us getting right.

Tilly did the day at the hospital tire DS out, do you think? Small steps. Don't lose heart

MrsS Wot Molly said....it sounds like a hell hole.

Rosebag and GGG: you are correct. A colon comes before the 'answer', so a list or GGG's 'fireworks'. A semi-colon links two related parts of a sentence, making clear the relationship between the two. I think.

My mum wins the 'intrepid youngster' award. In the fifties, her and her plucky chums hitchhiked around Scandinavia, including some time on a Norwegian trawler, while all the time dressed entirely in tweed.

She also drove her Lambretta through France, with her BFF pillion, shod only in flip flops.

Love those pix of your mum, Herbs.

DD went for three weeks and covered: Amsterdam; Berlin; diversion to Auschwitz; Vienna; Budapest; Prague; Rome; Naples; Athens.

I think she did too much, but she was pleased with herself. She did a lot of the organisation for her mates, which was good for her confidence. But none of them started booking youth hostels, trains, flights etc till well into the summer term afaik.

We didn't book anything, I don't think. Just turned up...

Crem - sorry to hear about poor moggy. Hope she doesn't suffer too much.

FYI - Woolovers have "relaunched" this winter, leaving behind the majority of their itchy unisex enormo-knits and cheesy fell-walking models, and adopting a more "fashun" angle. Think merino cashmere ponchos. Prices are correspondingly higher, I noticed.

And Strops, let me tell you about my relationship with DSDad....he has been around since I was three or four, and we didn't really get on throughout my childhood. He left most of the "upbringing" to DM. During my teenage years I positively detested him; I remember one time when he drove me back to boarding school, and I spent the whole one-hour journey pressed against the passenger door in silent sulking dislike. I almost certainly "forgot" his birthday throughout my early twenties. But then.....I grew up. I started to see him as an adult, see what DM saw in him (that he's actually a caring, lovely man - not perfect, but a Good Guy), and now I totally adore him. Completely. Your DD is still so young and emotionally immature, and if you wait, one day she will see in her DSDad what you do.

BTM - sorry DS has had a bit ofa setback. Poor chap.

Nice lippy, Herbs. DH now works for the company who make Bourjois - hooray for me!

GGG - you wonder why I can remember my InterRailing destinations? I still have two mildewed winestained notebooks on my bookshelves, containing my InterRail diaries. What a load of self-indulgent teenage nonsense I wrote.

Have wrinkly fingers and backache from stripping ghastly wallpaper from DD2's bedroom. Plaster underneath is predictably awful - her room was once a kitchen, so there are all sorts of badly filled holes, and there is a huge crack down one corner. Now I know why they slapped anaglypta everywhere. I proposed we relocate her wardrobe to hide the biggest lumps and bumps, and put up lots of pictures. Can't afford replastering.

Thanks Molly. It does sound like a lot!

Herbs, Scandinavia must have been a thing in the fifties - even my DM went to Norway with her best friends. I think they travelled there by boat. It was the most exciting thing she ever did in her life. Also in tweeds!

We just turned up at random campsites and that seemed to work... but it was about 500 years ago.

LOVELY pictures Herbs - I can see where you get your intrepidness from!

Or maybe,
DH and I went for a bike ride this morning; painted the outside of the house and walked the dog: he has just cooked a lovely Thai curry.
I may do nothing tomorrow except read my book.