SHMOCKDOWNTONABBEY

being as it is now day trillion and two in Lockdown I thought I might persuade myself to try and remember how to type.  Having managed to (yet again) cut the tip of my index finger down to the quick while performing some task long forgotten since it was over 12 hours ago, this is proving quite challenging.  Not challenging in the same way as, for example, pulling down a statue and rolling it to the river might be, although I feel I might rise to that one, not as challenging as signing dozens of online petitions while simultaneously managing not to allow my eye/brain focus on the horrific images of the things that I am attempting to ban, enforce, join, add my voice to etc.  What a pathetic way to protest you might think ( but, Dear Friend, there are few Black Lives Matter demonstrations in this village - indeed, it was only a few several years ago that the lady for whom I "cleaned", Let us call her "Joyce" because that is her name, received a telephone call from a neighbour, "Sheila" who apparently lost no BT Friends and Family Rate minutes in imparting the decree that Joyce was to instruct me to Shut and LOCK the doors and windows because another "friend" had telephoned her and said that there was a "big Black Man wandering around the village!"  Joyce duly, and with much gasping and swooning, relayed the instructions to me.  I asked "Joyce" whether the "big Black Man" in the communique was likely to be the guy outside up a ladder changing the street lights wearing a very distinctive East Lindsey District Council jacket?  I was told that you can "never be too careful" and to lock the doors and head for the underground bunker straightaway".....    This episode concluded with me saying something along the lines that my Partner's mother, who had died when he was a toddler, had been from South Africa and that he definitely had "African ancestry".   "Ohhh, " she said, "I didn't want to say, but I knew he was something, I just didn't know what!"....  Later "Sheila" came over to visit to make sure that Joyce had survived the rape and pillage....  "I am not a racist, I have that new doctor at the surgery, I can nearly understand every word he says!"   - the new Doctor speaks perfect Oxbridge English.
However, I digress, what I meant to say is, there is little point in my bending a BLM knee on a Thursday night due to geographical restrictions.  Hashtag- there in spirit.

The reluctant lockdown

Obviously I saw this coming.  However I still managed to forget my clean knickers.  Don't panic, she has plenty, big uns.  I am no longer worried about dying in my mum's knickers, and I am sure I am going to finish The Book of Dust.  So all good . I would love to see you all on the other side of thisn2020 cullfest. Hopefully yours cc

The reluctant vegetarian became the inadequate carer a few years ago.  Expect some dark observations and some fucking hilarious ones too.  Pip pip.  I will be posting soon.

CARNAGE AT VEGAN HIPSTER WEDDING!

Woman viciously attacked by Thugs posing as Wine Bottles.

From Our Own Correspondent.  A.N.Nonimouse

Police are seeking information about a premeditated and scurrilous attack upon an unarmed woman attending a Hipster Vegan Wedding in rural sussex.  The victim, who cannot be named due to amnesia issues, was said to be in her early to late 90s and armed only with a vague sense of stress.

Eye witnesses said that the attackers "came out of nowhere", although evidence collected at the scene suggests that the thugs may have been innocently taken in by the Victims Handbag and then joined by accomplices lying in wait on the immaculately prepared Drinks Bar.  

The woman did attempt, according to first hand accounts, to bravely fight off the thugs using a couple of chopsticks and some raw Aduki beans before flinging a carefully rolled Seaweed Finger in their faces.   The lack of a hearty breakfast however merely enraged the Attackers even more and her attempts to plead for mercy were savagely ignored.   The victim was left severely shocked with defensive wounds to her dignity and what Medical Staff are calling "her arse and ribs".

After surgically removing the victims bones below her knees, the thugs callously forced her to dance wildly to well known 70's hits, possibly including the notoriously vicious songs recorded by Toto.  The bones were later recovered by Forensic Personnel who attempted to force them back into position using stone chisels.

The Police are calling for any eye-witnessess to contact their Trauma Team for "humanitarian Blank Slating".   The victim's family have been treated for Post-Traumatic Shock and she herself has been put into a medically induced coma for her own safety.

If you, or someone you know, has been affected by this atrocity please do not feel obligated to bring it up at every available opportunity - Go Placidly, and Remember What Peace There May Be In Silence.

COLD

OK, It is bloody cold.  The Rayburn is not Rayburning,  Jack Daw and his mates have completely filled our chimney with sticks and so any fire we light comes streaming smokily out to fill the house with choking gray.  It has been the most amazing pig of a year and to cap it all I have lost my dear funny gentle brother (and no, he is not down the back of the sofa, and yes, I have now so many synomyns for death courtesy of the Doctor that I will never be able to use them all up before I have a "life ending situation" of my own)

In other news, however, life goes on.  It's quite possibly the first day of December, and therefore that probably explains why the "dog walk" was accompanied by endless blasts and bangs and people standing around with big black labradors aiming huge shotguns at the sky in order to rid the countryside of the menace of the PHEASANT.  Why, people believe this to be necessary is always going to elude me.  As I stood there, startled into statue mode by the sudden noise of shooting all around me....  I looked up and small delicate wisps were floating around the air like snowflakes.... on closer inspection these turned out to be soft downy feathers.   Sigh.  (insert mood music here).

Nevermind.  We now have President Elect Trump in Americee and some cow who I will swear I will never refer to as Prime Minister here in the U S of K.  But wait, the mobile telecommunications device has just alerted me to the fact that I now have to go and collect the ashes of my brother and do something with them.  What, I have no clue.  Having just raked out the non-functioning Rayburn I believe I have had enough bastard ashes to last me for a while.
Never mind.  Never mind.  Keep calm and plod on.  Somewhere over the rainbow there may be a chimney sweep who can help me in my battle for fossil fueled warmth.  Until then, let's just return to the potters wheel for a while.

The Rant Continues....

I have recently resigned myself to the fact that I am a deeply and darkly flawed individual.  Not actually Evil.  Just.... um, well, challenging perhaps.  I can not submit to authority.  I hate being told what to do, ie, given ORDERS.  I am a nightmare when I drink alcohol and a nightmare when refused it.  I am a shoddy parent and careless daughter and crap partner.  Apart from all that I AM WONDERFUL.

Wherein lies my wonderfulness?  All over, I reek of it ! 

 It's not like I am just going about my daily life with a knackered old pram filled with cats and old jars of raspberry jam and vodka bottles.... well not always. However, I am wondering whether I was really cut out  for this life.  I think I would have been an excellent cat for example.  Apart from the required licking of ones own arse which seems to me to be asking too much. 

However, I am extremely loyal and will try my very best to help anyone that I can. 

What a stupid, transparent LIE that is.  I have not offered my sofa to a Syrian Refugee,  I have not even taken in one of the Past Their Sell By date chickens that need rehoming, come to think of it I didnt even BUY A FUCKING RED POPPY.  Why then am I so convinced of my Awesomeness????

Because I have been walking miles and miles trying to locate a strangers Lost Dog.  There.  Therein lies my selfless wonderful awesomeness.  Have not found the creature, but have spent days and nights looking and trying to comfort and chivvy up the poor women that have lost her.  

Will this effort be enough to safeguard my safe passage through St. Peter's Pearly Gates?  Will this counteract my past tresspasses and outrages?  If my teenage son comes to hear of this act of extreme humanity and kindness will he decide to stop "hating me and all the family" ?  Will the "friend" that told me to  "Fuck off back down south and stop interferring with The Old Country Ways" (NB, see Crow Bashing Incident from several years ago!)  embrace the new socially rehabilitated moi ?  Will the 'lady' who informed me that I was a "Bolshevik" (for suggesting that we made some disused village ground into a communal allotment space) decide that I did, actually, after all, have a point?  Will the guy who..... oh bollocks, I could literally go on for hours on this .......

Anyway, I shall have to stop this and get back on the Grindstone, or Millstone, or whatever it is that I do in order to get a few measly quid coming into the pot.....  and therein lies another RANTFEST..

THE MAD BITCH IS BACK

YES!  I am back, somehow with a new font as well, The absence of nearly 4 (!!!!!) years has only meant that I am now almost bursting with BILE and HATRED and INTOLERANCE and therefore must decant the rambling contents of my festering mind onto this page again. You have been warned.

Where to start?  Dear Lord, could I possibly describe to you the various outrages of the last few years?  I will just have to let things bubble up as they will and try and maintain a calm and zen like exterior. 

We could for example, mention the episode In Which She Gets Fired From the Teaching Job.......  Bored readers may just remember that I was setting out on a new career teaching teenagers that had been expelled from mainstream school for one reason or another......   I was to be teaching them Maths and English (I know !   Don't even think about it !)  Any road up, as my father never actually said despite being from Wigan, it seems that part of my brief was to make sure these kids passed these two subjects at GCSE level.  Some of them could not even write their name,  actually, that's a lie, they could all write their name. However, some of them were, lets just say, challenged.  Indeed, some of them I had never even seen , they had never turned up to my "class".  I was asked by the "Manager" to sign pieces of paper saying that each one had completed the required course curriculum and had passed the various assignments and continual harrassments that make up the majority of the education system now.  Obviously I could not "sign" off most of these papers, especially since none of them had done any work and some of them had not even managed to attend.

I was then told I would not be needed anymore, I was being "Let Go".  

I was later informed by my Spies that the Manager had forged my signature on all of the papers and submitted them all for passes.

My Teaching Career Ended Thusly.

Is it just me? Or is Everything Pretty Shit Out There?