mud mud glorious mud

just look at what the girls and I have been up to. up to our arms in lovely sticky stoneware clay. Just lovely.

what's missing from this picture?

A six-year-old, that's what.

If you saw this scene as you walked back into the house on a beautiful sunny day, having not seen your daughter for a little while after she went indoors to go to the loo or something, what would you think (especially since the little sod wasn't answering me as I screeched her name through the house and garden)?

That she decided to take her boots off by an open window where earlier that morning she had been learning to shoot squirrels off the bird feeders with a pump action water pistol (grandpa's fault) and go off and do some drawing and play with the Pocahontas with no legs?

Or that she had taken up the water pistol again, but in the process had been sucked out the window in a strange transdimensional vortex, whisking her out of her brand new wellington boots and into another time and space....?

Well, I'm afraid I thought the latter, seeing as I am suffering from a stinking and hallucinogenic cold since I stepped off the plane at heathrow on Saturday evening and trandimensional vortexes aren't out of the realms of possibility for my swirly whirly head.

It makes perfect sense to me why we get ill the minute we go on holiday, letting our defences down and all that, but bugger, it's not fair, is it?

this one shouldn't be too hard

This is special eye food for anyone reading this in scorched Portugal and Spain.

GRRRRREEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!

*sigh*

(ingerlund)

who are THEY?

erm.... you have till the end of the day to work it out... it would probably help if you are portuguese, as this is a stereotype (not the actual people) that probably won't travel.

But guess anyway.

The next day or two are going to be out of touch, incognito, unattainable, unreachable, untouchable... oh, YOU know... but of great benefit to my squeezed out sponge of a psyche/brain/personality/spirit.

(I'm still trying to work out how to get my gmail on my wap phone... anyone else managed it on a pt vodafone?... for gawd's sake tell me how, I just can't connect...grrrrrr)

da da da da da da dah!!!!! It's Dilemma Thursday again!

Right. This is a quick easy one.

My dilemma is this:

To what extent should I take the piss out of people, friends, family, unfortunate passers-by, bloggie visitors who insist on drinking bottled water.

Do you remember the olden days? When we drank water out of the tap? When we merrily laughed at yuppy Perrier drinkers? Then Evian drinkers (and if you tell me you spray evian on your face, don't expect me to keep a straight face)?

Is bottled water any better for you than tap water? No.

How does that water get to you? In plastic and glass bottles, most of which will not be recycled, and if they are they're using vast quantities of energy to BE recycled.

And how do the bottles get to you? By road, big stinking lorries, guzzling diesel by the gallon.

And how much shelf space does this water take up in the supermarkets when it could be put to much better use... say, chocolate cake...

Well?

(today's picture is madge's idea of soviet style propaganda... see the beautiful healthy vit-like person, drinking water poured from a tap in a glass... and not ze silly bottled in ze plastic. Personally, I think she's having a stressy week)

two_reasons.jpg

two_reasons.jpg

the inevitable has happened

I've been a bit quiet in the comment box recently, may seem a little slow to respond to emails, been blogging and running.... it's because I'm being FORCED to go to the beach every morning... because it's August and this is Portugal and my other 'arf is Portuguese and can't 'elp it.

And we all know how I feel about the beach. We don't? Well, it irks. The sand irks. The freezing sea irks. The grumpy children irk (actually, they aren't that grumpy as long as they've got a packet of biscuits and the sea isn't too choppy and can play in it). The long walk back to the car with the midday sun beating down on my head and the midday sand beating up on my feet. Can't read or sleep cos I'm watching the small things in case they decide to go out and drown themselves. Can't swim cos the small things scream in terror if the water goes above my waist. All in all, I'd prefer the garden. It has grass. It doesn't get into my knickers like sand does. Or my hair. Or wedged under a bra strap.

So, today, after we'd got back from the beach I felt like treating me and the girls to a little shopping spree to get over the bloody beach blues.

Off we go. The girls in need of underwear and tshirts. Me in need of something silly. So we find stuff with heffalumps and minnie mouse on. They choose tshirts in foul shades of pink and I can't find anything better so have to concede. We eat ice cream and do the shopping thing where mummy carries all the bags, handbags and crap and tissues and bottles of water and the two little girls complain that their legs hurt.

I'm getting fed up so I decide to treat myself. To something extravagant. A nightie.

You are reading the blog of a person who hasn't owned a nightie since she was about six. But I keep seeing nightie shops. And I think "why not?" We are going to be travelling soon, and I need SOMETHING to walk around in that's a bit more decent than an old tshirt and a pair of knickers. Don't you think?

So I nip into one of these womens' undies shops, one of those places specifically designated for people other than me, while ordering the girls, on pain of death, to stand on the doorstep of the shop (we are in a mall) with their dripping ice cream cones, while I go in and pick myself a nightie. And I find a nifty little number that I wouldn't be too embarrassed to be seen in in other people's houses if bumped into in the middle of the night while looking for the bog; a pretty little number, with a kind of retro print and a bit of piping around the edges, just above the knee and quite cute.

I am pleased with myself. We finish our shopping happily, as the girls have what they want, I have treated myself to something I regard as an extravagance for myself and we head home.

I get home. I put the dinner on. I decide to shock el grumpy profpants by proving that I can do girlie stuff like buying a nightie. So I put it on. And go and find him. And his mouth falls open. In shock. But about to stifle a huge laugh.

What? I ask.

YOU'RE WEARING A BATA! he shrieks (with laughter)



And I go and look in the mirror. And it is true.

I suppose it had to happen sometime.

artistic license...

...permits me to draw my own foot in a kind of glowing loveliness. I really have amongst the ugliest feet I have ever seen on a woman. So, believe me when I say I took liberties with this drawing.

And this foot is the only bit of my rain dance tonight that yous is gettin'! Because, honestly, as much as I am a great dancer in my own little head, it's probably best not to share it with the world TOO graphically. Be happy with the beautified foot, I should.

So, did you? did you dance to the gods? I ain't seeing the rain! where's the rain? is coimbra still on fire? are the cameras still pursuing the poor sods who've just lost everything until they cry out loud on television? are the journos still getting in the way instead of getting a bucket? is the smoke still getting to you down there in the algarve?

oh crap.

we'll just have to keep going.

still playing...

A report I heard yesterday said that there were 500, FIVE HUNDRED fires burning in Portugal yesterday. Bloody hell.

This really is getting rather crap. I regularly find my house full of smoke from fires in Mafra or Santarém, a good fifty or sixty miles north of here. Small world huh?

Are the weather gods taking the piss or just punishing us all for our human silliness and failings? In Eastern Europe it won't stop raining and Romania and Bulgaria, that I know of, have suffered terrible flooding. Here and in Spain it hasn't rained more than three days in what must be nearly a year.

So. The first rain dance worked. but it just resulted in a day's worth of drizzle.

The second time, I just threatened the weather gods with another big bummed performance and we got a day's rain.

What will it take for them to give us some decent rain, to fill up the reservoirs (look, Pts will NOT take kindly to not being able to be scrupulously clean all day if we have water cuts), to stop the fires burning (look there are some fires which are going to happen regardless with this weather... but there are still woodlands that I drive past regularly which are stocked up with dried out tall grasses, and cut down fire wood, drying out in the sun... like one big unlit bonfire just waiting for a teenager with a firework or a lorry driver's fag chucked out the window), to cool me down a bit (this heat ain't doing much for my workload/ blogload/ familyload/ TEMPERload/ PATIENCEload... see? already I'm not making sense...).

So, I'm asking YOU. Wherever in the world you are. Join me. In a GLOBAL SIMUL-RAIN-DANCE. At 10 o'clock tomorrow night BST/WET (Tuesday) I'm going out in my garden to do a make-it-up-as-I-go-along dance to please/irritate (delete as necessary) the rain gods. Or José Mourinho. Whoever is the more powerful.

I'm expecting to feel the ground shaking as this small part of the blogosphere attempts to move the rainclouds from Romania to Portugal.

Go ON!

You know you want to.

Get out in your garden, or your balcony, or the nearest park, or on your roof.

Do something good for Portugal! Do a make-it-up-as-you-go-along raindance!

what a tosspot

until I get back this afternoon to blog this properly, read this article by aa gill (otherwise known as miserable little whingeing git... in my book at least):

www.timesonline.co.uk

at least I say bloody horrible things about Portugal having lived here for six years, married into a Portuguese family and speaking the language pretty damn fluently.

thanks for the pointer, mimisa!

Things Portuguese I can't do without Part 1

So, now I got you going on the food front (you are SO easy to wind up) and now that I'm in series mode (dilemma Thursday, complete bullshit Friday), here's "Things Portuguese I can't live without" Saturday. It is highly likely that food will comprise a LARGE part of this.



Part 1. Bacalhau.

Bacalhau, salted cod, is my favourite pt thing. ever.

It is said that there are 365 ways of cooking and preparing bacalhau (needless to say, one for every day of the year) Well the variations can be fairly subtle - using olives or not, or boiled or fried potatoes - but whatever, it is simply wonderful, leathery, salty cod.

The best way to eat it is roasted in olive oil and garlic, with salt roasted potatoes.

The second best way is "Bacalhau à Bras", shredded and mixed with fried potatoes and scrambled eggs and onions with lots of olives and parsley on top...on a par in yumminess ratings with kedgiree.

The most disgusting way to eat it is "Cod in Snot", an invention of my acquired Portuguese family, which I have been unable to eat since the last time I was confronted by it when pregnant and nauseous. Obviously, it's not snot. But it damn well looks like it.

still playing...

Well, it's August.

Stuff rather grinds to a halt in Portugal for August.

Except the holidayish parts of the country.

Like around here, which seems to be where everyone stops to pick up their watery ham and sliced tasteless cheese on their way to the beach.

All bursting out at the seams in flimsy clothes, bursting out at the seams of the supermarkets... all stocked up in my head for later drawing.

The national dish of Portugal is the watery ham and rubbery sliced cheese sandwich. Did you know that?

When the supermarkets do those "theme" weeks on one set of shelves, when it's "Portuguese Week", they always fill the shelves with that other national dish: those 'orrible little frankfurters in a tin.

hmmmmm. first person to deny thiese two facts will get a guided tour by a mystery guest round their nearest Modelo, Contintente, Intermarché, Jumbo, Carrefour, Pingo Doce etc etc etc.

what would YOU do?

Now, I'm not a person who likes confrontation...ask anyone who knows the physical human version of me. I don't like arguing, I don't like getting angry and I don't like complaining (all extremely good reasons for the existence of the blog).

So, imagine yourself being a pushover nice person taking your kids to nursery, and bumping into this most days:



This is a mother of another child at the school. And, like any civilized person, if I encounter her at the school, in my sweetest voice I will say "bom dia" (under my breath I might add in english "you fucking horrible harridan" but she won't hear or understand that) all the while with a nice smile on my face, and kindness in my heart (okay, strike the last bit, that's a big fat lie).

And she just looks at me with this expression or completely blanks me, and then proceeds to say bom bloody dia to everyone else.

I am at a loss. I'm fairly sure it's because I'm a foreigner/estrangeira/estrangeirada (as some delightful people call me) even though I speak pretty fluent pt and all she needs to do is say bom goddam dia back to me. What, does she think I won't understand? Or maybe it's because my car is dirty, or because I'm not dressed as fashionably in slut-moda (we're talking belly out, top of thong almost showing, halter necks... all Zara's best nylon... bleached dead straight hair... white wedgie sandals... writing all that I bet you're thinking "why the hell does she want this person to say hello to her?"... well, it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing!)

Every time she does it I feel like picking off her silly bonoglasses (as they shall now be known) and punching her in the nose. But, as I'm too nice and drippy I just shrug it off and pretend she didn't just do that.

Now, really, and this is today's dilemma for you (hey, you gotta do a bit of work sometimes): what would YOU do if someone did this to you, bearing in mind that you have to see this person regularly and this is in front of a school load of children!

i'll tell you later

this one is too easy.

euro goths

aaaaaaaaaah. ain't they cute?

only for people with a sense of humour

The Unkempt Women Logo.

It should be on here somewhere. As a reminder. To the humourless. That this is a place for the well-sense-of-humoured. Thank god there's a lot of us.

I always worry about people without a sense of humour. Life must be very difficult for them.
They take everything so seriously. They could never wear a t-shirt like this.

:)

In some people's eyes I am about to commit blasphemy

Bono is NOT the second coming.

I'm sorry. But you have to know the truth. It's better late than never.

We all know the stuff he does (and is seen to be doing), going up against the big scary men like Tony "is my makeup on straight cherie?" Blair and saying "Hey, poverty isn't noice" (that's Belfast Dublin for "nice") and "We should all be ashamed of (I'm paraphrasing horribly, you'll be getting me drift, but) (that's Belfast Dublin for "but you get my drift") such shameful abundance in the face of a child dying every three minutes and people starving and Africa being in a terrible state, but." etc etc... and will usually use words like "unacceptable","hypocrisy", "shameful" in his little speechlet soundbite things to adoring press conferences (as does Bob Geldof in his similarly Belfastian rages against the machine).

So, by now, we know what little bonokins is going to say (he don't wear those great high heels for nothing, does he?)

So the four inCREDibly rich fuckers flew into Portugal airport in a HUGE private jet this afternoon.

Then they're schmoozed along to the President of the Republic of Portugal for a photo opp of certainly great street cred value to the office of Prez.

And Prez. Jorge pins some MEDALS (Ordem de Liberdade) on the four of them, which was acutely funny, as their names had to be read out as Jorge lines them up: along comes the turn of that shifty looking bugger, "The Edge" (I mean, COME ON, you're a middle aged man be now) with his blue Ali G condom hat on and the some bloke has to say in a dignified manner "Dave Evans, 'The Edge'" Dave Evans. No wonder he changed his name to 'The Edge' when he was eighteen, but why he didn't change it back when he was nineteen is probably the same reason he still thinks it acceptable to wear the blue Ali G condom hat in middle age.

Now, I don't know about you, but I think that when one visits a country and gets to meet the President of that country, that one should show a teensy weensy bit of respect for that office if not for the person who holds that office.

Unless, maybe if you're called Paul Hewson. I mean Bono... which incidentally must read as boonoo in portuguese....hahahahha.

He and the rest of them turn up looking basically like thirteen year olds who've been told they'll get a pint of shandy if they stand on this stage and smile and say thank you to the nice man with the ginger eyebrows (well, he does have ginger eyebrows).

Bono, in his lurid pink shirt that is so far too big for him that you can't see his hands anymore ambles up to prez Jorge to get his prize/erm medal, pretty much says "ta very much" gives him a celebrity handshake and turns and struts off, looking all the time to the still adoring press. Prez Jorge was left looking a bit stunned...listen, Bono SURELY doesn't know anything about the President of The Republic of Portugal, so it's not with any knowledge of Jorge that he completely "dissed" him and his funny little medal... for all he knew he could have been spurning the affections of the next Mandela (hahahaha.. ).

The whole episode was horribly cringey and a fantastic five minutes of TV. U2 acted like a bunch of pissed up boy-banders and the Republic of Portugal looked really really silly for an extra five minutes of today.


"unacceptable","hypocrisy", "shameful"


update/amendment/thingy/oh YOU know: I always had it in my head that bono was from Belfast and Bob Geldof from Dublin... it appears they are both from Dublin, so there... hence the correction above. oh, me and and my "pop facts" .... Duran Duran were from erm... fuck knows.

Not a Gary Larson Cartoon

But something inspired by Claudia's inspired spoonerism in a comment to the last post.

Thanks hen, it made me laugh my head off.

My almost four-year-old yesterday asked me for more "stoat" to go with her boiled egg ... now that's clever... anagrams at her age.

you vill have to guess!

you vill have to guess!

still playing with my new "paint"

I don't know how much expensive paper I save by using this magical "paint", but it's A LOT.

a postcard home

I know, I know... some fires are necessary. Some fires are unpreventable. Some fires do good.

But some fires are bloody tragic.

I wonder what this fire will do to the economy of Manteigas (after the sight-seeing of the ashes is over)?

I'm changing my bank

I swear, if I have to stand in that bloody bank for another whole hour just waiting to deposit some cheques, I'm gonna lose it and scream at some old ladies who just stand there, resigned to it all, saying "well, this is how it is".

I have no idea why "my bank" bothered putting in an expensive senha/ticket system... little has changed: only that one doesn't have to stand in a line that snakes round the room any more, just in a kind of cloud of people... and one could theoretically read a book while waiting, as there's an annoying "bing bong" everytime the numbers go up... but one would be so irritated by the "bing bong" that one couldn't possibly concentrate.

It does, though, give one time to observe the workings of the bank and I could happily put together a very damning time and motion study about the employees of "my bank" from the manager to the lowliest clerk to present to head office... but they'd probably all be out at lunch anyway and wouldn't read it.

But, this is PORTUGAL! É ASSIM!

I did have an entertaining time outside of my hour stuck in "my bank" (for it won't be "my" for much longer) where I was too irritated to enjoy the people scenery... but there were delicious sights around every corner in my morning of doing things out and about in the various villages around me. But, I'm saving them up for drawing later at my leisure. First I must put out some washing... to induce it to rain again.

aaaaiiiiiiiiiiii!

sometimes... keeping things simple is by far the more appealing way.

Tourists in Portugal

This summer, I've been lucky enough to have a riot of public horribleness by "doing" my tourists in Inimigo Público, Vitriolica-izing them in word and image (and I ain't reproducing the texts ... FAR too nasty!). If you don't live here, you can't get Inimigo... *GASP* ...so here are a few of the earlier ones:

The Pissed British

The Cycling Dutch

The Young Spanish

(accept the Pissed British in the way of a disclaimer for the rest of 'em!)
(Next time I'm really busy, I'll put up the next few)

We lefties are too groovy (note to self: must I still use words like groovy?)

"Left-Handers Day - 13th August,
The official website for international celebration of left-handedness
information, entertainment and product offers for left handed people"

COOOOO!

It's nice to know I'm not alone
(especially since both my kids seem to have been born
as bloomin' righties, no offence to all you righties,
but hey, we lefties are, as I said already, GROOOOVY!)

Actually...


... I was going to do a post today about superstition, and serendiptously (or rather completely co-incidentally (in the accidental sense of co-incidence)), I found this left-handed site via the Guardian's webwatch page, which I plan to explore in depth later.

I had planned to denegrate all superstition, berating those souls who inflict their silly superstitions on me as well as letting superstition rule their own lives, making me feel bad or worried for picking a particular way of doing something, instilling it in children, feeling compelled to say "se deus quiser" - "god willing" when I dare say "see you tomorrow", or listening out for the cuckoo in spring to make sure one lives to see the next spring, banning the celebration of birthdays before the actual date or hour of the the birthday, and all the thousands of other particularly Portuguese ones I have to add to the already ridiculous list of ones I know from elsewhere (umbrellas in houses, shoes on tables, walking under ladders, friday 13th, blah blah blah etc. etc. etc.).

What I had forgotten - because left-handedness is so natural to me, now anyway, and I'm lucky that I can use most right handed tools like scissors - was that until very recently, left-handedness was superstitiously seen as sinister (sinister having etymological roots in latin for "left") or strange or evil, something to be corrected. Even when I was a kid, in the enlightened (hahhaha) seventies and eighties, other kids and teachers would call me strange names (I can't remember any of them, I think they may have been peculiar to the south west, but I dunno) for my left-handedness.

My maternal grandfather was born left-handed, but at the time, in the early 20th Century all children were made to write with their right hands regardless. As a result, he suffered a stammer all his life. While I was drawing this self-portrait with my right hand, I almost felt car-sick.

What's the point of this post? dunno. Mostly that I think superstition is crap, helps no-one, causes far more grief than relief (how many obsessive compulsives began their disorder, I wonder, with excessive belief in superstition?)... and that left-handedness is ... er... oh, what the hell... groovy.

sometimes an "off switch" would be a good thing

A doodling interlude (done this morning while on the phone to my buddy... can you tell we were talking about chickens?) while I relax my blog-brain (somewhere between the left and right brain) after two or three months of excess blogging (every day here, plus big blogger, guesting in boyfriend and diva (where mike is being terribly sweet about the "independent" having used MY text to highlight HIS blog, and then calling him an ANONYMOUS woman))

I do have days when I feel like my brain is a squeezed out sponge, especially with this heat but doodling is a great thing for reminding me that the brain is an un-squeezable-outable sponge.

I love brains.

Without a brain, what are we?

*snarf*

phew...scorcher

phew...scorcher

well... er... erm... uh...

if you ignore the elephants....

... this would be a good representation of Portugal last night. The whole place seems to be on fire. Our house was full of the smell of smoke from the fire in Mafra (i.e. quite a long way away) last night, just like last year. And it won't get much better today... it's going to be in the 40s again (that must the 110s in Fahrenheit, but I'm not sure). The only good thing about when the temperature is in the 40s is that when it goes back to down, the 30s seem almost refreshing.

The elephants were part of my penultimate (thank god it's almost over, I can go back to blogging in one blog again, what a relief) post in Big Blogger... one of the seven in seven days about seven thing... (girls, I tried to do seven days of visitors to the sex shop but it was far too embarrassing... everyone thought I was "casing the joint")... (shhh... don't tell anyone, but I think I might just have clinched it.... £1.47, here I come!).

Sigh. Do you think it would be TERRIBLY dangerous to sit with one's feet in a bucket of water while working on two computers at the same time?

Don't answer that.

Here to make our lives (especially mine) easier

What, bikers? (or here in Portugal, Motards, which just sounds like retards to me, so that's funny) "Bikers make my life easier" would be a story. But it would not be true. It's not the biker that's here to make our lives (especially mine) easier. It's absolute stereotypes.

With a very quick drawing you can tell that these two were a biker pair. That the guy was hairy. That he was wearing a tragic "spirit of the eagle" type tshirt, with some hackneyed native american chief and an eagle and a big pine tree on it. That he was wearing a leather waistcoat with "Mötorhead" written on the back with an awful acrylic painting above it. That it was he who was doing the barbecue in the evening, as he was choosing the vegetables (as all men think they are capable, poor dears... do the barbie, suddenly know all the culinary ins and outs of MY KITCHEN... HAH!)

That his wife was pale with puffy skin over skinny flesh, dressed like she was in the Seventies, lank hair. That she obviously smokes a lot more pot than him, because she's at home more with only the resin dragons and pixies on the shelves for company. That she doesn't argue with him about the vegetables because she is already too chilled out.

See, I didn't need to write that.

You already knew.

I wonder if really stereotypical people know that they are so.
Do they mind?

I don't mind. They just make my job all the easier.

the writing's on the...

It's the perfect notepad: I never leave home without it, and it's hard to miss and I don't have to spend half an hour looking at the bottom of my handbag for it (unless.... no, I don't think I'd have my right hand stuck in the bottom of my hand bag... and before any cleverdick writes in... I AM left handed, which is how I manage to write on my right hand). Perfect for phone numbers, shopping lists, insults I must remember to post, silly ideas, brilliant ideas, crap ideas, ideas that would be best left inside my head.

People, mostly middle aged women and young prospective tia-types, always look so surprised that I would graffiti-ize myself like this.

I think that's really rather silly.

three things this summer...

...that I don't get:

• when did it become obligatory for EVERYONE to wear their keys or phone or keys and phone and kitchen sink around their neck on a ribbon?

• did we not learn the last time (mid eighties) that grass green is a BAD colour for clothing?... it does nothing for no-one...nowhere... (that's a triple negative, does that negate a double negative?)

• why is THAT hairstyle lingering for so long? It has to be the ugliest thing ever invented, the millimetre long fringe with a mohawk middle and the feathery taper down the neck... WHAT IS IT?

why, WHY..... WHY?

the vitriolica webb way to defrost a fridge

There's something about the thought of defrosting a fridge or a freezer, like squeezing zits, picking scabs, plucking hair, scraping goo out of cookers, unblocking drains or plunging sinks that really appeals to me.

And then I actually get started.

Thirty seconds in and I want out.

So, today, I tried to threaten the six inch thick frost with some made up kung fu moves.

Strangely, it didn't work.

Luckily, the machete I took to it next worked a treat.

more real paint

for tis monday and tis my busiest day of the week and I am trying to be funny elsewhere at the same time as feeding small people and big people and defrosting the goddam fridge and hanging out laundry and wiping bums.

So, for the moment, would you hum "sailing by" to yourselves.

If you don't know what sailing by sounds like, go to the R4 website and find it there somewhere.

God, I love "sailing by", the cheesiest piece of music in the world, the sort of thing that should be played in front of the nasty yachting pictures that used to be in the waiting room of my sadist, sorry, dentist.

Hmmm. Ought to go and put the pasta on.

What a drag.

I'm sure they're old enough to make sandwiches by themselves, aren't they?

Bugger.