This is no ordinary kettle.....

My house is incomprehensibly damp. Damp to the extent that the kettle plug welded itself into the plug hole the other week and then caught fire. All good, clean fun that resulted in me boiling water in a saucepan for my endless supply of caffeine.

Yesterday, I finally managed to remember to buy a kettle. I was in a rush and didn't study it carefully. It was shiny and I assumed it was competent at boiling water. I needed to know nothing else about it. I'm shallow like that when it comes to kettles.

It was only when I got said appliance home through the icy roads last night that I realised what it was I had bought. This was no ordinary kettle, oh no. This is a STEALTH BOILING kettle. What the hell? My kettle will boil itself in a stealthy way? Now I'm afraid, very afraid. Will I come into the kitchen and find the kettle sneakily boiling away when I hadn't asked it to? Will it boil so stealthily that the water will still appear cold when in fact, it isn't?

When did somebody decide that kettles were too upfront and pushy about the way they boiled stuff? Why was a need for 'stealth boiling' even considered, let alone marketed?

Now, I must go over to the house and peer through the window to see if I can catch it in the act. Making a cup of tea is never going to be the same again.

Snow in the Hills

This is what the world outside my office looks like right NOW:




Think I had better go and find my bobble hat and snow shovel......

Saving the world, again.

Mr Farty has tagged me. I thought he was miles away but then there was a tap on my shoulder, he was there, and I was IT. Now I need to tell you seven random things about me or the world may end. It's that serious.

1 - I can't wear red lipstick or red nail varnish. I really can't. Red nail varnish scares the beejezus out of me when I see it because I think I must have caught my fingers in a mincer without noticing, and red lipstick just makes my mouth far too THERE. This means I have had to give up a promising career as a vamp.

2 - I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer when I was about 11. Then I wanted to be Lois Lane for a bit too.

3 - I can't bear the sound of people clipping their toe nails. Euurgh. Just thinking about it makes me squirm.

4 - I sleep talk in Welsh, though I can't speak it when I'm awake.

5 - If a book is REALLY, REALLY bad, then I burn it when I finish it so that nobody else ever has to read it again. I know, burning books, it's a crime, but so are really really terrible books. I'm just doing my duty.

6 - I have a mole shaped like Gloucetershire on my shoulder blade

7 - I once won a holiday to Peru and Bolivia......

So there you have it, the world is saved for another few hours. The responsibility for it now rests with Home Office Mum, Bevchen, Belgian Waffle & Katyboo1. I know you can do it. Now, hurry Flash - we only have 14 hours to save the earth........

Washing Triage.

Aaaargh. Today is, in a Mrs Tiggywinkle-esque way, wash day. I have been running around like a headless chicken for the last week and the weather has been ludicrous so the wash pile has been building to teetering levels that require the services of a structural engineer to keep it from toppling over.

This morning I woke early, thanks to the clocks going back, and leapt out of bed like a spring gazelle. The bed was stripped within minutes and remade up with crisp white sheets and it was off to the wash mountain for me.

The first wash went well. Three thousand odd socks and anything else I could find that was dark went in the machine. Having extracted the Loyal Hound, the wash went through and was hung out to dry.

Second wash goes in. Extracted it half an hour later to discover that the welsh mud is harder to shift than I imagined and the jeans that I slid down the mountain in yesterday still bear a great deal of mountain on them. Damn.

Stuff it. Hang the lot out to try on the second line because the skies are blue and there is a chilly breeze. Two minutes later it starts raining, hard. Bugger.

Finally, time for the white wash. In it goes and I think fondly of white sheets snapping merrily in the breeze. Ten minutes ago I went in to see if the wash cycle was finished. It isn't. But what do I see, waving merrily at me through the glass window? Aaargh. Something that isn't supposed to be there - something ominously black and a hint of something pink. Please, no. Don't let me have swept up the dregs of the previous wash and put them in with my lovely Egyptian cotton sheets. Oh god.

I wrestled with the urge to 'break glass in emergency' and rescue my sheets. It's too late for them. This is washing triage - save what you can and leave the rest on the battlefield.

Cold hands? Nothing for you then.

I heard an article on the radio today. Apparently, scientists have done a study on whether people holding a warm drink are more generous than people holding a cold drink. Seriously? The world is coming to a boil, there is a some form or economic armageddon taking place, disease is stalking the land (well, lots of people have flu), the sun rarely shines and THIS is what they choose to study? I give up.

It turns out, that if you are holding a warm drink you are more likely to think nicely of other people and to give them lovely presents. If you are holding a cup of ice you will hate everybody and hoard all the presents to yourself.

This seems like one of the more pointless studies ever carried out. How will it change the world? Are they suggesting that if we could only give Mugabe a nice warm cup of cocoa he would start feeding his starving population and hugging Bono? Does the russian army just need a cup of soup in order to start loving the Georgians? Would Nescafe have given Pol Pot a pause for thought and the urge to become best friends with Mother Theresa?

Now, I like a cup of coffee as much as the next person. I'm not saying it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy towards my neighbours, but the caffeine rush does make me feel slightly less deranged and on the verge of mass hysteria / murder. If I was instead given a cup of ice, I would probably think nasty thoughts towards the donor and reconsider our friendship. I don't have a science degree and a research budget of many thousands of pounds and I know this already.

I see no hope for the future of mankind if this is what the great brains are spending their time doing. Oh, hold on - I just made a cup of coffee. Perhaps they are right. I shall send them a large present and think nice things about them (until the mug goes cold that is).