Vingnettes from the weekend

As opposed to vinegarettes. This is snippets of life, not salad dressing. Duh.

Foot-in-Mouth Disease
Saturday His Swashbuckleyness made his first ever totally insensitive, thoughtless, assenine remark. We've been together over 9 months, so I think he's still got a hell of a great record. (Keep in mind that my back hurts. A lot. Often. There is nothing I want more than to go back to rowing and rack up the medals with the rest of my team. Instead I'm stuck indoors getting fat and bouncing between phyical therapists like a nuclear-powered pingpong ball. And The Pirate bloody wells knows it.)

So Saturday morning we wake up together, the sun is shining, it's a beautiful day. We are snuggling. And what does he say? "Gee, what a great day to go sculling!" Which was all it took for me to burst out in tears. The putz.

Plant Life
When I'm depressed I play in the dirt. Works every time. To cure stree, exercise. To cure depression, re-pot all your houseplants.
So I dragged the Pirate over to Gardiner Haskins where I splashed out (spent 16 pounds) on new pots for my houseplants. And then made him spend 2 hours of his afternoon watching me pot houseplants. Poor lad. It must have been the epitome of boring for him, but look at the results!



Honest People
Saturday evening we had dinner at the Pirate's local with one of his mates from work. It's a great pub -- I had the wood pigeon in summer fruits sauce and a bowl of spring vegetable soup. It was good, but not as good as the P's lamb shank. I'll get that next time. Unless I get the pheasant again. Or the venison. But I digress.

We ate in the garden out back overlooking the valley and the setting sun. I put my purse (that's 'handbag' for the British readers) under the picnic table. And promptly forgot about it.
When I couldn't find it the next day I figured I must have left it, so I walked back to the pub. Someone had turned it in, and the barkeeper handed it to me. With all the cash and credit cards still inside it. Every penny. It's very reasurring to know that there are still honest people in the world. Apparenlty people don't all suck. Or do they...

Fat Kids
Sunday afternoon cricket games are fun. I like the Pirate's local club because it's a real family affair. Everyone shows up with the kids, and the women drink ale and clap and shout "shot!" and the kids run around the edge of the pitch playing boundary ball and biting each other. It's nice. Except for every single one of the kids is fat and ill-behaved, and I regularly see displays of some of the worst parenting skills on Earth.

Like this sunday. There was a girl, about 4 years old. Not quite as huge as the 4-year-old boy with the 3 chins who already has difficulty walking and balancing his enormous girth and will never in his entire life see his own willy without the aid of a mirror, but getting chunky. Her mother was beyond chunky. In the first over this little girl said she was hungry. Her mother replied that she couldn't be hungry because she'd just had lunch. The little girl repeated her request, and mummy gave her... a bag of crisps! For a 4-year-old! Fabulous. It took the child about 4 overs to eat the crisps, at which point she declared she was hungry again, so mummy gave her... another bag of crisps!

Now, at 200 cals/bag, this child had eating 400 calories, fully a third of all the calories she needs in a day, in the form of a food that will not satisfy her hunger and provide no nutritional value whatsoever. Of course, the salt made her thirsty, so mummy gave her... a can of coke! Another 240 calories!

Later on the afternoon, while the two sides were having their tea, the mother went into the bar and brought out a Mars bar, which she unwrapped and handed to the little girl. Who, to the best of my knowledge, had not solicited the candybar in any way. She said she didn't want it. The mother told her to eat it. So she took 3 bites and pushed it away.

I wanted to vomit. I have never in my life seen a parent attempt to force their child to eat a candy bar. I'm so disgusted I don't know what to think. There's ignorant, but this defies all ignorance and logic. This is somewhere so far beyond ignorant even the powerful gaze of ObviousMan cannot penetrate the fog of stupidity. I have no idea what this woman thought she was doing. I was seriously tempted to report her to the authorities for child abuse.

Oops
And the Pirate was out for a duck on the second ball, so it wasn't the best day of cricket ever.

There and Back Again
But Sunday evening was nice. We fixed some pasta for dinner and watched the P's new Red Dwarf DVDs. Normally he drives me back on Sunday evening (if I havn't bicycled), but it was late and he was tired and I didn't have my bike, so I said I'd take the bus back in the morning.
I caught the 8:03 bus from the stop outside his house and arrived at Bath Spa (train station for the American readers) at 8:30, ten minutes ahead of schedule. The train was a bit late departing, and didn't leave until 8:55, but we got into Brizzle shortly past 9, and by the time I walked home I was stepping into my front door by 9:30. Almost exactly 90 minutes. Not bad, except it only takes me 2 hours on a bike.

Now consider this: the bus was 3.60, and the train was 5.60, for a total of 9 pounds, 20 p to travel 25 miles on public transport.

Let's hear it for British public transport! It costs a forturne, but it will get you there slightly faster than an injured person on a derelict bicycle!

Cute
Here are some photos of Bluto sitting in my fern and chomping on it. I wish I could eat my furniture!