Wednesday 18 June 2008



I've been ill and v.grumpy lately, so I'll continue the theme with some home truths,

Shirl could easily be confused with Short Term Memory Barbie.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother (Shirl) brings me.

Phoning me at the exact time I leave the house, every day to take children to school is not the best time to phone me and declare you had something to ask me, but can't remember what it was...while eating something loudly.

Farmers do not (all) get up at the crack of dawn.
Dairy farmers do, of course, have to get up at unearthly hours to do the milking, but it’s not the case for so many others any more. When my father in law was a young man, he had to get up early to feed the horses. The horses would then have some time to digest their food a bit and then go to work. That’s where (I think) this modern myth comes from. Tractors don’t need a rest after filling up, and they can also see in the dark, which the horses couldn’t, and so the farmers work later rather than earlier.

There’s no such thing as a mistletoe tree. Mistletoe is a parasitic dieasey plant type thing.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother brings me.

Putting your child into private education does not mean you have bucket loads of money, it means you have no money because you are paying for private education.

No does not mean: ‘yes, of course you can, especially as you have moaned and whinged about it for an hour, I really like it when you do that’.

Vauxhall Vectra’s and Mercedes sports can be easily mistaken for one another.
I do not like cheap red wine.

Just because we have stone walls and old beams in our home does not mean we haven’t got round to plastering and painting our beams black, this is how we like it.

Not all members of the WI (Wild Indians) wear false teeth (I have heard of a youthful group in London), but around here, I think we can take it as red..

Farmers do not have hairy calf muscles….wellies make their legs smooth and completely hair free.

The smell of diesel is not attractive.

I do not like the cheap red wine Shirl brings me.

Sheep are not cute fluffy, woolly things that gambol about in the hills. They smell and are extremely stupid. They like getting tangled up in briars, so much so, that if you release them from such a constraint they will endeavour to do the same thing again, immediately if not sooner.

Shirl is not actually related to Sindy.

Why is it that when tidying the house (shudder!) you pick up three million pens, and put them by the phone, yet, two minutes later, when you need a pen there isn’t one there?

Not wearing a hearing aid when you need one is quite frankly, irritating.

If washing something delicate, placed inside a securely tied pillowcase in the washing machine, the knot will always come undone and the items will have come out….yet…if washing items separately, the pillowcase will always have the entire wash stuffed inside it when the load has finished.

I do not like the cheap red wine my mother brings me.

Telling me how well you can hear when you wear your hearing aid is, quite frankly, irritating.

20 comments:

Working Mum said...

Yes, yes and yes!

Especially the one about sending your children to private school. I'm gearing up to 14 years of poverty.

Jo Beaufoix said...

Hmmm. Maybe you could feed the cheap red wine to the sheep, then they would all be too drunk to move and would therefore not be able to wander aimlessly into prickly things??

Hope you feel better soon lovely frog.

aims said...

Being new here I have 2 questions.

Does your mother read your blog or is she just a wino?

Frog in the Field said...

Thank you Working Mum, so glad we agree.

Hi Jo, Darling Husband has seen the light and sold every bleety thing, there are many Aberdeen Angus here though.

Aims,
Shirl may read my Blog, but I doubt it, she has far more important things to do in life.
She most certainly is not a wino!!
Just, erm, frugal.

Pig in the Kitchen said...

oh i am so with you on the mistletoe thing. Hate it when people get that wrong. HATE it.
Pigx

Frog in the Field said...

Thanks Pig, I had no idea people were so stupid (sorry, no offence) until my Mum's boyfriend (wotcha!) asked where the trees were, so he could cut some bunches of mistletoe down and sell it in his local boozer for some reddies (ugh!).
He got rather huffy when we roared with laughter at him!!

By the way, the picture at the top is in fact an excellent likeness to my mother .. really!

Gone Back South said...

Are you feeling just a teeny bit irritated by any chance? I know the feeling. You could always secretly store up the cheap red wine, change the labels, and sell it in bulk next year on eBay.

Lindsay said...

Wearing a hearing aid when you need one is really irritating - it hurts! Really irritating is Husband who refuses to believe he is deaf - what did you say?

Potty Mummy said...

Very funny Frog. And I rather think you need a night out with your smooth-calved husband when you can drink expensive red wine, wear dry-clean only clothes with no fear of froglets messing them up, in a very smart old restaurant with exposed beams and brickwork.

Alternatively, coffee on the Kings Road in Pat Val's?

She's like the wind said...

Hey Frog that was so funny, especially the pillow case comment. xx

Expat mum said...

Let's see. Coque au vin; boeuf au vin; red wine vinaigrette; pached pears in red wine; sangria base; - see. There are tons of other uses for it.

nappy valley girl said...

So true about the pens. And why is it that when you have a really good pen, it disappears within 5 minutes, whereas crappy old half broken biros hang around for literally YEARS?

Expat mum said...

That would be "poached" pears. I don't think Nigella has come up with "pached" anything yet. Sorry!

Grit said...

i hear you frog, i hear you. and ditto the disappearing pens with the disappearing scissors. i have used chains, believe me. and the chains disappeared along with the scissors.

blogthatmama said...

Oooh frog, I'm enjoying your bad temper! I'm in big dilemma over the school situation - haven't blogged it yet but probably will soon, I think I invented 'school rage' last night - none of us speaking and could have done with some bad cheap red wine to top things off blogthatmamax

Merlin's Wizard said...

I can see exactly where you are comming from! Whenever I wash my duvet cover everything ends up in it!
Great Rant!
Merlins Wizard
xxx

Mean Mom said...

Lol! I don't think you would find Shirl (or anything else) half as irritating if she bought you some decent red wine!

Hope you are feeling better, now. (I've caught some horrible virus thing from my son. Can't stop coughing.)

the mother of this lot said...

I don't like any red wine, cheap or otherwise. But I do think your mother looks exceedingly well.

Millennium Housewife said...

Froggy! This is a list! Fab! Can we call it Things That Make Me Whine... MH

Elizabeth Musgrave said...

Your mother bring you wine and you moan about it?