Booking Our Places for the Halloween Trick or Treat Midnight Walk

Darrell and I have decided to do something a bit different this Halloween, we are going to do a Trick or Treat Walk through the ghostly streets of Wolverhampton at the witching hour for the local hospice. To be honest It will make a refreshing change from watching Yvette Fielding screaming every five minutes on Most Haunted Live. There are only 600 places so we have sent our forms off early so that we won’t, hopefully, be disappointed. 

It’s VERY exciting, we are going to dress up in glow in the dark skeleton costumes and carry lanterns and bags of sweets, to give to the helpers and other people we meet along the way, (but we may have a few ourselves if we get peckish).

The walk is about four and a half miles, so we need to train a little bit. Rooney said he would help us with a light regime of exercise, and advice on sleep and calorie intake. BRILLIANT, charity, ghosts, sweets and dressing up – life doesn’t get any better than this!!!!

New Friends Added

Vinnie the Volunteer and Chas from the South Coast have just been added to our growing band of friends ....

A Sun £9.50 Holiday for Darrell

I have felt very guilty about my inadvertent Turkish Adventure, leaving Darrell behind in Wolverhampton without so much of a glimpse of the sea and having to cope on his own for nearly two weeks, so I have decided that Darrell should have  an adventure of his own ……

…… And to this end it is very fortuitous that the Sun have been doing their £9.50 holidays again, so unbeknownst to Darrell I have been collecting the tokens for a special holiday for him.

I have collected all the tokens and filled out all the forms and, fingers crossed, he will be going to Portsmouth in early October.  I haven’t said a word to him yet just in case it’s all booked up. I’ll wait until I get a letter from the Sun first before I say anything.  But I’ve paid extra for his linen and entertainment pass and have also put a bid on a small suitcase on e-bay for him.  How exciting!

International Talk Like A Pirate Day

All hope abandon yon landlubbers what read this blog, for on this day we ‘ave unleashed our inner buccaneer and ‘ave embraced the life of  pirates bold with gay abandon, ‘aha Jim Lad.

Breakfast twas a salty affair, a vertiable feast of sea biscuits and grog (or to translate ….. two ryvitas, two Dairy Lea triangles with marmite, washed down our lusty gullets with tea with milk and two sugars), aha, aha, aha. Twas jolly grub and sated our pirate hunger well, served straight from our bung hole to our chum buckets, aha, aha,aha.

We ‘ave a day mapped out for pirate debauchery, aha. We will dance round our horn pipes, force Lucy to walk the gang plank, in her nightie, over the fish pond and plunder any treasure chests we may chance upon (including the fridge).

We couldn’t get a parrot at such short notice but found a trusty seagull instead and ‘ave called ‘im Roger.

Darrell keeps on giggling when he tries to say “Come up and see my urchins, be’gorra, be’gorra” – I ‘ave told ‘im that pirates don’t giggle and that his laughter should come from the very bowels of his belly and send the shivers up everyone's timbers, but alas he  is a lost cause, because me saying that only makes him giggle even more.

We are also going forgo our daily rations of fruit and vegetables (our 5 a day), so that we can experience the misery of scurvy at first hand (but we will be monitored carefully by a team of medical experts or Bones as we pirates call ‘em. Should our rude health deteriorate to a dangerous and life threatening level, orange squash and a banana will be administered to us straight away).

We will leave you with this one thought to ponder, as we prepare to spice the fish paste …….”Dead men……. tell no tales …..” be’gorra, be’gorra, be’gorra!

…… pillage and plunder is not really my behaviour of choice …..

Incy Wincy Spider

It’s very easy to be brave ………..

when the object of your fear …….

is on the other side of the glass!

Spiders are not our mini beast of choice …… we saw a film once, where a man was turned into half fly half man in a machine. He got stuck in a web and a spider was about to eat him. He was shouting for help in a half fly half man type voice …… it gave us the willies and we had to sleep with the light on for months!

But, we do appreciate the beauty of a spider's web,  especially on a frosty morning,  but since watching that film we avoid any machine that we think could turn us into half flies.

Funny Bombay Mix

I was looking in Lucy’s room when I saw what I thought was Bombay Mix – it smelt rather pungent and had, what I thought was dried fruit in it ….. I was about to have a little nibble when Lucy came in and yelled “Don’t eat that, it’s my potpourri!” …….

Hmmmmm, I’d never heard of it before ….. I gather it’s some sort of posh stuff ladies like to have about the house to make the rooms smell nice …… If I dare say …. without offending anyone I hope, that should I have eaten it …. my toilet business would have been most fragrant !!!!!

Darrell Says …….

Only 100 sleeps till Christmas!

Our Window Box

We have put the sad news of the demise of my Christmas trees behind us and have moved forward ….. we are growing salad leaves in the kitchen window box.

Now, when we are preparing a salad sandwich for our lunch, all we need to do is reach out of the window and pick fresh green sustenance – 5 a daytastic!

Lifting Rooney’s Spirits

Do you remember my friend Rooney who helped me train for Race For Life?  Well, he has been feeling a bit down this past week or so and is seriously thinking about changing his name by deed poll because he has been taking quite a bit of stick lately, due to the antics of his namesake!

 

We had a long heart to heart and told I him that today’s chip papers were yesterdays newspapers, or something like that……. and anyway I wasn’t sure that there were many suitable names in the England team he could choose from …. which made him laugh.

Rooney has a brilliant job, he works at the Sports Hall with all the P.E Ladies, Brenda, Laura and Debbie.  He has a lot of responsibilities, like washing all the kits, towels and bibs……

Getting a brew on ………

Maintaining a high level of cleanliness in all areas …..

As well as  cleaning all the trophies and filing the lost property.

I think our little chat cheered him up, especially when I asked if he would help me and Darrell train for the Trick or Treat Midnight Walk for the local hospice on Halloween Night ….. how exciting ……. but more of that later!

A Present from Jenny at Marmite

We have been excitedly anticipating the arrival of our gift from Jenny at the Marmite Factory …… we are so lucky, every day seems to bring us something very wonderful and we realise how very fortunate we are and appreciate everything that we have been sent recently.

 

But we are still very puzzled as to how the lovely people who make Marmite know how much we LOVE it.

Darrell was very excited …… he said he had put some bread in the toaster just in case……. he had gone a bit spooky and had, what I call one of his  “Derek Acorah moments” ……..

The parcel was exquisitely wrapped and gave no clue as to its contents …

Darrell was right, it was a jar of Marmite ….. but a very special one ….

There was a leaflet with it that said that it was a special limited edition vintage jar and that there were only 750 of them in the whole world (the others will only be on sale at Goodwood Revival 2010)  and we have been honoured with one, how SPECIAL do we feel, in a very humble type way?

But now we have a terrible quandary …… do we enjoy the jars contents on our toast and sandwiches etc. and keep the empty jar ……. or do we keep it all intact to take to The Antiques Roadshow in twenty years time…… the responsibility weighs heavy upon our shoulders!

With this in mind, we decided to ponder on the matter for a little while longer and shared a Dairylea Triangle on our toast instead of opening the jar. We shall be writing to Jenny to thank her very much for her lovely gift.

Darrell Does Social Networking

It appears that there is far more to Darrell than first meets the eye! While I have been out shopping he has  been sitting quietly at the computer and has become quite au fait with the machinations of social networking.

To wit, he has set up himself up on Facebook.

He tells me he has a wall, a profile, and a photo album on there, and has already left comments on the walls of Paul O’Grady Live and Marmite. He has also made some friends …….. I am now worrying that he will start Twittering, heaven help me!

Thank You Lilibet xxxx

We continue to be overwhelmed by the kindness and thought of our readers. Last Sunday we were overcome by Liilbets’ friend’s knitted strawberry hanging basket and we took up knitting for about half an hour, until we managed to drop every single stitch on our needles ….. we now realise our plans were a little ambitious and we need to start on a much smaller first project …..

 

But Lilibet sent us the most wonderful parcel that contained some hand spun and hand dyed wool. It is far too precious for us mere novices to work with, but we know someone who has taken a fancy to it and is going to knit a little something with it.

She also sent us a beautiful hand embroidered badge each, with our initials on ….. they are exquisite. We will love and treasure them for always and make sure we always wear them from now on, like Blue Peter Badges.

People will also be able to tell us apart now!

We loved the tissue paper that our parcel was wrapped up in too….. we think that the Queen might use such tissue paper for her personal gifts …. and it seems like a spooky coincidence that our beloved Queen was called Lilibet as a little girl ……

We’ve had a look at Lilibets blog today http://magweedsmayhem.blogspot.com/ , she’s knitting little hats for Innocent Smoothies to raise money for old people http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/bigknit/, we are wondering if our knitting skills are good enough to knit a little hat ……..

Watch this space ……..