2015-03-21T14:36:20+00:00

Episode 236: Snotty Sneezes, Sets off Smacker!

March 21, 2015/Judy E Martin/10 Comments

We all get the sniffles sometimes. Occasionally a sneeze comes out of nowhere and can be quite startling to those around who were not expecting a snotty explosion, and the accompanying ATTTTTISHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOO! Just this morning, as i was sound asleep, both me and the dog were awoken by Mr Grump letting rip an almighty sneeze!

For most of us, it is a minor annoyance when someone dares to disturb our peace by letting out an unfettered sneeze, however, one middle-aged man in the north of england, has taken offence by these sniffy snufflers and has taken to whacking them around the head!

Maybe he has some sort of germ phobia, or perhaps he is sensitive to sudden outbursts of noise, but either way, he is taking things a little bit far here. He is not shy in letting his disapproval be known either. He clouted the first middle-aged victim in the middle of Carlisle city centre when she inadvertently sneezed in the middle of shopping. He then disappeared before she had realised what had hit her (literally in this case)!

The other poor victim was an elderly lady who got smacked around the head when she too let out an unexpected sneeze. She was pretty upset and shaken, and again, the weird whacker had disappeared before anyone could do anything.

Th police are now calling for witnesses and are desperately trying to catch this nasty nutter before he does it again. After all, spring is just around the corner, and not only are people still likely to be suffering from the usual colds, but hay fever could well be added to the nix, thereby doubling the list of potential victims!

Episode 235: Grumpy Dolly!

March 21, 2015/Judy E Martin/17 Comments

After yesterday’s solar eclipse non-event, (just for the record, this morning at the same time, the sun was out in all its glory) I decided that I would do something constructive with my day off. I haven’t done any sewing for a while, and being still fresh and enthusiastic from watching the ‘Great British Sewing Bee’ plus subscribing to a sewing magazine, I thought it was about time I tried my hand at making something new.

Now, I do not have a fantastic track record with my sewing endeavours,(if i did I would have a sewing blog, showcasing all of my wonderful creations), but I have managed to produce a couple of items that are actually wearable, and anyway practice makes perfect, so I dug around for a suitably ‘easy’ pattern, just to get myself back into the swing of things.

That sorted, I nagged Mr Grump to come with me to the other side of town to find the new fabric outlet that had recently opened. We eventually found it after trawling around the units on the industrial estate where they were situated (actually the bright pink painted wall outside helped)!

The friendly couple were very chatty and it turned out the lady knew my little sister ‘(the lovely lady with the long, blonde hair and fishtail plait. I get described usually as ‘the stocky one)’ as she used to buy her fabric from the shop my sister worked at some time ago. I bought some fabric and other bits and set off home to start work on it.

This dress is something you are supposed to be able to knock up in an evening, so I thought I would get a head start and cut the pieces out before Miss Hap came in from school. She was going to stay the weekend with my sister who has a caravan on the coast and we were taking her down there in time for dinner.

Anyway, I soon realised that I had miscalculated the amount of fabric needed and was short of about 3/4 of a metre. I was cross so poor old Mr Grump trotted off quickly before they closed (early on a Friday) to get the rest of it so I could get it done last night.

After a lovely visit with my sister and a catch-up we headed home for our dinner then I was going to start my dress. Usually I have my mannequin ‘Dolly’ handy to help me work things out and pin my creations to, but she has been banished to the shed as I have neglected for so long and Mr Grump was sick of her hanging around,

Mr Grump himself, decided to have a few drinks and put a bit of music on (probably to drum out the BBBBBRRRRRRR of the sewing machine), so he was quite happy, I, however was getting mad. I could not figure out how to put the zip in this dress, and after the fourth failed attempt, and the clock nudging midnight, had decided to take drastic action.

I commandeered Mr Grump to be my Dolly and plonked the dress on him. I just needed to figure out how the zip actually looked when worn, and he was on hand for me to see how to do it. Luckily he had a few drinks under his belt by then, and was suitably anesthetized against any stray pin pricks that my clumsy hands might have inadvertently inflicted on him.

It worked, as I did finally get the zip in, and the dress finished off. It is a bit lumpy and bumpy in places (probably due to me also being lumpy and bumpy in places), but overall I am rather pleased with it! Teamwork eh, isn’t it great?!

Episode 234: The Secret of The Shy Sun!

March 20, 2015/Judy E Martin/16 Comments

Well just as I thought! I didn’t get to see the solar eclipse! After the excitement of getting a day off work and the prospect of being able to experience an extremely rare event, nothing went to plan….

Mr Grump was taking my Mum to do her weekly shopping this morning (we take it in turns with my 2 sisters), and being as he is, wanted to get started early so arranged to pick her up at 8.30 this morning. I was originally working so wasn’t factored into the arrangement and I contemplated taking my time this morning, chilling out for a bit, then going outside to check out this amazing partial eclipsed we have been promised!

The news was full of it this morning, their cameras, all ready, and down in the south-west, the sun was shining over the sea, creating a beautiful image, and promising a clear view of the eclipse. Likewise even in Scotland (who always get the grottiest weather), there was a bit of blue sky, and a good view of the sun (they were going to get 98% coverage of the sun up there). I was getting hyped up myself, even though there were no film crews or cameras in this neck of the woods that they had mentioned.

Anyway, Mr Grump wanted me to go shopping with him and Mum. I said no, as he was going as the eclipse was due to start. It was supposed to be at its peak at 9.30 and knowing Mum, we would still be inside the supermarket at that time and miss the lot!

I needn’t have worried. The weather forecast for here was damp, damp and more bloody damp! I went shopping. It was freezing out, grey and damp. I looked out of the windows many times whilst in the supermarket to see if it was getting dark or anything. It wasn’t. It stayed exactly the same.In fact, there was no indication at all that anything unusual had happened, Sod the bloody weather!

I’m glad we didn’t get those stupid eclipse suitable glasses in the end as well. I might as well make use of my day off and go and do some housework! A damn sight more exciting than a secret eclipse!

Episode 233: Cold Comfort!

March 19, 2015/Judy E Martin/26 Comments

What is it about PE at school that kids hate it so much? I was not very sporty at school, and hated hockey, but I did like tennis and athletics in the summer months as well as swimming, which I loved. I suppose it has a lot to do with the cold and rainy winters we get here.

I know the weather made no difference to PE lessons whatsoever, We would still go off for a cross-country run (I hated it), slipping about on the muddy paths, or squelching through rain-soaked fields, often losing a shoe in the process. Oh yes, I remember those days well.

It seems that they haven’t changed that much as Miss Hap is always moaning about having to do PE, but she has to get on with it as I did. I know some parents will write their children a note to try to get them excused by the teachers, but in my day it would have to be a bloody good one as a ‘tummy ache’ didn’t cut it!

Anyway, one young lady decided that she would persuade her mum to write her a sick note for PE as it was ‘too cold’ to participate. Her mum did as she was asked and sent her smug daughter off with the note sealed to be given in to the head. However, the contents of the note was totally opposite from what this young shirker wanted….

Her Mum had posted a copy of the note she actually sent on Facebook. She accused her daughter of being lazy and told encouraged the teacher to give her a couple of extra laps to ‘warm her up!’ I thought this was really funny. I don’t know whether or not the girl saw the Facebook letter or not but I bed that was a nasty surprise!

Episode 232: Eclipsed By The Weather!

March 19, 2015/Judy E Martin/25 Comments

I have been getting quite excited. Tomorrow there is going to be a partial eclipse of the sun, and from where I live in South East England, we should be able to see it 85% covered.

Now I remember 16 years ago when we had a total eclipse of the sun. I worked for a brochure distribution company in the offices, and the whole lot of us went outside to see this wonderful phenomenon; I was so glad to have been able to have experienced it.

Anyway, back to tomorrow. I was supposed to be working, but am owed some annual leave. I was thrilled when the boss said I could take it tomorrow as I have more chance of being able to go outside and look at the eclipse. I was cross with Mr Grump though as I had asked him to get me some of those special glasses so I can look at the sun without burning my eyes out and they have apparently ‘sold out’!

Never mind, no doubt I will find some way of seeing it with my eyes left intact! Or so I thought. Having just watched the evening news and weather forecast for 09:30 tomorrow morning when the big event takes place, I see that the weather is going to be very similar to today.

Grey, cloudy, drizzle, no sun, no bugger all! You can always rely on good old British weather to spoil an occasion!

Episode 230: Silly Sarcastic Sayings…..

March 18, 2015/Judy E Martin/7 Comments

I do love a bit of sarcasm, I really think it is highly underrated actually. I know it is ‘not big and it’s not clever’ (well actually sometimes it can be very clever, depends on the delivery) but I still use it nonetheless. I also appreciate it when others use it, as I love a cutting remark (in a jokey way).

For example, at work when going to bleed a patient, on asking one of the nurses whether they had good veins or not being told,

“A blind person wearing boxing gloves could get blood out of those veins!”

Another favourite of mine is one of Mr Grump’s sayings to Miss Hap at dinner time as he enquired

“Do you want chips with that ketchup?”

What about when you turn up somewhere soaking wet after being caught in the rain, and one person always pipes up,

“Oh is it raining out?” To which you reply

“No, I just love the bedraggled look!”

When in a group and you say something privately to someone, who then blurts it out loudly.

“Can you speak up a bit, I don’t think they heard you next door!”

When someone you know is wearing an outfit of clashing colours, or looks really scruffy and they get asked,

“Did you get dressed in the dark?”

As all of my family uses sarcasm regularly Miss Hap has picked up the habit and when she came home tonight in her PE kit, I said to her,

“Why on earth did you come home in your PE kit?”

To which she disdainfully replied,

“Because I had PE!”

Great! Ask a silly question…….

Episode 229: Spiffing Words That Need To Be Used More!

March 18, 2015/Judy E Martin/13 Comments

Further to my earlier post ‘Word for Wednesday’, I have now got a few more words rattling around in my brain, begging for release into the mighty blogosphere to be enjoyed. So here they are in all their glory!

Hobbledehoy. What a great word this is. My mum used to favour this word when warning us not to hang around with undesirables! Actually it means ‘clumsy or awkward youth’ (that part summed me up pretty well actually) usually a boy. (You can’t win them all)!

Flighty. This word always makes me laugh. My two grandmothers had quite a bit of rivalry going on and my mum’s mum used to refer to my dad’s mum as being ‘flighty’. The reason for this was that my nan never married and nobody knew who my dad’s father was. This was rather shocking in 1929 and it was rumoured that she rather favoured the odd dalliance with a soldier! Flighty has a few definitions amongst which are: ‘irresponsible or silly behaviour, easily excited, skittish and flirtatious!

Cripes! This sounds very Enid Blyton to me! It is a kind of exclamation. As in. “Oh Cripes I forgot to bring along the ginger beer!” Or perhaps ” Cripes, I’ve just stubbed my toe, and I have an ingrown toenail)! A little on the namby-pamby (we’ll do that one next) side to me. Not much venom attached to it for my liking. It doesn’t quite cut it when you are hopping around in agony with a throbbing toe! That is where your good old ‘f’ word comes in handy!

Namby-Pamby. This is a lovely word. I like it even better because it rhymes (I am easily pleased). It can be used to describe a person as well, for example. “Oooh, look at him writing all that flowery poetry, he’s a bit of a namby-pamby.” The meaning for this wonderful word is ‘weak, spineless, or sentimental.

Spiffing. This is a word that was used a lot by posh people in the past. Something like, “Oh Penelope, it would be simply spiffing if you could come to the Masquerade Ball” It just means ‘excellent’ or ‘splendid’ – but spiffing sounds so much better to me!

Rambunctious. Fabulous word, this one. It would probably have been used for something like this. ” Look at those rambunctious louts over there, causing a disturbance. Somebody had better call the Police!” The general meaning is ‘turbulent, difficult to control. noisy and out of hand.’

Well I hope you enjoyed this little trip down memory lane of seldom used words as much as I did writing it!

Episode 228: Word For Wednesday

March 18, 2015/Judy E Martin/23 Comments

As I may have mentioned, I love words. Well today’s Blogging 101 challenge is to ‘find an event from the listings and participate in the next round.’ I had a good look through all those events I can tell you, and as soon as I came across the Word For Wednesday event I knew that this was the one for me!

My word of the day has got to be ‘gobbledegook’! It’s great isn’t it? All those gs and os. A very round, voluptuous word in my opinion, a bit like me actually!

The definition of gobbledegook is ‘pretentious or unintelligible jargon, such as used by officials.’ Hmmmm not very exciting but it sounds great when enunciated.

This word is now becoming obsolete as it is deemed to be ‘old-fashioned’. However, I too am old-fashioned and I think this word deserves to get a bit more usage!

What say you?

Episode 227: School Dinners: Making The Right Choice.

March 17, 2015/Judy E Martin/16 Comments

When Miss Hap started secondary school in September, we decided that she would have school dinners rather than packed lunches. I was really surprised when I learned that her thumb had to be scanned as the technology used to determine how much money was available for meals would be determined by her thumb print linking to the account I paid the money into for her meals.

This is such a far cry from when I was at school. At primary school I think parent gave the money direct to the school as I don’t remember giving anything in, At break time in the morning, all of the kids had a free quarter of a pint bottle of milk. This was not always cold, and I do remember it used to taste a little ‘tangy’ at times, but we drank it!

Funnily enough, we ate and drank everything given to us as there really was no choice! for our lunch (or dinner) as we called it, we had a hot meal which usually consisted of meat, two veg and potato of some kind, followed by a pudding.

It was all dished (or slopped) out by a large, surly dinner lady you did not dare argue with, You then sat at your table and pretty much ate all you could. You would get told off for not eating your greens and very often told to eat it whether you wanted to or not. Occasionally there were even ‘seconds’ where you could go up for another dollop of food if you felt brave!

In secondary school. I used to have a packed lunch that I had eaten way before lunch time and usually before break! I had a couple of jam, paste or sandwich spread sandwiches and that was it! No crisps, yogurt, fruit or drinks for us! Ooh no, there was a water fountain at school if we wanted a drink.

Now, school dinners are so much more sophisticated. They have a varied and extensive menu, almost like you would see in a restaurant. They can pick and choose what they want to eat and there is no-one standing over them telling t hem to ‘eat their greens’. Presumably, children are considered to be more educated on healthy eating than we were.

It’s funny though. I was never overweight as a child despite eating everything that was put in front of me, but nowadays we have a huge obesity problem in children!

Episode 226: Choppy Seas And A Chilly Breeze!

March 17, 2015/Judy E Martin/8 Comments

I like the concept of today’s Blogging 101 task. Yesterday we used a prompt which we had to interpret to fit into our blog’ today we have to read six other blogs that used the same prompt and comment on at least two of them. I have actually commented on more than that as there were some great takes on it.

If we felt like posting today (which I always do, then we could use one of the comments we left, expand on that and use the inspiration for the post. I love the beach in all weathers and I enjoyed the pictures that donegallizdoyle used in her post entitled ‘Wild Winter Beach’. I love the drama of the sea throughout the year and here are my thoughts on Portland and Chesil Beach, which unsurprisingly are only about five miles from Weymouth in Dorset, which I wrote about yesterday.

As well as spending a lot of time on the beach at Weymouth, Dad used to take us to Portland. I loved it there as well. The weather always seemed to be rather brisk, and very windy, and the sea is extremely hazardous. Not only are there many lost vessels lurking under the turbulent sea, but Portland Bill itself boasts not one, but three lighthouses!

Pulpit Rock – Portland. Photo by Kris Dutson

As kids we all used to love clambering over the giant rocks in Portland that came out of the sea. My brothers however would always climb to the top of Pulpit Rock (much to my terror as I hate heights and was terrified they would fall into the crashing waves below) Dad was not averse to clambering up the rock himself, but mostly he would be holding mine and my little sister’s hands, guiding us onto the safest rocks.

Occasionally, we would go further along to Chesil beach which was too pebbly and wavy for my liking! My family are all very strong swimmers, and although I can swim, I am more of a chicken than them, and when they played ‘chicken’ in the waves, I was only about knee-deep because even there the waves could be quite high.

Portland is on the Jurassic coastline in the UK, so there were interesting fossils to discover, and in time a museum was opened in one of the lighthouses showcasing some wonderful findings from around the area.

Again, the last time I went to Portland was when my dad had just died. We had gone down to Dorset for the funeral, and I wanted to go to Portland one last time as a special tribute to my dad. The last time he was well, was the summer before (he died in the April) and we took him and my stepmum to Portland. Dad was in a wheelchair by then and we sat outside eating ice creams and looking out to see on a glorious day.

We then went to the museum where Dad was explaining to my daughter all about the history of Portland making it interesting for her. He was a very educated and knowledgeable man, and loved to make people laugh as well.

Anyway, myself, Mr Grump, my younger sister and her husband took a trip to Portland on this very wet and cold April day. It didn’t deter us as we had some nice warm jackets; We visited the places Dad loved so much.

He would have so loved to have been there with us!

Rhyme and No Reason!

Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

Category: humour

Episode 236: Snotty Sneezes, Sets off Smacker!

Episode 235: Grumpy Dolly!

Episode 234: The Secret of The Shy Sun!

Episode 233: Cold Comfort!

Episode 232: Eclipsed By The Weather!

Episode 230: Silly Sarcastic Sayings…..

Episode 229: Spiffing Words That Need To Be Used More!

Episode 228: Word For Wednesday

Episode 227: School Dinners: Making The Right Choice.

Episode 226: Choppy Seas And A Chilly Breeze!

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Blogger, author and rhymester who likes to find the humour in life.

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