A Trick or Two

I have a good trick for you before I go on holiday. I call it, Knock Yourself Out. Dexter showed me this.
Let us say you have a back door and let us also say that the top half of your back door is see-through. This bit is necessary so that the person you are playing the trick on can actually see the trick. You hear someone at the see-through back door. Is it someone you want to speak to? No. It is old Mr Thompson who is not overly fond of you because of your youthful lack of backbone and dreadful manners. So, you approach the see-through back door with a charming smile and just as you go to open the door you kick it with your foot whilst also appearing to knock your head on the glass. Brilliant! You reel back and collapse on the floor and therefore do not have to speak to old Mr Thompson! After a while he will shuffle off muttering about feeble youth and manners or somesuch.

Warning: Some people might want to ring for an ambulance. If you hear screaming or shouting - jump up, brush yourself down and laugh. It all depends. I am very happy to hear about more great tricks like this one. I think I will put them all together in an informative pamphlet.

Meanwhile I am off to the land of the midge and horrible food for a so-called holiday.

Playing Tag

I have been tagged by two people which is quite tricky because I now have to go off and tag 13 others and I do not know that many people. Tag is usually a game that I leave to the baby-children in the infants but since this does not involve me running around and hitting and shouting (actually it sounds like fun now), I suppose I will do it.

A.This 1st one is a Moaning Meme
I have been tagged by Scarlett at Wanderlustscarlett. Here goes:
5 people who will be really annoyed you tagged them.
- Angry Graham will be be really annoyed
- Jude at will be mildly irritated as will
- Anita who is on holiday
- My godmother, Claire may not speak to me again (hee hee)
- Alan who will probably ignore it

4 things to go into Room 101 and be removed from the face of the earth
- organic vegetables (I feel sick just thinking about them)
- the school bus (ingrained vomit and windows rusted shut)
- my unspeakable cousins, Jaspar and Skye
- Mrs Trundle's high powered laser whistle (with Mrs Trundle attached if possible)

3 things that people do that make you want to shake them violently
- baby-children clinging onto your legs (it's the only way to get rid of them)
-Dexter walking so close behind me, he trips up if I actually stop
- people calling themselves Alan

2 things that you find yourself moaning about
- stick insects not eating properly
- not having enough money to buy sweets- ever

1 thing the above answers tell you about yourself
- I am a saint
There are rules to follow:
-Link to the original meme at freelance cynic
-Be honest
-No insults
-Post rules

B. The 2nd tag is from Dame Honoria Glossop and it is 8 random facts about myself. Here goes:
- I actually like brussels sprouts as long as they are not organic
- I do not have a beard but they seem to run in the family
- I believe stick insects are the greatest pets in the universe
- My actual real name is Wilfred Henry Augustine Marshall but I prefer Buzz
- I have three lawnmowers in my collection now, including a Hayter 19"
- For the first three years of my underpant wearing life, I refused to wear them
- My hair is unnaturally curly
- I am an alien (not really)

There are rules:
-link to the tagger
-write 8 random facts about yourself
-taggee to post rules and 8 facts
-tag 8 other people

I tag:
Angry Graham - he is going to explode
Joe at Undead Flowers
Horton
Sue
Saleeha
Jack
Colleen
Meloney

I am Force-Read Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows

I must interrupt my exciting time at the medical museum because of two things. The first is the force-reading of the new Harry Potter book and the second is a game of tag.

The Parents have read to me since I was a broad bean but I do not remember any of those books because, no matter what anyone tells you, you cannot understand a great many words when you are a broad bean. I think this fact was a little disappointing to The Parents and so they tried to make up for it by forcing as many words as possible into my ears whenever they could. There was never a time when I could not remember Mum or Dad without a book in their hands next to my bed. So far, so good. BUT, when I was three, it was not always, 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' or 'We're Going on a Bearhunt', oh no, this was when they started on Harry Potter; for example, 'The Philosopher's Stone' took six months for my father to read to me and I still do not really know what happened in it but I do know HP won. Mum read 'The Chamber of Secrets' and because I was a little older, she also bought three little educational games that she and Dad would demonstrate, alot. By the time we got to 'The Goblet of Fire' I was expected to perform a full bodied patronus and sum up the plot. After the reading of 'The Order of the Phoenix', the Parents secretly joined Mugglenet on my behalf so that I could 'keep up with the action'. I did try reading, 'The Half-Blood Prince ' by myself ( I can read) but The Parents insisted we all read it together because, 'the death of Dumbledore might be too much for us, I mean you to bear.' I coped.
The action figures and lego model of Hogwarts were completed for me when I was seven and are now sitting in The Parents' bedroom- for safekeeping. The Hogwarts Express, which Dad keeps in the cellar with his teeth collection, now has a really good station and real water pond (with merpeople) which Dad says he is building for when I am old enough. Mum's matchstick Hogwarts castle is nearly complete. Whenever anybody asks them what I would like for my birthday or christmas, they nearly always say in an offhand sort of way, 'oh anything to do with inventing or space or if you're really stuck maybe a wand, 12 and a half inches, dragonheartstring and blackthorn, slightly whippy.'
Anyway, I am not far off 10 and they are expecting another broad bean and in a desperate bid to make themselves popular with me again; they have just ended a weekend of force-reading of HP7, with voices and home-made costumes and everything. It has been a long battle but now it is over.
Good-bye Harry Potter, I will miss you but I think The Parents will miss you more - the things they do for love.

On the Way to the School Trip

This time we are going to a medical museum. This is quite handy because at least three people are sick on the school bus. Oliver-James is the first to go (of course) followed by The Weed (Joshua Harcourt) and then because she is sandwiched in front of the weed and behind OJ - Miranda!!! Ha-ha-ha (cold laughter, she is still unforgiven after the Looking After The Sticks episode). It is all terrible really because the bus STINKS of the new sick combined with the left over sick from all the other school trips and I cannot bring myself to finish off Dexter's pack-up like I want to.

He has :
3 x packets of crisps all salt and vineagar
2 x slabs of chocolate cake
2 x packets of lunchables
3 x packets of polos (to stop sickness)
2 x bottles of lemonade
1 x manky apple

I have:
1 x wholemeal roll with cheese and grated carrot spilling out of it
1 x homemade carrot cake
1 x carrot
water with added carrot (joke)

Anyway, the really good thing about this School Trip is NO TRUNDLE. After last year when she was snubbed by Helen Sharman at the Science Museum, she went into a massive sulk and said that she would be too busy doing other things to go anywhere where children were involved or the school bus was involved (see picture) and definitely not both together.
So this year it is Mr Bagnall. Mr Bagnall believes that all children have an inner core of wonderfulness and that sometimes you have to dig quite deep to find the inner core but it is always there. His first name is Earnest which is worse than Alan but quite a lot better than Wilfred. As it turns out, my actual name at the museum is James Wilson and I am a servant and I catch diptheria - so quite a good day. More later.

A Badly Drawn Broad Bean

There are now five stick insects and two of them are sickly yellow in colour and bigger than the other black ones who have legs like feeble spiders. They are all 5cm in length. None of them do much - not when I observe them anyway. I have a sneaking suspicion that the moment my back is turned they turn on the disco lights and leap about to unsuitable music. Also, they do not eat. I keep putting in ivy leaves and bramble leaves but they just stare at the food and do not lift even one leg towards them. If I only start to get the tin opener out of the drawer, Serena my cat, savages my body. But not the sticks. I must take a photo so I have actual evidence of them eating.
Mum and Dad brought home a photo the other day. They went to the hospital to have it taken. It was black and white and looked like a badly drawn broad bean. They have put it in a frame and have informed me that it is a baby. Ugh. Then they gave me a copy for my bedroom. My bedroom is welcome to it, I say. If they are trying to get me to like it they are going about it in a funny way.

Mad Aunt Caroline has been phoning me for little 'chats' which is v v disturbing.
'You know your dear parents are unhappy that you are unhappy, Wilfred,' she says and her voice drips with Concern.
I stay quiet. I do not want to talk to her but I know The Parents are hiding behind the kitchen door, waiting. I wonder if the sticks are even now having a party and nibbling snacks.
'You must try and be kinder to them, Wilfred. Stress is not good for the baby, you know.'
I grunt a bit. I have to make some sort of noise. Stress is not good for the sticks either, I think. Maybe that is why they are spurning my leaves.
'Talk to me, Wilfred - tell me what troubles you,' she coos.
I must go and look after the sticks. It turns out that their legs drop off in times of stress. 'Can you tell me how babies are made?' I ask her. It is like a dam bursting.
'Of course! Darling! Just listen and I'll tell you everything...' and she is off.
And so am I.