Oh, and...

We're getting a new washing machine. Yesterday, I had a load of towels going when I heard a loud bang followed by loud thudding. When I got downstairs, I saw water streaming out of the machine. The drum had come off one of the springs that hold it in place. The machine is old and a bit rusty, so we decided to get a newer, better, more energy efficient one. We'd done some research on new washing machines last year before we moved in, so we ordered this year's model of our favorite from John Lewis today and it arrives on Friday. I am absurdly excited about this.

Weirdly, the new machine, with delivery and disposal of the old washer, costs £308. This is exactly how much I earned last week. Huh.

Baby Velvet

Two weekends ago, I went to a baby shower for our friend Mia. (Matthew went to Nashville last year with her husband Paul to co-produce his album. He described it as the best holiday of his life and returned with a Western shirt, a cowboy hat and a mustache. He'd obviously had a good time.) Anyway, for Mia's tea party shower, I made scones and customised a set of onesies (or baby-grows, as they are called here).

I made one batch of strawberry scones and one strawberry and kiwi. They were well received and two people asked me for the recipe – just the sort of reaction I like.

Strawberry Yogurt Scones

2 C flour
3 T sugar
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp baking soda
4 T butter, cold, cut into ½ cubes
¾ C chopped strawberries
¾ C plain yogurt

Preheat oven to 425F/220C. Stir together dry ingredients. With a pastry cutter or two knives (or, if you can’t quite coordinate two knives, a potato masher) cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in strawberries. Stir in enough yogurt to form dough into a ball (up to ¾ C, but I used less). Turn dough onto a floured surface and with floured hands knead a few times. Press into a 9 inch round, cut into 8 triangles. Place onto cookie sheet lined with parchment. Bake until golden, about 12 - 15 minutes. Remove to rack to cool.

Note: For the strawberry-kiwi scones, I used just under a half cup of each fruit and added an additional tablespoon of sugar. The dough is very sticky and was hard to deal with when I used all the yogurt; it was much easier when drier.

The onesies elicited oohs and ahhs, especially the one with Paul’s album cover. That one was Matthew’s idea and it was genuinely adorable. The images on the shirts were straighter than it looks in the photos, by the way.

Mia looked like she was ready to pop the day of the shower, but she didn’t actually have the baby until last week. She is a very pretty little girl named…Velvet Giselle. Well, they are rock-n-rollers.

Plant Hospital

Yesterday I rescued a bloomless orchid from the office where I've been working. It had been on the desk for about 4 months and finally lost its final, withered flower that morning. We got a new one at Marks and Spencer and to keep it from going in the bin (and having heard that they will eventually bloom again), I took the old one home. Lots of people seemed interested in this and offered advice. One girl said she has one that is finally starting to bloom after a year. She keeps it in the bathroom because they like the humidity. Another girl said that if you give an orchid a contraceptive pill, it will bloom continually. I said, "Do you crush the pill and put it in the water?" She said she just sticks it in the soil. Then someone else asked if she has lots of extra contraceptive pills laying around. She said it only takes one. I don't know what her boyfriend thinks about this, but I didn't think it was my place to ask.

When I left in the evening, I got several comments:

Comment 1: Is it your last day? Are you taking your little plant?

Comment 2: Are you stealing that? (When I explained I was taking it home as it'd lost its flowers) Oh, are you good with orchids?

Comment 3: What is that? (I explained) Hmmm. (This was from the founding partner of the firm, when I ran into him on the tube platform. I couldn’t really read his “Hmmm.” It didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic.)

I don't have a picture of the plant in question. I'll try to take one tomorrow, even though right now the orchid is just five droopy leaves and some creepy-looking roots snaking out of the holes in the bottom of the pot. I'm not sure it was worth the effort of getting it home (in the cold and rain), but if it does bloom next year, I'll be thrilled that I got a £14.99 plant for free. Woo, and indeed, hoo.

Battle of the Bins

We live in a terrace house divided into three flats. We own and live in Flat A, which is the ground floor, the basement and back garden. Flat B, on the first floor (2nd floor to readers in the US), is vacant. Flat C, on the 2nd and 3rd floors, is rented by three girls. We have never formally met them, but in the past few months they have become an increasing part of our lives. Some of the reasons include:

- We have been awakened several nights by loud noises. Specifically, the noises of several people staggering up the front walk, banging the front door open and closed, then slowly making their way up the stairs while shouting drunkenly at each other. This normally happens between 3 and 5 in the morning. It's been a total of 5 times over the past few months and each time I vow that the next time I will get up and yell at them. And next time I very well might.

- Also, they never shut the front gate, which I think makes the front of the house look sloppy.

- Someone keeps throwing cigarette butts from their terrace into our garden. This doesn't happen that often, so I think it must be visitors rather than the girls themselves, but if their friends behave this way, it certainly speaks ill of them.

- They do not recycle. The house has four large recycling bins out front provided by the Council, but we are the only people who use them. This would be a bit of eco-self righteousness except that we find that recycling drastically reduces the amount we throw away, whereas...

- They fill up all the bins so we don't have room for our garbage! The Council provides recycling bins, but not rubbish bins, so residents have to supply their own. When we moved in, there were two bins out front. We thought, two occupied flats, two bins; should be fine. Lately, though, we take our rubbish out to find that both bins are completely full. And not only do they not recycle, they don't even crush their cardboard boxes to take up less space - and I know this because they don't even tie their rubbish bags closed! Honestly, I'm surprised they even bother with bags and don't just toss garbage out the window whenever they empty a milk carton or finish a roll of toilet paper.

To date, I have written them a note, spoken to one when we met on the front walk, and confronted one (with her mother!) as she was actually shoving rubbish indiscriminately in the first bin she could find. I've only raised the bin issue; I decided to concentrate on the biggest problem so they wouldn't think I am a cranky old lady griping all the time. However, now that I keep griping at them everytime I see them, they probably think that anyway. I don't care!

And now, as a cranky old lady, I am going to drink some hot milk and go to bed. (Actually, I'm going to have a 7-Up and watch Dr Who, but it's the same thing, really.)

Last Saturday was my grandmother’s birthday. If you have ever spent any time with me, you have probably heard about my grandmother because she features in some pretty good anecdotes – like the time she shot a deer out the back window (possibly out of season) and had it field dressed by the time my grandpa got home from work, or the time she and Aunt Pat got jobs at the chicken processing plant and only made it to the morning coffee break on their first day before deciding to quit.

My grandma hasn’t always had smooth sailing in her life. She grew up during the Great Depression, in a tiny East Texas town where life was probably pretty difficult even without a worldwide economic downturn. She’s lost plenty of loved ones – though, by the time you get to 87, that must be par for the course. She didn’t graduate from high school and never got a driver’s licence – so why is she so unstoppable? She can do anything. She’s made me dresses and costumes and play clothes and taught me to sew. She can cook catfish, chicken livers and pork chops (she’s even fed me squirrel – and yes, it tastes like chicken) and bakes a cheesecake so rich and dense that it will stop your heart dead in its tracks. She is very good at Forty-Two and Scattergories (among other games), but won’t quit until she’s ahead. She can reupholster furniture. She made one of my favourite “toys” when I was little by nailing 1x4 boards between two trees to form a ladder that I climbed up and down, over and over and over again. She made most of the curtains for every apartment I’ve ever had. She hates snakes and at ever opportunity chops them to bits with a garden hoe. She once made a couch.

This is my favourite photo of my grandma, taken in the early 1920s. She is the little girl on the right, standing in a creek and grinning. The expression on her sister’s face (can I actually call such a small girl “Aunt Sis”?) suggests that the water is plenty cold, but I can almost see the little person who would one day be my grandmother wiggling with delight.

I’ve actually been working on this post since last week, but haven’t been able to work on it during the workday. Normally, if I have a few free minutes, I’ll type a bit and e-mail it to myself at home for later posting, but every time I tried to think about my grandma, how I really feel about her and what she means to me, I got very emotional and teary-eyed. Not a good look at work. Grandma would probably say not to cry, just concentrate on our happy memories together, but all those warm, fuzzy, happy and loving thoughts are exactly what keep getting me so emotional! But I’m sure I’ll manage…

My grandma’s philosophy is that, in life, if the door is locked, she’ll go through the window. I’m sure that at some point in her life, she has literally done just that.

She is my hero.

Hot Town, Summer in the City

As anyone who knows me can attest, I do like to complain, and the weather in England is one of my favourite subjects. It's probably my 2nd favourite, right behind the behaviour of other people (particularly on public transport). But as much as I gripe about how grey and cold and rainy it can be during the winter (and, to honest, the spring, autumn and sometimes summer, too), even I have to admit that when it gets going, the English summer is glorious. I think I am beginning to understand what Matthew means when he describes a day as “lovely and hot.” Growing up in Texas, I am more used to days being “oppressive and hot” or “blistering and hot” or even “deadly and hot.” I’ve been working in an office near a little urban park and have spent the last couple of lunch breaks quite happily sitting in the sun, watching the pigeons, eating a sandwich and listening to comedy podcasts. It’s so nice to be outside after months of seeking shelter.

My only real gripe – there has to be one! – is that while the weather outside is quite mild by Texas standards, most buildings are not air-conditioned and those that are, are in a rather ineffective, English sort of way. So it’s nice outside but when you go in, it’s clammy and close and sort of sticky. That’s one thing at home, where you can eat ice cream and lie on the floor with the windows open, but it is murder at work, when you are expected to sit at a desk and behave in a professional manner while sweating through your bra! Also, I get sweaty hands, which is disgusting when typing! Using a mouse is even worse! And photocopying – yuck! I’ve been drinking lots of water to stay cool; yesterday I went to the restroom so many times that someone asked me if I was okay. I just muttered something about hydration...

Our Glamorous Life

Last week’s mention of Pete Burns reminded me that I promised to write something about our (sort of) encounter with the Rolling Stones. So here it is:

A couple of weeks ago, Matthew got a package in the post containing tickets for Martin Scorsese’s Rolling Stones concert film “Shine a Light” and booking info for a hotel in Soho. It seems that he’d entered a competition online and won. The premiere was the next night, when he was scheduled to work, so there was a bit of worry that he might not be able to get off and we’d have to give the tickets to someone else, but his boss got very excited and let him off (on the condition that if possible, we give Charlie Watts a hug). So we went to the premiere along with loads of other celebrities – ha!

Actually, there were lots of celebrities there. We had pleb tickets and so got ushered in pretty quickly, but they were showing the red carpet on the big screen in the cinema so we got to watch as each mildly famous person stood blinking under the barrage of flashbulbs. The woman “hosting” the red carpet portion of the evening asked all the celebs which was their favourite Rolling Stone – most said they love them all and couldn’t possibly choose, except for Liam Gallagher, who staggered up looking very drunk and unkempt and said he liked Brian Jones best. Which was pretty funny. Considering the quantity of celebrity, the quality wasn’t very high. They were mostly British television and music personalities; Matthew was impressed (and not completely in a good way) that I was able to identify a girl who is famous for a) being the daughter of an actor, b) dating the brother of a singer, who is himself a television actor (and the singer has a TV talk show, too), c) wearing very “edgy” clothes at fashionable places and thus getting her picture in the papers, and d) being in a futuristic kung-fu show in which she had purple hair and a pair of magic gym shorts once owned by the Buddha (but I don’t think that’s gone anywhere).

We got several looks at the Rolling Stones, both on the red carpet and because, while the celebs were upstairs in the balcony so they wouldn’t have to mix with the regular folk, the band walked right past us as they went up to the front to introduce the film. Actually, if our seats had been slightly worse (a couple of rows back and farther to the side), they would have walked right past us. As they went past, Mick said, “Not too much making out in the back, please” and the superfans around us thought that was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. If I think about it, though, it was probably the funniest thing ever said directly to them by a member of an iconic rock band, so fair enough. Up to this point, we were quite entertained. However, then we had to sit through the film.

To be fair, it was pretty entertaining as well. However, I think this was mostly down to being in a really big cinema with a really good sound system, surrounded by people who were really excited to be watching, so that it felt at times like we were actually at the concert. Several times I found myself almost clapping at the end of a song. But I don’t think I would watch it on TV at home. The most interesting parts were the archival and behind-the-scenes footage and there wasn’t much of it. And although I was impressed by the band’s physical stamina at their age, it did drag on a bit.

Some other impressions:

They are all really tiny! They aren’t very tall and most of them are wraith-thin – Keith Richards is the only one with even a hint of an old man potbelly. Mick Jagger was wearing shiny patent leather platform sneakers. I wondered if they might be orthopedic to deal with the havoc all that jumping around and twisting might have done to his back, but I now think they might be because his girlfriend is about 6 inches taller than he is.

Speaking of Mick Jagger’s girlfriend - she is a professional stylist, yet all his stage outfits looked like they came from the ladies’ resort section at Kohl’s department store. He wore black satin trousers (very slimming) and a burgundy shirt with pintucks down the front, which he took off to reveal a black t-shirt with subtle sequin details, which added just a touch of sparkle.

I thought Keith Richards looked a little bit like a grandpa - if your grandpa were actually a Berber tribeswoman. He had so many things tied in his hair or dangling from his belt, I thought I could hear him jingle when he moved, though I guess that could have been his old bones and dried-up, leathery internal organs.

Charlie Watts could be a vampire. He certainly looks like one and have you ever seen him in the daytime?

Anyway, we had a good enough time at the film and then spent the night at a nice hotel and had a big breakfast (included with the room) the next morning. We definitely like staying in hotels in town – it’s like traveling without all the hassle of actually going anywhere.