Busy Weekend at Fink Mansion

Phew, what a weekend. Mr Fink and I headed off to Wickes, B&Q, Homebase etc to check out the showers. Didn't buy one. While I was in Wickes, The Oracle phoned me and invited me out for a drink (coffee) and a gossip. So we went to the local pub and had a lovely gossip, put the world to rights and solved all kinds of problems! then I dropped her off to meet with her sister and I went home. When I got in I had the most awful headache and felt really sick - must have been all the caffeine from 5 cups of pub coffee. Never again!

Saturday I went to work, when I finished I found several patients wandering round the deserted department, they were lost - my worst nightmare, I just know I'm going to get them lost even more by trying to help them! We found where they were supposed to be and I went home. In the evening we met Nanny and Shouty Grandad at the swimming pool for the Cubs District Swimming Gala. Little Fink came first in her heat of the 25m breaststroke and third in the final. Her team came 2nd out of 16 Cub packs. We were all so proud of her.

Sunday we did the housework and then GWTBO and Nanny S came round for dinner which Mr Fink cooked brilliantly. Afterwards we were treated to a game of Triv and some magic tricks from Little Fink. A thoroughly entertaining afternoon of entertaining!

Next week I have Bob The Plumber (Plumb-bob geddit?) coming round to start the bathroom refurb and the Ovenu cooker guy coming on Thur to clean my cooker. (Note to self - Do not ask the Oven guy to marry you again!)

You know you've had a party when...

...you're eating onion bahjiis and sausage rolls for breakfast!

The Buncefield Bash was a terrific success. Everyone brought a little bit of something to eat and drink (tea cake, chili, trifle, nibbles, booze). Everyone joined in with all the games, the cereal packet game is now considered 'old hat' by the children. The 'jelly baby in the flour game' claimed Marsha and Bambino as it's first two victims and the 'eat the chocolate with the gloves on game' was played fiercely by Bag Mac and Bambi - with MUCH cheating by both. Unfortunately we didn't get time to learn Big Mac's 'toilet roll game' perhaps next year. The children were well behaved and had great fun too, dressing up, karaokeing and playing buzz.

Mr Fink's legendary indoor fireworks were the stars of the show, we were all warned to stand well back and as ever, no one could believe their eyes at the roman candles firing out of the Buncefield cake!

I thoroughly enjoyed myself and laughed all evening. Thank you all for taking the trouble to come (Mr & Mrs Fogg travelled down from York to be here) and making the evening what it was, another wonderful night of fun with the people I care most about. Thank you all. It would be nothing without all of you. xxx

Halt, Who goes there?

(The Oracle's No1 son has a pair of shoes like the ones drawn in the picture.)

Picture a man, somewhere beyond sight and sound....do do do do (wiggle fingers up and down).

Picture Mr Fink this morning at 5am (yes 5am in the morning). There was an almighty crash coming from somewhere within our house. It sounded like someone smashing the patio doors in or someone beating their way out of a wardrobe full of metal coat hangers with a sledgehammer.

I sat bolt upright in bed trying to work out if the noise could have been anything innocuous, Little Fink falling out of bed, books or teddies failing out of her bed or the cat falling out of her bed. Negatives all round. Dammit, must be something big and scary. Mr Fink wakes up all bleary eyed and says, "Are you going?" "Are you mental?" say I. (reminds me of a smashing Pam Ayres poem my friend chose to have read at her wedding. http://weddingwords.vox.com/library/post/yes-ill-marry-you-pam-ayres.html

We check Little Fink - no damage there. All windows and wardrobes intact - mystery....

Mr Fink bravely goes downstairs, stark, you know what, naked. I tell you, if there was a burglar in the house, he deserves a medal for facing Mr Fink in the altogether at 5am.

Mystery solved - 2 pictures are missing from the walls, the 2 collages I made of our first trip to see the outlaws in Spain, A3 clip frames with tickets, postcards, local papers etc in. they must have gone up in value for a burglar to break in and only steal them??

No. the truth was, I had put them up on the wall using those clever new sticky pads that you can peel off the wall when you have finished? Newsflash - They don't work. Both pictures were at the bottom of the stairs, smashed to bits. We cleared up and went back to bed.

Never a dull moment eh?

I LIKE IT DULL AT 5am THANK YOU!!!!!!

What's that noise?

All day Tuesday I kept as busy as I could, tidying up, putting things away, washing clothes etc. When I was taking some bits and pieces upstairs, I stood in our bedroom and could hear an unfamiliar noise...like a computer running or the heating being on. I tried to pin point the sound. It was most noticeable by our wardrobe but not coming from inside, perhaps the loft then? I'll get Mr Fink to check when he gets home.

I carried on, still aware of the noise but unable to locate the source.

Mr Fink came in and noticed it, checked the loft, nothing. We had tea and a few glasses of wine then he went to bed. He said he couldn't possibly sleep with that noise droning away all night so went round to the neighbour to ask them to check their loft and bedroom for anything that would make an alarm clock/electronic kind of noise. They humoured him and checked - nothing.

(A similar incident happened when Little Fink was about 2. We could hear a noise like feedback on a microphone coming from the living room. We checked everywhere, then became convinced it was the pother neighbours smoke alarm. We got in touch with them and it wasn't that - in the end we worked out it was Little Fink's karaoke tape recorded issuing a feedback noise! oops)

Mr Fink eventually fell asleep, I went to bed, could still hear the noise. About 4.30 am I went to the loo and it suddenly dawned on me (I have all my best ideas on the throne). I checked in the box of bits and bobs I had taken upstairs earlier in the day and lo and behold - the source of the noise was revealed...

An upside down Furby in the bottom of the box. I'm sorry to say he hasn't been the same since but I'm hoping to take him to The Oracle's Furby Hospital later so she can take a look at him!

What should I tell the neighbour when she asks?

Hot lunch anyone?

How groovy it this idea. A flask that you put your dinner in, microwave to get it good and hot, put the lid on, take to work and eat a couple of hours later. Brilliant. I want one, I got one.

I picked Little Fink up from school, one of the mums, whom I think of as The Oracle - like in The Matrix (she is the font of all knowledge and knows all the gossip - if it's happened in our town, she has the inside story), The Oracle asked me how my 'healthy eating/diet' was going.

So I told her about my super new lunching gadget, come lunchtime I was pretty hungry and looking forward to testing how warm the food had stayed. Salami pasta with ratatouie. Yum.

I couldn't get the lid off. I didn't have lunch, the diet is going fine!

One of my colleagues came into the office to ask what the banging noise was. It was me trying to break the vacuum seal on the tub. No hot lunch for me!

No luck. Mr Fink (via email - he likes to be alerted to my misfortunes, it brightens his dreary days) helpfully suggested I return it for a refund. I aksed, "What with my lunch still inside?"

So, it sits on the kitchen side, waiting for big strong Mr Fink to come home and release my lunch.