Mothering Monkey Sunday

Today is mothering Sunday, so I went for an elegant lunch at a posh restaurant with my family. The surroundings were all lovely and genteel, that is until I arrived with my parents, brother, grandparents and my nan's cousin from Spain.

My nan and the Spanish cannot hold their wine at all, despite 50 years of practice, so they were really pissed. They can, therefore, be excused for their ridiculous stories and drunken screeches. My grandad, however, was the designated driver, and therefore the reason for his telling the following Karl-Pilkington-Worthy story are unclear. Apart from he is amazing.

"When I used to work at the animal rendering plant, we used to get all sorts in. We had monkeys, an elephant..."

"AN ELEPHANT?"

"Yeah, a small one. Anyway, there was this bloke, Bob Nugget, who was as lazy as anything. He'd always be going over to people saying 'Oh, he's a lazy one, that Barney McBurger, he never does any work,' but he was the one who never did anything."

"Anyway, we found out that he was always sneaking off to the toilets, so over a few weeks we found out which was his favourite toilet to go in."

"So as I say, we used to get monkeys in, so one day we got this big bugger in, so we put it in Bob's toilet. It had clothes on, we'd put trousers on it and it had a cigarette hanging out of its mouth. We waited until the time that Bob would go to the toilet and put it in there."

"Now it was quite dimly lit in the toilets, so Bob went in, shut the door and everything and then went to sit down..."

"...and he sat on somebody's lap..."

"... and he turned around and it was the monkey, sat on the toilet, with his cigarette."

"So he yelled the place down and came out effing and blinding at us, asking who it was. But as I say, we used to get all sorts. There was an alligator once."

And that is how I spent my Mothering Sunday.

(3) - Day of the Super Awkward Poses

I really need to invest in a better camera, a tripod and a less incredibly awkward body.

Also my face looks unusually aggressive.

I liked my hair today though. I love putting bows on high pony tails, it gives it a real fifties feel.

Quiffs are my fave.

Here's a dreadful quality full length too.

Darcy has had a hair cut today so she feels awkward too. Or at least she looks like she does. Possibly because I can see her eyes properly for the first time in several months.

Excuse the rubbish bags.

The Opthamologist

I went to the opthamologist today. I hate going to the opthamologist, it's really awkward and you have to answer questions like "Does red or green look clearer?" and there is no difference and you don't want to accidentally give the answer that makes them go "OMFG EYE CANCER".



It's very stressful.

However, it's a part of life, visiting the opthamologist's office. Today, I even laughed there.

I have laughed before at the opthamologist's, but before today I always assumed the funniest thing that could happen at the opthamologist's was this;



Or possibly this;

Possibly even this;

But that was before today, when this happened;

The most awkward, lanky and uncomfortable looking man dropped one of the goofy glasses lenses down my clevage. We both looked down to it, then he realised what he was doing, looked away, went bright red and mumbled "Sorry".

I burst out laughing and had a lady-like grope to fish it out. It felt a bit warm so that was weird. I did consider wiping it on my jeans or something but decided not to. There isn't anything gross all up in my boobs anyway.

I so have a boner for Orange right now...

... as the internet is finally working on my Blackberry again :)

Goodbye, Orange customer-helpline staff. I enjoyed our daily conversations about how useless the service was. Bravo.

EXTREME SOCIAL TERRORISM

I have got post traumatic stress syndrome. I feel like I have just returned from a service in Afghanistan. I am going to start going to support groups and sit, looking dead behind the eyes, and be unable to talk about it. It is a marvel that I am even able to sit here typing, what I really want to do is sit on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, rocking back and forth and staring into space.Miss D and I had gone for a lovely little chat and some burgers at the local to catch up, as we hadn't had our usual Friday night meeting of minds over Jagerbombs. Miss D had already told me that she'd had an exhausting phone call off a mutual friend, wittering on about coming home from holidays.

We'd been sat talking while I minced about with popadoms for about half an hour when in she walked, bold as brass and carrying a Corona; Miss F - the local answer to Jeremy Kyle. It was only last week that I had drunkely spent half an hour doing an impression of her matter of fact way of talking at you and we were staggered to see her swanning in.

Meeting for a laugh and a snack is something Miss D and I like to do quite regularly, we bitch and make a plate of chips last an hour and a half. All of this stopped, however, when Miss F walked in. She launched into a baffling rant about how her appetite had changed and chose to demonstrate this by listing everything she had eaten over the last 24 hours.Miss D and I had no idea what to do. We had not invited this situation and we did not know why this was happening to us. Without drawing breath Miss F then ploughed straight into a tirade about how she'd had an argument with her parents about money. She continued from that straight into how she and Little J are going to Amsterdam where she'll pick him a 'brass'. Without pause she then explained how hilarious Little J is as he goes to all the cafes in the area and rates their full english breakfasts out of ten. He has apparently been doing this for three years.

Neither me nor Miss D knew how to escape this and there were no gaps in Miss F's speech to suggest it was meant to be a dialogue; she was just talking and talking and talking. All we could do was stare awkwardly at one another trying not to laugh while inhaling our food.

When she eventually stopped talking (long after our meals were finished) she suddenly started going on about how she had to go to a candle party. I do not know what a candle party is. I started saying "What is a candle party? What is a candle party?" in the frantic manner of somebody who had not been able to talk for an hour. She explained. And then carried on explaining.

And then Miss D and I were going to the candle party.

We arrived at a pub outside which a man was screaming at a woman in a car to get out. She was laughing, either hysterically or in hysterics. We had no idea what it was about. We awkwardly walked into the pub to see four people sat in the shadows with about 50 candles in the corner.

Miss D and I ran into the toilets.

"WE CANNOT STAY AT THE CANDLE PARTY!" I announced.
"I know," she replied, "I literally cannot sit there and look at all those candles, what are we going to do? WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO???"

Eventually I remembered that I actually had a fairly legitimate reason to escape; I needed to get some sandwich fillers for my mum. We staggered back to the candle party and I blurted out to Miss F that I needed to leave. To my horror, she said "Oh, nevermind... shall I give you a lift home, D?"

I am a good and loyal friend and therefore would have been willing to say almost anything to make sure I did not leave Miss D at the horror of the candle party. I was on the cusp of just shouting "SHE LIVES WITH ME. AS OF NOW. WE'RE GOING." When Miss D firmly insisted she wouldn't stay and then we ran off.

As soon as we got in the car I pressed the lock all doors button and we sat in a stunned silence.
"D," I tentatively began, "WHY DID WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO GET IN THAT SITUATION??"

We blathered on about it in horror as we drove to the supermarket. Even when we got there we were still shocked about it and ended up staggering through the aisles like we'd just been released after ten years in a nuclear bunker.

I have now turned to blogging. I will have to become very famous and excellent and rich at it so I can afford the necessary plastic surgery to completely change my appearance and therefore enable myself to hide in plain sight from Miss F.

PS. As soon as I got home I decided to consult my lifestyle guidance counsellor- not that she knows of her title- Allie at Hyperbole and a Half, to see what she would have done in this situation. As is clear by her post "The Awkward Situation Survival Guide", she probably would have ended up at the candle party too.