I'm fed up with my snow pics too...

... Have a Thing of Ten?

1. It is something I shamelessly stole from a blogging friend: not exactly a meme, just ten things you might want to post about. A lot of the time, I have managed 8 or 9 at a push, but everyone has always been very good about my failing and imprecision. That's why I am using this introduction as number one: I need all the help I can get. I wasn't going to post words as such this time round, but when a word or two comes back (I blame the lovely Folkiebooknerd, - *sheepish grin*)... So I thought I'd post this and see how I go.

2. Snow. Yes. It's here and we have to deal with it. A foot or two has never scared anyone here but it is now at nearly 3 metres! The roads to here are all closed and even hefty tractor-snow tyre-chain combos will get you nowhere. We are cut off from civilisation as we know it. Ah well, I don't think we have missed that much. We might see the sun come Tuesday. Schools will open again on Friday. Perhaps...

3. Lemons. Instead of saying "lights", we say "lemons". This occurred to The Child the other night, during some of the worst blizzarding. As the lights - and as a result, the heating, the landline, and worse still, the interwebs and the bloody kettle! - were going on and off, we found ourselves without sufficient candles, ergo, In The Dark. The second time of light coming back: scene of much rejoicing from The Child (important Wii playing could resume) and caution from Yours Truly re the not counting chickens before they etceteraed. Upshot: the fourth or fifth time the lights et al went off, she shouted: "But I didn't even say anything this time, how could the bloody lights have heard me?" Now, when the lights go off, we refer to them as "lemons" in the hope that they won't know we are talking about them. Hmmmm. Should I worry about us?

4. Wii. I am filled with despair. Just Dance 3 is, well, very popular with The Child. She likes to pick songs I don't like, ones I cannot help but curl my lip at. I can't help it...I just hate those bloody Buggles so much. She ends up in fits of laughter while I make narky comments about them and their song, so of course, I am hoist by my own blimmin' petard. Bringing up a Buggles fan: sounds like the title of some straight-to-DVD-and-bargain-binland film.

5. Other songs that are sung at me, regularly, with ensuing mirth and the most evil of grins:
Moonshadow, Cat Stevens. Oh how I HATE that song. My sister loved it so much as a toddler that it was never off the stereo and there's only so much leg- mouth- and head-loss the angst ridden pre-teenage, tendentially goth could take. I carry that with me.
Daddy's taking us to the zoo tomorrow. No. No, he isn't. And I don't want to hear it any more, PLEASE!!!!

6. Invisible friends. The Child has quite a few of these. We started out with John Henry, Mr Hammer (funnily enough, she has not heard the song), and Mr Bananabee and things escalated from there. Some of them live with us full time, others go home to their parents - except John Henry, whose parents are unfit arsonists, and Mr Hammer - "HE lives in the wild, but shhhhhh, don't tell anyone, it's a secret!" I do wonder who will be most upset when she "kills off" John Henry; in the six or so years he has been about, I have become very fond of him.

7. MasterChef. Nice this year. Please let Aki (spelling?) win. She is sooooo gosh-lovely, I want to keep her in my kitchen and have her experiment food on me. I am still finding (Gr) Egg incredibly annoying, but I was happy to see the lovely Italian chef last week, doing proper Italian cooking, not the Jamie Oliver version. Hint people: drizzling olive oil means that, drizzle, not deluge! Ignore the Oliver. He knoweth not.

8. On account of a mentalist wibble, I am down to the last couple of tins of baked beans. My comfort food. I am going to keep them until a moment of total depression. Baked beans are precious things and you never know how lucky you are until you can't get them (same goes for Marmite, PG Tips and other stuff that will never in a million years catch on here). There are lovely shops on the internet that sell them and post them, but the postal charges will cover a week's food shop! People have sent me recipes for beans, swearing blind that they are far better than Mr Heinz and his esteemed colleagues can provide. This is not true. I like beans of a canned variety and besides, I'd only burn them. However, if someone else has a recipe that they think is better and requires the attention span of the average newt, I am always open to suggestions.

9. Cooking. Since being snowed in, I have been making jumbo jam tarts. I have them down to a fine art. I have also mastered the fine art of eating large amounts of jam-covered pastry. For variety I might go back to coffee cake with Mascarpone and Nutella filling. Yes, I am all about the cake when there is no chocolate to hand. I am actually not that bad at baking; things cooked in saucepans present much more of a challenge though, on account of my tendency to wander off and let them burn. Note to self: invest in more things with non-stick coatings.

10. I did it. Ten. And if you got this far, well done you! There is no prize, just this song because no one (except Nick Cave and he can do no wrong) ever really does covers of Mr Cohen that make me truly happy but this one does, blissfully so, even if the subject matter is grim.