Things To Use Instead Of Your Hand

I frequently find myself at least a hand full, so I thought I would create a random list - why not?

5. Your Other Hand (go for the obvious one)
4. Your Leg - good for kicking doors open. Don't kick to hard, otherwise it'll come back at you too fast....
3. Your Elbow (good for door handles)
2. Your Mouth (commonly used by me to hold my wallet when I've run out of hands - not recommended when handling dangerous materials!)
1. Your Arse (bum first, also can be used to open door handles)

No, I Don't Want to Give You £x a Week, Or Convert To Your Religion

It all started with the phone calls. Once upon a time people never got blasted at every turn with people trying to grab your money, although I might be feeling wistful here. Now we get someone at every turn. Phone calls are easy, as you can just hang up on them (if you don't want to be horribly rude to them as my father is). So are emails - delete (you can say that in a cyberman-stylee way if you like). One of the first ever crank calls I got was from someone telling me I'd won a trip to Florida. Sounds lovely, if it wasn't for the fact four hurricanes hadn't just torn through the entire state.
Even spam is nicer than emails that tell you you've won $1 million but you will have to pay some "transfer expenses" to get it. Ha.

Now we have the group of people in town all wearing similar bibs all trying to grab your money. If you miss one, then you're more than likely to be hit by the next. Yes, I know that you're just trying to support the aged or the pandas or people in Africa with no water but all I want to do is go into town and be LEFT ALONE. If I wanted to give money to these people I would do it when I had a moment at the computer. I made the mistake of stopping to chat to a Sustrans bloke. I know they do good work, but to be honest when I'm cycling to work of a Thursday, I don't want to be stopped and asked for money.
On Saturday, while I was washing up, I had to answer the door to a Jehovah's witness. I only know that because I was bothered by her before. I told her I was busy and held up my froth-filled hands. She asked me whether I would like her to come back and go through the bible or something with her. Sigh. I really did want to ask her whether I really wanted to join a religion where only 144,000 of the members are elegible to go to heaven but I couldn't be bothered to argue about religious matters on a Saturday morning with soap suds in my hands.

The Day You Realise You've Become Your Mother....

...... when you find what was couscous mouldering in a container in the back of your fridge.

Our survey says.... eewwwww

Lessons Learnt In Central Bristol

1. Always wear a Helmet
I'm going to be serious here. On Wednesday night a bloke cycled down Park Street and never made it. He was not wearing a helmet, and this may have saved his life. If we can learn anything from this it is to wear a helmet. Please.

2. When in groups of five, wear a costume?
I came through the centre of town the other day and went past a group of five men wearing sailor uniforms. I was going to write something about men in uniform (arrogant but yummy) but then, as I cycled on, I noticed five people wearing bride's dresses, two of which were most definitely male. This was getting more curious. Then I went past five people wearing commando uniforms. At this point I realised there must be teams of five all dressed in the same uniform doing something round Bristol. I'm sure they had fun...

3. If it's going to go to waste, let everybody enjoy it

I came past this rather bizarre image on my way home yesterday. I believe it had happened just before I came past in the morning as they were arranging the flowers as I went past. I have no idea whatsoever how this happened, as this lorry is right in the middle of a pedestrian/bus area. I can only believe that it came careering down Park Street and somehow managed to end up here. Ooops.

Body Matters

I am tying up a few loose ends here.

First of all, a few months ago I wrote about my weight problem and what I was going to do to solve it. Allegedly I now weigh 15 stone, which means I've lost 5 pounds in 4 months. Well, at least I haven't gained weight. Anyway, most people apart from my immediate family tell me that I don't need to lose weight, so instead I'm going to start to focus on toning up instead and trying to eat as healthily as I can within reason and cravings. There we go. Maybe in another four months I'll give you guys another update.

Also my friend Marcus has been bugging me for weeks about whether I've done another HNT. I find this a little suspect, but am bored enough to present this little offering. I took it specially after going to badminton and it was bloody hard work. Anyway, that's the final one, and it comes with a small "some flesh on show" warning.

Paris est Ma Ami... Et La Cidre

My first two trips to Paris were not auspicious events. The first time, we were changing buses in some dodgy bus station and got chased by a freaky French bloke demanding kisses (from me and my male friend, or from both of us, I never stopped to find out). The second time, we went to go visit a university friend who spend most of her time sucking face with her French boyfriend and not actually spending that much time with us, despite the fact we'd travelled all the way from Bristol by car to see her.

So, I approached my third trip to Paris with some trepidation. Was the third time going to be luckier? Hooray! It was! I had a lovely time. We walked round Paris at least 10 times, drank the equivalent of three bottles of wine and had more French food than probably a French person. Croissants, pain au chocolat, baguette, escargots (snails), andouiettes (disgusting French sausages that smelt of offal), crepes, galettes (savoury version of crepes), random (but delicious) salads with bread on top, steaks done very rare, tarte bourdelou (pear and almond, mmmm), delicious sorbets with any type of fruit you wanted (pear and apple... mmmmmm) and, last but not least, my most favouritest, French cider.

Ah yes. French cider. Yummy yummy, for those of you who ever go to France and come back with a bottle of this for me will make a very good friend....

I look forward to drinking this, probably will dance a lot when I get to open it (outside, as these things are notoriousely dangerous and have a tendency to explode!!!)