Woolly Libertines

Ok so can we take the bunting down now?    And throw it in the gutters along with all the St George flags.    Wot a load of bollox.

And where was the punk barge this year eh?    Radio6Music have been doing their bit,  and BBC4.    Wheeling lots of the old spitters and safety-pinned ones out for a second airing.    Some nice jumpers there tho'.    First time around ones or did we whizz off to Kensington market (if indeed that still exists) to look good on telly?    I don't care  -  still better than the old girl surrounded by stiffs in medals pointing at things.   'Oh look ma'am... common people.'    Funny how Mr Queen suddenly had a bladder problem for that awful concert.    I would have too.    Meanwhile Siouxie Sioux plays lots of disco on the radio.    Nice to knit to.

But no new punks then?    Sadly lacking.

Us scruffy lot (or should I say SEHE  -  South East Home Educators for our full kennel name) were spreading ourselves about in Woodbury Park Cemetery Arts and Crafts Fair in Royal Tunbridge Wells last Saturday.    Supposed to be just the one stall but we managed to commandeer several tables in the end with knitted things,  baked things,   sticky things,   stolen things probably....    All pretty much on the cemetery theme.    I had personally provided a smattering of very small colourful woolly bats,  spiders,  skulls,  snakes and goth girls and dug out a few papier mache grotesques from my stash of previous creations.    We also had knitty ghosties,  crocheted flowers,   gravestone cards and skull-stamped paper pads....    Make your own spiders webs were also available.   Very available....    Not especially popular but certainly available.    Trouble was,  we only found out at fairly short notice that this was in fact a Jubilee Arts and Crafts Fair.    Ooops.    In true British style we soldiered on with our deathly theme,  hoping we wouldn't be tried for treason by the end of the afternoon.    In fact we made £75 which is now on it's way to Great Ormond Street Hospital.    So there.

We were the punk barge!!

Knitting is the new punk!!

Oh it really is.    I've been addicted to my two new knitting bibles  -  Knit the City and Yarn Bombing,   both extolling the delights of knitti graffitti.    Move over Banksy,  you're too.... smooth.    We love to feel up our graffitti these days.    Check out the garter stitch on that lamp-post missus.    We've been checking out likely spots around Tunbridge Wells to tag.    (Oh yeah I even know the lingo..)    If I ever do learn to download pictures I'll definitely post up my first woolly subversive message to society.)    Gotta be dun.

Anyway wot else have we been up to?

The annual End of Seasons ice skating competition  -  managed to get a dress made,  fitted and picked up just in time AND Madame Tin Hat blinged it for us from her mighty stock of Swarovskies.    She's a blinging star that woman.    MinxyBabes was still slightly jellified from the measlies but when her music started she really pulled it out of the bag.    She was elegant,  strong,   beautiful and then plop  -  oh yes  -  bum skating again.    Gosh darn it....    Was a bit wobbly from then on but did well to catch up with the music again... almost.    Realising she didn't quite have time to get up from the knee spin for the finishing pose she flung her arms up dramatically still on one knee.    Fabulous.    The music stopped.    She didn't.    The crashing into the barriers into the end I thought was a show-stopper.    Her friends watching from that end of the rink thought the clambering clawing fingers wiggling into view above the barrier a few seconds later was the clincher.    Mass applause.    Lots of stuff thrown onto the ice (including a floppy carnation saying 'Well done - Love Minx'  -  mah baaad).    My baby's a star.    SOOO wish I'd filmed it now.    She wants to do the artisitic section too now  - where you get to interpret music WITH words.    I asked her coach if she had any good ideas for a routine with lots of sitting down.    Minx didn't think it was very funny.    But hey   -  she still staggered onto the podium for a third place trophy  -  not bad eh?

And then I get a text from Roving Blade  - this year on duty for my favourite event of the year  -  the Fathers Day Football Club Family Fun Prizegiving Day in Forest Fucking Row.    Oh how I love this day.    Oh how I love that phrase Family Fun Day.    Oh how I laughed when I realised that this was the SAME day as End of Seasons.    I'm STILL laughing.    For once he couldn't pull a swift one and wriggle out of it....   mwa ha ha ha haaaa -  oh sorry back to the text:  Chicken Boy has won Player of the Year!!    OH yeah.    And Little Rock Godling was beaming from sticky-out ear to sticky-out ear (new haircut) with his Well Done For Showing Up trophy that they all got.    It's a trophy.    It's HIS trophy.    He has a new haircut and a trophy.    And thanks to the new haircut we can see how happy his little face was.

Wot else....?

Minx and me both survived our birthdays.    For her special day Minx got measles.    I got blue nail varnish,  a Mama Cass CD,  a knitting book and chocolate biscuits.    I won.

And I've taken to wearing scarves on my head to cover up my hair-don't.    I'm sick of short hair cuts but longer hair looks crap on me so the obvious answer is to swathe my stoopid head in skull-patterned scarves.    Mutton dressed as EMO.    I can live with that.

We saw/sang alonga Oliver up big at the Electric Palace Cinema in 'Astings the other day,  begging Nancy not to stay wiv that Bill Sykes we woz,   and then we bombed dahn the beach wiv chips and cricket bats.    Wind,  rain  -  museum....    Kids thought the rain was preferrable.    The musEEEEum??!!    Ok back to the beach.    Despite singing I'd Do Anything all afternoon,    I didn't mean it.    Headin' back down that way at the end of the week.    Better not be museum weather again....    I'd get a cricket bat wrapped round me 'ead instead of a day-glo scarf.

Sadly some recent badness  -   stresses and traumas with troublesome members of our Home Ed group resulting in an expulsion!!    Not nice at all that.    But lines had been crossed.    Nasty business.    Funny how I've managed to squeeze weeks/months (years?) of time-sucking into a couple of sentences there.    Best left.

More eye-liner.    More skulls.    More knitting.


Oh and apparently we're getting chickens.


Definitely more knitting.....    And omelettes obviously.    (Or goblets as they're known in this house.    We also eat alot of sodages I'll have you know...)    There'll be plenty of unusual language if we gets a cockerel.    Maybe not so unusual.    My language is deteriorating further....    But it's the only vice I have left.    Let's have more swearing I say.        

Plenty swearing required today.    Oh bloody buggery bollocky bum.    I did do go and see my mum.     I didn't scream or hit noone.    But it ain't fair and it ain't fun.    Poetry innit?    Fink I've earned myself some more knitty time.    Strange how tying my fingers up in knots soothes my tangled mind....    Random phrase of the day:  'At least you're not like that awful Victoria Beckham.    I can't STAND that woman.'    Uh - huh....    Soon followed by finger-licking page-turning through the Radio Times...  'Wimbledon... or Jamie's 30-Minute Wonders?'    'Oh tennis or cooking.    Please shoot me now.'    My cheerful response was however drowned out by the goggle-box's leap into life.    The kids started mouthing 'It's a bit loud!' at me.    'Would you like to watch a ghost story?'    'Oooh well we've really got to be going now...'    'Oh no have you?    Ohhh Last of the Summer Wine...'    'Yes shoot me now.    Now I said.    In the head....'    'Oh Jeremy Kyle.. I can't STAND him!'    'Bye!!'

Get me my needle therapy!!!!    Needle and the damage done or some such....    It's the only way out!!!    Self yarning?    Give me my fix!!!!    Before I make any more heinous puns.....   Help me........

Think I can predict a bladder infection for my next 'free' day.    Some might call it taking the piss.    If it's good enough for bloody royalty....    Otherwise I've got to grow up and we've discussed this.    Not on the agenda.    I'm not wearing shiny red boots with purple laces and a childish sneer for nothing you know.    Crank up the 70's disco,   slap on the green eye-glitter,    I have a mission.  


O come all ye clicker-clackers  -   rally round and poke yer pointy needle ends into the up-turned noses that surround us.    The streets of Britian need you.    Push me boat out mister I've got something to say!    With my winding threads  -  be it cashmere,  acrylic or plastic bags.....  and my magic wands  -   of bamboo,   slinky metal  or  old pencils.    The bunting is dead.    Long live the railing sock.....




.....Here come the hotstitcher  (Muuurdera!!)    Hexcuse me mister hofficer   (Muuurdera!!)     

WHAT'S THAT????

She's back.

The telly's ear-splitting but she still cannot STAND this woman,  that presenter,  these ridiculous comedians....    Nobody speaks properly.    They say aks instead of ask and momentarily instead of in a moment and yous instead of you.    Civilisation is collapsing.    No standards at all.    Even at full blast.

She's definitely back.

Apparently there's absolutely nothing on.    Very loudly.    Who'd've thought absolutely nothing could be so deafening?

But it's all been at a distance lately  (although I can still hear THE NEWS from her house which is a whole HOUR away from my house.)    We've been in quarantine for a month.    The four children of the apocalypse decided to take turns to have measles.    No we didn't have the MMR thank you so much for aksing.    But we will now.    And anything else going.    Wheel that dessert trolleyful of drugs our way and we'll have the lot.

Meanwhile her next-door-neighbour died  -  but she still doesn't know if it was him or her.    'I didn't see The Living One.'    They who must not be named.    Just spotted the hearse outside.    And turned the telly up a bit more.    I SAID she TURNED the TELLY UP a bit MORE.    No there's NOTHING smelly on the FLOOR.  
'Could you see who it is?'
'Where?'
'You said there was someone at the door.'
'No I said.....   never mind....'
'Oh that silly door.    Don't know what's the matter with it.'

Yes she's back in town.    The Enablement Team never started at 4 visits as first thought necessary.    'What's the point of the putting to bed visit when they just get out again after we've gone?' the nice lady smiled.    Good point.    Then they dropped the getting up visit as she was always dressed and waiting anyway.    Show off.    Then another one went.    And as from Friday,  they ain't a-comin' no more.    But she's got her little bell round her neck.    Well,  that button thing if she starts mis-timing her beam dismounts.    Big bruv sends Tesco's round once a week.    The District Nurse comes and sucks blood in the comfort of the BOOMING pale green living room.    Funny phrase that  -  Living Room.    Probably a better place to enjoy your tea than the Gasping For Breath Room.    The Physio still tips up and does her thang.    Although she's gawn an' dropped her hand-squidgey exercisey putty down the side of the chair.    That silly chair.    And there's always the phone....  

Apparently the volume button on that silly phone doesn't work properly.    Up!   UP!!    Never look down in our world.    Down is out.    Up is all.

'I'll go in the other room....'    pant shuffle bang clonk....   '...that's better.    I can hear you now...'
'Wouldn't it have been easier to have turned the volume on the telly down?'
Pant click whirr....  '....well... oh that silly thing.    Absolutely nothing on...'

Odd how my eyes automatically squint shut when I ring her.    Strange scientific fact:  if I screw up my face I am able to communicate more clearly.    Stabbing something repeatedly also helps.    In the Losing The Will To Survive Room.

Well we might be getting back to normal next week.    (Yes I did have the audacity to say that.)    Our threat to public health is over.    And I shall be returning to the house of misbehaving volume controls very soon.    I might stab them.    Alot.    It might not help them very much but I'd feel fucking great.