Hestia and .....Mercury Rx

One of my lovely readers poo-pooed (or pooh-poohed?) the idea of Mercury retrograde having an effect on earthly goings on.  Oh believe me, I didn't believe any of that old astrology toot either.  But here is a list of stuff that has gone awry so far - firmly down to Mercury looking as though it has buggered off out of orbit and is fleeing backwards.

These are in no particular order:

1  Brushing my hair, my brush caught on a tug (I was working the full Gene Simmons look.  Not to be confused with the Jean Simons look, which I would LUFF to work), flew out of my hand and straight down the toilet pan.

Hestia..... enjoys an evening out

It wasn't really an EVENING out.  You can't call going out at half past five 'The Evening', can you?

In fact, can you call any event at the local library A Evening Out?

Especially if it's on a Wednesday?

Well, *I* do.

I got myself gussied up (ie clean) with smart trousers, an unstained sweater, a full face of make-up and a squirt of perfume and headed to the library.

Sonshine was with me.  Working his new black skinny jeans and t-shirt look (pre-EMO, I think we're calling it), he looked rather smart - if a little bummed out at having to leave behind his beloved Minecraft (see: men who live with their mothers playing computer games).

Hestia has....an odd Friday

Last Friday started off badly when I inadvertently inhaled my breakfast granola.  A tragic interplay between a ridiculous yoootyoob video and my filled spoon.  The mac's monitor was practically rough-cast by the time the coughing fit subsided.

The day further deteriorated when I spent at least 10 minutes trying to lick and stick an envelope whilst loudly berating myself for buying inexpensive stationery products.

Only to discover that I was licking the pull-off strip for a self-seal envelope.

No-one's perfect.

Hestia toots her trumpet for Kismet's Companion

Click on image to visit Viv's shop!

It's nearly Christmas and if you are anything like me you've not given it much thought.....

Oh right.

Just me then.....

ANYWAY - I just wanted to draw your attention to my good friend Viv's Folksy shop where she sells the most lovely soap.

I've bought LOADS of this lady's soap and now Tartarus won't use anything else.


And he's a big butch Engineer with a motorbike and a beer belly.

Hestia....and the rolling stones

In which I think I've tried to pass Charlie Watts. AND his drum kit

Some good news to start off with, the BT Engineer came TODAY a full 24 hours earlier than he was booked and told me that the issue was with the exchange, not me.  I now have a fully ringing phone YAY!

Next thing is that we haz mice again.  As soon as the temperature dips, everything that can force its tiny skull through the beautifully decorative air bricks in our basement comes in for a holiday. 

Hestia....is hanging on the telephone (again)

At some point after I reluctantly signed up to give Childline money on a monthly basis in the doorway of Tesco in Greenock on Saturday, my landline telephones went all pre-menstrual on me.

'What's your bank account number?' asked the chugger as I desperately looked for a tin to drop a few coins into instead.

'Ah, is it not on my card?' says I peering sans spectacles at my bank card.

'No,' said the chugger brightly. 'It will be on your bank statement.'

'Strangely enough,' I replied (with sarcasm dripping so heavily that I thought I might need wellies) 'I don't have a bank statement on me SEEING AS HOW THIS IS TESCO'  Actually, I didn't say that last bit at all.  But I thought it very deeply and pointedly, so it's the same thing.

Hestia remembers a foreign field

There is a map, in a bible, where the black type-face, El Alamein, has been worn away to pale grey by years of family fingers pressing against the paper.  As if touching the name could somehow take them to some foreign field.

There is a photograph.  A serious-faced, good-looking young man smiles out, his army cap at a jaunty angle over his cropped hair.  This is James. To me, now, he's only a child, barely out of his teens really. As were they all, I suppose.

Hestia...Four conversations with my son

Conversation 1: 

I am standing with the hamster securely locked in my cupped palms. Or so I think. I feel a tiny but determined skull forcing its way between my fingers. Sonshine has a plastic bag filled with hamster cage detritus that he is attempting to take out to the compost heap. I need him to do it quickly now as Nibbles needs to go back into his cage.

Currently it is locked.

Hestia....goes powerhooping

This was us. Not.

My fit friend Irma had just signed up for a new exercise class.  We talked about it and lo, it came to pass that I too thought that the new power hooping class would also be A Good Idea.

Not one to do things alone, I bribed my Day Carer to come along with me.  We opted to go on the Thursday morning, with Irma going to the Friday evening session to fit in with her work.  As the two of us climbed the stairs in the Pavilion before 10am last Thursday morning, we realised that we hadn't done an exercise class for at least a decade.

'It's a hula hoop,' I reminded us both.' How hard can it be?'

If your recollection of a hula hoop is a dayglo yellow affair that you could effortlessly spin for hours and hours whilst discussing the merits of David Cassidy over Donny Osmond, then you're about as deluded as us.

Hestia says...meet the ancestors!

Tartarus and I have been interested in the history of our house since the first moment we stepped through the front door as eager house-hunters and found ourselves standing in a mosaic-tiled hallway staring, slack-jawed at the Victorian splendour of it all.

Of course, it wasn't all fabulous.  The kitchen was basically a sink on a base unit and the kitchen carpet made odd tacky sticky noises whenever we walked over it.

Still, we were not put off.  The pair of us have vivid imaginations and while he could see his beloved car and bike in a yet-to-be-built garage...I was envisaging myself sweeping down the grand staircase in the manner of Scarlet O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.

In fact, if the previous owners had left us any curtains, I would have made a frock out of them for that exact purpose.  But they did not even leave us any light-fittings when we arrived, so the frock/curtain was never made.  Pity.

Hestia and Hallowe'en

Please note that apostrophe, in Hallowe'en.  Don't forget that apostrophes and semi colons are all that separate us from the Outer Rings of Hell.

Anyway, my Grammar Nazi has been temporarily subdued and I've tidied away my shiny jackboots and Springtime for Hitler song sheet.  Today it's all about Hallowe'en.