Hmphhhhhhhhhh! She says wiping the smeary choc from her face, dribbling and drooling all at the same time! Cake is lovely, now where are the pretzels???xx
Do NOT go to a certain newsagent/sweetshop in Burnham on Sea. My son saw a packet of Cadbury choc covered pretzels and wanted to try them. I gave him a ten pound note and he went to buy them at the counter. He came back with a fiver and fifty pence. I looked at the price ticket and they were £4.50! To make matters worse he doesn’t even like them, so I’ve been forced to eat them all. xx
IT’S STILL RAINING (no men though!!) and we’ve had 3 sets of clothes on, so we’re all on the Feeling Soggy and Hacked Off Bench. Dog towels festooned over the dining chairs…
BUT I’ve been on the Smug Bench - rushed out between showers to dig up 2 rows of ‘earlies’ so I’ve got lots of lovely little spudlets to eat. Poached salmon and new potatoes tomorrow…yummy. Hope there will be some cake left over somewhere in Benchland.
grumpy
Ok ladies…best bit…who wants to lick the bowl out?? 
MMMmmmm yum, thanks Ali. Very de-lish indeed.
Just sitting quietly on the ponderous bench today… Benchland is looking very beautiful with gentle sunlight, green grass and the deceptively blue Lake of Guilt. Had to nip down and chuck some in this morning… survivor guilt is a nasty, pernicious thing. Feel better for dumping it though…
Now, then, alligator thwacked with big ladle, hankies ironed, cupcakes replenished and spoons aplenty… ah, that’s better, I can go on my hols (from home) with a conscience as clear as a clergyman’s… which is perhaps as well!!!
Love and hugs to all Benchlanders.
Well… I got up this morning with good intentions. My best friend and her husband are coming down to stay tomorrow and I intended to clean the house from top to bottom. A very good book got in the way and I’ve done zero cleaning!
As they won’t get here before 2pm tomorrow an early start is on on the horizon!
Will be great to see her, she’s been the recipient of many phone calls and has been a good support to me. Also her husband, we have this great " flirtacious" relationship over 35 years.
So am sitting on the "it’s all going to be last minute " bench but then that’s the story of my life! Always have left everything to the the last minute…but it’s always got done!
Grumpy -there’s nothing like the the taste of newly dug potatoes - enjoy! We used to dig up our new potatoes and then rebury them in a tin and dig them up at Christmas and have them with Christmas dinner and lots of butter - wonderful!
Revcat - thank you for the hankies,cupcakes,spoons and alligator thwacking, enjoy your holiday.
Best wishes to everyone.
Wow… I’ve been out for a meal to celebrate sons birthday, not one mention all night of BC, being poorly, doing too much, or looking really well all things considered…it was fabulous!!!
The cake is covered in chocolate buttercream icing, and decorated with giant cadbury’s buttons, maltesers and marshmallows. It’s a gazillion calories a slice, but it’s all right because there’s also a small bag of crisp green salad. Do you think this is enough to feed the 21 people coming tomorrow??? It’s been really nice to concentrate on something joyful and put the whole cancer thing on a back burner for a bit…
Ali, you are on the “fabulous” bench!! and yes I’m sure a bag of salad can feed 21 people, you just have to be inventive! Cake sounds lovely, we don’t care about calories in Benchland!
FF, What book were you reading? I expect you are up cleaning etc now…
Thank you RevCat for the replenishments enjoy your week off!
Bottom is firmly placed on the CBA bench this morning xx
Well, ladies, not quite sure which Bench today … did a ‘garden sort-out’ and tip run yesterday (why DOES everything keel over and die when you take your eyes off it??) so could be on the Smug Bench for a bit.
Today planned a Big Walk with the Girls so could sit on the Cream crackered Bench after tea BUT surprise surprise it’s been pouring down…
So having to sit on the Catching Up with Paperwork Bench, just one step above the Housework Bench, and nearly as tedious!
Found the missing garden chair, upside down hiding behind some shrubs - was it trying to show sympathy?
And the spudlets have got SLUGS so I reckon all in all I need to be on the Stop Moaning Bench for a bit
grumpy (sitting on the grumpy bench)
Grumpy, I think EVERYTHING’s got slugs this year - we had a tent FULL of them - had to remove them from ubrella before opening it and being showered with the little (and not so little!) bu**ers!! Had one in my shoe! Ughh! Bleurghh!!
Sitting on the guilty bench for a while having been on the “Why won’t they go!” bench. Son’s GF and 4-year old turned up unexpectedly while I was in the shower this morning and stayed for lunch. Lovely to see them, (when I stopped worrying that there was something wrong with son, or a major break-up or something - he was off somewhere else!) but I had planned a CBA day with a FEW vital hosework jobs in amongst.
Hoovering half the campsite off the carpets was one of those vital tasks. 4-year old kept presenting me with bits of grass and tiny stones he found whilst crawling on the living room floor with his cars! 
Now feeling guilty that I should make the most of such 4-year old visits - who knows what’s around the corner! I did do all the right grandmotherly things - just not in my head!!
What a day! Did all housework, house now looks (and probably smells!) a lot better. I’m not a great fan of cleaning and have had an excuse recently for sitting on backside doing not a lot. I suppose now I’ve proved I CAN do it, I’ll have to do more. Oh well.
Katy I was reading the new Jeffrey Deaver book “XO”.
Friends arrived about 5pm and I’ve just waved them off to their B&B and will see them tomorrow.
SLUGS ugh!!! Far too many about. I have just put my rubbish out for the dustmen, suppose I ought to call them refuse collectors these days, so I opened the front door and just avoided standing on one on my path. About 3 inches long!! So glad I saw him in time.
JCJ - I know what you mean “the why won’t they go” bench. I think it’s because I live on my own and am used to the quiet. When my family come round, of course I want them to and I love to see them, but the noise that they generate, especially when they all come together which they mostly do. Four children aged 8,7,6 and 2 in a small house can raise the roof! After a while I’m just thinking “please go home and I’ll see you all again in two or three days”! Then they DO go home and the peace is wonderful for a while and then I start to look forward to them all coming again!
Hope you all have a good week whatever you are doing.
Slugs - ugh! They come into my kitchen and eat the cat’s food if he hasn’t scoffed it quickly enough! Completely disgusting.
That’s horrible! It’s bad enough having them in the garden but not in the kitchen! I would be putting the cat food in the garden!
How do you deal with that?
In a property that I used to own I would go downstairs in the morning and find snail trails on the carpet,never saw the culprits and that was bad enough!
I don’t know how to spell eeeeuuuugggghhhh, but that’s how I feel about slugs.
Salt poured liberally at the bottom of the kitchen door. And only giving the cat very small portions so he eats it all, then move the bowl. I even found a snail in my CAR! Not a clue how it got in there.
Yugh, yugh, yugh do not like any creepy crawlies, saw a monster caterpillar today, must be this crazy weather, one minute brilliant sunshine the next torrential rain, the beasties are just huge, good job it’s only spiders in Benchland and they are locked away…
Had a wander around town today bought a sort of bathroom tidy thing well pleased cause it was such a bargain!!
Also treated myself to this lovely raspberry cake, very yummy and part of my five a day.
My middle seems to be expanding greatly, partly my tasty bits and partly the tamoxifen methinks, better jog around Benchland for a while xx
Well, as predicted after my son’s party for 21 people with 3 birthday cakes and a bag of salad, there’s a lot of salad left over! However I managed to sneak a bowl of crisps and several slices of cake into benchland…I’ve just found the Dark Woods thread too, think some cake and a big pot of tea by the lake would be good for elevenses.
Aah well, better face the real world now I suppose…
On the FF bench. Spent all day traipsing around the shops - what’s left of them, half of them seem to have closed down! - trying to get a replacement campingaz canister for my little stove. I can’t take the big double burner & grill with it’s huge gas cylinder, because I’m going camping with daughter, for a few days, and only have a small car. OH and I also use the little stove in emergencies, eg big cylinder runs out in middle of cooking a meal (as it did when we were in wales last week!)
Anyhow, it seems campingaz have decided not to produce this particular size canister any more, and as it fits INSIDE the base of the stove, that means the stove will be useless, and fit only for landfill, as soon as the current, half full, CV270 runs out. WHY are they allowed to make these things with built in obsolescence?? Makes me so angry at the waste of plastic and metal, not to mention money! I had to buy a complete new stove. At least this one is compatible with more than one cylinder. But they’ll probably stop making those in a few years too! 
On a more positive note - moves to smug bench en route to kna**ered bench - I had a more productive time with all my other errands. The first proper shopping trip since dx. Even finally got around to getting a proper seatbelt pad, so I can get rid of the tatty old towel I’ve been using to protect the tender boob from chafing! Also checked air in tyres for first time in over 6 months, and topped up windscreen washer bottles and checked oil and water.
Time for a wee lie down now, (or perhaps a wee THEN a lie down??) and maybe some of that delicious looking choccy cake, Ali. I’m studiously ignoring the half pack of choc prtezels - pity REAL sweetie pacs don’t self-refil like Benchland ones?!
I have had a wonderful day out with my friends, we went from Taunton to Minehead on the West Somerset Steam Railway. Had lunch in a cafe walked on the promenade, came back to my daughter’s to have tea and to meet her new puppy.
Nothing over strenuous but I have just crawled onto the totally knackered bench!! Just brings it home how little stamina I have now after sitting around. Even work hasn’t made me this tired.
Methinks I will have to set up some kind of exercise programme. Anyway I’m staying in tomorrow while they go gadding about then I’ll meet them at my son’s for tea.
Just realised I’m getting plenty of free meals out of this!!
I’m going to bed now, see you all tomorrow.
On the Cream-crackered Bench today - had to go to TWO garden centres to buy a storage chest and chair cos Next Door’s builders broke the ones I had (I shall be re-imbursed…), take Beryl the Bongo to the garage to make sure that the rocker cover (!!!) wasn’t leaking, and tried to persuade the dogs that walking in torrential showers is really good fun!!! Failed on that one…
Then I tried to de-slug the veg patch between showers, got some more cod liver oil/glucosamine capsules for the stiff joints, then nodded off on the sofa. Life is SOOOOO interesting, never mind its rehearsals tomorrow
YAWN
grumpy
Hope you had a good night’s sleep, grumpy and FF, and feel rested?!
I was so proud of myself for resisting those delicious little choc pretzels, so I can share the rest of the pack with daughter on our little camping expedition to Norfolk, over the weekend. Then I get a text from her, last night, to say that she and her partner were dipping pretzels in the choc fountain at the Chinese buffet and making their own! Well! That just takes the biscuit! (or at least the pretzel?) Time to unpack the Cadbury’s ones and get scoffing me thinks!
I’ve just made a batch of ‘nana biscuits’ (bit like flapjack with banana, raisins and coconut in) and Welsh cakes. Nom nom nom. I’ll put some of each in a box attached to a bunjy so you can all help yourselves! Enjoy.