Saturday 27 January 2007

home alone

I'm not a particularly nervous sort of person, but when Peter is away and I am alone in the house, I do make sure all entrances and exits are securely locked before going to bed. I was awoken at 4.50 this morning to the sound of someone struggling to open the front door and get through all the booby traps I had set. Who was that creeping and falling about in the front hall? Who was that screaming as he caught his foot in the mantrap? Oh relief, it was only the Musician, who had been out on the razzle with some of his mates and forgotten he doesn't live here any more. I decided that the Musician must pay some sort of pennance for waking me up and frightening me.

















Jenny makes an important phone call by the Gates of Hell

While I was eating my morning mixture of Fruit'n'Fibre mixed with meusli, nuts, soya milk and yoghurt, I had a phone call from the Wren. It was so lovely to hear from her. She had been in Prague all week 'on conference'. All these conferences she goes to in exotic parts of the world are not nearly as much fun as they sound, and in actual fact she only gets a couple of hours during the week to look around. We caught up on all each others' news, views, ideas, books we've just read, books we intend to read, what Jack said on the phone, what Fair Trader said on the phone and before we knew it we had been talking for an hour.

By this time the Musician had emerged looking sleepy, and I had decided on the pennance. I needed some things from 'Nanny's Room' taken over to the Shag Pad. This is the name Jack gave to the outside annex when it was first built to house the Musician. Actually loads of people have slept in the Shag Pad including Nanny, Tortoiseshell and K, TCA and Stru., Jack and Miki, Musician and Kerry,Fair Trader, Maalie and Eileen. It's amazing how used one gets to a name. Even Nanny used to say to me before she went across to the annex at night 'Will you walk me over to the Shag Pad'.
















Musician looking sleepy first thing this morning

A full drum kit and many heavy amplifiers were lugged across to be stored. Nanny's room has to be cleared as it has been used as a general tipping ground. Peter is being drummed out of his office to take up residence in Nanny's Room (although he doesn't know it yet) and then I will be able to have my dining room back. I am trying to do all this as a nice surprise for him by the time he comes back from Egypt. It has occured to me that I might not be able to manage moving all the relevant heavy equipment that an architect needs to pursue his career: huge printing machine, huge drawing board, cupboards, plan chests, filing cabinets etc. Oh well, will just look on the exercise as a challenge and treat it as weight training.

18 comments:

Estelle des Chevaliers said...

Why do you try to trap men? As we say, keep a bird in a cage and it will try to escape. Let it free, and it will return...

lorenzothellama said...

Well Estelle, if any strange men fall into the Man Trap, I use them for making glazes. It is amazing what effects you can get if you shove a body in the kiln during a glaze firing. You can get similar results if you throw a few mothballs in, but it really does ruin the elements.

If you paint the body with a mixture of black copper oxide, cobalt carbonate and red iron you get a really good bronzy colour on the pots, and occasionally a good 'copper red' as it reacts with the carbon from the incinerated body at high temperatures. My kiln will reach up to 1300 degrees centrigrade, which is pretty hot.

Estelle des Chevaliers said...

Wow, are you a potter? I bet that's therapeutic (for anyone who needs therapy of course, I'm not suggesting you do). It looks relaxing but I bet it's more difficult than it looks.

Anonymous said...

L. Re the glaze - when you say Peter has gone somewhere hot, how hot exactly?

lorenzothellama said...

Not hot enough to make Copper Red.

Yes, I am a potter, and sometimes it is theraputic and other times it is very frustrating. It's not all Demi Moor sitting in a pure white nightie making suggestive shapes on her wheel in the dead of night you know.

Anonymous said...

Although that is a greater part of it than one might expect.

Gosh i'm pretty.

lorenzothellama said...

Scaredy brought in a mouse this evening, quite a small one, black with a pointy nose. Prized it out of his mouth, and then had to chase it round the kitchen with a drying up cloth until I cornered it. Threw the cloth over it, scooped it up, and before you could say Lady Godiva, it was scuttling across the patio and into the bushes.

Tortoiseshell said...

Lorenzo - we were too tired to, err, consummate in the, err, outer sanctum last time we were there.

Estelle - it was good to hear a little about you while His Majesty was down in Cardiff today.

Anonymous said...

You look like a bloody beached whale perched on that rock!

Looking forward to you coming to Japan!

Love Jack

lorenzothellama said...

Thank you Jack! Welcome to the blog site!!

lorenzothellama said...

Glad to hear it Toitoishell. It is very tiring teach computer skills to the illerate.

Maalie said...

Back on my own computer catching up on the blogosphere!

Nice piccies of Musician and Wren!

See you Thursday!

simon said...

ah ha! your blog!

lorenzothellama said...

Welcome to my blog Simon. What do you actually mean by 'ah ha'?

Anonymous said...

Hello! I've just spent the day sampling the various delights that Poynton has to offer. And what fun I've had!

I knew it was going to be an auspicious day when Lorenzo offered me one of Ann's cast off cardigans - a timeless pink number - L knows my weaknesses for the cardi.

We enjoyed a lovely sandwich in the deli - through which passed a range of the usual suspects, and were joined by Ann herself who agreed that I looked marvellous in my new-to-me pink woollen blouse (for what is a cardi if not a kind of woollen blouse?)

I then went to see the lovely women at the local beauty parlour - who I must say - were hygienic to a fault - the proprieter even wiped the lipstick mark off the cup with her skirt. As always they did a wonderful job - nobody has ever noticed that my ears are not real.

Then a whizz round netto for a cheap bottle of olive oil (I like a tipple in the evenings). I have to say I didn't encounter any of the notorious rogues of Poynton - they must have still been down the pit with their canaries.

Alright blog readers - I've joined the community now - sorry it's been a long entry but I'm verbose once I get a keyboard infront of me.

x

Maalie said...

Fair Trader, I suppose the olive oil is to cook that 'orrible toffu in?

lorenzothellama said...

Maalie: The Fair Trader has to be bribed to even read the blogsite, so to actually get her to WRITE on it takes so much more cajoling. I will answer for her:
To cook tofu: beat slab of tofu for about ten minutes to tenderize and to make sure it is properly dead. Boil for two and a half hours and then serve piping hot with Branston Pickle and HP Sauce on a bed of thoroughly cooked cabbage.

Tortoiseshell said...

Adam 4 Claire is finished!