Words of wonderment and a water update

Well, I thought last week was bad. I've been off baddy sick this week with what I thought was a virus, but was actually an infection so am feeling very sorry for myself!

I have spent the week reading, sleeping and watching crap TV. I have watched a lot of old sitcoms on Gold and have just watched a Carry On film, but I draw the line at anything with Noel Edwards. He's been out of favour with me since he stopped doing Noel's House Party. Although I am now watching Wedi 7, just because there is nothing else on and I can't be arsed to get up and put a DVD on (or make my lunch to be honest). Although I have just rediscovered the Welsh word for forward slash - blaen sleis. It always makes me giggle. Perhaps you have to be here though.

I have a couple of book reviews to publish, once I've had my lunch and Bruce stops trying to attack my Um Bongo (for vitamin C to make me feel better, although the antibiotics might do a better job).

One thing I have been thinking about from my sick bed (apart from how fed up I am!) is how many words there are out there that frankly don't get enough use in this day and age.

Canoodling being one. The words you hear being used these days are so much more vulgar and less innocent.

Hoot, as in he is a complete hoot. Noone uses hoot enough for my liking. I try to bring it back into conversation but it usually results in someone taking the piss out of me.

Kerfuffle. Why is this not used more? There are all sorts of kerfuffles happening these days. Like those riots last year where loads of kids broke into sports shops to get new daps. They caused a bit of a kerfuffle.

Wondorous. What wondorous weather we are having this fine day. What a fine and wondorous cover is upon that book. A fine and wondorous word indeed.

These are just a few of the underused words I can think of. Maybe we should just start using the less used words more rather than adding new ones to the dictionary. Maybe that would save the country some money on printing new dictionarys and signs. Maybe I will put this idea forward.

Anyway, I went off on a bit of a tangent there. I think it might be the cold getting to me. You might remember my water related issues of last week. Well they were solved when we found that the stop cock (yes I said it!) that was under our sink only seemed like it wasn't working for one reason. It was the wrong effing one!!! We have found that we have two stop cocks, one for the outside tap and one for the water supply to the house. So the reason the water wasn't going off when the "plumber" (who might as well have shouted yee-hah and rode off into the sunset on the back of his trusty steed) was turning the stopcock was that it was the wrong bloody one!! And the stupid twonk (another good word) didn't even think of testing it!!!

So, since this enlightening discovery of the correct stop cock which wasn't fully open, hence the pressure issues, we have had no heating. We have water, and indeed hot water, but no heating. And the bloody boiler is leaking. And our normal plumber is on holiday until Monday. So I have been half freezing to death, as well as suffering with my illness (noone can call me a drama queen) with only a convector heater and a grumpy cat to keep me warm.

But on the plus side I have read loads and am on the mend! Yay!! Anyway, enough of my ramblings (for now!) I am off to make some lunch and watch either Dudley ar Daith (the Welsh Gordon Ramsay, but with less effing and jeffing) or I might put a dvd on and carry on reading Rob Brydon's autobiography!!

Why is nothing ever simple?

Well, what a week. Last weekends dripping tap has ended up with Welsh Water coming out to dig my street up. Pretty impressive eh?

In the last week we have found out that our bathroom tap is buggered (technical term, naturally), our stop cock under the sink doesn't work and leaks (although I have found out from the water company that the term is now stop tap as cock is offensive) and that the stop cock/tap out in the street doesn't work either! Hence the digging up of the street to replace it. I wouldn't be suprised if they find a problem with the sewer out there too, but that's just me getting a bit techy.

So if we had happened to have some major leakage incident in the house, we would have been well and truly screwed! But at least it's getting fixed now. Although I do now need a new bathroom tap and a new indoor stop cock/tap.

Enough about water though (although I could have made the story a lot longer, but refrained!).

In other news, its freezing cold, although the snow hasn't yet made a return.

Well, I just looked out the window and saw white stuff coming down, so that's a lie before I start! I don't think it'd enough to stick, but it's definitely coming from the sky!

I finished reading the new Mike Gayle book yesterday, The Stag and Hen Weekend. It was so crap though that I'm not going to bother with a review. I'll just say that it was a bit of a non-story and didn't really have a tidy plot.

I've started reading The Woman in Black by Susan Hill, which I believe has been released as a film in the cinema today. I'm hoping I will enjoy the book as I've heard it's a bit like The little Stranger by Sarah Waters and I love that book.

What are we all up to for valentines? Anything exciting? We're going for a meal tomorrow as on the day its all so forced. They hike the prices up by 20quid, give you a set menu of foods that are either messy as hell or designed to recreate the spaghetti scene in Lady and the Tramp and it always makes me think of a prison visiting area the way all of the tables are laid out and you have to look at each other across the table. I'll just clarify here that I've never been in a prison, but I have watched a lot of Bad Girls, so feel qualified to make this comparison.

It's snow time!

Today has given us some proper snow in Cardiff. None of the pseudo-snow of earlier in the week, but proper white stuff that is sticking and turning everything white!

Here are some pics I took a few hours ago, although it has got heavier and a little deeper since then.

You can just about see Bruce in this one, before he went to hide in the hedge.

This was when I first let Bruce out in the snow and he wasn't very sure of it. Last time we had snow, it was so deep you couldn't see his legs when he went outside.

This is Bruce when he returned from his snowy adventure and needed a nap in the blanket to warm up a bit!







I'm hoping that the snow won't last as where we live gets cut off in the snow as the council forgets to grit, resulting in it being too dangerous to drive and the bus company refusing to come through.

On the down side today, the washer in the tap in our bathroom sink has broken, meaning we either have water coming out of the tap constantly or it sounds like a whistling kettle, which by the way is particularly annoying! As you know, the DIY skills in our house are somewhat lacking, so even if we could get to the shop to get a new washer, we don't actually know what to do with it because we have a bit of a fancy tap. Not that we would know what to do if we didn't have a fancy tap!

I'm a rugby widow today as the 6 nations rugby has started. I hate sport, I can't be bothered with it. I don't mind watching the Bluebirds live or going to the odd rugby national, but I just don't understand the sports obsession and why it is so exciting. Not great when Steve loves all sports and plays quite often. Each to their own I suppose!

Lazing on a saturday afternoon

I have had a nightmare of a week this week. Work has been really stressful and I've had to work some long hours and I started off the week being ill, so it hasn't been great.

I have decided that today is the day of me and am not going to do the housework I should be doing, but instead I am going to make the most of my Saturday football widow time and do things that I want to do!

So far I have spent some time over on Goodreads, catching up with discussions and book reviews. I also had a nice lunch and a cup of tea and read the latest story of a certain Welsh sportsman who can't keep it in his pants!

My plan for the rest of the afternoon is to cwtch up on the sofa with Bruce and a duvet as it's freezing and watch a DVD and read some of my book.

A friend of mine in work has lent me the DVD of The King's Speech so I am going to watch this. Steve won't want to watch it as it has no guns in it and isn't a comedy so I'm going to make the most of this opportunity! I also have an episode of Midsomer to catch up on as I was too tired to watch it when it was on the TV on Wednesday, so I need to fit that in at some point this weekend too.

I hope you all have a great weekend and take this opportunity to be lazy and have a rest if you need to like me!

Baby it's cold outside

Brrrr it's a cold one today! My plan for the day is to stay indoors, watch TV and read! Here is my reading pile for the day:

I obviously don't expect to get through all of it, but I have a good selection to keep me happy!

I have this weeks celebrity magazines, including the Christmas bumper edition of Heat (eek!), a few self help books which I am reading a bit of now and again, the Agatha Raisin book I am currently reading and a Marian Keyes book which I intend to read next! So quite a selection.

I have decided that there is nothing to be ashamed of with my self help books, and will add them to my "read" list on Goodreads when I finish them, although I won't add them as "currently reading".

I am also having a bit of a rest from reading the Dovekeepers as I am finding it quite hardgoing. I have been enjoying it, I am just finding it quite hard to follow. I may read a bit now and again and read it over a long period, or just put it to one side and try it another time. I have had to do this with a few books which are now my favourites. I suppose that's just the way it goes sometimes!