Stylish Blogger Awards!

Yay! And here we are again – Stylish Blogger Awards: Round Two!

New awardees are asked to do the following:

1. Thank and link back to the blogger who gave you this award.
2. Share seven things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers the Stylish Blogger Award.
4. Contact them and let them know!

Annnndddd I award the Stylish Blogger Award to:

• antithetical ~ Lee has a wonderful sense of humour and outlook on life – check out her post on Children!
• ellen’s guide to bad internet dating  ~ I so admire her perseverance and dedication to finding Mr Right, and she has a great sense of humour. Go, Grey Goose!
• the japing ape  ~ my favourite ape! I luff you, Mr B! More loltastic humour coming from the Congo, and also, some mild pornography   😉
• my not so fictional life ~ Em always gives me something serious to think about – today it’s waste disposal issues in foggy Cornwall.
• wise little owls  ~ lovely Vicki writes about fashion and design. Her posts are full of enthusiasm and colour – oh, to be young again!

I’m still checking out new blogs and loving everything I read, but today I’m just choosing five – if I go for the full fifteen, I’ll still be writing this post in July!

A special mention for the Soapbox – Irene really makes me laugh and we both have truckers’ mouths – whatever that means…      😉     Check out her great post today on Sexism – it’s not what you’d expect! I’m unofficially adding her to my list as she already holds the award.

I’m making new friends and having a great time blogging – thanks, everyone, for your friendliness, humour and great conversation!

Meet Me on Monday…

Crikey! I’m loving these blog hops. I just need another seven hours in the day to read ’em all, but apart from that, it’ great!

I don’t know if I explained it last week. Probably ‘cos I don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s too technical for my poor brain. Java on Never Growing Old posts five questions on Monday. I answer these on my blog, and link into a list on her blog. I can then see who else has taken part and hop over to read their blog.

I think.

If I downloaded a linky thing, the list would then appear on my blog, and you could check out their blogs!

I think.

Okay, I have a headache, now…

1 What is your favourite kind of fudge?

Mmmm…fudge… I love any kind, but I suppose my favourite has to be made with clotted cream. Especially if it’s covered in chocolate. It’s all made in Cornwall, you see, and I do feel a certain obligation to support Cornish industry…

Image by Semarr via Flickr

2 Is there snow outside your window?

Nope! We had flurries of it at the end of last year, but the weather’s been sunny and spring-like all week. 

Of course, now I’ve pulled out the camera, it’s clouding over…

Ye Olde Cornish Tin Mine Chimney...

3 What is your favourite meal of the day?

Dinnertime! I don’t eat breakfast (unless biscuits count) and lunch is for re-fuelling, but the evening meal’s the biggie! I love roast dinners or lasagna or pork chops, mash and loads of veg and gravy. Yum! Let’s hear it for cholesterol!

Image by Gene Hunt via Flickr

4 Do you text on your cell phone?

Well, kind of… in my own s-l-o-w way. Have to go predictive as well – can’t stand pressing buttons for twenty minutes, missing the letter you want and having to start all over again…. Although predictive’s not perfect; it doesn’t seem to recognise sweary words. The amount of times I’ve texted a ‘ducking’ expletive!

But it's so much fun! by Ford

5 Waffles or pancakes?

Ooh, it’s a toughie… pancakes, I think. With toffee sauce and lumps of bananas. Or melted chocolate. Or strawberries, drizzled with honey. Not fussy, really!
And they’re so much fun to make – even the dog ends up wearing one!

Mmm...pancakes... by Daquella Manera

Tiny and the Breakdown Recovery Blokie who likes Dirty Talking Women…

Image via Wikipedia

Are we sitting comfortably, children?

Then I’ll begin today’s story…

Once Upon a Time there was a princess sitting with her ex, in his car, in front of a dilapidated old banger, waiting for a nice man from breakdown to come and sort out her bleedin’ car.

And so, they waited. And waited. And waited.

And had a massive slanging match with some posh cow who wanted both cars gone so that she could park outside her mansion. Poor love! It wasn’t her fault; she was obviously stressed and couldn’t help getting teasy. Having your head stuck so far up your own arse would do that to a person.

Eventually, the ex spotted the breakdown truck  in his rearview mirror.

‘Quick! Get out! Wave at him! Flag him down before he drives past!’ he cried, pushing the princess out of the passenger door onto a grassy verge.

She muttered a sweary word, but bravely leapt out into the traffic, waving her arms and yelling, ‘Cooo-eee! Over ‘ere, love!’

There was a screech of brakes as the traffic zigzagged to a standstill. And in the middle of this chaos, our heroine made a gurgled noise. The driver of the ‘breakdown truck’ shouted and made a very rude sign with his middle finger before crunching gears and hurtling off. It was a Cornwall Council worker trying to get home for his tea…

Oops!

Our knight in oil-stained overalls eventually arrived and the princess, still embarrassed, crept out of her ex’s car. A nosy van driver was too busy watching the action to notice the car in front was stationary. He screamed to a stop, narrowly avoiding a pile-up.

Our heroine heard the squeal of brakes just behind her and leapt into the air, absolutely certain she was about to be crushed. Again.

‘Oh flippin’ hell – that made me jump!’ she cried.

Except, of course, it was the other ‘f’ word…

The breakdown blokie looked bemused but said nothing. Instead he stuck his head under the bonnet and began ‘fiddling’ with ‘things’. Yep, that’s as technical as it gets, I’m afraid.

‘Well, oim not sure what’s wrong, moi luverr,’  he announced, after having a jolly good fiddle. ‘She’ll ‘ave to go to a garage. See, you’ve got no pulse and your coil’s gone rusty.’

‘Bloody good job it’s you saying that and not my doctor,’ the princess quipped.

And so, after an arduous, bumpy journey along the lanes of Cornwall with a creaky old rust bucket on the back, they arrived at the garage.

‘You’ll ‘ave to sit in, moi luvver, while I take ‘er down off the ramp.’

If you’re very perceptive, you will have realised that our heroine is a big wimp. Even though she knew the car would move, she wasn’t really expecting actual movement, so when it happened, she panicked, and tried to scramble out of the door. Six feet above the ground. On a ramp. On a breakdown lorry.

And of course, she swore. Again. Loudly.

Once our pantomime car was off the ramp, it needed pushing into the garage.

‘You steer,’ said the ex, ‘and we’ll push.’

‘Oh please let me push! I don’t want to steer! God knows where we’ll end up if I’m left to steer!’

‘Just steer,’ said the ex through gritted teeth. ‘Cover. The. Brake. And. Steer.’

Sounds simple, huh?

Except the bleedin’ steering locked up again and three beefy blokes were now pushing our heroine – smack bang towards a chuffin’ great big brick wall!

She slammed on the brakes. Three male heads butted the rear window. Someone swore.

‘What are you doing, Tiny? the ex yelled.

Losing it big style!

‘The flippin’ steering’s flipping locked again! If I come off the flippin’ brake, we’ll end in the flippin’ wall!’ Our heroine yelled back.

‘Oo-er,’ said a Cornish voice. ‘Oi jus’ love it when a woman talks dirty!’          😉

Why is there never a snow plough around when you need one?

Image by Powerhouse Museum Collection via Flickr

Just shoot me, now. Really. Save me from a slow and painful, grisly end – Death by Dating.

Now I live on the south coast. Stuart lives on the north. Only about 25 miles away. Half an hour’s travelling anywhere else in the country, but in Cornwall, it takes at least an hour. You see, we have no decent roads down here, just wide footpaths. And they’re usually clogged up with tractors. Or cows. Or coaches full of squealing, clotted-cream-snatching tourists.

But I digress. 

When Stuart invited me for a meal in his local, I knew the travelling was going to be a hassle, but what the heck! Who could resist visiting a pub on the beach. In December. In sub-zero temperatures. With icy  sleet er… sleeting against the windows.

And he might’ve been my knight in stonewashed denim. Unlikely, I know, but still within the realm of possibility.

Yeah, right.

Stuart is actually a schoolboy trapped inside the body of a man. And boy! was I cross that he didn’t mention that in his profile. We made it through the door okay, and then he just stopped, and stood there, head down, shoulders hunched, pigeon-toed and mumbled, ‘Umm…What should we do, then?’
‘Well,’ I replied, ‘It’s a pub. How about we buy a drink?’

I kid you not – I had to lead him to the bar. I had to catch the barmaid’s attention. I had to order the drinks, and then pay for the bloody things. I had to ask where we ordered food. I had to lead him to a flaming table so we could sit down to eat! And this was his local, remember, not mine. I was a pub-on-the-beach virgin.

Stuart just stood there, like he’d died , eyes downcast, shuffling his feet a bit and blushing. What a man!

Once he’d downed a pint, he started to chat. Oh lucky, lucky me! Why do I always attract men who believe conversation is a monologue? On and on he droned. We’d been there less than an hour and I was already suicidal. I ran to the loo and hid, secretly formulating a getaway plan – a family emergency? Could the dog have swallowed another sock? Could I fake food poisoning? Difficult as the meal hadn’t even been delivered, let alone digested.

‘Umm…are you okay?’
Startled, I looked up. A woman was smiling, hesitantly. I suppose I must’ve looked strange, crouched in the corner of the ladies, deep in contemplation.
‘God, yes! Thanks…I’m fine. Really… I just need an escape plan. I’m on the Date from Hell.’
‘Don’t try the bathroom window; it’s smaller than it looks. I got stuck there last year. Really embarrassing….’

Our food arrived as I returned to the table. Excellent, I thought. Eat, make my excuses and disappear. And he could hardly keep chatting through mouthfuls of home-cooked pizza now, could he?

Oh yes, he could! The toilet woman and I exchanged looks. I mimed cutting my throat with a knife. She spluttered beer across her table.

I tried, really I did, but I was bored. Stuart was boring.

I stuck it out through coffee and then, tried to leave.

God obviously hates me. Or karma paid me back for thinking unkind thoughts. The sleet had morphed into a snow blizzard. I couldn’t leave. Seriously, an inch of the white stuff in Cornwall and the whole county shuts down. I was stuck. With the most boring man in England.

I couldn’t get home ’til the following afternoon. And boy! did I suffer. Turned out Stuart had written a book. He spent the night telling me all about it – ‘She says blah…and then, he says, blah…and the room was furnished in such a blah way…and then a man says blah, and he was dressed in blah…’

All night. A total of eighteen-fucking-hours of blah.

Seriously, I don’t think I can do this any more…

Short, shorter. Tiny, absolutely bloody minute!

Image by Krista76 via Flickr

And another Hot Date on the Tiny Temper front. Lunch this time with Pete from Portreath. Now Pete and I have been chatting online for the last week, and it’s been fun – lots of flirting,  and witty retorts. The repartee was sparkling, dahling, and the thought of us meeting had me fizzing like a well-sucked sherbet lemon. 

I knew Pete possessed the three qualities I rate  in a man – intelligence, sense of humour and a pulse, but I didn’t know what he looked like as he’d posted no photo. Mind you, if I were a sixth form teacher, I wouldn’t wanna be identified as a sadsack on an online dating site, either.  God, you might as well parade around school in a pair of pink frilly knickers, with your hands cuffed behind your back, and wearing a peephole bra as ear-muffs. Far less embarrassing.

So anyway, Pete obviously had the advantage because he’d seen my photo; he could’ve  taken one look at me in the flesh (so to speak), leapt off the end of the pier and I would have been none the wiser.  Abandoned under the clocktower in Porthleven, yellow carnation clamped between my teeth, and feeling a tit, but none the wiser. No change there, then.

Pretty darned trusting of me, really, I think. And stoopid.

Now, I’m not called Tiny for nothing, you know. On a big hair day I’m just about 5 feet tall. So imagine the expression on my face when Pete tugged at my sleeve and introduced himself. I looked down and he was even shorter than me! 😮 Nobody’s shorter than me. Except nine-year-old kids. And by the time they’ve hit double figures, the little sods have morphed into ant-stamping giants, with me as the bleedin’ ant. It wasn’t funny. Really. If we’d been attacked by a gang of rampaging, drug-using, knife-wielding, thugs, I would have had to pop Pete in my handbag for safekeeping and mace ’em with my hairspray.

And it wasn’t just the size thing, he was also…well, a little bit camp. Not in an overly exaggerated ‘Ohmygod! Did you see that skirt she was wearing, dearie? She sooo should have trimmed that muff before leaving the house!’ But he was definitely effeminate when he spoke, or crossed his legs. Crossed his legs! Need I say more?

And stop laughing. It’s not funny.

Lunch was fine once the waitress had settled him on a bolster cushion. But face-to-face we had nothing to talk about.  Our date was like a crunched-up sherbet lemon; my citric acid was no longer reacting with his bicarbonate of soda. The fizz had all gone.

And I do like a bit of effervescence in a man…