Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Argh. It's too hot. My cousin's still touring Australia with her boyfriend. They say it's winter there at the moment and most locals are too cold when it's 30 degrees. Reason one for why I could never go to Australia. I'd melt. More precisely burn then melt. I was starting to wonder since it'd been 3 months since they updated their travel blog.

I hate the kind of weather we have at the moment. Naturally you'd think the hottest part of Summer would be midsummer. Oh well. On the plus side it means I can eat ice cream without feeling too guilty. Mercifully the freezer seems to be working half of the time at the moment. Unfortunately that creates another problem. When the freezer works ice forms but when it stops working the ice melts and drips onto the carpet (Half of the kitchen is carpet for, what would be, a dining room if we didn't use it for storage instead) and since all the spaces on the tiles were taken up they had to put the freezer on the carpet. You want to know something? That old carpet in my kitchen is another example of my parent's early married life. Old, free and durable, like many of the things they got early on that we still have. It was actually her sister's carpet (the dead one). They gave it to us when they moved to Gloucestershire way before I was born.

Upon his last visit Napoleon told me that carpet was rotten. Doesn't surprise me. And the other day I discovered a thing. A pale thing on the floor there. It was on its side apparently having been knocked over when I first opened the door to the fridge but didn't notice. I concluded it to be a miscellaneous....what's the difference between a mushroom and a toadstool? Well, one of them. It's not the first time this kind of thing's happened to that carpet. The same thing happened when the radiator leaked some years ago.

Odd thing to write about but I didn't really have anything better to say and I thought carpet mushrooms would be a fun title at least.

It was either this or ***** about the work our neighbour's having done that wakes me up in the morning. Since it's too hot for me It can be 6am before I get to sleep. Now that's all well and good but when you function best on 8-10 hours sleep and the work next door begins at 9:30am then there's a problem.

This past week we've had no fence there meaning the workers have a direct view into part of our kitchen (through the window in the door.) For fun, and partly as punishment (and a subtle nudge to get the fence back up quickly) I decided to go into the kitchen naked. Of course I lost my nerve and did it in my underwear instead. The time I was in view of that garden would only be for about a second so I got away with it. It was a reach and grab mission to the kitchen so I wasn't there long.

They put the fence up this morning and I couldn't sleep but at least I don't need to worry about people staring into the kitchen anymore.

Have to go out and try to buy toothpaste. I've run alarmingly low. Now. Toothpaste shopping is easy for most people but with me it's very different. I won't use mint. I refuse. But that makes for a bit of a problem. Almost all toothpaste has mint. If not mint then an extract of mint. Menthol (which my mother told me isn't mint when we had this problem a decade or so ago) is made from mint extracts. I used children's toothpaste for longer than most would but I had to move up eventually. Even toothpastes that people claim don't have mint do. Because I'm having issues with my toothpaste at the moment mum went into boots when she had occasion to be out and asked if they had any toothpaste without mint. The woman gave her a sensitive toothpaste claiming it had no mint and was the one she used. However, I'm told this woman didn't seem to have such a good grasp of the English language. Maybe she thought mum meant something that is a mild mint or something. Needless to say it had mint in it.

I wonder if I might be allergic to mint. If the issue comes up that's what I say. But it's probably just that I don't like it. You know how if you hold something cold for too long it feels like it's burning? Before your hands go numb, not after. That's what mint's like and once it's gone it feels cold for a long time after. Is that what mint is like for everyone? Because I don't use it I'm not used to it.

This is why I was so happy to discover a fennel toothpaste. Unlike mint the fennel is strangely warm and although my breath may not seem as fresh as a mint user it does the job. Only trouble is the place I used to get it aren't selling it anymore although the company claim to still be going, they've just had issues with that particular chain of stores. Well, that's all fine and dandy but what about me? Exactly how far do I have to go to reclaim my perfect toothpaste?

Why do manufacturers insist on putting mint in toothpastes unnecessarily? Even if it's not listed in the ingredients it's still there. That's not fair. I don't know it's there until I buy and open the product. Then what am I supposed to do with it after? I can't use it.

Bluebiird out.