Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

...you're 60 today....was the opening line of the birthday song I made up for mum. Nothing fancy, I made it up on the spot before we went to bed and spontaneously sung it when I presented her with her cake.

Super surprise.

She got a few birthday cards, quite nice ones in fact. Napoleon popped her birthday card and gift card through the letterbox either today or yesterday, not quite sure when now. It seems he didn't come in. Not quite sure why. He still has post that he didn't get at Christmas.

The bathroom light broke last night. I keep forgetting and turning it on when I go in. We need to change the bulb.

It snowed again today. Quite a bit in fact. Yesterday I drew a happy and a sad face on the bin lids in snow. They were completely covered today. I didn't rock salt the path last night because I didn't think it'd snow again. At least, if I feel up to it, I can make snow bunnies this year. I said to Yuki when we were out for walkies yesterday that if we got more snow and I was better maybe I'd make snow bunnies, or just wait until next year. Didn't think it would snow again so soon.

Our neighbours were out in their gardens playing in the snow. It was annoying because I was trying to sleep but it was easy enough to ignore. Although when I hear their children playing outside I either dream about children or people talking. Today it was an anime concept about 3 little girls that I'd come up with and rough character sketches that I'd done for them because I was undercover as an artist and had to have something to fill my sketchbook. I was surprised by the quality of the drawings since I'm not that good. Incidentally absolutely none of this is true in real life. Most of my anime concepts are about students or families, not small children.

So. These neighbours built snowmen. One family put their Christmas tree in their back garden still completely covered in decorations, baubles, red tinsel and a star on top. Not sure if they're just lazy or don't know what to do with a used Christmas tree. Oddly enough we got all our decorations down and put away surprisingly quickly. They're usually still down here somewhere until the summer when one of us gets fed up with them taking up space and puts them away.

They made a snowman looking over the fence into the other neighbour's garden and put some of the tree tinsel around it's neck. The other neighbour had also made a snowman looking back at it so it's like two friendly snowmen waving to each other over the fence. It's actually very sweet.

I made mum's cake. I had to wait for a time when I wasn't coughing or sneezing much and could wash my hands (I try not to do it too much more than usual because it dries out my hands. Seems to be having an effect though).

Last time we went shopping, when I stocked up on the cream for the cake, mum also got herself a bottle of bubbly for her birthday. It's her 60th so some fuss needed to be made. Wish I could've made more of a fuss than I actually did but hey, when you're sick you're sick. Unfortunately so chose to get it when I decided to start on the cake. It had to be a secret so I had to hurry her out of the kitchen before I started coughing, sneezing or needed to blow my nose again.

The cake mix was a little out of date but I checked it and it seemed fine. It's powdered anyway. I mixed it up then thought to myself, I'm not going to eat this cake at all so let's add some flavour. So I put in a little splash of the orange Baileys she still has from Christmas.

I had my breakfast while it baked. Ready Brek with syrup today, no added spices this time. You may think the timing a little odd. Mum drinking while I'm getting breakfast. Well. Not really, when you take into account that breakfast for me is in the afternoon-evening time since I'm trying to sleep some of this cold away and I end up going to bed between 5-7am anyway.

I iced it with the cream. Extra thick. Good thing I bought 2 pots. I used about 1 and a half or 1 and 2 thirds.
I looked for some candles mum got a few years ago. They spell out HAPPY BIRTHDAY and each letter is on a stick. I thought it would be best given the messy cream topping of the cake. But I couldn't find them so I decided to make the number 60 in green candles. Didn't have enough so I used green and white. They were from the same box so they were the same style. The cake was full of holes because I'd tried to make the number 6 a few times but mum didn't mind.

She was busy trying to send a text message during this and even writing a short message requires a lot of concentration for her so she was very well distracted. She didn't even notice when I came in for the matches and turned out the light. Usually we use the flame on the hob to light a candle and use that to light the others but that would've meant moving the cake off of the hob to do it and I just couldn't be bothered. It took two matches to light all of the candles. I doused them in the sink for safety when I was done with them and carried the cake in.

I didn't really want to sing the regular old happy birthday. It didn't seem appropriate, especially since I didn't get her a present or a card this year. So I sang her a slightly improved version of the song I made up last night. She was very pleased. Couldn't quite blow out all of the candles in one go and the smoke started her coughing.

I assured her that she could cough and spit on the cake as much as possible because I wouldn't be eating it so she needn't worry about germs. Of course I took it away when she started coughing and tried to disperse the smoke a little quicker.

The only place I could put the cake down was on my desk but I didn't want to sit by it in case I coughed or sneezed on it so I had to stand around nagging her to hurry up with that stupid text message (she hadn't finished it when I brought the cake in) because I needed to blow my nose but didn't want to bend over the cake to get a tissue.

If I don't blow it in time my nose just drips like a leaking tap. It does this when I take the dog out in the cold so I have to hurry back without walking too fast so as not to make the drip come out quicker. I particularly don't want to drip snot on my scarf. I would use a tissue outside but I don't want nasty cold germs spreading to my coat pockets and gloves and I don't want to be fumbling around for a tissue in the cold.

Mum was very pleased with her cake though she couldn't really taste the orange Baileys in the cake. I didn't mind though, she could taste it in the cream. She had two slices along with a glass or two or her birthday bubbly. She was getting a little, as she put it, sozzled. She went quite red in the face but seemed not to cough as much. Body temperature seems to have an effect on the cold. She gets drowsy when she drinks and falls into a deeper sleep so when she falls asleep watching CSI her snoring doesn't wake her up. What wakes her up is either me yelling at her to wake up or me laughing at her snoring.

One detail I forgot to add about Christmas is that she was dozing off in her chair during Doctor Who and Napoleon kept waving at me to get my attention and pointing it out to me, so I kept waking her up. Head slumped right forward, still wearing antlers. Usually she puts her head back to sleep in her chair.

Her sister called her today to wish her a happy birthday and chat. Very interesting. I don't recall her ever getting a birthday phone call from her family before. Then again, my cousin is going to be 50 this year and the whole family are invited to celebrate his birthday. If they're lucky my other cousin and her boyfriend might be back from Australia in time for it. I do hope so. Those two are the only ones who seem to make the most effort to talk to me at gatherings.

In related news my uncle will be 70 this year and I'll be 25. Some important numbers this year.

Not sure if I had anything else to say. I've coughed less today which is good. However I can't relax yet. This could just be the calm before the storm. I think if the virus gets into my lungs then I'll be having a mucus cough so let's hope that it isn't already in there. (If you recall yesterday's blog, mucus is in fact caused by your body and not the virus. It's the white blood cells flooding the area to flush out the virus so I'm guessing that a mucus cough is your body protecting the lungs.)

I think I should end it here then since this is awfully long and I don't want to have to double post just to get it all out.

Bluebiird out.