Barmy Blue's Bland Blog

Hello hello hello. What's it been? 3 months since I last made contact. So. Why now? Because Halloween is almost upon us and I don't want to spring everything on you then. Yes. I have big plans for this year. Maniacal laughter.
So, when last we spoke Yuki had a hurt paw, there was a drippy pipe outside my window and I was making a plastic bag. So.
The paw got better after a couple of days, seems fine so far.
Napoleon came round to fix the water tank. The dripping pipe was the overflow for the tank, didn't do a good job because it still overflowed. Mopped up the spillage + bailed out the water but it filled up overnight. There's supposed to be a thing in there that floats and tells the water to shut off when it's full but it was stuck. We replaced it and it was fine.....so far.
Also, discovered culprit drinking from pipe was actually a lovely magpie. Don't think he was happy when the water stopped.
I made the bag. It was a little small but it's quite functional. It received quite a bit of attention in the supermarket when we first used it. I'm now making a bigger one.

So. Recently in my life.
I did some work with Napoleon. It was implied that he was kind of desperate and couldn't get anyone else and that it'd only be for a week, ended up being for over a month. It was okay I guess.

The first three days I flipped from stupidly suicidal to homicidal because we just don't get on that well and he mistook my being depressed for being stroppy. On the Wednesday mum made a secret phone call to him about how to work with me, because I was getting dangerously depressed, to the point that I kept wanting to jump out of the window, it was only the first floor so the fall wouldn't have killed me, just broken a few bones perhaps. You know how I hate suicide and dismiss those kinds of thoughts but this one just kept niggling me and I was scared that if it was there long enough I might actually be stupid enough to try it, you know I'm not a very strong person.

The main problems being; He forgets that I'm not a builder and what he thinks is a simple instruction might as well be in German seeing as I don't get it at all. And when I didn't respond instantly he'd get mad at me, which made me sad, and angry, hence flipping between suicidal and homicidal. I wanted to stab him with a screwdriver.

For those 3 days I tried to tell him be clear and concise with your instructions because otherwise I don't know what you want me to do. What didn't help was that he would sometimes give an order then recant it for the opposite. He also failed to take into account that I am; a) a girl...well I should say woman now, I am 25. b) I am 25 not 5. And c) I am physically weak having not done this kind of work for a living for 40 0r so years or much of any exercise for that matter.

After mum gave him some pointers it was better. On the Thursday I noticed the difference and asked if he'd been talking to someone. She swore him to secrecy because she was worried that he'd have a go at me for telling tales to mummy like a little snitch. But it all came out in the open when I got home that evening. Because I'd been getting so worked up she said it wasn't worth it if it was making me so unhappy. I'd ended up crying on the Wednesday evening, before she made the secret call.
I just couldn't hold it in when I started telling her about the day. It sort of snuck up on me and just leapt out. You know how I never normally cry around other people, I wait until I'm safe and sound in my room to do it, when no one will know.

So after that it was better. There were still a few ups and downs but nothing so dramatic as the first 3 days. As it went on and on I did get a little worn down and as autumn started to set in, and the sun vanished, I started to get depressed again. Not suicidal or homicidal this time, just a general unhappiness, it was okay.

At least I was paid for my efforts. Now I can treat myself a little, just a little, have funds for Christmas and try to keep some aside for bills and such. I gave mum a cut of my wages every day.

During this time I had quite a bit of fun with some witty word play. When I was bored I'd make little puns and rhymes and such. For example, a new magazine or clip of nails for the nail gun became a nail clip. I was so pleased with that. I named pretty much everything. I wrote Napoleons' name on most of his tools, only in pencil though, because one of the tradesmen had the same tape measure as him, though it had a few stickers on it. I figured other tradesmen could have the same tools and a smart one would name his. One of his power tools has his name on the case because friend on another job had the same one. A few other tradesmen were here and there on the job and another one did have a power tool the same as Napoleons'. so even though he didn't want me to put his name on everything I'm still pleased I did. I only did it at lunch or during idle time, not when I actually had something to do. There were lots of odd jobs to do, that's why I was there a month.

I don't think the owners of the house really planned properly. Things turned up too early or late. We'd do a job and they'd want us to take it down and move it an inch then put it back up. Seems like a simple request but moving a wall takes half a day or so when we could be doing something else. It's a big job and they brought in various tradesmen, most of whom had never met before, and one from as far as Surrey, which meant contacting him and his colleagues was difficult and if something needed fixing they needed 2 days notice. I won't name names, nor what trade they were in but the other tradesmen did get a bit annoyed with them. They bored holes in things looking for things they should have marked earlier, didn't sweep up after themselves and didn't align their holes where directed but, in their defence, to a poorly written plan that had been altered but a new plan was not drawn up.

Okay. So I'll tell you. They were electricians. I'm told electricians not sweeping up after themselves is a common trait as they don't leave bits of cable lying around or anything from their trade, just the debris from walls that other tradesmen have put up into which they've bored huge holes looking for cables that we had to stuff into corners because we didn't know where they belonged. Judging by the angry notes he left on the walls about misaligned holes it seems the owner got peeved with them too. But in all fairness in some cases they couldn't put the hole exactly where specified because things were in the way.

But. Enough of that. If I was going to ***** about work I should have done it in a separate blog. That's all over now. Good thing too because it only gave me 2 weeks to prepare for Halloween. Evil grin

Instead of the undead maid again I thought it might be fun to be a mad axe murderer this year, greatly inspired by a Creature Feature album cover. Oddly enough not a big fan of theirs. I like about 2 songs that I know of but only when they've been altered by fans, the original's are a little too slow for me at the moment, but I think they're very appropriate for Halloween. I like Such Horrible Things the most so far.

I had this full body coverall for a couple of days doing insulating at work. I thought of wearing that soaked with blood but I've since changed my mind in favour of the more Creature feature costume. I've already earmarked one of the cheap shirts from Primark for the role (I got a week's worth of t-shirts there for work because I didn't have any old ones I wanted to ruin and figured if you're going to by new clothes for a building site they might as well be cheap ones. FYI that store really brings out the OCD in me. Seriously it's a total mess. I wouldn't be able to stand it. No one puts anything back when they've looked at it, they just leave it on the floor).

Mum got me an axe while I was working. A small hatchet would've been best I thought but she could only get a kind of battle axe. I've grown to really like it. Last week I got a matching scythe, in case I change my mind again and go as Death incarnate by wearing my black hoodie instead. i also got a creepy little knife. I'm now armed to the teeth with plastic weaponry.

She got me a pumpkin earlier too. I've named it Pumpkin Bob for now and I think that name's going to stick. Well, cool as it was, Beelzekin was getting a little old. Last week I saw these cute little pumpkins they called Munchkin Pumpkins. I'm thinking of getting one and carving it so that Pumpkin Bob is a cannibal eating this tiny pumpkin who is terrified. It probably won't work out but I still want to try it anyway.

I got 2 bottles of fake blood, need a lot if I'm going as a murderer. I also got this cool light up skull. Is it just me or does everyone get the desire to quote Hamlet whenever they have a skull? Well, for that reason I've named him Yorick. He'll be sitting with Sebastian this year.

I've been making my own sweets again this year. I got some cool sweet moulds and I've been working on them all week. If I could I'd label them as "Cadaver Crawley's Cloyingly Creepy Confections" I worked hard on that name. I got generic little round and flat ones and bats and skulls and some colourful stuff to melt . It's a bit like chocolate but not. I've been seeing them for a while in cupcake videos on Youtube.

The bats are meant to be cupcake toppers and fit together but I didn't want that so I chop off the hooks where they connect and stick both halves onto a stick to make bat pops. They were still a little bland so I added some cola and cherry sherbet that I got for fun last week.

I filled the skulls with strawberry ice cream sauce as blood. The flat ones are filled with the filling of Oreos (not a fan of them myself, if you want a tasty filled biscuit you can't beat good old Custard Creams, the filling is nicer than Oreos in my opinion but children like them so in they go). The round ones are filled with condensed milk coloured green.

They're sickly sweet and not always the nicest to look at. The bats and skulls are okay but the others came out a little funny. They're multicoloured and I couldn't close them up at the backs very well but hopefully the children won't notice. The skulls look great, I have red white and green ones so far, I hope to do some black ones too. I also have black and green bats and I started making red ones today. I'll try to keep you posted on how they turn out.

Also, in other news. While I was still working with Napoleon we had a family gathering on a Sunday. It was all pretty good. I got to see the uncle I never see anymore and we took a new family photo. Can't think of much else to add to that now.

Also while at work I finally brought out the sweet little Ipod Shuffle mum gave me for Christmas. It was difficult to think of what to put on it since I don't listen to the original music of most artists at the moment but versions that fans have remixed on Youtube, but I did get quite a few. If you asked I'd describe my taste in music as eclectic but because I was limited by what actually existed for me to buy and put on it my ipod will tell you that it's mainly full of rock. Not even j rock, that's just lumped in with regular rock as far as itunes are concerned but never mind.

Think that's all. Didn't intend to do a long blog but knew hoping for a short one would be in vain.
Oh. The dog's getting over an ear infection, we've been giving her ear drops for a few weeks. And you may have heard about this "storm" that hit us yesterday. Well, we're fine, no trees fell on us (the one that would have fell quite a few years ago across 3 of our neighbour's back gardens) but our tv antenna is hanging off the side of the house and it's unlikely Napoleon can come to fix it until the weekend (we don't have a ladder long enough). to be honest I hoped I wouldn't have to see him again until Christmas but what can you do.

Okay . I think that really is everything. If not I'll put it in a later blog. This is already too long.

Yeah so.
Bluebiird out.