Category: Siblings

Making Your Own Fun…

A very good evening to you all. As you know, the Lifestyle Support Guru tries very hard to lighten your burden by offering supportive and positive advice on all aspects of LIFE. Tonight, I wish to help you enjoy life more by suggesting different ways of amusing yourself, based, of course, upon my own vast experience.

So I put the question, what is amusement? Amusement is…

1. …celebrating youngest sibling’s birthday by going to Keighley for a night. Keighley… enough to make anyone laugh out loud!

2. …sitting in a hostelry (I could have said ‘café’, but you wouldn’t have believed me) with youngest sibling and asking for advice on downloading WhatsApp onto recently-acquired iPhone.
YS: Just go into Apps and look for the WhatsApp app. (He then returns to looking at his own [superior] phone)
Me: Is this what I need: ‘WhatsApp for iPhone Free’?
YS: (sighing, and without looking up from his own phone): No, you haven’t got an iPhone 3, it’s an iPhone 5.
(Spend next five minutes giggling hysterically while bar staff wonder whether to keep serving you.)

3. …measuring your ironing board for a new cover by standing next to it when it’s leaning against the wall, because you can’t find a measuring tape.

4. …standing in the aisle at Sainsbury’s for five minutes trying to work out if the ironing board cover on offer (£3 – a bargain!) will fit your ironing board. It says it’s 125 cm or 49 ins in length, and you know that you’re about 5 ft 6 in tall. (Contemplate asking a Sainsbury’s assistant to measure you from shoulder to ankle but realise that you’d then have to explain why and life is too short.) The ironing board at home came to just above the top of your shoulder and down to just above your ankle, so you stand working out roughly how long your head is and how high off the ground your ankle is to get an idea of the length. You then calculate that 49 in is about 8 ft (it had been a long morning…) but realise that that can’t be right because otherwise you’d have the biggest ironing board in the world and you’d be 10 ft tall. Recalculate to make it about 4 ft and look yourself up and down from ankle to shoulder and think that that’s about right.
5. …seriously contemplating taking the above-mentioned ironing board cover out of its packaging, unfolding it and holding it up to see how it measures against you, but realise that this may not be a good idea in a public place…
6. …buying the ironing board cover anyway.

Following these simple, but effective, rules will give you a whole new outlook on LIFE! Anyone want me to measure up for curtains? Reasonable rates…

The Importance of Being Hygienic

A very good day to you all from the Lifestyle Support Guru and I hope you are looking forward to the weekend. I have so many subjects to tackle, such as ‘Coping with Technology’, because everyone seems to be ‘coping with’ something these days, don’t they? The topics can range from ‘Coping with a blocked drain’ to ‘Coping with a broken fingernail’ or from ‘Dealing with a depressed dog’ to ‘Dealing drugs’. (Oops! Sorry – that should say ‘Dealing WITH drugs’.) I also wish to discuss ‘Becoming Rich and Famous’, but I have decided these topics can wait because I have had an experience today from which I have learned many valuable lessons that I wish to share with you so that your lives, too, will become more fulfilled and fulfilling, more varied and valuable, more like the LSG’s life, which is fulfilment personified, varied (or do I mean ‘variable’?) and valuable (not the same as ‘rich’, unfortunately, but I have plans for that…).
1. START your day with a visit to the dental hygienist. The main lesson to be learned here is that it is better than FINISHING your day with such a visit because the latter will require you to avoid eating anything that is even vaguely spiced (such as Beef and Tomato Pot Noodle), whereas Red Cherry Wheat Bites are completely spice-free, so can safely be eaten prior to your visit .
2. Call in at a well-known supermarket on the way home (other well-known supermarkets are available, so take your pick of whichever is closest to you) to check the air in your tyres because you have a long and arduous journey ahead of you the following day to meet youngest sibling in Keighley because it is national ‘Take your sibling to Keighley for his birthday’ day (well, there seems to be a ‘day’ for everything else, so why not?). There is a long queue for the air machine – you’ve forgotten that it is national ‘Check the air in your tyres’ day – so you head to another branch of the same well-known supermarket to see if the queue is shorter.
3. On arrival at the next branch, you find that the queue is of a similar length – it’s definitely ‘Check the air in your tyres’ day – so you decide that, rather than wasting your journey, you will call in at the café and revive yourself with coffee and a toasted teacake (a taste for toasted teacakes seems to develop with age). Whilst reviving yourself, you read the café’s copy of the Daily Express and discover that, according to a dating website, people with dogs are three times more attractive to people looking for love (or ‘my soulmate’ or ‘my rock’) than those with cats; in fact, you learn that even people with rabbits have more success.
Resolve to acquire more cats.
You then see a headline asking ‘Why does my Labrador smell?’, but life is too short to even begin thinking of an answer to that – and, besides, you’ve finished your teacake.
4. Remember that you are running low on toilet paper (I am unable to explain why I remembered this after eating a toasted teacake) and head for the ‘Toilet paper’ aisle, which just happens to be via the new ‘Spring collection’ clothing aisle (if you make a detour) and you spot a rather attractive navy and white top, just right for a long and arduous journey to Keighley, even though you know you have several tops in a similar colour combination. (Some of you may recall a post from some time ago where I debated the difference between a navy and white top and a white and navy top, but there is no need for debate here because you know FOR CERTAIN that you have neither a navy and white top nor a white and navy top WITH A VERTICAL STRIPE RUNNING DOWN EACH ARM.) Besides, there’s 25% off all items – Keighley, here I come in my new navy and white top WITH A VERTICAL STRIPE RUNNING DOWN EACH ARM! I may even find somewhere to indulge in a toasted teacake…

May your weekend be filled with toasted teacakes, toilet paper and cats – unless you’re looking for love? In that case, get yourself a dog. Me? I’m off to the Cats Protection League…

Tips for a Top Christmas

A very merry Christmas to all my Faithful Followers (FFs), Delightful Devotees (DDs) and Beloved Believers (BBs) – this sounds rather like a bra advert! – who, as I write, will be in the middle of preparing for the festive jollities and may well be feeling somewhat stressed. I am here to offer some information on how I am preparing for the days ahead in the hope that you may be able to use some of this information in future years, since I fear that it may be too late for this year.
1. Take the cats to their holiday home and feel a little sad that they seem to settle in very quickly and may have already forgotten you before you have even left the building. However, the plus side is that you can now pack your suitcase without having to check every ten minutes that one of them hasn’t sneaked inside.
2. As you are returning home, you decide to call in at Sainsbury’s for something to eat, since you have very little in the fridge, apart from a couple of old slices of low calorie corned beef (see an earlier post for information on low calorie corned beef), some Brie and a rather smelly Stilton (thinks – ‘but I do have a bottle of port that would go nicely with the Stilton…’) and you are completely out of Pot Noodles. The car park is so busy that they have attendants guiding you to parking spaces and you are pointed towards a tiny space between an estate car and a large Freelander which has, of course, parked over the white line between spaces (this is a privilege reserved for those who own unnecessarily large cars that they can’t park properly). Even with the LSG’s tiny car and superlative parking ability, you realise that this is going to be more than just a tight squeeze and that you will not be able to get out of the car even if you manage to park it, so you drive off and find your own parking space, well away from any spatially-challenged 4×4 owners.
3. Decide that you will have the Sainsbury’s Christmas Lunch Special, since, in your mind, you can still hear your mother saying, ‘You’ve got to have turkey and sprouts at least once at Christmas.’ (inside, you are still a child crying, ‘Why?’, but you do as your mother tells you). Whilst waiting for the festive feast, you peruse a copy of the Daily Mail and realise that you are living in a different world from the Mail’s, where anger, rage and disgust seem to be the default emotions. I always feel as if I have been slapped across the backs of my hands with a wooden ruler after reading this fine example of unbiased, open-minded, British journalism.
Eat three Brussels sprouts (two more than usual) in penance.
4. Get home and realise that you STILL haven’t written many Christmas cards and that any you may write now will not arrive in time for Christmas (especially since you haven’t got any stamps either), so it looks as if you may have to send them late and include one of those dreaded Round Robin letters explaining why your card is so late – would they believe it if you said that you had been helping out at a homeless shelter or delivering food parcels to lonely old people? No, I didn’t think so, either.
5. There is only one thing to do to rescue you from sinking into a deep depression (other than going to the pub, of course – that will come later…) – check in online for your forthcoming holiday to a warm and sunny destination where you can sit and sip a chilled glass of white Rioja as you are soothed by the sound of the sea gently lapping in the background and contemplate everyone else having to listen to ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ for the 100th time (although you know you may tire of ‘Feliz Navidad’ after a little while).
6. Send email to siblings to apologise for not sending Christmas cards, but explain that you have been helping out at a homeless shelter and delivering food parcels to lonely old people.

Have a lovely Christmas, everyone!

Life Is What You Make It

forest poster

Life is what you make it

Stuff what I have learned this week:

A very good day from the Lifestyle Support Guru! Today I am going to share with you some pieces of wisdom that I feel may help you, faithful followers, in your journey along this rocky road laughingly called ‘life’. As far as I can tell, ‘life’ is what you make it and what you make of it – in my case, perfection has almost been achieved. I say ‘almost’ because to say that I am perfect would be rather bold and would imply that I have nothing left to learn. Nothing could be further from the truth, beloved believers – I am constantly learning (for example, Spanish at the moment) and would never be so presumptuous as to think that I know everything (although some might accuse me of being a ‘know-it-all’, but I put that down to jealousy, pure and simple).

outdoorsBut I digress; here is what I have learned this week, which I hope will be of some use in your own miserable and worthless existences (and please do not think that I insult you by referring to your lives in such words; I use them only in a sense relative to the almost blissful state in which I, the LSG, exist). (Again, note the use of the word ‘almost’, showing my true humility.)

Sainsbury’s

1. If you are on a diet (or, as I prefer to say, starving yourself to death), you would be wise to buy a packet of six corned beef slices from Sainsbury’s (other supermarkets are available but I haven’t checked their corned beef slices) rather than a packet of three, since there are fewer calories in each slice in the six-pack – in fact, 10 fewer calories per slice, saving you 60 calories in all! This difference in calories I regard as one of the great unsolved mysteries of the world.

National Trust

2. If you visit a National Trust property with extensive grounds where the entrance is some electricbuggytextdistance from the car park, try to follow someone of ‘mature years’ to the initial information point where she will ask if it is possible to have a lift on the electric buggy to the entrance. With luck (of which I have an inordinate amount), she will turn around and ask if you would also like a lift – I admit I may have been looking a little fragile (a practised look) and I may (just ‘may’) have exaggerated the limp slightly – so you accept (reluctantly, of course) and drag youngest sibling on with you. At first he is a little unhappy at being driven on what is, essentially, an oversized mobility scooter, but soon starts enjoying himself when we use the royal wave as we zoom past the hordes making their way to the entrance on foot. Indeed, he enjoyed himself so much that it was he who insisted on ordering the buggy for the return journey after we had spent an exhausting hour eating parsnip and apple soup and perusing the items for sale in the shop. No calories were harmed in this activity.

Leeds

3. If you decide to visit Leeds, be aware that it is a VERY big city. It takes EIGHT minutes just to walk from the car park to your hotel – you could do almost the whole of Derby in this time! This time does not include checking Google Maps every two minutes before realising it would be quicker to ask a passer-by for accurate directions, nor stopping to look in a shop window to admire a rather nice large, green, woolly scarf just right for winter and making a mental note to look for said scarf in the Derby branch of the shop (sibling’s comment: ‘Looks expensive.’ Personal thought: ‘And?’).

And there you have the collected wisdom of yet another LSG visit ‘oop north’ – next week I shall be buying a flat cap and a whippet after building a homing pigeon reserve in the back yard.

Animal Crackers

Malcolm

Malcolm

In light of the sad demise of Malcolm-the-strangely-named-cat-from-Australia, I felt that the Lifestyle Support Guru needed to shine a little beacon of light and fluffiness into your lives – that is my reason for existing, of course, so I wish to tell you a story of another cat from faraway places. I make no apologies to the non-cat-lovers among you, since I hope you will find this tale sadly amusing (or amusingly sad) as well.
Strangely enough, this other cat, like Malcolm, was ‘bequeathed’ to me by my youngest sibling, known as TOFU (Trefor OF ‘Ull), when he returned from a lengthy stay in South Africa and brought Tubs, a semi-long-haired ball of black fluff and a loud voice, back with him. I make no comment on the names that TOFU chooses for his cats – I simply put it down to some defect suffered at birth – but it did make for interesting looks at the vet’s when they would call out ‘Tubs?’ and I stood up.

Tubs lived a long and happy life as the only black South African in my neck of the woods in Derby, until he took to his sick bed. Late one Sunday evening it was obvious that he was distressed, so I wrapped him in a blanket and lay next to him downstairs to keep him company until I could get him to the vet the next day (yes, for any non-animal-lovers, the LSG has human feelings too); however, at about 3 am he got worse and he suddenly died. Take it from me that there is very little one can do with a dead cat at 3 o’clock on a Monday morning, so I took myself off to bed and rang TOFU early the next morning to tell him the sad news. TOFU said he would come down from ‘Ull that evening and help me dispose of the body.
The next morning, I had French A Level oral exams to do, so I took myself off to work, finding out later that my A Level students thought my haggard face denoted a sleepless night worrying about the exams rather than a nearly-sleepless night worrying about a dead cat. Luckily, the orals went well (the students got the good grades they deserved) and I girded up my loins to go home after school and face the walk into a house with a dead cat wrapped in a blanket lying in the back room.
TOFU arrived not long afterwards and looked only mildly surprised to find Tubs lying in the back room, merely asking why I hadn’t put him out in the garden rather than leaving him in the house. ‘But it’s been raining,’ I replied with perfect logic, or so it seemed to me. My brains may have been a little addled by now, through tiredness, exams and, probably, a low-ability Year 9 French class.

Anyway, the rain having stopped, TOFU dug a deep hole in the flowerbed into which we put desert-1618926_1280Tubs with all due ceremony. TOFU explained that the hole needed to be deep so that any subsequent owners of the house wouldn’t come across a pile of bones should they decide to replant the flowerbed. I have to say that the plant that marks the spot goes from strength to strength (which is not something you can say about most of the other plants in my garden, although the dandelions seem to do rather well). And then we went off to the pub to drink Tubs’s health.

This morning, I rang TOFU to tell him of Malcolm’s trip to that great scratching post in the sky. I later got a text asking what had been done with his body and I replied that he had been cremated and I assumed that he didn’t want the ashes back in a tasteful little urn to adorn the mantelpiece. ‘Thank goodness,’ came the reply. ‘I’m still traumatised by the memory of burying Tubs and was worried you’d want to do the same for Malcolm.’ And on that note, I shall pour a glass in honour of Malcolm, saying only that I shall miss him following me to the bathroom in the morning or lying across my neck when I’m having my afternoon siesta.
Enjoy using those long claws in Cat Paradise, Malcolm – you’ve earned it!