An Easter Egg as Big as The Ritz

I am sorry. I have been so neglectful of my blogging commitments. The truth is that I have been overwhelmed with work at the School of Hard Knocks. So, I shall take a few moments to sit with a cup of tea and a toasted, buttered hot cross bun to catch up.

Happy Anniversary Parma Violet Tea

This blog's anniversary completely passed me by. I was hoping I'd reach 200 posts by the 8th March. Sadly, it was not to be. I started the blog as a way of distracting myself from the pain of a broken heart (sorry, that was a very blowsy and Cartlandesque statement, but true, nonetheless). Also, because I enjoyed writing nonsense to Rochester, and I knew that I would miss that ramshackle creative process. Looking back at the blog, I am pleased with it. Some bits make me uncomfortable, but I am not going to change or edit a word.

Hotel Chocolat Easter Egg

Just a recommendation for anyone who has never indulged in a HC Easter Egg, they truly are magnificent. I am currently on a strict budget. I have recently embraced Aldi, and strangely find there is much joy to be had there. But, there is no way on God's green earth I will be satisfied with a 89p Aldi chocolate bunny this Easter.

The HC Eggs are utter decadence. They are cocoa nib behemoths. The egg itself, well, the shell is so thick that even Janet Street Porter would struggle to get her gnashers around it. It is CRAMMED with divine chocs. I find myself looking at the HC website nightly, trying to decide which of the beauties I will treat myself to this year. £22 is a lot to spend, I know. I could build a Chappie mountain with that! I have to say, I like the look of the one at the top of this page very, very much.

SOHK Quote of the Week

This week my class has been studying life in rural India. They were enthralled to hear about a little girl who lives in a village nestled deep within a forest. They gasped to hear her home did not have running water or electricity and that she walked 20 kilometres every day to get to school. Their task was to make a big collage picture of the girl's forest home: the house, the trees, the animals. I was very pleased with their work. I was perplexed when I looked at Red Bull's collage (Red Bull is a totally frenzied ne're do well with ADHD. His mum lovingly 'prepares' an explosive breakfast cocktail of Ritalin and Red Bull for the little scamp every morning.) Anyway, in his collage, Red Bull had crammed the Indian girl's house with electrical appliances: televisions, lightbulbs, microwaves and washing machines.

'Red Bull, did you forget, the house in India has no electricity?'

'Na, I dinnit forget. Why look like, nowt is switched on!'

The Body in the Library

I had a rather stressful Saturday last week. I was perkily dusting to Jonathan Ross when I made a rather grim discovery. Behind the sofa lay the stiff, lifeless body of Moses. I refer, of course, to Moses the cat, NOT the biblical patriarch. I'd had Moses 13 years and recently he had become a little doddery and senile. But, what a dilemma. What does a single girl do with the dead, decomposing body of a beloved pet?

My first trauma was actually picking the furry corpse up. That required gardening gloves, a large gin and a Laura Ashley pillowcase as a shroud. (I soon re-thought the pillowcase, it was Egyptian cotton with a lovely hydrangea print. I loved Moses, but there are limits!) Eventually steeled myself and courageously wrangled the little fella into an Aldi bin bag. But what then though? As much as I cherished the thought of burying the mite under a rose bush, I knew that would never work. Not with two digging-daft lurchers in the house. All the vets were closed. So, I am slightly ashamed to say that in the end, Moses was dispatched in the wheelie bin (thankfully the bins are emptied early on Monday morning). I know his final send off lacked a bit of gravitas and solemnity, but it was all I could think of to do!

The return of the Fanny Rat

I have decided on Easter as the time when I will meet C&C (the Cary Grant impersonating financial advisor). It does seem like rather a long way off, but the end of term is a frenzy of assessments, marking and report writing. Plus it gives me time to get comfortable with the idea. I just need to make sure I don't break into that Hotel Chocolat egg until after the date. I do want my curves to be more Joan from Mad Men than Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from Open all Hours.

But, I was thrown into a fanny rat induced quandary last week. I had an email from Rochester. Apparently the Geordie gigolo now has a proper job. He is a salesman of some kind. I am not sure what he is selling, he was rather vague on this point: it could be clothes pegs door-to-door (whilst dressed as some David Essex-like, swarthy pikey), it could be drugs of course (he was boasting that he is now 'loaded') or it could be something more mundane, like double glazing or conservatories. Who knows? He claimed to work very late nights, which did make me ponder whether he was working in the sex industry, as some kind of South Shields rough trade. I really have no idea.

He also shared that he was now performing his maudlin, death-themed poetry every night at some beatnik club, no doubt whilst bedecked in a black polo neck jumper and beret. Rochester's poetry makes Sylvia Plath seem like Pam Ayres. He catalogues his twisted haikus into themes on his blog. The themes are as follows:

Death

Cancer

Death and Cancer

Depression

Incarceration

Passive aggression

Suicide

Vegetarianism (he is not a fan)

If you are looking for a sweet and tender couplet to write in a Mother's Day card, or to win back a lost love you will not find it in Rochester's poems.

Anyway, it was the last line of the swarthy rogue's email that confounded me.

'Will be up next weekend I reckon - if you fancy a pint x'