To blog or not to blog

Should I be worried? Chinese-woman-over-the-road has not hung any knickers in her bedroom window for five days now. Very strange. In fact the curtains have remained closed throughout. But people have come and gone from the property, as well as a car. What to think?

There are several possibilities that occur to me, but I am limited in my knowledge of Chinese family life and ritual, so hard to work out with any certainty which it might be.

1. She is dead. The people coming and going are mourners. But there have been no fireworks, coloured lanterns or even paper dragons, and I’ve not come across a Chinese tradition yet that didn’t involve all three of them!
2. If the knickers were some sort of indicator of her availability for ‘personal services’, maybe she’s having a week off.
3. Again, assuming the knickers are a foreign version of a Chinese prostitute’s ‘Vacancies’ sign (I’m thinking like a UK B&B might display. For rooms, not prostitutes of course. Although in Blackpool…) Maybe she is ‘full up’ – metaphorically I pray, although quite possibly literally too – she’s quite small so it probably wouldn’t take much to brim her tank, so to speak.
4. Because the car has been here a little more often than usual, maybe Hubby is off work and this has curtailed her extra-curricular shenanigans. Or he’s getting to canoodle her noodle for a change. “You wany lice with that?”
5. (And I’d like this to be true, but the amount of rain we have had recently leads me to put it quite low in the list…) She has actually bought a washing line and is drying her smalls outside. Unlikely: It is raining cats and dogs, or as she might call them, supper.
6. You may have noticed in previous posts, that they have a large satellite dish on the porch. I’m wondering whether I have been barking up the wrong tree here and in fact it wasn’t the knickers that were the important factor at all, but their associated coat hangers… Maybe the whole unit formed an elaborate radio telescope, with the hangers boosting the signal, and she has, in fact, been engaged in some sort of shadow espionage? The dish does point directly over the street and into the bedroom of Chinese-people-next-door. Maybe THEY are international terrorists and Chinese-woman-over-the-road is one of the good guys. Of course, she has to disguise the hangers with knickers, so as to remain undetected. My God, we have a Triad living next door! And the absence of knickers? Just means she has had to go undercover. (Maybe under duvet, if hubby is home a lot). I’ve heard of Neighbourhood Watch, but really!

With all this in mind I feel we need to take a few precautions. If she’s dead, then it could be Swine Flu from too much Char Siu and crispy pork balls. Best make sure we don’t wander too close. If she really is a spying then the only thing to do is make sure it is not US she’s checking into. Would the DHS really go to the level of erecting the housing estate equivalent of Jodrell Bank just to check I’m not claiming an inappropriate level of DLA? Best insulate the house from prying radio waves anyway. I knew I was saving those foil cartons for a reason. Ah, hang on, maybe not; they came from the Chinese Take-Away. It’s a conspiracy I tell you! Foiled again!

At this point I have to apologise if my typing gets a bit crap. I have a contact lens checkup this afternoon and so have to wear my lenses for a few hours beforehand. They are fine for socializing, out and about, but terrible for watching TV or, worse still, seeing anything at all on a computer monitor. So, if I spell things incorrectly, or use the wrong word, please rest assured that they look right to me! And it’s MY blog!

I want to try out a little anecdote on you, run it up your flagpole and see if it flutters, as they say. I’m thinking it could help me win friends and influence people. The story goes as follows (and you are supposed to come in half way through!):

And so Davina McCall said to me, “Oh my God! That made my eyes water!”

What do you think? Kudos points for me? It’s true – here is the proof!

And no, I’m not going to tell you the preamble. I have to respect Davina’s dignity as a lady and I’m not the kiss-and-tell type. Use your own imagination. Although, on second thoughts, maybe even that isn’t wise. Just suffice to say that I made Davina’s eyes water.

I’ve not dared venture into the back garden, or what has now apparently become the prime holiday destination for all land-living invertebrates in the UK. They’re setting up little stalls now, selling each other ‘kiss me quick’ hats and miniature postcards with “Wish you were here” and “Salford by night” on them. They’ll be rushing to put slimy towels on sluggy deckchairs next and starting “Slug 18-30” holidays. I WAS going to put down some beer traps, but I think that would just encourage them.  Larger-lout slugs I do not need. It is pouring down outside and they are all rain-bathing and taking delight in the perfect climate. Those on the all-inclusive deals will be heading off for the strawberries soon for their all-you-can-eat lunch. I never thought I’d say this, but what’s needed here is Thrush!

For anyone interested, I finally managed to speak to my proper doctor yesterday about the suicide pills I’d been prescribed. He’s much more sensible than the other muppet, although I’m still not thrilled with the outcome. His thoughts were that the killer tablets I’d been prescribed maybe were not entirely to blame for the increase in liver enzymes that showed up on tests the last time I took these little bundles of joy. His suggestion was that I take them for a fortnight, then they do another blood test to see if the pills are doing any damage. Oh I just love the suck-it-and-see approach to medicine. Do you watch House, with Hugh Laurie? Same attitude: if it kills him we’ll know it wasn’t the right medication.  I’m being unfair, he did say that a fortnight on these pills couldn’t do any real harm, although by the same token, neither does a person’s first cigarette; you’d not expect them to be available on prescription though. They say, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”, but if that were true I’d be looking like Atlas at the moment, ready to hoist the world aloft. Do you think HE had a bad tummy too?