I scream

There are several reasons why I'm not a big fan of the overnight work trip.  Some of the reasons are to do with being bored of flight delays, consistently disappointed in hotels, and just a general feeling of preferring to be at home.

Some are to do with the fact that TheBloke (TM) is naughty when I am away.  To be fair, he's naughty when I'm at home too, but at least he is supervised for the majority of the time.

Whilst I was away in Glasgow, he told me that there had recently been a spate of ice cream burglaries in the area.  I said this was unlikely, and he said that the hot weather had driven them indoors in their search for ice cream.  I continued to express my doubt.

However, when I got home last night, and went to the freezer, I picked up this tub:

It felt suspiciously light.  I opened it.  The little wooden spoon which came with it had writing on, but it was no amusing joke, based on a pun as per the 1980s.  Instead it said "SOWEE" (sorry).

The tub was empty, but looked as though it had previously contained delights that were not only chocolatey, but also coconutty and possibly even caramelly.

Looking at the lid of the ice cream tub, further evidence came to light:

So I guess I owe TheBloke (TM) an apology.  It really was ice cream thieves.  We shall have to start locking our freezer.

Cross-eyed

Generally I've been lucky with my eyes.  Never quite 20/20 but more than OK to do without glasses.  This meant I avoided that awful teenage stage where you eventually convince your parents to invest in contacts... and your friends are so used to seeing you with glasses that you look a bit like a blind raccoon without them.  Even though your eyesight is perfect.  You looked better with glasses.

I skipped all that.  However, occasionally at work, I do get headaches, and I am generally in front of a screen for at least 9 hours a day.  So I toddled off to the opticians, who told me my prescription hadn't changed since my last visit, but did recommend I got some glasses for VDU use.

I am not to be trusted choosing things to wear by myself, so TheBloke (TM) met me after work to choose some suitable frames.  We spent a while looking at the ladies' frames... and then I noticed the men's section had a greater selection.  I tried a couple on - they felt fine (not too big) and so I took a pair of Oakley's to the shop assistant.

In retrospect, the choice of shop assistant was probably where it all went wrong.  He seemed Asian, but had a very odd accent - almost Eastern European or Italian and didn't speak great English.  In retrospect again, I suspect he was faking it and we were on some kind of CCTV wind-up programme.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he said.

"I have chosen some frames.  They're from the men's section, but I guess that doesn't matter, does it?"  I wondered if men's prescriptions were slightly different in anyway.

"Yes, does matter," said the optician.

"Oh," I said.  "Will they be too big?"

He looked at the frames.  "No.  Is very small size.  Very small for man."

"So, why can't I have these frames then?" I asked.

"These are man frames," he stated definitively.

"I know that," I said.  "But what's the difference between these and the ladies' frames?"

"Well," the optician said, turning over the frames in his hand as if to point out some manly technical detail, "these frames are... the colour is man colour.  Is darker than lady colour."

"OK," I said, "but some of the ladies' frames are black, so I don't really see how that's a problem."

"Well," the optician continued, "if your colleague see you wearing man's frames, they will laugh at you.  They might to point and also laugh."

"Oh," I said, thinking swiftly of my colleagues, and dismissing this as a likely problem.  "Is that it?  I am happy to take that risk."

The optician sighed.  "Your total will be (insert equivalent amount of GDP of China)."

"What the fuck?" I thought loudly.  I said, "But the frames are only (insert amount of an impulse-buy pair of shoes)."

"Yes," he continued, "but the lenses are £200."

"So how come," I asked, "you can get NHS specs all-in for £50?"

That was a mistake.  He spent the next ten minutes drawing me a cross-section of a lens.  Apparently it has eight different layers, including one for fog.  I reiterated that I would be wearing these glasses rarely, when I got a headache, indoors.  I didn't need to be fog-proofed.  We agreed (him reluctantly) that I didn't need fog-proof lenses.  "These lenses you have ordered will take 15-20 days to come in store.  The frames will be here very quick, but lenses, they take long time." said the optician.

"That's fine," I said.  I was in no massive rush.

He (very, very laboriously) typed into his computer system.  "Patient has selected Oakly (sic) MAN FRAMES.  Patient advised but sure she wants MAN FRAMES. Basic lenses (15-20 days). Patient happy with MAN FRAMES for MAN.  No refund."

The next working day? A phone call.  "Hello Ms Nunn?  Your lenses are ready.  We're just waiting on the frames now."

It would have been less painful to gouge my eyes out with a rusty teaspoon.  Perhaps that can be their new slogan.

When you care enough to send the very best grammar

Let's get this straight once and for all...

It's Fathers' Day.  Not Father's Day.  Same with Mothers' Day.

The reason behind this is, fantastic as you may believe your father is, it ISN'T JUST HIS DAY.  There are lots of fathers.  When something is plural, you put the apostrophe after the "s".

If you have "Father's Day", this means that just one father gets a day.  So we would have to have some rota system.  This seems unfair, and also unlikely that we are going to get through every father in the world, celebrating the day on an annual basis.  There is nothing wrong with the system of Fathers' Day, which allows us to celebrate all the fathers once per year (even the slightly loopy ones who dress up as Superman and make a nuisance of themselves in public buildings).

So, be like me and refuse to buy cards that say Father's Day!  Revolt!*

* NB This usually means making your own card, or being creative with Tippex, as Hallmark has not yet accepted the LGS (Laura's Grammar Standard) rules.  It is a matter of time until I rule the world, at which point deviation from the LGS will not be tolerated and will be punished with imprisonment with nothing but a copy of Lynne Truss' Eats Shoots and Leaves.

Bully for me

There are some things in the world I consider myself very - or at least fairly - good at.  These include (but are not limited to):

• Being organised - no-one plans in advance like I do
• Being loyal - a lot of my best friends I've known for 20 years or more
• Being good at spelling.  Mostly.  Though the word "committee" throws me more often than it should.

There are other things - of course - that I'm not so good at.  These include (but are not limited to):

• Maths
• Making Victoria sponge cakes (unless you particularly like one half of the sandwich so undercooked that it was actually runny... and then microwaved until it turned rock hard.  Luckily TheBloke (TM) did indeed seem to like that.)
• Reverse parking

And in the final list we have things I'm truly terrible at.  This is mostly:

• Sense of direction
• The Xbox games Portal and Portal 2.

I suspect the two are linked.  For those of you who haven't experienced the delight of aforementioned video game, essentially you are a girl with two guns.  It isn't, however, a violent game.  Each gun opens a different door.  The orange gun opens a door to... wherever you shoot the blue gun.  Confused yet?  Well, that's just the easy stuff.  Physics comes into play.  You can open an orange door in the floor, a blue one in the ceiling, walk into the orange door and fall out of the ceiling.  Just yesterday I trapped myself in an infinite falling loop.

Now, there is much I like about Portal.  The humour is exceptional and it's a beautifully-scripted game that makes me laugh out loud in a way I don't think any other video game ever has.  It's a welcome engaging and non-violent game.  Unfortunately, the payoffs I get between levels are few and far between as I spend 90% of my time trying to work out why I'm staring at my feet and the other 10% drowning in a puddle.  A puddle which you're not supposed to be able to drown in.

TheBloke (TM), of course, is very good at Portal.  He is also very good at sense of direction and Maths.  Annoyingly he's also quite good at spelling.  But ha!  I win one - he's not loyal at all!  He shags round at every chance he gets.  Not really.  Well he might.  But I doubt it as he's usually tired from winning all the levels on Portal.

He does whizzy things with lasers and coloured paint, and Stephen Merchant (who voices Portal 2) is always saying winning things to him.  I just drown in puddles and stare at my feet.

So, we've established TheBloke (TM) is good at physics, sense of direction and Portal.  So what video game am I good at?  Bully.  We have it on the Wii.  You play a 15 year-old boy who goes round his school beating up nerds.  Key skills?  Giving wedgies and hitting people.

I might put that on my CV.

Cat call

Monty Cat has been increasingly naughty of late.  He has always been a very food-oriented cat, incapable of leaving the slightest morsel of kibble for later on.  We often laugh heartily at friends who insist that they can go away for the weekend and leave a few bowls of dry food out for their cat.  If we did the same, Monty Cat would have wolfed (catted?) the entire pile before we'd even managed to lock the door.

We try to instil strict feeding times for Monty Cat - 7.30 a.m. and 7.30 p.m., in an attempt to stop him waking us up too early in the morning, and to get him into a good routine, like a naughty toddler.  This suits us, as we generally feed him before we go to work, and then again when we get home.

However, sometimes I need to go into work early.  And Monty Cat doesn't always understand this routine.  As far as he is concerned, the only reason TheBloke (TM) or I even bother to wake up is to feed him.  Therefore when I get up and go downstairs and don't feed him, there is a loud meowing protest, and the occasional biting of ankles.

A week or so ago, after leaving the house without feeding the cat (knowing TheBloke (TM) would feed him in half an hour's time at the regular feeding time), Monty Cat bolted out of the front door with me.  He is not normally allowed out of the front of the house, because of the road.  I didn't see him.  In fact, the first I knew of it was five minutes further down the road when a white van man pulled over and motioned me.  "Do you have a ginger and white cat?"

"Yes..." I thought he was going to tell me that he ran over him.

"He's been following you down the street."  I turned around.  A naughty Monty Cat stared innocently back.  We were quite a way from home by this point, and I was worried the cat might be lost.  So I decided to walk home again, so he knew where he was.

I turned back home.  The cat followed me.  I got to near where we lived, and was sure the cat could find his way home from here.  I headed back towards the tube station.  The cat followed me.

I didn't really want to pick him up a) because I didn't want cat fur over my dark suit and b) because he's fucking massive.  But there was no option.  I went to scoop up Monty Cat, as a passerby came close.  At which point Monty Cat pretended I'd never seen him before in his life, looked at me as if I was some mad-cat-bin-lady and hid under the nearest car.

The passerby gave me a filthy look.

I headed back to work.  TheBloke (TM) reported later Monty Cat came in for his breakfast at the usual time.

Today when I got home from work, a parcel had been delivered to our neighbours.  Again, it was close to - but not quite - Monty Cat feeding time.  Once again, said naughty cat followed me out of the front door, and crossed the road with me to our neighbour's opposite.

It was only as I knocked on their door, I was aware of a ginger bundle of naughtiness waiting in front of me at their door - as if I was the sort of mad lady who never goes anywhere without her cat.

The door opened... and out bolted a massive dog.  The neighbour shouted for the dog to get back in, and shouted to their friend that his dog had just "gone for" the cat.  To be honest, I don't really blame the dog.  If I was a massive dog, and my own front door was opened to reveal a fat, juicy ginger snack on my doorstep, I'd not hesitate in taking a bite either.

Monty Cat flinched for about... 0.5 of a second, and then decided the payoff of possibly getting fed by sticking close to me was worth the possibility of being eaten by a Doberman.  In fact at one point, I did wonder if Monty Cat was going to eat the Doberman.

He does like his food.