Money laundering

When my mother-in-law comes to stay, the house becomes miraculously cleaner and my wardrobe becomes full of ironed shirts and T-shirts, to the extent that, to make room, I generally end up throwing away the odd garment that has seen better days. Just before she arrived, I had to vacuum the carpet in Matt's room, which she was to occupy for the duration of her stay with us, the room, that is, not the carpet. Not that she was going to stay in the room all the time, of course, that would be madness. Anyway, before commencing to clean, I had to remove various items from the carpet, not least of which was the princely sum of £2.64, made up of various small denomination coins, nothing higher than a 20p. After she arrived, one morning found her cleaning underneath the bed, where she recovered another £4.30 in small change! What's that all about?

The Christmas Show

All right, I know it’s nowhere near Christmas but I had a clearout yesterday morning and I found a bag containing the remnants of one of the pub’s Christmas shows that we used to put on the Saturday before Christmas Day; I hosted it with a chap called Roly, who has presented loads of events at the pub and does our Music Quizzes and disco evenings. One of the items was the script that I wrote for a sketch which, as it turned out, we didn’t have time to do. I’m sure you’ll agree it’s a crying shame (the fact that that we couldn’t do it, not the script, obviously – what? Shut up at the back, you haven’t read it yet)!

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The Christmas Song Guessing Game

Are you all having a good time? Well, we'll soon put a stop to that! Now then, let’s try and breathe some life into those atrophied intellects. I’ve got a guessing game for you with a special Christmas flavour. I’m going to give you a clue to a Christmas song or carol. All you’ve got to do is guess the title. Easy. Right, here’s the first one.

(Produce a sprig of holly and a hospital drip feed which Roly holds in place on your arm – hold up the holly)

That’s the Holly and the I.V. Geddit? Right, here’s the next one. For this, you’ve got to imagine I’m Sir Lancelot. OK? Sir Lancelot, remember that.

(Stand completely still and say nothing)

Don’t you know it yet? Tchoh! It’s Silent Knight. What’s the matter with you lot? Next…

(Say: “It’s bloody freezing here, Alice!”)

That’s Winter Wonderland. Well, I’m surprised you didn’t get that one, Roly, especially as we did a rather revealing version of the song at last year’s show… you remember? When you filled that rather fetching red bra extremely snugly without recourse to any synthetic aids. Did you know that several people asked me afterwards what your secret was?

Roly: Oh, really? And what did you tell them?

Me: I said you had no secret - just big tits!

Anyway, here’s the next one…

(Be very careful and say quite quickly ‘ABCDEFGHIJKMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ’, then ‘ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ’)

Obvious, isn’t it? The First Noel! Look, don’t have a go at me, you should’ve been listening properly. Right, pay attention this time, this is the last one.

(Say slowly in a deep sepulchral voice: “May the Lord let you German lunatics lie down”)

There you are. An easy one to finish on. It’s (peer closely at the paper/card you are holding) Oh dear, there’s a mistake here. Someone’s typed God Rest Ye, Jerry Mentalmen. Sorry!

(Bow – or possibly duck)

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Would’ve been good, wouldn’t it? Hello? Hello?

Ups and Downs

Hello there, everyone, remember me? It’s Lois. You know, the young good-looking one with the moustache and cheery demeanour. Once upon a time I used to blog and I began to think I was going to live happily ever after within easy reach of red wine and never blog again but here I am, about to recount the ups and downs of the Easter weekend and the 6^th Annual Festival of Real Ales. I'll start with the Downs. Downs * Four 14-hour days on the trot (S frequently does amazingly long hours – I don’t know how).

* Back ache bending to pour ales * Back ache endeavouring to straighten up again * Missing Jan and Ned’s visit. * Knobheads customers congregating inches away from precariously balanced barrels of real ale (even on one occasion leaning on one!!) and who, when asked to move because (haha!) "the barrel's contents are quite sensitive", say, "so am I.

* I produced a laminated list of the ales on offer with images of the pump badges and a short description of each. Towards the end of the weekend, I crossed through those which had sold out. I quickly got sick of giving lengthy explanations after people perusing the list asked what was going well. See those big thick black crosses which have obscured some of the entries? We haven’t got any of those left! D'YOU SEE? (It is probably best not to shake punters by the neck whilst explaining this).

* Constantly having to tell children not to throw bark chippings from the play area onto the garden/slide/at other children; and not to throw stones from the garden pathway onto the grass/play area/slide/at other children. I find it helps to don a Scream mask whilst admonishing the little darlings.

* Telling people that their dog must be kept on a lead in the garden seating area, then watching them sitting down while the dog chases sticks they throw or has a crap up the garden on the end of an expanding lead. Grrr! (That was me).

Ups

* Takings.

Tra la!