last night i stayed up until 12 o'clock at night (you need to say the last bit in mock Graham Norton voice, widen your eyes and nod your head knowingly).

the last time i had occasion for such tardiness, was a lowdy, rowdy party when i turned 40 - a year ago.

midnight...how late is that?

[shakes head sadly]

but what better than staying up late than waking to that weekend feeling: no commute today; not for me that helter-skelter dash/crawl/stutter start-stop veering, careering huddle of bad-tempered driving (and that's just me) that characterises the A12 southbound: not today, nor tomorrow.

and you know, what? i may just stay up late again tonight.

but right now, i need a snooze....

i was intruiged to happen upon the reality blurred blog, which is a great, critical blog about reality TV. the author, Andy Dehnart defines reality TV as, 'dramatic, soap-opera like TV show that follows real people in real or artificial contexts for a period of time'. he's interested in how the boundary between what is real and fake is increasingly being blurred.

okay that's TV, what, i wonder about blogging?

any of you out there fakin' it? or is this for real?

like really?

lobelia series

tomatoes, verbena

some flowers to share with the my blog friends and visitors to my blog, and for timsuzi, whose secret garden helped me remember that i have a garden too...ta!

copyright trolly 2006, no half inching trolly's piccies.

go to bed with him!

better not show this to Mr Trolly, else i'll be sleeping in the pond tonight...

book, chocolate, camera, toys (five-year old essentials)

if you could only pack four things in your holiday suitcase, what would they be, and why?

moley.

bloggerel made it to the dizzy heights of #9

[falls off chair]

thanks to all of yous out there for dropping by.

trolly x

how much would you pay for a pair of flip-flops?

£5? max?

don't fancy £125? - reduced from £200-ish?

bargain!

er.

i'm driving myself absolutely mad.

it's only having myself for company

and the inside of my head that's going:

niggle, niggle, niggle, niggle, niggle, niggle, whinge.

this morning's post brought with it two 'thank you but no thank you letters' for jobs that i'd applied for in my desperate attempt to move on and away from the fairly unpleasant working environment i'm in...

...we thank you for your interest, etc, etc, and wishing you all success in the future...

argh!

i feel like i'm chasing my tail in ever decreasing circles and any minute now i'm going run into myself with a bump.

BUMP.

1. bungalow or wigwam?
2. cod or haddock?
3. cave or mountain?
4. wine or whisky?
5. steam or sauna?
6. arse or bum?
7. couchpotato or mousepotato?
8. troll or gnome?
9. pond or pool?
10. questions or answers?

the shoes i got married in.....

i've been doing my sums
(needing only my thumbs)
and can happily state
that
i calculate:
one and one
makes two
woo-hoo!

[thinks]

however,
it seems
to me
that together
we be
more
than the sum of
my thumbs.

so, musing on sums,
(this time without thumbs)
i can only surmise
we're more than
two ones,
we're
twice one
(and some).

what
think
you?

with love to my darling man on our second wedding anniversary...xxxx

so now i'm 41....

trolly x

am signed off work.

came away from the docs yesterday clutching a prescription for some fairly heavy drugs i don't want to take. and haven't.

so...

and taking the time to let my brain empty-out of all the stress that has heaped upon me over the past couple of years; am taking the time to think and to write more short pieces for my blog Cloud Factory http://cloudfactory.blog.co.uk/

and...

am not going to spend the time churning it over in my head. but one thing i do now know is that things have got to change.

trolly is putting her foot down.

france ruddy well lost.... [much wailing]

but....

ruddy....

blog.co.uk....

has me down as 41!

[falls off chair]

i'm not 41 until next week.

not that i'm touchy about it....

[and i'd be like really really really

really

grateful if someone would let me know how you switch the age thing off on the blog profile; i was going to set my age to 83, but then everyone would assume i was 20...and that's almost worse than being 41 - trust me]

sigh.

rant over.

trolly x

moon buggy productions: trolly's daughter, aged 5.

well

probably not

but i thought it made a good title for a blog

and

i've been a bit ruddy work-obsessed recently.

and scooby-doo seems like just the thing to

bring things back from the brink.

er.

right.

what is it with scooby-doo? my daughter loves it (so did i - tho wacky races and Top Cat were the best by far). it's been running since 1969 and is basically about the triumph of reason over superstition...and i wonder if it will be for the chop in those places where intelligent design is being pushed... as like being a bit too rational...

scooby-snacks as brain food? - who'd'av'thought?

the meeting today:

the one in which me,  my colleague, TU rep and big bosses went into small, confined space and managed to talk for two hours without once thumping the table or stomping out.

[what a model of modern, industrial relations we all were]

well, the meeting happened.

but. if i had been expecting a 'range of choices', which is what i had in fact been led to expect, then i was to be disappointed.

because

not only had they not come to a decision on what those choices might be, they did not seem to have made any decision on when a decision would be made.

so.

on it goes.

until they decide.

that is.

i had a biopsy today.

[i just wrote that as biospy: curious, freudian slip that]

probably nothing.

and i'm more than happy to agree.

but feel a bit poked about. and sore.

and loughborough tomorrow and wednesday.

and thursday - well, thursday is like looking out to sea and seeing some towering ruddy tidal wave on the horizon...

sigh.

at the end of the weekend.

feeling still the heat of the sun on my skin.

as i write this, the sun is setting behind the trees that mark the western side of the garden and everything has stepped down a gear.

we have feasted on strawberries from a local farm; BBQ-ed a chicken, and i feel just fine.

relaxed.

in a way that makes me want to stay up and not let the weekend end.

not yet.

i've been having a seriously shite time at work for a long, long time, and it all ends up in a big meeting on Thursday morning with TU rep and big bosses and me and

frankly

i'm at the end of me tether with it all.

and, again

i'm trying to push this all to the edge of my life.

because, life is about my daughter, my man, and weekends such as this

rare weekends spent together. at home.

trolly x

a young man walked up to the bench and sat down, he had spiked hair in all different colours; green, red, orange, blue and yellow.

the old man just stared.

every time the young man looked, the old man was staring. the young man
finally said sarcastically, "What`s the matter old timer, never done
anything wild in your life?"

without batting an eye, the old man replied, "Got drunk once and had sex
with a peacock, I was just wondering if you were my son."

[boom, boom]