Attention seeking? Damn right!

So what does a girl have to do to drag her husband's attention away from his beloved Xbox 360?

Seriously, I'm desperate...

So I've written a list of things I could try to get back into my husband's affections:

1. Cook him his favourite meal every night for a week
2. Write him a love song and serenade him from the back garden
3. Buy a silky neglige and captivate him with a dance
4. Write him poetry about my love for him
5. Have a dozen red roses delivered for his attention
6. Bribe him with wine and chocolates
7. Persuade him to help me clear out the spare room
8. Offer him a relaxing back massage

Having thought about it, this is why those things won't work:

1. Cooking and eating a meal only takes up a certain amount of time - he'd be back on the XBox within seconds of downing his cutlery...
2. The neighbours would have me committed... that is, if I were brave enough to set foot in the back garden after the gardening and cat chasing debacles...
3. I can't dance... he'd probably end up dialling the emergency services and telling them his wife was having some kind of satin-clad fit. 'nough said.
4. I'm rubbish at love poetry. Purple Ronnie style ditties I can do. Anything else, forget it.
5. He would merely bring the roses into the lounge, whereby he'd set them up in some kind of 'undergrowth' way and use them to 'set the scene' for his next game...
6. He'd still play the flippin' game and I'd end up squiffy and a few pounds heavier...
7. Ha! That is all.
8. No can do. My hands are still bruised from the pruning of aforementioned back garden.

OK, so now I'm really desperate! Your advice ladies?

I guess if all else fails I could chuck the *&$%ing contoller out of the front door under the speeding wheels of a conveniently passing vehicle?

Mwah ha ha ha!

Gardening - what a wizard wheeze!

Sometimes I have a wizard wheeze.

Today's wizard wheeze was inspired by the rare appearance of some sunshine. I decided to get out in the fresh air this afternoon to tackle the overgrown yet dead (how can the two things go together!?) morass that laughingly calls itself our garden.

I started simple - in the front yard where we only have a couple some low maintenance pots and a couple of plantable areas. Forty minutes, some grunting, bending and downright unattractive bum cleavage displaying later and I stood back to admire my handywork. A lovely colourful pot and fewer leaves - was that it? Seriously? For all that work.

*sigh*

The back 'garden' was a different story. A mess of deadwood, soggy lawn, borders strewn with weeds and cat pooh (a huge source of chagrin - see my post on cat chasing... grrr!), I definitely had my work cut out.

But I was determined to make the most of the first decent weather we'd seen in weeks, so off I set. Armed with my trusty secateurs (must remember to give them back to my Mum at some point...) I quite fancied myself pruning and preening my beloved dead things in a fashion not unbefitting of Edward Scissorhands... why is reality such a disappointment in such situations?

Bearing in mind my little garden is... well, just that, it's little. It is perhaps 4 metres by 4 metres, and at least one third of that area is taken up by paving stones - which doesn't leave much to work with.

So picture me, taming an aged honeysuckle and wrestling with a monster clematis (so attached to the neighbour's fence that I actually broke it whilst pruning... shhh, I propped it back up!). To help you imagine, I'd liken the scene to something between an all-American wrestling match, a snake charmer faced with 100 really angry pythons and two cats slap bang in the middle of a particularly viscious fight... Nice!

But just over three hours later I walked away with all my limbs, the sight in both eyes (a miracle in itself) a back that I know will refuse to play ball tomorrow and only a handful (or should that be two armfuls and half a face) of scratches and cuts. Oh, and let's not forget the a massive sense of achievement at my tidy (if now desolate) garden.

I'd forgotten just how therapeutic a good bit of demolition pruning and tidying could be!

Extreme tiredness

Extreme tiredness comes in all shapes and sizes. For me it either comes in the shape of one massive grumpy lump or in the shape of a small, helpless child who just needs wrapping up in cotton wool.

Today was the turn of the child.

Welcoming hubs back from his golf game like a lethargic sloth stuck to the sofa (he's such a lucky man!), I barely had the energy to get excited about his four par threes let alone console him on his double bogey on the 17th! (Seriously, can anyone ever summon up that much enthusiasm!?)

Just then, hubs spotted one of the 'friendly neighbourhood cats' in our back garden. Friendly and neighbourly they are not! Why, oh why do cats insist on using OTHER PEOPLE'S gardens as their personal toilets? If I wanted pooh all over the my lawn I'd buy myself a dog and be done with it.

So, knowing my aversion to having cats ablute outside my back door hubs tried to scare the cat away. Only this one was having none of it. So I bounded (as fast as my exhausted body would carry me) to the back door to fling it open and scare the little *grits her teeth* darling away. This didn't work so I dashed out into the garden to make sure it didn't come back only to skid (cartoon style: picture the arms and legs flailing like the sails of a windmill, artistically, in opposite directions), slip and land *splat* right on my cushioned behind.

Hubs immediately came straight to my rescue, hauling me up as if I weighed around the same as a feather (for this I love him endlessly!), and bundling me into his arms as I allowed the hot, stinging tears of a toddler escape me into his awaiting shoulder.

How is it that I'm so easily reduced to this blithering mess? All because of a little scrapey bump bump.

My pride was hurt more than my bottom (although I think I feel a couple of attractive bruises forming) and I do have a little 'ouch' on my finger.

When extreme tiredness attacks...

A slightly bruised and embarrassed Potential Mummy B