Cabbages and Kings

Two anniversaries today worthy of mention...or possibly not. One, today is St Roch's Day, Saint Roch being the patron saint of plague sufferers. So, if you've risen this morning feeling a tad choleric, or typhodic (is that a real word, or is she making them up again?) or you generally feel a bit under the weather in a 'could I be dead by tea-time' kind of way, then Saint Roch is your man. Apparently, he went around curing people in the 14th century, although he suffered from the plague himself. Hmmmm...plague sufferer cures people of plague; was he wandering amongst the population drumming up trade I wonder, a bit like that detective guy played by John Nettles who is always on hand to solve the HUGE number of murders that happen in Midsomer? Do you see where I'm coming from with this? Seems a bit too 'convenient' to me. Still, I expect he meant well.

Secondly, it was two years ago today that I started this blog. Two years! And STILL not a publisher in sight. (Sigh). Ah well, it's been fun. Good Lord...two years...I must be MAD.

Anyway, cabbages and kings, eh? What's she going on about there, then, I hear you wonder. I shall tell you. Yesterday, I was watching the European swimming championships on the telly. It was a purely co-incidental moment; I was practising my massage routine on Andy and needed some stimulus in the background other than the plinky plonky relaxation music I would normally play. You see, I'm trying to get the whole body routine back in my head, and I need some kind of visual/ auditory signposts to get things fixed in my brain. You know, association type stuff. Like the smell of fresh paint always reminds me of Christmas because when I was 14 my Dad decided we were going to move house three days before Christmas, much to my Mum's annoyance because she was ready for Christmas at our old house, so not only did we have to shift all the furniture, we had to dissemble the decorations and then reassemble them at the new house, only without the aid of drawing pins because Dad didn't want pin marks in his freshly painted coving. It caused a bit of hoo-ha, I can tell you.

So, back to my point. I now remember the 'palmor kneading to waist x 3, ironing to lumbar region and re-inforced digital kneading C4 to base of sacrum' part of the routine, because that was when Rebecca Adlington was winning her gold medal. And peppered throughout the coverage were medal ceremonies. And it was during a medal ceremony that I realised what the next new Olympic sport is going to be. Cabbages and Kings!

You remember the game, of course. On Crackerjack (CRACKERJAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!), the end game involved putting children on podiums and asking them general knowledge questions. If they got the answer correct, they were given a prize, if they got it wrong they were given a cabbage. And the game carried on until everyone had dropped their prizes and cabbages, and the last child standing got to keep all the prizes.It's a great game; Andy sometimes plays a version with Phoebe. He waits until she is asleep and then sees how many things he can balance on her before she wakes up.

So, back to the medal ceremony. In the old days, if you won a medal, you stood on the podium and were given your medal. Then, a few years ago, someone thought it would be a nice idea to give bouquets of flowers along with the medal. Something to take home to mum, I suppose. And then yesterday, they were handing out not only medals and bouquets of flowers, but soft toy shaggy dogs, too. Or possible sheep, I couldn't really tell. So these poor medal winners are balancing on their podiums, receiving their medals and juggling bouquets and soft toys.

'I know what it'll be next,' I said to Andy, giving his trapezius a good wringing. 'Baskets of fruit. A medal, a bouquet, a soft toy and a basket of fruit. Then a commemorative board game. Then an umbrella with the games logo printed on it. And then a novelty hat. And then, in 2012, the 'Cabbages and Kings For Olympic Recognition' Committee will put forward their proposal which the Olympic committee will reject as being a stupid idea and the C and K Committee will say 'AHA! But we've been playing the game on the podiums for YEARS now! You can't say no! We win!! Mwhahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!'

Or something like that.

And because Andy had dozed off at this point, I hacked his deltoids to wake him up.
'Don't you agree?' I said.
'Uhuh,' said sleepy Andy.

But when you're prone on a massage couch draped only in a towel, you'll agree with pretty much anything your wife says, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm going now. My laptop wants to 'Shut down and restart' for some reason, and although I keep saying 'NO', I suspect it's going to do its own thing regardless, and since this is a lengthy blog, I shall be really annoyed if I lose the whole thing because I've been outsmarted by a stroppy bit of technology.

Happy St Roch's Day! May all your plagues be little ones.

The limpics

Now that Britain has done so well in the 2008 Limpic Games, everyone is looking forward with hope in their eyes and vigour in their trainers to the London Limpics in 2012. I kind of understand this sporting euphoria as I, too, have been quietly chuffed whilst watching the Team GBs victories (Team GB? What's all that about? It's a very annoying turn of phrase. What's wrong with 'The British Team' , that's what I want to know?) But then anything where we beat the French is okay with me.

I'd like to suggest a couple of new sports for 2012 and I shall be championing their inclusion for, oh, at least the next week or two, or until I get fed up and move on to something more interesting. The first is 'Whinge Surfing'. Now, our success in this will very much depend on the weather. If the forecasts are for bright, sunny days where everyone can get outside, go to the beach and barbecue, we won't do very well. (And neither will the Aussies!) But, if the weather is typically British and changeable - rain, sleet, sun, snow, plague of frogs all on the same day, then we can employ our native ability to whinge about the weather and should win gold, silver and bronze hands down!

The second is 'R'cycling'. Granted, we aren't very good at this at the moment , but we have been improving of late, especially since following the Daily Mail training programme. This involves heavy weights being placed in your rubbish bin by government spies aka bin cleansing operatives, when you aren't looking and the first thing you know about it is when you get an additional council tax bill because the weight of your bin suggests you are disposing of a small elephant every week and it's playing havoc with the dustcart suspension. This encourages the skill of spreading your load over a variety of individually colour coded receptacles which improves hand/eye co-ordination - glass in green , unless it's brown or clear, tins in brown, paper in blue and card in yellow. Food waste into compost bins which helps build the muscles as you wield a broom to kill the rats that will invade your garden. And finally, plastic avoidance at the supermarket when you attempt to outrun the manager having just left a load of excess packaging at aisle 9 for them to clear up.

I don't like sport, myself. I'll watch Wimbledon, provided there isn't too much grunting and I'll tolerate anything vaguely artistic like gymnastics and diving. I'd probably watch line dancing, too, if that was a Limpic option. But generally speaking, I think way too much fuss is made about flinging yourself around and getting hot and sweaty. And it's a well known fact that PE teachers have only just stopped dragging their knuckles along the ground and discovered speech - although not coherent speech , but give them space and evolution and I'm sure it will happen some time in the next couple of hundred years.

I'm off to practise the lesser form of 'Whinge Surfing' - the kind where you lose internet connection for no good reason in the middle of writing a really good blog entry (not this one, obviously). And we say 'Oh, it'll be the weather, or something.' Because Team GB are good at that.